I said that the first thing they always asked people who were applying for Capitol Hill jobs was “How much Hill experience have you had?” There were about twenty thousand staffers on the Hill at the time, so it was an industry in itself.

BoardAd and I have been talking about the NASA budget. There were huge lobby groups paid handsomely by people they impressed with their activism.

The problem was, having no Hill experience, their money sources didn’t understand where the problems were.

First of all, practically nobody knew what an Appropriations Committee was. As you know, all real legislation is hammered out in committee and then passed, with a few amendments from the Floor, in the House itself.

Committee assignments are critical. Each congressman gets to be on two committees. This, as I say is critical, so the competition for certain committees is fierce. These are the two most critical decisions a congressman makes.

But to be on an Appropriations Committee, you have to give up BOTH of any other. You can be on only ONE Appropriations Committee, and that is your ONLY committee assignment.

Only a handful of people, outside of congressmen and SENIOR staffers, seem to know this. A congressman who dedicates his whole career to being on only one committee makes a huge decision. A congressman from Charleston spent his long career on the Military Appropriations Committee, became chairman of the naval appropriations committee, and the Charleston Navy Yard thrived.

NASA’s appropriations were handled by a an Appropriations Committee called “HUD-Independent Agencies.” A congressman who dedicates his entire career to getting more HUD appropriations is not going to like spending the money to go into space that could be building low-cost housing for the ghettoes in his district.

They HATE NASA.

The chairman of HUD-Independent Agencies was an inner-city Democrat, the Republicans’ Ranking Member was an inner-city “moderate.” Both of them had to split a budget between building houses and space exploration, and they didn’t get elected by getting money for space exploration.

Normally when the budget is endorsed by BOTH the Democratic chairman and the Republican Ranking member, it is a done thing. In 1977, they cut out the space telescope and the Jupiter Orbital Probe and the House leadership agreed to jam the vote through before the weekend and before the space community could launch a protest.

The space lobbies were all focusing on having generals speak at their luncheons and so forth. I found that the essence of the strategy was to ram it through before the space lobbies and scientists got wind of it and launched a grassroots protest.

As I have said before, what I did was to get John Ashbrook to delay the vote over the weekend. Filibustering is routine in the Senate, but you have to have a couple of old hands in the House to jam up the works for days.

That weekend would have been major news if it had been a liberal grassroots movement. Four hundred thousand telegrams came in. Almost all of America’s top aerospace experts, not to mention science fiction writers, were in the galleries by Monday.

Edward Teller came to John’s office personally to thank him.

As I said, normally a cut supported by both the chairman and the top Republicans on a committee is passed with maybe a few objections from the Floor. On Monday, with almost every single member there voting, we beat these changes about 350 to 80!

The congratulations were pouring in. John got supporters in areas he had never even looked for them before. On the Hill, it was well known that I was the staffer who did it, which took nothing from John. That’s the kind of thing he hired me for.

When people dedicated to NASA like Bob Dornan’s staff or a big space lobby congratulated me, I used the opportunity to explain to them what the big problem was with NASA money.

Now we get back to Bob’s Old Story. I had found the problem, I had made a solution that WORKED. And nobody had the slightest interest in any of it.

And NASA got shafted each year, regular as clock work.

If you will listen to me trying to recite the Mantra on the first Truck Roy interview, you will hear the reaction my complicated explanation on NASA’s money problem got. Compared to having some science fiction writer talk about the Future of Mankind, it was tedious.

I explained how I reached the grassroots protests on busing and other issues conservatives always talked about. I explained how I did it and they went deaf about halfway through.

I developed and used the Mantra and everybody saw me defeating the opposition, but they went deaf shortly after my explanation began.

This is Bob’s Old Story, the story of my political life.