The Last Debate

by Jim Lehrer

  There were no unknowns about the professional side of their relationship. Sunday Morning with Hank and Barb, after only fourteen broadcasts, had gone up .4 in the ratings to within .1 point of second-place Schwarzkopf. There had already even been some blind quotes in the trades about the possibility of the Holy Grail—of overtaking Jack and Jill. The Washington Post’s television writer, Jack Carmody, quoted an anonymous network executive saying: “That sound we hear under our feet over here is that made by the noisy young on their way to vanquish Jack and Jill.” The next morning Carmody had a counterquote from an executive at another network. “Despite their skin colors, Hank and Barb are Jack and Jill ‘light,’ and that is what they will always be. One Sunday they will be gone, and nobody outside of their immediate families and the network will even notice,” said the unnamed executive.

  I will always remember that inaugural day for reasons that have nothing to do with anything that happened on the west side of the Capitol, on Pennsylvania Avenue, or on Joan Naylor’s, Hank and Barb’s, or anybody else’s network television program.

  That was the afternoon it happened to me. That was the afternoon a messenger in a motorcycle helmet and goggles brought an unsigned note to our Tatler office. It was addressed to “The Man from Mississippi University for Women.” The note, carefully typed in the center of a three-by-five index card, consisted only of the name of a restaurant, an address, and the words “Tonight, 8 P.M.”

  The excitement I felt driving through the heavy post-inaugural traffic north from downtown that night to my rendezvous was unlike any I had ever had before. It could be difficult—and maybe crazy or even scary—but I knew I was going to come back with the goods. I just knew it.

  The restaurant was called Richard’s and it was in suburban Maryland on a busy four-lane road of neon, auto dealerships, and strip shopping centers called Rockville Pike.

  Richard, of Richard’s, was just inside the door. Both he and his place were marvelously dark and musty. There were gaudy travel posters from Alitalia and Air France on the walls, gaudy people behind the bar and waiting tables under the direction of Richard, the most gaudy of all. His hair was coal black, over his ears and down to his collar in back. He had rings on his fingers and a double-breasted dark gray pinstripe suit on his body, which appeared to be as lean and solid as Nelson’s.

  “You must be Mr. Chapman,” he said before I said anything. “I recognize you, but I don’t, if you know what I mean.” I had no idea what he meant.

  “ ‘Come with me to the Casbah,’ ” said Richard.

  I followed him through the kitchen, which was inhabited by several black-haired men of all ages and by the powerful smells of gurgling tomato sauces and the sautéing parts of fish and veal.

  The back room was nothing more than the wine cellar with a table and four chairs. The table was set for three people. Sid Nelson was sitting at one of the three places. He motioned for me to sit down at the one directly across. That left a place between us.

  Who was coming? Matters, along with Richard’s sauces, were thickening.

  I said something about the mysterious ways of Richard. I was looking for small talk. It was what popped out. I said: “Wonder what he did before he went into the restaurant business.”

  “Would you really like to know?” Nelson said.

  “Sure. But it doesn’t matter.… I’m just making noise. Idle curiosity.”

  “He was a killer, an assassin. One of the best we ever had. I don’t have any exact figures, but I’d say he’s probably got fifty scalps on his belt. And that’s conservative.”

  The best we ever had? Who in the hell is we? Jesus.

  Nelson was still the same soft-spoken tough guy from the turbobike. But in this place, this back room, this Casbah, he seemed much more sinister.

  I felt a slight breeze of fear. I really did. I thought it was perfectly possible that somebody, probably Richard, would come into the room, hold up a silencer-equipped pistol, and blow out the brains of Thomas Blaine Chapman of The New American Tatler. I thought it was also perfectly possible that after taking a bite of whatever I was about to eat, I might feel a pain in the stomach, a tightening in my throat, and then keel over stone dead. I could see my head facedown in a plate of pasta with tomato sauce coming out of my nose like blood, like in the mob movies. I was scared. I was not only not coming away from here with the goods, I was not coming away with my life.

  I looked desperately into Nelson’s face for a clue, a flicker of something—anything. There was no change. He was still the man on the turbo who had done nothing but make the smallest of small talk.

  “Working on any interesting cases?” I said. I was frantic for some kind of sign of normal life.

  “You journalists are the ones with the interesting cases,” Nelson said.

  “How did you happen to get into law enforcement?” I asked. This was crazy, but I couldn’t help it.

  “I can’t imagine your really being interested in my resume,” Nelson said.

  I asked the question about what it was that caused him to leave the FBI. He said it was because the assistant attorney general wanted him to put a tap on the private phone of the British ambassador. Nelson could see no legitimate national-security reason for the tap and suspected some kind of personal reason. The tap was never placed.

  “But the assistant AG had friends in higher places than I, so I left and went into the private security and investigation business,” he said. “If I had known how nice it is out here in the private world, I would have left one helluva lot sooner.”

  “What do you think of the way Greene is doing so far?” I asked.

  “He just went to work today.”

  “Right, good point. Right. Was the FBI a good place to work?”

  “Sometimes it was. Sometimes it wasn’t.”

  I knew he was going to sit there and let me babble on as long as I was willing to babble on. It was a form of torture, something that clearly came naturally to the likes of Nelson. I knew it, but I could not stop it.

  I asked him about his family. He said he had one—a wife, two grown sons, and three grandchildren. One of the sons was a lawyer in New York, the other a Secret Service agent assigned to the White House protective detail. The agent-son had gotten a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement at the University of South Carolina.

  “I’ll bet he could tell some stories,” I babbled about Nelson’s son.

  “Nelsons don’t tell stories,” Nelson said.

  Then why are we sitting here? Have you brought me here to kill me? Is that it? If no stories, what, for Christ’s sake?

  Finally, finally, finally. He said: “Why did you accuse me of handing over the statements to Howley?”

  At last.

  “Process of elimination and deduction,” I said. “Nobody else had access to them. Nobody I could identify, at least.”

  “Did you talk to Turpin?”

  “Yes.”

  “He could have passed on the statements.”

  “He convinced me he didn’t.”

  “You’re easy, Mr. Chapman.”

  “He had no motive.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “What?”

  “The same one everyone had—including Howley and his three colleagues.”

  “Please. Not the patriotism and love-of-country bit.…”

  I wanted those words back in my mouth, and the tone that went with them. Sid Nelson clearly was not a man who appreciated snide cracks about patriotism and love of country. I didn’t really mean it to come out snide either. I didn’t mean anything.

  For a few seconds I thought I had really blown it. If Nelson had in fact come this night to give me the goods, he would not do it now. I watched his face turn from friendly to loathing. “I spent twenty-seven years in the FBI dealing with people like you,” he said. “Is being a holier-than-thou smartass, a smug judge of all morality, part of the qualifications for employment in the field of journalism, or is it something that is taught on
the job?”

  “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I believe …”

  Nelson looked away. Forget it, Chapman, and shut up.

  I forgot it and shut up. And held my breath. In a few seconds he started talking again. The worst was over. It had passed.

  “Why do you want to know about those statements, Mr. Chapman?”

  Oh, shit. What does he think I am doing? Obviously, I want them for the stories I am doing for The New American Tatler. Obviously. What in the hell do you think I want them for?

  I had no option but to make a speech. I said: “I believe, sir, that it is an important part of the total story—the story of how the outcome of a presidential election was changed by the actions of four journalists in getting a presidential candidate to blow up and drop out of the race. The weapons they used were the statements. I see following the trail of those statements the same as it would be … well, following the trail of a pistol into the hands of a killer.”

  “Killer? Weapon? So that is how you see this case—what happened in Williamsburg?”

  “I don’t know what I think, sir.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  Yes, you—I—do. The man was right, of course. I knew exactly what I thought. Yes, you do.

  “My working thesis is simply that Mike Howley came to Williamsburg with those statements, planning to manipulate the other three panelists into using them.…”

  “Are you an honorable man, Mr. Chapman?”

  “Yes … certainly, I am.” It was a question I had never before been asked.

  “You said that with some hesitation. Honest men usually do. There is no single honor code for all, Mr. Chapman. You have one. Howley has one. I have one. It is possible that all three are different, but each of us sees our own as the only one. We measure ourselves and others by it—and only it.”

  I was not expected to comment, react, or interrupt in any way. So I didn’t.

  He continued: “Let me tell you, Mr. Chapman, directly and without hesitation or ambiguity, that I very much endorse what Howley and the other three did that night in Williamsburg. They acted honorably, according to my code. They did something for the good of their country—my country. I don’t know why they did it, but what they did was right. I admire that and I respect that.”

  He paused. It was a signal that I was now free to speak.

  “I respect your opinion, sir.”

  “No you don’t. You’re not wearing a wire, are you, Mr. Chapman?”

  “No, I am not, Mr. Nelson. Are you?”

  Nelson reached under the table and came out with a small voice-activated microcassette recorder. “This is for me, not you,” he said.

  “Can I buy a copy of the tape afterward?”

  I thought for a split second he might smile. But no.

  Nelson said: “I am going to tell you a story, Mr. Chapman. I am going to tell it in the third person. If you hear it being told in other voices, then so be it. I cannot prevent that. I will ask that you not interrupt while I tell the story and not ask any questions after I am finished.”

  I nodded my agreement.

  “Once upon a time there was an investigation done of allegations against a man in public life concerning his fitness to hold the highest public office in the land, that of president of the United States. It followed reports to his campaign hierarchy that the man had a violent temper that sometimes got out of hand. So out of hand that he actually lost control of himself in ways that caused him to hurt people—including members of his own family. The investigation was conducted by a group of highly skilled and extremely discreet investigators. They posed as social workers in some cases, insurance adjusters, priests, or law-enforcement officers in others. They took written statements from more than thirty people who had some information, direct or indirect, about the violent side of this public man. Some of it was minor, but all of it was damning. The man in question clearly had a problem that had been kept pretty much secret. The reason for this was simply that until now this man had not sought public office and thus had not had the scrutiny that goes with running for office. Also, most of the people with information about the man’s violent acts were members of his family or were his strong supporters. The others were unaware that there were others and they looked upon incidents involving them or their knowledge as isolated events. Why cause trouble? most said to themselves. Everybody flies off the handle occasionally. He hadn’t killed or permanently maimed anybody.

  “But this man clearly had a problem that was much more serious than an occasional tendency to fly off the handle. The investigators took their findings to their client, who was the campaign manager of the man himself. The campaign manager read the material, said he was shocked and appalled, and told the investigators something would be done about it.

  “But nothing was done. As the date of the presidential election got closer and closer, one of the investigators began to believe that nothing was going to be done. This emotionally unstable man was going to become president of the United States.

  “So the investigator, without consulting or even notifying his investigator colleagues, decided to act unilaterally in his capacity as a citizen. He decided not to sit by while this happened. It was not that he supported the beliefs and politics of the man’s opponent—quite the contrary, in fact. It was simply that he did not think the country could survive the presidency of a man given to violent fits of anger. The investigator believed an unstable conservative was worse than a stable liberal, to put it in the cleanest of political terms.

  “The investigator had a relative with good cutout protection—something like in-laws once removed because of divorce. And so the story ends.”

  “Ends?”

  “Ends.”

  “Who was the cutout?” I asked.

  Nelson shook his head.

  “Was it somebody at Howley’s paper? Was it Tubbs?”

  Nelson made no reaction.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Yes, you do,” Nelson said.

  Nelson stood up in such a way as to leave no doubt I was expected to do the same. This little meeting was over.

  Dinner? What happened to dinner? The third person. What happened to him? Or her?

  I looked at that third empty place at the table. “Who was the no-show?”

  “Nobody. I had that place set to add some mystery and intrigue,” Nelson said.

  “It worked.” Nothing had come my way in our background check that said Sid Nelson had a sense of humor. Surprise!

  We were headed for the kitchen now.

  “The real Richard story?”

  “He was the FBI director’s lead chauffeur for twenty-five years. More mystery and intrigue for you, Mr. Chapman.”

  Thank you, sir, for scaring the shit out of me. You bastard.

  We went through the kitchen and back through the restaurant, past loud and gracious good nights from Richard and out into the suburban-strip lights of Rockville Pike.

  “I have to ask you one question,” I said. “Just one.”

  I chose to ignore Nelson’s shaking head. “Why did you tell me this story? You didn’t even ask for money.”

  Nelson held up his right hand. I blanched. He saw it and smiled. “I am not going to hurt you, Mr. Chapman. I don’t hurt people. I protect them from hurt.”

  I waited for him to answer my question. Why, sir, why?

  “I have spent most of my professional life doing things that mattered to others, Mr. Chapman. This was something that mattered to me.”

  “My stories may turn you into a celebrity … of sorts, you know.”

  His face turned into that of a man who had been hit by something and hit hard. “What?” he said through what was now a narrow opening in his mouth.

  “Well, get ready for the talk-show invites—”

  “You said you would not use my name!” A chill went with those words. A very cold chill.

  “There were no ground rules invoked or agreed to when we started talking … not he
re, just now,” I said.

  “Ground rules? You told me that if I talked you would not use my name.”

  “When did I tell you that?”

  “At the sports club—the last time we talked.”

  “That doesn’t count. The ground rules have to be arrived at before a specific conversation. That is how it works. You did not invoke ‘deep background’ before we started talking at the table. That is when you had to do that. Each conversation is considered a separate transaction.…”

  “You are despicable, Mr. Chapman.” The words were spoken quietly, but there was rage behind them.

  I was not pleased with myself, but I really was playing by the accepted rules of the game. This was not some innocent little kid I was talking to here. I also knew the value of the story would be diminished considerably if I had to pin it all on anonymous sources. I had the goods. I was not about to turn around and give them back—and away. Not if I could help it.

  Nelson said: “Clearly, you are not an honorable man according to my code.”

  “I doubt if you are according to mine either,” I said. “I did have one last question.…”

  He was moving away from me now. I said: “Did the FBI ever talk to you about that little thing Howley and them found under their ice-cream bowl? The bug. I never heard anything more about that.…”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Chapman.”

  “Was there one there before the ice-cream bowl?”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Chapman.”

  He was gone.

  Nelson had said the statements came through a cutout, “something like in-laws once removed because of divorce.”