Eight days prior to the distribution of the press release, Laxalt had placed a phone call to Senator Richard S. Schweiker of Pennsylvania, who was vacationing in Ocean City, New Jersey.
41
Schweiker was not only a member in good standing of the liberal Wednesday Club, he was also a Ford delegate.
Previously, Sears had reviewed the situation with Laxalt after talking it over with Black and Keene. All parties agreed that something needed to be done, but the pickings in the GOP were pretty slim. Choices for a running mate came down to Governor Jim Rhodes of Ohio and Schweiker—although some conservatives felt a case could have been made for Senator Jim Buckley of New York.
42
Rhodes controlled the ninety-seven Ohio delegates and most likely could have delivered them while not antagonizing Reagan’s conservative delegates. All parties agreed that if winning the convention were the only goal, Rhodes would have made sense. But no one wanted to run a general election with the curmudgeonly and controversial Rhodes. Jules Witcover described him as “slightly unsavory” in
Marathon
and Sears dryly told Witcover his feeling about the choice of Rhodes: “You’ve got to have some responsibility in this business.”
43
Laxalt was intrigued by Sears’s idea and personally liked Schweiker. They sat next to each other in the Senate. History has written that Schweiker was a liberal. In fact, he was from a heavily unionized state, and if his pro-union votes were removed from his record, Schweiker was fairly conservative. Schweiker was not a movement conservative. Still, he was solid on anti-Communism, solid on national defense, solid on the Second Amendment, anti-abortion, opposed to forced busing, and a leader in the Captive Nations issue surrounding the Soviet imprisoned Baltic countries, unlike many other GOP Senators of his era.
44
He was also a Navy veteran of World War II, personable, pleasant, and had never come down with “Potomac Fever.” The
New York Times
noted that the Schweikers “are not part of the Washington political party set.”
45
He was devout in his faith and was married to an attractive and articulate woman, Claire, who had once hosted her own television show in Philadelphia. Together they had five telegenic children. He was also a team player and, like Laxalt, Sears, and Reagan, was a gambler. Never in the history of American politics, had a non-incumbent candidate for a major party nomination ever named his running mate ahead of his nominating convention.
Time
magazine wrote, “In Washington, Schweiker enjoys a reputation as a diligent and amiable Senator with clever political instincts.”
46
Sears previously had made a brief, aborted run at William Ruckelshaus, the former Deputy Attorney General, who refused to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate scandal. Ruckelshaus was a Catholic and a moderate from Indiana, but Reagan already controlled the Indiana delegation, at least on the first ballot. Ruckelshaus later told Witcover that Sears had indeed made the offer, but Sears denied it at the time.
47
Actually, Sears did not reveal his first choice to the group: Nelson Rockefeller! When asked what would have been the reaction of Jesse Helms and the other conservatives to selecting Rockefeller, Sears calmly replied, “They would have come off the ceiling in a day or two.” Further, Sears said, “I thought very strongly that he [Rockefeller] would have liked the irony of it, and he had firm control of his delegates. And, Mrs. Reagan liked him a lot. But you couldn’t trust that others wouldn’t talk him out of it, and you couldn’t take that chance.”
48
Although Rockefeller controlled Dick Rosenbaum and Rosenbaum controlled the vast majority of the New York delegation, it is unknown whether delegates would have gone along with them and supported Reagan had Rockefeller joined the ticket. Still, it was no secret that Rockefeller and Rosenbaum were angry and dismayed over the treatment afforded Rockefeller by Ford and the President Ford Committee. The question would have been whether Reagan could hold his conservative delegates in the face of such a selection.
Another factor was involved in Sears’s daring strategy. He had learned that CBS was working on a story scheduled for broadcast the evening of July 26 that would announce, according to the detailed count conducted of delegates nationwide by the network’s political unit, that Gerald Ford had clinched the nomination—meaning Reagan’s campaign would have been dead in the water.
49
Lou Cannon later wrote that Lyn Nofziger knew Reagan staffers were already casting about for other jobs, themselves thinking it was over for Reagan.
50
A meeting was hastily arranged between Schweiker, Laxalt, and Sears in Laxalt’s office on Capitol Hill on the Tuesday following Laxalt’s phone conversation with Schweiker. At the time, Schweiker thought that the two wanted to review a list of potential running mates for Reagan—not his own possible interest in the position. In fact, they wanted to talk with Schweiker about him joining the ticket. “It really threw me for a loop,” he recalled. Sears laid out the logic. “[F]rom a political standpoint it would change the dynamic of the campaign; people would stop saying how many delegates went for Ford that day.”
51
That Friday, Sears flew to California to make the case to Reagan for picking a running mate ahead of the convention. Sears laid out the current status to Reagan and Mrs. Reagan regarding the hemorrhaging delegate situation. Reagan knew his situation was tenuous. After narrowing the field of available Republican officials, Sears came to Schweiker, whom Reagan had once met at a dinner party at Walter Annenberg’s home in Philadelphia. Schweiker had always been an admirer of Reagan. While he was supporting Ford—and was, indeed, a Ford delegate— he was never a Reagan basher like so many other Republicans. Sears listed the pros and cons of choosing Schweiker. At the conclusion of Sears’s presentation, Reagan’s first question was, “Do you think he’d do it?” Sears replied in the affirmative. “As a matter of fact, he’s coming out here tomorrow to see you. Paul and I have discussed it with him, and he’ll do it.”
52
Sure enough, on Saturday Schweiker flew to Los Angeles under the name of his Press Secretary, Troy Gustavson, and met with Reagan and Mrs. Reagan for over six hours at their home. Mrs. Reagan served lunch, and the two men gradually warmed up to each other. Also attending were Laxalt and Dave Newhall, Schweiker’s Chief of Staff.
53
As Witcover recounted in
Marathon
, “The first serious question on Reagan’s mind was whether Schweiker would support his positions in the campaign and later in office. . . . ‘As long as I’m on the plane on the take-off, I’ll be the first one out defending it after the crash,’ he told Reagan, who liked what he heard.”
54
Toward the end of the meeting, Reagan asked Schweiker if he would join him on the ticket. Schweiker had already discussed the offer with his wife several days before and she was all for it. The Senator agreed and returned to Washington with Laxalt and Sears to prepare for the Monday press conference.
55
The Schweikers told their children only the night before and they were ordered to stay off the phones until the next day. Over the weekend, the belief that Ford was just inches away from the nomination was confirmed in a
New York Times
account that had the President just six votes short of the nomination. This story appeared to support Baker’s earlier claims.
56
Sears ordered the staff to begin calling conservatives and supporters around the country on Sunday and Monday, in order to prepare them for the announcement the next day. Reagan made calls also, including to Senator Jesse Helms, who was not pleased. Nonetheless, Helms kept his objections private.
“Reagan personally telephoned Helms at 9:05 P.M. Sunday. Helms noted the hour because, ‘I wanted to record for posterity the exact time I received the shock of my life.’ Shocked though he was, Helms went along and stood beside Schweiker at Monday’s news conference,” according to syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak.
57
Other conservatives did not stay quiet, including Congressman John Ashbrook of Ohio, who called it “the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
58
Another Reagan supporter, Congressman Steve Symms of Idaho, told his colleague, Pennsylvania Congressman E.G. “Bud” Shuster, he was “deeply shaken by the . . . announcement . . . and is seriously considering changing his allegiance from Reagan” to Ford, according to a memo prepared for Cheney by his assistant Jim Connor.
59
Jeff Bell had been deputized earlier to call Ashbrook and inform him of the choice. Ashbrook, stunned, told Bell, “You can tell him that he [Reagan] can go plumb f— himself.”
60
And then he hung up on Bell. Ashbrook’s office was flooded with letters from conservatives across the country, appalled at the Schweiker announcement.
61
Ashbrook stood by Reagan, but wrote back that he could not support Schweiker on the ticket with Reagan.
“Ticket splitting” had been an issue with conservatives for many years and indeed, Reagan had railed against it himself on several occasions, including an interview that very month in
Time
magazine, when he said, “Ford would lose the South . . . the balance of the country is in the Sun Belt and that’s where the future of our party is.”
62
Reagan was, of course, right. Ford could not get away with choosing a moderate from the Northeast. But Ford was not Reagan and did not have over twenty years of political chits built up with conservatives across the country as Reagan did. The question was, “Could Reagan get away with it?”
Schweiker did not make any calls to the Pennsylvania delegates before the announcement. In fact, he was surprised when Sears and Laxalt specifically said they did not want him to make any calls. They did not want anyone to suggest a quid pro quo. All parties had to come to the agreement with clean hands. And he and Claire read the Bible and prayed over their decision.
63
One phone call in particular after Reagan’s press conference in Los Angeles is in dispute. Drew Lewis was the de facto head of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania and one of Schweiker’s oldest friends. They had practically grown up together. Although Lewis had been the nominee for Governor in 1974 and lost in the wake of Watergate, he still earned high marks for his campaign and was eyeing another run for public office. In 1975 and 1976, he had traveled the length and breath of the Keystone State to personally recruit nearly every delegate who ran in the April primary. As a result, they were loyal to Lewis, even before Ford or Schweiker.
64
Schweiker had tried to reach Lewis and in fact did—according to Schweiker—two hours after Reagan’s press conference.
65
But Lewis had a different recollection, claiming years later they never spoke until after he had heard about the announcement at a restaurant, where a reporter tracked him down for his reaction.
66
Still, Lewis did not hear the news first from his old friend and was deeply upset. Lewis was having his ups and downs with the White House and Baker, partially because he refused to give them a hard count of delegates committed for Ford. It may have been a missed opportunity for Schweiker to bring his friend and some in the Pennsylvania delegation over to Reagan.
Schweiker recalled that the conversation was pleasant, although Lewis “was in a state of shock. I asked him if he’d at least think about it and he promised me that he’d give it some thought.”
67
Reagan went first at his press conference, at 9 A.M. Pacific Time in Los Angeles. He read a short statement but did not take any questions from reporters. Reagan spelled out his reasons and laid out the arguments for his unprecedented decision. Elaborating, he said that Schweiker had “the same basic values” as he did, including beliefs in American strength, compassion, morality, and decency— and “in an America governed by the rule of law, not by men.”
68
Reagan also stated, “The convention delegates should know well in advance who I would select as my running mate.” He reiterated, “Since I now feel that the people and the delegates have a right to know in advance of the convention who a nominee’s Vice Presidential choice would be, I am today departing from tradition and announcing my selection.”
69
Ford could not help but notice the shot fired across his bow. Reagan, the old thespian, always knew how to hold a crowd. Thus, after laying out his reasoning, he did not mention Schweiker’s name until the next to last paragraph of his statement.
Schweiker, Laxalt, and Sears went immediately after Reagan in Washington. In a jam packed Senate Caucus Room, flanked by his beaming family, Schweiker read a statement that said, in part, “Governor Reagan’s decisive stroke in one fell swoop united the Republican Party for November by bringing together the conservative and moderate wings of our party . . . It instantly gives our party across-the-board appeal.” Schweiker continued, “I am proud of the leadership Governor Reagan has shown in this striking departure from the old-style politics and I am especially proud to have been Governor Reagan’s first choice.”
70
The press conference sometimes devolved into a debate over conservatism and liberalism, but Schweiker acquitted himself well. On differences between he and Reagan over past policies, Schweiker frankly told the reporters, “We make no apologies. We think it’s the only way to win in November.”
71
Poker faced, Sears told the media that Schweiker “was a very compatible running mate for Governor Reagan.”
72
Afterwards, Schweiker was immediately assigned a Secret Service detail.