Today, I had a special treat when I visited the Senator Richard Russell Senate Office Building and toured the beautiful Senate Caucus Room. I was accompanied by Dr. Kate Scott, an Associate Historian with the US Senate’s Office of the Historian. The reason for the walk-through had to do with some research for a book I’m writing on an American who spied for the Russians during the 1930s and 1940s. (Perhaps more on that at a later time).
The majestic room, which is almost cathedral-like in atmosphere and grandeur, is one of the most historic and off the beaten track sites in America. Originally planned as a space set aside for Democrat and Republican party caucusing, it later became a committee room beginning with hearings in 1912 examining the causes of the Titanic disaster. Over the ensuing decades it hosted other famed hearings such as the Senate Munitions inquiry in 1934 and forty years later with the Watergate inquiry. It last hosted the hearings on the nomination of John Roberts for Chief Justice of the United States.
What a blessing to be a historian in Washington.
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