WHITE SMOKE
“The difference between Carter and Kennedy: Carter has this vague religion which he believes in strongly, while Kennedy has this strong religion which he believes in vaguely.”
-Gene McCarthy
April 2, 1981
A few miles outside San Diego, CA
He might have looked out of place in a suit if it weren’t for the fact that the president never travels alone. Jody Powell was there, also in jacket and tie, trailing behind the president, donning aviators and looking down with annoyance as the grass brushed against his recently-shined shoes. They were in the middle of a field in southern California to make an announcement.
Carter thought it was going to be the peak of his presidency — a chance to shift the debate. Powell wasn’t as sure.
That’s what he thought about putting them on the roof of the White House.
Carter had chosen a vast empty field as his setting to address the nation. The advance men had brought out a podium carrying the presidential seal. Reporters crowded around. Carter was flanked by members of Congress and that ever elusive Jerry Brown. He was going to explain the importance of solar energy to the American people, and he was going to prove that he’d been right last year when he fought Congress and won the windfall profits tax.
“In my first term,” Carter began, “I said that our confrontation with energy consumption was the ‘moral equivalent of war.’ Some in the press mocked the idea. I believe that the incidents of the last twelve months have proven I was correct in my assessment.
“A year ago today, I signed the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980. The tax served multiple purposes. It will help us balance our budget before I leave office in 1985, and it will also help us to invest in the renewable energies that will be needed to reduce our dependence on oil and protect our environment.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m standing in a big empty field.” Carter laughed at his own joke. Some in the press cohort chuckled, too. Most of them were just sweating in the South California heat.
“I’m here because over the next year-and-a-half these many acres will be converted from an empty to field to a solar farm. Private companies, supported by the revenue generated through the windfall profit tax, will begin installing solar panels as far as we can see from our vantage point here, and that production will create jobs, and once its completed, this farm will produce energy, and that energy will not only lower the electricity costs for those here in Southern California, it will also reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
“This is the potential that our country has. It is incumbent upon all of us to help us reach it.” Carter nodded and thanked everyone for coming out. No questions. Charles Duncan, the Energy Secretary, standing behind Carter, applauded. So did the gaggle of White House staffers. The reporters folded up their notebooks, the cameramen broke down their tripods, and together they trudged back to the vans.
• • •
One of the crowning accomplishments of Carter’s first term in office was the National Energy Act. The legislation had undergone many forms, but the final bill, which passed in October 1978 by a single vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, altered the way the nation approached energy. Not only did it create a cabinet-level Department of Energy, but it also sought to reduce the nation’s dependence on oil. It implemented penalties on the production of fuel inefficient vehicles, it raised the efficiency standards for home appliances, it gave tax incentives to the wind and solar power industries, and it included the Power Plant and Industrial Fuel Use Act, which prohibited new power plants that were powered by oil or natural gas, and it was this provision that sparked the most controversy.
President Carter often faced policy dilemmas that acted against his values. His compassion and Christianity led him to support government programs that helped the poor and improved the quality of life for all Americans, but the realities of inflation superseded these tendencies. Instead, he was committed (detractors would say obsessed) with balancing the budget instead of implementing liberal spending programs to help the needy. In a similar vein, his environmentalism was challenged by the nation’s dependence on oil, which Carter believed to be a national security threat and an economic one. And so, the Power Plant and Industrial Fuel Use Act, had the unintended consequence of biasing new power plants towards coal as opposed to alternative energy sources favored by environmentalists.
Carter did not concern himself with such matters in his first term. He understood that coal was not ideal for the environment, but at the time the National Energy Act became law it was the most logical choice to get the nation to curb its dependence on oil. As he saw it, there was no choice. He had to kick the country’s addiction to oil, and coal was the easiest way to do that.
Now, with four more years in the White House, environmentalists, who believed they had a friend in Carter, approached the administration about moving beyond coal.
Jordan was unconcerned with their demands. The National Energy Act had already provided tax incentives to wind and solar power, and they were using the money from the windfall profits tax to expand research and development for these alternative energies. Carter’s trip to San Diego had helped to underscore the point.
Eizenstat had been intimately involved in the back-and-forth over Carter’s energy bill in the first term, and soon enough Anne Wexler went to him and reported what she was hearing from the environmentalists. Now that Carter had a second term, they expected the White House to push beyond coal. Politically, Eizenstat found the entire issue untenable. West Virginia was one of the Democratic Party’s most reliable states in the Electoral College and Robert Byrd, its Senator, led the Senate Democratic Caucus. A War on Coal would go nowhere politically and only burn bridges. Wexler understood the politics, but she also believed that environmentalists represented an important tenet of the Democratic voting bloc. If they sat home, it could mean the difference between winning and losing states like California.
In the early months of 1981, appeasing the environmentalists aligned with another duty of the Carter White House: helping Democratic members of Congress who didn’t survive the 1980 elections. One of them was Mike McCormack, who narrowly lost his Washington seat. McCormack, who looked every bit the professorial sort who would be a leading voice on nuclear energy, came asking for a job, but unlike others who needed political appointments, he had a title and job description prepared: White House Nuclear Energy Czar.
McCormack was focused on the energy crisis and was building a pro-fusion caucus in the Congress that was focused on steering resources to a new type of nuclear energy development, fusion instead of fission. McCormack thought that fusion energy, safer than the current fission technology, was the next frontier in sustainable energy development, and he believed that if the White House deputized someone to steer money and other resources that way, the United States could become a global leader on the issue.
It helped that he was already a White House ally. In the 1970s, he’d led the effort to convert the United States to the metric system, which President Ford signed into law. Carter had supported the issue as well and overseen the conversion of road signs to include distance in kilometers.
After several meetings, Eizenstat drafted a memorandum for the president in which he laid out the case for research and development support for the fusion energy effort. Carter, a nuclear engineer in his earlier life, believed in the promise of the technology, and, reading through the memo in his private study, checked off the line next to “Yes” — he wanted to appoint McCormack as his Nuclear Energy Czar in hopes of directing resources towards fusion development. [1]
• • •
In December of 1980, Carter signed one of the most important pieces of environmental legislation ever passed in American history, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. The new law resolved one of the greatest dramas of the president’s first term in office.
A law passed during the Nixon administration to address oil exploration and production in Alaska was set to expire in 1978. When the bill lapsed, some 45 million acres of the Last Frontier would be opened for oil development. The state’s senators Ted Stevens and Mike Gravel blocked bipartisan legislation that passed the House of Representatives to protect the land. Carter moved forward with a controversial but legal employ of executive power. Using the Antiquities Act, he declared the land a National Park and prevented it from being opened for development.
The executive order had been a major blow to oil and gas companies that hoped to use the land for production.
After Carter’s decision, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens began negotiations with the White House to open much of the state up for oil and gas development while preserving the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other areas of the state. Carter was not wholly opposed to oil and gas development in Alaska, but he opposed any expansions that jeopardized key environmental areas, such as ANWR.
The final legislation, which Carter signed, protected 157 million acres of land while opening oil and gas exploration along the Alaskan coast and some 90 percent of state land. [2]
April 14, 1981
The White House — Washington, DC
If the president wanted a meeting, it was important to go. Russell Long believed in this, as he did a long list of maxims that governed Washington, DC. He knew that the president was considering taking up the mantle of healthcare reform, and he knew that the president was going to ask him for his help. Long believed that the agreement they came to in 1979 was a good framework for universal coverage and the kind of sensible legislation that would help everyday Americans. He was not eager to spend the next year ahead of the midterm elections re-hashing a freshly-scabbed wound. In fact, he thought it would only lead to an electoral disaster that would resolve itself only with a Republican-controlled Senate.
He intended to say as much to the president.
When he arrived in the Oval Office, he stuck out his arm and shook the president’s hand. “It’s good to see you, Mister President. Good to see you.”
“Senator, come in,” the president said. He was on a first-name basis with some members, like his friend Joe Biden, but he was always deferential to Long.
They took their seats on opposite sofas, and Carter explained that Kennedy had come back to the White House with encouraging news about taking up healthcare reform. He mentioned Kennedy’s comment that labor was now willing to negotiate.
“I hear ya, Mister President, and I understand your desire to get a bill passed, but we have to consider the electoral ramifications here,” Long said. “You are asking us to take on an issue that has never been easy —”
“Before you go any further,” Carter interrupted, “I am not asking you to do anything other than share your opinion about the viability of passing a health insurance reform package in this Congress.”
“Well, thank you for that, Mister President, because that’s what I want to say. If we take this on, we are going to spend eight months fighting with one another and very likely not passing anything. I am unsure that this is the right moment for this kind of legislation.”
Carter nodded, but he also didn’t have any more elections to win. He decided to reframe the issue from one of a dragged-out process to a speedy reform.
“I’ve indicated to Senator Kennedy that I am not willing to craft a plan different from the one proposed in the summer of 1979. Stu has explained to him all of the work that went into that bill — the work you and I did with Abe and others. We’re not going back to square one. I’m willing to make adjustments as needed, particularly to the timetable for phased expansion, but I am not willing to start from scratch. Ted knows that.”
Long nodded. “Mister President, it is still healthcare reform. We cannot get it done in less than six months.”
“I would like to see it done by Thanksgiving.”
Long nodded. He’d expected as much. “If labor is going to —”
“Senator, I agree with you. I’m not interested in rehashing the same talking points from every special interest group. But if I can get an assurance from Kennedy and labor that they will come to the table in earnest, and I can get Stu here to hammer out a framework for discussions, are you willing to join us?”
Long paused as he considered the question, and so Carter continued, “Senator, we cannot pass this reform without you. It’s that simple.” The president stood up from his sofa, and Long hastily scrambled to his feet. When the president stood, nobody sat. “I think we may have our chance at last. My reelection, and Kennedy’s performance in the primary, has underscored where the electorate is on this issue, and Kennedy knows that the deal we presented him is the best chance at reform.
“I understand your hesitations,” the president continued. “I have them, too. Our economy is in a precarious position, and I’m loathe to prolong the kind of deficit spending that has produced inflation. But I also know that this may be the Democratic Party’s last opportunity to deliver on this issue for twenty or thirty years.”
Long nodded. “I understand, Mister President. I am not willing to go down this road unless we know for certain that Senator Kennedy is acting in good faith. We cannot afford another expense of political capital that yields nothing but bad headlines.”
“And I agree,” Carter said, smiling. He put his arm around Long as they walked back towards the door. “But it’s good to know that if we can get some kind of a framework together —”
“I will get the votes from my wing of the Party if Kennedy gets them from his. And he better tell labor to sit down.”
“And I agree,” the president repeated.
Long thanked the president for his time and left. Back in the Oval Office, Carter and Eizenstat talked more about what the president wanted to see in the final package.
“Go back to Kennedy and get him to the table,” the president said.
April 22, 1981
Russell Senate Office Building — Washington, DC
Carter may have pushed Senator Long towards the table, but his position was nearly identical to the senator’s. He, too, was not willing to wager such political capital only to see another attempt at healthcare legislation go down in defeat. Eizenstat well understood Carter’s hesitancies about the politics of pushing for reform. He also understood that the president was just as influenced by the economic conditions and the federal budget. If healthcare legislation was going to pass, Eizenstat needed to establish a set of basic understandings with Kennedy, and that was his goal as he headed to the Hill to meet with the Bay State Senator.
Eizenstat began the meeting with a run-down of the president’s meeting with Long. The Finance Chairman, Eizenstat explained, was willing to come to the table, but he also insisted that the conversations center on the 1979 proposal and build out from there. Kennedy agreed, and he insisted that he’d been clear about that in his conversation with labor.
“I think if we can get concessions from the White House on the manner in which universal coverage is phased-in, we can come to an agreement on this,” the Senator said optimistically.
Eizenstat understood, but he also reiterated the president’s insistence on a hospital cost containment bill. Carter believed excessive medical costs were one of the foundational causes of the current stagflation crisis, and he was not willing to pass any kind of reform of the insurance industry if Congress did not first pass a cost containment bill.
Kennedy did not agree with the president’s priority of the cost containment bill, but he also knew that there was no hope for reform without it. Nor did he harbor any ideological objections to it.
The hospital industry successfully killed Carter’s bill for cost containment in 1979 under the promise of a voluntary effort, but the hospitals had largely abandoned serious action to curb costs since the bill died. Kennedy believed that those realities had changed the calculations in Washington, and he hoped that they may be able to get more support for the cost containment legislation now that time had passed.
Kennedy lamented that the hospital bill would still face issues in the House, where the Ways and Means Committee had been notoriously unhelpful during the first term. Eizenstat explained that the politics of that were changing as well. One of the key vote last time had been Wyche Fowler, a Georgia Congressman. But the mayoral race in Atlanta was looking increasingly good for Andrew Young and John Lewis, a Black civil rights leader in Fowler’s district, was poised to gain a spot on the City Council. In recent days, Lewis had begun making mention of a potential primary challenge to Fowler if the Congressman did not deliver on key issues for the Democratic Party’s liberal base. Fowler had since indicated to the White House that he may be open to a hospital cost containment bill.
Fowler was an important vote, but he was not the most influential. One significant setback for the legislation was the elevation of Don Rostenkowski to the Ways and Means chairmanship. In 1979, Rostenkowski dealt the Carter administration a major blow when he sided with the American Hospital Association in putting forth the voluntary measures aimed at cost containment. The new Carter/Kennedy alliance would need to find a way around Rostenkowski’s influence if they were going to pass the cost containment bill.
As for the broader reform package, Kennedy and Eizenstat agreed on several areas of discussion for a future meeting between the president and Congressional leaders. They also set a date: May 19th. As fate would have it, neither Carter nor Kennedy would be in Washington that day.
May 13, 1981
St. Peter’s Square — Vatican City
Pope John Paul II rode through St. Peter’s Square in a customized Fiat which allowed him to shake hands and perform blessings as he traveled through a crowd. May 13th was no different as the Pope, donning all white, made his way through the Square, oblivious to the dangers that swirled around him.
Mehmet Ali Ağca and his partner Oral Çelik were waiting in the Square, ready to open fire on the Pope. They even carried a small explosive device with them, which they hoped would create enough chaos for them to flee the scene without arrest. They waited patiently for the Pope to get close to them.
When he came near enough, Ağca got off his first shot. It struck the Pope in his stomach and he began to lean forward in pain. Noticing the success of Ağca’s first shot, Çelik successfully got off a shot of his own, striking the Pope in the chest. The bullet struck the Pope’s heart and he collapsed immediately. He was dead.
Shrieks rang out through the Square as the assassins snuck through the crowd to make their escape. Camillo Cibin, the chief of the Vatican security, pursued them, but Çelik detonated the explosion. Eleven others died from the bomb, and the assassins were able to escape in the chaos, just as they had predicted.
The assassins then began their trek to the Bulgarian Embassy, about four kilometers away, where they hoped to find refuge from the global manhunt they predicted.
En route to the embassy, a nervous Çelik jeopardized their escape. A police officer, noticing the haste with which they were running away from the scene, confronted the men. Çelik shot the police officer twice, drawing attention to them. A group of bystanders who were rushing to the square to help after hearing the explosion heard the shots and saw the men sprinting away from the dead police officer. They chased after the assassins, forcing them into the street where a car struck Çelik, killing him instantly. Ağca avoided the car but soon found himself pushed to the ground from the group of bystanders who kept him there until police were able to put him under arrest.
News of the assassination and bombing spread quickly, and in Washington, Watson informed the president in the Oval Office. Carter was devastated at the display of such violence. He himself had already survived an assassination attempt.
What is happening to the world? Carter thought to himself.
Eizenstat quickly noticed the politics of what was happening. “You need to call Senator Kennedy,” he said, “and deliver him the news yourself.” It was the kind of display of presidential humility that had been lacking from the Carter White House in the first term. Eizenstat saw an opportunity for the president to make a genuine gesture towards Kennedy, a devout Catholic who would be devastated by the news. Carter said he couldn’t be bothered, but Eizenstat pressed him, and the president gave in.
He placed a phone call to the Senator and delivered the news himself. Kennedy was immensely grateful for the personal call, and Carter asked Kennedy to join him at the funeral when the arrangements were prepared by the Vatican. Kennedy, touched by the invitation, thanked the president.
May 19, 1981
Air Force One — Over the Atlantic Ocean
On May 19, 1981, the world gathered for the funeral of Pope John Paul II. That night, Carter, Kennedy, and the rest of the entourage returned home to the United States aboard Air Force One. It had been a long day, and Carter was having trouble falling asleep, so he went outside his cabin and started to pace the plane. He saw Ted Kennedy slipping Rosary Beads into his pocket, and the president invited him back to his cabin for a conversation.
It began slowly enough. Awkward pleasantries about their families. Carter wasn’t sure how to ask about Kennedy’s — he was well aware of the divorce. Exhaustion weighed down on both men, even though neither could get to sleep, and it suppressed their inhibitions just enough for Carter to turn back and face Kennedy after staring out the window for a minute or so. He asked, “What was today like for you?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President?”
“Well, I’m not a Catholic,” Carter reminded Kennedy. “I was just wondering what today — laying a Pope to rest. What did that feel like? To you?”
The question caught Kennedy off guard. Not in the way that Mudd’s had. Most people assumed Ted didn’t know the answer to that question. It wasn’t that. It was more that Kennedy had too much he wanted to say. Too many policies to pass. Too many ideas to turn into bills to sign into laws. He’d been overwhelmed. So, he’d just shut down.
But this question — Kennedy really hadn’t considered it before.
What did it feel like? He thought about that for a moment. “I suppose it’s hard to put into words.” He bit his lip for a moment longer. “I appreciate the invitation. It was an honor, Mr. President.”
That wasn’t what Carter had meant.
Damnit, where’s this man’s soul? The president looked out the window. At the stars. He thought of
Romeo & Juliet — the part Bobby Kennedy quoted in his convention speech in ’64.
Without thinking, Carter let the words trickle out:
“When he shall die take him and cut him out into stars and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.”
“Mister President?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning to Kennedy. He noticed a glimmer in the corner of Kennedy’s eye. Carter looked away. He had meant the Senator no disrespect.
“I think that’s why today was so hard for me. To see what senseless violence could do to my brothers, to my country, and now … to my faith.” Kennedy let the words hang between them. “I was so shaken…” His voice trailed off. The sentence was left hanging — never to be completed.
“Did you question your own faith?” It was a remarkably personal question, but Carter was at ease. He’d spent many Sundays teaching the Bible. Discussing faith. He did not think about how those classes had been amongst fellow Baptists. How the Catholics, carrying the guilt of centuries, did not discuss, in the same way, the Bible and its teachings. They relied on a different code — a different religion and a different type of faith.
Kennedy bristled at the question before tentatively answering, “I did.” His voice betrayed his hesitation, a feeling he carried not because he was ashamed to admit it, but because this was a new thought for him and a new conversation for them. Just days earlier, he and Carter had no desire to answer each other’s phone calls. “I think we all — there are those moments…” His voice trailed off again. He searched for what he wanted to say. He wasn’t done speaking, just thinking. Carter noticed and sat patiently, looking into the Senator’s trembling lips as he fought to find the words.
“When Bobby died, I remember my mother cried out, ‘But how could they have taken the father of ten children?’ And what she meant, though she couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud, was, ‘How could God?’” [3]
Carter nodded as Kennedy continued: “My mother, the most devout and the persistent believer I have ever known — even she…” He didn’t need to say more.
The silence sat between them, Carter looking over Kennedy’s shoulder, imagining the pain he had felt. The pain Rose must have felt. And then Kennedy interrupted him: “And you, Mr. President? Have you ever — what Kierkegaard called ‘fear and trembling’ — have you ever been there?”
“Certainly,” he said with ease. He was an Evangelical. These conversations happened all the time. With each increasing hesitation of Kennedy’s, Carter was slowly reminded he was discussing faith with a Catholic. “The Hostage Crisis challenged me in a way I’d never been challenged before. I prayed more then than at any point in my entire life. And they were answered, but it was agonizing.”
Almost instinctually Kennedy replied with a cliche: “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”
But surely, Carter thought,
he must have tried. Kennedy ran against him for the presidency. He wanted to sit in the Oval Office, the Situation Room. He wanted to handle situations like the Hostage Crisis — or, at least, he’d asked the American people to let him. No president wants to handle such situations. But here he was offering a platitude that surely must have been devoid of meaning because the alternative was that his entire campaign had been devoid of meaning. Carter pondered what it all meant.
What did it all meant to him? Why did he run?
Of course, Kennedy had struggled with that own question himself when he ran. Helped by drink, he gazed out at the night sky as Air Force One hurdled back to familiar shores.
The water. He thought of the water below them — of the force with which it swallowed him, her, the vehicle whole. It was shallow, but it had been deep enough. The water began to fill the car, and he forced his way out. He emerged gasping for air. Swallowing hard with each breath. Panting in search of more air, of more life.
He’d stumbled back to the motel where he was staying, leaving Mary Jo Kopechne for dead. The memory struck him like an icepick to the spine. A jolted chill sped through his shoulders, his spine, his elbows and fingers. He clenched his eyes shut to force out the memory, and Carter noticed, for the first time, that the Senator was struggling. He averted his gaze.
When he turned back, his eyes met Kennedy’s. The president feared that Kennedy might jolt upright and leave the conversation, but he didn’t. He stayed and asked Carter another question, “Do, uh — doyaevah wondah
why us?”
Carter started to answer, but Kennedy continued on: “I’ve made — uh — made mistakes in my life, and sometimes I wondah, why this was all meant for me? What did I do to, uh, to
diiiisuuuuuhhhvvv —” He stopped there.
Carter didn’t agree with the insinuation behind the question. “I’ve come to realize the idea that we are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ corrects the belief that we must do something good in order to earn God’s grace and love.” He let it sit between them. After all, he was raising the ancient disconnect between the Catholics and the other Christians. It was a disagreement over that core tenet of Carter’s faith — the idea of faith and works. What was their relationship? “We do not need to live a perfect life, nor even a morally decent one, to be loved and accepted by our Creator.” [4] So said the Baptist.
The Catholic paused. It did not take much time for him to begin shaking his head.
“No, no,” he began. “We have to live a virtuous life —”
“You mistake me,” Carter interrupted. “Of course we should, but faith brings about good works, but doing good things does not result in faith. And if we fail to do good works, we are loved by God nonetheless. It does not mean we should ignore His teachings, it just means we are allowed to fall short of them.” [5]
Kneeling at the altar, rosary in hand. Sitting in the box, a screen between him and the preacher.
Bless me father for I have sinned…
Allowed. To fall short. Of them. Allowed to fall short of them. Allowed to fall short. Allowed.
Carter’s words were as foreign to Kennedy as Hinduism or Islam may have been. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his face once more.
Bless me father for I have sinned… Bless me father for I have…
And as the president watched his one-time rival rub his face, as if to wash away the guilt, it occurred to him — like a bridge emerging from a blur into a haunting focus — why the man across from him had run for president. It swallowed Carter whole, like the icy water of the Atlantic.
“Ted, I think…” but Carter’s voice trailed off. Even he wasn’t sure what to say.
Kennedy thought about leaving. Shifted uncomfortably in the chair. But then Carter spoke, taking the attention, which seemed almost permanently fixed on the man before him, and bringing it back so he could breathe: “When I was on that table — I wasn’t prepared then. I am now.”
“To die?”
“I am. It surprises me even now, but — yes. I am.”
Kennedy thought about the plane coming down into the Massachusetts soil. He shuddered.
“I don’t know that I am,” he admitted. “There’s so much left to do…” Again, his voice trailed off. But Carter wanted to know what it was he meant to say.
“Finish your thought,” he urged, as if he were back at Bible study. CCD, as a young Teddy may have called it.
“Uhh, you know our mothahs… I think they have shaped, in real ways, both of us…” Kennedy wasn’t sure why he was speaking for Carter, but the president was simply nodding and so Kennedy continued. “Well, when our fathah was away at work…” He was failing to finish any of his sentences.
Carter didn’t interrupt.
“Luke 12:48: ‘And to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required…’ Jack and Bobby did so much…” His voice trailed off again, but Carter didn’t need to hear anything else to understand.
The president nodded in agreement, his chin resting in his folded hand. He rubbed his chin with his index finger as if in thought.
It really is that simple for him.
“So, I suppose I feel we have a lot of work left to do,” Kennedy said, standing up and ending what may have been among the most awkward conversations of his life. But when he returned to his seat, he looked out the window, and thought about how grateful he was to have had it.
May 28, 1981
St. Peter’s Basilica — Vatican City
Tradition dictates that smoke shall be emitted to tell the people the results of a ballot of the College of Cardinals. Black smoke indicates that the College failed to elect a pope. White smoke indicates that the Lord’s word has been heard and that a new pope has been elected.
At the May 1981 Conclave, the Cardinals were a college divided. It had taken eight ballots to make Karol Wojtyła Pope John Paul II when they last gathered. In October of 1978, when the cardinals met for their second conclave that year, they were divided between the archbishop of Genoa, Giuseppe Siri, a conservative, and the archbishop of Florence, Giovanni Benelli, a liberal. Though Benelli came close to the Papacy, his inability to win over conservatives denied him the chance and Wojtyła emerged as a compromise candidate.
According to the Catholic doctrine, the Pope was really chosen by God. He won because God, working through His Cardinals, scrawled the chosen name on the paper. He is considered a direct successor of Saint Peter. One does not arrive at the Papacy through politicking. At least, that’s the Church’s official story. In reality, the continuous balloting is not all that dissimilar from the process Republican and Democratic delegates performed at their conventions for more than a century. There are no noisemakers at the Papal Conclave. No long-winded nominating speeches. No voice from the sewer. No balloon drops. But there is the pressure to arrive at a consensus choice, and just as how the Democratic Party — long divided between the conservative South and the liberal base — forced this compromise through the two-thirds rule, the election of a pope required a two-thirds majority in order to be named Pope. It meant that the liberal wing of the Church and the conservative wing of the Church had to compromise.
Given the recent rapidity of conclaves, the dynamics of the 1978 conclaves were still very much in play just a few years later. The 1981 conclave was just as fraught with tension as the others had been.
For two days, once the first day, four times the second, black smoke gushed from the small chimney. There was no Pope. Once again, Benelli found himself near the Papacy. On the fifth ballot, he was just four votes shy. Those final votes, however, are always the hardest to win.
The cardinals adjourned that evening and went to their rooms to pray. The black smoke bellowed as the waiting crowd sighed in disappointed. Many thousands got on their knees and prayed. Let there be a Pope tomorrow, they asked the Lord. Those cardinals inside the conclave who most ardently supported Benelli believed that would secure the Papacy on the sixth ballot the next morning.
Part of Benelli’s success on the initial ballots stemmed from the fact that conservatives were divided on who they would support. Some voted for Giuseppe Siri, as they did in the October 1978 conclave. Others felt they needed a new candidate and they began to rally their votes behind Bernardin Gantin, Cardinal Bishop of Palestrina, who would have become the first Black pope.
It became clear to the conservatives that a new compromise candidate was needed, or there would be a rush to Benelli on the next ballot. In the dark of the night, they whispered to one another. A name passed from one Cardinal’s lip to another’s ear. It was shrouded in secrecy. It had to be. Some heard the name of the new candidate. Others heard only, “Stay firm. Do not give in. A compromise can be reached.” There was no Haley Barbour on the floor to stir mischief. There was no Roger Stone to count heads and report back to Benelli. There was only the delicate, invisible hand of God.
The next morning, when the cardinals gathered once more, they were handed their ballots — simple sheets of paper folded in the middle. On the top, it read “Eligo in Summum Pontificem,”
I elect as Supreme Pontiff. The cardinals then wrote the name of their choice on a blank line on the bottom half of the ballot.
When the counting began, Benelli looked confident, but his smile soon dissipated. He had been through this process before and new what to look out for. To hear a new name — at this stage — could spell an inevitable, if long, road to a new compromise candidate. He wished so dearly that they had not adjourned last night. If they had only been in the Basilica for another vote, he could have won it through exhaustion, he believed. But after only a few ballots he heard the new name. Sebastiano Baggio.
Ballots bore Baggio’s name in conclaves past. He was an influential leader among the Cardinals — the Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops since 1973. He had prepared lists of candidates for the episcopacy from all around the globe, and he was responsible for assessing the work and conduct of existing bishops. [6] In that sense, he had yielded significant power and had many friends within the Conclave. He had not seriously considered the Papacy his destiny, but with a deadlocked group of Cardinals, it was natural that they would turn to someone to whom they all owed something.
Baggio had also shared Pope John Paul II’s views on Latin America. In fact, he was in the midst of disagreements within the Church over the unitary policy proposed for the region. It had been Baggio who who recommended that the late Archbishop Romero be stripped of his duties.
The Sixth ballot showed once more just how confused the October 1981 Conclave was. A new candidate was emerging, but Benelli held the most votes.
Sixth ballot, 1981 Papal Conclave
Giovanni Benelli … 72
Sebastiano Baggio … 20
Giuseppe Siri … 18
Bernardin Gantin … 2
Joseph Ratzinger … 2
Black smoke. They voted again.
Seventh ballot, 1981 Papal Conclave
Giovanni Benelli … 72
Sebastiano Baggio … 40
Giuseppe Siri … 1
Joseph Ratzinger … 1
Black smoke.
The cardinals looked around. Not a single Benelli vote had moved. Baggio was coalescing the opposition, but could they ever come to a final agreement? Many of the Latin American cardinals would not give in to the idea of Baggio, who had betrayed Romero and characterized their region of the Church, unfairly, they believed, as sympathetic to Marxism. If Baggio was the new conservative candidate, that was fine, but he would not be a compromise candidate.
They voted again, but the eighth ballot matched the seventh. They would vote just one more time that evening. Electing a pope seemed impossible.
Franz König, the Archbishop of Vienna, had played a key role in electing John Paul II. He was widely aware of all the tensions within the current College. There was a general unease permeating the group. They had assembled for the third time in three years. It was not a habit they wanted to make. There was pressure for a young pope. But the ideological beliefs had prevailed. The liberals hoped that Benelli, the most electable of their lot, would last long enough to appoint more cardinals to ensure a majority in future conclaves — even if those conclaves came sooner.
König knew that while Baggio may have been ideologically acceptable, he was not globally acceptable. The Latin American representatives would never vote for him, and those who were more liberal would not compromise to support him at the expense of their Latin American colleagues. Once more, the task of selecting a Pope fell to König. He did not say a word. He merely wrote out a new name for the ninth ballot.
Ninth ballot, 1981 Papal Conclave
Giovanni Benelli … 72
Sebastiano Baggio … 41
Basil Hume … 1
Black smoke. And a new name.
Basil Hume went to sleep that evening wondering the same question that all of his colleagues were wondering.
Who wrote him down? And, perhaps more pressingly,
Could there be an English Pope? An Englishman as the Heir to Saint Peter? It could not be, many reasoned. They would gather the next morning — for the third day of voting — and the conservatives would break. They had to. Until they didn’t.
Tenth ballot, 1981 Papal Conclave
Giovanni Benelli … 60
Basil Hume … 43
Sebastiano Baggio … 11
Black smoke. Benelli knew, however, that the next ballot would not yield the same result. A tear formed in his eye, and he brushed it away quickly. His dream denied. His fate sealed.
Eleventh ballot, 1981 Papal Conclave
Basil Hume … 99
Giovanni Benelli … 15
Habeas Papam. The Cardinals broke into applause and the ballots were burned with the chemicals needed to emit the right color smoke.
The anxious crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square — the very place where just weeks earlier John Paul II was shot dead — erupted into cheers. Many broke into tears as they finally saw it at last.
White smoke.
June 1, 1981
California State Capitol Building — Sacramento, CA
Jerry Brown’s stomach growled. The quixotic young Governor of California had skipped breakfast. He was in the midst of his most torturous budget negotiations to date, and he had only just made up his mind about his political future. Two years ago, he announced a long shot bid to challenge Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination. His campaign went nowhere. Now, he was facing a question of whether to run for a third term as governor or try his hand at a campaign for the Senate. Neither option looked promising.
The
Los Angeles Times had just published a story they thought might be the beginning of their own Watergate scandal. Brown had been using a computer — still a novelty at the time — to make a complete list of political supporters and then convert the names into a usable mailing list for political purposes.
And he was using taxpayer dollars to do it. So the story went. And suddenly the same Jerry Brown who railed against corruption, who eschewed gifts and established a Fair Political Practices Commission to keep corruption out of government, found himself under investigation from said Commission. [7]
There was a lot weighing on the 44-year-old’s mind. He was dating Linda Ronstadt. The state’s surplus was disappearing before his eyes. He had gotten a heads up about an upcoming report from the CDC about a new pneumonia affecting gay men, particularly in the San Francisco area.
Whatever that meant. And, now, pacing his office before a scheduled news conference, he was beginning to regret the announcement he was about to make.
The polls were grim for Brown. The budget debates and the
Times investigation into the mailing list had brought his approval ratings down to their lowest number. Republicans continued to paint his administration as weak on crime, and now they’d accuse him of mismanaging the surplus and taking a Nixonian approach to public office. Polls showed him facing a humiliating defeat against Lieutenant Governor Mike Curb.
The other option — a Senate bid — was no better. At least not on paper. Senator Hayakawa had no political base to speak of, and it looked increasingly likely that he’d lose the Republican primary, possibly to Barry Goldwater, Jr, a Congressman and son of the conservative stalwart who just lost his own Senate bid in Arizona back in November of 1980. There was a palpable energy to Goldwater’s campaign, and polls showed him winning comfortably against Brown. It looked like no matter what Brown did, he’d go down in defeat — and his career would be over.
He considered not running for either spot and just running for president again in 1984. He’d had the support of popular figures in the Democratic Party during his last campaign. Jane Fonda was on board. Tom Hayden and Jesse Jackson, too. But Brown knew that running for president three times in a row would diminish his credibility. He also knew he was unlikely to win. So, for Jerry Brown, the path to a political future was winnowing, but the promise of life outside of politics was growing more alluring.
He enjoyed the life that came with being a politician — dating well-known actresses, models, and singers — women like Linda. She’d been with him throughout the presidential campaign, and he thought if they could survive that — well, who knew. Maybe she’d become
Mrs. Brown. He thought about that earnestly. And he also wondered if maybe this wasn’t all for him. Maybe they were right about Jerry Brown. Maybe he was
too weird for all of it.
But he also knew that he was Pat Brown’s son. He had to do something with his life, and he’d always been drawn to the grandeur of the office and the promise of the ballot. Governor? Senator? What could he do? Where would his future take him? Brown pondered it all again as he waited for his news conference.
When it came time, he marched out in a brown suit — one
LA Times reporter thought it was a bit … weird of him — and marched into the room as bulbs flashed and reporters shoved microphones in his direction.
What’s Jerry Brown about to do?
“Uh, thank you all for coming today. I’ll be brief. I just want to make an announcement.
“In recent days, I know, there’s been some question — uh, some have asked me what I intend to do in 1982. They’ve asked if I’ll seek a third term as governor, or perhaps run for Senate. I have listened to my friends and my family when weighing what the next step — the right step — is for me.
“And so, I’ve decided that the name ‘Jerry Brown’ will not appear on the ballot in November 1982. Not for Governor. Not for Senator. I’ll be a private man, living a private life, after eight years as your governor.”
The bulbs flashed again, and Brown squinted as he looked forward into their glare.
“I want to thank the people of California for the trust they’ve put in me over the last — uh — throughout my time here. Thank you. And I’ll take your questions now.”
The room erupted in shouts: Governor, governor! Governor! Governor Brown! They whirred by him in a dizzying storm. They wanted to know if it was because of Linda. They wanted to know if he’d called his father. What was happening with the budget negotiations? What about the list of political supporters? Was he admitting wrongdoing?
Brown answered their questions for half an hour, a handkerchief blotting his ever-more-present forehead. Then, he told them it was enough. “I’ve got to go,” he said, and off he went — out of the room, down the hall, out the doors, and out of the Capitol Building. Off went Jerry Brown into the tranquility of a private life. It was only a matter of time now.
Within minutes of hearing the news, some 87 miles southwest, the Mayor of San Francisco started calling her rolodex. She had a campaign to put together.
June 8, 1981
The White House — Washington, DC
The president decided it was time to bring the Congressional leaders together, at the White House, to decide whether or not healthcare reform was an issue to which they were committed. Carter was unwilling to stake his political capital and the success of his second term on legislation that Congressional Democrats wanted even less than he did. If they were going to pass something, they had to do it together, and they had to be on the same page from the beginning.
He had sensed in Kennedy a deep and genuine desire to get the legislation passed. Carter knew from press reports that the issue was real for Kennedy given his son’s cancer. But he saw Kennedy’s deep anguish on the night they returned home from Pope John Paul II’s funeral on Air Force One. He saw the guilt Kennedy carried from the mistakes he’d made in his life. In Carter’s eyes, Kennedy’s entire presidential campaign had been an exercise in one of Catholicism’s most peculiar traditions: confession.
He also saw in Kennedy the deep fear that he would not measure up to the legacies of his brothers, and in that fear, Carter believed, was the hope for compromise. There was no guarantee that Fritz Mondale would occupy Carter’s office in 1985, and there was no guarantee that he would have the kinds of Congressional majorities that Carter had at present. If liberals wanted to put the country on the path to universal healthcare reform, their best hope was to come to an agreement with Jimmy Carter — and if Ted Kennedy wanted to secure his legacy and ensure that his name would be remembered alongside his brothers’ not as an embarrassment but as a continuation of the familial legacy, then he would need to come to the table with Jimmy Carter.
In fact, Carter believed he already had Kennedy close enough to his side that the bigger obstacle remained the Congressional opposition to his hospital containment bill. He was adamant that the containment bill pass before the larger implementation of HealthCare. Carter was unwilling to hand the American people a bill for rising healthcare costs, and he also believed that containing medical prices was essential to getting the larger issue of inflation under control. To win, he would need to turn Congress against the American Hospital Association and other lobbyists on K Street who typically reigned supreme.
Jordan skipped the meeting. He was not friends with Kennedy nor Byrd, Rostenkowski nor O’Neill, nor any of the others coming to the meeting. He was also unsure that the foray into healthcare was worth it. Instead, the president was joined by Watson, Eizenstat, and Wexler.
A host of Congressional leaders, Democrats all, joined Carter in the Oval Office to discuss the issue. Carter sat behind the Oval Office with the members sitting on a couch and various chairs in front of him. Behind them stood a host of Congressional staffers. White House staff sat on a couch behind the members, taking notes and occasionally turning around to join the discussion.
Kennedy started the meeting, thanking the president for calling them together. “I assure my colleagues that there is no more important work this session than that of healthcare reform.”
They went around the room, sharing how important they each thought the issue was, until President Carter decided it was time to start having a conversation instead of agreeing the conversation needed to be had. “We cannot move on this until we address the issue of hospital cost containment.”
Immediately, from the periphery, Dick Gephardt’s Chief of Staff chimed in. “Mr. President, let me say first of all, that we understand the importance of lowering the costs of healthcare for all Americans, but I want to be very clear that hospital cost inflation is on par with the rest of the economy. The votes are not there for a hospital-specific cost control measure. It failed rather significantly in the House.”
Carter forced a weak smile. “I was there,” he said to scattered laughter. “I also remember that not everyone in this room was on board with the proposal.” He tossed an icy glare in Gephardt’s direction.
“It is important that if we do this, we are on the same page. I am not interested in spending political capital and the American public’s time on an issue where the disagreements between us stand in the way of any real chance for progress. If you’re not with me, we don’t have to do all of this again.”
Kennedy looked down at his shoes. At first, he’d thought the president had maybe learned a lesson — that he had to involve Congress at the outset. But then, he realized that it was once again classic Carter:
My way or the highway.
The conversation continued around the hospital cost containment bill with the staffers chiming in to add their sense of vote counts and technical language. It devolved into a heated argument between Eizenstat and the House Democratic staffers.
“Get out,” the president said, rising from his seat. “I want all of the staff out of here. If you’re not a member of Congress or the President or Vice President of the United States, leave the room.”
All of them, except for Eizenstat, moved towards the door.
“Stu, did you win a Congressional election I don’t know about?”
Eizenstat turned pale and moved towards the door.
About an hour later, he had long stopped pacing, and was instead leaning up against a desk and looking up at the ceiling. Eizenstat counted the cracks and grooves. He looked over at a bookshelf and read the titles and authors. He was halfway through the third shelf when he heard the door click open. And then he saw it.
He saw it in Kennedy’s nod. He saw it in Long’s pace. He saw it in the way Rostenkowski and Gephardt looked down at the floor and the way Wyche Fowler followed close behind Rostenkowski. Stu Eizenstat looked through the cracked door, and he saw it there, most of all, in Carter’s grin.
White smoke.
>>>>>>>
[1] As part of my research for the timeline, I scrolled through years and years of discussions on these boards. Every one of us have our own niche interests and knowledges, and so I was delighted to
turn up a comment from now-banned member who talked about McCormack’s role in the fusion space. McCormack lost by a pretty healthy margin, so I don’t think he’d overcome that, but things still work out for him on this issue ITTL.
[2] IOTL, the legislation opened 95% of the state for oil and gas development, but buoyed by his reelection, Carter secures additional protections for state lands.
[3] This comes right from
True Compass, 479.
[4] This comes from
Faith, 99.
[5] The root of this comes from
Faith, 99.
[6] Characterization of the role and the man comes from this obituary of him:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-cardinal-sebastiano-baggio-1499403.html
[7]
Man of Tomorrow, 211.
