McCord tried to run the White House that day as if nothing was wrong. It was impossible. The Sally Winters affair and the president’s health overshadowed everything else. They had become a Washington obsession. An air of unreality had settled in over the capital. Meetings, press conferences, speeches, committee hearings — they all went on as usual, but nobody was really paying attention. The president tried to focus on the meetings on his schedule, but he could tell that everyone he saw or spoke to acted as if he or she was walking on egg shells. There was a question on the tips of their tongues — is it true? — but were afraid to ask. Corcoran felt as if he were living in a vacuum.
Outside the president’s earshot, people were not so inhibited. At the daily White House press briefing, reporters bombarded the White House spokespersons — Seacrest was long gone — with piercing questions. Will the president admit to the affair? Does the president have AIDS? Did he sleep with anyone else? Is the president going to resign? Not seek re-election? Has the First Lady been tested for AIDS? Have the president’s children been tested? Did Seacrest resign in protest? Does the president still feel he has the confidence of the American people? Doesn’t this scandal destroy his credibility as a world leader?
The same questions dominated talk radio, the hallways of Congress, the conference rooms of the federal government’s vast bureaucracy and social media. McCord faced them too. People may be too gun-shy to confront the president, but not so his chief of staff. After every meeting, at the end of every phone conversation, he was asked, sono voce, Is it true? Is he sick? Is he staying on?
They were questions McCord didn’t want to answer, not just yet, and he pushed them off as best he could. The Corcoran presidency was grinding to a halt amid gossip and obsessive curiosity. The president could be silent no more.
By late afternoon, a first draft of the speech was ready. Corcoran knew his government was at a standstill, that Washington — even the country — was waiting to see what he would say, what he would do. He had been silent since Sally Winters’ television splash Sunday night. He couldn’t remain quiet much longer. The president took the draft and told McCord he would read it overnight and let him know how he felt Wednesday morning. Neither of them had much doubt how the decision would go.
Corcoran didn’t sleep much that night. Intellectually, he knew his presidency was over. But knowing and accepting were two very different things. He had fought such long odds to get there, he didn’t want to admit defeat. He didn’t want to hand his enemies a political victory. Most of all, he did not want to admit to himself that he had blown it, that he himself was to blame for his downfall. He remembered the last days of Nixon’s presidency and shuttered at the similarities. He didn’t have to bring in congressional leaders to know where he stood. He was politically finished and that was taking a hard time to accept. It was nice to have his wife sleeping next to him again. But that was a joy for another day. One part of his life was going to die this day and he was finally going to have to admit it.
Groggy from lack of sleep, he rose early Wednesday morning and began writing the part of the speech only he could write — his affair, his disease, his lies, his downfall.
He was already in the Oval Office when McCord arrived at 7:30 a.m. for the daily morning staff meeting. When his chief of staff poked his head in, Corcoran looked up and nodded. “It’s done, Jack,” he said. “You should look it over.”
“Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Yes,” Corcoran said, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. He was going to need a heap of makeup before he gave this speech. “Let’s do it tonight. Clear my schedule. I’m not dead yet. I’m not an ex-president yet. Let’s show them why we got here in the first place.”
The speech was scheduled for 8 o’clock that night. Buzzy Kramer watched with his girlfriend, Suzie Langston, at their home on Capitol Hill. Scuzzy Schwartz, freed from a St. Louis jail after paying a fine for speeding and running a red light, was back in the Florida newsroom of the Top Star News, his aching ribs taped with bandages. Lisa Corcoran sat with her two daughters in the White House. And McCord was joined by Bernie Elsner in the study just off the Oval Office. Elsner worried that the TV lights would make the president sweat profusely. And McCord made the sure the speech was relatively short — 15 minutes — so a call of nature wouldn’t cause an accident.
Corcoran was low-key, measured and folksy as he began. He recounted his accomplishments — reviving the economy, rebuilding the nation’s defense, protecting American jobs from foreign corporations — then sketched out his goals for the remainder of his term, sort of a mini-state of the union address — keeping Russia at bay, pushing China on human rights, fighting terrorism, erecting more barriers to illegal immigration, penalizing American corporations that take their jobs overseas, balancing the budget and paring the federal bureaucracy.
“But why am I telling you all this now?” Corcoran said as he stared into the camera. “Why, on the eve of another presidential campaign, am I taking your time for such a political speech? The answer, unfortunately, is obvious. Our nation’s capital has been obsessed in recent days and weeks with the personal life of their president. In the long run, such concerns are petty and of no import to most Americans. Giving our children a meaningful education, creating good jobs, providing a secure retirement for our senior citizens, making sure our country can grow and prosper for this generation and the next — these are the things Americans care about. How we go about bettering our lives — these are the issues that will define our age.
“Now, the liberal demagogues of Washington would rather divert your attention from the great progress we have made — dismantling the welfare state, rebuilding our military prowess, making American number one in the world again — and focus instead on the peccadilloes of the president. That has been their strategy since I first took the oath of office 32 months ago and it remains their strategy today. Destroy the man, they think, and you destroy his ideas.
“But they are wrong. So wrong. Yes, this president has been far from perfect. But then who among us has been? I have to tell you honestly: I have wronged those most close to me. And, worse, I have wronged you, the American people, by not being straight with you when I should have been. Whether out of pride or vanity or political stubbornness, I have made mistakes and I am paying for them dearly.
“That is why I come before you, the American people, tonight, to make amends. The truth is that I have not always been the husband I should have been to my lovely wife, Lisa. The truth is I did have an improper relationship with a young staffer when I was in the Senate — a brief relationship that I very much regret and for which I will pay for the rest of my life. From that relationship, I contracted the HIV virus that has severely damaged my immune system. Through drugs and other therapy, I have been able to maintain my health for the most part, though at times my immune system was so vulnerable that I technically satisfied the definition of AIDS. That is not the case today and I am confident that I will get healthier and stronger as the days go by.
“But I realize that fighting this disease takes a great deal from a person, no less a president. I also realize that by not acknowledging my condition, I have done irreparable damage to my credibility as your leader and your president. That is why I have decided to use the remaining 16 months in office to help the American people who elected me, and not be diverted by the squabbles of partisan politics. I want to use all of my energy, not to my further own political ambitions, but to create jobs, to make our country stronger, to make the United States a beacon for the 21st Century to peoples all around the world.
“That is why I will not seek re-election next year and instead will dedicate this office to all of you so that America will truly have a government of the people, by the people, for the people.
“I realize I have let you, the American people, down by not trusting your good judgment. For that, I apologize and ask your forgiveness. But we now must move forward — to a better America, to a more prosperous America, to a more righteous America, to an America we can hand down with pride to our children and grandchildren.
“There is much to do and little time to do it. I ask for your support, your help and your prayers to speed us on our journey. God bless America and all of you. Thank you.”