Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked (47 page)

PREFACE

since General Washington and Pierre L’Enfant
: The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, ed. Theodore J. Crackel (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008), June 28, 1791.

“What both men deplored”
: Thomas P. O’Neill III,
New York Times,
October 5, 2012.

CHAPTER ONE
: DEATH OF A PRESIDENCY

In the final weeks of the Carter presidency I wrote an account of the campaign’s final days. I wanted to show the drama of that short bit of time between the debate, which Reagan clearly won, and the president’s desperate scramble to avoid defeat in the election. This provided me with a useful contemporary record of the events described here.

“You will call him an actor”
: Author conversation with Gerald Rafshoon.

“I am paying for this microphone”
: Cannon,
President Reagan,
p. 47.

Choosing a new campaign manager
: Ibid., pp. 47–48.

It had been in 1940
: Ibid., p. 54.

“The president lately has been saying”
: Reagan speech, Neshoba, Miss., August 3, 1980.

“Can anyone look at the record”
: Reagan speech, Republican National Convention, July 17, 1980.

“I’m here
because
”
: Reagan speech, Liberty State Park, September 1, 1980.

“There you go again”
: Reagan-Carter presidential debate, October 28, 1980.

“any attack on an embassy”
: U.S. Department of State.

ramped up his attack on Reagan
: Carter speech, Akron, Ohio, November 3, 1980.

“How many of you”
: Carter speech, Seattle, November 3, 1980.

CHAPTER TWO
: STARTING OUT

This is my personal backstory, the prelude to my involvement with the Reagan-O’Neill rivalry. Because they formed such an important part of my life, they are memories with deep footprints. They are hard examples of how each step a person takes becomes the course set for the next as well as the prerequisite for getting to take it.

Each of the roles I’ve played since leaving my beloved Chapel Hill—those unforgettable two years in Swaziland, my five years working for the Senate and then four years in the White House—now reside in the public record. It is a salutary benefit of service in the U.S. government.

Most important to me, these early career experiences serve as a sturdy foundation for my daily commentary on American politics and government.

CHAPTER THREE
: STARRING RONALD REAGAN

“If you live in the river, you should make friends with the crocodiles”
: Indian proverb.

Among its bullet points
: Cannon,
President Reagan,
p. 93.

On the eve of
:
MOH,
p. 26.

In 1936, at the age
: Farrell,
Tip O’Neill,
pp. 66–69.

So it was in 1949
: Ibid., p. 107.

“We find him very”
:
Boston Globe,
February 12, 1981.

“the admiral of the ship”
: TPO, November 12, 1980.

“the proper course”
: Ibid.

“Tip is a very practical”
:
United Press International,
November 6, 1980.

“Hannibal Jerkin”
: Farrell,
Tip O’Neill,
p. 452.

“I don’t intend to allow”
: TPO, November 12, 1980.

Reagan had been nursing
: Reeves,
President Reagan,
p. 11.

“Why should I have done”
: Gerald and Deborah Hart Strober,
Reagan: The Man and His Presidency
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), p. 131.

He and Nancy first
:
Washington Post,
November 19, 1980.

“Like Jimmy Carter”
: James Baker with Steve Fiffer,
Work Hard, Study . . . and Keep Out of Politics!
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006), p. 137.

“I knew that President Reagan”
: James Baker with Thomas M. DeFrank,
The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), p. 334.

“I’ve known every speaker”
: “Transcript: Richard Nixon/Frank Gannon Interview, June 10, 1983,” Walter J. Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries.

“We were particularly”
: Author interview with James Baker.

“He’d been aware of all that”
: Author interview with Max Friedersdorf.

Exactly two weeks
: TPO, November 18, 1980.

“When President-elect Reagan”
:
MOH,
pp. 331–32.

“He told me how”
: Ibid., p. 332.

“The president-elect seemed to”
: Ibid., p. 333.

“ ‘Absolutely, Mr. President’ ”
: Ibid.

“Reagan was proud”
: Ibid., p. 332.

“He seemed genuinely surprised”
: Ibid.

“My father didn’t get”
: Author conversation with Tom O’Neill.

warmest oath-taking day on record
:
http://www.inaugural.senate.govswearing-in/event/ronald-reagan-1981
.

Later he’d ask
: Reeves,
President Reagan,
p. 2.

“the adversary relationships”
: Reagan Toast at the Inaugural Luncheon, January 20, 1981.

“I look forward to working”
: Ibid.

“With thanks to Almighty God”
: Ibid.

Before leaving the Capitol
: Farrell,
Tip O’Neill,
p. 547.

“Government is not the solution”
: Reagan Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981.

CHAPTER FOUR
: NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

“Civility is not a sign of weakness”
: John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.

“It won’t be the last time”
:
Christian Science Monitor,
November 20, 1980.

By January’s end
: Cannon,
President Reagan,
p. 83.

“The first fundamental”
: Ibid., p. 84.

“The second fundamental”
: Ibid.

For his part
:
MOH,
p. 336.

“so clearly preposterous”
: Ibid., p. 337.

“Surely everybody could see”
: Ibid.

In early February
: Reagan Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981.

“I’m speaking to you tonight”
: Ibid.

“Last night, he was carefully”
:
Washington Post,
February 6, 1981.

“He comes across beautifully”
:
New York Times,
February 7, 1981.

Included in a White House
: RR, February 6, 1981.

Not long after this
: RR, February 16, 1981.

Among the others on hand
: Ibid.

“Maybe Tip & I”
: Ibid.

“There are times when real life”
:
MOH,
p. 27.

“He’s a terrific storyteller”
: Ibid., p. 334.

It had, according to
: Author interview with Max Friedersdorf.

“We didn’t discuss”
: TPO, February 17, 1981.

That afternoon the Speaker’s
: RR, February 17, 1981.

“Tip had last word”
: Ibid.

“by 77 to 17 percent”
:
Washington Post,
February 19, 1981.

“I have been up here”
: TPO, February 17, 1981.

“With a Republican in”
:
MOH,
p. 340.

“And with Jimmy Carter”
: Ibid.

Two nights after
: Reagan Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery, February 18, 1981.

“A few weeks ago”
: Ibid.

“I would direct a question”
: Ibid.

In the White House meetings
:
MOH,
p. 360.

“You want to talk to him”
: Author interview with James Baker.

“How about this?”
: Author conversation with Richard Allen.

CHAPTER FIVE
: JOINING THE FIGHT

“I’ve learned that people only pay attention to what they discover for themselves”
:
Pretty Poison,
1968.

When Reagan’s top lobbyist
: Author conversation with Max Friedersdorf.

“tremendously strong”
: TPO, February 24, 1981.

“I don’t know how many”
: Ibid.

honeymoon was “wearing thin”
: Ibid., March 4, 1981.

Asked in early March
: TPO, March 4, 1981.

“We are not ready to play”
: Ibid.

“What I am curious of”
: Ibid.

“We haven’t communicated”
: Ibid., March 11, 1981.

“He was very persuasive”
: Author interview with Susan O’Neill.

“As you know”
: TPO, January 29, 1980.

“Nobody Knows What Happened to McCarty”
: Farrell,
Tip O’Neill,
pp. 4–5.

“I was convinced”
:
Mott,
p. 344.

“You’ve made my day”
:
Washington Post,
March 6, 1981.

“We have undone”
: UPI, March 19, 1981.

CHAPTER SIX
: THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD

“I do not know that in our time”
: Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, remarks on the Senate floor, April 2, 1981.

The young Jerry Parr
: Del Quentin Wilber,
Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan
(New York: Henry Holt, 2011), p. 18.

When he was nine
: Ibid.

The nine-year-old
: Ibid.

In 1962, at the age of
: Ibid.

Over the following years
: Ibid., p. 19.

In March 1981
: Ibid., p. 21.

Determined to make Foster
: Ibid., pp. 36–39, 54–58.

Since a central plotline
: Ibid., p. 37.

On March 30, 1981
: Ibid., p. 77.

“I hope you’ll forgive”
: Reagan Remarks at the National Conference of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO.

As soon as he’d finished
: Wilber,
Rawhide Down,
pp. 76–80.

“Let’s get out of here”
: Ibid., p. 83.

“My day to address”
: RR, March 30, 1981.

Here’s White House detail
: Parr FBI report, March 31, 1981.

Suddenly Agent Parr
: Wilber,
Rawhide Down,
p. 90.

“Okay”
: Ibid., p. 91.

Barely three minutes
: Ibid., p. 95.

“Honey, I forgot to”
: Ibid., p. 138.

Within a week
: Reeves,
President Reagan,
p. 48.

Baker learned
: Letter to author from Max Friedersdorf.

“Jim called me with”
: Ibid.

“I was in the room”
: Ibid.

“The president still seemed groggy”
: Ibid.

“ ‘I’d better be going’ ”
: Ibid.

“I suspect that in”
:
MOH,
p. 336.

The week before the shooting
: RR, March 21, 1981.

“I looked up at the presidential”
: Reagan,
An American Life,
p. 254.

CHAPTER SEVEN
: RONALD REAGAN’S JOURNEY

“Go West, young man”
: Fred R. Shapiro, ed.,
The Yale Book of Quotations
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 322.

in Tampico, Illinois
: Marc Eliot,
Reagan
:
The Hollywood Years
(New York: Crown Archetype, 2008), p. 13.

Over the next seven years the Reagans moved five times in Illinois
: Lou
Cannon,
Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power
(New York: Public Affairs, 2003), p. 12.

nicknamed “Dutch”
: Eliot,
Reagan,
13.

was nine
: Cannon,
Governor Reagan,
p. 12.

Now they moved again
: Ibid.

His father, Jack, a salesman
: Ibid., p. 11.

Neil Reagan
: Ibid.

Jack Reagan drank too much
: Ibid.

“the Irish curse”
: Cannon,
President Reagan,
p. 176.

Reagan would write
: Ronald Reagan,
An American Life: The Autobiography
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 33.