by Jim Lehrer
R was hit by a consuming, shuddering sense of sadness and love for his friend. This wonderful human being was disintegrating as he lost both his mental faculties and his sense of himself.
“It’s a deal,” R said, taking the check.
Wally got up from his chair and came around to the other side. The author and his collaborator embraced, one of only a few times they had ever done so in the years they had been friends and associates.
Harry kept his word. Green Tree published the book more than well. There were full-page ads in The New York Times Book Review and The Washington Post Book World and smaller ones in The New Yorker, Newsweek, and Time. They sent Wally out on a book tour and talk-show rounds in New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle. Ben Two went almost immediately to number 1 on both the Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble nonfiction lists and within three weeks began a long stint in the top five on the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and most other best-seller lists. There were second, third, and fourth printings that put nearly 400,000 hardback copies of the book in print. Paperback rights sold at auction for $350,000. International sales flooded in, as did Hollywood movie and PBS-type documentary interest.
As expected, Ben Two was named a finalist in the Pulitzer biography category.
Wally and R were sitting on either side of the partners’ desk on the April afternoon the winners were to be announced. Harry, having come down from New York with his confidence about victory raging way beyond perfunctory, was sitting at one end of the desk in a pulled-up chair. He had ordered a case of expensive champagne that was on ice in the kitchen and had a person in his office back in New York standing by at a computer to read the Associated Press wire. Nobody got an official telephone call telling them about winning a Pulitzer. It was announced by the people at Columbia University to the press first.
At three-fifteen the phone rang. The one thing they had not specifically worked out among the three of them was who would actually answer the telephone.
On the second ring, Harry picked it up. “Yes?” he said.
He listened for a few seconds, stood, raised his right arm high over his head, and said, “We did it!” Then to Wally, he said, “Congratulations, Dr. Pulitzer Prize Winner.”
Within minutes, the champagne was flowing and the house was filling with students—including Rebecca, R now remembered—professors, and other friends.
After a while somebody began yelling, “Speech! Speech!”
A library ladder was pulled out for Wally to stand on. The people crowded in the library—and spilling out into the hallways and parlor and dining room—went silent and gathered around as best they could.
Before Wally could say anything, a kid started everybody singing:
“For he’s a Wally good fellow,
For he’s a Wally good fellow,
For he’s a Wally good fe-ello,
That nobody can deny.”
Then Jackson Hall, the BFU provost, raised his glass of champagne and yelled, “To Wally!”
“To Wally!” repeated the crowd.
Once things got more or less quiet, Wally spoke.
“Thank you, Jackson. Thank you, one and all. As all of you know, no book is ever really the work of one person, particularly a biography like Ben Two. I want to thank several of you in this room—these rooms, I guess I should say—tonight, who helped me, each in your own way, to bring this book into being. There are too many of you to call by name. But you know who you are—and I salute you all.”
He raised his glass, as did everyone else as they said, “Hear, hear,” and downed a sip of champagne.
Wally invited R to go with him to New York for the Pulitzer Awards lunch at Columbia in June. R declined.
Shortly afterward he submitted his notice to Wally and to the university. He told everyone he wanted to get more deeply into his research for his planned book on the Washington, Adams, and Jefferson presidencies—and Washington, D.C., was the place to do that.
Wally and R never spoke another word to each other about the writing of Ben Two.
R never spoke to anyone else either—until now.
SIXTEEN
“Yes, it’s true,” R said to John Gwinnett.
He looked at Rebecca, standing at the door as still as a statue.
“But it’s also true that it was Wally’s book. Wally’s lifework went into it. I may have performed much of the physical labor at the very end, but the journey that led to its creation was taken by Wally, not by me.”
Rebecca’s body seemed to vibrate slightly. It was the only movement in the room. “But you do admit to having committed a hoax?” she said, in a tone that was not as strong as the words.
“I admit to you now, and I will gladly—willingly, and with some relief, frankly—admit to the world that I helped the great Wallace Stephen Rush, my late friend and mentor, transform the product of his scholarship and wisdom into a book titled Ben Two. I was honored to do it. There was no element of hoax involved.”
Rebecca raised her hands in a halfhearted act of resignation, if not surrender. Then she said to Stockton, “Did you help your esteemed mentor transform his scholarship and wisdom about Patrick Henry into his forthcoming masterpiece? What about it, Patrick? Want to confess, too?”
“Leave us at once!” Gwinnett roared at Rebecca. “You are truly despicable!”
And she was gone.
In the silence tha followed, Gwinnett slowly sat back down. So did Joe, Sonya, and R. Stockton had remained seated all through the endgame.
“That woman is a vile, felonious liar and swine for whom the administration of a lethal injection would be more than appropriate,” said Gwinnett, pointedly avoiding R’s revelation about Ben Two—at least for now.
Sonya, who had said little since this extradordinary meeting began, joined in. “As a longtime outspoken opponent of capital punishment, even I would gladly insert the needle.”
There were ten seconds of unspoken approval.
“So, what do we do about her?” asked Joe Hooper. “I hope nobody was seriously suggesting that we prefer criminal charges.”
R shook his head.
“Unfortunately not,” said Gwinnett. “I would love to do so, but I think such a move would draw bees of criticism that would undermine our purposes.”
“That leaves us with what?” Hooper asked. “Throwing our very small book at her?”
“We prepare a statement of findings that we forward to the ARHA with a recommendation that it take whatever actions it deems appropriate,” said Gwinnett, who had clearly come prepared for this. “I think it might be wise for us, in a break with custom, to release our findings to the public simultaneously. That would, of course, enlarge the size of the book being thrown almost immediately.”
When no one reacted, Gwinnett said, “I would suggest that going public would also be a fair precaution against the most likely possibility that Dr. Lee will mount vigorous campaigns of coercion against others among our ARHA colleagues to prevent final sanctions of any kind. We may very well have a serious war on our hands.”
There were three nods of agreement. Yes, that was a most likely possibility. “Count on it,” R said.
Once again, Gwinnett turned to Stockton. “Patrick, you spoke eloquently, more so than any other person in history, about taking a stand for what one believes.”
This time Stockton stood up and moved away from the table. Then, in the mode of Patrick Henry, he forcefully orated:
“ ‘Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
R couldn’t reca
ll ever hearing a more phony, inappropriate use of a historical quote. To compare the ARHA versus Rebecca Kendall Lee to the Colonial States of America versus the Crown—well, it was ridiculous.
But Gwinnett was aglow. He even applauded. “Thank you, Patrick,” he said, as if he were really talking to Patrick Henry.
R saw this as a whole new wrinkle to Wally’s know-him, talk-to-him mantra for historians. Gwinnett didn’t have to go to some faraway place such as 36 Craven Street to speak to his hero. He had him right there in the office.
R had a quick vision of Gwinnett doing his research. There was Stockton at Gwinnett’s side dressed in his Patrick Henry outfit. Gwinnett simply turned and said, “Patrick, when were you born?” Or, “Patrick, what was it you said about liberty and death?” “Patrick, what is your favorite food and drink?” “Patrick, who does your hair?”
Thank you, Patrick.
R amused himself further by thinking of how grateful he was that Wally chose to morph into Ben himself rather than forcing R to do so. Poor Stockton.
Poor Stockton. Could it be that Rebecca, evil as she was, might have guessed right about Stockton doing the same thing for Gwinnett that I did for Wally? No, no, no. . . .
“Before adjourning, I would like to make official what we have decided by taking a vote on this matter,” said Gwinnett, unknowingly interrupting R’s evil thoughts. “All in favor of proceeding against Rebecca Kendall Lee in the manner just discussed, please say Aye.”
There were four Ayes.
“Thank you. I will have Patrick here—pardon me, Stockton—prepare the proper materials and statements for dispatch to all concerned at the ARHA,” said John Gwinnett.
Here ye, here ye, here ye. Our business has been done. The confrontation is concluded. This meeting is over.
Not quite. One matter, one elephant-sized issue, remained—in the air rather than on the table.
It was Sonya who finally spoke of it. “What are you going to do about your Ben Two story, R?” Her words came out slowly, quietly, sympathetically.
“I’m going to have to work that out,” said R. “I want to do it in a way that does not hurt Wally’s reputation, his legacy. Whatever Rebecca might say, it really is his book, not mine.”
“Maybe you could do a new book of your own about how you came to help Wally,” said Sonya. “Tell, in some detail, the story behind the story—how you made the choices you did to assist your friend.”
Oh, yes. Choices. A book about choices. It could open with Ben’s rules on choices. Then segue into an analysis of his Morals of Chess essay. . . .
R had yet to figure out where the choices bit had come from. Someday he might go back through Ben’s writings and other papers to see what the great man really did say on the subject—if anything. Maybe, like the “difficult situation,” the words from Ben had been stored way, way back in R’s mind for a while. It’s also possible, of course, that only R himself was speaking about choices through Ben that day in the parlor. . . .
Joe Hooper said to R with a slight grin on his face, “The very-worst-case scenario, as I see it, is that you get some well-publicized credit for having written a best-selling book about Benjamin Franklin and maybe even a belated half of Dr. Rush’s Pulitzer Prize. Write a new book well enough, and you might win another, too.”
“You could call it Ben Three,” added Sonya, also smiling.
R did not dare return the happy smiles.
He looked instead at John Gwinnett, who said in his most serious chairman’s voice, “Whatever, you have put that awful Dr. Lee in a position to do no harm—either to you or to the work of this committee and to our purposes and profession. Good man, Taylor.”
Good man, Taylor.
R couldn’t help but wonder what Ben might say about that.
Read on for an excerpt from Jim Lehrer’s
Tension City
CHAPTER 1
Good Evenings
“Good evening. The television and radio stations of the United States and their affiliated stations are proud to provide facilities for a discussion of issues in the current political campaign by the two major candidates for the presidency. The candidates need no introduction. The Republican candidate, Vice President Richard M. Nixon, and the Democratic candidate, Senator John F. Kennedy.”
That was how the moderator, Howard K. Smith of CBS, opened the first televised presidential debate from the studios of WBBM-TV, Chicago, on September 26, 1960.
“Good evening from the Ford Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. I’m Jim Lehrer of The NewsHour on PBS, and I welcome you to the first of the 2008 presidential debates between the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, and the Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.”
That was how I began the first McCain-Obama debate on September 26, 2008—nearly fifty years later.
There have been thirty-five nationally televised presidential and vice presidential debates, counting that first in 1960 and the last four in 2008.
All the moderators have been broadcast journalists except one—Chicago Sun-Times editor James Hoge in 1976. There have been several repeaters: Howard K. Smith of CBS and ABC, Edwin Newman of NBC, Barbara Walters of ABC, Bernard Shaw of CNN, Bob Schieffer of CBS, my PBS colleague Gwen Ifill, and I account for twenty-one of the thirty-five moderating assignments.
Our “Good evenings” have remained roughly the same—except for the top billing going to the geography.
“Good evening from the Wait Chapel at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.”
“Good evening from the Bushnell Theater in Hartford, Connecticut.”
“Good evening from the University of Miami Convocation Center in Coral Gables, Florida.”
The first of my greetings was for a 1988 debate between Vice President George H. W. Bush and Governor Michael Dukakis in Winston-Salem.
That was when I got my introduction to the terrors and triumphs of moderating presidential debates, an experience I have sometimes compared to walking down the blade of a knife.
At Winston-Salem, it actually started before the debate itself.
I was closeted behind a closely guarded conference room door with my three debate colleagues—Peter Jennings of ABC, Annie Groer of the Orlando Sentinel, and John Mashek of The Atlanta Constitution—to discuss our questions for Bush and Dukakis. This was before the coming of the single-moderator format; the standard arrangement was a moderator plus panelists.
Jennings, anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight, had an act of provocation on his mind.
He urged the four of us to forget the rules that had been agreed upon between the candidates and the Commission on Presidential Debates. We should publicly—in front of the whole world—invite Bush and Dukakis to take on each other directly with no time limits on questions, answers, or anything else.
I said we couldn’t do that. We had given our word to follow the rules of the debate. Not to do so, I insisted in my most righteous tone, would be dishonorable, among other things.
Annie Groer and John Mashek agreed. Jennings quickly went along, with grace and professionalism.
Also in Winston-Salem, my wife, Kate, helped with some much needed pre-debate personal perspective that remains with me to this day.
In the hotel, as we were leaving for the debate, I came down with a bad case of nerves. I whined to Kate about how terrible the pressure was on me.
She said, quite calmly, “If it’s bad for you, think what it must be like for those two candidates—one bad move and they lose the presidency of the United States.”
True.
But I was still left with the pre-debate anxieties that have been with me in every one of the ten presidential and vice presidential debates I have moderated since. I soon learned that dealing with nerves is the key to being able to function effectively as a moderator. My guess is that there are surgeons, classroom teachers, and short-order cooks among the huge crowds of other people who know
exactly what I’m talking about. Possibilities of pleasure and satisfaction, horror and failure, await everyone who performs.
The incredibly high stakes are what magnify it all in presidential debates. Candidates and their attendants have only one overriding purpose—to win the election to be the most powerful person in the world. But others, including most in the serious press and political science worlds, see debates as decisive opportunities to inform and educate the voters about whom to grant such power.
The critical space between those two very different purposes is the battleground on which all combat occurs.
“UGLY, I DON’T like ’em.”
That’s how George H. W. Bush categorizes his debate experience.
“Why not?”
“Well, partially I wasn’t too good at ’em. Secondly, there’s some of it’s contrived. Show business. You prompt to get the answers ahead of time. Now this guy, you got Bernie Shaw on the panel and here’s what he’s probably gonna ask you. You got Leslie Stahl over here and she’s known to go for this and that, I want to be sure I remember what Leslie’s going to ask and get this answer…. There’s a certain artificiality to it, lack of spontaneity to it. And, I don’t know, I just felt uncomfortable about it.”
That exchange was one of the many I have had with the candidates after their presidential and vice presidential debates. The interviews, done over a period of twenty years, began as an oral history project with the Commission on Presidential Debates. Portions were later used in Debating Our Destiny, a two-hour PBS documentary that was first broadcast in 2000.
George W. Bush’s view differed from his father’s.
“I think it’s useful for people [to] watch and see how a person they don’t know stands up and answers questions and deals with the thrusts and parries of the debate. I actually also think you can learn what the person really believes. I think they are very useful.”
Ronald Reagan was also positive. “The people have a right to know all they can in comparison to make a decision,” he said. “If the debate is concentrated on the major issues and the views of the two individuals on those issues, then it is of service to the people.”
