Audition (44 page)

I thought of writing to him to say how courageous he was, but I decided not to. Our relationship seemed so long ago. For a time, however, it was a very important one in my life. That is why I am writing about it now.

Now about two of the other men who meant so much to me at the time.

I met Alan Greenspan in 1975, at a tea dance in Washington hosted by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. In these days of concrete barricades and multiple security checks at government buildings, it’s hard to believe the vice president of the United States was having a dance. Well, actually, he was and, as a matter of fact, Vice President Rockefeller and his wife, Happy, hosted several such “dancing” housewarmings at Admiral’s House, the newly renovated, official residence for vice presidents and their families on Embassy Row. The invitation list for the different parties included movie stars (Cary Grant), astronauts (Alan Shepard), businessmen (publisher William Randolph Hearst), members of the press (me), and political appointees (Alan). It also included the Rockefellers’ friends and members of Congress. (In fact the Rockefellers had their own house in Washington and weren’t planning to move into the eighty-two-year-old Admiral’s House, but were using the official residence to meet and greet.)

The residence had a particular attraction because of the important pieces of art the vice president had donated from his personal collection. The centerpiece was the famous “cage” bed in the master bedroom, designed by the surrealist artist Max Ernst. It was covered in mink, watched over at the head and foot by medallions of the sun and moon, and had trapdoors to hide lamps, telephones, and electrical gadgets. No one slept in it, but everyone who visited the mansion wanted to see it. Then we would mill around on the spacious grounds for refreshments as a small orchestra played. There was a little dance floor, and some people danced.

At one of these housewarmings, a tall, bespectacled man approached me and asked if I wanted to dance. His name was Alan Greenspan, he told me, and he was the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for President Ford. Sounded important if rather dull to me. But Chairman Greenspan was very pleasant and unassuming. After we danced—and, by the way, he was a very nice dancer—he told me that he actually lived in New York on weekends and asked if he could call me. I gave him my phone number and indeed, the next weekend he phoned. I was just coming out of the relationship with Ed Brooke, and I welcomed this call, the first of many, from the tall, quiet stranger.

I had a little problem, which was actually kind of fun. As I have written, I had been going out off and on for many years with the investment banker Alan Greenberg, and I continued to see him from time to time, even during the Brooke years. So when Alan Greenspan would call the house, he sometimes left only his first name. When Alan Greenberg called the house, he, too, often left just his first name. This was very confusing to Zelle and Icodel. Even if they asked either gentleman to please leave his last name, it was not much help. Greenberg. Greenspan. They sounded so much alike that both ladies were in despair. When they gave me the message, I could only ask: “Which one talked louder?”

Alan Greenberg was blunt, jovial, and outgoing. He talked in a normal tone of voice.

Alan Greenspan, on the other hand, was very soft-spoken. He almost whispered.

And that’s how I would know whether it was Greenspan or Greenberg.

In the years ahead, when Alan Greenspan was the immensely influential chairman of the Federal Reserve and testifying before Congress, I never heard him raise his voice. He certainly never did with me. Part of it is just the lovely nature of the man. Part of it is an innate reticence. When we first began to see each other, I would often take him to a dinner party. He rarely mingled before dinner, and if he was seated next to a woman he didn’t know, it was hard going for her because he was difficult to draw out. He is, by his own admission, an introvert, but even so he has also said he enjoys social events. He was not the sort of man you would notice when he walked into the room, and often I would have to introduce him to friends more than once because they wouldn’t remember him. Perhaps because of his shyness, he walked a bit bent over as if not to attract attention. It wasn’t insecurity; it was modesty. Even now, in spite of his great fame, Alan still has that quality.

I am now going to quote some of what Alan wrote of those times in his candid, best-selling autobiography of 2007,
The Age of Turbulence
. He remembers many more details than I do.

Here are some of Alan’s words. “I am not threatened by a powerful woman; in fact, I’m now married to one. The most boring activity I could imagine was going out with a vacuous date…. Before getting to know Barbara, a typical evening for me would be a professional dinner with other economists. Barbara, however, interacted constantly with news, sports, media and entertainment personalities…. During the years we dated and afterward (we remain good friends), I escorted Barbara to lots of parties where I met people I otherwise would never have encountered. I usually thought the food was good but the conversation dull. They probably thought the same about me.

“Even so, I did build up a wonderful circle of friends. Barbara threw me a fiftieth birthday party. The guests were people I’d come to think of as my New York friends: Henry and Nancy Kissinger, Oscar and Annette de la Renta, Felix and Liz Rohatyn, Punch and Carol Sulzberger, Henry and Louise Grunwald and David Rockefeller. I am still friendly with many of these people today, more than thirty years later.”

Alan also wrote of my introducing him to friends of mine in Los Angeles, where he would “tag along” with me to parties, even though he felt totally out of place. “Business economists are not exactly party animals,” he wrote. Today those people, who are still friends of his and mine, probably brag about having met Alan all those years ago.

I didn’t know a thing about economics. I didn’t have to. Alan and I would discuss the news of the day. We would talk politics, although he was always very careful not to tell me anything I shouldn’t know. We would go to the theater or occasionally to concerts. Alan had a fascinating background. We had all read Ayn Rand’s
The Fountainhead
with its mysterious and independent hero-architect, Howard Roark. The message of
The Fountainhead
was that laissez-faire capitalism was everything, that government should stay out of all things, and that charity was poison. Ayn Rand was perhaps the most passionate and controversial advocate of free enterprise you could find, and she had a small but devoted and influential following. They called themselves Objectivists. Alan was still a follower of Ayn Rand in those days. He encouraged me to read her other most famous book,
Atlas Shrugged
, which I did. Neither book had a great influence on me, but I do remember wishing that my parents had thought to call me Dagny, the name of Ayn Rand’s beautiful capitalist heroine.

How Alan Greenspan, a man who believed in the philosophy of little government interference and few rules or regulations, could end up becoming chairman of the greatest regulatory agency in the country is beyond me. It was a big issue when Alan was first appointed, but he was so brilliant at this job that the Ayn Rand relationship faded from conversation.

Alan, to my great surprise, had been a musician before becoming an economist. He had studied the clarinet at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and, for a time, played with the Henry Jerome band in New York, along with Len Garment, Nixon’s future White House counsel, on saxophone. (They became friends, and it is said that Garment later recommended Alan for the job as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, which is when I met him.)

Through Alan, I remember meeting a very pleasant Dick Cheney, who was then White House chief of staff to President Ford. I also met Donald Rumsfeld, Ford’s defense secretary. Nice men, I thought, interesting though unexciting. We occasionally had dinner with them and their wives, evenings that were not noteworthy. I met them again years later when George W. Bush was president. They seemed like very different men to me. They also didn’t seem to remember that we had known each other. (I requested interviews with each of them and was turned down.)

Back when Alan and I had a relationship, he lived in Washington during the week and kept a small apartment in New York near the United Nations. His mother, to whom he was devoted, came over every weekend to bring him food and make sure that a housekeeper had come to tidy up. Alan’s parents had divorced when he was very young, and he rarely mentioned his father. He was raised by his grandmother and mother, both of whom worked. I liked his mother very much. She was warm, lively, and, unlike her son, an extrovert. She loved to play the piano, and as I had a piano in my apartment, she often played for us when she visited. Years later, when Alan was chairman of the Federal Reserve, and living full-time in Washington, he would come to New York every week to see his mother. We would sometimes have lunch after he visited her. I admired this devotion to his mother very much.

When he was in his twenties, Alan had been married for a short time to a woman who, I think, was also part of the Ayn Rand group. The marriage ended in divorce, and he had long been a bachelor with, it seemed, little desire to remarry. As I, too, had no real desire to remarry, the subject never came up. Furthermore, I never heard Alan express a desire to have children. He was sweet to my daughter but had no real relationship with her. Since I didn’t think of him as a prospective stepfather, that was okay with me.

I felt calm and secure being with Alan. The same qualities that made him so admired in Washington were present on a personal level. He was so smart, so knowledgeable, and had little of the dominating ego that many powerful men possess. Although I rarely understood what he was talking about when he testified before Congress, I had no problem understanding him when we were together. He never talked down to me. He could and did listen to my worries and complaints for hours and never talked to me about his own. He never criticized. He had a surprisingly wry sense of humor. He was, in short, the nicest person you could meet.

If I had any reservation, it was that Alan was very frugal, not just with me but with himself. He wore the same navy blue raincoat until it practically fell apart. He was a bit like the classic absentminded professor. He rarely remembered to pick up a check or buy a Christmas or birthday gift. But that is the only small failing I can recall.

After Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election, Alan left government to return to the economic consulting firm he had founded called Townsend-Greenspan. (I never did find out who Townsend was.) People often asked Alan for advice on buying or selling stocks or bonds. He politely brushed them off. That was not his area of expertise. His mind, so keen, was best at examining long-term trends and financial conditions that would influence all elements of society.

In future years we often laughed about the one time I asked him for financial advice. After we had been seeing each other for a few years, I decided to leave my rent-controlled apartment and buy a co-op. Shirley found a beautiful one for me in the same building that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis lived in. It had four bedrooms, a huge living room and dining room, and it faced Central Park. It was 1977, and New York City was facing a financial crisis. There were even concerns that the city might be going bankrupt. The seller was asking $250,000, which seemed pretty fair for a big, beautiful apartment on Fifth Avenue. I asked Alan’s advice. “Don’t buy it,” he said. “The way New York City is going, it’s not a good investment.” So I didn’t buy it. Today that apartment is worth at least $30 million.

Alan and I never actually broke up, but when a relationship doesn’t grow, it gradually diminishes. We didn’t want to marry and in those days we couldn’t live together. Still, I was shortly to be going through a very turbulent time professionally. Alan, it should be noted, was at my side throughout that time, and I don’t know how I would have gotten through it all without his wisdom and support. You will hear more about that later. Although it was some thirty years ago, my essential feelings about Alan Greenspan have never changed. He is one of the finest people I know.

Eventually I fell in love and married someone else. Alan met and fell in love with the wonderful NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, another strong woman. Andrea is a great reporter, and she and Alan have much in common. Alan finally got over his marriage phobia. I was so pleased to have been invited to Alan and Andrea’s wedding in 1997. It is the happiest of unions. They adore each other, and I adore being in their company. I am proud to be their friend.

In the fall of 2007 I joined some friends of Alan’s in giving him a book party. The book, by the way, is a fascinating read about his eighteen years as chairman of the Federal Reserve and his own life journey (including me and those boring dinner parties). When you finish this book, and I hope you will, do read Alan’s.

And finally some words about John Warner, one of the finest and most effective senators in Congress, who, at this writing, is serving his fifth consecutive term as the senior senator from Virginia. I also met John in the early seventies, years before he became a senator. He was then the head of the Bicentennial commission, preparing to celebrate two hundred years of America’s independence. Gerald Ford had appointed him to this federal position after several others had failed to do very much with the job. Actually there wasn’t really a great deal of heavy lifting to do. It was mostly making sure that all the states were going to contribute
something
to the celebration.

John took the job very seriously and committed himself to visiting all fifty states. As the spokesman for the Bicentennial, he appeared on the
Today
show, and I was assigned to interview him. He remembered me, he later said, as brisk and attractive. I remember him as having great hair and being rather pompous. Still, when he asked if I would have lunch, I said okay. He talked a lot about himself and his plans for the Bicentennial. I liked his Southern manners. He was definitely from the old school. I asked around about him, and this is what I learned.