This will be my last campaign.
—JOURNAL, JUNE 4, 1992
Perhaps it was indicative of the hard, uphill slogging of Campaign ’92 that Feeley kept saying the Hartoonian attack had come “too early.” While I rebuked Feels for making such macabre statements, I sympathized. Our approval rating, which had shot up so sharply in the weeks following the incident, giving us a critical lift during the New Hampshire primary, dropped back to their previous level. I might add that it is untrue, as Lleland says in his “memoir,” that I urged the President to conduct the campaign in a wheelchair.
The possibility that the President would not be renominated by his party was, historically speaking, embarrassing and did nothing for morale in the West Wing. I have always felt that in times of distress it is best to keep busy; thus, I called 6:30 a.m. staff meetings and instituted the WSOAs, or Weekly Summary of Activities, whereby all presidential appointees below Assistant-to-the-President rank submitted 500-word descriptions of what they had done that week. Both the 6:30 staff meetings and the WSOAs proved extremely unpopular. One (anonymous) person submitted a detailed accounting of that week’s bodily functions. After two weeks I discontinued them after determining they were not significantly improving morale.
Vice President Reigeluth, meantime, was opening his paper each morning to read the latest developments in the White House’s attempts to replace him. This was seriously disheartening for him. For several weeks he refused to go out on the campaign trail, and I was given the job of getting him back “on the reservation.”
I found him hostile to my entreaties. Four years of Air Force Two had made him a bitter man. He complained about the goodwill trips to Mauritius and Ecuador, saying that he had been “cut out of the action” and treated like “an unwanted brother-in-law.” He said he had had three cases of amoebic dysentery in as many months on the road.
I said he had suffered for his country, and that the President was deeply grateful. I told him that democracy came at a heavy cost, and that we must all do what we could to maintain it. At this he became more hostile and told me he was thinking of resigning the Vice Presidency. He said people were advising him that that might be best anyway for his political future.
Though I suspected this was bluster, I realized immediately that something had to be done to calm the man down. I promised that I would speak to the President about the overseas travel. I also held out the tantalizing opportunity of his meeting with the President in the Oval Office “sometime in the very near future.” The prospect seemed to cheer him somewhat, and he said he would “seriously consider” making a campaign trip to New Jersey.
Between the Vice President and the President’s brother, who had lately forsaken Islam for the Bhagwan Satgananda Uy—known to his followers as “Baba”—I was kept busy. I despaired of my Metrification duties.
The only cheering note was that the First Lady was back with us—for the time being, at any rate. She and the President had made a truce following the Hartoonian incident. But she made no secret of her opinion of his running again. We feared greatly that she might give one of her interviews, but she didn’t.
One Saturday morning I was briefing the President on the new sauna at Camp David when she breezed in and announced to her husband that she had just agreed to do Mr. Weinberg’s new film, Irregular Spaces.
She was very excited. I also think she was a little nervous about the prospect of going back to films; she had been away from them for ten years. The President made a rum effort at greeting her news with enthusiasm, but I could see he was crestfallen. He asked how soon “principal photography” began. He seemed very up on the lingo.
“September fifteenth,” she said.
“I need to go check on tomorrow’s departure,” I said. I didn’t want to be around for what was about to follow.
The President buzzed me later in the afternoon.
“Herb,” he said, sighing heavily, “I think it’s pretty appalling what’s happened to political wives.”
“You do?” I said.
“Yeah. They’re not the ones running for office.”
“Strictly speaking, I agree. However—”
“I think it’s gotten, well, grotesque the way political wives are dragged around.”
“Well,” I said, “it’s a team—”
“Told to look adoringly at the candidate while he’s making some fucking speech about farm supports.”
“Still—”
“Put on the Phil Donahue Show and asked what their husbands like to eat for breakfast and who he’s going to appoint to the Supreme Court.”
“And yet—”
“It’s demeaning. Especially for women who had careers before they were married.”
“But—”
“I’m going to do something about it.”
“You are?” I said.
“Yup. I’ve decided I’m going to campaign alone. Solo.”
“Oh,” I said. “But don’t you think—”
“Jessie agrees with me, you know. She thinks it’s an idea whose time has come.”
“I see. Frankly, sir, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“If the people who run for office these days were half as liberated as they say they are, someone would have done it by now. Gotten up there and said, ‘My wife has better things to do than go around making me look good.’ ”
“She is popular out there, you know.”
“Listen, she wants to help. I told her she could do as much as she wanted or as little. ‘Either way,’ I said. ‘You decide.’ ”
“And what,” I said fearfully, “did she decide?”
“We decided something like half a dozen appearances would cover the major events.”
“Six?”
“Six is half a dozen, that’s right.”
“That’s not very many, Mr. President.”
“Well, I said that’d be fine.”
“Yes,” I said, sinking into a slough of despond. “I see.”
“You and Sig and Feeley and the others will need to get with her”—he sighed—“and work out a schedule. Oh, and she’s making a film.”
“Yes,” I said glumly.
“You heard?”
“I was in the room, Mr. President, when she announced it.”
“Oh. So you were. Well, I think the announcement should come from the White House. You better check with Aronow [Chief White House Counsel], see if there’s any conflict or whatever.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And Herb?”
“Sir?”
“If she changes her mind, wants to get more involved, encourage her, okay?”
I was somewhat surprised when Mrs. Tucker did not show up at the meeting I’d arranged. Instead she sent her agent, a Mr. Liebman of International Creative Management.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “I took the liberty of telling my office I could be reached here. You don’t mind? Good. Shall we begin?” Feeley took an instant dislike to him. I reserved judgment until he began calling me “Herbie,” at which point I decided I disliked him too.
The meeting lasted almost two hours, during which he took four calls. I became quite exercised when he had the temerity to ask us to leave the room for one of them. We were in the White House, if you please, and he wanted us to leave the room. Honestly. I would have spoken to him sharply, but I didn’t want to upset him, so, nearly dragging Feeley by the collar, we waited in Mrs. Metz’s office until his call “from the coast” was finished.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said when we filed back in. “You know how it is.” I did not “know how it is,” but I let it go.
We reached an impasse over the presidential debate in October. Our side did not consider it a campaign appearance if the First Lady merely came and watched her husband debate George Bush.
“My client is going to be in the middle of a shoot in October,” he said. “If we’re going to come all the way to wherever this debate will be held, we’ll have to consider that an appearance. My advice, gentlemen, would be to get the President’s sister to go to the debate and to save my client for more conspicuous events, such as this Al Smith dinner you seem so anxious for her to attend.”
It was an extremely frustrating meeting. We got our six appearances, and not so much as one drop-by or mix-and-mingle extra. We were exhausted. Sig and Feels had their jackets off and ties loosened. Mr. Liebman was cool as a dill pickle. In all my dealings in government I never met someone more difficult to bargain with than he. Frankly, I don’t understand how movies get made if that’s what you have to go through every time.
“May I use your phone?” Mr. Liebman asked when we were finally through. I was sorely tempted to show him the way to the phone booth, but I am not a vindictive man.
He asked the operator for the First Lady.
“Jess?”
Jess? Was this how he addressed the First Lady?
“I got your six-picture deal. Pay or play. Are you kidding? They love you. They want to get into bed.”
“What?” I thundered.
“Figure of speech, Herbie. No, I’m here with your Mr. Wadlough. Yes, a very nice gentleman. Listen, they have restaurants in this town? I heard it’s all microwave. Yeah? Come on, I’ll buy. You gotta car?”
I tried to shut out these abominations and concentrate on Marine One seat assignments. He left us with a valedictory “Ciao.” I, for one, was not sorry to see him go.