What It Takes (121 page)

Boggs finally came out to meet him—just like Joe had dreamed: Joe and old Cale, toe-to-toe ... it was perfect. At one point... and this was the key, this was the ball game, High Noon ... they were face-to-face on stage, and some wise-ass asked a trick question about a treaty—the General Amnesty Treaty, or some such arcana. Joe happened to know what it was—he’d heard from Professor Dolan. But Boggs was confused. He stumbled around. Poor old guy looked terrible! So it came to Biden—and he
knew
—he could’ve
slammed
the guy ... but, no. That was the key. Joe knew exactly how he had to be. If the beloved sixty-three-year-old did not know what the General Amnesty Treaty was ... well, there was only one thing for a twenty-nine-year-old to say:

“Aw, I don’t know that one either ...”

That was the moment Joe knew he had him. It was destiny.

Boggs still had the papers—the
News
and
Journal
were owned by du Pont, and du Pont was the Republican Party. Boggs had a special insert planned ... but then, the papers got hit by a strike. No one would see any Boggs insert.

Boggs still had the big name, most of the unions, the machinable vote ... with cold rain forecast for Election Day—a low turnout—he could still pull it off. But then the wind blew fresh from the west, blew the rain out to sea, and Election Day came bright and clear, a
gorgeous
day ... there would be no low turnout.

And the kids were everywhere at the polls, or driving voters with their parents’ cars ... they’d come too far now to let one vote slip. And Joe was out all day, and Neilia, and Mom-Mom, and Mom-Mom’s friends. ... Val had the state wired like a war zone.

And still, when the polls closed, no one could know. The Bidens gathered at a pasta joint. Joe, Sr., came in early, hauled himself up on a bars tool and said, “Well, no one can say the kid didn’t run a good race ...” Even after dinner, they figured they’d better get to the hotel. Joe had insisted on the biggest ballroom in the state—the Hotel du Pont. What if it was empty? It’d look terrible if the family didn’t show up soon.

But the Bidens were the last people in. Fire marshals closed the doors. It looked like the whole state was there, cheering ... as the totals climbed, neck and neck, through the night ... until it was clear, at last: Biden had won, with a margin of three thousand votes.

It was the next day, Joe and Neilia were in the car, when he looked at her—God, her smile that day!—and said: “Something’s gonna happen ...

“I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s too perfect. Can’t be like this. Something’s gonna happen.”

Even when they got the call about Kinnock, no one was worried ... not about that. They had High Noon with Bork in four days.

Of course, the call was serious—the
Times
. Worse, it was Maureen Dowd. Rasky and Donilon knew the lineup: Dowd was the prima donna of the politics beat—whatever she wrote got play.

Still, it wasn’t Mayday. The way Maureen was asking about Joe’s close at the Iowa debate, it wasn’t like she was chasing a scandal. It was a tweak—a one-day tweak. Donilon got on the phone: “Maureen, we’re in the biggest Constitutional fight in fifty years, and you want to know whether Biden’s great-grandfather was a coal miner?”

Alas, Joe had no coal-miner forebears ... but he wasn’t worried. There must have been a hundred reporters at the fairgrounds, and
not one
asked about the close. Most of them had heard him do the Kinnock stuff before—with credit. For Chrissake, the
Times
had covered the Kinnock stuff—with credit ... when was that? Must have been a month ago! They had to get that story from their own paper—right? They had to see, he wasn’t trying to fool anyone. ...

Saturday, when the story hit, Ridley went to Union Station for the
Times
. He tore through it—every page—couldn’t find a word. Great, he thought, they’d held it for Sunday. Gonna be page 42. ... It wasn’t till he closed the paper, he saw the piece ... on the
front page
.

Joe was in Washington, with brother Jimmy, for the christening of Jimmy and Michele’s new daughter, Caroline Nicole. That was an event Joe would never miss. Blood of my blood, as Mom-Mom always said.

Jill was in Iowa—she was campaigning alone all the time now—and when she called, she was sky-high: the people-were so nice! (The ladies baked cookies, put them in her motel room!) They were glad to see her, they listened ... they understood why Joe couldn’t be there. They
wanted
him in Washington.
No one
was for Bork. ... “That’s great, honey,” Joe said. He only talked about the christening, little Caroline, and Jimmy’s party in the afternoon.

It was after the party, Jimmy and Michele flicked on the TV—CBS news with Connie Chung ... there was Joe ... and Kinnock. Shit, the story looked
awful
on TV. Ken Bode, on NBC, was worse. He ran the tape of Kinnock—then the same words from Joe ... more Kinnock ... then more Joe. It looked like Joe didn’t just steal the words, it looked like he ripped off Kinnock’s life!

Jimmy Biden had a nose for trouble, and for a brother’s need. He was on the phone to Joe’s house right away, and the next day, on his way to Wilmington.

It was Jimmy who got the call about Neilia, December 18, 1972. Joe and Val had gone to Washington, to interview staff. That month after the election was a whirlwind. There was a new life to make.

Joe had to people a new office in D.C., and one in Wilmington. He had to find a house in Washington—hey, he found a house! Hell of a deal!

The moving, of course, fell to Neilia. She had a ton of stuff to do, a list that never got shorter. She needed new beds—twins for the boys’ room, a double for the guest room, a double for the master bed, a dresser ... new rugs—green for the dining room, she knew exactly the shade, a deep oriental for the living room ... and she’d have the two green chairs reupholstered, and the Williamsburg chair, and she had to find a mirror and a table for the hall ... meanwhile, Christmas! Kids didn’t care about moving ... it was Christmas! So she got them all in the station wagon, Hunt in the front with her, Beau and baby Amy in the backseat, and drove off to shop. She was at a stop sign, just pulling out, when ...

The truck smashed into her side of the car and drove it sideways a hundred and fifty feet, finally off the road, backward, into an embankment, where it crashed into three trees and came to a stop.

People ran from the road.
Ambulance!
...

The car was so bad, they didn’t know who she was—until they saw the Biden brochures fluttering about the trees.

Jimmy took the call at the campaign office—a friend who worked with the state police. Neilia and the kids were in an accident—no information yet. They’re on their way to the hospital.

Jimmy called Senator Byrd’s office in Washington—was Joe there? No one knew where he was.

Then Jimmy heard it on the radio.
Jesus! Joe’s going to find out
... so he called Washington again, with a message: “Come home ... I’m on my way to the hospital.”

Jimmy got the state police to pick up his parents, to get Frankie out of school. He called the family doctor to meet them at the hospital—at least he’d take care of the parents. He called the Hunters’ doctor, in Syracuse, and told him to find Neilia’s folks, and call Jimmy back, when he was at their side.

Fifteen minutes later, Jimmy got to the hospital. People were starting to gather outside the emergency room—public and press. Jimmy told the cops to keep them out.

The doctors came out to find him: “We lost Neilia and the baby.”

The boys were still being worked on—broken hips, legs, arms. Beau was all cut up, and Hunter—concussion. Doctors weren’t sure ... brain damage possible. They’d have to transfer Hunt—another hospital, top pediatrics ... they had to get Beau into traction ... could Jimmy identify the bodies?

The family was all in the room when Joe burst in. One look, and Jimmy saw: Joe didn’t know.

Jimmy told him.

For a split second, Jimmy saw in his brother’s eyes that look—pleading. ... He just wanted Jimmy to tell him—no, it wasn’t so. A mistake. A mix-up. It was ... an instant—the only time he’d ever seen Joe helpless. Then Joe asked to see his boys.

Then, the fucking ghouls started to show.

Oh, they’re so sorry ...

Oh, they can’t believe it, it’s so awful ...

Someone who went to sewing class with Mom-Mom:

I understand ...

What the fuck do you understand? What the fuck did any of them know?

Joe went with Hunt in the ambulance, for the transfer. “I’m gonna be right with you, son.” Tests. X-rays. Skull fracture.

Then he was back, with Beau. Joe wasn’t leaving.

The Hunters came down, right away. They couldn’t accept. They had to see Neilia. Joe had to go with them. That was the worst. Jimmy went with Joe.

Jimmy stayed with Joe. It was raining. Hunt was back. They moved the boys to a private room. The boys’ legs were going into spasms. Shots, IVs, traction. Joe wouldn’t leave. He focused. The boys. This boy. His leg. Raise the bed. That lever. That cloth. Wet the cloth. ... His boys were all that was left.

Joe watched over his boys.

The family closed ranks around Joe.

What the fuck did anyone else know?

T
HEY DIDN’T DO BADLY
with the Kinnock story, considering. ... By Sunday, one day after, Rasky had a good spin going—the
Post
did a rebuttal on the
Times
, pointing out that Biden had credited the Kinnock stuff in a half-dozen speeches, all over the country.

Meanwhile, the story showed up in Iowa. David Yepsen, the big-foot-in-a-small-pond for
The Des Moines Register
, had done the piece same day as Dowd ... but Yepsen made sure to note: a tape (the “attack video,” he dubbed it) of Biden and Kinnock had been provided
by a rival campaign
. So Rasky was pushing that, too: Who would be so dastardly as to attack Joe Biden, Defender of the Constitution ... on the eve of the most important hearings of the century? ... Was White House skullduggery behind this?

In fact, Joe had told Jimmy, he thought the White House was bound to come after him, once it dawned on the Reaganauts that their beloved judge might go down the tubes.

And Caddell was stomping around Joe’s house—
sure
it was Shrum. Now that Doak and Shrum were working for Gephardt ...
come on!
... Wasn’t it just like that snake Shrum? He’d do
anything
to bleed Pat’s candidate.

Everybody was at the house for the big rehearsal, day before the hearings. Tribe was playing Bork in the ballroom again. They had Scott Miller, from David Sawyer’s firm, to work the videotapes ... watched by the committee staff, the campaign staff, the Wilmington staff, the family ... it looked like a wedding.

It was the finals of the U.S. Open that day, so between takes, everybody watched tennis. That day, a magazine had printed Gail Sheehy’s latest opus, a machine-gun attack on Gary Hart ... and everyone who’d ever known him. Hart had been out of the race for months—and she was still driving her heels into his skull. Joe couldn’t believe it.

“Shit, I mean, she says he was
lousy at tennis ... in high school
!”

But that wasn’t Biden’s life. People were
welcome
to look at Biden’s life. And they would! Ridley told Joe that day: “By the end of this week, you’re gonna be a household name in America.”

Joe said: “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Just joking.

They joked a lot that day, until dark—people were leaving—when Rasky got the call from
The San Jose Mercury News
. He called the reporter back from Joe’s kitchen phones.

The reporter asked:

What about these lines from the California speech? ... Weren’t those lifted? You know,
plagiarized
? They were straight from Bobby Kennedy!

They wanted character? They wanted to see what he was made of? ... Biden would show them. He and the staff jerked around the opening-day schedule so the chairman’s statement would come last—in the afternoon, when the networks were running live.

Meanwhile, let everybody else have his say. Alan Simpson, the Republican whip, started in on the process—how self-important we Senators are, as judges of the judges (when Simpson slips into his Will Rogers mode, he can aw-shucks the Senate for hours). “And, once in this room, unlike a defendant in a court of law, the nominee is not guaranteed any single right ...”

After that. Biden broke in, and in the span of fifteen seconds, he dispensed with complaints about his fairness—one smile and a jaunty wave of his gavel ... a gorgeous sound-bite:

“Judge Bork, I guarantee you that this little mallet is going to assure you
every single right
for you to make your views known ... as long as it takes, on
any
ground you wish to make them. That’s a guarantee [Biden smile]. So you do have rights in this room, and I will assure you they will be protected.”

Joe Biden, Defender of the Constitution! (And, lo, even its wayward disciples.) That bite showed up on the news that night, along with Biden’s noble prose about the God-given rights of mankind.

In the grand Senate Caucus Room, an echoing temple of marble pilasters and an acre of tables for the nation’s press, eyebrows raised as Biden laid it on ever thicker: the terrific respect Bork’s record inspired ... the awesome Constitutional scholarship that Bork’s writings bespoke ... the difficulty which the citizenry (and certainly a plain ol’ workin’ lawyer like
Joe Biden
) might have, following the elegant reason of Bork’s jurisprudence. ...

It was cloying. But as Biden swung into his questions, he knew
exactly
... how he had to be. He was the eager student, trying to understand—you know, in the common words ... why it was, that the venerated judge ... (“I’m not trying to be picky here; I mean, clearly, I don’t want to get into a debate with a
professor
, but...”)
why
did Bork think it was okay to put cops in our bedrooms?

Why
did Bork say a married couple had no more right to be free in their bed than a company had to be free of pollution laws?