What It Takes (137 page)

Elizabeth came over to Gloria’s. She was hungry again. Gloria fixed her some chicken noodle butterball. When Elizabeth finished, she said, “That shore was good!” And Gloria said, “Cherry pie?”

“Whah, yes!” (Gloria never could figure why that woman didn’t weigh three hundred pounds.)

That’s when Gloria got to ask how Bob was—she asked Elizabeth ... who said Bob was just
saying
, the other day, how pleased he was to be coming home to Russell. Elizabeth was sure the welcome had touched Bob’s heart.

Gloria was going to doll up and go to Bob’s party at the VFW that night—they were going to show Bob’s new video. But when the time came, Gloria didn’t feel well. ... Aunt Gladys got everybody in her house together—she had ten in tow—got them out to the VFW. But by nine, when she arrived, she couldn’t get in the door.

People were backed up from the door of the hall. It was dark inside. Everyone was watching the video. It was spectacular—all about Bob’s childhood, and Russell, Bina and Doran ... Bob went off to war, and came back, just broken bones and heart ... he picked himself up, and never forgot ... and by the end of the film, when he’s running for President, standing in a cornfield, making a speech, with the cornstalks eight feet tall around him, and that wonderful music welling up under his words—when he talked of opportunity, freedom, our future ... you were guaranteed to end up crying if you knew Bob, or his folks, or the town—or even if you didn’t, you felt like you did. Even the reporters stopped talking (there were hundreds staying over that night—some had to sleep in Hays). The people from Washington—staff and smart guys—you could almost see it dawn on them: this stuff they’d been
saying
, Dole and the heartland, small-town, hardworking ... it was
real
, here it
was
, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post Number 6240, Russell, Kansas ... they were
in
it! And as the lights came up, everybody was talking at once—wasn’t that
great
! Did you see that picture of Bob, so
skinny
! ... And people who knew him, even slightly, felt they were
part of something,
something great
was happening
—no one left the hall ... except Bob and Elizabeth (who had to go, so Kenny took them) and Gladys—she got in the back door, saw all those strangers, and just went home.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” said Dave Owen—first at the microphone on Main Street, early that Monday. “Good morning, and welcome to Russell, Kansas!” There was a cheer from the big crowd, shivering in shadow. The sun still hadn’t peeked over Banker’s Mercantile, to the left of the stage. The wind was blowing straight down Main Street, the temperature was in the twenties, the air was frozen clear.

Up on stage, behind Dave Owen, stood Chuckie Grassley from Iowa, Bill Brock, Bob Ellsworth, and every Republican official from Kansas. To the right of the stage stood the Russell High School Bronco Pops Choir, which warmed up with its choral rendition of “Twist and Shout.” Then the emcee, Russ Townsley, got the mike and boomed out:

“Boy! On a morning like this, does
anybody
have any doubt they’re in Kansas?”

Behind Russ, Doran Dole’s old grain elevator was the first building to catch the sun. From the top of the tanks, a banner announced:
RUSSELL, KANSAS, HOME OF BOB DOLE.
Townsley was in a transport of local pride. “I say, ‘
Hey, America
!’ ” he yelled. “ ‘
You take a good look at who we are
!’ ”

Russ introduced Larry Ehrlich, Chairman of the Russell County GOP, who said: “We
know
he’s going to make it ...” Then Bob’s old friend and opponent, the gentlemanly former Governor, Bill Avery, stepped up to talk about three icons of Kansas Republicanism: Huck Boyd, Alf Landon, and Dwight Eisenhower. The Russell High School Bronco Marching Band followed up with a fight song, and the kids in the bleachers were waving little flags, as the sunshine, at last, lit them in sharp glare. Cheerleaders cued them:

“Go Bob go!

“Go Bob go!

“Eatem up! Eatem up!

“Go Bob go!”

When the band swung into “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” the Bobster emerged from Dawson Drug, stage right, and climbed onto the platform. He was wearing a gray topcoat and red power tie, and was bouncing to the music like Bob Crosby of the Bobcats. Elizabeth was splendid in purple. Robin matched entirely, in rose.

Russ Townsley read out the telegram received in Russell, in May of 1945. “The Secretary of War wants me to express our deep regret ...” Then, Bub Dawson was on stage: “If I can take you back forty-two years ...” Bub talked about the collection for Bob. “There was a cigar box on the counter,” Bub said, “with Bob Dole’s name on it.”

Then ...
Bub produced the cigar box
—the relic of the passion play!

But this time, the box contained
one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars
... from Russell, Kansas ... for Bob’s campaign.

The band played “God Bless America,” an up-tempo rendition—fast, in fact—it was still cold as hell. Nancy Kassebaum, Dole’s Senate colleague from Kansas (and daughter of the icon Alf Landon), had the honor of introducing Bob. “In a real sense ...” she noted (no flies on Nancy!), “... Russell is what this campaign is about.”

And when she said the name, kids screamed “Dole! Dole! Dole! Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!” and the band let loose with “Step to the Rear (and Let a Winner Lead the Way)” ... and there was the Bobster, in front now, with a smile of fierce elation, bouncing to the music, swinging his arm—bringing on the action!

Lord, what a story! An American Everyman drama for our age! And not done yet—no! Bob had a speech to make ... but first, his part in the drama:

There was a woman who’d traveled with him to Russell, Sophie Vavlety, a strange Park Avenue New Yorker who was in love with Bob Dole, and everything he touched. She gave her fur coat to the Mayor’s wife at the airport. She gave Kenny a lambswool Italian scarf, and Anita a silk kimono. She gave two dresses to Doris Henderson, the owner of Russell’s Country Squire Motel. Sophie was an emblem of Bob Dole’s new world, which he’d brought back to Russell. Now Bob called the Mayor to the stage and presented, from Sophie Vavlety:

A $10,000 check for the poor of Russell, Kansas.

Well ...

Bob still had to speak ... but what was left to say?

What were
words
about opportunity, compared to this allegory-in-life of righteous GOP redemption? ... What were prosy visions for the nation’s next four years, compared to the miraculous
fact
of Dole’s life—his
future
—sun-sharp and solid as the bricks on Main Street?

I
T DAWNED ON DOLE
only slowly that he’d have to fight for his life—when Watergate burst open like a bad cantaloupe, when everything around him turned foul, all at once.

It wasn’t that Watergate snuck up on him. He didn’t try to wish it away, or deny its import ... not anymore. Once he’d left the Party chair, there was no Republican more vocal, more candid about the scandal. Dole saw the cover-up killing Nixon’s Presidency, and he knew Republicans would suffer, at the polls. Still, it was a stomach-turning shock to him—an affront—when they came at
him
, in Kansas!

It started with Norbert Dreiling, “Mr. Democrat,” from Hays. Dole showed up in Kansas, around the turn of the year, 1974, for the first quiet
ta-rappa-tap-tap
of his reelection soft-shoe ... and Norb was already slamming him with the portentous question:

What did Dole know, and when did he know it?

Either Dole was
culpable of knowing
(and was, therefore, like his President, an unindicted coconspirator) ... or Dole (the National Chairman!) was
unaware, out of the loop
(therefore, impotent, imbecilic) ... which would Bob have us believe?

Dole was so enraged by this line of inquiry that he threatened to
sue
... at which point Norb, a lawyer by trade and a brawler by temperament, replied in every Kansas paper: “Let him file his damn suit! Then he can answer the question under oath!”

Only the mildest stuff made it into the papers. As usual, in Kansas, the real poison spread by word of mouth. People would take Dole aside, after events—these were supporters!—and quietly, half-ashamed, ask if it was true, what they heard:

“Bob, they say the burglars kept their tools at your apartment!”

Sure, that one was easy to knock down—Dole wasn’t renting at the Watergate until the year after the burglary. But how could he tell that to the thousands who
didn’t
ask? ... As usual, Dole feared the things people would not say.

For instance, the divorce: no one brought it up with Dole. But
everybody knew
, of course, how Bob dumped that gal, Phyllis—you know, when he went fancy-pants, with Nixon ... just as they knew that Phyllis was
his nurse
... nursed him back
from the dead
... now he didn’t need her anymore, he ... well, people knew how
that
went, with men. (Prob’ly got some chippy in that
Watergate
—
everybody
knew about
that
place!)

There was no way Dole could silence the whispers.

No more than he could shut down the standard Kansas whine: Bob Dole had been National Chairman—must not
care about Kansas
anymore. (Maybe that Dole’s gettin’ too big for his britches!)

He couldn’t stop the cover-up from ruining his patron-President ... any more than he could stop Jerry Ford from issuing his pardon. (Someone asked Dole, after the pardon, whether he’d get campaign help from Ford. “I think Ford’s given me ’bout all the help I can stand,” Dole said.)

There was no way he could stop the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from naming Kansas—him!—as a “vulnerable target” ... sending money to fuel his opponent—his
respected
opponent, the Topeka physician and two-term Congressman, Bill Roy ... any more than Dole could forestall Dr. Roy from stumping the state (to increasing approbation) for “integrity in government” and an “independent Senator for Kansas.”

What could Dole do?

Well, he could use his new national connections to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars ... which he could spend for
professional help
—high-tech consultants! He hired a Campaign-Manager-guru named Herb Williams (“Agh! Pretty
good
—guy worked for
Dann-
forth!”) ... Dole got a fast-talking pollster, Tully Plesser; a top-notch adman, Jack Connors, from Boston. ... Dole had airplanes to fly him around the state—or
choppers
! ... He would spare no effort, or expense.

Which made it all the more depressing, through that long summer of ’74, as Dole’s high-tech campaign ground to a bitter standstill in Kansas. The consultants couldn’t get along with the Kansans. Herb Williams proved he could handle a flowchart, rent offices, hire staff; he could denounce everyone else’s ideas as bullshit, rend the air with a blue streak of oaths, work everyone around him to a frazzle, and spend a fortune—for nothing—or at least without benefit to Dole. (And Dole, of course, couldn’t fire him—never fired anybody!) The highly creative admen in Boston had yet to produce a single ad. (They did design a handsome tabloid—printed tens of thousands—but they spelled Wichita
Witchita
, so those landed in the trash.) And Dr. Bill Roy (who began as an unknown in four-fifths of the state) drew even in the polls, and then pulled ahead, by five points, ten ... by
thirteen points
(in Dole’s own pricey polls!).

Dole knew, by that time, he was in a fight for his life. But he seemed like a boxer who’d been punched woozy in the ring. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d got there ... or what the hell to do to get out ... he didn’t seem to have any plan, any will, to pull out of his swoon tomorrow, next week ... at any point in the future!

Dole couldn’t convince himself that he had any future at all.

George Bush thought he deserved some consideration, some future. God knows, he’d paid his dues. Everywhere he went, there were people who thought he was mixed up in that mess—people couldn’t keep all the names straight—Haldeman, Colson ... Ehrlichman, Dean, Stans, Butterfield ... Bush! ... But that was over, thank God.

Ford was President now. Ford was a friend.

Gerald Ford had to pick a Vice President.

This wasn’t something Bush dreamed up. He was encouraged to consider the job. People who were close to the President—very close—told him ... no guarantees, but everyone agreed it made sense. George Bush had friends in a hundred nations, from his days at the UN ... friends all over the country from his term at the RNC—State Committeemen, County Chairmen ... friends in Congress, strength in Texas—he could help Ford all across the South ... he was a seasoned pol, but just a month or two out of his forties—Bush was the future of the Party. He’d make a hell of a Veep!

In fact, this wasn’t the first time Bush had been considered. Back in ’68 his name had come up, when Nixon got the nomination in Miami. Bush’s friend, Dick Moore, brought the name up at a meeting ... but Bush was only a first-term Rep; Nixon thought he needed seasoning.

In ’73, when Agnew copped a plea in a Baltimore courtroom, Dick Moore was once again at Nixon’s side. ... What about George Bush? Hell of a guy! Hell of a résumé! ... Nixon thought Bush wasn’t tough enough. Nice fellow—Nixon always liked his dad—but George was, maybe, too nice (not “one of us” to Nixon and his crowd), an Ivy Leaguer, through and through. Nixon was so surprised to hear that Bush was captain of the Yale ball team! ... Really?
Bush?

Anyway, Nixon took Jerry Ford ... but things worked out for Bush.
Now
... his time had come. Good things happen to good people. Loyalty and patience could not fail to bring rewards.

Not that Bush was going to lie back, let nature run its course ... no. He did what he could:

From the chairmanship of the RNC, it was an easy matter to poll the National Committee (just for the President’s information, understand).

Behold! The favorite, nationwide, of Republican Committeemen and women was ... George Bush!