The White Morning
Sunday, when it snowed, it was like all of it had been washed away.
—Honey Alexander
NEWS OF THE COUP dominated front pages of the next day’s newspapers, and still more elected officials spoke their minds.
“It had to be done to stop the insanity of Ray Blanton,” said Senator Victor Ashe, the Republican from Knoxville. He described the ousted governor as “an individual who went berserk.” Senator Joe Crockett, a Democrat from Nashville: “We kind of feel we’ve had our own little Watergate. It’s a sad time to be a Democrat. I hope the people don’t judge the party by the actions of its former leader.”
The two days that followed, Thursday and Friday, were full of more quick decisions through an uncharted situation. If there had been “no road map” for the coup itself, this first full day of the accelerated transition was a time unlike any encountered before in American history.
Alexander did not go to the capitol on these two days. He would not sit at his new desk until Monday morning, following the scheduled inauguration on Saturday. Ingram, Donelson, and a few others did arrive early on Thursday to begin reorganizing the office, but on Bill Koch’s advice, no official decisions were to be made. The new cabinet officers, who would not be sworn in until Saturday, were cautioned not to visit their new offices until Monday morning and, in any case, were not to transact any government business until after the weekend. This was chiefly to minimize the chances for any legal challenge from outside parties to official acts that might otherwise have been made between Wednesday night and Saturday morning.
In spite of the high volume of television news coverage throughout the night before, at least two members of Blanton’s administrative staff at the capitol had not seen or heard the news and arrived for work as normal. For them the day would be most abnormal. They quickly discovered the world was upside down.
ONE OF THESE STATE EMPLOYEES was Lee Lucas. She and her friend Terry Huffman, who worked on the opposite end of the floor in the finance and administration office, normally carpooled to and from their homes in Hendersonville. This morning, neither was aware the coup had occurred.
On Wednesday afternoon, Lucas and Huffman had departed the capitol at about 5:00 p.m. as usual. Once home, Lucas quickly departed to meet her sister Diane, who had offered her an after-hours job assisting with end-of-year inventory at Castner-Knott Company, the retail department store in Hendersonville. Since the inventory work ran into the late evening, Lucas did not see either the 6:00 or 10:00 p.m. local news on television.
“Next morning, Terry and I drove back in to the capitol, and we saw TV trucks parked outside,” she said. “I just assumed that was because of the earlier investigation. It wasn’t unusual to see TV trucks there. The capitol had already been invaded once by the FBI. Terry parked and we went in. It was about a quarter to eight.”
Reporters were in the hallway, clustering around the governor’s office.
“I thought, ‘Wow, what’s going on?’ I just assumed I was still working for Blanton, thinking I haven’t heard yet from the new administration, but hoping I would hear something. I was mainly just coming in until I was told to do something different. Terry went to her office, on the other end of the first floor, and I went to the reception room. Tom Ingram was there. There were two reporters and a TV camera. I put my purse down at my desk.”
INGRAM: Are you Lee Lucas?
LUCAS: Yes.
INGRAM: We need to talk.
He led her behind a pair of double doors, into the space that had been Gene Blanton’s unofficial office. Lucas, at this moment, was wondering, “Is this where he tells me to leave? Am I still going to have a job?” This conversation was tense but brief.
“Lamar Alexander was sworn in early,” Ingram told her. “They’re all gone. He swung his arm in a sweeping motion. “We need you to keep doing what you’ve been doing as receptionist. Do what you always did. There will be a lot of reporters up here today. You’ll have some help.”
“He introduced me to Sharon Sinclair,” Lucas told me. “I think they knew I could show them what to do with the phones. I cried. He was so kind. I’d been thinking he was going to tell me I didn’t have a job anymore. Instead, he was asking me, ‘Can you do this. Do you want it?’ I said yes.
“It was about eight o’clock now. The last thing Tom said before we went out was ‘Remember to say ‘Governor Alexander’s office.’ I said, ‘Got it. Gov. Alexander’s office.’”
SHORTY FREELAND, IN HIS memoir Ray Blanton and I, remembers returning to his office on Thursday and seeing new faces.
“The next morning I went to work as normal because I knew some of the girls working were scared,” he wrote. “I was going to be there to give them some backup, or to let them know I was not afraid of what’s going on.
“So I walked into my office, and there was an FBI agent going through my waste basket. I said, ‘Sir, I don’t have any problem with your doing that, but I might have spit in there last night, and you might get it on your hands.’ I didn’t, but I just had to say that. He raised his hands up and began to wipe them.”
THE WEEKEND AT LAST ARRIVED, with the chill of winter, Saturday morning gray and blustery and cold. The temperature had dropped to thirty-one degrees overnight, and in the reluctant morning light, the leaden sky reflected a muted spirit.
The expansive War Memorial Plaza in Nashville is a granite promenade edged with trees and fountains, and surrounded by history and the memory of celebrations, protests, and presidents. Situated on its west perimeter is the stolid War Memorial Building housing legislative offices, a venerable performance hall, and part of the state museum. To the north, across Charlotte Avenue, stands the state capitol on a hill once called Cedar Knob, the highest natural point in the central city.
To the east, across Sixth Avenue, are two other state office buildings, one named for Rachel Jackson, wife of Old Hickory, the other for President James K. Polk. To the south, across Union Street, stands the Hermitage Hotel, site of the final negotiations in 1920 that made Tennessee the thirty-sixth state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, giving women the right to vote.
On this central plaza, workmen were lining up the last of the folding chairs, all facing a raised platform, as early guests began to arrive at 9:30 a.m., the clock ticking toward 11:00—the time scheduled for the formal inauguration. On the rostrum, dignitaries began to arrive in their topcoats, suits, and hats against the wind.
TV reporter Bob Mueller, who later became anchor for Nashville’s ABC affiliate, was working for WTVC-TV in Chattanooga at this time. On Wednesday evening, he had been at his desk in the Chattanooga news room when the early bulletins came in about the extraordinary ceremony that ousted Blanton. Today, three days later, he was in Nashville, on assignment to cover the formal inauguration.
“It was messy weather—raining and cold,” he said. “Everything was just gray and somber.”
ALEXANDER AND HIS FAMILY now appeared. And legislative leaders, and members of the new governor’s cabinet, who would be sworn in following this event. Tennessee’s two US senators, Howard Baker and Jim Sasser, appeared—Baker moving courteously about the platform with his camera, taking photographs of the people and scene. Other members of the Tennessee congressional delegation, including the elder congressman Jimmy Quillen, were there. Former governor Dunn appeared on the dais. And two visiting governors, Linwood Holton of Virginia and Cliff Finch of Mississippi. And all these could look up, to their left, and see the south face of the state capitol building towering above, shrouded in the morning mist.
What none of them saw was the former governor. Ray Blanton was not there. He thus became the first governor in the state’s history not to attend the swearing-in of his successor. It was his own decision.
ALEXANDER NOW TOOK the formal oath of office for the second time in four days, this time in overcast daylight.
Once more, Honey Alexander held the large family Bible, again opened to II Timothy. Again, Chief Justice Henry administered the same oath. Once more, McWherter, Wilder, and the constitutional officers were in attendance.
“If Wednesday was a sad day for Tennessee,” Alexander declared in his inaugural speech, “today is a happy one—for the people and their government are back together again. The pain will stay with us for a while. But today there’s room for pride, as well.”
The rest of his inaugural address, while hopeful, was somber and earnest about the fundamental challenges of modern government. He made but one reference to the week of outrage and upheaval, asking:
“How can the people and their government stay together with trust and pride? The power of government makes corruption so easy. The size of government makes the people so distant. The computers of government make indifference so likely. The noise of government makes listening so rare. No wonder government becomes the enemy. No wonder pride gives way to resentment or bitterness or fear. No wonder our young people turn away from the profession of public service in dismay and disgust.
“I do not know how much of this we can change. But I know we must try.”
When the young governor concluded his remarks, the dignitaries on the rostrum and the people across the crowded plaza—most of them holding umbrellas against the light rain—now gave a great applause. A smile was seen on Honey Alexander’s face.
“IT WAS A MUCH HAPPIER occasion,” she remembers. “We felt like things were a little more under control. People had come from all across the state, family members came from out of state, friends had come, and it was just more of an upbeat event. We have a dear friend who lives in Gulfport, Mississippi, and at the time he arrived, we washed the seafood, and he cooked for us a big wonderful dinner. That helped.”
One special guest was the federal judge, John Minor Wisdom, for whom Alexander had worked as a young clerk in New Orleans.
Lew Conner, one of Alexander’s oldest friends and his law partner until the election, had been entrusted with the custody of four special couples through the busy weekend, providing them with hospitality, introductions, and ground transportation. The four men had been Alexander’s roommates at the New York University law school: Paul Tagliabue, Bill Plunkett, Barney Haynes, and Ross Sandler.
By this time, Haynes had become a distinguished litigator at King and Spalding in Atlanta, Sandler was a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (and later the New York City commissioner of transportation), and Plunkett was a lawyer in Westchester County, New York (where he had a young associate named George Pataki, later a three-term governor of New York state). Tagliabue, a Washington lawyer at Covington and Burling, represented the National Football League. (After Tagliabue became commissioner of the NFL, in 1989, the five former roommates would meet for a private party each year the night before the Super Bowl.)
MOLLY WEAVER, THE YOUNG campaign operative who had arranged for the plane and banner over Neyland Stadium, remembers the official inaugural as subdued, not celebratory.
“The day of the swearing-in was cold and rainy too,” she said. “I had maybe gone to Nashville a couple of times in my life. I was amazed at the plaza, and I remember being very disappointed. I was actually disappointed for them—the Alexanders—because they weren’t getting to do things the way they had planned.
“It was the first hard lesson—that it’s not about the celebratory part of it, it’s really about the responsible part of it. We had all been true believers, but it had also been fun. Now it was clear there is a huge responsibility that goes with it.”
THE REMAINDER OF THE DAY was given to swearing in the new cabinet, in a ceremony inside the War Memorial Building auditorium, and to the inaugural parade that lasted three hours. Because of the fitful weather, Honey excused herself at one point, and other dignitaries came and went. Conner and Echols remained on the viewing stand with Alexander through the long afternoon.
“Lamar stood there in that wretched weather for the full three hours and watched ninety-five bands—one from each county—march by,” Conner said. “Fully ninety of them played ‘Rocky Top’ [later designated one of Tennessee’s state songs]. It was the coldest I have ever been.”
In the evening, three inaugural balls in different venues across the central city featured food, music, and dancing. At each of these, Honey Alexander wore a maternity-tailored gown and danced with the new governor to repeated strains of “The Tennessee Waltz.”
On Sunday morning, January 21, Honey Alexander remembers waking to see new fallen snow, all white and even across the broad lawn of the executive residence on Curtiswood Lane. It covered the grass and topped the shrubbery and trees, everything under a quiet blanket of white.
“Sunday, when it snowed, it was like all of it had been washed away,” she said. “It was a new day, and it was bright, beautiful. It was clean again. You know, all that gray dirtiness was behind us.”
LATER THAT MORNING, the Alexander family, including his parents, Andy and Flo, and their guests gathered at Westminster Presbyterian Church on West End Avenue. The sanctuary was not full, owing to the weather and expectations of standing room only. For this special worship service, the governor’s brother-in-law the Reverend William Carl, husband of his sister Jane, delivered the sermon.
“And what did Solomon pray for? ‘Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to govern thy people, that I may discern between good and evil.’ . . . How difficult that is to do, even today; for in real life distinction between good and evil is never as clear cut as the good guys and the bad guys or the characters in Star Wars. Every area of our lives, whether in politics, business, or the church, is fraught with compromise and gray-area decisions. . . .
“What Solomon prayed for essentially was that he be a good man—something all public officials should covet,” Reverend Carl continued. “Lamar’s mother told me not long ago that all she has ever prayed for Lamar, since he was a child, was that he be a good man.”
Sunday afternoon was devoted to public receptions at the governor’s residence. Between 1:00 and 5:00 p.m., an estimated five thousand visitors passed through.
ON THIS SAME SUNDAY morning, Donna Leech finally departed Baptist Hospital, with tiny Will III swaddled in a warm blanket against the biting air. Donna’s mother, Sara Babb, of Oak Ridge, had flown into town this morning to help out, so the attorney general’s first stop had been at the Nashville airport to pick her up. Later today, he would drive to Charlotte to fetch Katie, now eleven, who had been staying with his mother. She would meet her new brother in the afternoon.
Donna had now been at the hospital for a full week. Bill had visited her often, but usually in the evening after Will had already been removed to the nursery for the night. On one of his visits, Bill brought his daughters Anna and Becca to see the new baby, but their first glimpse of him had also been through the glass of the nursery window. It was not until this Sunday morning—when father, mother, grandmother, and infant finally left the hospital together—that Leech finally held the baby in his own arms for the first time.
The four of them now loaded into the single seat of the gray pickup truck. With Leech behind the wheel, Sara on the passenger side, and Donna in between them holding Will, they headed south. The trip took about an hour. At last, they turned off Highway 247 in Maury County and onto Highway 7, commonly called Santa Fe Pike.
When Leech steered the pickup off the pike, he did not drive up to the house immediately. He stopped at the bottom of the driveway, which on its hillside circuit formed a teardrop or heart shape, the Constitutional Oak standing just inside the point at the bottom of the hill. From this position, they could now see the house through the trees. To their right, they could look across the rolling pasture beyond the rail fence.
Donna remembers how the new snowfall had dusted house, barn, and field, reflecting the late morning sunshine, adding brilliance to the new day. The air was cold and the breeze biting, but to the eye, the scene was as warming as a Christmas card—made warmer still by hearts full of tender emotion, and great expectations for new life. She remembers Bill paused here, where the bundled infant was near the fields and farm for the first time, in view of the hills rising in the distance.
“Welcome home, Will Leech,” the father said, aloud, on the white morning.
THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY, January 26, Betty Nixon visited Blanton at his new home on Jefferson Davis Drive. Her purpose was to deliver a few keepsake photos that she had set aside for him while boxing up materials in the press office.
Mrs. Blanton greeted her at the front door—on the same front porch where the immediately former governor, standing with his wife and young son, had held the impromptu session with the reporters on the Wednesday night of the coup—and invited her in. Inside, Nixon observed, Blanton was watching three television sets.
“He had three TVs on and was watching all three channels at the same time,” she told me. “I said, ‘Why don’t you turn those off?’
“But he didn’t turn them off. He kept watching.”
A DOZEN YEARS AFTER the coup, three men who had shared that day in history now shared a moment of strange serendipity at a father-daughter banquet on a Nashville riverboat.
The three daughters, now classmates in high school, had become best friends. Once they were inside the banquet hall, on board Opryland’s General Jackson showboat, the grand paddle wheeler on the Cumberland River at Nashville, the girls decided they would sit together for the festive evening.
They proceeded to introduce their dads.
“Not knowing who our daughters’ best friends were,” Tom Ingram remembered, “they pull all the fathers to the table—and there’s Hal Hardin and Eddie Sisk and me at the same table.” By this time Hardin was no longer the US attorney, and Sisk had served his sentence.
“And the girls don’t know the history. How could they? How quickly the generations move on.”