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Strauss has gained influence by practicing politics the old-fashioned way. Whether he is pushing the Democrats' trade bill or trying to get federal help for Texas banks and savings and loans (including one in which he has an interest) or acting as a middleman for the U.S. and Canada on bilateral trade, the techniques are the same: press flesh, build relationships, probe for strengths and weaknesses. If he can't shake your hand, he'll give you a call. Strauss spends hours a day on the phone, staying in touch with his network of friends, his cello-like Texas drawl coming through as either a low, world- weary growl or a tone much higher on the scale when he's angry or excited. His conversations are laced with humor or biting sarcasm. "Listen, you sumbitch," he barks to a friend, "you've got a problem, and I'm going to tell you how to solve it."
"People will tell you," he says, "that Strauss is loyal to a fault." Yes, many will say that, if he doesn't beat them to it. And they'll relate his many personal kindnesses. Others will say, privately, that he's a fraud, an egomaniac, that his reputation is rooted more in legend than in fact, that he is too often the weather vane and too rarely the wind.
There's some truth in all of it, but there is no denying Strauss's reputation as a doer. He has never held elective office and has not even been in Government since he was Jimmy Carter's special trade representative and roving Middle East ambassador. But his circle of friends is as wide as any in Washington. Sit long enough in his law office on New Hampshire Avenue and you will hear him deal with a dazzling cross section of Washington's notables in both parties, from Senate Majority Leader Bob Byrd to Treasury Secretary James Baker to Newspaper Columnist Robert Novak. Says George Christian, press secretary in Lyndon Johnson's White House: "One of Strauss's many strengths is that although he's a good Democrat, he can also be bipartisan when the situation requires it." Perhaps Speaker Wright had something like that in mind when he offered this toast to Strauss at a recent private dinner: "It's an honor to have with us a close friend of the next President of the United States -- whoever the hell he may be."
Bob Strauss relishes that kind of ribbing, and knows exactly who he is. Today he sports Savile Row suits and $250 English shoes, but he grew up in the tiny town of Stamford, Texas. Neither of his parents was especially religious, but as Strauss once said, "A poor Jewish kid from West Texas learns early how to survive." His father, Charles Strauss, was an aspiring concert pianist who emigrated from Germany in 1915. Landing in New York City, he took a job as a traveling piano salesman. On a swing through Texas, he met and fell in love with Edith Schwartz. The couple married, and Charles Strauss opened a dry- goods store in Stamford that, if it didn't keep the family from being poor, did keep them from being impoverished. There were two children, Robert and his brother Ted, 62, now a businessman married to the mayor of Dallas, Annette Strauss.