Alexandra Waring (2 page)

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Alexandra Waring

Alexandra Waring was just one of those women America decided to fall in love with.

In January of 1988, in Washington, D.C., Alexandra and a film crew from The Network received clearance to tape an interview on the back steps of the Capitol. To go through the hassle of obtaining permission to tape there—instead of at the usual Elmsite around front or down by the iron horse—was yet another extra effort made by her producer, Will Rafferty, to make Alexandra’s reports look just that much better than anyone else’s.

It was hard enough for any correspondent to get air time on the evening news, but nearly impossible for one who had alienated The Network’s anchorman, Clark Smith—which is exactly what Alexandra had done the previous summer when she refused to let him steal an exclusive from her. And so, as the Washington
Post
noted, even though Alexandra had been hired as a special congressional correspondent for the evening news, presumably to make use of the contacts that came from being the daughter of an influential former congressman, “Ms. Waring has evidently been stricken from Smith’s ‘A Correspondent’ list and added to his ‘S’ list—’S’ as in
SEND TO SIBERIA
—because her reports are rarely to be seen after nine o’clock in the morning.”

Still, Alexandra had managed to develop a national following through her work for the morning news group and through the “Washington Report” segments she did for The Network’s radio division every drive-time evening. But most important, in terms of her stature and exposure, was her ability to crack the evening news —despite Clark Smith—every five weeks or so with a scoop. And this, the interview she was now working on, would hopefully produce such a scoop.

The wind was very high in Washington this day and was wreaking havoc on camera with Alexandra’s hair. (It was rather wildly gorgeous to begin with, Alexandra’s dark hair was, and Will Rafferty smiled, knowing how fan mail always surged into The Network whenever the wind messed up Alexandra’s hair, even if just a little.)

Holding her hair back off her face with one hand and extending the microphone with the other, Alexandra was talking with Congressman Alvin Maurier. The congressman was going on and on—talking in one long sentence, it seemed—when suddenly he stopped, appearing to be slightly mesmerized by Alexandra’s extraordinary blue-gray eyes.

“Do you or don’t you believe the Pentagon’s report is truthful?” Alexandra took the moment to ask.

“Uhhh,” the congressman said, snapping out of wherever it was he had just been, “at this time I can only say that I believe the allegations merit a thorough investigation.”

“If now you’re calling for a full investigation,” Alexandra said, taking a breath, “what else are we to assume, Congressman, then you don’t believe the Pentagon’s report is entirely truthful about what’s been happening on those Army transport planes flying out of Panama?”

He hesitated and then smiled a little, looking as though he might reach out and tweak Alexandra’s nose. “Okay,” he said, nodding once. “I think the Pentagon can tell us more about these allegations concerning cocaine trafficking by Army personnel.”

Something caught Alexandra’s eye and she turned suddenly, squinting down the stairs at something off camera. Following her gaze, the congressman took a step down to see better, saying, “What the heck is he
…
?”

“Careful,” Alexandra said, taking his arm and pulling him back.

On the videotape a man could be heard shouting something in the distance and then there was a shot. There were screams and the camera reeled, showing the Capitol dome and the sky. There was another shot and the camera swept dizzily down the stairs. The scene came into focus: a uniformed cop and a plainclothesman were wrestling a man in an orange poncho down to the ground.

“Waring’s hit!” someone yelled in the background. “He shot Waring!”

The camera flew back up the stairs to Alexandra and the congressman. Alexandra seemed distracted; she was just standing there, frowning, still holding the microphone, staring down at a small hole in the shoulder of her raincoat. When she raised her head to look at the congressman, a spurt of blood spilled down her chest.

Oh Jesus God, oh Jesus God,” the congressman said, lunging to help hold her up.

Alexandra looked down at her shoulder, inhaled sharply and looked away, the color in her face draining to white. She brought her free hand up to cover her wound and, closing her eyes, slowly sank to the stairs, the congressman sinking with her, holding her as best he could.

“Are we rolling? Are we rolling?” a correspondent from a rival network screamed at his cameraman as they came dashing up the stairs.

Alexandra’s eyes flew open. “No way,” she said, struggling to turn toward her own camera. She winced slightly and then tried to smile. “This is Alexandra Waring reporting from the Capitol Building in Washington,” she said. And then she fainted.

All afternoon The Network showed Alexandra getting shot and that evening Clark Smith’s newscast came in first in the ratings for the first time in three years. (“Sure beats the Persian Gulf,” the director said in the New York control room.) Audience response was so tremendous to the footage, in fact, that The Network ran part of it as a news break throughout prime time as a promo for a half-hour special they threw together for eleven-thirty, “The Shooting of an American Newswoman.” (“Hey,” a researcher in The Network newsroom said, looking at his computer screen, “we’re in luck—Waring’s good copy.”)

WARING, ALEXANDRA BONNER. Broadcast journalist; b. Lawrence, Kansas, October 30, 1957; daughter of Paul Allen and Elizabeth Lynn (Bonner). B.A., Stanford Univ., 1980, Phi Beta Kappa. Station reporter, KCLI-Radio, San Francisco, 1976—77; sta. researcher, news writer, reporter, KFFK-TV, San Francisco, 1977—81; sta. reporter, weekend anchor, KSCT-TV, Kansas City, 1981—86; sta. anchor, WWKK-TV, New York City, 1986—87; Capitol Hill correspondent, The Network, 1987 Western Women in Communications Award, 1983; Emmy Award (Midwest), Taylor-Bainbridge Award for Documentary, 1984; Communicator of the Year (Midwest), 1984; Women in Broadcasting Award (Midwest), 1985; Handerville Award, Investigative Reporting, 1985; American Farmer’s Award for Excellence in Reporting, 1985; Kansas Women’s Caucus Award for Individual Achievement, 1985; Emmy Award (N.Y.G), 1986; New York City Press Club Citation, Best Newcomer, 1986; Independent Allied Press Award, 1986; Press Corps America Citation for Feature Reporting, 1987.

As the evening progressed, so did the other half of the story, in the person of the assailant, Rudolph Gadulaher. Mr. Gadulaher, it seemed, had become quite taken with the lovely network correspondent and, to bolster his courage to ask her out on a date, had taken a pistol and some Quaaludes with him on his quest. After following Ms. Waring and her camera crew to the Capitol, Mr. Gadulaher had taken the Quaaludes and then after about an hour it just seemed to him that the best way to get Ms. Waring’s attention would be to shoot her. And so he shot her. Mr. Gadulaher told authorities he had purchased the handgun for self-protection. He said he lived in a dangerous neighborhood.

But the first American newswoman to be shot on television was the big story, and The Network was by no means the only news organization on it. As
Newsweek
reported in its next issue, when her stretcher was unloaded from the ambulance at Capitol Hill Hospital, “more media cables were swarming around Waring’s unconscious body than snakes around St. Patrick.”

And with the coverage came the crowds. Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital to publicly wish Alexandra well. The police arrived, setting up barricades for crowd control and roping off special areas to accommodate the press. Network officials scurried in and out, truckloads of flowers began arriving and miles of electrical cables crisscrossed the parking lot. By the time the floodlights came on at four forty-five, the main entrance of Capitol Hill Hospital had taken on an uncanny resemblance to a Hollywood premiere.

After X rays and stabilization, Alexandra was rushed onto the operating table, where a team of orthopedic surgeons removed two bullet fragments that had lodged in her lower left collarbone. The news that Alexandra was going to be absolutely fine did not get confirmed for hours (“NO REPORTS!” Head Nurse Badaglia was seen and heard screaming down the hall on TV—live), and so the press continued to stand vigil outside.

The first personal friend of Alexandra’s arrived around five o’clock in an airport station wagon. After honking frantically to get through the mess of cars, flower trucks and microwave media vans, the station wagon pulled up to the entrance and let out a good-looking though obviously distressed man with blondish-brown hair. The lights for the TV cameras came blazing on and some photographers’ flashes went off in the man’s face and he ran straight into the reporter from the
Inquiring Eye
. “Hey!” the reporter said, grabbing the man by the tie. “Didn’t you used to be married to Julie Stantree? Aren’t you
…
?” He let go of the tie to snap his fingers twice.

“Please,”
the man said, great brown eyes pleading, “let me see her first. I swear I’ll come back out and talk to you.” He turned to the policemen.
“Please,”
he said again, I’m Gordon Strenn. I’m Alexandra’s—”

“This way, Mr. Strenn,” a plainclothes cop said to him.

[“Gordon Strenn arrives at Capitol Hill Hospital from New York Tuesday night,” read the photo caption in the next issue of the
Inquiring Eye
. “Strenn, 35, producer of TV’s 1987 movie,
This Side of Paradise
, enjoys another kind of paradise as Alexandra’s longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend. The ex-husband of glamorous TV star Julie Stantree is hoping to make the equally glamorous TV journalist Wife No. 2.”]

At seven-fifteen a dark blue limo pulled up under the lights of the hospital and a very tall, dark-haired man and a very beautiful blond woman got out. The lights glared and flashes flashed and one of the reporters yelled, “Michael, Michael Cochran!” and another called, “Hey, Cassy! Cassy, hi, over here!” and then all the TV people were closing in on the couple, pleading for assistance to get inside, or get info.

“We’ll do our best,” the man promised, pushing people aside, pulling the woman along behind him.

[“TV News Producer Michael Cochran arrives with beautiful wife, Cassy,” the caption read in the
Inquiring Eye
. “While Alexandra and Michael were both at WWKK in New York, rumors linked them at play while Cassy was at work at rival station WST.”]

At ten a black stretch limousine swept under the lights of Capitol Hill Hospital, out of which stepped another very tall, dark-haired but graying man in his late sixties or so. “Congressman Waring,” one reporter yelled out as the former congressman helped his wife out of the car, “will your daughter getting shot alter your view on gun control?”

“Mrs. Waring,” another voice rang out, “how do you feel?”

“Will you take Alexandra back to Kansas?” someone else asked.

[“Alexandra’s parents arrive from Kansas,” the
Inquiring Eye
caption said. “While Mrs. Waring sat at her daughter’s bedside, the nine-term former congressman drew cheers from the crowd by calling for a health care reform bill at an impromptu press conference.”]

At midnight Alexandra’s attending physician, Dr. Kenneth Ranhanjian, told The Network he didn’t give a damn about their ratings and went outside to officially announce that Alexandra Waring was going to be absolutely fine and everybody had to go home now so the patients of Capitol Hill Hospital could get some sleep.

The following evening Alexandra was sitting up in bed, giving an exclusive interview to Clark Smith in New York via satellite. She was looking remarkably well for a woman who had undergone shooting, shock and surgery within the last thirty hours. She was subdued, yes, but whatever energy she lacked was made up for by the radiance of her eyes against the dark blue-gray satin dressing gown she wore.

What viewers did not see was that the dressing gown was actually cut in several places and then tucked and pinned everywhere to cover the intricate workings of tape, plaster, gauze and slings that covered her wound and lashed her arm in place up over her chest. They did not see the makeup kit on the windowsill. They did not see Will Rafferty standing to the side of the camera, listening into his headset; Gordon Strenn and Michael Cochran standing guard at the door; Nurse Badaglia, frowning, standing between Gordon and Michael with her arms folded; Cassy Cochran crouching at the end of the bed, holding the arch of Alexandra’s foot in her hand as if to anchor her to the bed; nor did they see the young man standing by the window, aiming a microwave antenna at the TV van down in the parking lot.

Viewers did see Alexandra and hear her say she was fine and hoping to be released in a few days, and they heard her say how, from the bottom of her heart, she wished to thank everyone for their cards and flowers and, most of all, for their prayers—and they saw her wink at them, saying that evidently they had worked.

Viewers did not hear Cassy Cochran whisper, “She’s fading”; they did not hear or see Will cup his hand around the mouthpiece to talk into his headset; and they did not see Nurse Badaglia move toward the bed. All they knew was that Clark suddenly said good-bye to her and Alexandra was gone. Had they been able to continue watching, viewers would have seen Alexandra’s eyes starting to flutter and Cassy Cochran and Nurse Badaglia reaching her at the same time on opposite sides of the bed.