title: The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis
author: Ira Shapiro
description: <span><span>&ldquo;There couldn&rsquo;t be a better time to reissue Ira Shapiro&rsquo;s insightful and challenging book, </span><span style="font-style:italic;">The Last Great Senate</span><span>. If every senator and Hill staffer could read and absorb the lessons of this perceptive work &mdash; following as it does in the rich tradition of such classics as Harry McPherson&rsquo;s </span><span style="font-style:italic;">A Political Education</span><span> and Robert Caro&rsquo;s </span><span style="font-style:italic;">The Master of the Senate</span><span> &mdash; it would go a long way toward breaking the gridlock in Washington. It&rsquo;s an important book, and I highly recommend it.&rdquo;</span></span> (Richard Moe, chief of staff to former senator and vice president Walter F. Mondale, and author of Roosevelts Second Act: The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War)
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  In memory of Lt. Gen. Arthur G. Trudeau. This great man was my superior as
  chief of U.S. Army Research and Development. He was a man of great courage; he
  put on a sergeant's helmet and fought with his men at Pork Chop Hil in Korea.
  He was deeply religious and went on "retreats" at Loyola. He was the most
  brilliant man I have ever known, who only gave me one standing order: "Watch
  things for me, Phil. There are things we do not understand. " His
  accomplishments changed the world for the better. Any success I had I
  attribute to him and to his leadership.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **Forward**
  
  
  _Senator Strom Thurmond_
  
  
  When I was first elected to the United States Senate in 1954, the United
  States and democratic Western governments were locked in a bitter, and
  sometimes deadly, Cold War with totalitarian Communist governments that sought
  to expand their bankruptideology throughout the world. Though those who did
  not live during this era have a hard time picturing it, the 1950s 