Audition (45 page)

John was one of two sons of a doctor in Virginia whom John adored and was close to his entire life. John had finished law school at the University of Virginia after serving with the marines in Korea and cut quite a swath as an eligible young lawyer at the various Virginia debutante balls. In 1957, he married Catherine Conover Mellon, the only daughter of Paul Mellon, one of the richest men in the world. (The Mellon money came from Paul’s father, Andrew, who had helped found such companies as Alcoa and the Gulf Oil Corporation.) John was an advance man for Richard Nixon when Nixon was campaigning for president. In 1972 Nixon appointed John to be secretary of the navy. John was secretary from 1972 until 1974 and that’s when he was appointed to head the Bicentennial celebration.

In the meantime John and Catherine had three children, two girls and a boy. But Catherine was young and, I gather, didn’t enjoy John’s way of life. She was more artistic and sought a lower-key and simpler style. The marriage ended in divorce in 1973, and for many years John pretty much raised their children. Paul Mellon had given his daughter and son-in-law a magnificent home in the fashionable Georgetown section of Washington and a huge farm in the horse country in Virginia. In the divorce agreement Paul Mellon gave them both to John, I guess because he was such a good and responsible father.

I remember asking John, when he first talked about the farm, how big it was. I had no idea how large farms were supposed to be, but I knew enough to be staggered when he told me it was almost three thousand acres. It had horses, cows, a tennis court, an indoor swimming pool, and a state-of-the-art kitchen. When I got to know John better, he invited me to visit, along with Jackie and Icodel. We passed acres and acres of corn, which Jackie had never seen growing. We then made ice cream in the kitchen, which had every possible piece of cooking equipment you could want.

The house was only partially decorated. John had a splendid study with a fireplace and a huge desk. Upstairs the master bedroom also had a fireplace and was decorated in a lovely paisley. The interior designer was Billy Baldwin, one of the most famous decorators in America. But John had stopped work on the house when he and Catherine separated.

Anyway, that’s how things were when John Warner and I met. He talked of wanting to run for senator from Virginia, but he didn’t seem to have much backing from the Republican Party. He also knew few journalists. I remember taking him to a birthday party for the
Washington Post
’s executive editor, Ben Bradlee, and introducing him to many of my friends. Although they found him very pleasant, he wasn’t exactly their sort, or, at that time, mine. But we grew closer. When the
Today
show went to Hawaii, John arranged to be there, too. I was surprised and pleased by his attention. I had brought Jackie, and John arranged for us to have a special tour of Pearl Harbor and to visit a submarine. We had a fascinating time and even little Jackie was excited. I appreciated John’s kindness, but our relationship was winding down.

It drew to a close in 1976 when John was invited to the White House to be the escort of no less a superstar than Elizabeth Taylor. Knowing them both, I could not imagine a less well-suited pair. But each had a fantasy. Elizabeth’s career was on the rocks, and she was seeing a series of not very appealing men. Then along came this knight in shining armor. Independently wealthy, handsome—did I neglect to tell you that he was very handsome?—and, I think most important, there was his fabulous farm.

Elizabeth loved horses and perhaps she thought herself back in the days of her childhood when she first appeared in the film
National Velvet
, a classic story about the love of a child for her horse. The film made the exquisite girl a star and Elizabeth had not known a day since when she was not famous. So now, at last, a farm, peace, security. She and John were married in a field at the farm on December 4, 1976. Elizabeth, in photographs, with the cows and horses in the background, is a symphony of rustic elegance. She is wearing a lavender gray dress, a lavender turban, gray suede boots, and a silver fox coat, and is holding a bouquet of heather.

The marriage gave John instant fame, in spite of the fact that this was his new wife’s seventh marriage, counting both of her marriages to the British actor Richard Burton. For a moment or two John considered an acting career himself. He even had a screen test. But what he really wanted to be was a senator from Virginia. He finished second in the Republican primary in 1978 to a young up-and-coming politician named Richard Obenshain. When Obenshain was tragically killed in a private plane crash just a few weeks later, John was tapped to be the candidate.

The Republicans couldn’t have made a better choice. With his celebrated wife at his side, John traveled the state of Virginia from one end to the other. Elizabeth introduced him and shook so many hands that she later complained that she got ulcers of the hands. John made the political speeches, but it really didn’t matter what he said. Everybody wanted to meet his famous wife. In November, John was elected to the Senate and soon became one of the hardest-working and most conscientious politicians in Congress.

That was a problem for Elizabeth. Being the wife of a senator is not a lot of fun. She hated the long, boring dinners. She missed her friends. Elizabeth Taylor has a great, slightly ribald sense of humor, and there were not a lot of people who appreciated it, including, I think, her husband.

I remember going to their farm for a rather bizarre interview with them—my second prime-time
Special
for ABC—just before John was elected to the Senate. Here was my former boyfriend, with a pipe in his mouth, talking about his partner, Elizabeth, and how they were in all this, day in and day out, together. But later, talking with them both in the kitchen I remembered so well, it seemed that what Elizabeth was doing most, day in and day out, was eating. John said she should eat more vegetables. “I do eat vegetables,” Elizabeth replied. “Potatoes.”

Although she claimed that she was very happy, the marriage was obviously doomed, and they were divorced six years later, in 1982. Sometime later, in yet another interview with me, she confessed that she had been unhappy in the marriage and that is why she ate. But her respect and affection for John remained.

So did mine. I hate to keep using the word “kind” to describe this man or that, but John Warner was one of the kindest people you could find. He was a gentleman, honest and caring. I watched with pride as he became more and more effective in the Senate. I myself, in spite of my earlier vow never to marry, had another marriage, and after that divorce in 1990, John and I began to see each other again, this time quite seriously. That was when I really got to know him. I admired his complete devotion to his job. He was a staunch Republican, but he didn’t just follow the party line. He became a maverick in 1993 when he refused to support Mike Farris, the Republicans’ nominee for lieutenant governor of Virginia, because he felt he was too controlled by the Christian Right. (Farris lost.) John took on the Republican hierarchy again in 1994 when he actively campaigned against Oliver North, another born-again and controversial figure, who was the Republican nominee for Virginia’s other Senate seat. John disliked North so much that he supported a popular state politician who was running against him as an independent. The result of John’s political maneuverings was that the Republicans lost the Senate seat. It was won by the Democratic incumbent, Senator Chuck Robb.

John’s stature was not diminished. He became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1999 and served in that capacity, with a short break, until the Democrats gained control of the Senate in 2006.

John and I saw each other for about five years in the 1990s. He spent many weekends with me during summers in Southampton. My friends became his friends, and they enjoyed him thoroughly. He loves to play tennis and golf and had many spirited games with Pete Peterson and Roone Arledge, both of whom had homes in the Hamptons. Most of all, John loved to paint. I can still picture him sitting in the shade of a tree in my backyard, doing his oil paintings of flowers. Flowers are John’s specialty. They are the cover of his Christmas card each year.

Again, however, it has to be said that a relationship that doesn’t grow begins to diminish. I could never imagine myself as the wife of a senator living in Washington. And New York life was never really for John. We talked all the time but saw each other less and less. Eventually he met a nice woman, Jeanne Vander Myde, who lived in Washington and shared his interests. They were married in 2003, and when I talk with John I can tell how happy he is.

It is especially important for John to have the companionship and satisfactions he now has. In August 2007, at the age of eighty, John announced that he would not seek reelection to the Senate. He would leave at the height of his power, admired and respected. John continually proved himself a true leader. He was among the first in his party to call on President Bush to reduce the troops in Iraq. He did this although he respects the president and would not want to hurt his own party. He has come such a long way from the man who had originally been known primarily as the husband of Elizabeth Taylor. I think he will be truly missed in the Senate.

Shortly after John announced his resignation, he telephoned me and we had a long, happy conversation. He had always phoned me on the nights when he was reelected to the Senate. This now was a phone call of affection between two dear friends. I told John that I would miss that call on election night, but I thought he had done the right thing. He will leave at the top.

Whenever I think of John, I see him, as I do Alan Greenspan and Ed Brooke, as such a very special man. I consider myself so fortunate to know them.

And now that you know about my late-blooming, delayed love life, it’s time to get back to work.

Egypt, Israel, and ¡Hola, Castro!

C
OHOST.
A very satisfying title after ten years of sitting beside the male host on the morning desk at
Today
. Ten years. Seems small by today’s standards, but in 1974 a breakthrough. The title did not translate to anything else. I didn’t get a raise or a bigger office or more say over the program. But the media took note.
Newsweek
even considered the new title to be worthy of a cover story: “
BARBARA WALTERS—STAR OF THE MORNING
.” (I loved the line that described the questions I asked as “some of the toughest in television journalism—dumdum bullets swaddled in angora.”)

The real and only difference in my life was that Frank McGee was gone and so was all the off-camera tension and acrimony. I could interview anyone I wanted to in the New York studio—and ask all the questions. Which I didn’t, of course. Jim Hartz and I worked as a very sharing team.

There was another departure from
Today
—Frank Blair, the program’s newscaster for twenty-one years. I can’t say I was terribly sorry to see him go. He was drinking a lot by then and had become rather sour. He also had quite a reputation. Frank was a handsome man and, though long married, he bragged about chasing every woman on the show, including me. He was the only one on the program, in today’s parlance, who hit on me. But that had been years before, and we’d had a cordial truce ever since. A very pleasant fellow named Lew Wood replaced Frank, and the
Today
team became Jim Hartz, Gene Shalit, Lew, and me.

I was still spending a lot of time in Washington, and it was proving to be helpful. Among the many ambassadors I met and became friendly with at the various embassy parties was the Egyptian ambassador, Ashraf Ghorbal. He was intelligent and charming, as was his wife, Amal Amer, and I spent many pleasurable evenings with them. Four years later Ambassador Ghorbal would play a vital role in the Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel, but in 1974, there was no hint of peace between the two countries.

Egypt and Israel had fought a bitter war in 1973, the war that had caught Israel by surprise and marked the downfall of my friend Moshe Dayan. A Middle East peace conference was scheduled to be held in Geneva, and there was an air of cautious optimism. Having spent a good deal of time with Israeli leaders, I was anxious to interview their Muslim counterpart and official enemy, Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat. I expressed that interest to Ambassador Ghorbal, who passed it on to the Egyptian foreign minister, Ismail Fahmy, when he visited Washington in the summer of 1974. Through Ambassador Ghorbal I managed to get an interview with the foreign minister (who would later resign rather than accompany Sadat on his historic journey for peace to Jerusalem). He, too, was cordial and, after our interview, listened attentively to my request for his assistance in securing an interview with President Sadat.

“Americans don’t know President Sadat at all and, as a result, they fear him and they fear your country,” I told the minister. “If your president is considering doing any interview, he would have no better forum than the
Today
show. Please ask him if I can come to Cairo to speak with him. Let me introduce him to the American people.”

Several weeks later, to my great pleasure, as Sadat had given no interviews to the American press, I got the green light. Well, half a green light. I would be welcome in Egypt, Ambassador Ghorbal told me, but President Sadat had not committed to the interview. The indication was that I’d get the interview—if Sadat liked me.

I left as soon as I could for Cairo, with a secret plan. I liked the Egyptians I’d met in Washington. I liked the Israelis I’d met in Israel and in Washington. To me they seemed in many ways very similar: strong, intelligent, and proud people. Yet, because their two countries existed in a perpetual state of war, they couldn’t even speak to each other. Egypt didn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist, so therefore the Israeli government didn’t exist either. On the Egypt Air flight to Cairo, I saw that Israel did not even appear on the airline’s map.