Senate Oral History Program: George Tames - Introduction
Interview with George Tames, Washington Photographer for the New York Times, 1945-1985
by Donald A. Ritchie
January 13 to May 16, 1988
Access to this interview is subject to the deed of
gift of December 16, 1988.
- Introduction
- Interview 1: Introduction to the Hill
- Interview 2: A Creature of the New York Times
- Interview 3: The View from the Press Gallery
- Interview 4: Competing with Television
- Interview 5: The Story Behind the Photograph
Introduction
In 1846, an unknown cameraman [now identified as John Plumbe, Jr.]
took the first photograph of the United States
Capitol, a view of the East Front. Thereafter the Capitol, from all angles, became
the subject of
countless amateur and professional photographers. During the nineteenth century
and well into
the twentieth most photography took place outside the building, due both to its
dimly lit interior
and to the antipathy many committee chairmen felt about the distractions of flash
powder and
bulbs. Eventually, photographers moved into the building, shooting everywhere at
will, except
within the Senate and House chambers. By the 1980s, television cameras
penetrated even this
haven.
Nearly a century after that first photo, George Tames began
photographing the
people and events of Capitol Hill, first for Time-Life and later for the
New York
Times. During the course of a long career that ranged from the 1940s through
the 1980s,
Tames developed access to, and captured the likenesses of more significant
members of
Congress, and had his work reproduced more widely in influential publications
than any other
photographer in American political history. He developed a style contrary to the
"herd instinct"
that led other photographers to group together outside a closed door waiting for a
standard shot.
Instead, his [Page ii begins
here] pictures demonstrate an artistic eye, an intense sense of place,
and a special
intimacy with his subjects.
George Tames was born in the shadow of the Capitol Dome, in a
Washington alley
house on January 21, 1919, into a Greek-Albanian immigrant family, and "born
into the
Democratic party" as well. The son of a pushcart peddler, he dropped out of high
school during
the Depression to help his family, and took a job as an officeboy in the
Washington bureau of
Time-Life. Carrying equipment for the magazines' photographers, Tames
became both a
self-taught photographer and writer. When World War II drew senior
photographers to distant
battlefields, it opened opportunities for young Tames in Washington. During the
war he took
pictures of the Truman committee investigation into the national defense program,
and of other
major events at the Capitol. At the White House, he had the opportunity to
photograph his
family's idol, Franklin D. Roosevelt, as he did every president from Roosevelt to
Ronald
Reagan.
After the war, in 1945, Tames joined the staff of the New York
Times,
where he remained until his retirement in 1985. He defined his own daily
assignments,
following bits of information and inside tips to decide who and what to
photograph. As the
Times' Washington bureau chief James Reston observed, Tames' camera
got him into
places closed to other reporters. He observed prominent senators close-hand,
engaged them in
informal [Page iii begins
here] conversation and banter, and overheard their deliberations. He
became
particularly close to John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey,
trading jokes and
gossip with them as he recorded their activities on film.
George Tames' photos in the New York Times, especially those
that
appeared in its Sunday Magazine, created a visual record of Washington's more
celebrated
inhabitants, in moments of triumph and tragedy, and in casual, candid moments of
reflection and
relaxation. He offered his viewers a chance to see the Senate as he saw it on a
regular basis--for
he used the congressional press galleries as the center of his operations, ate lunch
daily at the
press table in the Senate restaurant, and prowled the corridors of the Capitol as
purposefully as
any lobbyist or staff member. In this oral history he recalls some of the stories
behind his more
celebrated photographs, and presents another dimension to his perspective of the
Senate through
the camera's lens.
[After completing his oral history, George Tames published a book combining
his photographs with additional reminiscences: Eye on Washington: Presidents
Who've Known Me (New York: HarperCollins, 1990).]