15
1952
THE COUNTY ELECTION was the first chance folks had to get a good look at Bob. Of course, people knew him from Dawson Drug. But that was before. ... And the farmers who knew Doran from the grain elevator, they’d heard about Bobby Joe. In fact, one way or the other, almost everybody had heard the story of that poor Dole boy, or if they hadn’t, someone would whisper it (“carried ’im home on a stretcher, couldn’t even feed himself ...”) as they watched him around town, campaigning for County Attorney.
It wasn’t much of a job, when you got down to it. You had all the criminal prosecution, all the county’s civil legal business, and then, if you had time, you could take on private clients. You pretty much had to take outside work; the county job only paid $242 a month. The courthouse janitor made ten dollars more. (In the old days, there was always something extra from the bootleggers, but Kansas had gone wet in 1948, so that put an end to a source of steady income.) There were only a half-dozen lawyers in Russell, and the county job usually went to the last one, the youngest, who was trying to build a practice.
That was the problem in ’52: there were two good boys come back to town, after the Army, law school, and all. And people said it was a darned shame there wasn’t a pair of jobs. Dean Ostrum, Bob’s opponent, was a boy of excellent family, too. He was Oscar’s son; Oscar Ostrum was probably the best lawyer in Russell. And Dean was always smart: a debater at Russell High, where he likely did even better than Bob Dole; everybody knew Bob as an athlete, but Dean was the brainy sort. People naturally thought of Dean in the law—in that county job, matter of fact ... till Bob announced.
Actually, he didn’t so much announce it as murmur. ... There was a political meeting in June, at the high school in Bunker Hill, a tiny town nine miles from Russell. Ray Shaffer was the Republican boss in Russell County, and he introduced Bob to the crowd. Bob stood with his arm hanging down, crooked at the elbow, his body canted a bit to the left, so he could try to hide “his problem,” and he said to the crowd, in a single sentence, that he wanted the County Attorney job. Said it so fast and low, it didn’t really sink in—people just stared—until he stopped, and sat down again. That was all the announcement he made. Next day, he got a new blue suit, on credit, at Banker’s Mercantile—Phyllis taught the tailor how to put in the special shoulder pads—and Bob started passing out fliers on Main Street.
That was about as sophisticated as things got in that race. Oh, Bob had his brother, Kenny, and his friend, Adolph Reisig, and maybe a couple of the Krug boys—they called themselves the “tack and hammer men”—who’d nail up posters to get Bob’s name in front of people’s eyes. And maybe at the end, each candidate would drop twenty-five dollars for ten spots on the radio for Election Day. But mostly, this was one-on-one campaigning: Bob and Dean Ostrum, dogging one another’s steps up Main Street, Russell, and then out to Bunker Hill, Gorham, Lucas, Luray, Fairport, Dorrance, Waldo, Paradise. ... At least, Bob Dole made all those stops. Heck, if he was driving back from some one-street prairie town, and he spotted a light off in the endless fields, he’d dirt-road up to that house in the night, and let the dogs yowl until a light came on behind the screen door, so Bob could say: name is Dole, and he just stopped by to let them know—name’s Bob Dole—he hoped, he’d be grateful—Dole, like the pineapple juice—to have their support on Election Day.
In theory, Bob was already a practicing attorney in Russell. He got a used desk and a brand-new hundred-dollar leather chair, and set them up in Doc Smith’s office on Main Street. But really, what he was doing, from the time he got out of law school in June, was running flat out for that county job. By happenstance (and the boom in oil, sparked by the war), that was the year Russell peaked in population—maybe seventy-five hundred people in town, another five thousand spread out around the county. Still, there couldn’t have been any more than five thousand voters, and Bob probably asked for every one of those votes, personally.
In theory, he was already a veteran of public office, having been installed for a single term in the lower house of the Kansas State Legislature, while he was in Topeka, at Washburn University Law School. But that wasn’t anything like this. The legislature only met for three months during his two-year term—it wasn’t a job for a grown man, not full-time—and Bob (or, to be precise, his Republican backers in Russell County) had the powerful argument that Bob was already there, in Topeka, and at least the voters wouldn’t pay for gasoline, back and forth. As for Bob, he held that post in his spare time—didn’t even break stride in school. Barely mentioned to Phyllis that he was going into politics: she wasn’t that interested; and what the heck, he’d be home every night, same as always.
In theory, Bob was already fully recovered from his injuries. That was the party line, anyway. He was still thin, of course, and he had that arm—everybody could see that, no matter what he did. But you wouldn’t think of him as still healing, not by seeing him on the street, or talking to him, watching him work. Bob made sure of that. In fact, this was the recovery: showing himself, and his nemesis, his body, in every corner of the county, to any voter who’d stop and chat. That, and winning ... that would be the ultimate recovery: to have those thousands of his home folks—everybody who knew him, really—ratify with their ballots that he was a man who could work for them. For that he’d keep going, till his was the last light you could see on Main Street. And he’d be up and at it by seven the next morning, as soon as Phyllis finished tying his tie. ...
He wasn’t afraid of work—only of no work. It wasn’t so long since he’d starred in his own private nightmare, the vision of Bob Dole in his wheelchair, selling pencils on Main Street. What he feared were the silent flashes of that vision in other people’s eyes—he searched their faces when he asked for a vote: Did they think he wasn’t up to a “real” job? In fact, a lot of people thought this might be just the way to get Bob into a job “he could handle.” But nobody said that to Bob. There was something in the way he carried himself that warned off sympathy—would have broken his heart.
Of course, there were also some codgers who just didn’t care. One old farmer greeted Bob at the door and told him he knew his granddad ...
“Agh, good,” Bob said.
“Used to butcher for me ...”
“Yeah, he was a pretty good butcher ...”
“No he wasn’t,” the farmer said. “Gave me bad sausage. Never liked him.”
Back in town, Bob would tell that story with relish. He’d tell it with an air of droll complaint—can you believe some people? It was funny, but it showed—he hoped it showed—that no one was cutting a break for Bob. No, sir. Bob was never afraid of what people would say—only of what they wouldn’t say.
And he never forgot anything people said, the way they looked, their kinfolk he knew ... kept it all in his head. If someone mentioned they’d be at their church Sunday after next for their parents’ anniversary—everyone in the family’s coming by for ice cream and cake ... well, they learned after a while, they’d see Bob that Sunday, too. He wouldn’t make a show of it: just stopped by to say hello ... but the people were so surprised he showed up, they’d always make a point of introducing “their special guest.” Then, of course, they’d want to feed him ice cream and cake, but he wasn’t going to try to work a fork with his left hand in front of everyone, so he wouldn’t be able to stay, and they’d wrap up a couple of pieces for him, which, of course, he’d remember when he saw them again, and mention how good that cake was, how he’d like to get the recipe for Phyllis. ...
There didn’t seem to be any limit to what he could keep in his head. Nobody much remarked on it: they all thought he just remembered them. The only one who really knew was Phyllis, but it was old hat to her. That’s the way she’d seen him go after law school, night after night, in their tiny apartment (in a building named The Senate) in Topeka. In his first year back at college, Phyllis had gone with Bob to take notes, in a few of his classes, but after that, the VA gave him a machine, on
e of the first recording machines manufactured. It was called a Sound-Scriber, a big, clunky brown box with a black microphone-mouthpiece and a heavy needle arm that grooved a recording into green plastic disks, like little record albums. Bob would carry that machine into class and set it up on the arm of a chair, up in front, where the professor’s words would be clearest. At night—sometimes all night—he’d sit at home (while Phyllis tried to keep quiet), playing those scratchy green disks, over and over, noting a couple of words in his painstaking left-hand squiggles, then putting the pen down, lifting the needle, and carefully setting it back on the disk to get the next few words. In those days, the law was practiced without dictating machines, and that box in the classroom spooked some people—even professors. Bob had to get official permission to use it, after one student complained that those disks gave Dole an advantage. But it never felt that way to Bob. He never could take many notes. Mostly, what he could do was hear that voice, on the disks, over and over, until he could say it in his head, until he knew that case, with all the citations—until he could literally dictate that learning back to Phyllis, who would write his exam.
Sometimes, he’d study with his friend Sam Crow—of course, Sam had notes. He even offered to copy them for Bob. But that wouldn’t do Bob any good. He had to have it in his head. That old apartment building, The Senate, had louvered doors out to the hallways, to let the air circulate, and when the weather was warm, you could hear a whole lesson on contracts or torts, in the hall, before you even got to Bob’s door. Then, inside, at a little desk, just to the right of the door, there he’d be, sallow and skinny in his T-shirt, which hung uneven on his neck, sloped down on one side, where there was no shoulder: that was the side Bob kept his pack of Camels rolled up in the sleeve. Sam and his wife, Ruth, would come over in the evenings, and the girls would take turns treating each other to the movies, while Sam and Bob went at the cases—Sam had his notes. Bob had his head. When the girls came back, they might stop for coffee, after which Sam and Ruth would head home, and Phyllis to bed. She would still hear Bob on his cases, as she dropped off to sleep.
Bob never talked to Sam or Ruth about his injury, about the war. He was still painfully shy—considered himself a ruin. But he knew he’d have to get over that. Even then he was thinking politics, as a career. So Sam and Bob enrolled in a night class at the local high school—Beginner’s Speech. For Bob, it was the moral equivalent of fire-walking: a test every time he showed up. In one of the first lessons, the teacher asked: “If you saw someone you knew walking down the street, would you cross the street to avoid him?”
Bob answered, “Sure.”
But in class, he couldn’t avoid showing himself. He had to get up on the raised stage, stand up tall, and talk, while the eyes of the rest were upon him. The little podium, at center stage, wouldn’t hide his arm, no matter how he shifted. ...“Bob!” the teacher would prod. “Why don’t you say what you want to say, instead of shuffling around, and making us all wonder?”
After a while, speech class was like law school—sure, it was hard. But Bob had to be good. No matter what he had to do, no matter what he feared ... nothing compared to the fear that people would pity him, expect from him any less than the rest, figure they had to cut slack for Bob Dole. It was never going to happen. Getting by was just not enough. He had to graduate from law school with distinction. He had to stand up in speech class and get his point across.
And now, he had a point to make, all over Russell County. He wanted that County Attorney job. He needed it. It didn’t matter what he had to do. So anytime Bob could buttonhole a voter, better yet, a dozen, he’d stand up and say what he meant to say:
“Well, I didn’t grow up with all the advantages,” Bob would begin. “Had to work ...” And he could almost see heads start to nod, as he bore into it. He never had to mention Dean Ostrum’s name. People could fill in the blanks: son of a prominent attorney, had a car to drive to school, didn’t play football—probably tennis was more in his line ... the message was clear enough. Dean Ostrum didn’t need that job, not like Bob. Bob Dole came from the world of work, weather, and want, like the farmers who would vote him into office. ... Dean Ostrum would find a job, and if he didn’t, he’d never go hungry. Bob wanted those farmers to know who was their kind, who would understand them, who grew up with Kansas dirt under his nails ... like theirs. It got so tough out there for Dean, he started wearing frayed shirt collars, just to show he had some. But the people knew who Oscar Ostrum was, just as they knew Doran Dole.
Funny thing about it, Dean knew, too: from the day it came down to him and Bob, Dean figured he was going to lose. Bob Dole would just out-need him, and out-work him, run him into the ground. Dean kept at it, but after a while, it was like the steam just came out of him. Dean knew in his heart, it didn’t matter what he did. ...
“How long was my day?” Dean said, later, when it was just a wistful memory. “I don’t know, but it wasn’t as long as Bob Dole’s. I’m sure of that.”
When the votes came in, it was Dole 1,133, Ostrum 948. And Bob Dole was in politics.
They called it the independent oil business, and that was one of the lures for George Bush: it even sounded right. He liked the strange, fierce language of this last American frontier, the barren Texas plain: the land men, promoting a deal, to carve out an override ... buying mineral, or royalty, at The Spot, over a bowl of red ... grabbing off a farm-out from a major, or wildcatting a field where there was show, but they plugged and called her a duster. ...
It was the only foreign language George Bush ever took to. But, for him, its highest incarnation was the honorable title borne by all the young go-getters: independents ... now, that was something to be. That’s what he was out here for, and it worked: he won his independence. It wasn’t till he’d been a Texan for years, and was an oilman himself, shopping around for investors one day, that anybody thought to introduce him as “Pres Bush’s boy. ...” It sounded so strange, by that time, struck him so odd, that he went home and told Bar about it: first time in years he’d heard that.
But, of course, there was more than the name: there were all the truths it implied. It was a perfect business for George Bush—he had everything it took. The first fact was, the business rested entirely on personal relations. The goal of the independent was to put himself in the middle of deals. That meant finding out where deals were being done. You could find out some from the maps, where a dot marked each oil well, and you could find out more from the county land records, which showed who was buying land, or leasing mineral rights, in which tracts, and for how much. But once a deal hit the maps or the courthouse, it was done. What you wanted were deals in the making, the newest geology, the plans of the majors ... and for that, well, you had to chat up the geologists for the majors, and their scouts, and the ranchers around the countryside, the abstractors around the county courthouse, and your fellow independents ... you had to ply them, wine and dine them, ask about their kids, be sure to say hey in church. ... In short, you made friends. And no one would have more friends than George Bush. Once a deal was in the works, it was all done on handshakes—there were no lawyers around a table. Hell, lots of times, there was no table! Your word and your good name were your primary business assets: you had to play by the rules, the code. And no one was more sensitive to the code than Bush. It was like school, but better: the rewards weren’t grades, or honors, but cash.
In fact, it was like an eastern boys’ school, in those days, in Midland, Texas. Many of the young independents came from back East, from Ivy League schools. The locals called them “the Yalies.” Actually, they weren’t all Elis. Toby Hilliard and his partner, John Ashmun, were from Princeton, as was Pomeroy Smith—class of ’46, was Pom. There was a Princeton Club in Midland, with thirteen members. ... And the Liedtke brothers, Hugh and Bill, were Oklahoma boys, from an established oil family in Tulsa, but they came out of Amherst and Dartmouth. ... Earle Craig, like Bush, was from Yale. There was an ad hoc Yale Club in Midland,
too. And, of course, a Harvard Club—there were dozens of these bright, young Yankees around. They were the best and the bravest of the Ivy League, the boys who weren’t going to sit in some office, after they’d seen the world in the war. And smart—they were all smart, it went without saying—but that was another thing about this business: it was better to be lucky than smart. It didn’t matter what you knew, or even whom. You could have all the geology on a formation, and production figures from working wells five hundred feet away on every side, and you’d put a hole smack in the middle ... and nothin’, not a drop, a duster. Go figure. ... So, no matter what else he did, an independent had to roll the dice. At a certain point, you had to trust to your luck. And no one was luckier than Bush.
The third thing about the business had to do with the same hard, dusty fact: everyone bored some dry holes. So, the trick was to drill a lot of holes. If you were in one deal, it was make or break; but if you were in forty deals, you’d get production somewhere. The essence of the business was activity: new friends, new deals, a sixteenth of an interest here, an eighth there, maybe three thirty-seconds, and you’d carry the friend who got you into it for the drilling costs, down to the casing point. ... The deals were anything the market would bear: whatever you could get a handshake on. Most of the independents didn’t have the capital to act like majors: simply lease the mineral rights under a piece of land, drill the wells, and sell the oil. Instead, they had to do a lot of little deals: maybe leasing mineral rights from a rancher, then running, that very afternoon, to the office of a major to sell that lease for five percent more. Or they’d take on a drilling contractor as a partner, and keep a share of the production, if a well on that lease hit. But even for the littlest players, it was the same game: in general, the business would reward hyperkinesis. And George Bush never could sit still.
In fact, none of those boys could: it was go-go-go, every day during the boom years—and most of the nights. By seven or eight in the morning, you’d see the Yalies hustling up Wall Street (for a long time, the only paved street in town), to The Spot, which was the coffee shop in the Midland Tower, or to Agnes’ Café, or the Scharbauer Hotel, with the flush of a big-deal-to-come on their cheeks, and maps under their arms, ready to unfurl on the first table they saw, after which their finger would trace the line of that trap ... right there, see? ... while they explained that this thing was surefire! Just barely got in there ahead of those bastards at Texaco! ... At night, while they sipped beer and barbequed in empty oil drums, they’d talk about one thing—oil—who was buying where, who was drilling, what kind of rock they hit at three thousand feet, and what royalty was fetching now on the west edge of Ector County. They’d dream and scheme and talk about the Big One ... the one they all meant to hit, the one that would put them on the map. It only took one. That was the beauty of the game. At one party, when all the Yalies gathered (they always were together, it seemed), Toby Hilliard leaned back in a chair and mused to the crowd at large: “You know,” said Toby, “some of us in this room are going to be very, very rich.”
What It Takes Page 36
