Prof. P[ierre] G[ordon] Talbott
Family Background:
His father, Richard H. Talbott (1936-Term X), was a moderately prosperous civil engineer from St. Brendanstown, remembered mainly for his work on the
Königsbrucke east of Chateauvallon.
His maternal grandfather, Henri Bourlanges (1918-1943), was the eldest son in a rather-prominent Chateauvallon family. He became an outcast in the family, however, with his 1940 marriage to Mary Jarvis (1922-1995), a munitions-factory laborer from New Lancaster. In 1941, he volunteered to fight for the Free French forces--and was killed in action in the summer of 1943 north of Monte Cassino, never having seen his daughter, Patricia Bourlanges (1942-). Henri's place was restored in the family only upon hearing of his heroic death, and his widow and infant daughter moved in with his parents in 1944.
Patricia and Richard met in 1966 while Richard was in the planning stages of the Königsbrucke project. They were married the next year, and Pierre was born the year after.
Early Life
The Talbotts lived in Chateauvallon for the duration of the
Königsbrucke project--and, as such, was raised in an near-exclusively Francophone community (with the exceptions of his father and maternal grandmother). When Pierre was twelve, the
Königsbrucke was completed and the Talbotts moved to Richard's hometown of St. Brendanstown--this dramatic adjustment from Francophone to Anglophone society, compounded by birth of his younger sister, Zoe, made this a very trying time for Pierre; it was during this period that he adopted the less-French "P.G." as a nickname.
Talbott Before Politics
Talbott is a proud alumnus of Eutopian National University, Class of '88, where he graduated second in his class with a B.S. in Mathematics. Politically, he was a something of a radical at University, and was rumored to have been involved with several Marxist groups on campus. However, the downfall of Communism, a few unfortunate incidents during his college years, and his later military service tempered his leftist sentiments, and he remained politically apathetic throughout the 1990's. After graduation, P.G. served his year of National Service in the Eutopian Navy. To his chagrin, he soon realized that he was quite prone to seasickness, making his service quite unpleasant. Nevertheless, he remained in the Navy Reserves until the foundation of the Republic, eventually rising to the rank of Lt. Commander. He returned to ENU for graduate work in Mathematics after his year in the navy, received his Ph.D. in 1992, and shortly thereafter began teaching there--a position he would hold for the next thirteen years.
Talbott's Entry to Politics
At the very end of Term III of the Republic, he once again became interested in politics, and joined the Conservative Coalition [CC]. As an extremely junior member of the party, his involvement in politics was minor, if not downright insignificant. When, near the end of Term IV, the Eutopian Progressive Party split off from the CC, Talbott considered jumping ship with them--but ultimately remained loyal to his party--a decision he would never thereafter regret. With the CC reeling from the loss of its two most senior leaders, P.G. was able to come more the fore. He played an instrumental role in the CC-CRE [Center Royal Party of Eutopia] Conference, drawing up a joint platform and cementing an alliance that has, in at least limited respects, lasted to the present day. The Conference selected Talbott as the alliance's nominee, much to Talbott's surprise and pleasure. Although he put up a solid campaign, the withdrawal of Vasco I_Killed-Kenny from the race in exchange for the Vice-Presidential seat doomed Talbott's efforts to failure. Despite beating Josephus of the ESRP and gaining over 35% of the vote, Jake Langley of the EPP won handily. Talbott was, however, elected to a seat in the National Assembly as the CC-CRE's most junior member. Throughout Term V, Talbott played an active role in the National Assembly and was generally an opponent of the Administration's policies, especially regarding the Farpoint crisis, in which he condemned the Langley administration's cooperation with the Americans. Talbott's major legislative accomplishment of the term were the PREBA (Popular Responsibility of the Executive Branch Amendment), which allowed for impeachment of ministers, and the Addendum to the Presidential Succession Amendment, which overruled the precedent set by the High Court in installing Vasco I_Killed-Kenny by defining clearer Constitutional rules for certain unlikely situations involving AWOL presidents--both of which, unfortunately, were ultimately transitory. Late in the term, Talbott was appointed MECT by the unlikeliest of suspects--Vasco I_Killed-Kenny. As MECT, Talbott was instrumental in securing Eutopia a spot in the Olympics...but, like most other MECT's, did little else.
Talbott's Presidency
Talbott had decided halfway through Term V that he would run again for President--expecting to run against Langley again--this time, a much-weakened Langley. However, come election season, things were a bit different than he expected. He was running against Vasco, not Langley. Vasco had received the critical endorsement of the Moderate Party while Talbott was on honeymoon. And Col. Haynes, the Chairman of the CC, had just been involved in a botched coup. Talbott's campaign itself was rather messy and slipshod, in which Talbott had to dodge accusations of ties with the quasi-fascist Tridentist party (despite the fact that he was the first to denounce them). Despite all of this, Talbott was elected President for Term VI by a very narrow margin (and partially due to spoiled ballots) over Charles Morgan and President I_Killed-Kenny. Despite a rather productive first few months in office, during which much progress was made in developing the budget and plans for economic recovery, absence of several key members of his cabinet (his MTEF, Jake Langley, and his MDIA, Julseau, to name but two)crippled his administration in its second half. The budget was never submitted to the National Assembly (as the President never received the appropriate budget figures from the ECB headed by Arun Rao), and the economy only worsened. Talbott was able to push through two major bills through the almost-empty National Assembly, however--a major restructring of unemployment benefits and a bill privatizing the nationalized shipyard corporation, Maritcon. During the debate over the privatization of Maritcon, Talbott was injured by a rock thrown by a unemployed Latin fisherman, Luis Gonzaga, setting in motion a sequence of events which eventually lead to the secession of Tilapia and St. Espirit--a sequence of events for which Talbott has always denied culpability.
Defeat
A poor track record combined with an almost non-existent campaign led to a rather sizeable upset in the polls for the Term VII elections, gaining under 40% of the vote and losing to Dr. Glasser. However, he did gain the one CC slot in the National Assembly and was appointed Dr. Glasser's MDIA, a job which took up most of Talbott's efforts in Term VII. Talbott's efforts to reform the military under the Governmental Commission for Military Reform (which he founded late in his term as President), largely failed to acheive significant results due to the arms embargos and his long absences from Eutopia. These absences were due to his diplomatic mission to the United States in an attempt to smooth over relations and end the arms embargo. Although he failed at the latter, he did reach an agreement with the Americans concerning a free trade relation between the US and Eutopia. However, this plan was approved by neither the President nor the National Assembly.
Talbott in the Wilderness: The Third Republic
Talbott's return to Eutopia at the end of his mission was prevented by the hurricanes that wreaked disaster on Eutopia at the end of Term VII. Thus, throughout Term VIII, he stayed in Washington and remained the main spokesman for Eutopia and the Federalist cause in the United States, even appearing on "Highball," on which he crushed Senator Blowerd in debate.
Talbott returned to Eutopia at the very end of Term VIII, serving as international observer for the independence referendum in the WET, where his decisions on the three-way ballot made possible the WET's "No" vote, thus keeping the WET in the United Provinces of Eutopia.
Talbott joined the Unity Party in the run-up to the Term IX elections, but remained uncharacteristically quiet in the campaign. After Amric's landslide, he was reappointed to his old role in Cabinet, now renamed MTIA. He set out in an aggressive campaign of diplomacy to fulfill his two major goals of the term--improving relations with the United States, and working towards Eutopian reunification through a sequence of consequences. Although he was able to secure a lifting of the Japanese arms embargo, his term in office was, on the whole, unproductive. The CAFTA conference, intended to establish a free-trade zone over the island, was a personal failure for Talbott, and he was rarely seen in government afterwards. Talbott's departure and the death of Lucien Napier (Eutopian ambassador to the US) essentially shut down Eutopian foreign policy for the remainder to the term.
It is rumored that Talbott may have suffered somewhat of a nervous breakdown halfway through Term IX, caused by the combination of failure in public life (the CAFTA conference) and in his private life (his divorce and loss of the custody battle).
He returned to politics briefly in Term X, winning election as Speaker--creating an interesting situation where Talbott was Speaker, and his old foe, Josephus, was President. However, this did not prove as interesing as it had seemed--both of them proved dismal--Talbott more so, disappearing again a few months into his Speakership.
He resurfaced again in Term XI, serving on-and-off as MERL and Vice-President, taking the first steps towards developing the WET oil fields. However, his performance was still generally dismal, and had to be fired twice for dereliction of duty. There have been rumors that he was planning a coup against Fourgéres at the end of Term XI, but they have no substance.
Talbott headed to the United States again during the Levarge dictatorship, where he lectured and taught Mathematics again for the first time in twenty years.
Family and Personal Life
Near the end of Term V, Talbott married Charlotte S. Jenkins (b. 1966), press manager for the CC and former editor of
The National, and honeymooned in The Grenadines. They later had one son (born near the end of Term VII), Carl. The marriage was not stable beyond the first year, however, and the two were divorced when Talbott arrived back in Eutopia at the beginning of the Third Republic.
Talbott has one sister, Zoe (b. 1981), who followed her father into engineering.