A Time For Reflection: An Autobiography
By William E. Simon with John M. Caher
Publisher: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2004

book reviewed by Robert Ward

Like George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart's character in the 1946 movie, William Simon led a wonderful life.

He was the Secretary of the Treasury who helped force New York City to give up its irresponsible fiscal practices (at least, the worst of them) during the 1970s, in return for federal loan guarantees.

He led the campaign that reinvigorated America's Olympic movement in the 1980s.

After building a fortune in the business world, Simon spent much of his last two decades donating millions to charity and personally serving his fellow humans, including runaway teens and individuals suffering from AIDS.

Before his death in 2000, Simon began work on his autobiography, the recently published A Time For Reflection. With a keen eye for talent, he wisely selected John Caher, the Albany bureau chief for the New York Law Journal, to help write the book.

Readers will find Simon an admirable character - disarmingly so in an era when many perceive business and government leaders as generally corrupt.

His story is rewarding for students of government and of business, and for those who study the intersection of politics and public policy. Simon rose to the top in each of those fields and offers lessons that are well worth learning.

For instance, there's the advice his predecessor as Treasury secretary, George Shultz, offered when Simon joined the department as assistant secretary: "You're going to have trouble,' he predicted. 'You are a person who likes to get things done, and when somebody likes to get things done in government, he is going to have all sorts of people sniping at him.'"

Political junkies in New York State, in particular, have good reason to pick up A Time For Reflection.

Simon's early career was on Wall Street, selling municipal bonds. He came to Washington well aware that New York's leaders had created the city's fiscal mess, and convinced they would never clean house unless absolutely forced to do so. He helped convince President Ford to take a tough stand on bailing out the city - helping set the stage for the famous Daily News headline, "Ford To City: Drop Dead."

Then-Vice President Nelson Rockefeller believed that New York-style governance was just what the nation needed. Simon writes that the vice president had "devised a hare-brained plan for a $100 billion federal Energy Independence Authority to develop energy resources, similar to the largely autonomous Urban Development Corporation that he had created in New York. The fact that the UDC came perilously close to financial collapse - and the obvious parallels between UDC and EIA - did not seem to register with the vice president," Simon recalls.

Rocky was not easily deterred, of course, and attempted to sell the plan in a meeting with the President and the Treasury secretary.

"Exasperated by what I considered a senseless and time-wasting debate," Simon writes, "I turned to President Ford and said: 'Mr. President, this man next to me wants to do to the United States of America what he did to the state of New York!"

Ford, no slouch at politics, placated his vice president by announcing his support for the plan. He privately reassured Simon it was "a terrible idea" that would never see the light of day in Congress - a prediction that proved accurate.

Rockefeller is by no means the only well-known New Yorker in these pages. Others include former Governor Hugh Carey and Frank Zarb, chairman of Governor Pataki's school-reform commission. (Simon, who is not generally given to encomium, calls Carey "courageous" and Zarb "a wonderful man.")

Well-known national figures such as Donald Rumsfeld and Meryl Streep are fodder for other amusing anecdotes. Then there is the Capital Region's Jeff Blatnick, hero of the 1980 Olympics for winning a gold medal in wrestling after overcoming cancer. "Perhaps more than any other athlete," writes Simon, who served as head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, Blatnick "symbolized the Olympic spirit."

Not least among his achievements, William Simon was a leader in the rise of conservative thinking and policy-making during the last quarter of the 20th century.

He wrote two books espousing the cause of freedom. A Time For Truth made the New York Times best-seller list for 20 weeks in 1978. A Time For Action, published in 1979, burnished Simon's already strong reputation for a potential presidential race the following year. Known for his drive and stamina, Simon acknowledges he "lacked the fire-in-the-belly obsession necessary to pursue the presidency." Instead, he strongly supported Ronald Reagan's successful effort and helped shape Reagan-era policies.

In his final book, Simon describes the danger he perceived when Americans, more and more, perceived government as "a beneficent protector against the evils of modern life."

"The idea began to take hold," he says, "that the problems of our society were growing so large that individuals could no longer cope with them. Instead, people began asking the government to assume responsibility for solving their problems - and to do the things for them that they once did for themselves."

Simon grew "alarmed over the statist, anti-freedom philosophy that was growing like a cancer through the very marrow of this country." In response, after leaving government, he became a leader of the Olin Foundation and Heritage Foundation, conservative think tanks that have played significant roles in U.S. government and politics since the late 1970s. His William E. Simon Foundation supports charitable organizations that "assist those in need by providing the means through which they may help themselves."

Co-author Caher writes that William Simon was "Uncle Sam, Horatio Alger, and Tom Sawyer, all blended into one exquisite portrait painted by Normal Rockwell." That sounds just right.

Robert Ward is director of research for the Public Policy Institute, the research affiliate of The Business Council of New York State, Inc.

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04/14/2004