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By Peter Bell, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, June 16, 2006

When Orson Swindle came to Washington in 1985 to direct the Economic Development Administration, a friend with whom he had worked at the Farmers Home Administration in his home state of Georgia told him, "You're going to love it; every night you can go somewhere and schmooze with people." Swindle's reaction? "The idea of standing around at a cocktail party didn't interest me in the least," says Swindle, now the chairman of information security projects at Hunton & Williams.

By that time, Swindle had completed a 20-year career in the Marine Corps, including a stay in the Hanoi Hilton with John McCain that ended with their release in March 1973. Swindle was about as eager to attend rubber-chicken fundraisers as he was to sit in traffic on the Beltway. "That's not to say my closest friends don't talk politics," says Swindle, who is also a fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation think tank. But he says that the basis of his most gratifying relationships rests outside of work.

Since 1986, Swindle has renewed bonds with other former prisoners of war, including McCain, over a dinner each Vietnamese New Year at Nam Viet restaurant in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Va. The Tet dinner group originally numbered a dozen former POWs, but now draws nearly 90. The gatherings have been a source of constancy for Swindle, even after he left Washington for Hawaii at the end of the Reagan administration. When Swindle returned to Washington seven years later to take a job at the Federal Trade Commission, the first person he called was Nguyen Van Thoi, the Vietnamese restaurateur with whom he had become close friends a decade earlier. Thoi and his wife insisted that Swindle stay with them until he got settled.

Swindle likes to keep his professional life separate from his social life. But it is the nature of Washington that the professional and the social are rarely exclusive. After all, it was McCain who recommended his fellow former captive for the FTC post. And when Swindle left the Marines two decades earlier, it was McCain's wife whom he called, asking her what he could do to help elect Ronald Reagan president. At the time, Swindle was oblivious to the practice of campaign volunteers later receiving political appointments. By the time he came to Washington a few years later, Swindle had begun to learn how the city works.

"It all comes down to relationships," says Preston Gates & Ellis lobbyist Mark Ruge, noting that Washington makes laws, not widgets. "The definition of a social group in Washington always has a professional element as well." Not everyone might agree with that assessment. But given the very social character of work in and around government, it's not cynical to point out that off-the-clock relationships carry over into Washington's working hours.

Among Washington's political class of current and former Hill staffers, lawyers, legislators, and lobbyists, sometimes the most valuable relationships are the ones that are formed outside the office and focus on activities with no immediate professional aspect. For some, those bonds grow out of race or religious affiliation. For others, they are the friendships formed in the easy atmosphere of the dugout or the gym.

Where and when those relationships are formed is important, because the offices of Washington aren't neutral ground. Take, for instance, two of the city's premier lobbying firms.

The offices of both Barbour Griffith & Rogers and Preston Gates offer impressive picture-window views of buildings and monuments. Not accidentally, they are the first thing a visitor is shown upon arrival: Such views make guests feel a bit special, and a bit smaller. Politics' closest cousin -- sports -- also recognizes the home-field advantage and the leveling effect of after-hours encounters on neutral turf. Softball fields and tennis courts can be places where trust is built and lines of communication are established.

One reason off-hours relationships are important is because careers in Washington often take a meandering path forward. Congressional staffs turn over regularly, and the names of political appointees change with each new administration. Every week, lobbyists set up a new shop or join another firm. But having a persistent relationship with familiar faces outside of work can ease the transitions between jobs and tip off job hunters to new positions.

High rates of job mobility create a very dense communication network, says Stanford University professor Mark Granovetter, whose 1974 book, "Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers," helped launch the study of social networking. More recently, Granovetter has studied the social networks of professionals in California's Silicon Valley. Like Washington's lobbyists, the valley's venture capitalists are information brokers. "They can't work without information, and it can't be bought," Granovetter says. "Relationships are your capital." Moreover, "there was a real esprit de corps in the engineering profession," he says, that cut across individual firms. "There were hangouts where they'd meet." So it is too among the women, who are adept at forming social networks that can later be called upon for professional advantage.

The camaraderie that comes from shared experiences can also provide other benefits. Networking among minority groups, for instance, is a way for individuals who do not see each other during the workday to come together not only to share professional advice but also to nurture a shared identity. Simply gathering for a meal helps give individuals a sense of confidence to bring back to a workplace where they might otherwise feel like an outsider.

Furthermore, even when off-the-clock relationships don't yield direct professional benefits, they can provide satisfaction that a full-time career sometimes can't. Many congressional staffers volunteer as tutors and mentors to at-risk children on Capitol Hill to experience the direct results of their own efforts -- a rarity in legislative work.

To nurture off-hours pursuits requires time, a rare commodity in a town where it is commonplace to work through lunch and to take work home. But in return, they can form the basis of relationships built on sincerity, not expediency. "God knows, in this town, that's a quality to seek," Swindle says.

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