Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign that Changed America (30 page)

On Saturday, the morning of the debate, Jim Lake went to the Reagans' hotel suite to brief them on the new plan and to get their approval. Mrs. Reagan was in her slip, getting dressed, when Lake arrived. “What's up?” she said. Reagan was sitting on the bed talking on the phone, so she poked him in the shoulder and showed her husband the draft release Lake had written, announcing that Reagan was inviting all the candidates to attend. Reagan got off the phone, studied the release, and pronounced himself pleased with the change in plans.
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Bush gave his own preview of the debate when he said he would not “show my macho by pummeling Ronald Reagan” in Nashua. He further claimed that reporters were on a fool's errand if they looked for “bloodshed” or a “hemoglobin count” or expected him to go for the “jugular.”
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He “thanked” Reagan for underwriting the debate, implying that Reagan had only done so because he needed the confrontation more than Bush did. On this matter, Bush was right.

Around noon on the day of the debate, Sears got on the phone and tracked down all the other candidates. The only one who could not make it in time was Connally. He saw right through Sears's ploy to use him and the others as props, but he liked the idea of sticking it to Bush. Connally laughed and said, “Brilliant strategy, but I ain't coming. Fuck him over once for me.”
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Sears spoke to his old friend Dole, who in turn called John Anderson, his old friend, to discuss the new development. Paul Russo was working for Reagan but happened to be in the room with Dole and overheard him say to Anderson, “Yeah, I don't trust Sears either, but we still have to go!”
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At 2
P.M.
, Sears sprang his trap, publicly announcing that Reagan wanted to open up the debate to the other candidates. Lake issued the Reagan-approved press release, the first release the press secretary had ever written in his life.
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Bush took the bait. He immediately refused to include the others, saying that he'd been invited by the
Telegraph
to participate in a two-man debate and, in proper Yankee stiff-upper-lip mode, that he “played by the rules.” A half hour
earlier, Jim Lake had called the
Telegraph
's Jon Breen to notify him that Governor Reagan, claiming enormous pressure from the other candidates, had decided to include them at the last minute. Breen became angrier when he found out that the other candidates had already been invited to his debate and he hadn't even been consulted. Sears was deliberately pushing both Breen and Bush into a corner, and they were pushing back, as Sears had hoped.

Breen tracked down Jim Baker, who told Breen that Bush would have “no objection” to the last-minute change, but also said, “We'll play by your rules.” Breen and the paper were livid at Reagan for the last-minute switch. They decided that it was their debate and they would stick to their “rules”—the one-on-one format. In heated conversations later in the day in the halls of Nashua High School, Reagan's general counsel, Loren Smith, and deputy counsel, Stephen Thayer, were overheard arguing with angry representatives of the paper and Hugh Gregg's son, Judd Gregg. Smith and Thayer suggested that Breen and the paper's publisher, J. Herman Pouliot, meet with Reagan to discuss Reagan's position, but they refused. Several hours later, they reversed course and went looking for Reagan, but it was too late.
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Everybody was now on board with Sears's plan. Carmen told the Associated Press he believed in “confrontation politics.”
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Nobody for a moment thought he was kidding.

T
HAT EVENING, TENSIONS WERE
high. About 2,400 people squeezed into the hot and stuffy gymnasium. There was a healthy mix of Reagan and Bush supporters, but in addition the crowd featured anti-abortion protesters, pro-abortion protesters, pro-ERA protesters, and representatives of the Clamshell Alliance, a scruffy, grassroots antinuclear group whose stated goal was to invade and “occupy” the construction site in nearby Seabrook, New Hampshire, where a nuclear plant was being built.
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The gym was, as one GOP operative once said of another such event, “like the bar scene from Star Wars.”
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The media turnout was huge, and the audience was thrilled to see national news anchors Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor milling about. Instamatic camera flashes from the audience went off constantly.

But tensions mounted as time passed and … nothing happened. The debate was scheduled to begin at 7:30, but at 8:15 there were still no candidates to be found. As spectators sat in the bleachers, with their coats across their laps, fanning themselves with programs, four media panelists from the
Chicago Tribune
, the
Washington Star
, the
Union-Leader
, and the AP sat and waited impatiently. What was the holdup?
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An advance man kept asking Reagan aide Russo how many chairs should he put on the stage, two or six? Russo could not give him an answer, replying, “I don't know.”
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The two warring camps were assembled separately in classrooms. The other four candidates were in a music room at the back of the gymnasium. Some chubby staffers squeezed into the small high school desks. Campaign aides nervously smoked cigarettes and stubbed them out on the linoleum floors.

Neal Peden, Charlie Black's assistant, was sitting right behind Reagan as the candidate's bus approached the high school. “He [was sitting] very quietly … but you could see him come alive,” Peden recalled. “He said, ‘Here we go.’ He was just up for it.”
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Some people standing outside the school in the cold applauded Reagan upon his arrival.

Reagan walked in and went directly to the back of the hall, where he spotted Sears. He sternly said, “I want to talk to George Bush.” Reagan said the same to Paul Laxalt, but Laxalt suggested instead sending Senator Gordon Humphrey and Black to see Bush. It was agreed they would go as Reagan's emissaries, but Bush refused to see them. Instead, Jim Baker stepped out of Bush's holding room. “Hey, Senator, what do you want?” Baker said, not altogether warmly.
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Humphrey said, “I have a message for Mr. Bush that the one-on-one debate is not gonna happen,” and that Bush had to let the others be included. Baker excused himself and stepped into the room to consult with Bush. A moment later he came back out and told the two the answer was still no.
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Black pressed, but Baker, exercised, told him, “God damn it, you guys are not going to fuck this up! This is going to be a two-man debate and you are not going to do anything to change it!”
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When this was reported back to Reagan, who was now standing with the other four candidates, he stormed, “Dammit, this is unbelievable! I'm going to get you all in there!”
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Breen later claimed that he tried to see Reagan to quell the situation or make some accommodation. Laxalt recalled Reagan being “P.O.'ed” and Bush acting like a “petulant child.”
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Reagan adamantly wanted the debate opened. Bush adamantly refused. When Bush came out of his holding room and headed to the stage, Humphrey pleaded one last time to include the others in the name of “party unity.” Bush spat back at Humphrey, whom he loathed, “No fucking way! I've worked all my life for this and I'm not giving it up.… I've done more for party unity than you'll ever know!”
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Sending Humphrey to appeal to Bush may have been a stroke of genius on Laxalt's part, since the plebeian brought out the worst in the patrician, and Humphrey reciprocated the feeling in spades. Originally from opposite sides of the
tracks in Connecticut, Bush and Humphrey had a short history of contempt for each other.

Bush's position was now etched in granite: No other candidates.

Meese, Carmen, Laxalt, Loren Smith, Peter Hannaford, and others stood off in one corner, Sears, Black, and Lake in another. While battling Bush, they also found time to battle among themselves. Reagan, meanwhile, huddled with the other candidates backstage and decided to walk out of the whole mess, in unity with them. Nancy Reagan, Black, and Humphrey vociferously protested. Humphrey told Reagan he would lose the primary if he ran away and left Bush to have the stage to himself. Humphrey later told his aide Morton Blackwell that he was so intent on making his point, he discovered to his horror that he was poking Reagan in the chest.
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Mrs. Reagan suddenly said, “I know what you are going to do; you are all going to go in there together.”
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Reagan saw the wisdom in his wife's suggestion; he realized that if he walked out he would be seen as running away from a fight. He grimly shook hands with the four excluded participants and proceeded to the stage, escorted by Humphrey.

Standing in the wings, the candidates could hear the rowdy audience. Jim Lake could see that Reagan was livid. His face had become florid and his normally twinkly blue eyes had turned cobalt. Lake borrowed a piece of paper from NBC News anchor John Chancellor, who had sneaked backstage, and slipped Reagan a note telling him to keep his cool and that everyone was on his side. Reagan read it and winked at Lake but did not smile.
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Jim Roberts and his wife, Patti, also noticed Reagan's mood. Roberts, an executive with the American Conservative Union, had traveled to New Hampshire on his own dime to volunteer full-time helping Carmen, and he and his wife saw Reagan backstage. Patti Roberts, also a veteran of the conservative wars, including organizing the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), turned to her husband and said, “He's going to be great tonight because he is just furious.”
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Bush, accompanied by Breen, went onstage first to the subdued cheers of his supporters. Bush and his entourage swept right past Reagan in the back hall and neither man said a word to the other, although Teeley and Humphrey “had words,” according to Carmen.
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“And all of a sudden he [Reagan] sucks in his chest like this and says, ‘Let's go.’ And then he just moved to the door.”
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Bush looked grim—stone-faced and unhappy. Reagan, glowering, climbed up on the stage a few moments later as his supporters repeatedly chanted, “We want Reagan!” He received more cheers than did Bush, but for once, the old performer
did not notice. This was no act. Reagan was pissed off at Bush's and the newspaper's intransigence. As he brushed past Bush, he said nothing and barely shook his rival's hand.

The moderator, Breen, was lustily booed as he took his seat between the two combatants. Reagan and Bush did not look at each other. Reagan's microphone was already on because steps had been taken, according to Carmen, to make sure that the soundman, Bob Molloy, was under their control.
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Reagan, standing, then motioned for the excluded candidates to come up to the stage, which they did happily.

Reagan, the old pro, tapped the microphone and then politely but firmly asked Breen if he could address the crowd. Breen rudely said, “No.” Reagan spoke to them anyway. He began to tell the feisty throng that though the debate had initially been for just him and Bush, he now felt it was in the interest of fairness that all the candidates be included. He also said that the paper had rebuffed his plea to meet with the other candidates. Reagan then looked at Bush, but Bush just stared ahead, frozen, with his granny glasses on, refusing to meet Reagan's gaze. Breen interrupted Reagan … the crowd booed and hissed Breen again … and those who knew the Gipper said this was the angriest they'd ever seen him. His hands were shaking, he was so mad.
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Breen would not shut up and was rewarded with renewed boos as he talked over Reagan, who was still trying to explain why he thought the other candidates should be included. Reagan said testily to Breen, “I am the sponsor and I suppose I should have some right.”
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Breen ordered Reagan's microphone turned off, but the technician ignored him. Breen impatiently told Molloy a second time to turn off Reagan's microphone, and again he ignored Breen.

That was it. Reagan had had enough.

He turned to Breen with blood in his eye and thundered, “I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green!”

The crowd went wild, hooting and yelling; the other four candidates forcefully applauded Reagan, and even the Bush supporters were cheering. The gymnasium was a madhouse. In case Breen missed Reagan's original meaning, the old lion roared again, “I am paying for this debate!”
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Reagan called the editor “Green” instead of “Breen,” but the newspaperman was lucky that Reagan didn't call him something far worse. Later, some thought Reagan was so mad he might throw his microphone at the man.

Several in the crowd inflamed the scene further when they shouted, “Get them chairs!” and “Let them speak!”
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Reagan asked Breen one final time to include the others but was, astonishingly, rebuffed yet again. The scene was “total chaos,” Molloy recalled.
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The confrontation energized Reagan. You could plead with Reagan, cajole Reagan, and reason with Reagan, but you could not push Reagan. He'd push right back.

Breen then talked down to Reagan, saying, “Are you through … ? Have you concluded your remarks?”
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“Through all this, Bush sat woodenly at the debate table, staring straight ahead like a goody-two-shoes in the midst of a college cafeteria food fight,” wrote one of Bush's longtime tormentors in the press, Jules Witcover.
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