Karl Hess: Presidential Speechwriter Turned Homesteader

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Gone are the conservative business suits. Gone is the fashionable suburban home. Gone is the country club membership. In their place are bib overalls and a still-under-construction house that the Hesses are putting together from salvaged materials with their own hands.

And has Karl's political and economic turnaround impressed, persuaded, or worried his old right-wing, "business as usual" buddies? Not especially. It has embarrassed them though. Because Hess hasn't been content to just live his new ideals: He had to write about them too. And his book (Dear America, $7.95, William Morrow & Co.) which explains exactly why he changed from right to left, big to little, war to peace-became one of last summer's bestsellers. Thereby turning Karl Hess into a rather annoying thorn in the side of the same people that he once elevated to power ("But Martha, Barry Goldwater's old speechwriter just can't say things like that!' .

It's interesting to note, on the other hand, that Barry Goldwater himself who still carries the right-wing conservative banner and carries it proudly has remained cordial to his old aide. Has, in fact, even agreed with some of Karl's new views!

What's going on here anyway?

In an effort to answer that question, THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS recently sent Anson Mount to visit the 10-acre Hess homestead "nestled in a sharp bend of West Virginia's Opequon Creek" : There he found Karl ("a gentle, good-natured bear who-with his beard, ample waistline, and bib overalls-looked as if he had just stepped out of an 1870 daguerreotype') and Therese ("a hearty and handsome woman who seems capable of doing everything better than anyone else') slinging mortar and laying concrete blocks with the help of a half dozen, enthusiastic, Huckleberry Finn-type children.

"After an afternoon of heavy labor," says Anson, "we all walked down to the creek and went skinny-dipping in an old swimming hole straight out of the deepest memory of anyone who ever spent his or her childhood in the country. There was a rope-and-plank suspension bridge nearby, gigantic sycamores leaning over the stream, dragonflies flitting above water so clear it sometimes seemed invisible, and the smells and soft hum of late summer hanging in the air.

"Later, back at the farmhouse Karl and Therese live in while building their own home, everyone pitched in to fix a supper of barbecued pork chops, corn on the cob, and salad which we ate in the front yard as darkness fell and a blaze of stars lit the night sky. Throughout the preparation and consumption of the meal, Karl kept us in stitches with hilarious comments about everything from soup to Pentagon nuts. "Once the dishes had been washed and Therese and the neighborhood children had retreated to the living room to play flutes and sing, Karl and I began our conversation at the kitchen table in the light of a kerosene lamp. "

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