One of the best lessons I learned during my eight years on the White House staff was the importance of two factors: how one spends their time; and, who they spend it with.
A President and Vice President have the opportunity to meet with pretty much anyone with whom they wish visit. Hence, I always thought one of my most important responsibilities as chief of staff to Vice President George Bush was to make the best use of his time and to insure he had opportunities with the best informed, clear and honest experts on critical issues.
In the mid-1980s, one of those issues was HIV/AIDS and there was no one better suited to help senior officials understand a disease spreading throughout the population than Dr. Tony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He did not have the rank of a cabinet officer, nor did he run the National Institutes of Health (NIH). What he did have was total dedication to ridding us of, or reducing the threat from HIV/AIDS for millions of people throughout the world.
Having learned about his role, it seemed the best way for then Vice President Bush to understand the battle that Dr. Fauci and his team were waging would be to go to him for a briefing at NIAID in Bethesda, MD. While it broke with some protocol, the visit proved fateful. What the Vice President saw and heard left a strong impression. However, the most important part of the visit, I thought at the time, was that Bush found someone he could trust on the most challenging of health care matter.
After reading Dr. Tony Fauci’s book, On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service, I came to realize how incredibly important Dr. Fauci’s work has been to millions of people around the world. I also came to appreciate how that successful first briefing proved vital to providing Dr. Fauci with the support he would need to wage the battle.
Years later, Dr. Fauci would say in an interview something that makes this point so much better than I can. In a Miller Center interview, Dr. Fauci said about President George H.W. Bush,
Although he had a strong conservative base, he was driven much more by doing the right thing regardless of ideology. When he first came to the NIH as Vice President, that’s when I developed my relationship, the early part of my relationship with him. I was asked to show him around because I was the AIDS person here. We developed a good friendship that has lasted even up to today.
As President, he kept on asking me to come down to the White House and explain to him the need for this and the need for that. He became very sympathetic and actually increased the budget a fair amount.
This relationship with President Bush would continue in significant ways with all the Presidents who would follow.
And, it’s his perspective that makes Dr. Fauci’s book so compelling. He committed himself in his twenties to fight infectious diseases and then did just that for five decades. The diseases and epidemics are familiar to us all. What is revealed about the work behind the scenes to save lives reads like any of our great mystery novels.
The take aways from Fauci’s “public service journey” are also compelling. His ability to build relationships and create collaborations across national boundaries and with people vocally opposed to him, and to do it all cheerfully and optimistically provides lessons for us all, especially to those who commit themselves to public service.
I have said many times that Dr. Tony Fauci is a national treasure. Anyone who reads his story will be, in my view, compelled to agree.
You can find more about the book by CLICKING HERE.
Craig Fuller served four years in the White House as assistant to President Reagan for Cabinet Affairs, followed by four years as chief of staff to Vice President George H.W. Bush. Having been engaged in five presidential campaigns and running public affairs firms and associations in Washington, D.C., he now resides on the Eastern Shore and publishes DECADE SEVEN on Substack.
Reed Fawell 3 says
The polar opposite opinions held by intelligent and accomplished American’s regarding Dr. Fauci and his performance during the recent pandemic illustrates the powerful pull of political bias at work in the psyche of American elites now in our nation.
Laurie Powers says
Dr. Fauci was tasked with reducing chronic disease as head of NIAID. During his 40 years in office, chronic disease among all ages, especially children, has skyrocketed and the medical industrial complex has become infinitely more powerful and wealthy. For a balanced perspective of Dr. Fauci’s accomplishments for Big Pharma, rather than for the public, whom he was hired to serve (as ultimately America’s highest paid bureaucrat), read the NY Times undisputed bestseller, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” which contains thousands of meticulously footnoted facts by RFK, Jr. who, as President, has vowed to end the chronic disease epidemic that Fauci helped create.
Graham Fallon ,M.D. says
I was a premed student at Holy Cross and lived down the hall from
Tony Fauci. He was the best, and nobody worked harder, personal and professional traits he carried through his life for the benefit of millions.
Willard Engelskirchen says
One notable thing in our current environment: The political class tries to demonize anyone who does not kiss their particular ring and follow their views. Look at how Pence and Liz Chaney are treated. While I do not agree with them I cannot question their patriotism. Too much heat and not enough light.
FYI: Part of science means that you make the best decision you can with the available information – data not wishes – and if you find you are wrong, you change the model. It is OK in science to say you do not know the answer to a question. BTW RFK is a charlatan.
Beverly R. Williams says
Comments by Mr. Fawell and Ms. Powers are provocative. One should look closely but objectively behind autobiography, which can often, if not always, be self-serving. And praise often comes from those who have benefited from association with the subject.
Chip Heartfield says
From John Tierney in the WSJ in 2021 (and reported extensively elsewhere): “One early alarmist was Anthony Fauci, who made national news in 1983 with an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association warning that AIDS could infect even children because of “the possibility that routine close contact, as within a family household, can spread the disease.” After criticism that he had inspired a wave of hysterical homophobia, Dr. Fauci (who in 1984 began his current job, as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), promptly pivoted 180 degrees, declaring less than two months after his piece appeared that it was “absolutely preposterous” to suggest AIDS could be spread by normal social contact. But other supposed experts went on warning erroneously that AIDS could spread widely via toilet seats, mosquito bites and kissing.”
Barbara Denton says
Dr. Fauci is responsible for the death of millions of Americans. He financed research in Wuhan. He helped unleash COVID on the world. He fought the use of drugs which would have stopped it so big Pharma could come with a vaccine which did not work. Talk to the people who lost their elderly parents and could not be with them as they passed away He is not a hero. His name should bea curse word.
Deirdre LaMotte says
Dr, Fauci is a hero of mine. His life spent giving to others, forfeiting a huge salary to work for our government.
It is a honor I feel that those who wish to destroy our democracy are the ones obsessed with petty and dangerous threats against him.
Nothing is worse than small and obtuse minds.
Laurie Powers says
I’d say he did pretty well income-wise as a career bureaucrat who became the highest paid in government, is making millions in royalties in perpetuity from the NIH co-license deal he cut with Moderna on the mRNA shots that he then tried to mandate on everyone (no conflict of interest there), funded dangerous gain of function research at the WIV after it had been banned in the US, then covered it up when his crimes against humanity were exposed, resigned in the nick of time, lied again and again under oath in Congressional hearings and is now getting speaking fees, book royalties, etc. He didn’t sacrifice a thing personally, least of all his ego, but he did sacrifice his moral integrity, honesty and millions of other lives. He is a disgrace. Ms. Denton is correct.
Deirdre LaMotte says
Why did so many Americans turn on Dr Fauci? Look to the increasingly fascisitc Republican party’s never-ending need for enemies to feed to the masses.
From Fact Check: Fauchi does not keep any of the royalties, which would be legal, but donates it.
What the documents did reveal, Andrzejewski said, is that in the period from September 2009 to September 2014, Fauci received 23 royalty payments; Dr. Francis Collins, who was NIH director from 2009 to 2021, received 14 payments; and Dr. H. Clifford Lane, the NIAID deputy director for clinical research and special projects, received eight payments.
But the post on OpenTheBooks.com, which is titled “Fauci’s Royalties And The $350 Million Royalty Payment Stream HIDDEN By NIH,” never mentioned that Fauci has said he donates his royalties to charity. (That piece of information is mentioned in a separate fact sheet about the group’s investigation.)
Time for you to turn off non news and join the world of facts. Not holding our breath on that one.