Golden (15 page)

As Election Day 1998 approached, Blagojevich had little to worry about. He was facing little-known attorney Alan Spitz, a Republican who worked on Flanagan's campaign two years earlier. Both major Chicago newspaper editorial boards endorsed Blagojevich for a second term, and in the heavily Democratic district, Blagojevich's campaigning was perfunctory.

Blagojevich's base was expanding. He had begun to solidify his relationship with Chris Kelly, the roofer he met outside Moran's a few years earlier. Kelly donated $1,500 to Blagojevich's congressional reelection campaign that year. So too had another Chicago developer he met, Antoin Rezko, who donated $1,000.

But the race in Illinois wasn't focused on Blagojevich. The state was in the midst of a campaign to elect a new governor, and the North Shore was electing a new representative in Congress to replace Sid Yates, who had served for forty-eight years. Jan Schakowsky, a state representative, was on her way to winning the congressional seat, but the race for governor was a tight-fought one between Republican George Ryan and Democrat Glenn Poshard.

A congressman from the downstate town of Marion, Poshard was struggling to get support in Chicago, where some traditional Democrats were leaning toward voting for Ryan because he was more liberal on social issues, including gun control, abortion, and gay rights. With just weeks to go before Election Day, Blagojevich offered to broker a meeting between Poshard and leaders of Chicago's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities, a key constituency in Blagojevich's congressional district. But minutes after the meeting started, it blew up in Poshard's face as the activists hammered him on his opposition to legislation banning discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. Poshard left the meeting red-faced as the activists proclaimed their support for Ryan. Blagojevich came out a winner just for setting up the meeting, but Poshard, who later lost to Ryan, felt double-crossed. It wouldn't be a betrayal he'd forget.

Just days after the election, Blagojevich had other quandaries with which to cope. The impeachment of President Clinton was ongoing in Washington. Blagojevich initially made noise about voting with Republicans in favor of launching the impeachment inquiry. He argued that Clinton's actions with Monica Lewinsky led to an erosion of his moral authority. Eventually, though, he sided with the losing Democrats who opposed the effort. Days after that, in early January 1999, his mother died at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center on Chicago's near West Side. She had heart problems and recently had developed cancer.

Millie's death hit Blagojevich hard. Services were held at Old Holy Resurrection Church of Palmer Square, where Rob and Rod had long ago attended services with their parents, both of whom were now gone. After her death, Blagojevich found a box of his childhood belongings at Millie's place, including his baby shoes with his name on them. He was in tears while talking with staffers. “Nobody loves you like your mother,” he repeated.

Though she was the more American of his two parents, Millie's service at Old Holy Resurrection was still filled with many traditional Serbian elements that made Blagojevich think more about his heritage and family, so a few months later when NATO forces engaged in heavy bombing in Serbia to stop Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's efforts to ethnically cleanse Kosovo, Blagojevich felt a need to somehow get involved.

A few months after beginning his second term, that opportunity arrived, and so too a chance for Blagojevich to make a name for himself on a national and even an international level.

On March 31, 1999, three US soldiers patrolling the Yugoslavian border with Macedonia were captured and being held as prisoners of war by President Milosevic's forces. As a Serbian American member of the House, Blagojevich wanted to lead a mission to Belgrade to have the men released. Blagojevich still knew the Serbian language and had made contacts in his father's homeland through Chicago's Serbian community. But he recognized he couldn't spearhead the mission by himself. One man from Chicago, though, could.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, the headline-seeking South Side civil rights icon, had found success in years past with similar mediation efforts. In 1990, he brought back about fifty Americans who had been stranded after Iraq left Kuwait. Six years earlier, he convinced Syrian leaders to release navy pilot Robert Goodman Jr., after he had been shot down over Lebanon. He also helped dozens of Americans and Cubans escape Fidel Castro's jails in Cuba.

Like most involved in Chicago politics, Blagojevich knew Reverend Jackson's reputation for having a taxing ego and taking credit for the work of others. But Blagojevich also heard Jackson had been unsuccessfully trying to meet with Milosevic. He decided Jackson's ability to command attention superseded his reputation for stealing all the glory.

On the floor on the House of Representatives, Blagojevich approached US Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. The two congressmen had become friendly since Blagojevich's election. Up-and-comer Illinois Democrats, Blagojevich
and Jackson Jr. often sat next to each other and chatted on airplanes shuttling them to and from Washington, DC. He asked “JJJ” if his father would be interested. “Absolutely,” the younger Jackson replied. “Call the Reverend.” As Blagojevich liked to tell the story years later, he paused dramatically for a moment with a quizzical look on his face. “You call your dad ‘Reverend?”

During their phone conversation, the elder Jackson indeed showed interest and in a matter of minutes turned the whole scenario back on Blagojevich and portrayed it almost like it was the Reverend's idea. “I want to take you with me,” Jackson told Blagojevich.

Officials with President Clinton's administration publicly opposed the idea. NATO had been bombing the nation, and the administration couldn't guarantee their safety. Blagojevich, Jackson, and a delegation of religious leaders pushed forward anyhow. Before the delegation's airplane landed, Blagojevich thought a great deal about how he had never been to his father's native country before and how he'd soon be walking the streets of Belgrade, much as his father did before being captured by the Nazis.

“This will be my first trip to the place my father came from. The last time my dad was there was in 1941, when Nazi bombs were falling on Belgrade,” he told the
Chicago Tribune's
Flynn McRoberts, who accompanied the group. “Now, decades later, I'm going there for the first time while American bombs are falling on a government that, in many cases, is resurrecting some of the Nazi tactics.”

Minutes after the delegation arrived, NATO warplanes knocked state television off the air. The group headquartered themselves at the Belgrade Hyatt on a Thursday and prepared for a meeting the following day with the soldiers and then, hopefully, Milosevic on Saturday.

When the meeting with Staff Sergeants Andrew Ramirez and Christopher Stone and Specialist Steven M. Gonzales occurred, it was punctuated by air raid sirens signaling the start of another NATO attack. The three soldiers told Jackson and Blagojevich this was only the second time they had seen one another since being captured four weeks earlier. They were being kept isolated at the Military Court of Belgrade.

Only Blagojevich and Jackson were allowed to meet the men, upsetting some of the religious leaders who had come along. But they delivered Bibles, some Chuckles candies, and three separate tape-recorded messages from their families. Blagojevich couldn't help cracking a joke, saying his position on military House committees authorized him to give them major pay raises.

The following day they met face-to-face with Milosevic. Sitting down in a formal room inside a palace in Belgrade, Jackson, Blagojevich, and others in the delegation listened as Milosevic complained about the media's portrayal of him and how nobody outside Serbia understood the national and cultural history. The delegation listened but tried to keep the powerful leader focused on the reason they had come so far: to bring back the three US soldiers.

Though Blagojevich's fluency in Serbian was invaluable, Jackson took a lead role in talking to Milosevic over three hours, trying to convince him to release the men as a sign of good faith. Jackson and Milosevic strolled through a garden, held hands, and prayed. Milosevic wanted guarantees from the delegation that if he released the soldiers the NATO bombing would stop. Jackson explained the delegation had no such authority. But Jackson said he would call US National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to let them know what was happening. When he did, Berger and Albright said NATO's military campaign remained unchanged. Still, there was a sliver of hope. Milosevic never outright said “no” to their request the soldiers be released.

The delegation headed back to the Hyatt. About an hour later, the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry called members of the delegation to ask them to head back to the minister's residence immediately. Jackson, Blagojevich, and three of the religious leaders raced in cars through the streets of Belgrade. They were greeted at the residence by Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic. “The government of Yugoslavia and President Milosevic have agreed,” he told them. “It's my pleasure to inform you that you can take your soldiers home with you.”

It was a stunning development. The mood in the room among the Americans was ebullient. Jackson soon greeted the three soldiers, who seemed amazed by the quick developments. The men stood with their arms behind their backs, and Jackson, in dramatic fashion, told them they were now free—and free to embrace one another. Jackson leaned against a lobby railing and wept openly, tears running down his face. Blagojevich saw the tears and the TV cameras rolling, catching the moment, and thought how good an actor Jackson was. “Total bullshit,” he said years later. “He just turns on the tears and turns them off.”

Days after Blagojevich got home from Kosovo, he and Patti finally found a home to buy in the congressional district he'd been representing for more than two years. Even though Blagojevich was elected to serve the Fifth Congressional District in 1996, he'd been living in the turn-of-the-century home he bought in 1994 on Logan Boulevard in the Logan Square neighborhood that was located in Fourth Congressional District. Though members of Congress are not required to live in the districts they represent, it was a political optics issue. During his primary run in 1996 versus Kaszak, Blagojevich was so worried that not living in the district would become a campaign issue that he and Patti temporarily moved into his mother Millie's apartment in the Fifth District and Millie moved into the Logan Boulevard home. To make sure she was safe there, Blagojevich had Cini live in the home with her.

Finally—on the corner of Richmond Street and Sunnyside Avenue—he and Patti found a house to call home in the Fifth. The Mediterranean-style, red brick bungalow was built in 1929 in the upper-middle-class Ravenswood Manor neighborhood. They paid $505,000 but took out a mortgage for $610,000 because Rod and Patti thought the eleven-room, three-bedroom home needed work. They wanted to move the bedrooms upstairs, and Blagojevich wanted to install a library that he was going to redesign specifically to his tastes.

It wasn't until October that Rod, Patti, and Amy moved in, but all the while Rod obsessed about the library. He asked staffers, friends, and even vague acquaintances their opinions about what he should do to decorate the room right off the foyer. He wanted bookshelves. Should they go all the way to the ceiling or only three-quarters high? What color should the walls be? What about decorations for the walls? Blagojevich became almost fanatical about the details, much more than he did about any legislation he was voting on in Washington. Blagojevich eventually decided: the bookshelves would go to the ceiling, the walls would be a dark red, and he would decorate his desk with a bust of Napoleon and his walls with pictures of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. He also bought scores of impressive-looking books to fill his new shelves.

“Now I guess I gotta read all these books, eh?” he joked as he flipped through book catalogues, picking out historical biographies.