Murray to Gov. Al Rosellini, the word on the street, 21 November 1957

Restaurateur Vic and Gov. Al Rosellini were cousins.

Albert Rosellini, a Tacoma native who became a Seattle lawyer and Congressman, was elected Governor of Washington in 1956. A New Deal Democrat, he was the first Catholic and the first person of Italian descent elected governor west of the Mississippi. He won again in 1960, although Washington voters split the ticket to favor Richard Nixon over fellow Democrat and Catholic John F. Kennedy. In 1964, he lost to liberal Republican (remember those?) Dan Evans.

Rosellini had asked Murray, and likely other reporters as well, to let him know how his new administration was perceived. We had been traveling from shortly after his inauguration until October 1957, while Murray researched a book on the World Health Organization, so it was November before Murray checked in. 

 

 

Fred Haley was not appointed as a UW trustee, possibly because his support of civil rights and opposition to McCarthyism made him too controversial, but he was later a Trustee for the Evergreen State College and was instrumental in the establishment of UW-Tacoma.