DIRKSEN'S DAUGHTER BAKER'S WIFE CISSV'S MOTHER
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BY PATTY CAVIN Sen. Howard Baker's seasoned partner in past, present and no doubt future politics is a vulnerable blue-eyed blonde whom few people really And it could be that Joy Dirksen Baker, age 53, only child of the late Senate Republican leader from Illinois and Mrs. Everett Dirksen doesn't know herself. Her record, however, shows that she is a survivor. She's survived 40 years of "Life With Father," the iiiustrious and mellifluous orator who Joy thought was "immortal." Senator Dirksen's death during an operation for cancer in 1969 sent his adoring daughter into an alcoholic tailspin. It took her six years to pull out of it. She also has survived 30 years of marriage to the charming, ambitious Tennessee criminal lawyer who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1966, then became minority leader and now is majority leader of that powerful body. Columnists admire his seemingly inexhaustible patience and liken his legislative know-how to that of Lyndon B. Johnson. Pundits and pollsters concur that Sen. Howard Baker is a good bet to make a serious run for the presidency in 1984. In three's-a-charm sequence, Joy Dirksen Baker will face a new survival challenge in early May when the 12
DOSSIER April 1982
Bakers' only daughter, strong-minded and capable Cissy (short for Cynthia), files for the Republican slot in the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's newly created Fourth District. How does that grab Joy? "It's just the story of my life," she sighs. "For so long I was Everett Dirksen's daughter, then magically I became Howard Baker's wife. Now I am Cissy Baker's mother. I think I have lost my identity!" Political smarts run in the DirksenSaker family which is long on congressional identity. While Senator Baker has followed direc!ly in the footsteps of Senator Dirksen, his father, Howard Baker Sr., served for 13 years as a congressman and was succeeded after his death by his wife. The senator's sister was married to Rep. Bill Wampler of Virginia's Ninth District and Sen. John Sherman Cooper is Howard Baker's second cousin. With such strong conditioning, "It's little wonder that Cissy decided to run," says her resigned mother. Like her mother, the newest Baker candidate graduated from Mount Vernon College in 1978 with a bachelorof-arts degree in communications. "Cissy is positive," recalls a frank fellow alumna. "She's a kid who is wise beyond her years; she's had to be in that family. With no crack at Joy, she's inherited all the drive and hailfellow-well-met savvy from both sides of the family." The 26-year-old candidate who gave up her news editor job with Ted
Turner's Cable Television in Washington to "get to know her constituents" is staying in a different Tennessee home each night. "With a week in each, it will take her until May 8 to cover all of her 23 counties," says JoY with grass-roots knowledge. On Sundays, the Baker daughter cools down at her headquarters in Huntsville, where she confirmed that "the campaign is going great." Winning is still her biggest challenge, but the family is not helping. "Mom's staying out of it on an active scale, and so is Dad," Cissy says. "I asked them to. But I can call her at any moment, not for political stuff, but just to be refreshed . She's the best friend I've ever had." The only nonpolitical Baker is son Darek, aged 29. He lives in Memphis with his wife, who expects to present the Bakers with their first grandchild in May. He's a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and one of the chief computer programmers for Federal Express, a job he loves, says his mother. ''Grass roots and constituencies are key words in Joy Baker's vocabulary. A political brat, she grew up commuting between Pekin, Illinois (home away from Washington for the Dirksens), and the U.S . capital. While her father served first in the House, and later in the Senate, Joy graduated from Mount Vernon "when it was still a seminary," and then in 1950 from Bradley University in Peoria, Ill. She now serves on the boards of both in-