Chris Matthews Complete Library E-book Box Set: Tip and the Gipper, Jack Kennedy, Hardball, Kennedy & Nixon, Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think, and American

by Matthews, Chris

  In the Carter Administration, I saw how making sure the new recruit’s hopes were pinned to the top man’s success is as critical as the recruitment itself. Without it, the skipper finds himself with a loose cannon on deck.

  When Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, one department, Health, Education and Welfare, had a budget greater than those of all the fifty states put together and larger than that of any other country in the world but the Soviet Union. In accepting the appointment as Secretary of HEW, Joseph A. Califano also accepted a more personal assignment: in his own words, “the boundless challenge of the Secretary’s job was to promote social justice and to persuade, educate, cajole, and plead with the people, the Congress, the public servants at HEW, and often a president and administration besieged by crises and other demands, here and abroad.”

  Califano’s understanding of his new post as a platform for the independent advocacy of progressive action was consistent with President Carter’s decision to hire him in the first place. Carter wanted on his team a representative of the liberal Democratic establishment. He had run against that establishment and defeated it. Now it was time to share some of the power and patronage of office. According to aide Jody Powell, the newly elected President also wanted someone who “knew the game in Washington and how to play.” Carter had his own agenda of reform—welfare, health insurance—and he needed someone who could keep all the balls in the air without having his own cut off.

  In this light, the appointment of so proven a Washington gladiator as Califano made perfect sense. Since serving as Lyndon Johnson’s dynamic staff chief, Califano had become a key Washington figure. Counsel to both the Democratic National Committee and The Washington Post, he was the classic insider, with a list of friends that defined all elements of power in the city: Congress, the major law firms, the media, and the veterans of past Democratic Administrations who had long since made Washington their permanent home and power base.

  The new President obviously hoped to win these constituencies’ goodwill by giving them one of their own to run the Great Society programs that so many of them—Califano, most of all—had helped create. But Carter never reckoned with the politics of the new relationship, how he would control the hardballer he had just recruited to his team.

  In selecting Califano, the President knew he was getting an advocate of strong government action. While Califano shared Carter’s determination to make his department’s programs more efficient, he retained an un-Carter-like passion that those programs fully address their initial objectives. On matters of civil-rights enforcement, health and education there would be no compromise of progressive ideals.

  It soon became apparent that this highly aggressive approach would exact political costs from the new Administration. In North Carolina, for example, Califano vigorously and hotly pursued an antidiscrimination case against the state’s beloved university system, while tobacco farmers felt the full brunt of his campaign against cigarette smoking. Both actions were highly defensible. Califano had a federal judge threatening to hold him in contempt if he wavered on the UNC matter. With 300,000 smokers dying each year of lung and other diseases, he had become a zealous convert to the antitobacco issue.

  Facing the dim prospect of winning reelection without North Carolina or Kentucky, a state whose governor was calling for Califano’s scalp, Carter and his White House staff became uneasy. The Secretary continued to move ahead. Yet, with the thermometer rising in the West Wing, the President never told him to yield on the antismoking crusade. The more The New York Times liked Califano, the more embittered the small-town North Carolina and Kentucky newspapers grew toward Carter.

  The distance between President and appointee attained absurd proportions when, in the wake of Califano’s high-profile campaign, Carter desperately told a North Carolina audience of his desire “to make the smoking of tobacco even more safe than it is today.”

  A second area of dispute grew over Carter’s commitment to the creation of a separate Department of Education. Califano spent the first year of the Administration arguing forthrightly against the idea on the grounds that the new agency would be responsive to political pressure from teachers’ unions and not to broad objectives. Carter, though willing to give the matter more study, never ceased in his desire to meet what he and the National Education Association viewed as a deeply personal commitment. By the time Carter made the proposal formal, in his 1978 State of the Union message, everyone who cared about the issue knew that the President was fulfilling a promise that his own Secretary openly considered a terrible idea. Thanks to Califano, they also knew the full and varied hazards of the Carter plan.

  How could such intramural chaos invade an Administration pledged to improving government efficiency? First, there was the whole premise of Califano’s appointment. In the initial, preappointment interview, the President-elect had said, “I intend to keep my promise of Cabinet government to the American people.” His Secretaries would pick their own people, run their own departments. In the case of Califano and HEW, the Cabinet member insisted on his complete right to make whatever departmental appointments he wanted, notwithstanding the view from the White House.

  That, Jody Powell admitted later, may have been the fatal error. “My impression is that he’ll push and push until he meets resistance,” he said of Califano. As time went on, it became harder and harder for the Carter people to resist. “It became harder to rein him in,” Powell recalled. “Not only was Carter weaker, but it was harder to take back what Califano already thought he had.” This was the White House view. As far as his HEW Secretary was concerned, Carter “didn’t run the government” to begin with.

  Carter’s mistake was in suggesting that any Cabinet Secretary should be, could be, independent of the president who appoints him. Unlike judges, executive-branch appointees serve at the pleasure of the president. The public knows that and holds the chief executive responsible. Whatever the program or policy, the buck stops with one man, the one they elected.

  Califano believed otherwise. “It goes with the territory for a Cabinet officer to put a little distance between himself and the president,” he has written. It allows the chief executive to “shield” himself on sensitive issues. Yet in the case of his campaign against smoking and his opposition to a department of education, Califano ran counter to the President’s immediate political ambitions. There had been a serious mishandling of the relationship. It ended with the President asking for his HEW Secretary’s resignation in 1979.

  What stands out here is the timing. It would be hard to imagine Lyndon Johnson or Ronald Reagan permitting a subordinate to publicly carry out policies that were out of step with the presidential agenda. Facing reelection, it is hard to imagine them not making anyone they appointed damned aware that the president might yank their chair any minute they were on the job—regardless of what had been said up front about their being “free to run their own departments.” More to the point, if someone in LBJ’s time had tried to play hardball with the President, the White House chief of staff—Joe Califano, that is—would have recommended that his boss show the underling how the game is played!

  Jimmy Carter ignored the “Keep your enemies in front of you” rule and paid for it. Like most people, he was inclined to keep potential adversaries at arm’s length. The result was crippling. Having defeated the Democratic establishment on his way to the Oval Office, Carter soon found that same establishment standing smugly on the sidelines, rooting for his downfall. His Administration found itself cut off, not only from the emerging American right, but also from the forces that usually accommodate a Democratic presidency.

  Observe the contrast. Reagan put Jim Baker into a position where his interests had to coincide with the whole Administration’s; Carter gave Califano the independence to build a seceding empire. Instead of subjecting him to the limits necessary to handle so proven and headstrong a man in partnership with so well connected a bureaucracy, Carter gave him free rein, allowing a situation to deve
lop in which Califano would respond only to direct order from the President.

  History is partially to blame. To avoid the creation of another Nixon-style “palace guard” at the White House, Carter made it clear up front that he didn’t want his staff directing the Cabinet. The result: he deprived himself of day-to-day regulation of his own executive departments short of an in-person presidential investigation and command. Since situations often develop where the president cannot permit himself to get involved personally, this creates a giant power vacuum.

  At one point, in February 1978, the White House aide responsible for liaison with the various departments, Jack Watson, called Califano to tell him of the political dangers President Carter was facing in North Carolina. He said the antismoking campaign, together with the HEW move against the North Carolina university system, could cost Carter the state in the next election. And he said that the President wanted to talk to him about the matter.

  A few days later, in early March, Vice President Mondale invited Califano to lunch. When he tried to bring up the antismoking campaign, the Secretary cut him short. Califano warned him that he could not vouch for the confidentiality of such a discussion. He said that the press had been asking him whether the White House had contacted him with regard to the campaign and that he had been able to deny it “so far.” Hearing this, Mondale retreated.

  Carter was boxed into a powerless position. He was being told by one of his own Cabinet Secretaries that anything he said on a controversial subject like tobacco could be used against him. He was unable to call Califano off the antismoking campaign without being publicly embarassed in the press. Califano, meanwhile, assumed the position that he could take the President’s personal silence for consent. If Carter didn’t personally give him a direct order, he could continue with his own departmental agenda.

  When recruiting his Cabinet in late 1976, Jimmy Carter never contemplated dealing with a hardballer like Califano. He was still trying to avoid another Watergate. To avoid the arrogant and dangerous concentration of power in the Nixon White House, where Chief of Staff H. R. “Bob” Haldeman held a dangerous level of authority, Jimmy Carter had gone to another extreme. His governing principle seemed to be “Let a thousand flowers bloom.”

  In hiring Califano, Carter observed the same axiom that Lyndon Johnson had cited in retaining FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in office: “Better to have them inside the tent pissin’ out than outside pissin’ in.”

  But the Georgian had ignored the great Texan’s corollary, “Hug your friends tight, but your enemies tighter—hug ’em so tight they can’t wiggle.”

  This lesson counts in all professions. If you want to hire the best people in any line of activity, check out those working for your fiercest competition. Talent is talent, and no matter how hot the rivalry, never forget that you are likely to need the other guy’s help someday. It would be surprising, in fact, if you can’t do some business with him somewhere down the road. Besides, hiring your rivals shows nerve. It not only builds your reputation and resolution but frequently weakens theirs.

  Our first impulses prod us, of course, to avoid those who act against us. Life is short, after all. Who needs the hassle? Such an attitude is fine for those whose number one objective is to make their days as pleasant and stress-free as possible. It’s also a prescription for avoiding power, not acquiring it.

  A businessman who fails to meet with his rivals throws away golden opportunities not just for useful scuttlebutt but for useful contacts. Being ill at ease in a rival’s company doesn’t just put a big crimp in your style: it’s hard to deal if you’re not even at the table!

  The strong leader rejects the path of least resistance. Rather than shun opponents—“I’m not speaking to those fellas”—he coopts them, thus keeping tabs on what they’re up to, gauging their emotions and generally intimidating them. Ted Sorensen saw Jack Kennedy do this to his political critics. “When someone was knocking him, he always let him know that he knew.”

  He did not have to teach this rule to Tip O’Neill.

  I was present at a memorable demonstration of the unsettling “Keep your enemies in front of you” ploy in 1984. The scene was the Speaker’s office at the beginning of his daily press conference. Ensconced as always in his huge swivel chair, O’Neill was sitting with the rest of the Democratic leadership waiting for the Capitol press corps to rush through the door.

  The Democratic Party was then in particular turmoil. Walter Mondale, who had the Speaker’s complete trust and support, was headed toward crushing defeat in his battle to unseat President Reagan. Innumerable congressional seats appeared to be in jeopardy. There were even faint rumblings of a possible leadership challenge within the House.

  One of those mentioned as a challenger to the Speaker was now sitting just a few feet away. We could hear the press rushing through the door to the Speaker’s rooms when O’Neill swung around and demanded, “Are you running against me?”

  It was a punch to the solar plexus. “No,” the stricken pretender mumbled. “No, I’m not running.”

  Mission accomplished.

  6

  * * *

  Don’t Get Mad; Don’t Get Even; Get Ahead

  I always throw my golf club in the direction I’m going.

  —Ronald Reagan

  In April 1994, I stood on a wide plain in Capetown and saw a line of voters stretching from one horizon to the other. Having risen at dawn, millions of people would wait for hours without food or drink to cast their vote in the first all-races election in South African history.

  This vast stirring of democracy was a testament to the man these voters would elect their president, Nelson Mandela. Through twenty-seven years in prison, he had crafted and refined his faith in a non-racial South Africa, a secular creed he would define by extraordinary sacrifice and by refusal to seek revenge.

  “Nothing we can say can fully describe the misery of our people,” he said on the eve of his election, “but the day we had been fighting for, the day we were working for has arrived. Let us forget the past. Let us hold hands.”

  More than reject vengeance against the country’s former rulers, the new South African leader embraced unity among all races. He gave human faces to this commitment by inviting his prison guards, white men he had befriended during his years of captivity, to his inauguration.

  Despite a reputation for endless intrigue, wise politicians co-opt their enemies. When this proves impossible, they move with the same cold resolve with which they strike alliances, defeating adversaries not by flailing blindly but by concentrating their own forces. Rather than a desperate charge “over the top,” they dig the trenches deeper, work their networks wider. Rather than trying to weaken their opponents, they strengthen themselves. Inevitably, those most intent on reaching their own goals gain a valuable by-product: a greater capacity to render justice. Like Ronald Reagan, the infrequent golfer, they keep their eyes on the ball, their minds on their destination. When angered, they throw their golf clubs in the same direction they’re headed, so that they can retrieve them on the way to the hole.

  As we will see, it’s better to get even than to get mad, but better still to get ahead.

  Among his friends, Francis Patrick Sullivan was something of a legend in this department. Like the driven protagonist in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Casque of Amontillado,” he tolerated injury, but when his adversary turned to insult, he vowed revenge.

  For years, Sully’s ambition had been to land a big job on Capitol Hill. His problem was the method he chose. He thought that if he could just meet congressmen after hours, gathering with lobbyists at those little nightspots clustered around the Hill, he could charm them with his blarney.

  There was a hitch in the strategy. Professionals like to keep their private and office lives separate. They don’t go drinking with their staffs. They don’t hire people they met in some smoke-filled gin mill the night before. After sharing a few beers with Sully at some seedy Hill-side joint the honorable me
mber was slow to reach for Sully’s callback slips in the harsh light of day. And Sully had another handicap: he carried a grudge, a big one, never more than two drinks from the surface.

  Back in 1974, his big chance for glory on the Hill had finally arrived. He was managing a House campaign just across the Potomac and making the most of it. By election day he had raised $80,000 and recruited some two thousand volunteers. His battle cry to the recruits was relentless and joyous. “Dare to be great,” he would yell to one and all. “Let’s win this one for Herbie.”

  Now, even Sully would admit, sotto voce, that “Herbie” was no great shakes. But, let’s face it, it wasn’t the cut of the man’s jib that intrigued Sully, but his prospects. Surely Sully had himself a winner this time.

  And “Herbie” turned out to be, at least electorally, a winner. Watergate gave him what had been a Republican seat. Then, the morning after the election, the ax fell. Pat Sullivan was told with the minimum of consideration that he wasn’t “cut out” for work in a congressional office. The victorious candidate, the man he thought was his patron, said that he would have to help Sully find “something else.”

  Sully did not take the news well. The rejection by a man he did not much respect to begin with knocked him off balance for a long time. He spent a couple of years drinking, telling everyone that he hated “Herbie’s” guts. As the months passed, he carried his frustrations to ridiculous extremes, at one point sending a Christmas card to the new Congressman, with a note saying that he was “enjoying his third month of unemployment.”