Contact: Sasha Steinberg
Photo by: Randall McMillen
STARKVILLE, Miss.--During a Wednesday [Sept. 10] presentation, a well-known Oxford author and former federal prosecutor recalled his years as legal counsel to John C. Stennis, the highly regarded longtime United States senator and Mississippi State alumnus.
John Hailman was the inaugural speaker for the university's 2014-15 Morris W.H. "Bill" Collins Speaker Series.
"Senator Stennis was a wonderful man, and working with him was always fascinating," said Hailman, who assisted the veteran lawmaker in his roles as chairman of the Senate's Armed Services and Ethics committees during the Watergate era.
Hailman also provided a detailed account of the events surrounding the 1973 attempted robbery outside Stennis' Washington, D.C., home in which the DeKalb native nearly died after sustaining two gunshot wounds.
"My wife Regan and I were on our back porch in Georgetown having a dinner when we got a call from the senator's executive secretary, Mildred Ward, who informed us that he had been shot," Hailman said. "When we arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the word was that the senator was not going to live through the night."
After about a week of treatment, he said doctors determined Stennis "could have visitors, and when I came in (his room), he told me, 'You've got one job from here on out as long as I live. I want you to get with the FBI and the prosecutors and I want the men who did this to me. I want you to do nothing but work on this case.'"
Hailman said two teenaged brothers from Washington ultimately were charged and convicted in the robbery-shooting.
"I always thought I would be a criminal defense attorney; when I saw that case, it made me want to be a prosecutor," said Hailman. "I went into private practice briefly in Washington after that, then came back to Mississippi and signed up to be a prosecutor for three years."
Hailman's public service career as a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's office in Oxford ultimately would span 33 years.
At the conclusion of his remarks, Hailman presented a bound, five-volume copy of the official trial transcript to be housed in the Mitchell Memorial Library's Special Collections.
The annual lecture series is a campus memorial to the first executive director of MSU's John C. Stennis Institute of Government.
In his remark prior to the formal address, Jerry Gilbert, provost and executive vice president, observed that the series provides "a really excellent opportunity for the university to bring outstanding scholars like John Hailman to campus.
"Bill Collins was a very interesting man, a real gentleman and a great scholar in our political science department, and this series is a very fitting tribute to him," Gilbert added.
Also making remarks during the program were Frances Coleman, dean of MSU Libraries; Eddie French, interim Stennis Institute director; Rex Buffington, executive director of the Starkville-based John C. Stennis Center; and senior Breanna Pettigo of Southaven, outgoing president of the Stennis Montgomery Association.
Learn more about the Morris W.H. "Bill" Collins Speaker Series at www.library.msstate.edu/collins.
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