What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  Then Hart turned his chin to the questions.

  Doesn’t this raise doubts about your judgment?

  Yes, Hart said, but judgment was more than one weekend. Judgment, like character, had to take into account thousands of decisions over fifteen years of political leadership.

  You complain about the reporters—but you wouldn’t let them talk to the woman in your house.

  Right, Hart said. And that was a judgment. There were three people in his house, none of whom had given him permission to involve them in a press imbroglio.

  Everybody’s heard the rumors about you. Haven’t there been other times, with other women ... just like this?

  No, Hart said, though he’d had many women friends.

  So why do so many believe the stories about you?

  Goes with the territory. He and Lee had been open about their separations. But if he did mean to have an affair with this young woman—he’d written spy novels, he wasn’t stupid—he wouldn’t have done it like this.

  Of course, they didn’t believe that ... they grilled him on the phone calls, the boat trip, the ins and outs of Saturday, the alley, the front door, the car, the garage ...

  Hart’s answers were quick and sure. But they didn’t take the steam out of the room. Hart was determined to do this—as long as it took. But it came clear, now, he would never answer: they didn’t believe the answers, or they didn’t want to. It wasn’t about that Friday night, or even about Donna Rice. It was just him—anything they could get on him.

  Why were you going to jetset parties?

  Would you take a lie-detector test?

  Didn’t you say, “I love danger”?

  (“I don’t love it that much,” Hart said.)

  His mind was working on every level—shocking clarity ... like he saw himself from the ceiling, a figure surrounded, but firm against the mass focused on him ... at the same time his lawyer-brain raced to the end of their questions while their mouths still labored on set-up and premise ... at the same time, within, he worked his will on his eyes and voice—keep them steady!

  He watched their faces. They were out of control. They were past reason. This thing ... had ahold of them. The look in their eyes as they stared at him—it was anger.

  It was rage!

  What had he done to them?

  Now it had got to character—i.e., anything they could get. Why? Why now? His eyes found Jack Germond, searched for David Broder—where was Witcover? Shogan? ... He’d known those guys—they’d known him—fifteen years, since he started as a young volunteer for McGovern. Till now—a candidate for President of the United States. Fifteen years! Germond and Jules wrote a book with him in it. They never called him a liar before. They didn’t see him as a “bad character” fifteen years ago, or ten, or five.

  I’m either a bad character, or I’m not. ... Are they ever going to ask themselves how they missed it—for fifteen years?

  Hart thought it was like going back to a high school reunion ... and suddenly your classmates hate you!

  “Senator, in your remarks yesterday, you raised the issue of morality and you raised the issue of truthfulness. Let me ask you what you mean when you talk about morality. Let me be very specific. I have a series of questions about it. ...”

  This was Paul Taylor.

  You had to understand how this moment was ... for Paul. As he later would note in his book, Paul knew plenty. All rumors, alas, but Paul had heard stories. One time, he himself heard a story from a “trusted political source” about Hart having “a roll in the hay” with a woman in Texas!

  But here was Hart talking about his high standards of conduct.

  “The nakedness of his deceit,” Paul wrote in his book, “put me in an uncharitable frame of mind.”

  He asked:

  “When you said you did nothing immoral, did you mean that you had no sexual relationship with Donna Rice last weekend or any other time you were with her?”

  Gary Hart: “That is correct.”

  Paul Taylor: “Do you believe that adultery is immoral?”

  Gary Hart: “Yes.”

  Paul Taylor: “Have you ever committed adultery?”

  There was a half-instant where Hart just stared—a blink. He’d been warned. Sweeney brought up the question, on the flight to New Hampshire. On the plane, Hart snapped angrily: “I don’t have to answer that!” And Sweeney liked that anger—he let it go at that.

  But now they were asking ... Hart could hardly believe it. It was absurd! This had mushroomed from Friday night ... to ever—in his life! Was that the new test of his candidacy?

  “Ahh ... I do not think that’s a fair question.”

  There was no anger in his voice—he felt at sea. He looked at the pack, from face to face: guys he’d seen chasing anything that smelled female—women reporters, campaign staff, stewardesses, cocktail waitresses, volunteers—interns ... children! High school girls! HYPOCRITES! ... Hart’s gaze was racing from face to face, looking for something ...

  The video boys zoomed for close-ups when they saw Hart’s eyes go shifty. You could just about see the man sag. The air came out of him. Taylor was still after him.

  “So that you believe adultery is immoral ...”

  “Yes I do,” Hart said.

  “Have you ever committed adultery?”

  “I do not know. I’m not going into a theological definition of what constitutes adultery. In some people’s minds, it’s people being married and having relationships with other people, so ...”

  “Can I ask you whether you and your wife have an understanding about whether or not you can have sexual encounters with other ...”

  “My inclination is to say: No, you can’t ask that question. But the answer is, no. We don’t have that kind of understanding. We have an understanding of faithfulness, fidelity, and loyalty. That’s our understanding.”

  Gary thought of Lee having to hear this. Why should he have to explain their marriage, their understandings? They’d told him, upstairs: Lee has to be at your side. “Nonsense!” he’d said. ... Now Hart’s chin came up. Lee shouldn’t have to go through any of this! He called for more questions, the snap was back in his voice.

  “Was it upon your invitation that Donna Rice went to Bimini?”

  “She didn’t force her way on the boat ...”

  It went on for forty-five minutes—and Hart stood his ground. He knew he hadn’t won, but he’d taken their best, or their worst—everything they could throw at him, he thought.

  More than half the pack loaded up to follow his motorcade north, to Littleton, New Hampshire. Hart had a town meeting scheduled. The motorcade was waiting, reporters milling around nearby, when all of a sudden, out of the garage squealed ... Gary Hart, in a white Jeep. He’d commandeered it. He was at the wheel. And he roared away, left hand on the wheel, right hand holding Lee to him. She was sidling closer to him, as they disappeared.

  The press went crazy. The cameramen were in a lather. They ran, shouting ... Let’s go! Shit! Come on. He’s goin’—move! MOVE! ... But an hour later, when they got to Littleton, Hart had arrived, the forum was started—no press.

  There was a citizen Q&A. The people didn’t ask about Donna Rice. They asked about nuclear arms, and trade, the oil import fee, and Gorbachev.

  The press pack was outside the old wooden house, on the big lawn, badgering Sweeney.

  Whaddabout when he saw Lee? ...

  Kevin! Kevin! Did they kiss?

  Kevin! Did they kiss on the LIPS?

  Did he kiss Lee on the LIPS?

  Finally, the town meeting broke up. Gary and Lee came out. They had to get to their car, thirty yards away. But the pack assaulted them.

  The still photographers were right in their faces, clicking off pictures. Thousands of pictures. They wouldn’t let up. Motor drives, cyclops lenses, lights, and strobes. From everywhere, voices were screaming: WhaddaboutDonnaRice?RICE!LEE!DonnaMRS.HARTonnarice?WHADD YATHINKAYERHUSBAND? ... As Hart moved, the pack moved, backwar
d, blindly, crushing whatever was in its path. There was a kid three or four years old who was getting trampled.

  Hart was furious. He’d always hated those gang-bang photo-blitzkriegs ... but now he was powerless. The pack was bigger than him. Hey! Watch that kid! ... Who could Hart tell? Who could stop this thing? ... The mikes were swinging over his head. Lee got clobbered with a Minicam. (Billy Shore, God bless him, slugged the guy.) ... Then, right in front of his face, Hart saw a photographer he knew: Ira Wyman, from Newsweek. Ira had been shooting Hart for years—since ’84, at least. He was a roly-poly guy, round face, always friendly—a bit of a pest, but he knew both Gary and Lee.

  “Ira!” Hart said. Wyman was furiously making pictures, stumbling backward. Hart saw that little kid go down in the swarm and he called, “Ira! ...” He reached out, and got Ira by the strap of one of his cameras. “Ira! Help me! ...”

  Wyman jerked backward, pulling the strap out of Hart’s hand, and with his lens two feet from Hart’s face, kept working his shutter.

  Hart wouldn’t stay in the same hotel with the press. Stratton quietly moved Gary out of Littleton, across the border to a town in Vermont. There was dinner—two tables—with the road crew, Lee, and Spangler and Trippi, who’d come with her from Denver.

  Lee was lighthearted, telling stories from Troublesome Gulch—the stakeout, the picnic. Someone mentioned the stakeout of Andrea’s classes at U of Denver. Gary said: “You’re kidding. You didn’t tell me that.”

  “Andrea was going to give ’em hell. You would have been proud.”

  Gary didn’t look proud. You could see him sinking into himself. They were chasing his daughter! He ought to have been there with her. Where was she now? Why was she alone? ... Why was he here?

  Good question.

  “Why did we do this event tonight? The press doesn’t want to listen to anything I tell these people. The people don’t want to ask anything the press is asking. But I can’t get though to the people if the press isn’t going to write what I say.

  “If this doesn’t let up, we can’t do it ...”

  Hart kept trying to figure a way he could break out of this blood sport. Trippi and Casey talked about buying airtime. “Thirty minutes—go right over their heads. You’ll never get it though the press, so the hell with ’em.”

  From the other table, someone pointed out: “The minute you’re off the air, Dan Rather’ll be on, and Jennings—everybody, you know ... what he didn’t say, what he didn’t answer.”

  “We could do it straight,” Trippi said. “We get a huge crowd. Build the biggest crowd we can do. Then you just tell ’em why you’re running. Don’t answer questions. Just right out to the people.”

  Hart liked the sound of that—right out to the people.

  “Yeah,” someone else said, “but it gets to the network news, they’ll spin it any way they want.”

  “You just get back into the plane and go! What’re they gonna use except the speech?”

  “Yeah, but they’ll say what they want, anyway.”

  Hart felt he had to think anew. He had to figure something ... fundamental. He had to start it over, somehow. But a weariness was upon him. He couldn’t find the clarity he required. His head was going too fast—or too slow. They tried to make a list of options, but there were too many—or too few. ... He stood up. “Well, let’s go home,” Hart said.

  He meant: Let’s go back to the rooms. Didn’t he?

  Paul Taylor got the word straight from Bradlee that night. That woman in the photo, the detective’s report ...

  Ben had gotten his call-back—only took one day. His pal said this was recent, this was real. This gal thought Hart loved her!

  Bradlee told Taylor the woman was upset about Hart and Donna Rice. She was horrified that Hart had been followed to her house. She feared for her reputation, and her job. She wanted to keep her name out of the paper ... and Ben, ever courtly, wanted that, too.

  Of course, Taylor needn’t tell Hart that.

  That was the evening’s work: Get Hart. Get a comment. Let him think the Post was going to run the story, tomorrow, or whenever. Let him think whatever he wanted. That would, in Paul’s phrase, “keep the squeeze on.”

  Squeeze for what?

  Paul described his “exhilarating chase”:

  “My destination was the Eastgate Hotel in Littleton, where I expected to confront Hart with information that might sink his badly listing campaign. ...”

  Of course, when Taylor got to the hotel in Littleton, Hart was across the border in Vermont. But Paul didn’t know that. He found Sweeney in a bar off the lobby, with three reporters—among them the Post’s Bill Peterson. Paul was delighted. He called Peterson out and whispered the poop on this new woman—this was the moment! And here was Peterson to help Paul—you know, to face Hart with this ... ruin.

  They could help each other, Paul and Bill, through the interview ... and into history.

  But Peterson didn’t want to help. He thought it was sleazy.

  So Taylor went back to Sweeney, asked him out to the lobby. They sat down, and Paul was exhaling in audible puffs.

  “What?” Sweeney said, without slack in his voice. He was in no mood to sit through Taylor’s moment. Paul had asked his smarmy questions at the press conference. Sweeney’d had about all the press contact he could stand. After his evening in the bar, he was sick up to his throat with reporters trying to apologize ... “Well, I don’t think it’s a story, but, you know, my editor ...” It was disgusting! They could see what this was doing to Hart, to his family and his campaign ... they all wanted it known, it wasn’t their doing. They were following orders. Bullshit!

  “What? ...”

  Peterson came back to the lobby at that moment, and he said to Taylor: “We’re not doing this.”

  Taylor snapped him a look: We’ve been through this. ... But Peterson hung in there. “Paul, you don’t have to do this. You don’t ... have ... to DO this.”

  Taylor lifted his arms up and shook his head. He shook his hands and shook his head. He said, “Bill, there’s just a lot of pressure.”

  Then he told Sweeney:

  “We have evidence of Gary with another woman. We have a detective’s report that tells us that Gary was having an affair with another woman. We have corroboration from the woman. So, we have two of the three pieces. The only thing we need now is comment from Hart. I need to talk to him.”

  There was no way Sweeney was going to let Taylor near Hart. Not unless he had to—and that meant knowing what the Post had. Taylor opened up his laptop and started reading notes from his bosses in D.C.

  He read it all—the suspicious husband, the detective’s report, the pictures, the date. ... It struck Sweeney—that was months before Hart declared his candidacy. The great Washington Post was peddling a private detective’s report—from before the campaign ... that was pathetic! ... And then—that date: last December 20!

  “God, I was with him,” Sweeney said.

  He remembered the day ... Hart was so happy, just back from Russia—the meeting with Gorbachev! He picked up Kevin at his place, and they went out to Mutual Radio in Virginia. Hart had to do the answer to Reagan’s weekly chat. Back in D.C., they went to a bookstore on the Hill, and then Hart dropped off Sweeney, and went home ... Sweeney thought he went home. Taylor said the Post had pictures of Hart at the woman’s home.

  Sweeney took notes and told Taylor he’d get back to him. It was close to midnight—Hart might be asleep. Sweeney didn’t know if he’d wake him.

  Sweeney called Denver. The white boys were on the squawk box with Joe Trippi, Sue Casey, and Billy Shore in Vermont. They were working on the two-week schedule. Sweeney beeped in on Emerson’s second line and told him to get the other guys out of the room. Sweeney had to talk to Emmo in private.

  From Vermont, they could still hear Emerson, on his other phone. “Uh huh ... uh huh ... hnnnh ... okay.” Then Emerson came back on their line and said he had to talk to Billy Shore, in private.
r />   It was Billy who called Hart—gave him the news, and said he’d better talk to Sweeney. Hart called Kevin within five minutes.

  So Sweeney went through his notes—very deliberately: Taylor said this ... the detective’s report said that. ... Sweeney was dry. He didn’t want to sway Hart’s reaction. This was Gary’s call.

  But Gary started to stumble around, explaining. “Well, I went out with, uh ... when Lee and I were separated. And, uh, I saw her, um ...” He was talking very slowly. Sweeney felt his heart sinking.

  Then Hart stopped and said: “This isn’t going to end, is it?”

  Sweeney was surprised to hear the resentment in his own voice. “Well,” he said, “you’d know better than I.”

  And that was it. Hart was alone.

  Hart said: “Well, let’s go home.”

  Stratton got the little plane Lee had flown to New Hampshire ... got them in the air about dawn. No one was to know. They had to give Hart a head start, try to keep this mum till the Learjet got to Denver—till Gary and Lee could retreat behind their barbed wire.

  No one had got much sleep. Stratton hadn’t slept since the weekend. It was one of those mornings when the nerves are so close to the surface, your skin hurts; the light in the Lear’s windows, from the early red sun, was like an assault. On the plane, there were only six: Stratton, Sue Casey, Billy Shore, Linda Spangler ... Gary and Lee Hart, side by side, in the back seats. No one tried to talk above the whine of the engines. Gary was reading Tolstoy’s Resurrection.