This is me with the legendary Ambassador, author, and stateswoman Claire Boothe Luce.

How does a 16-year-old Senate staffer, not yet old enough to vote, get this kind of access?

My real education did not happen in high school. It began in August 1985, at age 15, in the mailroom of U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski. The first lesson was not in policy, but in process. It involved a mechanical arm, a foot pedal, and the discovery of the “autopen”—a machine that produced thousands of “personally-signed” letters, revealing a system of mechanical, mass-produced insincerity.

But this disillusionment was merely a primer. The mailroom, I discovered, was also the routing hub for all information in the Senate. My position gave me access to the schedule of every committee meeting, including the closed-door intelligence briefings.

In Chapter 6 of Normal Channels: Blocked or Compromised, I detail the full story of that transition. I recount how I began attending Senate Intelligence Committee briefings—briefings led by a professional staffer named George Tenet, the future Director of Central Intelligence.

It was in one of those briefings that I witnessed a profound strategic contradiction: we were shown classified films of brutal, Communist-backed “necklacing”—death by being burned alive—in South Africa, only to be told that U.S. policy was privately moving away from the anti-Communist government.

This discovery prompted a deliberate, high-stakes decision. This is the story of my first, consequential step into the world of practical, high-stakes political engagement, armed with information that was not classified, but was most certainly not public.

I have posted a free preview of the chapter, including the story of my first Washington disillusionment, on my Substack.

Click Here to Read the Free Preview of Chapter 6 on my Substack

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