Chapter 1: Retirement, Sort Of

2009

Following John McCain’s inauguration, we flew home and spent about a week at Hereford decompressing. I also watched the dismantling of the elaborate security screen we had around the place. Most of the security and commo trailers were hauled out, along with the heavy weapons and anti-aircraft systems (Stinger teams). Then we decided that the Bahamas were a lot warmer than Maryland in January and went there for another month or so. We no longer had a Navy destroyer hanging around, but still rated a Coast Guard cutter. The last week of February I was feeling a little bored and we flew home and made a call to Georgetown University Hospital.

That’s where I was having my knee replacement surgery done. Before I left office, I’d had Doctor Tubb research the procedure, and Doctor Richard Shawshank of Georgetown was perfectly capable of doing the surgery. Even Suzie weighed in, long distance, and agreed. I knew that if I ignored her advice and something bad happened, I would never hear the end of it! Regardless, it was truly amazing. I went in that morning at the crack of dawn, went through surgical prep, and was on the table by 8:30. The amazing part? That evening, after I came fully awake from the anesthesia, they had me up on my feet and walking around the room and a few feet up and down the hall. I was home a couple of days later.

Home, in this case, was the house in Georgetown. We kicked Charlie and Megan out of the converted library and moved into it; they moved to the master suite upstairs. Marilyn and I stayed downstairs while I went through my rehab. Marilyn and Megan conferred on the upcoming wedding, now with a date in September, and I gave Charlie the benefit of my years of wisdom, which basically consisted of doing what the women told him to do and keeping his mouth shut otherwise.

After I was officially released from rehabilitation and therapy, I added walking to my regular exercise routine. After a few weeks, I was able to begin jogging, at least for short distances. I couldn’t believe how much better my leg felt! If I’d known I would feel this good, I would have done it years before! It was also somewhat depressing to find out how out of shape I was. I had a fair bit of upper body strength, but running builds stamina, and it was going to take some work to get back up to my old self. I glossed over the fact that my old self was from thirty years ago.

I also decided that I might as well help the new President with his new agenda. His State of the Union speech had been fairly workmanlike, but nothing spectacular. I wasn’t complaining, though. The only one of mine which had been memorable had been my first, following 9-11, when I had to give the most uplifting message possible to a nation still reeling in shock from the Al Qaeda attacks. The others? Boring as hell!

John had several themes to his speech. Most of them were simply extensions of existing policies, a third term of Buckman policy regardless of whatever gibberish he had spouted about new plans and not being a third term. One new idea was a new national health care plan. He spoke about how one in six Americans was lacking in health care, of children dying, of mothers having to choose between working to feed their children and treating their own cancer, of patients being denied coverage because of preexisting conditions, and of insurance policies not worth the paper they were printed on. He pressed that we could do better.

Maybe I could assist. I had access to a couple of high-powered lobbying firms, and I knew the head of the Republican National Committee, an outfit that was in charge of dispersing campaign funds to potentially recalcitrant politicians. I made a few phone calls and met with a few people the last week of March. We met at the house on 30^th Street. Frank Stouffer, Marty Adrianopolis, Mindy Geisinger, Michael Steele, and Brewster McRiley came, and Marilyn played hostess. The big question was that if I was going to get involved in politics behind the scenes, what was the best way to do so? I already had a couple of lobbying outfits, even if we kept the secret that I funded them (and Mike and Brewster didn’t have a need-to-know). Instead, we settled on a think tank, a separate research operation that could do opinion surveys, legislative analysis, and cost-benefit studies. We could hire some PhDs and MBAs and put together a blue-ribbon board to front to the public.

Bill Clinton had done something similar and was calling his outfit the Clinton Global Initiative. I wasn’t as worried about the rest of the planet except as it impacted on America. We called ours the American Impact Project. Mindy would begin working for them as soon as the lawyers put it together, and in the meantime, she would begin scouting for office space. Ultimately, she would come back to work for me as my personal assistant, otherwise known as ‘Carl’s Boss,’ which amused both her and Marilyn. We tossed around some names for the board, picking moderates, both Republican and Democrats, and developed a list of names that I would personally contact. A few had been in my Cabinet, a few had been in Congress or the Senate and had gotten out, and a few more were simply people who we all knew. The odds were that most people would want to join; it was a low risk, high reward option with not a lot of work involved. The first person I would call would be Colin Powell.

I wasn’t terribly surprised when John McCain called me a couple of days later and asked me to drop by. Washington is a company town, and there was no way I was going to meet with a bunch of Republican movers and shakers without him hearing about it. You do not say no to the President when he asks you to meet him. I went out and got a haircut and trimmed my beard, and the next morning I put on a good suit and went to the White House.

Interestingly, already present in his office was Condoleeza Rice, who had been my Secretary of State, and was still John’s. John’s request was simple. Now that I was un-retired, he wanted me to go to work for him as a Special Envoy to the Middle East. I filled him in on the plans for the AIP, and he agreed to my continuing that as well. I would now simply need to be at a first remove from it, so I called Mindy from his office and gave her a few details, specifying me as a non-executive figurehead. Everybody knew this was total bullshit, but it would meet any legal requirements. Otherwise, I told him I would be honored.

Since I was back at work for the government, we had to reinstitute my blind trust. For years my investments had been held in a blind trust, handled by a trustee who was part of the Buckman Group and who didn’t report to me, but I had still controlled it for the entire time. As soon as I was out of office, I took back control of my portfolio, and sent the trustee back to work for Jake Eisenstein and the Buckman Group. Now I had to set it up all over again - what a major pain in the balls! I had just gotten set up to legally look at my business again, and now I had to reverse course.

The Buckman Group had changed immensely since I had left to become a Congressman. At that time, it was simply the Buckman Group, the private equity and venture capital outfit we had founded when I got out of the Army. That was still around, but it was much, much more these days. The first major offshoot was Marquardt/Buckman Investments (offices in Palo Alto and Austin) which invested in high tech and Silicon Valley and was just getting underway when I was leaving. Another business was Commodity Exchange Traders (offices in Chicago) which invested in commodities. This was, in some ways, a return to my roots since my initial fortune was from trading (admittedly with foreknowledge) in oil and silver.

The most recent major business was Buckman Future Energy, headquartered in Houston, which invested in wind, solar, and the drilling boom going on in America. We invested, as always, in equities in new and existing companies in the business. Want to build a wind farm in Texas? We’ll buy a percentage. Looking to expand your solar installation business in California? Call us. Building a fracking operation in Pennsylvania or an oil pipeline in North Dakota? Ditto. For the first time in decades, the United States was becoming a net exporter of energy, not a net importer, and the effects on the economy were tremendous. Most importantly, economies of scale were finally kicking in and solar and wind power were becoming economically competitive. Natural gas was displacing coal as the fuel of choice on new power plants and coal-fired plants were being converted or shut down in droves, improving air quality and reducing carbon emissions. Much of this resulted from groundwork begun in my administration.

Shortly after I had left office, I invited myself to a meeting with Jake Eisenstein and we had come to a pleasant agreement. I had zero interest in running the company again, but a seat on the board for the majority shareholder was not out of line. Likewise, I did want a small office suite for when I was at home and needed to do paperwork out of the house. In general, I left Jake to do his thing, and he had really done well at it. He was now worth about $750 million in his own right, and I was worth at least $25 billion! I couldn’t really complain about how he had run the company. We did a joint interview with Fortune explaining my limited return to business and my confidence in Jake’s operation.

I managed to do a single board meeting before John McCain roped me back into public life. Like I said, a pain in the balls!

That weekend my impending nomination was leaked in time for it to be discussed on the Sunday talk shows. Several previous instances were noted where former Presidents were used for special diplomatic missions, but this would be the first which was long term and formal. One interesting question was whether I would need Senate confirmation for the position. The jury was out on this. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is responsible for all State Department appointments, including all ambassadorships. Otherwise, the requirement for Senate confirmation was delightfully vague, as was the job itself.

“Are you really going to have to get the Senate to approve you?” asked Marilyn.

“Won’t that be fun? Screw the Senate! I’ll just do the job and let them complain,” I replied.

Monday morning Marilyn and I went over to the White House for the announcement. I waited in the Map Room, out of the way and out of reach of any reporters, but Marilyn was invited upstairs and chatted with Cindy McCain for several minutes. After a bit Cindy brought her back and we all went over to the Oval Office, where we met with the President and the Secretary of State. After John’s Press Secretary did his usual briefing, he announced that the President would be speaking, and we all trooped into the Press Room. Cindy and Marilyn went over to one side where two chairs were waiting for them out of the line of the cameras, and John went to the podium with me and Condi to one side in the background.

John started by describing the wonderful work I had already done in the Middle East brokering peaceful relations and defensive treaties with various countries, and then segued into his desire that I continue as his personal representative to the nations in the region. Condi Rice then spoke for a few minutes about the wonderful relationship we’d had in previous years, and her belief that this would continue in the future. After that, I stepped to the podium and thanked them both for the immense trust they were placing in me, and my promise not to let them down. Blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. I doubted more than fifteen seconds would make it to the news that night, other than the rather unusual fact that it was being done at all.

I thought that was it, but John had a sly smile on his face, and I wondered what he was up to. After I finished speaking, he returned to the podium, and announced, “Carl Buckman is not the only person we are here to congratulate today. Shortly after the election, as then President Buckman began planning his retirement, most everybody else in the West Wing began placing bets on when he would get bored and decide to come back to work. We had a pool going, and with today’s announcement, we can officially declare the winner of the pool!” He pulled an envelope out of his jacket and held it up. “And the winner, at ten weeks and six days, is Alison Carver!”

I just rolled my eyes and slapped my face while the room exploded in laughter. Alison was one of the more junior secretaries in the Communications Office, and she must have been waiting out in the hallway. I heard a loud “Woo hoo!” and she scampered in, and John handed her the envelope with a laugh.

I went back to the podium and gave Alison an appropriate scowl and finger-wagging, which made her laugh, and she scooted off to the side to say hello to Marilyn. “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” I said into the microphone. I then had to answer several questions about it all. Did I know about the pool? “Yes.”Was Mrs. Buckman aware of the pool? “Yes.” Did she join the pool? “Yes.” What did she pick? At that I gave a mystified look and turned to Marilyn. She reported ‘Eight weeks’, which wasn’t heard by anybody, and I had to repeat it into the microphone. At that we called it quits. We headed back down the hall, and I gave Alison a hug good-bye. I knew that while the announcement of me as a Special Envoy might not make it to the news that night, gambling in the White House certainly would!

A Special Envoy reports directly to the President. That isn’t something that ambassadors do. Technically an ambassador ‘extraordinary and plenipotentiary’ is the direct representative of his or her sovereign, but the reality is somewhat different. Ambassadors report up a chain of command to the Secretary of State. The President can deal with them directly, at the risk of pissing off his Secretary of State, but chains of command are usually in place for a reason. I had only dealt directly with my ambassadors twice, first with Bismarck Myrick during the Monrovian Rescue, and then later with several of our ambassadors during the Kurdish War, and even then, it had only been done with the Secretary of State in the room or on conference call with me. On the other hand, I had no such restrictions when I talked to Special Envoys, and Bismarck Myrick hadn’t been my only such when I named him as the Special Envoy to Kurdistan and Turkey.

The job of Special Envoy is wonderfully ill-defined. It was as much as the President wanted to make of it. My mission would be to simply travel in the region, speak to the various leaders I already knew, consult with him, Condi, and the local ambassadors, and provide a private means for discussion between President McCain and the locals. Privately, he wanted me to keep a lid on things over there, and make sure all the children played nice. How I did it, he would leave that to me - within reason. I understood his meaning. If things worked out, he looked good, but if things turned to shit, he would blame me. I would make my first trip in a week’s time.

When I left office, I decided to upgrade my plane. I had been using a G-IV since 1990, and even though it was lovingly maintained, it was definitely getting long in the tooth. I needed a new plane, and something larger, faster, and with longer range. I basically traded it in on a brand-new Gulfstream 650, the newest version of the venerable jet. It flew at damn near the speed of sound for 7,000 miles carrying a dozen-and-a-half people and was considered the Cadillac of private jets. Now, as Special Envoy, if I didn’t want to fly a government jet, I had a personal plane that was even nicer. (Technically, the planes belonged to Executive Charters, the charter company the Buckman Group owned a piece of. Since I had funded most of the investment personally and had first right to fly, it was for all intents and purposes my airplane.)

I spent the remainder of the week preparing for the trip, and in setting up the American Impact Project. One of things we needed to do was to start finding some staff and some of those PhDs and MBAs to do research and studies. My suggestion was finding some underemployed academics who wouldn’t mind some research money.

Condi Rice sent me over an assistant for my trips overseas. This was a bit of a mixed blessing. I still had my Top-Secret clearance, and as the ex-President I still received a daily briefing from a National Intelligence Officer. Mindy still had a clearance from her time in federal service, but I was going to need a body man, and one with an appropriate security clearance. That isn’t something one can find with an ad in the Help Wanted section. Condi provided the assistant, a young man named Brad Wilkins. Unsaid was the fact that Brad would be reporting back to State whatever I was up to and whoever I met with. I was going to have to either work with that restriction or find a way around him. Defense sent me over an ‘assistant’ too, a major named Jim Culliver, so they could learn what I was up to also.

Marilyn, Brad, and Jim joined me for my first trip overseas as Special Envoy, and I hit all the favorite spots - Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, and Kurdistan. We also flew into Oman and the United Arab Emirates, neither of which I had been to before. Unlike my trips as President, I didn’t set out with an agenda, and spent several days in each country, meeting not just the leaders, but also some of the second-tier ministerial people and building my Rolodex up. I told everybody that I planned to be back in the region in another month to meet with people again.

By the time I got home, Mindy had a tentative staff going with AIP, and I met with them and finalized some plans and signed papers, and we had a black-tie gala at the Kennedy Center to formally announce everything. Our charter was wonderfully vague, and sounded both pompous and grandiose, just the tone we were aiming for. Secretly, I had plans for using our research people to look into two specific areas. The easy one would be immigration. John wanted to update and tweak some of the immigration laws, since the last time we did that was when I rammed through George Bush’s DREAM Act. We could do some economics research in support of some changes.

The tougher sell would be some form of health care reform. I remembered Hillary’s disaster back in the ‘90s, and the problems Obamacare caused when I was on my first go. I knew two things. First, the Republicans would riot in the streets before allowing some form of Democratic proposal to go through. The only way it would work was if the Republicans came up with something. Second, the main reason it became disastrous was that the Dems wanted gigantic all-in-one omnibus wonder-bills, whether they worked or not. What would pass, however, were much smaller bills, pieces of a larger program. Perhaps one bill on curbing insurance company abuses, another aimed solely at hospital charges, another at added exchanges or options for purchase. The smaller bills had much higher chances of being pushed through, and if there were legal challenges, it wouldn’t necessarily kill the entire program.

AIP could help in two ways. First, crank up the researchers and show how good and bad health care impacted the economy, and how the various improvements would save money in the long run, etc. Everybody had their own private think tanks on both sides of the aisle, and this just gave us more talking points on the Sunday news shows. Second, we could use a stealth campaign of embarrassment on the Congressmen and Senators who opposed reform. How, you ask? Ever heard of Doctors Without Borders, where volunteer physicians and nurses visit foreign countries and set up clinics for poverty-stricken people? They volunteer their time, and supplies are usually donated by countries or medical or pharmaceutical companies. So, if Congressman Obstinate is being a jackass, maybe we set up a volunteer clinic in the poorest school in his district. Run it for a weekend and invite every television station in the area to come by and shoot footage. Meanwhile, this doctor or that nurse could go on camera to report how all these problems would be solved if only we had some form of health care reform. I could guarantee that if we did that a few times, Congressman Obstinate would change his tune! With any luck, we could bury AIP’s involvement nice and deep and out of sight.

As the saying goes, politics ain’t beanbag!

I spent the rest of the spring and summer overseeing AIP and traveling back and forth to the Middle East. Marilyn spent some time doing family matters, specifically getting Charlie and Megan married. The wedding would be in Elkhorn, Megan’s hometown, and we flew out to see her family one weekend. John Pulaski was a successful lawyer, and was certainly able to pay for the wedding, but I insisted he allow me to pay for a portion for the hassles my attendance created. Specifically, as an ex-President and Special Envoy, I still had a sizable security contingent and requirements. It wasn’t Megan’s fault that her boyfriend’s father needed Secret Service protection and all the disruption that entailed. The wedding would be at the local church, and the reception would be at a very nice country club. Otherwise, we simply hung out for the weekend. Marilyn promised to help Barbara, who accepted of course. I told John not to be so thankful, and Marilyn slugged me in the arm.

The wedding was scheduled for the first weekend in September, and August was busy. Marilyn skipped out on my Middle Eastern trips for a couple of months, to help and/or hinder her family. Leaving aside the wedding, Charlie and Megan were moving out of the house in Georgetown and into a nice split-level they had bought in Laurel. I had told my son several times that if he thought he was old enough to get married, he was old enough to live on his own. Laurel worked out, since it was halfway between Washington and Baltimore, making it only a half hour’s drive for Megan to the McRiley office and only a half hour’s drive for Charlie to get to Baltimore Washington International.

Charlie looked as if he had reinvented himself yet again, this time as an announcer-commentator for ESPN. He had graduated from the motocross circuit to pretty much any oddball or dangerous sport. He still did motocross, but was now doing grand prix motorcycle, tractor pulls, extreme skiing and snowboarding, and a few other sports that looked either weird or insane. He would hook up with some local expert in the sport, which is how he got started. Most weekends he would be flying off somewhere, and then come back on the redeye Sunday night, racking up some serious frequent flyer miles. Weekdays he would work out of their studio and office in D.C.

Marilyn also had time to bug her daughters. Molly was with NASA at Goddard, working nights on a doctorate in engineering at College Park, and was quite happily married to Bucky. Marilyn occasionally spent the night in their spare bedroom. She also took a couple of trips up to Princeton to see Holly and see how she was doing. Marilyn didn’t think Holly and Jerry were doing so great in the romance department. They were arguing about a number of different things, especially post-graduation plans, which had them heading in opposite directions. I still thought he looked like a bum. Both girls would be in the wedding party, as were both of Megan’s brothers, with various friends rounding out the group. I promised to be back in plenty of time for the nuptials.

The wedding went just fine, and Charlie and Megan borrowed the 650 for their honeymoon, but they didn’t go to Hougomont. Now that I was no longer the President, my children didn’t qualify for Secret Service protection, which suited them all just fine. However, as an ex-President, I still got protection, even if at a lower level, as did my residences. Charlie and Megan flew to Jackson Hole and spent a week at a very private resort ranch. I wondered about the weather in Wyoming in the fall, but was assured the days were nice and warm, though the nights were chilly enough to require snuggling. Megan giggled at that, and Charlie simply smiled.