As national Democratic Party chairman he prevailed in the mid-Seventies
upon U.S. Rep.
Barbara Jordan to be a character witness for
John Connally, who was accused of bribery in a trial involving the milk industry and his previous tenure as Treasury Secretary under
Richard Nixon. The Strauss-Jordan meetings were re-imagined by
Kristie Thatcher (as Kristine Thatcher) in her play about Jordan, "Voice of Good Hope," directed by the author at the BoarsHead Theater in Lansing, Michigan. It ran March 16-April 8, 2007, with
Patricia Idlette as Jordan and
Gary Houston as Strauss.