In the summer of 1967 I was working on my master’s degree at the University of South Carolina, and I had to take a high-powered seminar on twentieth-century American history, about which I was abysmally ignorant. At the time, James F. (“Jimmy”) Byrnes, the man who had been expected to be nominated for Vice President in 1944 instead of Harry Truman, was living in Columbia, and although he had not been in politics since his term as South Carolina’s governor had ended, in 1954, he was still much revered in the state. Anyone growing up in South Carolina in those days knew how he had almost become Vice President, and therefore almost President, and how he had so crassly been denied the office.

After serving for a time as Truman’s Secretary of State, Byrnes had returned to South Carolina and been elected governor in 1950. During his term he persuaded a hesitant state legislature to impose a sales tax to build black schools. After 1954 he had retired from public life, and he now lived quietly, going downtown each day to an office that was provided for him near the state capitol. Once I had crossed the street in front of his limousine. He had given me a broad grin and a politician’s friendly wave as he passed by.

Eager to produce a coup for my seminar, I decided to try to meet and have a chat with “Good Governor Byrnes” and dazzle my professor and my classmates with some inside stories on FDR. Instead of writing or calling his office, however, I decided simply to appear, confident that this popular man would be eager to share his inside knowledge with a student of history.

That morning I put on a suit and tie and headed downtown to the Wade Hampton Office Building, anticipating an edifying conversation with a man who had been at the very center of national power. With what seems to me now an incredible absence of reserve, I knocked on his office door and entered without waiting for an answer.

I remember being struck by how small and simple the office suite was. I could immediately see all of it: a tiny secretary’s office, which opened into an equally tiny office, which was Mr. Byrnes’s. His door was open, and I could see every corner of his office. It was bare of furniture except for a metal chair or two and a battered Colonial card table, which served as his desk. The windows had no curtains, and the walls were devoid of pictures, plaques, or any decoration. The floor was bare linoleum tile. This was a very puny setup for one who had moved with the world’s leaders and had come within a hair of being President himself.

The secretary was not there. But seated rather inelegantly beside the Colonial card table was Byrnes himself. He was reading U.S. News & World