Rubicon, page 9
Chapter Nine
It lasted only twelve minutes, the speech that made Bobby Hart even more famous than he had been, the speech that no one who heard it would ever forget, the speech that became the standard by which all of the speeches that followed were measured, and, measured, found to fall short. It was not so much a call to action, the speech a candidate would have given, as a series of stark alternatives, turning on their head all the false choices and, in the process, making a mockery of the massive and arrogant failures of the last eight years.
“Tax those who can most afford to pay or walk away from the responsibility each generation owes to the next. And who can most afford to pay them - the working poor and the struggling middle class, or the idle and speculative rich?”
The line brought groans to Wall Street, but it brought down the house at the Democratic Convention.
“Decide that you are going to wage war with everything you have - the way we have in every war we have won - or cut and run the way of this administration: too scared to ask for the kind of sacrifice that would include the sons and daughters of every class; too incompetent to know how to stop the bleeding of a war they lied us into!”
There were those who swore that if someone had run to the microphone and said they ought to do it, the convention would have nominated Bobby Hart for president by acclamation.
“I don’t think it went too badly,” said Hart, his face flushed and full of perspiration. He handed his administrative assistant, David Allen, his copy of the speech. “Put that somewhere. I think I’d like to keep it.”
They were just off the stage. The cheering echoed all around them.
“Alworth’s people are furious,” reported Allen, grinning broadly. “Every speech is supposed to be cleared with them.”
Hart gestured toward the arena where the noise, instead of quieting, was getting louder and more insistent by the minute. He did not mind at all if Prentice Alworth did not like what he had done.
“Would they like me to go out there and take it all back?”
Allen pointed to the metal door ahead of them.
“There are about a million reporters out there who are going to ask you everything from the color of your shorts to whether you really think Alworth can win in November.”
“As long as they don’t ask me if I think he should.”
But most of the questions the media started firing at him when he walked through the doorway into the blinding glare of television lights had nothing to do with the Democratic candidate for president; they were all about him.
Did he regret not having been a candidate himself? He flashed the boyish smile that made him seem shy and even self-conscious.
“No, not really,” he replied.
Would he consider running four years from now? The smile grew broader and became an irresistible tease.
“Against Prentice Alworth?” he asked back.
Was there any chance that he might reconsider, take the vice-presidential nomination that Governor Alworth had offered him? The smile flickered and died. He was serious now; there was to be no room for misunderstanding.
“I’m a candidate for re-election to the senate from California. The senate is where I hope to spend at least the next six years.”
They were almost through, only a few more shouted voices trying to be heard. With a friendly wave, Hart turned to go.
“Senator, you’re a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Is there a plan that you know of to assassinate the president of the United States?”
Hart wheeled around, searching for the face of the reporter. A thin, assertive looking woman was standing in the middle of the space that had quickly opened at the back of the crowd of cameras and reporters. Hart recognized her at once.
“Norma Roberts,” she announced, lifting her chin a defiant half-inch. “Correspondent for the London Times. We have been hearing reports, rumors from some of our sources in the Middle East, that something....”
Hart nodded as if he were aware of what she was talking about and that there was no reason to be alarmed.
“Just as you say, Ms. Roberts: rumors of various things that might happen, different ways in which some terrorist organization might try to interfere with our elections. But, in answer to your question: No, I have no information about any planned attempt on the life of the president or anyone else.” He paused before he added, “That doesn’t mean that we don’t have to be careful. Just because we don’t know about a threat doesn’t mean that there aren’t people out there who would like to attack us.”
Norma Roberts was a highly respected reporter who usually seemed to know just a little bit more than the competition. Hart wondered what else she had heard, and why she seemed to know more than he did.
Security at the convention had been tight from the beginning - long lines to get through metal detectors, armed guards both inside and outside the arena – but now, as the convention moved into its final, climactic, two days, it became noticeably tighter. The night that Prentice Alworth made his acceptance speech, some of the delegates were forced to wait more than an hour while their credentials were checked.
Hart sat with the members of the California delegation, mixing with the others as if he were simply another anonymous delegate. He rather enjoyed it, the senseless camaraderie of a political convention where the only serious business was to sit around and gossip. The only matter of any suspense was what was going to happen with the vice-presidency. There was a rumor that Alworth had decided on Senator Harcourt of Delaware, a respected and knowledgeable member of the Foreign Relations Committee, someone insisted. That rumor was followed by another rumor that while it might be a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, it would not be Harcourt: too liberal, said some; too conservative, said others. Eager for some excitement, a few even claimed that Alworth was going to do what Adlai Stevenson had done in l956 and throw open the nomination to anyone who wanted to fight for it. Someone asked Hart what he thought Alworth would do.
“He offered it to you, but you turned him down, didn’t you?”
With a look that suggested that the whole thing had been exaggerated, Hart replied: “I couldn’t run for vice-president; I’m a candidate for re-election to the senate.”
It was the reason he had given Alworth, but it was not the only reason he had for not wanting to be on the ticket. Alworth was everything Hart had come to despise about politics and the narrow, single-minded ambitions of politicians.
“So who do you think he’s going to pick?’
Hart said that he had no idea what Prentice Alworth was going to do; but then, because the man who had asked was from his own delegation and had a friendly face, he added in a quiet undertone of cheerful malice, “‘the greatest statesman of their generation’ – in other words, whoever can help him win the election.”
Accepting the nomination, Alworth launched into a speech that safely avoided all of the issues that, just days earlier, Hart had said had to be addressed by any candidate who was serious about leading the country. Few noticed. There was so much excitement, so much burning enthusiasm for a candidate who could win back the White House, it did not matter what he said. And besides, Prentice Alworth knew how to give a speech. With smooth, flowing phrases and a sharp pointed wit, he spoke with a beaming smile that, even if nothing he said made sense, seduced you into believing that the bright new future he talked about would still, somehow, manage to come true. He reminded Hart of Bill Clinton.
“Which is probably where he learned it,” he remarked to David Allen, sitting next to him. “Watched him on tape, even took over some of the same gestures. Same effect, too. They can’t take their eyes off him, and five minutes after he’s finished there won’t be three people who can quote back to you a single thing he’s said.”
Alworth was just coming to the end of it. He was about to announce what they had all been waiting for: his choice for the vice-presidency. He looked out at the vast audience, and then looked into the television cameras and the millions watching at home.
“And so I have decided that....”
Suddenly, a shot rang out, a single, sharp report. Alworth, dazed, staggered back. Hart jumped to his feet, searching the upper balcony in back.
“Just a balloon,” a distant voice cried out. The convention, stunned into silence, rumbled back to life. Nervous laughter filled the hall.
Alworth was back at the podium, waving to the crowd as if nothing had happened, laughing it off as if they were all a bit too much on edge these days. But Hart had seen it, the instant in which Alworth had shown the fear he may not have known he had.
“And so I have decided,” exclaimed Alworth before anyone had time to think back on what had just happened, “that Senator Richard Harcourt will join me on the ticket and after the election become vice-president of the United States!”
Some rumors were true after all. More importantly, Hart explained when the press came to him for his reaction, “Richard Harcourt is the best man for the job: experienced, intelligent, and well-informed. No one in the Senate knows more about foreign relations. It is a perfect choice. Governor Alworth deserves a great deal of credit.”
Then, as quickly as he could, Bobby Hart left the convention and caught a flight home to California
The next day David Allen called from Washington.
“The geniuses in the Alworth campaign want to do a day-long whistle-stop train trip out there, starting in San Francisco and ending up in Los Angeles where he’ll give a major speech that same night.”
“He doesn’t need to campaign in California.”
“They’re doing it because of all the national coverage it will get. They want you on the trip.”
“I’ll bet they do,” laughed Hart.
“You’re running for re-election. There are a lot of stories about bad blood over the vice-presidential thing. I don’t see how you can do anything but say yes.”
“When are they going to do it?”
Monday, two days from now.”
“They have me pretty tightly scheduled. Use that as an excuse. Tell them I can’t do it for the whole day. I’ll get on at the last stop before Los Angeles. That’s where there would be a question if I didn’t show up.”
Late Monday afternoon, Hart boarded at its next to last stop the train that had been temporarily named the Democratic Express and, along with several hundred tired reporters and eager politicians, joined Prentice Alworth for the short trip to Los Angeles.
It was burning hot, the kind of heat that bakes the air and turns the dirt to dust; the kind of day that had always made Bobby Hart feel most alive, the long summer afternoons and the cool California nights, when a t-shirt and a pair of jeans were the only clothes he needed. As the train raced down the tracks under a red, relentless sun, he sat in an air-conditioned car drinking a beer someone had handed him, listening without listening to all the chattered noise around him, wishing he was somewhere out there, in some small California town, with nothing he had to worry about beyond whether he had enough money to take his wife to a movie that night.
He was sitting in the parlor car, with most of the other important dignitaries who had been invited to accompany the Democratic nominee and his running mate. They were there as backdrop, the familiar faces of well-known politicians, the symbolic expression of a united party. There was nothing to do, except sit there, part of a select audience in which someone would be noticeable only by their absence.
They were ten minutes from Los Angeles before Prentice Alworth left his private car and made an appearance. Even Hart, who was used to such things, could feel the rush of energy, the burst of excitement that followed a candidate for the presidency like a strong, favoring wind. There was nothing quite like it, the near proximity to the possibility of ultimate power. Prentice Alworth shook hands with Hart with the familiar confidence of a man who no longer needed anything.
“Great speech you gave at the convention, Bobby,” he said with the broad smile that was now, at least in public, seldom missing from his ruggedly handsome face. “I don’t think we could have asked for anything better.”
And then he moved on to someone else, ready with a new set of compliments that would make those to whom they were delivered more certain than ever that Alworth was the candidate they had wanted all along. Hart had seen it all before, this ritual of vanity and ambition, this lesson in how quickly power attracts followers. He watched with a kind of sad amusement the way that people who had once derided not just Alworth’s chances, but his qualifications, now told him how eager they were to start campaigning on his behalf. That was the difference, the thing that set him apart, though he could never breathe a word of it to anyone he did not trust: he still did not believe that Prentice Alworth had any business becoming president.
The train rumbled to a stop. The two candidates, Alworth and Harcourt, went out onto the back platform, where, joined by as many of the traveling politicians as could fight their way into the space behind them, they were to make some brief remarks to the huge crowd that had come out to see them.
Hart waited until the others squeezed by, and then, anxious to get away, walked back through the parlor car and stepped off the train. He walked around to the back of the crowd and, with all the others, watched Prentice Alworth talk about the great things that a new administration was going to do for America. The sun-drenched crowd cheered and cheered again. Alworth fed on it, became a part of it, speaking with their voice, telling them what they wanted to hear. They were cheering louder now, cheering for him, cheering for themselves, cheering for everything he was going to change.
Driven by a politician’s need to get close, to make contact with what had become the other part of himself, Alworth told them he wanted to shake as many of their hands as he could before he had to leave. He climbed down onto the tracks and the crowd surged forward, trying to get close to him, pushing hard against the rope line that had been put up to keep a clear perimeter. A dozen secret service agents immediately locked hands to hold everyone back.
With Harcourt right behind him, Alworth worked the line, reaching out to touch all the hands that were reaching out to him. Watching from a distance, Hart was struck by the fervor, the excitement on the faces in the crowd, people who, even if they were not close enough to touch the candidate seemed to be caught up in the strange euphoria of being close to those who could. Everyone was cheering, shouting, laughing at the manic contortions some went through to touch, if just for an instant, the outstretched hand of a man who might be president.
Smiling to himself, Hart turned to go. His campaign manager, Jeffrey Stone, was waiting for him with a car in front of the station and he wanted to beat the crowd. Something drew him back, something that suddenly hit him as odd and distinctly out of place. It was hot, blazing hot, so hot that when you took a breath it seemed to come with a scent of smoke. Most of the crowd had come in shorts and sandals; even older people, senior citizens, were dressed in short sleeve shirts or summer dresses. But there, near the end of the rope line, waiting without expression, stood a solitary young man in a tan wind breaker zipped all the way up the front. Prentice Alworth, reaching into the crowd, smiling back at all the cheering faces, was less than three short steps away.
The secret service agent holding onto the edge of Alworth’s sleeve saw the man at just the same moment. Hart watched as the agent dove straight at him. He must have known that it was already too late. The suicide bomber took a step forward. It was the last thing Hart saw before a blinding explosion blocked out everything.
There was an instant in which the world and everything in it seemed to go silent and stop. Hart could not hear anything, and then, suddenly, there was noise, hellish noise, everywhere. People were screaming, some running away in panic, others unable to move because of what they saw. Dozens of people, some of them just children, lay wounded with blood covered faces and twisted, broken limbs. Hart forced himself to look back to where it had happened. There was nothing left but a pile of burning rubble and a hole several feet deep. Prentice Alworth and at least a dozen others, including the secret service agent who had tried to save his life, as well as Richard Harcourt, the vice-presidential candidate and a man Hart had always respected, had all died instantly.
Hart ran into the crowd and tried to do what he could to help. He tore a sleeve off his shirt and used it as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding on a woman with a severed artery in her leg. He left her in the care of her husband and moved on to the next person who needed immediate assistance. When the medics arrived they had to pull him away as he kept trying to revive an eighty year old man who had died of a heart attack caused by the horror of the carnage he had seen.
Jeffrey Stone found him sitting on the back of an ambulance, a blanket wrapped around his bare shoulders.
“This is my fault,” he said with a bleak, angry stare. “I should have been able to stop it.”
Chapter Ten
“The assassination of Prentice Alworth, Mr. Townsend. Do you want me to repeat it? The presidential and vice-presidential candidates of one of the two major political parties - along with eleven other people - died when a suicide bomber blew himself up, not in Baghdad, Mr. Townsend- in Los Angeles. Assassination, Mr. Townsend! What have you found out about it?”
“Senator Hart, I really don’t appreciate that tone. We’ve been doing....”
“You don’t appreciate my tone? You’re the director of an agency which has just failed to prevent the most direct attack on the democratic institutions of this country in its history, and you don’t appreciate my tone?”
