Senator Helms, Tom Ellis, Arthur Finkelstein, and Congressman Phil Crane, impatient with Sears’s tactics, decided that Buckley could conceivably “run” for President to provide delegates an additional option on the first ballot. But some in the media speculated that the move was designed to take enough conservative delegates away from Ford to deny him a first ballot nomination. Some of these delegates might include those pledged to Ford in the New York delegation of 154, courtesy of Rockefeller and Rosenbaum. Buckley understood the strategy clearly as he told
Newsweek
, “My only purpose would be to deadlock the convention on the first ballot and thus give all the delegates the chance later to vote the way they want.”
37
In fact, beyond the New York delegates, Finkelstein, who had developed the brainstorm of Buckley running after talking with David Keene, was thinking about the uncommitted conservative and Catholic delegates from many states who were pledged to vote for Ford on the first ballot, but not mandated to do so. Ellis once said of Finkelstein, “Just knock on his head and he’ll give you an idea.”
38
ABC’s Harry Reasoner reported, “The possible entry of New York’s conservative Senator James Buckley into the Presidential race had added to the confusion and the infighting already underway. With the nomination still undecided, the jockeying for position becomes more complex every day.”
39
Reasoner’s colleague, ABC correspondent Frank Reynolds, nailed the story and the ingenious strategy behind it: “Its aim is not to win over Ford delegates in Buckley’s home state of New York, but to offer southern delegates, particularly those in Mississippi, a face-saving device that will also gain time for Reagan. The goal is an inconclusive first ballot that will free southerners bound to Mr. Ford of their obligation to vote for him at least once. Then, so the plan goes, they will follow their hearts to Reagan. The Buckley ploy will also give the uncommitted delegates . . . and there are still probably at least 100 of them . . . chance to stay uncommitted through the first ballot . . . but the true target is Mississippi.”
40
Laxalt and Helms, on a separate matter, did agree to work together on the platform. It also meant they could keep an eye on each other. They created a six-member committee to work with them. This committee included Anderson, Ed Meese (who had recently joined the campaign), Curtis, East, Dick Obenshain, and Jimmy Lyons. Lyons was the Houston banker who had loaned the campaign the critical $100,000 it had needed to put Reagan on national television several months earlier.
Actually a tentative agreement to work together had been hammered out the previous weekend in Atlanta, at a meeting between Helms and his forces and Nofziger, Andy Carter, Lake, and David Keene. Helms, Ellis, Keene, and Black had not exactly patched up their differences since the North Carolina primary, but they were at least talking again. Helms called the meeting and asked delegates from a number of Southern states to attend. The four Reaganites also showed up to keep a wary eye on Helms’s forces.
But the focus for several days was on the Buckley announcement and what its ramifications might be for both Ford and Reagan. Rosenbaum called Buckley directly and threatened to withhold support for his Senate re-election campaign, but Buckley refused to back down to Rosenbaum’s threat. At a press conference, Buckley would not commit to a full blown announcement but told reporters he would not “slam the door” on a possible candidacy.
41
Sears gave the Ellis plan a wide berth, but he told the
Washington Post
, “All I know is, this would hurt Mr. Ford more than it would us.” Some of Ford’s strategists discounted the Buckley initiative, but Baker knew better, and he was worried.
42
The White House announced that Ford would travel to Kansas City the Sunday before the convention opened on August 16. The President’s schedule was an unmistakable sign of his tenuous hold on the convention, as incumbent Presidents traditionally arrived in their convention city on the eve of the balloting for the nomination. Ford would be needed there to meet with nervous supporters and to attempt to sway uncommitted delegates. It was an awful sign of weakness, but he had little choice.
Reagan also would arrive on Sunday, but this was to be expected. He was the challenger and was behind in the delegate count. Schweiker and his wife, Claire, would arrive on Saturday to an enthusiastic reception. Rockefeller also was greeted on Saturday by a large and supportive crowd, while Ford aides, including Mel Laird, talked up the possibility of Ford deciding in the end to stay with his beleaguered Vice President. Such talk only helped Reagan’s case with the convention to force Ford to name his running mate before he could gain the nomination.
Once again the tiresome Clarke Reed shifted when he warned Ford publicly that the Mississippi delegation might not support him if several of the names floated for Vice President were not removed from the list. These included Senators Chuck Percy of Illinois, Mark Hatfield of Oregon, and other liberals. He further hinted that he might support 16-C when it came to the floor for a vote the following week.
43
Rumors also floated around that in addition to the possibility of a Buckley eleventh hour candidacy, Helms himself might run for the nomination. A sense was taking hold that the situation was spinning out of control in Kansas City for both Ford and Reagan. Lake had to knock down a rumor, published in the
Pittsburgh Post
, that Reagan was going to ask Schweiker to step aside. Schweiker blamed the Ford campaign for spreading the rumor to create mischief in the Reagan camp.
44
Still, Sears pointed to the Reed threat and another from the Maine delegation, concerned that Ford might pick Connally, as evidence that Ford would be forced to name his running mate in advance of the balloting the following Wednesday.
The conservatives, led by Helms and his ideological soul mate, John East, a professor from East Carolina University, suffered a setback when their platform challenge, a proposed foreign policy initiative that became known as the “Morality in Foreign Policy” plank, was voted down by the Foreign Policy subcommittee. Senator Roman Hruska of Nebraska chaired this subcommittee. Anderson and Hannaford helped draft the language of the plank. While the Helms forces were suspicious of the Reagan team, especially Sears, they were on good terms with Anderson and Hannaford, despite their being part of Citizens for Reagan. Helms aides Jim Lucier and John Carbaugh also wrote some of the plank challenging Ford’s foreign policy.
The initial draft was a tough Cold War denunciation of the Soviets as well as Henry Kissinger, arms control, détente, the Panama Canal, Ford’s treatment of Solzhenitsyn, the Helsinki Accords, and trade with Communist countries. It also included strong language reaffirming support for Taiwan. The entire amendment was culled from Reagan’s public positions over the last several years, and it was simply too much for the Ford operatives to accept. It amounted to a complete refutation of Ford’s foreign policy over the prior two years.
The proposal was voted down by the committee by a vote of nine to seven. Watered down substitute language was offered and accepted instead. East had attempted some parliamentary maneuvers to get the committee to vote on individual pieces of the plank, but heavy-handed tactics by Hruska gaveled him down. Still, the process, which began at 6:30 P.M., did not finish until 3 A.M.
The week of platform hearings was winding down, and the previously watered-down foreign policy plank was rejected by the full committee, fifty-five to forty-three. Before final passage, it was gutted even more as support for maintaining “sovereign rights over control and operation of the Panama Canal Zone” was also eliminated.
One delegate offered in the full committee an amendment called “Morality in Government” to the platform that would condemn all the elected officials in Washington who were involved in sex scandals (there were at least three going on at the time) and also condemned all involved in Watergate. The assembled members regarded the proposal in the same way they would a dead skunk on the table and quickly and overwhelmingly defeated it.
A final platform was approved. But Helms, East, Tom Curtis of Missouri and other conservative supporters of Reagan were furious and vowed floor fights the following week, where planks could be voted on by the full convention, provided they had the support of enough states. Nonetheless, the final document did end up with more conservative language, and this was a partial victory for the Helmsites. The final preamble of the Republican Party’s 1976 Platform read:
The Democrats’ platform repeats the same thing on every page: more government, more spending, more inflation. This Republican platform says exactly the opposite—less government, less spending, less inflation. In other words, we want you to retain more of your own money, money that represents the worth of your labors.
45
While Ellis, Helms, Terry Boyle (another key Helms aide), Carter Wrenn, and others were strategizing on how to introduce their planks to the full convention, they were also working behind the scenes to move the Buckley candidacy forward.
Sears, meanwhile, was planning to bring his 16-C amendment before the full platform committee and was disregarding other proposed planks, including one that would have forced the two candidates to address the convention before the balloting started. As far as Sears was concerned, he regarded 16-C as the “silver bullet” for Reagan. The rules change that allowed for a minority report to be presented to the full convention, provided the amendment had 25 percent backing of the full platform committee, eventually aided him in this effort.
A
Washington Post
survey found that 63 percent of the delegates going to Kansas City described themselves as “conservative,” an increase of 10 percent from four years earlier. Also, those calling themselves liberal had dropped from 12 percent to 6 percent. The parties were slowly, inexorably become more polarized.
46
The previous day, Reagan received a rousing sendoff in Los Angeles from “Youth for Reagan,” at which his son Michael introduced him. Reagan told the young crowd that the idea of picking Schweiker had not occurred to him, but that Paul Laxalt had encouraged the choice and Reagan heartily agreed after meeting the Pennsylvanian.
47
After the breakfast, Reagan saw a bus caravan of the young people off for Kansas City, where they would produce pro-Reagan demonstrations. Reagan had spent the week at his home in Pacific Palisades, calling delegates and supporters and monitoring the developments in Kansas City.
On Sunday, August 15, Sears put his 16-C proposal before the full platform committee while Reagan and Ford were both receiving tumultuous welcomes— Ford at the Crown Center Hotel and Reagan at the airport and again at the Alameda Plaza Hotel, where he and Nancy joined up with Dick and Claire Schweiker. To the laughter of the crowd, Schweiker tweaked Ford when he said, “What’s his name can’t even find a Vice President yet.”
48
Reagan had come east from California with Nancy, his daughter Maureen, his two sons Michael and Ron, and Ken Curtis, the actor who portrayed “Festus” in the hit television show
Gunsmoke
.
During the week of the platform hearings, James Baker held a press conference to announce that Ford had 1,135 “firm” delegate votes, only 5 more than what was needed to win the nomination. Sears immediately shot back that Reagan had 1,140. But all newspapers’ accounts, including the
Post
, had both candidates short of the required 1,130.
The
Kansas City Times
found a wide discrepancy in the count performed by all the major newspapers, magazines and wire services. The Associated Press tallied Ford 1,104 and Reagan 1,023, while
Time
totaled 1,121 for the President and 1,078 for his conservative challenger.
Human Events
counted 1,127 for Ford and 1,132 for Reagan.
Newsweek
and the
Washington Star
both reported Ford tantalizingly close, but not over the top. Also, two previously uncommitted delegates from Missouri declared for Reagan, and this development only added to a surreal sense in the days leading up to the convention.
49
The
Washington Post
wistfully wrote: “President Ford is to leave Washington today on the most important political journey of his life.”
50
In a sendoff interview with Ford before he departed for Kansas City, the paper reported, “The spectacle of a President enduring such blatant pressure tactics from the party rank and file is mind-boggling to anyone who recalls the manner in which Mr. Ford’s two most immediate predecessors, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon, lorded over their party conventions.”
51
Reagan restated his support for his choice of a running mate and pointed out that he had given the party three weeks to consider his decision. Ford, if nominated, would only give them a half a day. He also told the crowd, “We come here with our heads high and our hearts full. We’re going to come here and do what we have to do.”
52
Ford had arrived three hours later on Air Force One with Betty and his photogenic children in tow. Joining them were Senator Jacob Javits and several staff members. Most Ford staff, especially from the President Ford Committee, had arrived earlier in the week on a chartered jet.
Both Reagan’s and Ford’s arrivals in Kansas City were covered live by the networks. “The Republican affair has taken on all the appearances of a horse race . . . and that is exactly the type of story television seems to appreciate best. Early commercials for the coverage were stressing the G.O.P.’s new element of drama,” reported the
New York Times
.
53