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FEW AMERICANS TODAY would recognize the name of Robert Bernard Anderson. Yet, he was once the preferred choice of President Dwight Eisenhower over Richard Nixon to seek the Republican nomination for President in 1960. Despite his rise from humble origins to positions of great power and trust in the public and private sectors, Anderson's career ended in disgrace.
In 1910, Robert Anderson was born on a poor cotton farm in Burleson, Texas, now a suburb of Fort Worth. After graduating from Weatherford College, he became a high school teacher. Ambitious, he found a path to upward mobility by graduating from law school at the top of his class at the University of Texas in 1932. At age 23, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. In 1933, he was appointed assistant attorney general, and in 19341935 he served as Texas State Tax Commissioner (a post abolished in 1979). For the next two years, he was director of the Texas Unemployment Commission.
After his years in state government, Anderson accepted a transformational position as general counsel to the W.T. Waggoner Estate, which consisted of a vast ranch of over 500,000 acres. Second in size only to the King Ranch in south Texas, it stretched across several counties around the north Texas town of Vernon. Performing his duties in an exemplary way, Anderson later assumed responsibility for the operation of the entire $300 million enterprise upon becoming ranch manager in 1941.
This change led him into dealing with, among other things, the mineral resources of the estate. In particular, his work negotiating large oil and gas leases gained him the attention of politically well-connected leaders in Texas, who backed Eisenhower for President in 1952. Anderson soon joined them.
After Eisenhower's election, he offered Anderson the position of Secretary of...