What It Takes (84 page)

Bush wasn’t shouting now, and he talked to Martin for a half-hour straight, about what the campaign meant to him. He talked about his father, how he’d served ... how George felt that’s why he was here: to serve ... and about the notion of duty, courage ... and what was
right
, what was
right in this country
... how it must be protected ... that’s why George had to serve.

And Martin, who loved Bush anyway, was moved: it made him feel
good
,
clean
,
excited
to be doing something like this. So he said to Bush:

“Why don’t you say
that
? ...”

“Nah.”

That was private stuff.

And C. Fred Chambers heard Yarborough talking about his war record, so he said to Bush: “Why don’t you mention your own service? Give people a feel for your life ...”

“Nah ... I’d just feel funny doing that.”

He wasn’t going to start thumping his chest, let
politics
change the way he was!

And George’s brother, Johnny, heard him speak, and suggested a coach. Johnny was an actor—he knew the ropes—he knew a coach who could help. “Just so you can put your point across! ...”

“Nah.”

He wasn’t gonna start acting now. He had Yarborough on the run!

He did get under the old man’s skin: Yarborough wouldn’t debate, so Bush and Allday invented the empty-chair debates. They’d rent a hall and advertise, and when the crowd got settled, they’d bring out Bush, and an empty chair. Then they’d play a tape of Yarborough speaking, and Bush would blast away at him—at his empty chair. Then they’d play another minute of the tape, and Bush would blast away again. It got ink in the papers—always a picture, too. Bush heard Yarborough was so pissed off, he threatened to sue.

But Yarborough never had to call in lawyers. He called in Lyndon, instead. In the home stretch, just as Bush felt he was making his move, pulling even, maybe pulling away (he couldn’t be sure—he’d run out of money for polls) ... LBJ flew back to Texas.

Sure, Lyndon hated Ralph Yarborough. Could not abide the man—said so a hundred times—but hell was gonna freeze over
twice
before he’d let Texas send
two
Republican Senators to Washington. He’d left the state alone for a minute, and for Chrissake got John Tower in
his seat
! This time, he’d keep ahold of the bacon: even if it was Yarborough bacon.

So Lyndon flew in, with the whole White House fanfare ... and in front of, seemed like, half the cameras in the world, he categorically endorsed Yarborough, he
physically
endorsed Yarborough. Gave him a hug that nearly disappeared him.

Of course, the photo made the front of every paper. This was Lyndon come home! What the hell, this was the
President
... which still meant a good big deal in Texas.

Meant a good big deal to George Bush, too. When LBJ flew into Houston to endorse his opponent, Bush called Aleene at the ballet studio on Main Street ... with instructions:

“I want everybody to go downstairs when the motorcade passes, and wave to the President.”

“You gotta be kidding.”

“No. Everybody downstairs.”

It was a matter of respect—the personal code. He couldn’t let politics change something like that.

Two nights before the end of the campaign, Yarborough went on TV for his last statewide address: there he was, painting Bush into the mad-bomber corner again. He asked his audience: “Doesn’t he understand the terrible consequences of the atom bomb? The fallout ... disease ... cancer, leukemia?”

George had bought time for the following night. He was having a rubdown at the Houston Club, just before his last speech. Martin Allday stood by the white table, while the masseur worked on Bush’s back.

“George? ...”

“Nggnnnn?”

“You could really hit him in the teeth with that... you know, leukemia.” Martin was thinking about Robin, the daughter who’d died.

“I know,” Bush said. And then, softly: “I’m not gonna bring family ... bring it up.”

So he just went on with the UN ... taxes ... lib-rulls—the standard stump. Then he went to his last rally, at the Whitehall Hotel in Houston. You could see it on him like a light from above: George thought he could win. So did the crowd. They loved him like people loved the Kennedys. They were wild for him.

But the next day, LBJ swept the country, and swept Yarborough in behind him. The final count was fifty-six percent for Yarborough, forty-four for Bush. The Latin votes, Negro votes, which Bush had sought all over the state—they went straight-lever Democrat. The Birchers—their precincts went Goldwater, eight-to-two, but they took a walk on the Senate.

At the ballroom Bush had rented for his victory celebration, George W. Bush—Junior—sat with his back to the crowd, in tears. Aleene found him, sat herself down, said: “Can I cry with you?” And she did.

Martin Allday was crushed, couldn’t forgive himself (“I just, by God, hurt in the stomach, for the next three weeks”).

But George came to the podium late that night, and congratulated the Senator—who, he said, beat him fair and square. He’d looked around, Bush said, for someone to blame ... and only found himself.

And the next day, George and Bar were in the office, to help clean up. Bar was a little weepy. But George, he’d spent the whole night calling people to thank them ... and they were so
nice
!

What the hell? He’d got more votes than any Republican in the history of Texas. He said to friends:

“Don’t worry. That’s only the start.”

Y
OU HAD TO UNDERSTAND
how Joe was about girls—so sentimental, sweet, even though he seemed such a ladies’ man. Sure, he had all the dates he wanted: with that manly chin, the dazzle of teeth in the Biden smile, his bright blue eyes, his bushy hair brushed to the side—he was gorgeous. Then there was the way he carried himself on the Delaware campus: like the whole place was his backyard. You could spot him in a crowd of a thousand: tall, slender in his coat and tie, smoothly self-possessed, with an athlete’s grace (though he’d stopped playing football after freshman year). Well, no mystery why there were dozens of girls—all of Val’s friends, for instance—who’d drop anything if he looked their way.

But you really had to hear him talk about girls to understand—had to hear, first off, what he didn’t say. Even with his buddies, the guys, locker-room pals, he never talked about what he did with girls, what they did with him, how he scored. Nobody’d even say that stuff
to
Joe—nobody who knew him. Joe had the Catholic-boys-school view: there were nice girls, and not-nice girls. Joe dated nice girls. If you asked about a girl he was dating, Joe was the kind who’d say: “You know ... I could marry her. I really could.”

But he was just trying out the picture in his head. He’d been saying that about his dates since high school—that’s how long he’d been looking for the one. Meanwhile, he was nice to them all. Very gentlemanly, in a traditional way, was Joe Biden—and protective ... just about drove Val nuts. When she enrolled at Delaware, big brother Joe was a junior BMOC ... who insisted that he know every guy she went out with. He had to take care of her, and her friends—especially the homely ones: at dances, he’d make a point of talking to them.

That was the winter, her freshman year, Joe took Val skiing. They went to Snow Mountain. He put her skis on, and showed her how to snow-plow. Then he took her to the top of the mountain. “Joe, I can’t do this!” Val protested. She’d never been on skis.

“Follow me,” Joe said. “You’re going down ... you’re a Biden.”

That’s how Joe carried himself.

Anyway, that’s how he was on the slopes, on a date, in a car with the guys, in the campus halls as president of his class ... there was nothing he couldn’t do. Course work—that was another matter. A gentleman’s C seemed good enough. It wasn’t that Joe lacked the brains, or ambition. He probably had too much of both. It’s just he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t want Harvard Medical School. Law school, probably, but it didn’t much matter what law school. He didn’t mean to practice—not for long. He was going into politics—Governor, or Senator. What the hell did Plato have to do with that?

He worked, instead, on the demanding curriculum of being Joe Biden. Everybody had to know him, like him, and trust him. He had to be the guy they could turn to, the one they could count on. He was a good friend, a good date, a good officer, a leader, a hell of a talker ... a good brother, a good son ... back and forth to Wilmington, to his family, his old friends, two or three times a week ... still hanging out at the Charcoal Pit with the guys ... they’d still spray each other with the first fire extinguisher they found in a building—just screwing around. ... When was he supposed to study? Anyway, he got through—good enough—it wasn’t hard.

Then, he went to Nassau—spring break, that same junior year, ’64—and everything changed. Not all at once, no, but surely.

When he came back, he wanted the same things, had the same dreams—but all of a sudden he seemed to know how. It was like the dreams had become plans. Yes, he was going to law school—but he knew which school: Syracuse Law. He knew what he’d have to do to get there—and he’d do it, too. He saw the way. ...

He saw her on the beach in Nassau. She was tall, almost five-eight, with long blond hair, green eyes, long lashes. She had a figure that ... well, legs up to here and the rest defied gravity. She was a knockout—Neilia Hunter. She went to school at Syracuse—grew up around there, upstate New York. She said her folks ran a restaurant, but she might have come from money. She had that kind of confidence, poise. She wasn’t flustered by Joe—not at all. He told her about himself, what he wanted, and she understood. She was smart. She was fun. She had a tan. She had class. She was the one. ...

That was March; that spring, people saw the determination in Joe, a certain
gravitas
. He was busier, suddenly, on his own program. It wasn’t that he hit the books so hard, or went to more classes. In fact, he cut all his Friday classes: he’d head out every Thursday—eighty miles an hour in his old Mercedes, north to Syracuse.

He showed up at her dorm, the weekend after they both came back. He was sitting in the lobby when Neilia told her friend Bobbie Greene, he was downstairs, the guy she’d met,
Joe
... go look! So Bobbie crept to the landing, and there he was, in a chair, with his long legs crossed. She checked him out: he had a tan now, too, a white shirt, that smile of white teeth, and those
eyes
... “God, he’s incredible,” Bobbie confirmed.

“You know what he said?” Neilia confided softly. “He told me he’s going to be a Senator by the time he’s thirty. And then, he’s going to be President.”

That May, he brought her to visit in Delaware, and they went to the beach. She could have taken the place by storm in a bikini, but she came with a simple one-piece suit. She didn’t flaunt her looks. Some of Joe’s friends were a bit disappointed when they met her—you know, they’d heard so much. ... But she could put her hair up, glasses on—and pass for a librarian. If she combed her hair down, put on a dress, flashed her smile—she was dazzling.

In fact, she could look any way she wanted. And act any way, too. It just depended on making sure other people were comfortable. That was the same way she was about her brains: she didn’t want to put people off. And there was ever a hint of the child in the way she spoke—a softness, which led people (especially men) to think they could put one over on her. But she saw everything. This was something beyond savvy: she had a sixth sense for how the other person felt. If there was a party, and someone was uneasy, it was radar: Neilia would be there, instantly.

That was the essence of Neilia’s grace. It wasn’t that she didn’t have her own character—just the reverse: she knew who she was so surely that she didn’t have to spend a minute proving that. She was a preppy by training, graduate of a fancy school called Penn Hall. But her parents never let her forget that they made their money in a diner: they were of the common clay. In fact, Robert and Louise Hunter still worked every day in the Auburn Diner, which was a hangout for kids—and Neilia was ever the princess there. Maybe that’s where she learned her touch. ... When she put on a party for the folks in Syracuse, everything had to be perfect ... but when old George, the Armenian kitchen worker, blundered into the room, she brought him forward and introduced him, just as if he were a professor from Cornell.

That’s what made her the one for Joe—that style, that grace, that giving, that ... well, for once, he was lost for words. And when he got his first look at the Hunters’ grand house on the lake, at Skaneateles, a huge place with a winding staircase, hidden dens, a sunroom that looked out on the long sweep of lawn down to the dock ... now, that was class! And the way people gathered there—Neilia’s friends, and her brothers’ friends, the neighbors ... it was just like the Bidens, only ... well, more settled, older, refined. Joe was on his best behavior, sure enough, when he met the Hunters, though they couldn’t have been nicer. Her mother was a down-to-earth woman, and she was the one who asked Joe what he meant to become.

“President,” Joe answered. For a moment, she just stared.

Joe added helpfully: “Of the United States.”

By the end of one weekend, Mrs. Hunter had to concede: maybe the kid could make it. That boy could sure talk.

Senior year, he made the run to Syracuse almost every weekend. That’s where he did his planning, in the car—he saw the moves in his head.

Joe did well on his LSATs—scored better than six hundred—so Syracuse offered him a partial scholarship. He’d got that piece locked into place.

Up there, law school, fall of ’65
... then he’d ask Neilia to marry him ...

They’d get married. Three years,
’68, he’ll be out
—they’d head back to Delaware. That’s where people knew him.

Neilia’ll love the place
...

That year, ’68, the governorship would be up for election—but that’d be too soon ...
he’d have to watch for his opening, make his move
—
it wouldn’t be long
...