Jeff’s Past: Doppelgänger, National Public Radio
July 27, 1998. I was walking up the subway escalator at Judiciary Square. After four months on my first 9-5 job ever, I was getting commuting routine down pat.
As I get off at my stop, turn Walkman on to NPR’s Morning Edition. If I time it right, reception kicks in just as I start up the escalator.
I was right on schedule. But the first words I heard that day stopped me cold: “Jeff Gates is not communist or even a radical economist.” This was good to hear. Any hint of impropriety could get a new federal employee like me in deep trouble!
This Jeff Gates, it seems, was a lawyer. He’s also an investment banker who worked in the Reagan Administration and had written a book on employee ownership.
Of course, I had to investigate. When I called National Public Radio to find out more, I told my story to the woman in programming. “I’ve talked with him,” she said. “He lives in Atlanta.” Many years later, we’d get to know each other. Despite working for Ronald Reagan, he was not a conservative. In fact, his book portended a shift in capitalism that’s starting to take hold today: including a company’s workers, not just its CEO and shareholders, in the company’s success. And he ran for the Senate as a member of the Green Party.
I know, I know. You must think I’m consumed with these other Jeff’s—these golems who walk the earth, shaping and reshaping my global identity. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed. Maybe “attuned” would be a better word.
Two nights later, I was watching TV when the phone rang. It was late, but I answered it anyway. Are you Jeff Gates the writer, the one who worked for Reagan?” the voice said without further introduction. Another case of mistaken identity. “No, that Jeff Gates lives in Atlanta. But listen to him. He’s right.” But, years later, I’d become the second “Jeff Gates the writer,” when my own book was published.