Chris Graff’s ‘Dateline Vermont’

In three decades as a journalist, Chris Graff has been an eyewitness to the sea of change that has swept through Vermont. He covered the rise of the Democratic Party, the election of the first woman governor, the fight over civil unions, Jim Jeffords’ declaration of independence, Bernie Sanders’ improbable transformation from gadfly to member of Congress, and Howard Dean’s meteoric presidential campaign.

Now Graff, who grew up in Pomfret, tells the stories behind those stories in "Dateline Vermont," his memoir of a turbulent time in Vermont’s history. "Dateline Vermont" is more than a recounting of historic events, though. Graff weaves in his own personal story, running from his arrival in Vermont in 1965 to his controversial firing by The Associated Press earlier this year.

"I came to Vermont in 1965 when we were both going through difficult times," he writes in the opening chapter, detailing how he, as an 11-year-old, was upset to be moving from Connecticut to a rural farmhouse on a dirt road in tiny North Pomfret.

"I thought I’d just arrived at the end of the world," he writes. At the time, Vermont was beginning a jarring and traumatic political realignment that would see it shift from the most Republican state in the nation to one of the most Democratic.

Graff was on hand for Vermont’s defining moments of the past 30 years. "Dateline Vermont" takes readers behind the scenes, providing in-depth stories of the people at the center of those critical events. And while some of the people are very familiar today, some are not, like Republican Lt. Gov. T. Garry Buckley, "a larger than life character whose swashbuckling style endeared him to reporters but rankled the GOP establishment."

Graff brings alive legislators and legislatures of the 1970s, detailing a time when lawmakers and their spouses "passed the time in the card room, just off the House floor, playing bridge and cribbage; a few times each session an upright piano and fiddler set up shop, and Rep. Joseph Steventon of Rochester would lead the calls for square dancing."

He takes readers through the rise of the Democrats as a political power in the 1980s, chronicles the career of Bernie Sanders, recounts the coverage of Gov. Richard Snelling’s shocking death in 1991, and then provides behind-the-scenes reports on the fight over civil unions and the presidential campaign of Howard Dean.

Graff also discusses his own reaction—as well as the state’s—to his firing, which was protested by Vermont’s governor and all three members of the congressional delegation.

Graff worked for The Associated Press for 27 years and was in charge of the news organization’s Vermont bureau for 25 of those years. Before that he was the news director of a commercial radio station in Middlebury. Graff has served as the host of Vermont Public Television’s weekly news program, "Vermont This Week," for the last 14 years. He has provided news analyses on Vermont Public Radio this year.

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