What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  “What’s Bob Dole gonna do?” said the gentle Campaign Manager. “Rent a trailer and invite all the New Hampshire Police Chiefs down to see him in his Airstream? ...”

  But Atwater (who was new at being a white man) missed the point—it wasn’t class, or escape, not in the view from the big house.

  Kennebunkport, all the “cottages,” and Walker’s Point in particular, had to do with America’s substitute for class—that is, money and power. The stern gentlemen in their wing collars and boater hats who built these oceanfront mansions were not the idle rich of their day. They were men of big works and large affairs ... they’d catch the State o’ Maine sleeper Friday night from New York and, forty-eight hours later, they’d kiss their children goodbye again for the overnight trip back to Wall Street or midtown. Kennebunkport was their creation, for lives of the most rapacious striving.

  Here is a fact about Walker’s Point that should be borne in mind:

  In the plan of the town, and through its early decades, this unique, irreplaceable spit of land was called Damon’s Point, or more popularly, Damon’s Park ... because it was the townspeople’s favorite retreat, a place (as the local historian wrote) of “wandering well-worn woodland paths; a small pond; fragrant juniper and sun-warmed blueberries; and unsurpassed views in both directions along the shoreline of the Kennebunks. ...”

  That’s before the Walkers bought it—so much for the public park.

  Yes, proprieties were observed (white shorts and shirt on the court, please) ... but the point, at the Point, was who played—and won. Yes, the Walker boys were expected at St. Ann’s every Sunday—their mother was a very religious woman ... imagine her dismay (though shock was unlikely) to find her sons, before church, in a circle by the driveway, laying down their bets on the first hymn—even or odd?

  The W-word at the Point was Winning.

  In the summer of 1987, while Bush reck-reated, David Broder wondered in print whether Bush was too much “an innocent” to survive the slaughter of a campaign. The Karacter Kops weighed in with profiles—mostly following the lead of the Chief Majorette: “Is George Bush Too Nice to Be President?” ... They all stressed the privilege, the security of his youth, all the friends he made at school ...

  But what were friends for?

  Remember the Andover newspaper poll: “The average student came to Andover with making contacts uppermost in his mind.” Friends were the fellows who helped you play the game ... and win. That was the real game—great doings, the lifelong King of the Mountain—the scramble onward and upward from Andover Hill to the boardroom, or the Cabinet table. ...

  Consider the transcontinental, transgenerational web of friendship, family, and power that supported one Bush-scramble, the creation and financing of Zapata Off-Shore Company:

  George’s main booster was still Uncle Herbie, whose company, G.H. Walker & Co., was underwriter for nearly all of Zapata Off-Shore’s early public offerings of stocks and bonds. The law firm representing G.H. Walker & Co. was Winthrop, Stimson, the firm founded by Elihu Root in 1868. Henry Stimson (Andover’s chairman and icon) was taken into the firm by Root in 1891. The actual lawyering on Zapata issues was done by Endicott P. “Cotty” Davison, a grandson of the legendary founder and headmaster of Groton, Endicott Peabody, and, with George Bush, a Bonesman at Yale in 1948. For Zapata Off-Shore’s initial public offering, however, Bush wanted a Texas company to underwrite. Luckily, Robert Parish, who had been at Andover with Bush, was working at the Houston investment bank of Underwood, Neuhaus. (Parish and Milton Underwood took seats on the board of Zapata Off-Shore.) Parish called his friend Baine Kerr, who had experience in the oil and gas business, to do the Texas lawyering. Kerr was an associate at Baker & Botts, the prestigious Houston law firm founded by the grandfather of James A. Baker III. One of the early partners at Baker & Botts had been Robert S. Lovett, who became counsel to E.H. Harriman’s Union Pacific and later served on the board of directors and as president of the railroad. Lovett was a self-educated man—his formal training ended after the third grade. But his own son, Robert A. Lovett, went on to the Hill School (with Herbie Walker and his brothers) and to Yale, where he was Skull and Bones. Lovett the younger, who commanded the first U.S. Naval Air Squadron, married Adele Brown, daughter of James Brown, a senior partner in Brown Brothers. Lovett also rose to partner at Brown Brothers and helped to arrange the merger of Brown Brothers with W.A. Harriman & Co., a company formed by E.H. Harriman’s sons, Averell and Roland, and run for a time by George Bush’s grandfather, G.H. Walker. Prescott Bush was a top partner in the firm for forty years. In fact, the Harrimans’ top men, Pres Bush and Knight Wooley, had been Skull and Bones at Yale with four of the partners at Brown Brothers: Lovett, Ellery James, Laurence Tighe, and Charles Dickey. And just as Davison had been at Yale with Bush, so, too, Root, Stimson, the Harrimans, and all the Walkers were Yale alumni. And not only did they do business, but they were part of a line—from Root to Stimson to Lovett—that held sway in the U.S. departments of War and State, from the Spanish-American to the Vietnam War.

  Tell the truth, the Walkers of Walker’s Point were not so much interested in matters of public policy. More than most, they tended to strip the game to its essence—which was to put oneself and one’s heirs firmly astride the fuel lines of the great economic engine. When Bush’s Uncle Herbie shoved those new Zapata shares into the portfolios of his favored investors (with such blunt insistence that it actually caused some talk within the firm) ... he did not have in mind the energy requirements and policies of the Republic. No, he was backing his favorite, Poppy. He was betting his horse to win.

  Yes, there was security in the web—it could act as an extraordinary safety net: in the early years of Zapata Off-Shore, a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico blew away one of Bush’s three multimillion-dollar oil rigs ... disappeared it, and with it, a third of Bush’s business prospects. George was under great stress—though amid the Walkers and Bushes in Maine, nothing was ever really said about it. ... Of course, Zapata was insured (through George’s brother, Pressy) ... but still, it was woeful news for the company, its investors and creditors. Sure enough, the officers of the Morgan Guaranty Bank were upset (most upset that they had not been told), so the bank president called his friend, Dr. Johnny Walker, in Kennebunkport. Johnny Walker told brother Herbie, who snapped: “What the hell are they calling for? I’ve got three or four guys who’ll cover the whole thing!” ... and Herbie called the president of Morgan Guaranty to tell him to get off of George Bush’s back. ... In fact, almost a week of sun-and-sea passed in Kennebunkport before Herbie or Johnny found cause to mention the matter to George.

  Still, in the end, it was win or lose with the Walkers, and within the wider web of white men in which Bush came of age and became a star. Herbie was not cutting slack for his nephew—he was still betting to win. (He held on to Zapata Off-Shore to the end, till George Bush, himself, sold out in ’65 to devote himself to politics. Even when the stock sank to two dollars and change, Herbie would insist: “Gonna be the greatest stock. Y’gotta go with management! ...”) The trick was to have enough muscle and will to stay in the game ... and narrow the odds.

  Herbie had the will. He was the second patriarch of the Point, which spoke volumes for his strength and standing within the web. In each generation, there was, after all, only one man to tend Walker’s Point, and defend it, for the family and its heirs. ... That was another easy misconception about this world of ferocious white men: in the end, there was nothing collegial about control, or winning. Only one man could have the big house.

  And in his generation, George Bush was that man ... that kind of winner. It was not Herbie’s sons, Bert or Ray, who took the big house. And it was not for George Bush to take, in turn, the smaller bungalow where his parents, Pres and Dottie, had summered. The family was its own Ranking Committee ... and Poppy was The One.

  Maybe it was not entirely coincidence that it was at the Point, amid that family, that George Bush first said where
he thought his life should lead. It was a summer evening in the sixties, the family was gathered, idly, with a TV on—pictures of a great hall, a national convention, a massed crowd cheering, and politicians on stage, waving and smiling ... George Bush was lying on the floor of the living room, on his side, his head propped on an elbow, his eyes on the screen, as he said:

  “I’m gonna be up there, sometime.”

  Maybe it was not entirely coincidence ... when Herbie passed away, a decade later, and his widow, Mary, was going to sell the Point (a group of Arab investors meant to break up the parcel), Herbie’s brothers brought matters to a head and prevailed upon Mary to sell the land and the big house (for a great deal less than it would fetch from the foreigners) to George Bush. It would not be easy for George. The house had been wrecked by a big storm. A wing was in ruins, the great parlor jutting out to sea was battered open to the weather ... the place would need plenty of cash—more than George Bush had, at the time. But he was The One, family-ordained. ... Maybe it was not entirely coincidence:

  That was the year he first ran for President.

  No one understood the web and George Bush’s place in it—or appreciated it—like the First Son and chip off the block, George W. Bush. That’s why he never offered the Veep advice.

  It was because he knew his father: how Bush was about “team play” ... about letting people do their jobs ... about professional people who shouldn’t have to look over their shoulders at every member of the family. That’s why Junior tried to keep quiet—he put his head down, did his work.

  But that work was in the campaign, every day. And George W. Bush had method—hard to see, sometimes, but ... method, nonetheless. He’d have a rotating gaggle in his office all day, bullshitting, playing with the toys on his desk, giggling at the T-shirts and gimcracks tacked all over the walls, while Junior sat with his boots on the desk, a chew in his bottom lip, talkin’ on the phone and spittin’ in the basket ... and listening. Sometimes people would get so easy in his office, they’d say what they thought.

  That’s how Junior knew—what they said and what they thought. He knew ... when they looked at his dad like a kid with his first bike—sure he was going to crash and maim himself somehow. Like they were with the debate—oh, Junior knew. It pissed him off. He knew why that stuff was in the papers, about Bush ducking. ...

  That’s why he brought up the stories.

  They were playing golf—“electric polo,” they called it. The way Bushes played—and played through—the course was theirs to race. (Whap! Hit the ball, gun the cart, jump out while the tires are still skidding grass—Whap! ... Two hours, start to finish! A truly athletic event!)

  “Shot! ...” Junior cried in approbation, and then, more quietly, into the cart-wind: “These guys don’t think you can do it ... what we all know you can do ... this putt is mine—in the CUP! ...”

  That was about all—not much had to be said, could be said, within the web, in Maine. ... It was, actually, a couple of days later, in the air, aboard Air Force Two, on the way to San Antonio, Bush told Fuller:

  “When we land I want a statement saying I’ll do the debate ... October 28. I’ll be there.” Fuller was surprised: he hadn’t heard any discussion about that. But there was nothing in Bush’s voice that invited discussion.

  Bar said: “Oh, you’ll have to call George ...” (She meant George W.) “He’ll be so pleased.”

  Bush got up and motioned her into the forward cabin, told her there was no need to rub Fuller’s face in it. He didn’t want the staff looking over their shoulders at the family.

  Junior got the news in the next day’s Post—at least, one version of it:

  “... Bush announced his change of heart in San Antonio after discussing it with aides on the way to a speaking engagement there, the aides said.”

  Anyway, the lead was true: George H.W. Bush was coming out to campaign.

  53

  Into the Death-Star

  YOU COULD SEE WHAT happened in San Antonio from the papers ... well, you could see what happened to Dole.

  It wasn’t his speech. His speech went fine. He had those Legion fellows laughing, cheering ... he knew they were his.

  But that part didn’t make the papers—his speech. No, the stories were all about Bush agreeing to debate ... and then Bush’s speech—that’s what tripped up Dole.

  Bush used this line—just a throwaway, a passing dig—about the Congress trying to micro-manage foreign policy instead of leaving it to the White House, to the President ... who, in Bush’s view, was in charge of Standing Tall.

  And Dole took the bait—he defended the Congress, or at least his Republicans, who were backing the President, supporting the White House!

  Dole was extra-sensitive, as he was just then promoting his own five-point peace plan for Central America, his own first adventure in Standing Tall.

  Even so, he didn’t make a big deal out of his defense. He answered one question: it was probably four minutes out of his day. ... It was just that those four minutes were the next day’s news:

  BUSH, DOLE TRADE BARBS

  Which was a clear violation of the “Be Nice” rule ... but what was worse: there was no news about Dole ... nothing about his life, himself ... what linked him to that Legion crowd. He was off his message—and after that ...

  Well, it was hard to watch, after that ... like watching a skydiver when his chute won’t open.

  Bush was safely back on his boat. Dole had to go on ... but he wouldn’t go on—not on his schedule. He was supposed to go to Austin—interview with a guy from Texas Monthly, a press conference with the statehouse press corps. That was the problem: Dole got it into his head they were going to ask him who he had in Austin—what pooh-bahs? And he had no bigwigs to announce. So he wouldn’t go ... and, worse:

  He got out his maps in the plane, and announced: they were going to West Texas—Lubbock—and then to Midland ... flying into the crack of the Empire’s death-star—Midland, Texas ... wrestling for Bush’s own life. Set it up!

  So at the next stop, the poor body man, Mike Glassner, sneaked to a pay phone and called in desperation back to headquarters—to Judy Karnaugh, the Scheduler, who was ... not exactly sympathetic:

  “I don’t care who you call. Lubbock is not on the schedule ... how should I know who to call?”

  “Judy, come on, please. He says we’re going to Lubbock. Don’t you have a number? ... Just the County Chairman!”

  Of course, the County Chairman was a Bush guy, and anyway ... they didn’t call him till four o’clock on the afternoon before they showed up ... so, the next day, Glassner’s voice on the phone was smaller ... calling from Lubbock. Dole was doing press, before the event, but Glassner had peeked into the hall:

  “I can’t tell him,” Glassner said.

  “You have to tell him! It’s his own fault!”

  “Judy, there’s three people ... the chairman and two old ladies! That’s all!”

  Of course, Dole was furious. That’s why he demanded they set it up for Midland!

  Glassner was on the phone, again:

  “Judy, Senator says Jimmy Allison’s wife will set it up. He says you know how to find Jimmy Allison ...”

  Judy’s voice was ice:

  “Tell the Senator ... this is not the wife he remembers. ... You might also mention: Jimmy Allison is dead.”

  Of course. Dole went anyway. It was disaster ... but he had to do it. Alas, it was not just about Dole’s life—not to Dole. It was about Bush’s, too ... that whole Texas business Bush liked to peddle—Dole couldn’t believe it, couldn’t see how anyone would believe it.

  You could see how Dole looked at it ... though he wasn’t supposed to talk about Bush:

  “ ‘Course, you could say I was from Texas,” Dole told one crowd. “I was stationed at Camp Barkley, near Abilene, in the war. ... I got to Texas before George Bush! ...”

  The crowd chuckled amiably. But it wasn’t a joke. What had Bush ever done to claim Texas? ... Su
re, he ran there—and lost.

  “I think what chairmen want is a qualified winner,” Dole mentioned. “... Not a qualified loser.”

  Of course, that made the papers, too. Well, what of it? ... He didn’t say the guy’s name! ... Gaghhd! Come on! What had the guy ever done—that hadn’t been handed to him? ... Dole never could figure what they saw in George Bush.

  54

  1968

  DOLE SAW HIM, OF course, when Bush got to Congress, in ’67 ... people said the guy was a star. Nice guy, sure ... far as that went. Not too far.

  Dole had been in the House for six years! He figured he understood what Bush had going: he was the son of Prescott Bush. Well, Bob was the son of Doran Dole. That was a difference ... so what?

  Then, too, there was Bush’s district—Houston—people talked about that. Made a difference.

  Well, the difference Dole saw was, that district was made for Bush! Bob never had that kind of luxury. The minute he got to Washington, Dole was a marked man. His district, which was already huge, was going to be combined with Floyd Breeding’s—a Democrat! Dole had to fight to survive!

  But he toughed it out, he worked his way back.

  Two years later, his race was even harder. Had to fight his way through the Goldwater disaster. Pulled it out by his fingernails, and five thousand votes—five or ten votes in every town, he had hit them all ... in a district as big as New York State ... driving all night toward the next lights on the prairie, with one big fear:

  Flat tire.

  What the hell would he do?

  Of course, no one knew that ... Dole wouldn’t talk about that.

  No one knew either what it took to get dressed—those mornings on the road. Bob could use a buttonhook for the shirt now, but the top button might take a half-hour—and still might not work. He’d tie his tie himself now, even if Phyllis was around—but he might tie it five times. Had to be just so.