What It Takes (17 page)

It was such a good night in the VP house, none of the guests could remember later whether they even heard the other news: that day, the Parliament Speaker in Iran announced that a group of U.S. officials had snuck into his country on phony passports, come to Tehran with a shipment of weapons, bearing for the Ayatollah Khomeini a cake and a Bible from Ronald Reagan.

Dole spent election night in his office. He’d voted in Russell, but then flew East. His home-state Republicans gathered to celebrate in Topeka, as always, in that ratty Ramada overlooking the highway, but this year they’d have to make do with a satellite feed from their victorious Senator. Dole was piling up a handsome majority in Kansas, but he couldn’t stick around to commune with the faithful. He had work to do.

In Washington, the staff had the Capitol suite arranged for the business of the evening: in his inner office, a graceful antique chair and loveseat were arrayed, in state, before four console TVs. That’s where the Senator and Secretary Dole would watch the returns. The outer salon was given over to camera crews from the networks: they’d be in there all night, hooked by a twisting mile of cable to satellite trucks in the parking lot, ready to feed live to their bureaus, so their anchormen could chat for five minutes with Dole. Down the hall, in the grand chandeliered Office of the Secretary of the Senate, Jo-Anne Coe’s reception room was stocked as a buffet: shrimp, roast beef, cheese, crudités ... so her staff, the Leader’s staff, the Sergeant at Arms, committee staff, could gather in tribal solidarity to witness the coming of the next Congress. This was not, for them, a matter of idle, or even purely political, interest: if the news was bad, if the Democrats won, there would be no more power for them; if the news was bad, Bob Byrd, the Democratic Leader, would be coming, tomorrow, for this graceful office with the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the Mall; if the news was bad, if the Democrats won, everyone from senior Finance Committee tax specialists (who’d wielded power for six years to make or break whole industries) to the twenty-year-old elevator operators (who smiled and punched buttons on the self-service consoles to make spending money for college), the Sergeant at Arms, doorkeepers, Capitol police, clerical staff, maybe two thousand souls ... could be demoted, or fired, the next day.

And the news didn’t look good: at 7:01 on the evening newscast, the nets called Florida for the Democrats. Wirthlin’s last poll had Paula Hawkins only five or six points behind. But it wasn’t even close. She got killed. One seat, already, gone from Dole’s grasp. One minute into the news! Then, through the night, the tide rolled west, through the time zones, state after state:

Broyhill lost in North Carolina. Mack Mattingly lost in Georgia ... Mattingly should have gone home, shouldn’t have stayed for the end of the session.

NBC called a win for Jerry Denton: Alabama! At last, a state they held! Denton was a war hero, POW ... still went a long way in Alabama.

Wasn’t till late, they reversed the call—said Denton lost. Took away another seat. Took it away from Dole.

Thing was, he’d done the job. He knew he’d kept things moving, tried to make a difference, stuck his neck out to do
something
on issues that another man might have ducked. What’d it get him? What’d it get any of them? Dole saw the faces around him, the anxious strain. People thought he didn’t notice. But what could he do? From the salon, amid the cables and floodlights, he heard snatches of conversation. Two of the politics guys were arriving for the tribal rite. They’d driven in to the Capitol from the Campaign America office in Virginia. One of them said, plaintively: “How can they throw us out when gas is seventy-nine cents a gallon?”

Good question. Dole couldn’t sit in the throne, kept hopping up to check the ticker in the pressroom. Walt Riker had friends in the networks, so he was getting numbers that weren’t on the air yet. The networks wouldn’t broadcast until the polls closed in each state. Elizabeth stuck it out on the loveseat, watching as the maps and the faces flashed up on the screen ...

Good evening, I’m Peter Jennings in New York. ... And we have a couple of projections to make. ... In North Dakota, that is still too close to call. The incumbent, Republican Mark Andrews ...

Andrews ought to be pulling away. Andrews didn’t make enough friends. Kind of guy who was always there when he wanted something. But when you needed him ... He was the one who beat up Elizabeth when she testified before his committee. He was mean to her! Still asked Dole for help. Guy just had to sneeze and Dole was out there with a hanky.

The TV screens showed maps of the country, but the map in Dole’s mind was the Senate floor. If they held the losses to three seats, Bush could break the tie. Do him good to stick around Washington for a vote once in a while. Even if they lost four ... well, Dole could have another talk with Zorinsky. He was a Nebraska Democrat who used to be a Republican. Might want to switch back, if the price was right—say, the chairmanship of the Ag Committee. Dole had already sounded out Zorinsky.

The Senate in South Dakota. We now project that Tom Daschle is going to win the Senate race in South Dakota, defeating the incumbent, James Abdnor, Senator James Abdnor. ... The issue there was the farm economy, from beginning to end.

Abdnor was the one that hit Dole the hardest. A guy Dole could count on. ... Had a lisp, or some kind of speech problem, and the Washington press never gave him credit: Abdnor didn’t go to receptions, didn’t even own a pinstripe suit. But the guy was solid, knew his fanners, worked like hell ... and what did it get him? Dole tried to put him on TV, took him to meetings at the White House. When the press staked out the West Wing doors, waiting for a statement from Dole, he’d shove Abdnor out instead. Then Dole put him up in the chair to preside on a big roll call—guaranteed TV time. Worked like a charm ... what’d it get him?

Dole was staring down at the carpet between his chair and the TV consoles. The carpet was an intricate masterpiece, dark reds and blues, pale purples, and ivory wool knotted into tiny figures of the ancient Chinese past. Deng Xiaoping made a gift of the carpet to the distinguished Majority Leader on the occasion of his visit in 1985.
Zschau in California... Gorton could still win in Washington ... maybe Andrews...
The carpet was priceless. Should never have been on the floor.
Four seats ...
Dole bounced his heels on the rug.

“Senator? ...”

They moved him into the salon, where Jennings and Brinkley wanted him live. They had Bob Byrd on another feed down the hall.

Be nice.

Dole congratulated Byrd on the air. Said he knew they could work together. They’d work out a trade bill that wasn’t protectionist ...

We can now project, James Santini, the Republican, defeated for the Senate in Nevada, a severe blow for the Republicans and for Paul Laxalt, the retiring ...

Then it was Brokaw, Brokaw and Byrd. Dole congratulated Byrd and the Democrats, said he wasn’t entirely surprised. It was a tough year, an off year, but they could work together on the deficit ... tried to smile. He’s supposed to look happy?

But the mood that you saw reflected in Senator Dole’s interview is very much the mood of Republican aides here on Capitol Hill. There are lots of them around, and they are very gloomy ...

Brit Hume was on the screen for ABC, from the Capitol.

But looking at North Dakota ... Kent Conrad, the State Tax Commissioner, who was at one time not expected to do really well against incumbent Mark Andrews, another member of the Republican and Reagan class of 1980, is ahead out there and stands a chance. ... And in that kind of situation, a Democratic takeover of the Senate becomes almost inevitable. Gentlemen? ...

In the salon, Dole moved from chair to chair, wearing his own earplug, so they wouldn’t have to fiddle with his ear and his neck every time he moved to a new interview. He did CBS, went out in the hall for CNN, and C-Span. Then, he did the locals. He was on TV the rest of the night. Had to be. Couldn’t buy exposure like that. ... Had to speak for the Party ... but this was for Dole.

Over and over, he said to the camera: “We’re going to work with the Democrats ... congratulate my friend Bob Byrd ... but keep in mind: Ronald Reagan is still President. He is a very powerful President ...”

But this was for Dole. Reagan’s power was gone. Finished. The old magic hadn’t worked a lick. Reagan went into Nevada, twice. ... Laxalt’s guy still lost that race. People didn’t believe in it anymore. They saw the deficit. Democrats were going to make the agenda. Finished. Bob Dole back in the minority. ... What would he have, forty-six votes? Forty-five?

He tried to do the satellite for Kansas. The damn thing wouldn’t work. “How y’
dooonnn
there? ... We on? ... Yeah ... How y’
dooonnn
? ... okay ...”

Soon he gave up and went back to the networks for the West Coast wrap-ups. Wasn’t gonna run in Kansas for a long time. ...

It was over in the Senate. Might be years until Dole got any power again. There was only one way he was going to get it now ...

“Well, sure, I have an interest in ’88 ... Have to see whether people have an interest in Bob Dole ...”

He wouldn’t go into Jo-Anne’s office. Just had Dean bring him a sandwich, between interviews. ... Didn’t want to see the faces in there, those kids ... some of them weren’t kids. Some had spent a lot of years here, waiting for their chance ... chance was over now. Bob Dole was sixty-three this year. ...

We can now project that Alan Cranston has retained his seat against a strong challenge from Ed Zschau ...

“Well, Dan, maybe it’ll give me a little more time. Won’t have to be here every night, turn out the lights. ... Yeah, hegh hegh, Bob Byrd’s gonna have to turn out the lights now. Hegh hegh ...”

He was getting his face right ... Presidential. “Congratulate my friend Bob Byrd. Lotta able people on both sides of the aisle ...”

And standing by live, now, we have Bob Dole ...

It was after midnight when he finished with the networks. After one o’clock when he finished with the big-foot print guys. ... Then he went back to the cameras, started taping for the overnights.

“Of course I have an interest in ’88 ... bipartisan spirit ... people want to see that we’re taking care of some serious problems we have ...” Exposure you couldn’t buy.

It wasn’t till three in the morning that he finished the last interview. Elizabeth had gone home long ago. Now Dole got into the waiting car to go back to the Watergate, too. Dole told Riker before he left: yes to Brinkley and McLaughlin for this weekend ... yes to them all now.

He’d be back after two hours’ sleep to do three morning shows. Smile. ... “Sure we can work with my friend Bob Byrd ...”

It wasn’t till the end of the week he found out his friend Bob Byrd wanted his office: not just Jo-Anne’s with the chandeliers, but the whole thing. Wanted to throw him out of his office!

Be nice.

“Hegh hegh hegh, have to see if the people have an interest in Bob Dole. ... Walked into the cloakroom the other day, and yelled, ‘Mr. President!’ Twenty guys turned around! Hegh hegh hegh hegh ... But we’ve got serious problems in this country.”

It was the only way. ... The Other Thing had become the only thing.

T
HEY WERE ALL KIDS
on the
San Jacinto
. Just past his twentieth birthday, Lieutenant George Bush looked so young he didn’t seem ready to operate a car, much less the biggest bomber aircraft in the Pacific fleet. He was only a year past winning his wings as the youngest flier in the Navy. He was tall and skinny, with a high forehead and wide-set eyes that looked out at the world with a precocious gravity from under soft and delicately curved brows. The rest of his face—the narrow cheeks and the line of his long, slender jaw—was hairless and smooth, saved from prettiness only by a generous, slightly cleft chin and the quick, lopsided, aw-heck grin that dismissed his own good looks and made him, so readily, one of the guys. Still, as he sat up from a slouch in his steel chair in the ready room, and peered at the coordinates on the board, then bent to his own course calculations, he had the same buckle-down, teen-in-a-hurry look his Andover masters saw two years before, when Captain Poppy had to hustle through a history quiz, to get out to practice for the Exeter game.

But today it was a job: one more crack at Chichi Jima. They’d gone at it yesterday but couldn’t wipe out the target: a radio tower and four outbuildings. They ran into a hail of flak and lost a plane. Today was their last shot: the task force would be steaming south, right after the raid, out of the sector altogether, to link up with Admiral Halsey for the landings on the Palau Islands. The radio tower on Chichi was the Japanese link to the Palaus.

Bush grabbed his gear and started for the deck. He liked to get up there early to check over his plane ... but Ted White stopped him on his way out: he’d been after Bush for weeks to take him along on a mission. Ted was a ship’s gunnery officer, not a flier. Leo Nadeau was Bush’s turret gunner. It was always Bush and Nadeau, and the radio man, Jack Delaney. They’d been a crew since they were stateside. But Ted was older than Bush, a family friend, a buddy of Poppy’s Walker uncles, a Yale man like them, a good, quiet fellow. Bush would be glad to take him up ... but why’d he have to pick today? Ted had to know, it was gonna be rough. ... Still, Bush didn’t like to say no to a friend. He told White to check it out with Skipper Melvin. But he’d better step on it!

That was one more mark of the mission’s import: Don Melvin would fly lead today. Melvin was the squadron skipper, the man who taught them to do things with their bulky TBM Avengers that they never learned in flight school. The guys used to say they ought to win the Bent Nail—instead of the Iron Cross—for serving in his squadron, VT-51. D.J. Melvin liked catapult takeoffs and tight formations: he liked his pilots cool, clear-eyed, more levelheaded and determined than kids should have to be.

On deck now, Leo Nadeau got the word to stand down. An officer was going up in his place, “to check out the turrets.” Leo knew that was bullshit. You check that stuff on deck. But he was just an enlisted man, so he stood down, as Ted White strapped into the turret on top, behind Bush, and Delaney climbed into his regular spot in the belly of the TBM.