The Soul of a Senator

By Jeffrey Kluger, Dick Thompson

Shortly before John Glenn left Washington for his flight training, TIME senior writer Jeffrey Kluger and Washington correspondent Dick Thompson visited him in his Senate office for a wide-ranging discussion of space travel, politics and Glenn's historical legacy. Though apparently happy with where the nation's space program is going, Glenn seems less pleased with the direction in which its political system is heading.

TIME: How do you feel about leaving the Senate after 24 years?

Glenn: I've been here a long time, and I'm proud of a lot of things: work with the armed services, nuclear nonproliferation. I'll leave with about 9,500-plus roll-call votes, and they represent the midstream majority. I'll regret not working on some specific legislation...I wish we could correct campaign finance as we tried to do last year, until they made it into a political fiasco, which I regret to this day.

TIME: Anything you won't miss?

Glenn: There are a lot of things I won't miss, like fund raising, which is a stinking, miserable way to run your life. Some of the people I'll miss. But I'm looking forward to not having my life set by bells and lights and responsibilities here.

TIME: Is there greater partisanship in Washington now than there used to be?

Glenn: Absolutely.

TIME: What's behind it?

Glenn: Any major legislation has to have bipartisan support. The more we work together, the better it is. We have different views, but when you get down to having so many political things in committee that are just irritants and are just partisan, that's not the way to go.

TIME: Do partisan attacks cross the line into personal attacks these days?

Glenn: The attacks are more personal sometimes. I don't want to say the old days were golden. But when I started here, I never, ever, a single time questioned a Senator's motives as being more politically oriented than what I thought was good for the country. I think there's far more of that now.

TIME: You've been an astronaut, a Senator and an astronaut again. What's next?

Glenn: I'm going to send my papers to Ohio State University, and they're planning a public-service institute in my name. I look forward to going back there and also to working with Muskingum College, the Ohio school that Annie and I attended.

TIME: Any particular message you want to bring to the students?

Glenn: A short philosophy: I don't think this country is ever going to get taken over by any resurgent Russia, China or North Korea. But I worry about the future when we have so many young people who feel apathetic and critical and cynical about anything having to do with politics. They don't want to touch it. And yet politics is literally the personnel system for democracy. We've got the finest democracy in the world, but it's also one of the most complicated. Not everyone needs to run for public office, but every time someone drops out of the system it means they in effect give their franchise to somebody else.

TIME: Might it just be that young people see politics as too dirty?

Glenn: If you say politics is so dirty you don't want anything to do with it, what you're really saying is that you don't want to get dirty from democracy... When I talk to young people, I try to get them thinking that politics is not only an honorable profession, it's one of the most honorable ones.