Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America (69 page)

T
IME WAS OF THE
essence for the Dream Ticket, which only added insanity to the already hectic convention schedule. As Reagan aide Neal Peden recalled, conventions are always “a blur of faces. People just go ‘vroom’ around you day and night.”
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Now the Reagan and Ford camps worked furiously to come up with a proposal that would be acceptable to both sides.
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Ford's men—Greenspan; Kissinger; John Marsh, a former Ford White House aide; and Bob Barrett, Ford's former military aide, who was in way over his head—aggressively pursued the deal.
Reagan's men were more passive. Casey “was insisting it didn't make a difference” who Reagan chose, although at other times he was pushing for Ford. Meese “was prepared to do anything Mr. Reagan wanted.”
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Peter Hannaford was pulled into the mess, too, even though he was hard at work on Reagan's acceptance speech for the next night. Peter Rusthoven, whose writings in the
American Spectator
Hannaford had taken note of, had been asked to join the convention writing team to help contribute to the crafting of the speech. Rusthoven was also editing the daily newsletter of the convention.
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The ultracautious Hannaford drafted a statement for Reagan, half announcing, half imploring that Ford should go on the ticket with him.
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It was unclear whether the swirling rumors were pushing the deal or whether it was the other way around. All anybody talked about at the convention was the Dream Ticket. Reporters chased down gossip from delegates and Reagan and Ford staffers, who in turn passed what they heard from reporters along to other staffers and reporters, which started the whole process over again. It was a gigantic Rashomon effect, where one person might convey only partially correct information to another, who in turn would pass along just a fraction of what he'd really heard but would fill in the details with more speculation. The phrase “Well, I heard …” echoed throughout the convention.

All the GOP's careful convention preparations were thrown out the window. From the standpoint of convention planners, the day was an utter disaster. Reagan's private schedule said he would call at 9:45
P.M.
“1. VP nominee. 2. Former President Ford. 3. Other VP nominee candidates.”
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Then Reagan was to proceed to the hotel of his running mate. That plan had gone all to hell.

I
N THE NOT-SO-SECRET MEETINGS
high atop the Detroit Plaza Hotel, variously on the sixty-eighth, sixty-ninth, and seventieth floors, the Ford high command happily and the Reagan high command now less so began to slice up the White House, the cabinet, and apparently the Constitution.

The proposal as it evolved over just a few short hours called for Ford to act as a super-empowered chief of staff and Reagan as a benign chairman of the board. All information for Reagan would flow through Ford, and Reagan's White House staff would have to go through Ford first. The proposal also gave Ford veto power over Reagan's cabinet choices, The proposal gave Ford the authority over the budget, the Domestic Council, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, and the State Department—where Ford insisted that Kissinger be reinstalled. There would also be a “mutual veto” scheme.
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Left untouched at this point was the White House gardener, but who knew?

The deal in the works essentially emasculated Reagan and would have made him seem what he wasn't but what his critics charged he was: an empty suit who just sat there while Ford and his cronies really ran the government. A joke was already making the rounds that Reagan would be “acting president” from nine to five and Ford would be president before nine, after five, and on weekends. Jim Baker could only watch the insanity from the sidelines. He mirthfully wondered how Ford would be addressed. Would it be “Mr. President–Vice President” or “Mr. Vice President–President”?
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As the day wore on, Reagan's men experienced more and more doubts. They began to believe that they were being snookered by Kissinger and Company, and wondered whether Ford really knew what his team was pushing for. Timmons had already typed up several iterations of what later became known as the “Treaty of Detroit,” although at the time the documents were referred to benignly as “talking points.”
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The first several drafts were quite specific regarding the proposed new duties and power for a Ford vice presidency, but Reagan's men then produced their own, newer scheme, which was far vaguer and spoke only in generalities about the parameters of the agreement. Ford's negotiators pushed for more talks, hoping to wear down their counterparts, and a kind of shuttle diplomacy took place between the various floors of the Detroit Plaza Hotel.

What had started out as a show of good manners to some and a bad joke to others had evolved into a serious offer by Reagan to Ford. But neither of them knew that their staffs were running amok, especially the Ford staff.

Ford was physically tired and impatient with the whole nonsense. He pleaded with his staff, “I've done the whole sled run.… I'll campaign for the ticket in the fall. But don't ask me to do this.” Yet he also said that if he was going to do this, it would not be as a regular vice president.
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Ford was giving conflicting signs even to his own team; they decided to interpret only the ones they agreed with, and kept negotiating hard.

Some of Ford's aides wondered why he kept sending mixed signals. The answer was that Ford was a competitive SOB. Ever since losing to Jimmy Carter in 1976, he had seethed over his defeat. He felt he'd done much to heal the country and the economy, which had been staging a comeback of sorts in 1976, but he'd never gotten a clean shot at his own term of office.

On one hand, Ford really liked being an ex-president. As one of two living former Republican presidents—the other in hiding and reviled—Ford was now beloved, and he enjoyed the creature comforts that came with the high honor. On the other hand, he'd always wanted another crack at Carter. To run in the primaries
would have meant stepping off his pedestal, so he hoped his nascent draft committee would develop momentum. He was surprised and disappointed when it didn't, and had a hard time letting go of his dream when it became clear that his old nemesis Reagan was on his way to the nomination.
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When Reagan first presented his idea, Ford understandably demurred.
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He'd been second banana once before and did not want to go through that thankless hell again, having neither authority nor responsibility. According to his former chief of staff Dick Cheney, Ford “hated … those nine months he was vice president under Nixon.”
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It made Ford gag to think of once more having to defend someone else's policies, as he'd been forced to do as Nixon sank in the quagmire of Watergate.

But as the “co-presidency” power pot became sweeter and sweeter, Ford listened more and more. Marty Schram of the
Washington Post
nailed it: “The portrait of the former president moving toward his onetime foe … as revealed in interviews with a number of the principals involved, is a picture of a man wrestling the conflicting forces of pride, responsibility and ambition … a man keeping a hectic schedule with little sleep … who allows himself to be nudged and finally budged by advisers whose motives ranged from patriotic duty to party loyalty to personal career gains.”
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G
EORGE
B
USH STARTED OUT
Wednesday morning thinly hoping that he'd get the phone call asking him to go on the ticket.
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He didn't know then that informal conversations had already begun between Ford's men and Reagan's men. Bush had read the stories of the past several months about the Reagans' concerns about him, yet many running mates in the past hadn't gotten along. Just ask anybody in the Kennedy family what JFK really thought of Lyndon Johnson. Politics, Bush knew, was about compromise and finding common ground. That's how you won elections.

Yet as the morning wore on and talk of the Dream Ticket drifted up to Bush's suite on the nineteenth floor of the Pontchartrain Hotel, Bush grew testy. He became convinced that Reagan and Ford would run together, which didn't help his mood as he prepared for his speech that evening. It seemed as if all forces were arrayed against Bush: the Reagans, the conservatives, the politicians, the media—and now apparently Ford, who had previously touted Ambassador Bush in two meetings with Reagan.

Jim Baker's aide Margaret Tutwiler was so distraught by the Ford buzz that she called her wealthy father from a pay phone outside the convention hall, asking him to send a plane ticket for her. She'd been the second person hired by Bush for his presidential run, and after more than two years, she was exhausted.
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H
AND-PAINTED SIGNS BEGAN APPEARING
on the floor of Joe Louis Arena proclaiming “Ron and Jerry.” Just as quickly, a manufactured sign declaring “Reagan-Bush” disappeared. Reagan and Ford met again around 5:30
P.M.
with no conclusive results, but all reported that it had gone well between the two men.
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By this point, Ford was under unrelenting pressure from his fellow Republicans to join the ticket. Bob Dole saw Ford after the former president's afternoon meeting with Reagan and told everybody “the deal was on.”
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Dick Allen passed Ford and his Secret Service escort in the hall as he made his way to Reagan's suite. He walked into a quiet room, where Casey, Hannaford, Meese, and Wirthlin were sitting on a large “U-shaped couch, hushed,” Allen later remembered. Allen had stopped by to see whether Reagan needed anything before heading over to the convention hall. Reagan said, “No, but thanks,” and then asked Allen, “What do you think of the Ford deal?” Allen, startled, said, “What deal?” Reagan responded, “Ford wants Kissinger as secretary of state and [Alan] Greenspan at Treasury.” Spluttering, Allen said, “That is the craziest deal I have ever heard of.”
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Lyn Nofziger stopped by just before 6
P.M.
and Reagan matter-of-factly told him about the Ford proposal. Forty minutes later, Kissinger came by for a private chat with Meese.
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At 7
P.M.
, an old friend and adviser of Reagan's dropped by his suite and was surprised to find Reagan dining alone, quietly looking out the picture window at the view of the Detroit River. Reagan told his friend: It's Ford.
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Allen believed that the only logical choice for Reagan was Bush. He reached out to Stefan Halper, a second-tier Bush aide who had been handling foreign policy and research. Halper, like the other Bush folks, was becoming convinced that the Dream Ticket was a reality, but Allen told him that if it wasn't, his man had to be prepared to tell Reagan he supported the entire platform, including dropping his opposition to the tax cuts and the pro-life plank. Halper took it under advisement.
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J
UST AFTER THE EVENING'S
procedures got under way, Ford dithered once again, this time leaning toward the Dream Ticket in front of millions of Americans. He did a television interview on CBS with Walter Cronkite at 7:15
P.M.
and said, “If I go to Washington, and I'm not saying that I'm accepting, I have to go there with the belief that I would play a meaningful role, across the board.”
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He added, “I have to have responsible assurances.”
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Ford was negotiating with Reagan on national television, with Cronkite in essence brokering the deal by specifically asking about a co-presidency.

News of Cronkite's interview with the former president caused a wave of jubilation throughout the hall. As far as the delegates were concerned, the Dream Ticket was now a fact. “A palpable euphoria swept through Joe Louis Arena, television speeding it along like a hot wind pushing a hungry fire,” wrote Peter Boyer of the Associated Press.
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All that was needed now was for Reagan to accede to Ford's demands and the delegates could get on with the coronation.

In Reagan's suite, the feeling could be described as less than euphoric. Everyone was genuinely astonished that Ford did not balk when Cronkite mentioned a co-presidency. Allen said that Reagan was “appalled.”
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Wirthlin concurred, saying that Reagan exclaimed, “Did you hear what he just said?”
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Reagan himself later confided that the Cronkite interview forced him to wonder what the hell he'd gotten himself into. “Wait a minute,” he recalled thinking, “this is really two presidents he's talking about.”
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George Bush's team was just as shocked by the Cronkite interview. When Ford said that pride would not stop him and Mrs. Ford from going back to Washington as an “executive vice president” or “deputy president,”
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Bush aide Vic Gold blew up at the television. “Pride!” Gold screamed. “What the fuck does he know about pride, that horse's ass!”
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Ford later conducted a similar interview with Barbara Walters of ABC and upped the ante. “I was a vice president and I had problems,” he told Walters.
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To get Ford to agree to the last-minute interview, Walters, practically crying, had repeatedly begged and pleaded with the former president.
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Network reporters were out of control. It was a media riot, and “the relentless speculation and pursuit of the rumors by network ‘floor reporters’ seemed to create a life of their own,” as the
New York Times
observed at the time.
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