Iowa and the World

Memoirs of Senator Dick Clark

Elected senator from Iowa in 1972, Dick Clark is one of a select few American public servants whose name is associated with the downfall of apartheid in South Africa: his defeat in the senatorial campaign of 1978 resulted in part from the South African government’s secret and illegal monetary contributions to his opponent. He subsequently spent many years founding and directing the Congressional Program of the Aspen Institute, through which members of the United States Congress receive incisive non-partisan orientation in current issues of foreign and domestic policy. His engrossing and eminently entertaining memoirs cover his early years and the beginnings of his political career; his renowned “walk across Iowa” for election to the Senate; his direction of the Africa panel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and travels through southern Africa; the so-called Clark Amendment terminating covert CIA operations in Angola; his work on various other Senate committees; his activity as the Carter administration’s ambassador-at-large for the resettlement of southeast Asian refugees after the Vietnam war; and his many years creating and administering the Aspen Institute’s Congressional Program, in particular its contributions to normalization of relations with Russia, South Africa, and Vietnam.