The Last Debate (42 page)

The day after my return from Santorini I zeroed in on Thelma Jordan,
the new White House press secretary. She had come to Greene’s side from her job as chief Washington correspondent and political editor of the
Omaha World-Herald
, the leading newspaper in his state. She came with a reputation for tough, straight talk.

She finally agreed to see me and I came to the White House one day during what for most people was lunch hour. For her it was clearly just another hour of the day. On her desk in the cluttered West Wing press secretary’s office was what looked like a bowl of brown-colored soup and a wheat-bread sandwich of some kind. Neither look sipped or nibbled on.

Thelma Jordan’s age had been reported to be fifty-three. I believed it. Her graying black hair and her dirty white face were both uncared for by her and her maker. Her lips were red, I assumed from the application of lipstick, but I was not sure. There were no other signs of makeup. But there were also no signs of masculinity. From my advance reading, I had expected to discover that “tough” was actually a code word for a sexual orientation. Not so. There was something appealing and sensual about this woman that fit the other part of what I had read about her. That she had been the drum major in her Beatrice, Nebraska, high-school band, had been married to the same man—an archaeologist who specialized in the diggings of ancient Troy in Turkey—for twenty-eight years, and was the mother of four sons.

“The debate came and it’s over,” she said. “He’s got nothing to say about it.”

“It was a monumental happening in his life,” I said. “He must have very much to say about it.”

“Whatever, he doesn’t want to talk to you about it.” She pronounced “you” in much the same way she would have spoken about a dreaded disease.

“Why not?” I said.

“One of the great things about being president is that you never have to answer the question ‘Why not?’ ”

I pointed out the need for our children and grandchildren to know the full story of Williamsburg. I said the record could never be complete without the impressions and recollections and thoughts of the man who benefited the most from what happened.

“The people of this country benefited the most,” said Thelma Jordan.

I moved on to make the case for the historians. I had read about her husband’s line of work. “Look upon this as a form of contemporary archaeology,” I said. “Why wait until the story of the Williamsburg Debate is buried under layers of time and dirt?”

“What a stupid argument for an interview,” she said. “But all right, you’ve got ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes? I can barely say hello and good-bye in ten minutes.” I wondered if the president of the United States, like Howley, would use an alarm clock to make sure I didn’t go over my time.

Thelma Jordan, who had yet to sit down, said: “Look, I understand the drill. You want to be able to say in your book that you talked to the president. OK, you got it. You can talk to the president.”

“When would it be?”

“Now.”

“Now? I need to think about my questions.…”

“Now or never, Chapman. Follow me—to the Oval Office or out the door to the street.”

Now or never, Chapman.

I followed her across the hall and down another hallway past a couple of Secret Service agents standing watchful and protective.

Thelma Jordan knocked on a half-open door and stuck her head and body inside. “Mr. President, I have Mr. Chapman, the man who is writing the debate book.”

I heard the familiar voice of Paul L. Greene say: “Come in, come in.”

I stepped inside the Oval Office. Thelma Jordan stepped aside, and the president came around from his desk and shook my hand. “Welcome,” he said.

I wondered if the ten-minute clock was running.

He escorted me to a sitting area across the room. I wanted to look around the place, so I could later describe the office in detail. But he clearly had not moved many of his own things into the office. Hadn’t I read something about there being a whole new paint and remodeling job coming?

At any rate, I was not looking around the Oval Office, the most important
and famous office in the world. I was looking at the most important and famous man in the world and thinking of how best to spend my ten minutes with him.

Thelma Jordan and I sat down across from the president. I did take note of how he was dressed. A dark gray suit, blue button-down-collar shirt, and a green tie. Always a green tie. The joke already was that there were fears the president’s head would become detached from his neck if he did not wear a green tie. There seemed to be no other explanation for his always wearing a green tie. Always. A campaign gimmick had become an obsession.

“I see you have on a green tie, Mr. President,” I said. It just came out.

“That’s right, Mr. Chapman,” said the president of the United States. “It is indeed a green tie.”

I dared not even glance around at Thelma Jordan. I could imagine the great-question-you-dumb-ass smile that must have been on her face.

“Mr. President, do you still believe those four panelists did the proper thing at Williamsburg?”

“I do indeed,” he said. “I said it then and I say it now—they were as much American heroes as were the Minutemen at Concord.”

“But doesn’t it set a pattern for journalistic activism that might be harmful for the country?”

“Not necessarily.”

Not necessarily?

“Sir, could you tell me what was going through your mind once you realized what was happening out there—you know, with the reading of the statements and all of that?”

“I remember being shocked at what was in those statements. I remember then being delighted that this information was being made public.”

“Delighted?”

“Delighted.”

“How did that delight manifest itself?”

“I felt good.”

“You felt good?”

“I felt good.”

“Do you believe you would have been elected president if there had not been Williamsburg?” I asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I do not believe the people of the United States would have had an opportunity to truly discover the true nature of the two candidates.”

“How important was the big scene—the big use of the … you know, the big bad word there at the end?” I asked.

I did not say the word itself. I was in the Oval Office, sifter all. I was talking to the president of the United States, after all. Although I was fully aware of the fact that the big bad word was known, by tape and anecdote, to have been fully and often spoken in the Oval Office by most recent presidents themselves.

President Greene said: “Frankly, I doubt that it had much to do with the final result.”

“There are many who think otherwise, sir, as I am sure you know.”

Paul L. Greene, his face pleasant but serious, said: “A cussword did not elect me president of the United States. The people did.”

Yes, sir.

I continued. “Everybody is still marveling about how you seemed to ‘come alive’ as a candidate, so to speak, after the debate. What happened?”

“You just said it.”

“You mean, you just came alive?”

“That’s right.”

“So it was there all the time?”

“That’s right.”

I felt Thelma Jordan standing. I did not look at her. The president was still seated.

“How do you like being president?” I asked.

“I am really enjoying it so far,” Paul L. Greene replied. “Thanks for asking.”

He stood and now I stood. We three moved toward the door.

“Thanks for coming by,” said the president of the United States.

“Thanks for allowing me to, sir,” I said.

We shook hands and suddenly I was back out in the hall with Thelma Jordan and the Secret Service agents.

“Well, you’ve got your scoop, Chapman,” said Thelma Jordan just before she left me to return to the West Wing lobby. “President Wears Green Tie—Again! Read all about it!”

I asked if it might be possible to come back for a longer session sometime, but she simply waved good-bye and left my presence.

According to my watch, I didn’t get anywhere near my full ten minutes. It was more like three or four.

The woman on the phone at the Music of the Messiah Life and Living Center in Tashobi, Oklahoma, was even less cooperative than Thelma Jordan. Even before I had a chance to identify myself, she said that David Donald Meredith would not come to the phone now or at any other time as long as any of us shall live. I could have imagined it, but I thought I heard a slight musical quality to her words and voice that resembled a piece of almost-singing dialogue from an operetta.

So I had no choice but to go to Tashobi, Oklahoma, myself. No offense to anyone in or from Oklahoma, but honest journalism forces me to report that it was almost as difficult to get to Tashobi, Oklahoma, as it was to get to Santorini, Greece. It took me more than ten hours by the time I flew from Washington to Dallas, Texas, back in the direction I came from on a short flight to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and then drove in my rent-a-car down to the Ouachita Mountains of southeastern Oklahoma.

Another similarity to Santorini was the beautiful sights. But instead of a blue sea and high volcanic cliffs, there were majestic pine and fir trees atop a magnificent and unspoiled range of small mountains. I had imagined Oklahoma to be a place of cowboys, flat red land, and oil wells. I saw some of all of that on the road south from Tulsa, but I was stunned by what I saw when I got to the Ouachitas. I had no idea there was a mountainous area of Oklahoma that resembled what I had seen west of
Denver in Colorado and even up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

I also knew that getting here was probably not going to be the major difficulty of this adventure. Driving up to a gate and declaring, “Hello, I’m Tom Chapman. I’m writing a book about Williamsburg and I’ve come to interview Mr. David Donald Meredith,” would probably not produce what I had come all of this way to get.

There was a gate. It was at the end of a narrow two-lane dirt road at the base of a mountain. I could hear I was there before I could see it because of the music. There was the enormously loud sound of some people that had all the noise and power of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing a religious song of some kind. It seemed to be coming from speakers mounted somewhere out there in the trees.

The gate was small—barely the width of a full-sized car—and was made of old and rusted scrap metal. It was almost dark, but a floodlight exposed not only the gate but also, on a bar above it, a huge cross that was made of what looked like two huge truck bumpers.

I got out of the car and went over to a small squawk box on a wooden post that in an earlier life was probably a lead pipe. There was a red button on the box with the words
PUSH—TALK
above it.

I pushed the button and said: “Hello there. I am a music producer and talent scout for New World Records in New York. I have come to see if you good people of God might be interested in cutting some recordings for us. We could release them on CDs, tapes—the whole multimedia bit.”

I let up on the button. Nothing but silence came out.

I pushed the button again and said: “All I have to offer you are fame and money. I realize that this is not what you-all are all about. But isn’t there some charity, some good work somewhere in your world of concern, that could use some extra cash? We have lots of it, you know. We’ve been told you-all make all kinds of sounds for all kinds of people and age groups and musical tastes.…”

The gate swung open.

I dashed back to my car and drove on through. The road, pure dried mud, seemed to get smaller and rougher and more rutted the farther I went. I figured it must be virtually impassable when it rained.

The music was louder. And it had switched to a country-western version
of a song about Jesus. A female vocalist was yelling something about “You are my only love, Jesus in heaven / I am ready to be with you when you are.” I swear that was what she said.

After almost two miles by my odometer and fifteen minutes by my watch, I came into a clearing where there were several cars and pickups parked. Directly across the clearing I saw a large log cabin that seemed built along the lines of a split-level home or lodge. Several smaller log cabins were out in the trees on both sides.

I drove up to the main house. There was a man on the porch. He was dressed in a white Stetson hat, black cowboy boots, and a shiny red, white, and green spangled outfit right out of a Roy Rogers or Gene Autry movie. He had a guitar strapped around his neck and down on his chest and stomach.

I opened the car door. I heard the strum of a guitar. The other music had stopped.

“Hi there!” I yelled to the man on the porch.

He strummed his guitar. And he continued to strum as I walked up some steps to the porch.

“Hi,” I said to the man once I got in front of him. “I’m the man from New World.”

The smiling, clean-shaven face under the white hat seemed to be that of a man in his late forties. He was tall and skinny and he was not David Donald Meredith.

“The language of the Messiah was music,” said the man to the strum of his guitar. “We only speak that language here.”