Lee Atwater

He stated that Atwater ran a dirty tricks operation against Democratic vice-presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, including publicizing the fact that Ferraro's parents had been indicted for numbers running in the 1940s.

Rollins described Atwater as "ruthless", "Ollie North in civilian clothes", and someone who "just had to drive in one more stake".

Harvey LeRoy "Lee" Atwater (February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991) was an American political consultant and strategist for the Republican Party.

He was an adviser to Republican U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Atwater aroused controversy through his aggressive campaign tactics, especially the Southern strategy.

Atwater was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Alma "Toddy" (Page), a school teacher, and Harvey Dillard Atwater, an insurance adjustor.

He had two siblings, Ann and Joe, and grew up in Aiken, South Carolina.

When Lee was five, his three-year-old brother, Joe, died of third-degree burns when he pulled a deep fryer full of hot oil onto himself.

As a teenager in Columbia, South Carolina, Atwater played guitar in a rock band, The Upsetters Revue.

Even at the height of his political power, he would often play concerts in clubs and church basements, solo or with B.B. King, in the Washington, D.C., area.

He released an album called Red Hot & Blue on Curb Records, featuring Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Sam Moore, Chuck Jackson, and King.

During the 1960s, Atwater briefly played backup guitar for Percy Sledge.

Atwater attended A.C. Flora High School.

Early in the interview, Atwater argued that Reagan did not need to make racial appeals, suggesting that Reagan's issues transcended the racial prism of the 1968 "Southern Strategy":

Atwater: But Reagan did not have to do a southern strategy for two reasons.

Number one, race was not a dominant issue.

And number two, the mainstream issues in this campaign had been, quote, southern issues since way back in the sixties.

During the 1970s and the 1980 election, Atwater rose to prominence in the South Carolina Republican Party, actively participating in the campaigns of Governor Carroll Campbell and Senator Strom Thurmond.

During his years in South Carolina, Atwater became well known for managing hard-edged campaigns based on emotional wedge issues.

In 1973, Atwater graduated from Newberry College, a small private Lutheran institution in Newberry, South Carolina, where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.

At Newberry, Atwater served as the governor of the South Carolina Student Legislature.

He earned a Master of Arts degree in communications from the University of South Carolina in 1977.

Atwater's aggressive tactics were first demonstrated during the 1980 Congressional campaigns.

He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence when he ran for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed.

Atwater's tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by so-called independent pollsters, to inform white suburbanites that Turnipseed was a member of the NAACP.

He also sent out last-minute letters from Senator Thurmond telling voters that Turnipseed would disarm the United States, and turn it over to liberals and Communists.

At a press briefing, Atwater planted a fake reporter who rose and said, "We understand that Turnipseed has had psychiatric treatment".

Atwater later told reporters off the record that Turnipseed "got hooked up to jumper cables", referring to electroconvulsive therapy that Turnipseed underwent as a teenager.

Spence went on to win the race.

After the 1980 election, Atwater went to Washington and became an aide in the Ronald Reagan administration, working under political director Ed Rollins.

As a member of the Reagan administration in 1981, Atwater gave an anonymous interview to political scientist Alexander P. Lamis.

In 1984, Rollins managed Reagan's re-election campaign, and Atwater became the campaign's deputy director and political director.

The day after the 1984 presidential election, Atwater became a senior partner at the political consulting firm of Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly.

During his years in Washington, Atwater became aligned with Vice President George H. W. Bush, who chose Atwater to manage his 1988 presidential campaign.

In the Los Angeles Times of April 5, 1990, Robert Hilburn wrote about the album: "The most entertaining thing about this ensemble salute to spicy Memphis-style 1950s and 1960s R&B is the way it lets you surprise your friends. Play a selection such as 'Knock on Wood' or 'Bad Boy' for someone without identifying the singer, then watch their eyes bulge when you reveal that it's the controversial national chairman of the Republican Party, Lee Atwater."

Part of the interview was printed in Lamis' book The Two-Party South, later reprinted in Southern Politics in the 1990s with Atwater's name revealed.

Rollins mentioned Atwater's work several times in his 1996 book Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms.

Bob Herbert reported on the interview in the October 6, 2005, issue of The New York Times.

On November 13, 2012, The Nation magazine released a 42-minute audio recording of the interview.

James Carter IV, grandson of former president Jimmy Carter, had asked and been granted access to the tapes by Lamis' widow.