The Prodigal Daughter (48 page)

“
in
view of this serious allegation made by my colleague, I
intend to dch~y any decision on this item until a full inquiry has been carried
out,” Chairman Lee announced.

Florentyna
thanked him and left for her office immediately. She walked down the corridor,
surrounded by reporters, but made no reply to any of their insistent questions.

She talked to
Richard on the phone that night and he warned her that the next few days were
not going to be pleasant.

“Why, Richard?
I’ve only told the truth.”

“I know. But now
there are a group of people fighting for their lives on that committee and they
only see you as the enemy, so you can forget the Marquis of Queensberry rules.”

When she read
the papers the next morning, she found out exactly what Richard had meant.

“Congresswoman
Kane Accuses Aerospace Plan of Bribery,” ran one headline, while another read,
“Company Lobbyist Claims Member of Congress Took Money as Campaign
Contribution.” Once Florentyna had seen that most of the papers were running
roughly the same story, she jumped out of bed, dressed quickly, went without
breakfast and drove straight to the Capitol. When she reached her office she
studied all the papers in detai I, and without exception they all wanted to
know where the $24,300 had disappeared. “And so do I,” said Florentyna out
loud. The headline in the Chicago Sun-Times was the most unfortunate:
“Representative Kane Accuses Space Company of Bribery after Check Cashed.” True,
but misleading.

Richard called
to say that Edward was already on his way down from New York and not to talk to
the press until she had spoken with him. She would not have been able to in any
case, because the FBI sent two senior agents to interview her at ten o’clock
that morning.

294THE PRODIGAL
DAUGH`rER

In the presence
of Edward and the Majority Leader, Florentyna made a complete statement. The
14BI men asked her not to inform the press of Bill Pearson’s involvement until
they had completed their own investigation. Once again, she reluctantly agreed.

During the day
some members of the House went out of their way to congratulate her. Others
conspicuously avoided her.

In the lead
story in the Chicago Tribune that afternoon the paper wanied to know where the
$24,300 had gone. They said it was their unfortunate duty to remind the public
that Congresswoman Kane’s father had been tried and found guilty of bribery of
a public official in the Chicago courts in 1962. Florentyna could almost hear
Ralph Brooks calling from the State’s Attorney’s office to let them have all
the salient details.

Edward helped
Florentyna to keep her temper, and Richard flew down from New York every night
to be with her. Three days and three nights passed while the papers kept the
story running and Ralph Brooks made a statement from the State’s Attorney’s
office saying: “Much as I admire Mrs. Kane and believe in her innocence, I feel
it might be wise in the circumstances for her to step down from Congress until
the FBI investigatiou is completed.” It made Florentyna even more determined to
stay put, especially when Mark Chadwick phoned to tell her not to give up. It
could only be a matter of time before the guilty man was brought to justice.

On
the fourth day with no more news from the FBI, Florentyna wits at her lowest
point when a reporter from the Washington Post phoned.

“Mrs. Kane, may
I ask how you feel about Congressnran Buchanan’s statement on Aerogate?”

“Has he turned
against me as well?” she asked quietly.

“Hardly,” said
the voice from the other end of the line. “I’ll read what he said. I quote: ‘I
have known Representative Kane for nearly five years as a bitter adversary and
she is many things that drive me to despair, but as we say in Tennessee, you’ll
have to swim to the end of the river to find anyone more honest. If Mrs. Kane
is not to be trusted, then I do not know one honest person in either chamber of
Congress.”

Florentyna
phoned Bob Buchanan a few minutes later.

“Now don’t you
go thinking I’m getting soft in my old age,” he barked.

“You put a foot
wrong in that chamber and I’ll cut it off.” Florentyna laughed for the first
time in days.

It was a cold
December wind that whistled across the east front of the Capitol as Florentyna
walked back alone to the Longworth Building after the last vote that day. The
newsboy on the comer was shouting out the evening headlines. She couldn’t catch
what he was saying- something, someone, arrested. She hurried toward the boy,
fumbling in her pocket for a coin, but
ail
she could
find was a twenty-dollar bill.

“I can’t change
that,” the boy said.

“Don’t bother,”
said Florrntyna as she grabbed the paper and read the lead story first quickly
and then slowly. “Former Congressman Bill Pearson,” she read aloud as if she
wanted to be sure the newsboy could hear, “has been arrested by the FBI in
Fresno, California, in connection with the Aerogate scandal. Over seventeen
thousand dollars in cash was found hidden in the rear fender of his new Ford.
He was taken to the nearest police station, questioned and later charged with
grand larceny and three other misdemeanors. The young woman who was with him at
the time was also charged, as an accomplice.”

Florentyna
leaped up and down in the snow as the newsboy quickly pocketed the twenty
dollars and ran to sell his papers on another comer. He had always been warned
about those Hill types.

“My
congratulations on the news, Mrs. Kane.”
The maitre d’hotel of die Jockey
Club was the first of several people to comment that evening.

Richard had
flown down from New York to take Florentyna to a celebration dinner. On her way
into the oak-paneled room, other politicians and members of Washington society
came over to say how pleased they were that the truth was at last out.
Florentyna smiled at each one of them, a Washington smile that she had learned
to develop after nearly five years in politics.

The next day the
Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times came out with glo\A, ing tributes to their
representative’s ability to stay calm in a crisis.

Florentyna gave
a wry smile, determined to back her own judgment in the future. Any comment
from Ralph Brooks’s office was conspicuously absent.

Edward sent a
large bunch of freesias, and William sent a telegram from Harvard:

“SEE YOU TONIGHT
IF YOU’RE NOT THE WOMAN IN FRESNO STILL BEING HELD FOR FURTHER QUESTIONING.”

Annabel arrived
home seemingly unaware of her mother’s recent problems to announce she had been
accepted at Radcliffe.

Her headmistress
at the Madeira School later confided to Florentyna that her daughter’s
acceptance had turned out to be a very close thing, although it couldn’t have
hurt that Mr. Kane had been at Harvard and that she herself was a Radcliffe
graduate. Florentyna was surprised that her reputation was such that she could
influence her daughter’s future without lifting a finger and confessed to
Richard later what a relief it was that Annabel’s life was more settled.

Richard asked
his daughter in what subject she planned to major.

“Psychology and
social relations,” Annabel replied without hesitation.

“Psychology and social
relations are not real subjects but merely
an
cxcuse
to talk about yourself for three years,” Richard declared.

William, now a
sophomore at Harvard, nodded in sage agreement with his father and later asked
the old man if he could up his allowance to five hundred dollars a term.

When an
amendment to the health bill, prohibiting abortions after six w
,~
eks, came up on the calendar, Florentyna spoke for the
first time since the Aerogate scandal. As she rose from her place, she was
greeted with friendly smiles and a ripple of applause from both sides of the
aisle.

Florentyna made
a powerful plea tor the life of the mother before the unborn
child,
reminding Congress that there were only eighteen other members who could even
experience pregnancy. Bob Buchanan rose from his place and referred to the
distinguished lady from Chicago as the worst sort of simpleton who would be
claiming next that you could not discuss a future space program unless you had
circled the moon, and he pointed out that there was only one member in either
house who had managed that.

Within it few
days Don Short and his $24,300 seemed to be a thing of the past as Florentyna
returned to her normal hectic congressional schedule.

She had moved up
two more notches on the Appropriations Committee and when she looked around the
table, she began to feel like an old-timer.

X

W
HEN FLORENTYNA
RETURNED TO CHICAGO she found that Democrats were voicing aloud their fears
that having Jimmy Carter in the White House might not necessarily help their
chances. Gone were the days when an incumbent could take it for granted that he
would be returned to the Oval Office, and take with him those of his party who
were fighting marginal seats.

Richard reminded
Florentyna that Eisenhower was the last President to complete two terms in
office.

The Republicans
were also beginning to flex their muscles, and after the announcement that
Jerry Ford would not seek the Presidency, George Bush and Ronald Reagan
appeared to be the front-runners. In the corridors of Congress it was being
openly suggested that Edward Kennedy should run against Carter.

Florentyna
continued her daily work in the House and avoided being associated with either
camp, although she received overtures from both campaign managers and more than
her usual allocation of White House invitations. She remained noncommittal, as
she wasn’t convinced that either candidate was right to lead the party in 1980.

While others
spent their time campaigning, Florentyna put pressure on the President to take
a stronger line when dealing with heads of state from behind the Iron Curtain
and pressed for a firmer conurtitment to NATO, but she appeared to make little
headway. When Jimmy Carter told an astonished audience that he was surprised
the Russians could go back on their word, Florentyna said despairingly to Janet
that any Pole in Chicago could have told him that.

But her final
split with the President came when the socalled students took over the American
Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and held fifty-three Americans hostage.
The President appeared to do little except make “Born Again” speeches and say
his hands were tied. Florentyna proceeded to bombard
thu
White House by every means at her disposal, demanding that the President stand
up for America. When eventually he did attempt a rescue mission, it aborted,
resulting in a sad los~ of reputation for the United States in the eyes of the
rest of the world.

During a defense
debate on the floor of the House soon after this humiliating exercise,
Florentyna departed from her notes to deliver at) off-the-cuff remark. “How can
a nation that possesses the energy, genius and originality to put a man on the
moon fail to land three helicopters safely in a desert?” She had momentarily
forgotten that the proceedings of the House were now televised and all three
networks showed that part of her speech on their evening news bulletins.

She didn’t need
to remind Richard of George Novak’s wisdom in insisting on not renewing
Lester’s loan to the Shah and when the Russians marched over the Afghanistan
border, Richard canceled their holiday to watch the Olympics in Moscow.

The Republicans
went to Detroit in July and chose Ronald Reagan with George Bush as his running
mate. A few weeks later the Democrats came to New York and the party confirmed
Jimmy Carter with even less enthusiasm than they had showed for Adlai
Stevenson. When the victorious Carter entered Madison Square Garden, even the
balloons refused to come down from the ceiling.

Florentyna tried
to continue her work in a Congress that was not certain which would be the
majority party in a few months’ time. She pushed through amendments on the
Defense Appropriations bill and the Paperwork Reduction Act. As the election
drew nearer, she began to fear that the fight for her own seat might be close
when the Republicans replaced Stewart Lyle with an enthusiastic young
advertising executive, Ted Simmons.

With Janet
prodding her, she once again pushed her voting record up to around eighty
percent by only accepting invitations to speak in Washington or in Illinois
during the last six months prior to the election.

Carter arid
Reagan seemed to be living in Chicago, flying in and out of Illinois like two
cuckoos in one clock. The polls were declaring it was too close to call, but
Florentyna was not convinced after she had seen the candidates debate in
Cleveland in front of a television audience estimated at 100 million Americans.
The next day Bob Buchanan told her’ that Reagan might not have won the debate,
but he sure as hell hadn’t lost it, and for someone trying to remove the White
House incumbent, that was all-important.

As Election Day
drew nearer, the issue of the hostages in Iran became more and more a focal
point in the minds of the American people, who began to doubt that Carter could
ever resolve the problem. On the streets of Chicago, supporters told Florentyna
that they would return her to Congress but they could not back Carter for a
second term, Richard said he knew exactly how they felt and predicted that
Reagan would win easily.