Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [17]
Starr’s integrity was already on display, even at this formative stage of adulthood. In the Bible peddling business, high sales and maintaining eighty-hour workweeks often led to a handsome prize from the Southwestern Company, such as “a really nice suit” or a glittering wristwatch. Yet the summer after sophomore year, Starr gave up his potential bonuses to take a full week off. He did not believe in fibbing to his bosses—so he snitched on himself. Butterfield warned him, “It’s going to mess you up, Starr. Because you won’t get your watch. You won’t get your prizes. You’ll lose all your prizes.” Starr replied, “I just have to go. And I’ll just promise you I’ll come back next Monday and I’ll work as hard as I ever have.” He used the time to drive home to Texas, so that he could seek advice from his old teacher, Miss Mahan. He was feeling constricted by the educational opportunities at a small rural school like Harding. Miss Mahan told him, “Ken, you have the intelligence, you have the ability, you have the background. You need to go where the action is.”
Starr returned to sell more Bibles, having decided to attend George Washington University in Washington, D.C., a thrilling prospect. He told his roommate, “I’m going to go as far as I can.”
Yet his ambition never seemed to dull his shining qualities. When he met Alice Jean Mendell, the daughter of a successful real estate developer from Mamaroneck, New York, he won over this petite, dark-haired beauty by sheer “niceness.” She was Jewish, not a fundamentalist Christian of the sort who had populated Starr’s life at Harding. “I had never met a Texan before,” Alice would later recall. But this skinny Southerner was extraordinarily friendly, interested in current events. She liked that he carried around a checklist of great classics to read, including Anna Karenina and other books that he had never been exposed to in high school. Starr, it seemed, was excited about life itself. “He was the nicest person I’ve ever met,” Alice would say four decades later with a smile.
As a wave of rebellion swept college campuses during the late 1960s, Starr was the antithesis of a hippie. “He never wore bell-bottoms,” recalled Alice. Ken preferred long pants—usually straight-legged blue jeans—and wore short-sleeved shirts, no matter what the weather.
From the day they were married, he was the picture of attentiveness, a perfect Southern gentleman. Alice would never forget the afternoon that they tied the knot in August 1970, in a simple ceremony held at her parents’ home. Ken drove off gallantly with his bride in their blue Volkswagen Bug, through the pouring rain, to embark on their honeymoon in the Poconos. When they arrived at their romantic destination—Split Rock Lodge—the building had burned to the ground and its remains were still “smoldering.” The newlyweds were forced to book a room at a nearby Holiday Inn, hardly the love nest they had envisioned. Even so, Alice was impressed that her husband was able to view this disaster as a positive omen. Ken told her “if we make it through this, we’ll probably have a very strong marriage.” Alice laughed at the memory, adding: “Which we have.”
Ken Starr, having advanced swiftly in the legal profession, treasured the flexibility that came with being a federal appeals judge in Washington. It gave him the ability to coach his children’s soccer teams, teach Sunday school, and remain active in church. “This was genuinely great living, and I was very fortunate indeed and blessed to be able to have this kind of opportunity,” he later said.
So when Attorney General Dick Thornburg called Starr personally after George H. W. Bush was elected president, and asked him to resign his lifetime judicial post to serve as solicitor general, it caused him great anguish. Judge Starr said no to the offer, twice. Finally, General Thornburg summoned Starr to his office and declared that “it was his judgment and speaking on behalf of the president that I should be the administration’s solicitor general.” There was also a strong insinuation, although no promise, that