Former United States Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Tevi Troy has wanted to improve the country since he was young. He not only held senior positions in the White House, but has also written five books on the presidency and over 300 published articles as a presidential historian. His book, “Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump” was named one of 2020’s top political books by The Wall Street Journal.
Troy is a senior scholar at the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. He lives in Silver Spring with his wife, Kami, and four kids and belongs to Kemp Mill Synagogue.
Tell me about your Jewish upbringing and background.
I grew up in Queens, New York. It was a Conservative home, but observant Conservative. We always had Friday night dinners and went to shul every month. I went to a Jewish school called Schechter Queens from third through eighth grade, then I went to The Ramaz School, an Orthodox school, and I think that was an important inflection point. My brother had become Orthodox. A lot of people I grew up with became Orthodox. Today, I’m definitely Orthodox: I go to an Orthodox synagogue, my kids go to Orthodox school.
How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in Queens during a rough time in America in the ‘70s with a lot of crime, inflation, a bad economy, and I had a lot of gratitude because my parents had come here. We survived because we were in this country. And I thought that things could be better. I wanted to be part of making something better. I was also inspired by a couple of politicians: Ed Koch on the Democratic side, who was willing to call it like it was — there were problems; he was willing to discuss that. And then Ronald Reagan on the right, who promised a brighter future ahead for America.
When I graduated college, I moved to Washington. I worked at the American Enterprise Institute with Ben Wattenberg, who was, like me, from a Jewish Democratic home in the New York area. He moved [politically] right after working in the Lyndon Johnson White House and the other special scholars at the American Enterprise Institute I saw had advanced degrees, some kind of government experience and some kind of well-received book or article that helped with their name. I wanted to emulate them, wanting to do a similar thing: be a scholar, write books, focus on policy. I decided to do those things. I went to get a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. I wrote a dissertation that I thought I could publish as a book — I did: “Intellectuals and the American Presidency.”
I started working in government. I worked first in the House for the House Republican leadership, and I worked in the Senate for John Ashbrook. Then when George W. Bush won, I moved over to the administration, first for the Department of Labor, then the White House. Then I got a more senior role in the White House, working in the West Wing as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy, and my last job in government was as deputy secretary of health and human services, a Senate-confirmed position. I’m happy to say that in the partisan times, I was confirmed unanimously by the Senate.
What has been the most rewarding part of your career?
I would say, having written five books on the presidency and having had important things to say about the presidency. It was also very rewarding to serve this great country through my government service.
Have you experienced challenges being Jewish and working in government?
The Bush administration was very receptive to my beliefs. In the White House, they knew I kept kosher, so they always had a fruit plate for me. My bosses were always supportive of my keeping Shabbat, including one boss who on Friday afternoons, when it started to get a little late, would come by my office and tap his watch, indicating it was time for
me to go.
Tell me about your new book on presidents and CEOs.
It’s called “The Power and the Money” and it’s the history of clashes between presidents and CEOs. Big-name CEOs: Ford, Rockefeller, Zuckerberg, Gates. Five of the 18 CEOs that I profile are Jewish, which is interesting because we’re only 2% of the population. It looks at how our country has developed in the past 150 years since the rise in corporations, and how government and corporations grew and died together, in part because the government was trying to rein in corporations, but then corporations were trying to placate governance.
Did you learn anything surprising while doing the research for the book?
Oh my gosh, so much. The book is chock-full of stuff that I didn’t know. A lot of my friends who were reading it said, “I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that.” A lot of surprises. But one thing that really surprised me is the degree to which so many thought they could ignore that governments apply to them, and they would get burned by it. It happened over and over again.
What is something most people don’t know about you?
I like tennis; I play almost every day. I’m trying to be a better player when I get to age 80 than I was two years ago when I turned 50.
zbell@midatlanticmedia.com
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