Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America

by Shirley, Craig

  Anything could happen to front-runner George Herbert Walker Bush—Phillips Andover class of 1936, Yale class of 1948, hero pilot jock, and resident of Houston, Texas, and Kennebunkport, Maine.

  And anything did happen.

  9

  FAST TIMES AT NASHUA HIGH

  “I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green!”

  Medical World News released health information on all the major candidates two weeks before the New Hampshire primary. The publication had solicited reports from each, and only Jerry Brown refused to comply. Jimmy Carter's was by far the briefest, with just a short statement from the White House physician, William Lukash, saying that the president was in excellent shape. Bob Dole may have once suffered from a “‘silent’ heart attack” based on his cardiogram, though his office strongly denied it. John Connally took medication for high blood pressure, Howard Baker recently had a CAT scan because of recurring headaches (which later went away), and both George Bush and Ted Kennedy had ulcers. Phil Crane's worst ailment was that his gums were receding.1

  Ronald Reagan was in “remarkably good physical condition.”2 His blood pressure was 130/80; he had a pulse of eighty beats per minute; and he stood 6'1” and weighed 194 pounds. The only minor notes were that he received occasional injections for his allergies and had a bit of arthritis in one thumb.3 Lyn Nofziger always thought Reagan was one of those kids who were forced to change from a left-hander to a right-hander, which was not at all unusual at the time he began grade school. He wrote right-handed but chopped wood and fired a gun left-handed.4 When the Gipper had been filmed smoking in his “Brass Bancroft” serials, he used his left hand.

  Carter weighed but 155 pounds soaking wet; his blood pressure was 114/70 and he had an extraordinary pulse of only forty-two beats per minute. Unfortunately, it also came to light that he was afflicted with “chronic hemorrhoids.”5 This embarrassing tidbit became fodder for comics, notably in a cruelly funny Saturday Night Live sketch in which Dan Aykroyd, playing Carter, alluded to the president's indelicate affliction through a series of bad puns.

  It was a new world in that Americans had previously known nothing of presidential health. Problems were routinely covered up—and some should have stayed that way, such as when LBJ vulgarly pulled down his pants to show the world a scar. Thomas Jefferson suffered from severe depression and migraines and sometimes rode off to be by himself for a good cry. Andrew Jackson had more maladies than could be listed, but to sum it up, though he stood six feet tall, he weighed less than 130 pounds. Abraham Lincoln had his bouts with melancholia. Woodrow Wilson, after a lifetime of sickness, was put out of action by a stroke. FDR not only had had polio that confined him to a wheelchair but also suffered from dangerously high blood pressure and possibly skin cancer. John F. Kennedy, despite his “vigah” and appearance, had Addison's disease and received regular cortisone shots for his searing back pain from an injury sustained when a Japanese destroyer sliced into his PT boat. More than one enemy in private conversation disparaged JFK as a “cripple.” Richard Nixon's psyche and heavy drinking were dissected in a million articles, books, movies, and plays—once he left office.

  But as the Associated Press noted in 1980, “The ‘velvet barrier’ between public service and private behavior has been virtually eliminated.”6

  ON THE NIGHT OF February 20, Manchester Central High School hosted the only scheduled debate that included all seven Republican candidates. The contenders, including Reagan, sat at a horseshoe-shaped table, facing moderator Howard K. Smith of ABC.

  Reagan's goal that night was to highlight the dissimilarity between himself and Bush. He had spent time with his staff prepping for the debate by having Ed Meese and others throw questions at him while he honed his answers. The day before the debate Bush had sequestered himself in a remote cabin owned by Hugh Gregg and fielded question from Jim Baker, research director Stef Halper, and Pete Teeley. Reagan and Bush approached debates differently. Reagan looked at them as a chance to bring new people into his fold while Bush regarded debates warily, simply looking to survive them.

  Bush was expecting the other candidates to gang up on him, but they mostly ganged up on Carter and the Soviets. Everybody was looking for a contretemps between Bush and Reagan, but in this they were disappointed. The only real confrontations came when Bob Dole repeatedly stuck it to Bush. Years earlier, in 1972, President Nixon had unceremoniously dumped Dole as RNC chairman, replacing him with the more suppliant Bush; Dole still hadn't gotten over it.

  Reagan was only partially successful in his attempt to set himself apart from Bush. One account, in fact, described his debate performance as “lackluster.”7 But he did enough to counter the charges that he'd become too old to be president. The expectations going into the debate were so low that all he had to do was show up to prove he still had the vim and vigor. Writing of Reagan's performance in the Washington Post, Martin Schram acknowledged, “Tonight he showed that he could indeed debate the issues.” Reagan responded “no more or less memorably than all the rest,” wrote Schram, but that was all the candidate needed to do.8

  Behind the scenes, Reagan's aides were attempting to revive the one-on-one confrontation with Bush that the FEC had squelched when it canceled the Nashua debate. The FEC finally ruled that a debate could go forward if it was funded by the two candidates, not the newspaper, and if it was not televised live, since showing the two candidates would trigger the FCC's equal-time provisions. Therefore, the debate would have to be covered as a news event by the networks' reporters and not broadcast in real time.9

  To satisfy the FEC, the Nashua Telegraph suggested that the two campaigns split the $3,500 cost of the debate.10 Bush's campaign balked. At this point, Bush's men really didn't want a debate with Reagan, hoping to nurse their lead home. “If they want to debate, let them pay for it,” Hugh Gregg sniffed.11 Jerry Carmen called Gregg's bluff and said that Reagan would foot the entire bill. Once again he did so without ever consulting anybody at the campaign.12 Though it has been in dispute for years who really wanted to debate whom in Nashua, the Bush campaign confirmed that the push came from the Reagan camp, when Pete Teeley said, “We were challenged to a debate by Reagan and we felt if they wanted to debate then it is incumbent on them to pick up the tab.”13

  With the financial question settled, the debate was finally reset for Saturday, February 23, in the gymnasium of the Nashua High School.

  TELEVISION ADS WERE NOW blanketing New Hampshire. Ted Kennedy hammered President Carter on the economy. Carter's spots emphasized that he was a family man. He was also running radio ads that had him reciting a portion of the Sermon on the Mount. As the Miami Herald reported, “The narrator says in the tones of a voice from Heaven: Vote for President Carter—peacemaker.”14

  On the Republican side, John Anderson's ads peddled “the Anderson difference.” Bush continued with the bio spots, running commercials that emphasized his war record. Reagan played up his record of tax cuts as governor of California.15

  The Republican race was quickly coming down to a two-man competition. Dole by now was simply going through the motions. His friends and family were telling him to get out and concentrate on being reelected to the Senate. Howard Baker was mired in third place. He was getting excellent press coverage, but did not have a sharp enough message for the GOP faithful. Not much of an elbow thrower either, he had no real story to tell except that he was a fresher face than Reagan and that he'd been elected more recently in Tennessee than Reagan had in California and Bush had in Texas—it wasn't rhetoric that would make the typical GOP voter's heart go pitter-patter.

  Reagan got a boost when he learned he'd won the straw poll in Alaska, trouncing Bush 1,853 to 852.16 The poll was nonbinding in the selection of delegates, but the Reagan campaign reacted as if it were news of the Second Coming. Reagan also took seven more at-large delegates selected in Arkansas. “Uncommitted” in the Razorback State came in a strong second with five delegates; Baker got four and Bush two. Connally finally won
a delegate but his campaign was fading fast.17 Nearly all his state offices around the country were closed with the exception of South Carolina and a smattering of others, in a last-ditch attempt to save cash.

  With only six days to go before the New Hampshire primary, Bush was ahead of Reagan 37 percent to 33 percent in a University of New Hampshire survey.18 Reagan's campaign coffers were nearly depleted. Reporters were now writing not only that a Bush victory was “conceivable” but that he could win “going away.”19 But Dick Wirthlin's tracking polls showed Reagan finally creeping up on Bush, whose numbers were ever so slowly trending downward.

  THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION MADE it official: The United States would boycott the Moscow Olympics because of the invasion of Afghanistan. The administration made the announcement even though Secretary of State Cyrus Vance had failed to marshal a unified front among America's European allies. The ayatollah announced that the American hostages could not be released any sooner than April. At Lake Placid, the underdog American hockey team continued to surprise everyone by defeating the West Germans, 4–2, helping to guarantee a place in the medal round.

  While so much was occurring on the international scene, word came down that an old and legendary “Grande Dame” of Washington, Alice Roosevelt Long-worth, had died at the age of ninety-six. For more than eighty years, Alice, the eldest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, had cut a wide swath through Washington society. When she was a young woman, her father, the president, had prohibited her from her smoking in the White House, so she went up on the roof to do so. In 1906 she married Congressman Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, who would become Speaker of the House. Neither she nor Longworth was a fanatic about being married and they were the subjects of extramarital rumors for years. When her husband was buried in Cincinnati in 1931 she was asked whether she would be buried alongside him. “That would be a fate worse than death itself,” she replied.

  Alice was beautiful and witty, and could be devastating in her humor. Though a lifetime Republican, in 1944 she described GOP nominee Thomas Dewey as looking like the “little man on a wedding cake.” She also abhorred Joe McCarthy, a neighbor, and said her garbageman could call her by her first name but Senator McCarthy could not. She was banned from the Taft and Wilson White House after making jokes at their expense while attending parties in the Executive Mansion. In retaliation, she campaigned against Wilson's League of Nations and, through her charm, convinced enough senators to oppose it.

  Described as “The Other Washington Monument,” she was still entertaining guests over tea in her second-floor drawing room into her nineties. Alice had hosted prime ministers, kings, presidents, and other world leaders in her faded, five-story house.

  Alice Roosevelt once said, archly, “If you can't say something good about someone, sit right here by me.” When it was suggested to Theodore Roosevelt that he get his carefree daughter under control, he tartly replied, “I can be president of the United States or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.”20

  NEW HAMPSHIRE WAS AN atypical state. First, there were few minorities. Second, more than 73 percent of the population was rural.21 It also contained a disproportionate number of gun enthusiasts—or so the New York and Washington media crowd thought. There was no dominant television station inside the state and only one statewide newspaper, the Union-Leader, which was read by almost half the residents. Two hundred thousand new citizens had moved into New Hampshire over the previous decade, mostly from Massachusetts, attracted by the good schools, low taxes, and low crime rate. Still, they were Boston-centric. They read the Globe and watched Boston television, and the campaigns coughed up piles of dough for advertising to reach them in the southern portion of the state.22 New Hampshire also had a disproportionate number of elected cranks, eccentrics, and oddballs.

  Gun Owners of America sponsored a New Hampshire forum that all the GOP candidates attended. All the Republicans save John Anderson supported gun rights. Anderson, thinking of his friends in the national media, decided to challenge the crowd, half of whom were booing him and the other half yelling “bullshit!”23 Bush was well received except when one questioner asked him whether he wanted “one-world” government, a reference to the Trilateral Commission. He sloughed it off and instead told the attendees of the time he tried to register his gun in Washington but was told by a government clerk that criminals did not register their guns, “just a bunch of suckers like you from Northwest Washington.” Reagan received the warmest greeting when he told the gathering, “Thank you … my fellow members of the NRA.”24

  Jimmy Carter sent his son Jack to the forum. Surprisingly, Jerry Brown opposed gun registration based on his objection to more government involvement in private lives.25

  THE EYES OF AMERICA were fixed on two usually snowy locations: New Hampshire and Lake Placid, New York. Speed skater Eric Heiden was the pride of America, winning five gold medals, the most ever won by an individual in singles competition events in the winter games.

  But even Heiden was just a spectator at the greatest, most thrilling, and most shocking upset in the entire wide world of sports, when the U.S. hockey team, led by the great coach Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviets, 4–3. Sportscaster Al Michaels called the game for ABC and joyously cried out as the seconds ticked down, “Do you believe in miracles?” American exceptionalists yelled out in reply, “Yes!” The crowd in unison counted down the last ten seconds as if it were the final countdown for the Soviet empire.

  Eight thousand, five hundred flag-waving Americans went bonkers in the Lake Placid arena. Across the nation, Americans wept, honked their automobile horns, danced in the streets, and clinked beer glasses toasting America's newest heroes, believing again in the miracle of America.

  In the opinion of many, it was the greatest moment in all of sports. The Soviet hockey team had been undefeated in the Olympics since 1968, and had won the gold medal five of the past six Olympics. They were professional athletes, their average age in the thirties, and they had played together for more than six years; they'd been beaten by a bunch of American college kids whose average age was only twenty-two and who had been playing together for a mere six months.

  The fact that the team was led by two alumni of Boston University—Mike Eruzione, who slammed home the winning goal in the final period, and Jim Craig in goal, who stopped a phenomenal thirty-nine shots—made the upset even more special for the people of Beantown and all of New England, including New Hampshire.

  The Americans had to beat Finland the next night for the gold medal, 4–2, but the win over the Soviets was the first heartwarming, patriotic news for the battered American psyche in many years, possibly since the first moon landing in 1969. Many churches across the country let their parishioners leave early so they could be home to watch the gold medal contest. At the win over Finland, someone hung a sign, “Defectors Welcome,” and listed a telephone number.26

  Everybody in America saw the game for what it really was: a metaphor for the Cold War. The thuggish Soviets cheated while the clean-living Americans played by the rules. Yet in the end, right triumphed over might and truth was indeed stranger than fiction. Better, too.

  Vice President Mondale was there for the gold medal victory over Finland. It was especially meaningful for him, as Coach Brooks and several of the players were from his native Minnesota.

  The youthful American team gave their fellow citizens the same misty feeling they got when they looked at a Norman Rockwell painting. America, they believed, was a great country because America was a good country.

  And no one believed this more than Ronald Wilson Reagan.

  THE NIGHT OF THE win over the Soviets, Colin Clark, a twenty-year-old aide to Reagan and the son of Reagan friend William Clark, nervously approached the candidate with a handwritten message as the Gipper was giving a speech in Windham, New Hampshire. Mrs. Reagan, seated on the dais, looked at young Clark, wondering what the hell he was up to. But Reagan took the note, read it, smiled, and interrupted his speech to tell the audi
ence, “Soviet Union 3, United States of America 4!” The hall went ballistic.27 A man in the audience asked Reagan whether he too was going to win and Reagan replied, “You bet we are!”28 Reagan was ready to rumble.

  To the national media, though, it seemed that Reagan was bound to lose. Two new polls showed Reagan continuing to collapse nationally among Republicans. Where a month earlier Reagan had held a commanding lead of 40 points over Bush, a New York Times/CBS poll and a Time magazine survey showed his lead over Bush shrinking to 6 percent and 4 percent, respectively. In fact, Bush was leading among GOP voters most likely to vote in primaries. Even worse, Reagan had shot up to a 46 percent unfavorable rating, with only 38 percent of Republicans rating him positively.29 Seeing such polls, Boston Globe columnist Robert Healy wrote, “Reagan does not look like he'll be on the presidential stage much longer.”30 Similarly, Germond and Witcover, never high on Reagan, said that “a rough consensus is taking shape … that George Bush may achieve a commanding position.”31

  But in fact, Reagan was gaining in New Hampshire, while Bush was losing votes to Baker and Anderson. One new poll, conducted by WNAC, had Bush ahead of Reagan by just 2 points, 34–32 percent.32 The glow of Bush's big Iowa win was dimming. The Union-Leader produced a poll showing Reagan ahead by 5 percent, but the media discounted it, as the paper was in essence the house organ for the Reagan campaign.33