Chapter 114: A New Contract

Tuesday, January 12, 1993

Newt popped into my office Monday morning unannounced. I was doing some paperwork, but you’re always polite to the Whip. The title is because the Whip is supposed to be the guy who whips his side into order. They have a lot of power over staffing and committee assignments and office administration and can make your life miserable if you defy them.

When Mindy announced him, I put my paperwork aside and stood, to greet him and wave him towards a seat. “That was quite the bombshell you lit off last Thursday,” he told me.

“You catch any grief on this? Or do I need to be sacrificed on his behalf?”

Newt shook his head. “I got together with Boren, and we made a few phone calls Friday. We didn’t do a complete verification, be we got enough to know you weren’t bullshitting us. The White House will be withdrawing his name, citing family issues or something like that. Is that going to be good enough for you?”

I shrugged. “I’ve got no interest in making any of this public. I just won’t let this guy back in. If he heads off to East Asshole, Indiana, and never shows his face again, that will be just fine with me.” I cocked my head to the side a touch and asked, “So where does this leave me? Shit flows downhill. Is any going to splash on you or me? I’m sorry if you catch any grief on this, Newt. That wasn’t my intention.”

He waved it off. “This won’t be a problem. He’s just one more pissant appointee. Nobody needs the grief. Those guys have already forgotten his name and your name.” He gave me a curious look. “Leaving aside your personal feelings, you think Hawkins would have really been a problem?”

“Absolutely. It’s bad enough that George Bush put us into Somalia, but Clinton is going to make it even worse. He’s a complete novice at anything overseas, except for smoking dope at Oxford. Hawkins would really make that bad!”

“You think Somalia is going to be bad? We did all right in Kuwait, and Bush put us in that.”

“I think Somalia is going to be a disaster! Bush’s problem is that he thought he had to ‘do something’ to help. Kuwait was a real country with a real government and a real people. We had a simple problem, run the Iraqis out and turn it over to the real owners. Somalia, well, some places are just too screwed up to be fixed. You watch! We are going to be filling body bags over this and for no good reason. God help us if Clinton sends Hawkins over to supervise!” I replied.

Newt shrugged and stood up. “Well, it’s over, so keep your mouth shut and nobody will care. After the recess is over, we need to get together and make some plans to turn the heat up on the Democrats. No reason to let up on them.”

“I’ve got no problems with that. Call me or John or one of the other guys, and we can schedule a meeting at the clubhouse. I think we can still get some more mileage out of the Bank and Post Office problems. People are going to jail over those little issues.”

He smiled, like a vulture considering his next meal. “We do this right, we can take control back of the House, at least. Maybe the Senate, too.”

“I have an idea or two. Let me get a few things down on paper and plan them out for after the recess.”

I showed Newt out through the office lobby. He stopped at the outer door and turned to me. “You know, if we do take back the House, you guys are going to be somewhere in the middle of the seniority ranking. Any thoughts on that?”

It was my turn to smile back. “Yeah, let me off Science or Veterans Affairs, or both. I want Armed Services or Foreign Affairs.” Those would be good payoffs for moving the Democrats out.

Newt smiled and nodded. He liked a good horse trade as much as the next politician. “For a guy who was never a politician before, you learn quickly. Let’s make this happen, and then we can worry about that sort of thing.” We shook hands and he left.

I made phone calls to the offices of Pell, Ford, and Boren, to get five minutes with each of them. One thing I had learned, both on the first trip and this one, is the importance of face-to-face communications and thank you’s. With Pell and Ford, it was straightforward - thank you for seeing me last week, sorry if I disrupted anything, I appreciate the effort you took. Equally understood was the fact that Washington is a place of give and take, and I now owed them a favor. Fair enough.

With Boren it started out the same way. I got five minutes with the man, which was all I had requested, and when I was shown into his office, I started my little spiel. “Senator, thank you for seeing me. I just wanted to thank you for listening to me last week.”

“Congressman, you’re welcome. Please have a seat,” he replied.

“Well, I didn’t want to take up your time. I just wanted to say thank you and it was appreciated. I’m sure you’re a busy man.”

He smiled but shook his head and gestured towards an armchair in a sitting area. Leaving now would be very rude, so I had a seat, and he sat in a matching chair next to me. “I wanted to talk to you for a minute about that. You know that Newt and I looked into your story. He told me he was going to talk to you.”

“Yes, sir, he saw me the other day. That’s one reason I was making sure to make my manners with you gentlemen,” I said, smiling.

“The courtesy is appreciated. I wanted to talk to you about that mission. I talked to some people over at the Pentagon. That thing was a screw-up from the start, wasn’t it?”

“That’s as good a description as any I’ve heard, Senator,” I agreed.

“I also heard what really happened afterwards, including what the charges would have been. All the charges.” His face didn’t change when he said that, but I knew what it meant. He had heard that the dickless lieutenant had said I shot the prisoners. Boren must have pulled some strings to get that information, because I was sure it wasn’t in any routine file.

“The charges that were never actually brought? Or were they brought and then officially expunged?” I asked. “That was the end of my career, so I never paid it any attention.”

“The records are there but buried deep. If you had pushed this to the limit, they wouldn’t have stayed buried.”

I sighed. “I thought as much. As I said before, if there is a price to pay, I will pay it. I just couldn’t allow Hawkins back in. Should I be contacting a lawyer?” Theoretically, if the Army wanted to pursue this, they could ‘un-retire’ me for the purposes of a court martial.

“No. This is done for now. Unlike some of our esteemed colleagues, I actually believe that some secrets should be kept secrets. I have no interest in digging it up, and neither did the Army. Newt knows, but you play for his team, so that won’t be a problem. One of these days, though, it will probably surface. You might want to give that some thought. No good deed goes unpunished, that sort of thing,” Boren said.

I sighed again. “Senator, I just did what I had to do. I got my men home. Nothing else mattered. It was my fault we were there to begin with. If I had refused the jump maybe somebody else would have refused, and we could have gotten the whole mess cancelled.” I shrugged and looked at him. “I’ve thought a lot about it over the years.”

“Son, don’t overthink it. You weren’t the only officer who jumped that day, and they weren’t your men to command. Don’t go looking for trouble. Just remember that it will all come out some day. Nothing stays secret in this town, at least not forever. I mean, I love these conspiracy nuts who think the CIA had Kennedy killed. There’d have been a dozen eyewitness books out by now if that had happened!” He laughed at the idea.

I had to smile at that and nod, and with that, the meeting was over. He stood, so I did, too, and he ushered me out, shaking my hand at the door. I had dodged another bullet.

At the end of the day, I went home. I was taking off for a couple of weeks until after the New Year. We reconvened on January 5 and I needed to be present to be sworn in with the 103^rd Congress. Until then, we would take the Christmas break and visit Marilyn’s family and then go to Hougomont for a little sand and sunshine.

Meanwhile, however, what Gingrich had spoken about was running through my mind. It got to the point that by the time we were in the Bahamas, I found myself sitting on the beach watching the kids run around, but with a notepad and pen in my lap. Marilyn was at my side, in a one-piece bathing suit, straw hat, and oversized sunglasses, laying on a beach lounger and catching some rays. I was in swim trunks and a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, and my own straw hat. Between us in a bucket was a bag of ice with a six pack of Coronas. Charlie was down trying to body surf the miniscule waves, and his seven-year-old sisters, Holly and Molly, were working on a sandcastle.

Marilyn reached between us to open a beer. “What in the world are you working on?” she asked.

I smiled at her and waved my pad. “This is my plan for global domination.”

“Feeling ambitious, are we?”

“Today Hereford, tomorrow the world!” I intoned.

“Give me a break!” she said with a snort.

“When I’m done, the Democratic Party will be in full retreat. Your parents will have to move to Canada or be charged with treason.”

“What about me?” my wife asked. “I’m a Democrat, remember!”

I waved my pad at her. “We have a provision in the party platform to allow for sleeping with Republicans.”

“Keep it up, wise guy. Sleeping will be all that goes on.”

I grabbed my pen. “I think I’m going to modify the platform, require something a little more concrete, maybe involving kneepads and handcuffs.”

“I don’t want to know!”

I grabbed a beer and yelled, “Hey, you two, Mommy wants to be buried in the sand!”

Marilyn popped up and began to argue, as Holly and Molly scampered over eagerly. They were sent back towards the water. I could see their brother just shaking his head in our direction. Grownups!

In between teasing Marilyn and chasing the kids, I managed to write some notes down. I knew what would work to put the party back into power. My problem was that I wanted it to be done on my terms, and not the terms of the hard-right wing of the party. I was personally part of the liberal wing of the Republican Party, which was about the only way I could get elected in Maryland. Unfortunately, while some of my personal feelings were in line with the Democrats, the leadership in the Democratic Party was much more interested in maintaining power and the current status quo. Changes needed to be made, and the only way that would happen was a palace revolt. The Republicans had to regain control of Congress, something that hadn’t been done since the Fifties!

I spent the rest of the time in the Bahamas making notes. Marilyn glanced at them from time to time, but in most ways she just didn’t care. Yes, she was a Democrat, but she was much more conservative than her parents. Politically, we met very much in the middle, which allowed us to tease each other constantly. The standard joke was that we had to go to the polls together, so that we could cancel each other out.

After we flew home, I called John Boehner and Jim Nussle and told them about my conversation with Newt, and about getting together in the clubhouse for a strategy session. We made a date for the Tuesday after the session started, the 12^th, and they promised to corral the rest of the Gang of Eight plus Newt for a meeting at the house. I started fleshing my ideas out in the meantime, typing them up and figuring things out. I also picked up a couple of whiteboards, easels, and easel pads.

Marilyn and the kids came down to D.C. that weekend and I spent part of Saturday setting up some things in the den and prepping one of the easel pads into a flip chart. Charlie came in at one point and asked, “What are you doing, Dad?”

“Homework!”

“You’re not in school.”

“That just makes it even more important,” I told him.

“That sucks!” he replied.

I rolled my eyes but tried to keep it from my son. Marilyn might say he was too much like me, but he wasn’t an academic. It was a little more like Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold proudly talking about his son Rusty in Vegas Vacation - ‘He’s a C+ student!’ It was time to put my foot down. I looked down at him and said, “What about you? Have you done your homework?”

He gave me a look and said, “I don’t have any homework.”

“You don’t have any homework, or you don’t have any homework here?”

“Dad!” he protested, with a very guilty look on his face.

I put my hands on my hips and gave him the stare down. “You ever try to pull a stunt like this again, you won’t be able to sit for a week. You think I’m tough? I learned from people who would eat you alive! Until you hear otherwise, I will be checking your homework nightly. You want me to start calling your teachers and asking them if you have any homework?”

“Dad!” He had a panicked look in his eyes at the suggestion.

“Out! And don’t try this one again!” I pointed towards the door, and he scooted out at high speed.

Marilyn came in about a minute later. “What did you say to your son?”

I gave her a wry smile. “Just that he had to do his homework.” She gave me a curious look. “He tried to pull a fast one on me by telling me he didn’t have any homework, when he meant to say he didn’t have any here. He really left it home.”

Marilyn replied, “That little shit!” but she was smiling as she said it.

“So, I chewed his ass and asked if he wanted me to make daily phone calls to his teachers.”

She glanced back towards the door. “I’ll chew him some more when we get back home.”

“I like that idea. Why do I have the funny feeling my first born is not going to be making his name in the halls of academia?”

“Carl! That’s an awful thing to say!” I gave her an are-you-kidding-me! look and she shrugged. “Well, did you know you were going to get a doctorate when you were eleven?”

“I think I knew when I was in the womb, and it still wouldn’t have satisfied anyone!” I replied, laughing.

“You’re as crazy as everyone else in your family.”

“Sshhh! Don’t let anybody know!” I laughed and advanced on her. “Besides, only poor people are crazy. Rich people are eccentric!”

Marilyn laughed and backed away from me. “I don’t care how rich you are. You’re still crazy!” She backed her way out the door.

Since it didn’t look like I was going to trap Marilyn in the den, I went back to work.

Tuesday evening, the meeting was set for seven at the house on 30 ^th. I had told Marilyn I would be spending the night in Washington, and the catering company had left plenty of coffee and tea and some cookies and snacks. By twenty-after we all had our coffee and were in the den. John looked around the room and said, “Well, Carl, you called the meeting. What’s on your mind?”

I was already standing, but at this I went over to one of my easels that I had positioned at the end of the room. “All right, fair enough. A few weeks ago, I was talking to Newt about continuing the pressure on the Democrats, about taking control of the House back, and even the Senate. I spent a chunk of the recess thinking about this and came up with some ideas. I’ll go into them in a moment, but I want to lay out the big picture first.”