by Sally Quinn
As I found out later, it did matter to him.
* * *
Whenever we moved, there was always a new school to adjust to, new friends, a new house, a new culture. What that meant was that we established our own family rituals that remain meaningful to me today. They weren’t really religious rituals, but they might as well have been. When we moved into a new house, we would greet the house. When we left, we would say good-bye. I used to go around and kiss the walls of each room. The fact that my parents would always have a party the night they moved into a new house, I now see as a way of blessing the house for the short time we would be there.
So in two years I had added two more schools to my list that, by the time I finished my elementary and high school education, tallied twenty-two schools. After four other high schools—Ludwigsburg in Stuttgart, Germany, Le Torrent in Switzerland, Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, and Clover Park in Tacoma—we had returned for a third time to Washington, D.C. I was now ensconced at Mount Vernon Seminary, an all-girls school (where we wore uniforms) on fancy Foxhall Road where a lot of Southern girls boarded. Donna was there too, and we both loved it. My senior year went by very quickly since I spent most of my time studying—I had my sights set on getting into Smith—but I did find time to start smoking that year, learn to drive, have my first kiss (I was a late bloomer), and play Alice in the school play, Alice in Wonderland.
We moved from a fairly temporary place in Chevy Chase to generals’ quarters at Fort Myer just across the river in Virginia. This time our house was on the parade ground across from the chapel, overlooking Arlington Cemetery. Living there, which we did from 1959 until sometime in 1964 (although I was away at college for most of those years and only there on visits and during the summers), had an enormous effect on my life. By the time we got to Fort Myer, my parents had long since given up on sending us to Sunday school or church. They never went, and we were old enough to point out the hypocrisy of the whole thing. We were living across the street from the chapel, and I don’t think they ever set foot in there except possibly for weddings, christenings, or funerals.
Funerals . . . there were a lot of them at Fort Myer, sometimes as many as four a day, right outside our front door. All you had to do was look out a window to see throngs of black-clad and uniformed mourners surrounding a casket, some weeping softly or loudly, others silent, looking stricken. The casket would be lifted by soldiers onto the caisson drawn by horses and the procession would turn in to the cemetery followed by a line of black cars. There would be a graveside service and then “Taps,” which we could always hear. Sometimes my brother and sister and I would follow the caisson and stand behind the trees at the cemetery, watching the ceremony. Military funerals are always moving, especially for those killed in battle.
These years coincided with the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. We saw the toll that was being taken long before the general public did. We saw the grieving families of the boys and men who were dying. None of this made any sense to me. Early on, I had come to believe that the Vietnam War was a really pointless war, so very different from World War II or even the Korean War, though I had questions about that as well.
Mostly I had questions about God. Once again God was at the forefront of much of what I was observing in my life. The funeral-goers would come streaming out of the chapel, having just prayed to God. They would stand in front of their loved ones’ graves with a military chaplain praying to God. What in God’s name were they praying for? The dead? That they would go to heaven and not hell? That God should rest their eternal souls?
Sometimes I would turn away from these funerals in outrage. It all seemed such an exercise in futility and absurdity. I would go back to our house and lie on my bed, which faced the chapel, and I would listen for the next horse-drawn caisson, the clop, clop, clop of the horses’ hooves on the pavement, day in and day out, serving as a reminder of my lack of faith in God.
* * *
The summer before I went off to Smith, I worked at the Pentagon in the intelligence unit called G2, of which my father was head. (These were the days of rampant nepotism.) I was in the office of protocol, where I had a top secret clearance. I’m not sure that meant much because even the menus at the office were top secret. We certainly didn’t want the Russians finding out about our dining habits and flower arrangements.
I fell madly in love that summer. It was the first love of my life. He had just gotten out of the Marine Corps, after graduating a year early from prep school, and was entering his freshman year at Princeton. He was so much more sophisticated and manly than any of the other boys I had dated. He was born in July as well, another Cancer; I was a double Cancer—clearly, this was a match made in heaven, or at least in the stars. I began to read more about astrology, which would become more and more important to me as I grew older. I had our charts done. We were soul mates. I read his palm. He had a long life line, which showed he’d make lots of money and would travel. He also had a solid love line. We spent the entire summer together in a swoon. It gave me an enormous amount of confidence to be entering college with a fabulous guy to call mine. Maybe there was a God. . . .
* * *
Smith was everything I had hoped it would be. At that time, there were no dorms; instead, each student was assigned a house to live in. I was assigned to Talbot House. I loved all of it—the girls in my house, my courses, my teachers, the campus, and particularly the theater. I immediately decided on becoming a theater major and plunged into the first play as soon as I got there. Everyone was so smart. In those days, the Ivy League schools—Harvard, Yale, Princeton, et cetera—were all men. Many of the women at Smith, Wellesley, Radcliffe, and a few others might have been at these men’s schools had it been a few years later.
We stayed up late most nights discussing the meaning of life. Nobody ever spoke of religion. I read everyone’s palms, because I had taken up palm reading again the summer before my first year of college. I had been doing palm reading on and off since all those years ago in Statesboro but began doing it again seriously at Smith.
That fall, my inamorato invited me to Princeton for the weekend of the football game with Penn. It was a nightmare. I was sick. My girdle was so tight I couldn’t breathe. My heels were so high I couldn’t walk. He was enthralled with a very sophisticated beautiful blond model from New York. It rained all weekend. He hardly spoke to me. I cried all the way back to school. A week later I got a letter from him breaking up with me. “It ain’t no mo’,” he wrote.
I continued to feel unwell and got terribly sick at Thanksgiving. The illness turned out to be mononucleosis. I’ve often wondered if he came down with it too. When you’re in love, even if you’re a nonbeliever, God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world. But this God of mine was elusive.
* * *
I dated a lot the summer after freshman year, but none of them was The One. I was still mourning the loss of my first love. The one person I did go out with, whom I found more interesting than the others, was several years older than I was. He was very smart and had a great sense of humor. He invited me to spend the day with him at the family farm in Virginia and I accepted. The day before we were to go he called me. He sort of beat around the bush for a bit. I knew he was trying to say something. Finally he came out with it. “I’d like to bring a friend with me,” he said. “Fine,” I said. I was a bit relieved because I was nervous about being alone with him. I hardly knew him though we had met through friends. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “I wanted to tell you that he is a gentleman of color. I hope that won’t be a problem for you.” I was completely at a loss for words. I simply didn’t know what to say. A gentleman of color? That meant he was a colored person. I had never socialized with a colored person. That’s what we called them at home. The “N” word was never acceptable in my family; only white trash used the “N” word. We had a few “colored” girls at Smith but I didn’t know them.
I could feel the blood rushing
to my face. I was embarrassed, but also terribly uncomfortable. I didn’t know how I would handle it. The silence continued. “Well,” he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I worried all afternoon. I worried about my feelings and how I would deal with this, but also I worried about his possible discomfort. Later that afternoon he called back to say his friend wasn’t able to come. I was both relieved and humbled, feeling guilty. I knew his friend wasn’t coming because of me.
When he picked me up, I could tell he was a bit cool. We drove out to the country house, had a picnic, and went to the pond to swim. Sitting on the pier, we were just talking and getting to know each other. He had gone to Amherst, the men’s college only seven miles from Smith. I had dated a few guys from Amherst. I asked him if he belonged to a fraternity. He said he did and told me the name of it. “Oh,” I said enthusiastically, “isn’t that the kike house?” I had no idea what kike meant nor that it had any negative connotations. He looked stunned. “Sally,” he said, “I’m part Hebe.” I had no idea what that meant either, but I somehow assumed it meant he was part Jewish. Much later I figured out it was short for Hebrew. “Oh,” I said, “one of my best friends is Jewish.” With that, we gathered up our things and drove home in silence. I never heard from him again.
I had never associated racism and anti-Semitism with religion. It was only as I grew older that I understood how closely related they were.
* * *
One summer I met Senator John Tower at my parents’ house at Fort Myer, Virginia, shortly after he had won his seat in a special election. I was twenty. My parents were hosting a party for Senator Barry Goldwater. Senator Tower seemed to take an interest in me from the start. There were all these other famous and successful people at the party, but he spent most of his time talking to me. I was good at these parties. I had grown up with my parents entertaining and was very comfortable in the role of junior hostess. In fact, often my parents would take me to embassy parties with them, and on occasion I would go alone with my father if my mother wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t shy at all and wasn’t surprised that Senator Tower enjoyed my company.
He was singularly unattractive—tiny and plump with little eyes, a puffy face, and very small swollen hands and fingers. Still, he was interesting, talking about politics, and he lit up when he learned that I was a theater major at Smith with a minor in political science. He had taught theater at Midwestern University in Texas before going into politics. We agreed that the two, politics and theater, weren’t so different in the end. I didn’t mention that I had become what some considered to be a flaming liberal at college. He said he’d love to show me around the Senate and asked me if I’d like to have lunch in the Senate dining room one day and a tour.
Even though I had worked on Capitol Hill for Senator Goldwater, a friend of my parents, my first summer in Washington, it had been a few years and I thought it might be fun to see it again from Senator Tower’s perspective. Tower was a friend of Barry’s. It never occurred to me that he might have ulterior motives. Call me naive.
Tower’s secretary called to make a lunch date for the following week. I wore a pink-coral-and-white linen print dress with a bolero jacket to work. It was in the middle of a sweltering summer. I wanted to look nice but not too dressy, summer professional. Shortly before lunch his secretary called. Unfortunately the senator had a very important emergency meeting and couldn’t make lunch. Could I possibly come by his office on the Hill around six P.M.? He would give me a tour and take me to dinner instead. I knew what a senator’s schedule was like, but dinner?! That was not in the plan. I stuttered and stammered. I really didn’t want to have dinner with him (he was married, of course), but I didn’t know how to say no without implying that his intentions were not honorable. So, feeling very uneasy, I said yes.
I showed up at his office right on time. He offered me a drink, which I declined. I didn’t drink anything but wine or champagne then, and nobody ever drank either or served them except at formal Washington dinner parties. He apologized for the late hour. He had been tied up in very important meetings, and of course there would be no tour of the Senate since everything was closed. He had made reservations at the most posh French restaurant in Georgetown, Chez Francois. To my disappointment, he asked for a discreet banquette indoors. It was incredibly hot outside, and in those days there was no air-conditioning. Everyone was sitting outside trying to catch a breeze. He motioned to the waiter, snapping his fingers, and calling out “garçon, garçon” (“boy” or “waiter” in French) in his Texas accent, only instead of pronouncing it correctly, as in gar son, he said gar con as in con man. I was horrified, as was the waiter.
Still, he was a senator and commanded a certain amount of deference even though he was acting as if he were the president. He had no idea what he was ordering and refused to ask the waiter for help, so I suggested a few things on the menu and ordered the wine. He began to tell me how beautiful I was and how sexy and how smart.
When he pulled out his wallet at the end, it was a cheap wine-colored gold-embossed one, which sold on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence for about $4.00. I remarked that he had an Italian wallet, anything to deflect his attention. He narrowed his squinty eyes and drawled, “You don’t miss a trick, do you?”
I was beginning to squirm and was so desperate to get out of there I nearly knocked over the table as we left. However, I was not to escape so quickly. Once we were on the street, I tried to hail a cab, but he grasped my arm rather tightly and insisted that we go across the street to a rather sinister-looking nightclub called L’Espionage, which had a masked and cloaked man painted on the entrance.
We were led upstairs to a cozy, dimly lit little parlor with love seats. I thought I was going to die. He plunked us both down, still holding tightly to me, and confidently ordered two brandies. He was definitely on home territory here. Without loosening his grip, he took my hand in his pudgy little one.
Going into survival mode, I quickly offered to read his palm. Being the egomaniac that he was, he succumbed. His palm was sweaty and showed little character; it was a palm of such pure debauchery that I shuddered. But I rambled on for dear life to keep him distracted. By the time I had exhausted my repertoire he had knocked back his brandy and was preparing to order another.
With that I leaped up from my seat and announced that I had to get up at dawn the next day to get to work. While he was paying the bill I dashed down the stairs and out to the street and was hailing a cab when he appeared. “I’ll come with you,” he said, pushing me into the cab.
“No, no, you don’t need to,” I practically screamed. “You live on the Hill and I’m at Fort Myer. It’s the opposite direction.” My protest was to no avail. Before I could say another word I was in the backseat of the cab, gasping out my address, and he was on top of me. I was in shock. He threw his weight over me, putting his hands up my skirt and grasping at my underpants. I was desperately trying to fend him off, pleading with him, “Senator, Senator, please stop,” and begging the cabdriver to hurry.
The poor driver, an elderly man, was clearly distraught. He could see what was happening, but hearing my assailant’s Southern accent as he grunted amorously and aware I had called him senator, the taxi driver was afraid to do anything except speed. I think we were probably going about ninety miles an hour as we pulled through the gates of the army post just across the Potomac River from Georgetown. Tower had managed to partially pull down my underpants as I was beating at him and trying to wriggle free. He was surprisingly strong. I also noticed he had unzipped his trousers. Finally I shouted at him, as haughtily as I could, under the circumstances, “Senator, kindly remember your status, both marital and senatorial!” I actually said that.
Just at that moment, thank God, the cab screeched to a halt, and the driver got out to open the door for me in front of our quarters. “We’re here, ma’am,” he mumbled, and I think Tower suddenly realized I could start screaming and the general and several MPs would appear on the scene. He reluctantly let go
of me.
I tumbled out of the car and sprinted to my front door, locking it behind me once I had gotten inside. I went upstairs to my room and began to sob. That would not be the last time I cried about this. In fact, I was upset for years afterward every time I thought of it.
I was overwhelmed with guilt and shame. How could I have been so stupid? Why did I agree to have dinner? Why did I let him take me to the nightclub? Why didn’t I just insist on taking the cab home? What did I do to make him think it was okay to behave that way? I must have been leading him on in some way for him to think he could get away with it. I was devastated and traumatized.
I didn’t tell my parents or Barry Goldwater about it for years. When I finally did, it had been so long in the past that I don’t think they realized how much it had affected me. Besides, Tower was still a senator, a friend and colleague of Barry’s, and a social friend of all of theirs. I think Daddy and Barry just wanted to sweep it under the rug. My mother was much more upset. She wouldn’t have anything to do with him after I told her. Still, there was not the kind of outrage I had hoped for or expected. It was, after all, the days of the old boys’ club. That’s what powerful men did. And they got away with it. Only he didn’t—at least that time.
In 1989, five years after Tower had chosen not to run for reelection, President George H. W. Bush nominated him to be secretary of defense, a post the retired senator and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee badly wanted. From the moment his nomination was made public the damaging stories started appearing. Tower had a drinking problem; he had questionable relationships with defense contractors; and most of all he was a terrible womanizer and probably guilty of sexual assault. I had heard rumors about his sexual exploits over the years and there were always endless jokes about his office being constantly filled with “babes,” but then that wasn’t exactly a unique situation in the Senate. I had only told a few close friends of mine about what had happened between Tower and me. I was still so mortified. (Actually I still am. Now, though, I’m angry as well.)
