Guess Who?

Volunteer identifies D.C. elite with his photographic memory

By By Jason Shaad

Monday, March 14, 2005



Steven Bartkoski

Steve Nelson stares at an old black and white photograph. He pauses for a second, tapping a cotton-gloved finger against the picture’s edge. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Then everything clicks. One by one Nelson names the eight politicians standing in the photograph. It takes him less than a minute.

Nelson, 57, is an expert at identifying unknown politicians in photographs. Every Wednesday he sits at a table in the basement of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics and identifies people who no one else can.

“He is our most valuable resource when it comes to the thousands of photos that we don’t know who the people are,” Jean Bischoff, senior archivist at the Dole Institute, said. “He has a fantastic memory for faces and events.” The Dole Institute has a collection of about 25,000 photographs. Thousands of these contain unidentified people and events, Bischoff said.

That is where Nelson comes in.

“It’s like a picture puzzle for small children,” Nelson said. “You figure out what belongs and what doesn’t.”

Examining facial structure is the easiest way to identify a person, Nelson said. He said he looked at the shape of a person’s face or the way they smiled to identify them.

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“I don’t even know I do it until I look at pictures later and say, ‘This can’t be him. He parted his hair on the other side,’” Nelson said.

The master identifier knows his gift is strange. “I guess even the most bizarre trivia is useful,” he said.

Nelson’s expertise comes from working for Congress for 30 years in Washington, D.C. before retiring and returning to Lawrence.

He worked as an adviser on both the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee and permanent select committee on intelligence. During his tenure he spenthis days in Congress with representatives and senators. He said when he wasn’t advising politicians, he would watch them.

He said he could even recognize some people by the backs of their heads. He attributes this ability to his many days of sitting behind congressmen at meetings and hearings.

“I don’t suppose anyone can contradict my authority on that,” Nelson said.

Nelson finds clues that “ordinary” people would never notice, Bischoff said. He has an incredible memory for obscure information, she said.

In an average day, Nelson identifies about 15 to 20 photographs in a three-hour period. Boxes filled with file folders surround him as he flips through pictures, looking through his tortoise-colored glasses.

And he has a personal story for each politician.

“Sometimes you just double-up with laughter,” Nelson said.

But Nelson has to be careful. People’s weight and hair can change. That means people might look different from the way Nelson remembers them.

“Sometimes people have more hair in the picture than when you knew them,” he said.

Every now and then Nelson can’t remember the name of someone he recognizes. Politicians’ wives, constituents and foreign representatives are the hardest people to remember, he said.

If he is lucky, the photo will have a date and event information stamped on the back that will give him clues to who might be in the photo. But often the photos have no identification at all.

“Sometimes you have no idea what year it is,” Nelson said. “Sometimes the people’s hairstyles will help you guess.”

When his memory doesn’t click, he consults a small stack of congressional directories. But most of the time his guesses are on the mark, and the directories are just verification of his memory.

Nelson said he planned to continue volunteering at the Dole Institute to help identify photos.

“These photos will be a treasure trove for historians and people who want to know how things were,” Nelson said.

Steven Bartkoski

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