15

                            BATTLE  OF  INSIDERS:   THE  MAJORITY  LEADER’S RACE

            As our Piper Apache droned deeper into the timber country of East Texas, I nervously sipped coffee from a styrofoam cup and tried to figure out what I was going to say after we landed.

            This assumed, of course, that the pilot of our little chartered plane could find Diboll, Texas, in the first place.  A recent visitor had warned that the little backwoods town of 5,500 “is not so easy to find and you’re out of it before you get into it.”

            But getting us to Diboll was the pilot’s problem.  My problem, once we got there, would be far more complicated.  The more I tried to break it down into its component parts, the crazier it sounded.  I was supposed (1) to visit a millionaire I had never met and (2) convince him to give away a lot of money (3) to a bunch of people he didn’t know (4) to carry out a plan that might not work. 

            Moreover, this was not just your everyday millionaire.  My chore would be somewhat easier if it were a kitchenware salesman who had waked up one morning and found that he had inherited a rich uncle’s estate.  At least I would feel less intimidated in talking with a guy like that.

            As it was, in any battle of wits with the fellow I was going to meet, I would clearly be outgunned.  To begin with, this particular guy had taken a little family lumber company in East Texas and built it into a multimillion dollar timber products empire.  And then for an encore, in 1973, he managed to pull off the granddaddy of all corporate mergers--a deal so adroit that it flabbergasted the smart-alecks on Wall Street and put this good ol’ East Texas boy on Page One of The New York Times.  In a single master stroke, he and his family and associates acquired an astonishing 15 per cent of the stock of Time, Inc.     

            That’s why it was tough to figure out what to say.  Everything I came up with sounded ridiculous.

            Good morning, sir.  Not very original, but I’ve got to start somewhere.   

            You don’t know me, but--  That’s stupid.  Don’t waste the man’s time.  Tell him why you’re here.

            I would like to talk to you about some political campaign money--  Ouch.  That may get me thrown out.  But if he really is a no-nonsense guy like everybody says, maybe he’ll admire my forthrightness.          

            The money?  Oh, it’s not for me.  I want to give it to a  woman in Baltimore... No. No. No.  Entirely wrong impression.  Fix it--quick.  

            Oh, I don’t know the woman, of course.  Get to the point, dammit.

            But she’s running for Congress, see?  So what, son?  So what? 

            And Don and Craig and I thought maybe if we can help her raise some campaign money,  she may consider supporting Jim Wright.  Supporting him for what?  Tell him, you dunderhead.

            Oh,  yes--I should have mentioned this.  Jim is running for Majority Leader of the House of Representatives.

            This whole convoluted story had begun unfolding in Washington a few weeks earlier.  As we were leaving the Capitol late one summer afternoon  in 1976, Jim Wright asked to hitch a ride home with me.  I figured he had something on his mind.  Otherwise he would not have endangered his life by accompanying me in my beat-up old Mustang into the chain of traffic careening at warp speed down the Southwest Freeway.  With Jim Wright apprehensively bracing himself for a collision, I deftly executed my customary kamikaze maneuver into stream of cars barreling hell-bent for the Virginia suburbs.  A terrified fellow in a Buick yielded a slot for us.  Later, after Jim Wright regained his color and composure,  he started talking about the Majority Leader’s race shaping up in the House. 

            The Speaker of the House, Carl Albert, was retiring after 30 years in Congress to return to his native Oklahoma.  Certain to succeed him in the Speakership was Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, a tousled, friendly mountain of a man from Massachusetts.  It was then only June, and the election would not be until December.  But already O’Neill had nailed down enough votes among his colleagues to guarantee that he would ascend to what surely was the most powerful legislative office not just in the United States but in the world. 

            This would leave vacant O’Neill’s present post as Majority Leader, the highly-prized No. 2 position in the House.  As straw-boss to the Speaker, the Majority Leader is responsible for speaking for his party in the House, steering its legislative program, controlling the legislative schedule, resolving disputes and, occasionally, knocking heads.  Moreover, the office is the traditional stepping-stone to the Speakership, as Tip O’Neill was preparing to demonstrate anew.   

            With such a seat of power soon to be vacated, it’s a safe bet that virtually every senior lawmaker in the House toyed at least momentarily with the idea of seeking the prize.  Most realized, however, that among their House colleagues they would require a bedrock base of support similar to those claimed by the three prominent House leaders who had already announced their candidacies.

            As we talked in the car that afternoon, Jim Wright mentioned that several colleagues had come to him suggesting that he ought to enter the race. 

            “Are you considering it?” I asked, knowing full well that that he was.  He had been elected to Congress in 1954.  Back in those days, the old bulls who ruled the House figured that until a new member had been around for 10 years or so, he was entitled to no more attention than a doorknob.  Intelligence and hard work counted a little, but not as much as the number of pages you had torn from your office calendars.  For a brainy, industrious member aspiring to a larger role in the House leadership, being patronized this way was Chinese water torture.  

            I had watched, first as a newspaper reporter in Fort Worth and later as his Administrative Assistant, Jim Wright’s growing impatience with the limited role any individual member was permitted to play in the House.  Even in the 1960’s, talented lawmakers moved up in the House about as fast as people renewing their tags moved up to the counter at the Division of Motor Vehicles.  So frustrated did Jim Wright become at one point, I recalled, that he asked then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson about the possibility of either a cabinet appointment or an ambassadorship.

            “You say you are frustrated?” Johnson demanded.  He emphasized how frustrated he himself was, and how President Kennedy was most frustrated of all.  For people with as much surplus adrenaline as Jim Wright and Lyndon Johnson, hardly anything could be as maddening as the funereal pace with which the ponderous machinery of government customarily moved.           

            Taking Johnson’s advice, Jim Wright remained in Congress and, through the years, advanced significantly in power and prestige.  Now, in 1976, with the Democrats in unchallenged control of the House, he held one of four Deputy Whip positions, an important but lower rung on the leadership ladder.  Moreover, he headed an investigative subcommittee and would be in line the following year to become Chairman of the Public Works Committee, one of the most prized positions in the House.  But Jim Wright was not a man for small plans.  

            In the car that afternoon, he pointed out that the three announced candidates had been busy for months.  Not only were they collaring their House colleagues, one by one, to line up support.  Also they were cozying up to Democratic Congressional candidates who, if elected in their districts in November, 1976, would be entitled to vote in the Majority Leader’s election the following month.

            As Jim Wright mulled the possibility of entering the race, he seemed reasonably confident of his two main bases of support--the Texas delegation and the Public Works Committee.  But he realized he was far behind in another crucial area--the quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help colleagues gather campaign money for their re-election efforts back home.  From friends in the House, he knew that the three announced candidates had been busy for months, beating the bushes for money to help Democrats running for election or re-election.  “It’s awfully late to be getting into the race now,” Jim Wright said, almost as if trying to talk himself out of it.

            In those days, efforts to raise funds for colleagues seldom got much newspaper attention.  Yet one of the top priorities for a Congressional leadership candidate is to have a Political Action Committee especially for that purpose.  Say, for example, a popular District Attorney, campaigning hard in Cincinnati for a seat in the House,  clearly has a good chance to win, but urgently needs money for a last-minute television buy.  Then, out of the blue, he suddenly receives a $500 campaign contribution from a friend--a friend who just happens to be running for Majority Leader.  If the newcomer wins a seat in the House, there is no guarantee, of course, that he will vote for the leadership candidate who came through with a campaign contribution when it was so urgently needed.  But it never hurts anything, either. 

            The more we talked that afternoon, the more I realized that if Jim Wright ran for Majority Leader, it would be a race unlike any he had ever undertaken--different from his campaigns for the Texas Legislature, for Mayor of Weatherford, for Congress from the 12th District of Texas, or even his statewide race for the U.S. Senate in 1961.  For this election would be essentially a private drama on a public stage.  It would be acted out entirely by House insiders, quietly but vigorously seeking votes from other House insiders.  And ironically, these members, who ordinarily crow about craving public input on affairs of government, actually would resent advice from a constituent or even a friend on a race like this.   

            To understand why, bear in mind that there is only one way to become a member of the House of Representatives, and that is to be elected by the people in your district.  Under the Constitution, a person cannot be appointed to the House.  Members take pride in this unique status.  Senators, of course, can be appointed on an interim basis.  And under the 25th Amendment, a person can even be appointed to fill a vacancy in the office of Vice President, as Gerald Ford was in 1973.

            Thus when the House elects its officers, they are “the elect of the elect”--a set of political pro’s, chosen from the ranks of the 435 political pro’s who make up the House.  While sometimes politically bloody, these leadership contests seldom produce riveting public drama.  They capture nowhere near the newspaper and television attention of a Presidential race.  For one thing, the candidates are largely unknown outside their own district or state.  Then too, the maneuvering is often so subtle and complex it cannot be easily backgrounded by newspaper reporters in 500 words or by television anchors in 30 seconds.

            Aboard the plane headed to Diboll with me that bright summer morning were two of Jim Wright’s most valued friends and political allies.  One was Craig Raupe, who had  gone to Washington with the newly-elected Congressman in 1955 and had worked for him, either as a staffer or a devoted friend, ever since.

            Craig squirmed uncomfortably in his seat.  In the salty language he often used to conceal his essential soft-heartedness, he demanded of his seatmate:  “How much further to this damn place?”       

            “Not much.  Diboll is just south of Lufkin, “ replied Don Kennard, the State Senator from Fort Worth.  Like Craig, Don had long been a stalwart supporter and steadfast political confederate of Jim Wright.  It was Don who had arranged the appointment and chartered the plane for today’s trip.   

            I looked down at the seemingly endless carpet of timberland.  “With as much money as this fellow’s got, why does he want to live out here in the sticks?”         

            “Maybe to keep away from guys like us,” Don said, laughing.  “Or maybe because these sticks, as you call ‘em, made him rich in the first place.”    

            And so they had.  Arthur Temple, now one of the wealthiest men in a state full of wealthy men, was a teenager when he started work in his family’s Southern Pine Lumber Company in the Depression year of 1939.  When his father died in 1951, he took over the company.  Hard-working and resourceful, he invented an automatic lumber sorter and steadily built what had been a little backwoods lumber firm into a forest products combine called Temple Industries, with more than 400,000 acres of East Texas timberlands. 

            Then, in 1973, Arthur Temple pulled off a merger with Time, Inc., that gave him, his relatives and associates almost as much stock in the giant publishing empire as the 18 to 20 per cent owned by the company’s executives, directors and their relatives along with the Henry R. Luce Foundation.  Thus, at age 53,  did a plain-spoken, sunburned good ol’ boy from Diboll, Texas, become what  The New York Times called “a major force” in the U.S. communications industry.

             However impressive that description was to Craig, Don and me, we saw in this self-made East Texas timber magnate other qualities far more important.  As a moderate Democrat, Arthur Temple was a rare creature indeed among Texas millionaires, some of whom were so conservative they had not yet come to terms with the French Revolution. And even though Arthur Temple had never been a close personal friend, he had supported Jim Wright in the past.  Whether he would do so in the somewhat uncertain enterprise in which we were now engaged remained to be seen.  But he was soon to be given that chance.  

            Although I had never met the man, I felt comfortable the moment I walked into his office.  He wasn’t wearing the green golf cap which newspapers said he often kept on at his desk, but his office was adorned with U.S. and Texas flags, along with a sign, “Do it right, but do it right now.”  To me, this suggested an almost spooky philosophical kinship with Jim Wright, whose own action-oriented office sign said: “Don’t tell me why it can’t be done.  Show me how it can.”

Somewhat more skillfully than I had imagined on the plane, Craig, Don and I told Arthur Temple about Jim Wright’s plan to enter the race and outlined his general strategy.  The election would take place in the Democratic caucus on Monday, December 6.  With four candidates, there would be three separate votes, with the low man being eliminated each round.

One by one, we went over our three opponents.  One was John McFall of California.  Even though a likable man and presently Majority Whip, only one step down from Majority Leader, he had been politically crippled by his association with South Korean mystery man Tongsun Park.  We figured he would be eliminated in the first round of voting. Thus when talking to a member who was pledged to vote for McFall, Jim Wright always asked--and often won--a pledge of support on the second round if McFall should be eliminated in the first.  If enough of these second-round votes came through, the Fort Worth Congressman would have a chance to beat out the next opponent--stuffy, imperious Richard Bolling of Missouri.

            Arthur Temple seemed to be listening intently, but since he asked no questions, I kept talking.

            “That would leave Phil Burton.  “You probably have read about him.  He’s an ultra-liberal from San Francisco.  Mean as a snake.  Scares the daylights out of people.  Jim believes that if he can get into a head-to-head contest with Burton, he can beat him.”

            Arthur Temple leaned back in his chair rubbed his chin, chewing over what must have seemed like a highly doubtful political scenario.  Like the rest of us, he was concerned  over Jim Wright’s late start in the race.

            I realized we were on shaky ground.  Here we were, asking substantial help from a shrewd, self-made millionaire who didn’t know Craig and me from a loblolly pine tree.  Fortunately for us, Don’s presence lent our visit at least a tinge of credibility.  Don had come to know Arthur Temple through a mutual friend, Congressman Charlie Wilson of Lufkin.  The three of them often got together on hunting trips deep into their beloved East Texas woodlands.  Today Don rode to our rescue, reminding Arthur Temple that even though Jim Wright was starting late, he had a far stronger base of support than the other candidates.

            “Look at our state delegation, Arthur,” he said.  “Every Texas Democrat in the House is supporting Jim except for two fellows who pledged to Burton before Jim started considering the race.  Now just compare that with the California delegation.  It’s split wide open because McFall and Burton are both from California.  And besides that, those Californians are notorious for never being able to march in the same direction, anyway.”

            It was Craig’s turn at bat.  He pointed to another big source of Jim Wright’s

support--his colleagues on the House Public Works Committee.  “He commands a lot of respect on that committee.  The members would be inclined to support him because they like him and admire his work,” he said.  “Then too there are dozens of other House members Jim Wright has helped with highways and dams and federal buildings in their districts.  A lot of them feel grateful to him.”

            Arthur Temple fiddled with a pencil.  He looked thoughtfully at Don, Craig and me and rubbed his chin.  We waited.  This, we knew, was the moment of decision.

            “How can I help?” he asked, smiling.

            Delighted, we three Jim Wright musketeers plunged ahead.  “We need you to help us round up some campaign money--not for Jim, but for his colleagues,” Craig said.

            “And for Democrats running for Congress who look like they have a chance  to win.  If they do, they’ll get to vote in the Majority Leader’s race,” Don explained.

            “Well, first you need to organize a PAC,” Arthur Temple said. 

            “There isn’t time for that, Mr. Temple,” I said.  “It would take weeks to get through the legal rigmarole.  We can’t afford to lose any more time before we get started.”

            “So what do we do?”

            “We need you to help gather up campaign donations from as many people as you can, with the checks made out in the names of  individual members and candidates.”

            Arthur Temple looked skeptical.  “My friends would feel a whole lot more comfortable giving to Jim than to some guy they never heard of.  And besides, if Jim had a PAC, he could give the money in his own name to whoever he wanted to.”    

            “We’d like to do it like that.  But the other fellows are so far ahead of us on this, there’s just not time to organize a PAC.”

            Arthur Temple hesitated.  “Well, I don’t know,” he said.  “I think--

            His telephone rang.  He picked it up.  “Yeah, Charlie.  No, it’s all right.  I can talk.  What you got on your mind?”

            For the next few minutes he listened, grunting an acknowledgment now and then.  “Sure, Charlie--I’ll do that.  Sure.  Say, listen, Charlie--you got any political money?”

            Still on the phone, Arthur Temple looked at me and smiled mischievously.  “All right,” he said.  “Make out a check for $500.  No, don’t make it out to me.  Make it out to--”

            As fast as a quick-draw artist at the OK Corral, I whipped out a list of names and thrust it into his outstretched hand.

            “No, not to me.  Make it out to Barbara Mikulski.  M-I-K-U-L-S-K-I.  That’s right.  No, Charlie, you don’t need to know what it’s for.  Just make out the check and mail it to me.  I’ll take care of it.”

            Arthur Temple laughed.  “My friends are going to find it pretty expensive to call me from now on.” And so they did.

            Over the next few weeks, he gathered dozens of checks made out to Democrats campaigning for the House.  Jim Wright quickly dispatched each to the payee, along with a personal note explaining that the contribution came from a good friend in Texas who was eager to help in his or her race.  

            Emboldened by our initial success, Craig and Don and I split up and fanned out to different parts of the state.  For his next pitch, Craig went for the gold. In Dallas, which then even more than now was a citadel of Republican activism, he managed to set up a meeting with a group of bankers and insurance executives.   

            To the conservative business leaders who gathered in a posh skyscraper office to hear Craig’s story, Jim Wright’s affiliation as a Democrat was accepted with noses wrinkled in spirit if not in fact.  While most of the tailored suits in the room grudgingly recognized that he was not a knee-jerk liberal and was more conservative than Burton or Bolling, they would have been far happier hearing how they might help a Texas Republican become Majority Leader. 

            Because they were community leaders, most of these business men were aware that during his 22 years in Congress, Jim Wright had brought significant benefits to the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area, providing vital help with megabuck projects like the new Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, the Trinity Canal and General Dynamics defense contracts.  Moreover, he had, after all, gone to high school in Dallas, and if next Majority Leader simply had to be a Democrat, sigh, it might as well be a Texas  Democrat.  

            For a while, it looked as if Craig might be successful in raising a little money in Dallas.  But then, when he mentioned that the checks should be made out not to Jim Wright, but to other Democrats, the meeting went downhill fast.

            “You’re asking us to make out checks to people we don’t even know?” demanded a man we shall call Mr. Penworthy.  He was a prominent business leader Jim Wright had helped many times.

            “Most of them are members of Congress, Mr. Penworthy,” Craig pointed out.

            “Even so, just think what you’re asking.  You want us to blindly give money to people in other states--people we never even heard of?”

            Waving his list, Craig stood his ground.  “I’ll tell you one thing.  There’s not a single soul on this list that would embarrass you.”

            Mr. Penworthy got out his glasses and scanned the list.  Pointing to one of the names, he asked: “Isn’t this the fellow in Utah I read about a few months ago?”

            “What did you read about him?”

            “That a Congressman by this name was arrested for propositioning an undercover policewoman,” Mr. Penworthy cried triumphantly. 

            This, for all practical purposes, concluded the Dallas meeting.  A week or so later, as Craig laughingly related to Don and me how embarrassed he had been, Don added a postscript to the story.

            “That’s what you get for wasting your time in Dallas,” Don told Craig. “You should have been out in West Texas with me.  In El Paso a lawyer friend of mine also spotted that name.  He said, ‘Ain’t this the guy that tried to buy sex from a female police officer?’”

            Don reluctantly admitted that it was.  Delighted, his lawyer friend cried:

            “A sonuvabitch after my own heart!  Gimme my checkbook--I’m going to send that horny bastard five hundred dollars!”

            From Diboll, Dallas and El Paso, we moved our strategic operations in July to New York for the Democratic National Convention.  Here Jimmy Carter would win the Democratic nomination to oppose President Gerald R. Ford, the only American ever to reach the Oval Office by appointment.  Picked by President Nixon and confirmed by Congress in 1973 to replace resigned Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, Ford then inherited the Presidency when Nixon resigned in 1974.

            For those hoping to become Majority Leader, this national gathering in New York of the Democratic faithful was an ideal hunting ground.  Sensing recapture of the White House in November, virtually every Democrat seeking election or re-election to the House was in New York, eager to help anoint our party’s presidential candidate. 

            Phillip Burton, widely regarded as the front runner, set up a hotel hospitality suite.  Friends and prospective supporters were invited to drop by and pay homage to the man many thought was certain to be the next Majority Leader.   

            With Jim Wright’s candidacy still officially unannounced, we practiced political guerrilla warfare.  Craig, Don and I, along with staffers and friends like Kathy Mitchell, John Mack, Kathy Luhn and Liz Connell, quietly but methodically began tracking down House candidates, one by one, and inviting them up for private talks with Jim Wright.  To outsiders campaigning for the first term, our invitation was a win-win proposition.  Even if Jim Wright were not elected Majority Leader, they knew he would be the next Chairman of the House Public Works Committee.  From this committee each year came authorizations for scores of new highways, bridges, dams and federal buildings--valuable hometown projects which often made the local member of Congress look like a real go-getter.  

             For aspiring members, who might soon be called on to deliver on a badly-needed highway project for voters back home, nothing could be more inviting than friendship with a senior lawmaker who could make it happen.  For Jim Wright, those long, tedious, frustrating years as a committee back-bencher were beginning to pay rich dividends in power and prestige.  Every time we managed to track down a candidate, he or she eagerly jumped at our invitation.  One by one, we escorted them back to our suite in the Essex Hotel, just across from Central Park, where Jim Wright was waiting.  He took it from there.

            Even though we had lists showing where members of each state delegation were staying, the candidates we targeted were not always easy to find.  Some we collared on the convention floor, some in hotel lobbies, and some on the street. But some we thought we weren’t going to find at all.  We had almost given up, for example, on Barbara Mikulski.       

            Ms. Mikulski was a small bundle of political dynamite from Baltimore.  Short in stature but long on spirit and stamina, she had won acclaim in Maryland as a social worker, college professor and Baltimore City Councilwoman.  Unsuccessful as a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate two years earlier, she was now a candidate for the House.   But among tens of thousands at the Democratic convention, we simply couldn’t find her. 

            After searching vainly in her hotel, among her Maryland colleagues and in the convention hall, we were beginning to think that we might never catch up with      

a woman of her energy.

            Then Liz Connell, one of our volunteers, tired from trampling New York concrete and dispirited over her inability to find Barbara Mikulski, stopped for a bite of lunch.  Stepping into a nearby sidewalk diner, she strode up to the counter and wearily took a seat.  On the next stool was Barbara Mikulski.

            “I’ve got her!  I’ve got Barbara Mikulski here in the diner with me!” Liz shouted into the phone to Kathy Luhn, who with Kathy Mitchell was scheduling appointments back at the Essex. 

            At their meeting, Congresswoman-and-Senator-to-be Mikulski talked with Jim Wright about Baltimore’s urgent need to fund a massive harbor project, and he talked with her about the Majority Leader’s race. 

            Some candidates, seeing a chance to get some high-powered campaign help,  urged Jim Wright to come and speak for them in their districts.  Often these invitations turned out to be bigger chores than he was counting on. When he went to Pennsylvania to stump for Allen E. Ertel, for example, he learned that he had been scheduled for 23 appearances in one day.  He gulped--and made them all.

            On July 27, two weeks after the convention, Jim Wright formally announced his candidacy.  Nobody in the press paid much attention.  Among outsiders, he was a late starter and widely regarded as a long shot.  But among members of the House, the announcement was received more respectfully.  They knew Jim Wright. 

            But at this point, neither he nor any of us on his staff suspected what a desperate, hard-fought race it would turn out to be.  In time to come, Congressional historians would describe it as “the closest, most volatile and least predictable” leadership election ever held.

            As autumn colors came to the stately old trees on the Capitol grounds, the four-man contest began to narrow.  McFall’s campaign never seemed to gather steam,  even though as Majority Whip he would ordinarily be considered only one stairstep away from the prize.  But he had severe handicaps.

            For one thing, a candidate for a leadership post traditionally counted on his own state delegation for his bedrock support.  In this case, both McFall and Burton were Californians, thus dividing the 29 Democrats in their state delegation.  Such a split, however, was not unusual for the Californians.

             Unlike the Texas delegation, which was usually a paragon of unity, the California group included such a tangled array of personalities, preferences and prejudices that its members seldom were united on anything.  Whoever said there is strength in diversity surely didn’t have the California Congressional delegation in mind.  As a matter of fact, four California members, bullied by Burton, quietly came to Jim Wright and promised their support in the secret balloting.

            John McFall’s personality was also a factor.   Some members doubted that such a pleasant, easy-going guy would be forceful enough to knock heads, as the Majority Leader occasionally was required to do.  He seemed to be reluctant, for example, to push a colleague for a rock-solid promise of support.  Walking up to a fellow House member, McFall might say, “Hey, Joe, I sure would like to count on your support in the Majority Leader’s race.”  The colleague, recognizing a loophole when he saw one, might grab McFall’s arm, give it a fraternal squeeze and respond, “John, you would make a hell of a good Majority Leader,” and McFall would naively believe he had another vote.   

            But McFall’s biggest burden was his relationship with Tongsun Park, the wheeling-dealing South Korean businessman who materialized in Washington and began cozying up to the city’s political elite.  Even though McFall refused Park’s offer of a campaign contribution, which would have been illegal, he admitted accepting $3,000 for an office kitty he used to entertain visiting constituents.  When the newspapers reported this gift, McFall’s shaky position became shakier still.  While not unlawful, the gift did nothing to enhance his public image. 

            The Missourian in the race, Richard Bolling, had many admirers in the House, chief among whom was Richard Bolling himself.  While high self-esteem is standard equipment among members of Congress,  Bolling’s ego loomed as monumental as that of General Douglas MacArthur, on whose staff he served during five years of  Army duty.  This conceit eroded the respect Bolling otherwise was due because of his intellect, his diligence and his encyclopedic knowledge of Congress.  But over the years, many colleagues came to regard him as an arrogant, aloof know-it-all. 

            Elected to the House as a liberal Democrat in 1948, Bolling authored three books on Congress and served on the prestigious House Rules Committee.  From that lofty position he seldom hesitated to publicly rebuke colleagues for wasting his time with incomplete or erroneous information about their bills.  Even though he himself yearned for a leadership post in his beloved House, Bolling nevertheless resented the naked ambitiousness of Phil Burton.  When the Majority Leader vacancy loomed, Bolling jumped into the race--some say as much to deny the office to Burton as to win the job himself.

            The other man in the race, Phil Burton, was considered by some to be political genius.  If  he was, he paid a terrible price for the distinction.  While as a staff person I was spared the necessity of having personal dealings with him, he always struck me as  being a continually angry, tortured man.  I never remember seeing him smile.  On the countless times I saw him in the Capitol, in the halls of the House Office Buildings or in watering holes like the Democratic Club, he seemed to reflect the sullen intensity of a desperately driven, unhappy man.

            I am sure he must have had another side, but to a casual observer it wasn’t easy to see.  A San Francisco lawyer and former California State Assemblyman, Burton was elected to Congress in 1964.  With political credentials liberal enough to score 90 on the Americans for Democratic Action yardstick, together with his unyielding opposition to the Vietnam War, he quickly established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the House.  While impressed at Burton’s skill in building coalitions, Tip O’Neill cringed at the thought of having him as the Speaker’s second in command.   

            Undoubtedly one reason for O’Neill’s feeling is cited by author John Jacobs in his biography of Burton, A Rage for Justice.  In 1972, both Burton and O’Neill, who was then Majority Whip, attended a Democratic fund-raising dinner in California.  Afterward, both men and their wives joined another couple in the Beverly Hill Hotel’s cocktail lounge.  Burton, angry and drinking, began using words commonly found on restroom walls.  

            Ever the gentleman, O’Neill pointed out that ladies were present and suggested that Burton should cease using foul language.  Burton only grew more profane, and O’Neill finally snapped:  “Curb your tongue.”

            Furious, Burton stood up and, incredibly, challenged the portly, 60-year-old O’Neill to a fight, at one point even starting to reach across the table for him.  Only after another person at the table intervened did Burton relent.

            “This is crazy,” O’Neill muttered.  “This is not the way people in the public eye behave.”   

            Four years later, in the heat of the Majority Leader’s race, Burton again displayed his darker side--this time in a Machiavellian effort to bedevil Jim Wright.

            Jay Power, then a young lobbyist for the carpenters’ union, recalls the incident vividly.  In the Democratic Club one evening, he happened to run into Burton, whom he regarded as both a personal friend and an important ally of the carpenters’ union.  Burton said he was hungry, and asked Power to take him to dinner at the Monocle, a popular gathering place for people on the Hill.    

            Since Burton was a frequent visitor, waiters at Monocle were accustomed to his unusual behavior.  At the table, he shucked off his shoes and ordered a Stolichnaya on the rocks--the first of seven or eight vodkas he would consume that evening, along with occasional sips of milk.  From the waiter Burton ordered a rare steak which, Power recalls, he picked up with his hands and began eating as he would a sandwich.       

            Then, across the room, Power saw impending trouble.  A tall man with a white hat and a western-cut business suit was looking intently at Burton.  Uh, oh, thought Power.  This going to be bad.  That guy’s from Texas, and he’s going to come over here and mention the Majority Leader’s race. 

            Sure enough, the stranger strode over, a picture of smiles and courtesy.  Apologizing for the interruption, he introduced himself as a friend of Jim Wright.  He had heard what a fine man Mr. Burton was, and he couldn’t resist coming over to say hello.

            “I’m sure it will be a good and fair race,” he added.

            Burton, bristling with hostility, demanded:  “What are you doing here?”

            The visitor explained that farm subsidies important to Texas were under attack in the pending farm bill, and he had asked Jim Wright to help save them.

            Burton exploded, leaping to his feet.  With bits of steak, spit and his favorite four-letter verb flying from his mouth, he vividly described what should be done to the visitor, to Jim Wright, to the farm bill, and to subsidies.

             “I will single-handedly sink all this redneck Texas special interest shit,” he thundered.

            So violent was this outburst that even waiters accustomed to Burton’s antics scurried for cover.  Startled customers at nearby tables got up and moved away.  

            When things calmed down, Burton’s companion was so angry he couldn’t resist condemning his tirade.  “Phil, that was completely out of line,” he said.

            “You still don’t get it, do you?” Burton calmly asked Power. “That guy is going to be seeing Jim Wright.  I don’t want Jim Wright to have a single waking moment that he doesn’t know I’m on his ass.”

            Despite such outrageous spasms of anger, calculated or not, Burton displayed rock-steady dedication to his overriding goal.

            “I want to accumulate power,” he told his young friend from the carpenters’ union on another occasion.  “I want to build benefits for the working people and benefits for the environment."            

            “Yeah, Phil, but you seem to enjoy power.”

            “Sure I enjoy power--because nobody knows how to use it as well as I do.”

            In 1973 Burton, then chairman of  the liberal Democratic Study Group, had led a battle to make the office of Democratic Whip elective rather than appointive so he could run for the job.  Defeated in that effort, the next year he methodically began building support among what later became known as the “Watergate Babies”--the enormous class of  reform-minded Democrats running for the House in the wake of President Nixon’s resignation.

             One of Burton’s allies in this enterprise was Wayne Hays of Ohio, the House Administration Committee Chairman who had not yet become known for putting hypermammiferous Elizabeth Ray on his payroll for duties she described as other than office work.  At this time, Hays also happened to be Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC.  From Hays,  Burton would receive advance word that the DCCC was preparing to send a campaign contribution to a House candidate.              Then Burton would call the candidate, schmooze with him about his race, and then say he was recommending that the DCCC send a contribution.  By this and other means Burton built solid loyalties among many of the 74 new Democrats elected to the House in 1974.  This base of support was crucial to Burton’s election that year as Chairman of  the Democratic Caucus, the overall party organization in the House.

            As the Majority Leader’s race heated up in the fall of 1976, the marble corridors of Capitol Hill churned with intrigue.  One day the phone rang on my desk in the Rayburn Building.  My good friend Nick Masters was calling.  He wanted to see me.  He sounded excited.          

            This was curious, because ordinarily Nick was about as excitable as an octogenarian Supreme Court justice.  Usually the rawest emotion he displayed was a contemptuous snort, often directed at some new Republican budget “reform.”  Still well known in academic circles as Dr. Nicholas Masters the political scientist, he had long since been lured from his ivy cloisters by a temptress he found far more seductive--Washington politics.  For many years he had been a top-ranking staffer on the House Budget Committee, as well as one of Jim Wright’s closest friends.

            “Shut the door,” he ordered.  Dragging up a chair, he drew within whispering distance.  “I’ve just learned the three things they’re going to use to try to beat Mr. Wright,” he said. 

            “Where’d you get this?” I asked.

            “I can’t tell you.”

            “Is it good information?”

            “It’s as good as it gets,” Nick said emphatically.

            Nick’s strategic intelligence had the ring of credibility.   He said our opponents would try to discredit Jim Wright on three claims--that he did not have the support of the Texas delegation, that he opposed the 1964 civil rights public accommodations bill, and that he was a tool of “big oil” in Texas.

            Our preemptive strikes were prompt and effective.  We put out a vigorous letter of support signed by every Democrat in the Texas delegation except two, and pointed out that they had said they, too, would have endorsed Jim Wright had he announced before they pledged their support to Burton. 

            And while Jim Wright did, in fact, vote against the public accommodations bill--a vote he always regretted--his colleagues quickly reminded other members of his stand for civil rights nearly a decade earlier, when such views took a lot more guts.  Early in his House career, Jim Wright was one of only five Congressmen from south of the Mason-Dixon line who refused to sign the so-called Southern Manifesto, condemning the 1954 Supreme Court ruling against school segregation.

            Similar word-of-mouth networking by friends helped debunk the ridiculous notion that the Fort Worth Congressman was a tool of “big oil.”  Probably nobody found this charge more preposterous than the grand poobahs of the major oil companies themselves.

            On Sunday, December 5, the day before the Majority Leader election, the Jim Wright brigade struck two telling blows.  The first Jim Wright never knew about.  It was carefully orchestrated by Craig Raupe and his longtime friend, Larry L. King.  They both had  arrived in Washington in 1955 as impecunious, fresh-faced political novices--Craig as Administrative Assistant to Jim Wright, Larry as AA to Congressman J.T. Rutherford of Odessa.

            Later, Larry himself served a stint as Jim Wright’s AA and then went on to become a highly successful writer.  In the future he would win renown as the author of  The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  But in December, 1976, he was far more interested in another House, even though the charms of its occupants were admittedly  less obvious.  And now, with the Majority Leader election only a few days away, Craig and Larry, both seasoned and resourceful in the ways of Washington, saw an opportunity to strike an unusual tactical blow in behalf of their longtime pal.

            By a fortuitous coincidence, Larry had just signed up as a writer-in-residence for the old Washington Evening Star.  Now defunct,  this venerable and respected daily was required reading among the denizens of Capitol Hill. 

            What then could be more appropriate, Craig and Larry wondered, than for Larry to speculate, in his first article in the Star, which of the four Majority Leader candidates would the new President, Jimmy Carter, prefer to work with?  Such a story could hardly be more timely, especially since the article would be published on the Sunday before Monday’s Majority Leader election.

            Of course Jimmy Carter knew full well the danger of a President’s dabbling in the internal affairs of the House.  In a candid moment he had admitted that yes, he had a favorite, but he wisely kept his mouth shut about which of the four it was.  To any conscientious journalist, this would offer an irresistible professional challenge.  After all, isn’t it the solemn obligation of a sagacious newspaper writer, brimming with truths and insights hidden to lesser mortals, to shine the bright light of truth on the innermost thoughts of a President, up to and including things he would be crazy to say out loud?  In the face of such a compelling journalistic responsibility, Larry wrote a long piece examining the pro’s and con’s of each candidate and concluded that Jim Wright had more of the former and fewer of the latter than his competitors.    

            “Jimmy Carter has a favorite.  He has said so,” Larry wrote.  “Mindful of the jealous prerogatives of the Congress, and respecting tradition requiring his non-intervention, he carefully has failed to name him.  The suspicion here is that Jimmy Carter’s favorite is Texan Jim Wright,” and went on to tell why he thought so.             In the meantime, from a commercial printer Craig ordered several hundred gummed labels reading:  “See inside.  Larry L. King on the Critical House Majority Leader Race.”           

            At 5 a.m. Sunday, Craig climbed out of bed and met a truck bringing enough copies of the Star for each Democrat in the House.  Above the fold on Page One of each paper, Craig methodically began sticking his gummed labels.  As he worked on this chore at the mail delivery entrance of the Longworth House Office Building, another early-riser unexpectedly arrived.  

            Congressman Phil Burton, Jim Wright’s fiercest rival in the race, strode briskly past, entering the building completely oblivious to Craig and his ongoing handiwork.  As Democratic members of the House received these papers, some may have mistaken Craig’s gummed label as a promotional notice put on by the Sunday Star at its printing plant.  Regrettably, such a mistake could not be helped.

            Another campaign coup came Sunday afternoon.  Jim Wright sponsored a luncheon to honor the latest crop of Democratic freshmen.  Defying conventional logic, he not only warmly welcomed his three opponents to the luncheon but also invited each to make his campaign pitch to the newcomers.  Bolling and McFall gave perfunctory talks, but Burton couldn’t resist the temptation to do a little grandstanding.  

            Calling attention to the close working relationship he had built with previous class of freshmen, Burton said the class of ‘74 had achieved significant reforms because it was so well organized.  He urged these newest members to organize, just as had the previous class.  Then, as Burton took his seat, Jim Wright lowered the boom.

            “Phil mentioned the class of ‘74,” he said.  “We’re fortunate to have with us today the president of the class of ‘74, Carroll Hubbard of Kentucky.  Would you care to say anything, Carroll?”

            “I sure would,” said Hubbard, rising.  “I’m for Jim Wright.”  Burton looked as if he had been hit in the face with a fish.

            Then, in a own low-key pitch of his own, the Fort Worth Congressman gave highly complimentary assessments of all the other candidates.  One by one, he praised the individual qualifications of each.  Then, almost as an afterthought, he said he might be the best combination of the special qualities of each.  It was a vintage Jim Wright performance.

            The next day, the Democratic Caucus met to choose two top leaders who, even though they were elected for terms of only two years, would ultimately serve in these same positions for 10 years.  Tip O’Neill was chosen Speaker without opposition.  Then, as nominations opened for Majority Leader, I leaned against a brass railing in the House chamber and watched, realizing I was witnessing one of the most important dramas of Jim Wright’s life, and probably mine as well. 

            Nominated first was Bolling.  Then came McFall, Burton and Wright.  Each was lavishly praised by his nominators and seconders.  As members moved restlessly about the floor, exchanging rumors, endorsements and occasional threats, one could only imagine the mixture of emotions bubbling up within their minds.  No computer on earth, and certainly no human,  could possibly have sorted out the individual political motives and memories, alliances and hatreds, insults and favors, loyalties and treacheries and hopes and fears running through the minds of those about to vote.

            And then, in the first round of voting, McFall was eliminated.  As the second round began and members scurried into small knots for hurried conferences, I was struck by the eerie feeling that I knew, even now, how all this was going to turn out.  It was moving steadily in the pattern that Jim Wright had visualized as he sat in my Mustang in front of his house six months before.  On the second round, Bolling was eliminated.  Jim Wright now had the opportunity he craved.  He was, at last,  in a head-to-head contest with Phil Burton.  I clutched the brass railing and waited, hardly breathing.      

            Charlie Wilson, the tall, dapper Congressman from Lufkin, was one of the vote counters.  The vote was dead even, 147-147, as Wilson plucked the last ballot from the box.  It was a vote for Jim Wright.           

            “You did it, Jim!  You won!” cried Congressman Bill Alexander of Arkansas.  The House chamber was in tumult.  Many Burton supporters stood dazed and unbelieving.

            Tip O’Neill, delighted over the outcome, invited his new Majority Leader over for a drink.  Gary Hymel, a one-time New Orleans newspaperman who had served many years as O’Neill’s top staffer, escorted the two winners through the crowd of well-wishers to his boss’ impressive new office just across the hall.

            A few minutes later, Jim Wright and I started back to the Rayburn Building, where another big crowd of friends had already gathered.  As we loped down a deserted marble stairway in the Capitol, Jim Wright abruptly stopped in his tracks and grabbed my arm.

            “Marshall,” he said, laughing, “tomorrow I want you to talk to Gary Hymel and find out what the hell a Majority Leader is supposed to do.”