"Gobernador, tal vez sea el momento de llamar a George Bush"

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Ronald Reagan levanta el teléfono para llamar a George H.W. Bush en Detroit.

Las banderas ondean a media asta en Washington, DC por George H.W. Bush. El Air Force One trasladará los restos mortales del Presidente número 41 de los Estados Unidos a la capital de la nación y su capilla ardiente quedará instalada en el Capitolio. La Bolsa de Nueva York y el gobierno federal cerrarán de manera excepcional el miércoles en su honor.

Nada de esto estaría pasando sin la inesperada llamada de teléfono que Bush recibió a las once y treinta y siete minutos de la noche del 16 de julio de 1980, la tercera jornada de la convención republicana. Craig Shirley nos hace la crónica de aquel día en Rendezvous With Destiny (Un encuentro con el destino):

AS THE SUN ROSE over Detroit's boarded-up slums and shuttered factories on July 16, the buzz was growing about the Dream Ticket of Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. The gossip had been stoked by a Bill Plante report on CBS several nights earlier. Plante ran through the list of prospective running mates and concluded, “Everyone does agree … around here, that the Dream Ticket would have been Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. And that rumor surfaced again today.” A pretty young Reagan aide, Michele Davis, wrote in her diary, “We are all abuzz about the Ford rumors.… I think it's nuts.” As it turned out, she was way ahead of the gray heads at the convention. (She also had strong opinions about the “fatcats” she had to babysit there, calling them “obnoxious, boorish assholes.”)

The Reagan team let it leak that morning that Howard Baker could help Reagan more by staying in the Senate. Loosely translated, it meant Baker had been officially dumped from consideration. Actually, Baker had appeared on Face the Nation several weeks earlier and disavowed any interest in the job. Within the Reagan campaign, Senator Baker already had his opponents, notably including Paul Laxalt; it was rumored that the two senators did not get along. After the Face the Nation appearance, Reagan called his old friend Baker to tell him he was taking him at his word, and Baker assured Reagan that if he was asked, he'd join the ticket, but otherwise, he wasn't interested. Baker had begun to gently close the door and Reagan helped him do so. Word never leaked out—astonishing in politics—until the convention.

Throwing Baker over the side was a tactical mistake by the Reagan forces. With Howard Baker out, conservatives such as Jesse Helms could concentrate their fire on George Bush. Even Helms now said—amazingly—he could “live with a Reagan-Ford ticket.” Helms went even further, saying he preferred that pairing to a “Reagan-Helms” ticket.

That was it. Reagan's men got the ideological cover they needed to seriously negotiate with Ford. Reagan was seeking “a good reason to pick somebody else,” not Bush, according to the Washington Star, and that somebody else was starting to look like it could be Ford. Among Reagan's men, there had been no consensus candidate save maybe Jack Kemp, and this vacuum also sucked people in toward Ford.

According to Dick Wirthlin, the idea of asking Ford was never meant to be a serious proposal. Wirthlin and Bob Teeter cooked it up, he said years later, as a sign of good faith on Reagan's part. Wirthlin and Teeter expected Ford to graciously turn down the offer, and that would be it. Among Reaganites, the consensus was definitely against Bush. As Jim Baker saw it, it was “ABB—Anybody But Bush.” Reagan's men were narrowing down the list quickly, and it seemed there were no good alternatives to Ford.

When the name of the arrogant and manifestly ambitious Don Rumsfeld came up in one meeting of Reaganites, Lyn Nofziger bitingly said, “Rummy would be fine, but you realize we'll have to hire a food taster for Reagan!” Rumsfeld was winnowed along with Dick Lugar and Bill Simon.

Laxalt's name kept coming up, because the Reagans wouldn't let the idea go. But even Laxalt was leaning toward the Dream Ticket, telling Mary McGrory of the Washington Star, “I've been nursing this along for months.” On Reagan's confidential schedule was an 8 P.M. meeting in his suite Tuesday evening denoted simply as “PRIVATE.”

Time was running out for Guy Vander Jagt. He still hadn't given his keynote speech, and as the morning progressed, the networks were breaking into regular programming to speculate about the Dream Ticket.

Almost everybody who was awake and not too hungover in Detroit was talking about Reagan-Ford now. A mass self-hypnosis—or mass hysteria, depending on your point of view—began to take hold among the Republicans, so caught up were they in the romance of Reagan and Ford bringing the party together and putting Carter away in the fall.

(...) JUST AFTER THE EVENING'S procedures got under way, Ford dithered once again, this time leaning toward the Dream Ticket in front of millions of Americans. He did a television interview on CBS with Walter Cronkite at 7:15 P.M. and said, “If I go to Washington, and I'm not saying that I'm accepting, I have to go there with the belief that I would play a meaningful role, across the board.”⁵ He added, “I have to have responsible assurances.” Ford was negotiating with Reagan on national television, with Cronkite in essence brokering the deal by specifically asking about a co-presidency.

News of Cronkite's interview with the former president caused a wave of jubilation throughout the hall. As far as the delegates were concerned, the Dream Ticket was now a fact. “A palpable euphoria swept through Joe Louis Arena, television speeding it along like a hot wind pushing a hungry fire,” wrote Peter Boyer of the Associated Press.⁵⁵ All that was needed now was for Reagan to accede to Ford's demands and the delegates could get on with the coronation.

In Reagan's suite, the feeling could be described as less than euphoric. Everyone was genuinely astonished that Ford did not balk when Cronkite mentioned a co-presidency. Allen said that Reagan was “appalled.” Wirthlin concurred, saying that Reagan exclaimed, “Did you hear what he just said?” Reagan himself later confided that the Cronkite interview forced him to wonder what the hell he'd gotten himself into. “Wait a minute,” he recalled thinking, “this is really two presidents he's talking about.”

George Bush's team was just as shocked by the Cronkite interview. When Ford said that pride would not stop him and Mrs. Ford from going back to Washington as an “executive vice president” or “deputy president,” Bush aide Vic Gold blew up at the television. “Pride!” Gold screamed. “What the fuck does he know about pride, that horse's ass!”

Ford later conducted a similar interview with Barbara Walters of ABC and upped the ante. “I was a vice president and I had problems,” he told Walters. To get Ford to agree to the last-minute interview, Walters, practically crying, had repeatedly begged and pleaded with the former president.

Network reporters were out of control. It was a media riot, and “the relentless speculation and pursuit of the rumors by network ‘floor reporters’ seemed to create a life of their own,” as the New York Times observed at the time.

Lynn Sherr of ABC—one of those “floor reporters”—took to the airwaves to announce excitedly, “We heard from Senator Schweiker that Senator Laxalt told someone else who then told Senator Schweiker that it would be Gerald Ford!” Sherr was not alone in such schoolyard journalism that night. Besides Tom Brokaw of NBC, about the only network journalist who was keeping his wits about him was Frank Reynolds of ABC. On air, he speculated that the deal could be “ephemeral.” Then again, Reynolds knew Reagan better than anyone else in the electronic media did; though he was a liberal, the Reagans adored him and he returned the affection. Reynolds knew, or should have known, Reagan would never go along with a deal that would undercut his own authority or majesty. For Reagan, it was never just about the art of the deal—any deal—but the deal itself.

AFTER FORD'S INTERVIEWS, REPORTS began leaking out that Reagan's staff was angrily fighting among themselves, frustrated with the corner they had apparently painted themselves into. Some conservatives were frustrated also, including Reagan's longtime friend and supporter Tom Winter, co-owner and co-publisher, along with Allan Ryskind, of Human Events. Reagan had been a faithful subscriber for years, corresponded with the two men, had dinner with them—and in turn the publication was devoted to Reagan. On the other hand, they reviled Ford. When Winter heard about the Dream Ticket he went off and got so sullenly drunk that he was later found by his friends slumped in a chair, babbling incoherently.

Jimmy Lyons, another old Reagan friend, stopped by Reagan's suite to throw in his two cents that he thought the Ford idea was “insane.” Lyons could talk to Reagan like that. First, he was a Texan, and second, his bank, River Oaks, had made an unsecured $100,000 loan to Reagan's campaign at a critical point in 1976.

Shortly after the Cronkite bombshell, Reagan and Richard Allen were alone in the suite. Allen pressed Reagan to think about Bush, but Reagan balked, citing abortion and “voodoo” economics. Allen pressed him, asking whether the governor would reconsider Bush if he pledged to support the entire platform. Reagan saw an out: “Well, if you put it that way, I would agree to reconsider.” Stef Halper, having handled his side of the agreement, later called Allen to tell him Bush would agree to support the platform if picked by Reagan.

THE CONVENTION'S SCHEDULED AFFAIRS were almost an afterthought amid all the Dream Ticket excitement. The roll call of state delegations confirming their selections for the party's nominee would only officially pronounce what everyone already knew: that Reagan would be the GOP's standard bearer. The drama involving Reagan's running mate was much more exciting.

There were only three principal convention speakers on the list that night: Bush, Brock, and Guy Vander Jagt, who would finally get to give his keynote speech. Vander Jagt asked and had been assured by the Reagan camp that no final decision would be made on the vice presidency until he spoke.

Bush's self-deprecating if somewhat brief remarks that night were a good, solid effort—better than the “gentleman's C” he had often earned at Yale—and he was warmly received by the delegates. “If anyone wants to know why Ronald Reagan is a winner, you can refer him to me,” Bush said. “I'm an expert on the subject. He's a winner because he's our leader, because he has traveled this country and understands its people. His message is clear. His message is understood.”

With nothing to lose now that Ford apparently was getting the VP spot, Bush was publicly relaxed, calm, and effective. Privately, he seethed. While Bush waited underneath the stage to give his remarks, a convention aide said, “I'm sorry, Mr. Bush, really sorry. I was pulling for you.” Bush curtly replied, “Sorry about what?” “You mean you haven't heard? It's all over. Reagan's picked Ford as his running mate.” Bush snapped, “Well thanks a lot!”

After his speech, as Bush headed to his car to take him back to his hotel, Stef Halper tried to tell Bush that it was not over, that he'd been in back-channel conversations with Dick Allen. Halper had never seen Bush rage like this. “Don't you get it? It's over!” Bush slammed the car door in Halper's face, leaving him standing there sheepishly on the curb. ABC's Jim Wooten caught the private George Bush and reported that the Houstonian was “shaken … bitter.”

Reagan, on the other hand, was becoming more and more pensive. Just before 8 P.M., the presumptive nominee was munching his preferred snack of jelly beans and watching Bob Dole on ABC saying, “Ford and Reagan can work it out.” Reagan replied to the television, “No, Bob. I cannot give him what he wants.” Yet he did not halt the negotiations. Reagan was invested in his own proposal and wasn't about to quit now, since he was, as Mike Deaver once said, “the most competitive son of a bitch who ever lived.”

FINALLY AT THE CONVENTION podium, Vander Jagt did not disappoint. In a thirty-five-minute address, he wowed the delegates, prompting David Brinkley of NBC to comment, “Well I've got to say he turned them on.” But some media observers viewed his speech as pompous and overwrought, in the manner of William Jennings Bryan. One hard-bitten reporter turned to another and called it a “goddamn snake-oil speech.”

Whatever the case, the speech came too late to make a difference for Vander Jagt's cause. Reagan and his men would not pick him for the number-two slot—though exactly who they would pick remained very much in doubt.

ED MEESE WENT BY Reagan's suite at around 8:30 P.M. to happily inform his man that Ford had backed off on previous demands to take over the National Security Council. Then, just a few minutes before 9 o'clock, Reagan withdrew to his bedroom to call Ford. When he reemerged, the presumptive nominee announced that Kissinger had taken himself out of contention for the State Department, but no one bought that for a second.

In the background on one of Reagan's three television sets, Frank Reynolds could be heard betraying his own good judgment, telling viewers, “We now have reports that a deal has been made between Governor Reagan and former president Ford and that it has been accepted and agreed to, and that former president Ford will be Governor Reagan's choice to be the number-two man on the ticket to run for vice president. That is historic. It is unique. It is unprecedented, and we don't know it for sure, but there are reports confirming what our correspondent Jim Wooten told us some time ago, that the deal was under way.”

Sam Donaldson, also of ABC, announced at 9:30 that Ford and Reagan would make an appearance in Joe Louis Arena before the night was over. At twenty minutes to ten, Garrick Utley of NBC interviewed former senator Robert Griffin of Michigan, a Ford intimate, who said, “It looks good.” Utley said, “This is practically a confirmation.” Practically.

At ten minutes after ten, Walter Cronkite solemnly told his viewers, “CBS has learned there is a definite plan [that] the nominee of this party, Ronald Reagan, [will choose] the former president of the United States, Gerald Ford … as a vice-presidential running mate … an unparalleled, unprecedented situation in American politics. They are going to come to this convention tonight to appear together on this platform to announce that Ford will run with him.” That was that. If “Uncle Walter” said it was so, you could bank on it.

Yet all Cronkite had to go on was what his correspondents were telling him. And they were going on what the correspondents for the other networks were reporting, fanned by GOP operatives who had no idea what was really going on. Reporter Dan Rather broke in breathlessly at 9:10 P.M. to tell the anchor, “Walter, the number of sources on the floor who say a deal has been cut is increasing.” Earlier, Cronkite had presciently said to Ford, “Well, we're going to jump to conclusions all over the place tonight.”

Ted Koppel of ABC seemed about the only sane person now on the tube, as he mused, “I hope we're all not feeding off each other.… The delegates feeding off the television reports and the television reporters feeding off the delegates.”

JUST A FEW MINUTES after 10 o'clock, Reagan's name was placed in nomination—for the third time in twelve years. The delegates went bonkers, cheering, applauding, using the same air horns that had filled Kemper Arena four years earlier, prompting the New York Times to compare their noise to the “ululations of Arab women.”

Paul Laxalt fired up the crowd, asking, “Who is this man who will not make any more weak, ill-advised decisions like the Panama Canal giveaway? Who is this man who will stand by our allies and not indulge in any more ‘Taiwan sellout’?” Each time Laxalt asked another question, the delegates would scream in unison, “Reagan!” Laxalt concluded his remarks to warm applause and the hall got down to the actual voting.

Alabama went first and served up a plate of 27 deep-fried delegates for Reagan. Then the Alaska delegation, recently taken over by the Moral Majority, delivered its 12 votes for the Gipper. California, with its controversial winner-take-all primary, gave all 168 of its votes to its favorite son. Reagan's daughter Maureen made the announcement on national television to the cheers of Joe Louis Arena. Boos were heard when John Anderson received votes from the Illinois and Massachusetts delegates, but the boos were loudest when the band played the Ohio State fight song just as Michigan was getting ready to announce its vote tally.

AS THE DELEGATES CONTINUED their roll call, the Reagan and Ford negotiators frantically held two more meetings high atop the Renaissance Center, one at 9 P.M. and another at 10 P.M. The Ford men kept excusing themselves to go meet with the former president, leading Reagan's negotiators to believe that their counterparts were negotiating power for themselves. The Reaganites whispered that Ford's men were trying to talk Ford even at this late hour into committing completely to their plan. In fact, Ford was telling his aides, “Go back and get more.”

Bill Simon stopped by the Reagan suite and told the Californian in no uncertain terms that the whole Ford thing was nuts. Simon, though he had been Ford's treasury secretary, made it clear to Reagan that he didn't trust the man. Reagan respected Simon and listened to him.

Reagan's men were dismayed. It was now sinking in that they were inadvertently working on “a return of the Ford White House.” They mostly respected their counterparts and believed the ticket would be good for the country, but they also had a nagging suspicion about hidden agendas. Although Kissinger claimed that Meese, Wirthlin, and Casey had asked him to use his influence with Ford to get him to go for it,⁹⁴ Meese was already having second thoughts. Meese told Reagan, “You know, I don't think this is going anyplace.” Reagan replied, “I don't think it's going to come to any fruition either.” Cheney, meanwhile, was astonished at the concessions Casey was making in Reagan's name.

Reagan's doubts were gnawing at him. He called Stu Spencer and asked, “You still feel the same way about Bush?” Spencer assured him that nothing had changed his opinion that Bush was Reagan's best choice.

Bill Casey had been invested in the Ford idea ever since he had visited the former president several weeks earlier and come away believing that Ford wanted to go on the ticket. Now he needed to buy time for the negotiators, so he sent word down to the convention floor to “keep the ‘spontaneous’ demonstration marking the end of the roll call and Reagan's nomination going as long as possible,” as the Washington Post reported.

Reagan and Ford talked once again by phone but nothing was resolved. In the 10 o'clock meeting, the Ford people, sensing that they'd tried to grab too much in earlier negotiations, backed off on some of their demands. Meese, at 10:45, briefed Reagan on the new framework: Ford still wanted veto power over Reagan's cabinet selections, and he would also name the head of Office of Management and Budget and the head of the National Security Agency.

Over at Joe Louis Arena, Reagan's nomination was imminent. David Broder and Lou Cannon filed a story with the headline “Ford Reportedly Accepts No. 2 Spot on GOP Ticket.” The headline reflected the doubts of the two scribes. Cannon once again was proving his perspicacity as a political reporter. All week he had been telling anyone who would listen that it would be Bush, not Ford.

The Reagan-Ford deal was unraveling, but nobody in the hall knew it. Former Michigan governor George Romney was a Bush delegate, but this did not stop him from spreading the word on the floor that Ford would be on the ticket with Reagan. Romney had gone so far as to tell Bush face-to-face that morning that he was dumping him for Ford. Bob Dole had been led to believe it was all set. But as the evening went on, he later said, “I got nervous because it was taking too long. Something happened. Maybe we left the wrong people in charge.”

RONALD WILSON REAGAN WAS finally nominated for president at 11:13 P.M., when the Montana delegates put him over the top. A prolonged demonstration of almost forty minutes took place. The band played “California, Here I Come,” and 12,000 red, white, and blue balloons fell. Delegates joyously popped them. For sixteen years, since Reagan's speech for Goldwater, conservatives had waited for this moment. Their man, their leader, had finally won the Republican Party's nomination for president of the United States.

Reagan received 1,939 delegate votes; John Anderson 37; George Bush, 13; and Anne Armstrong, former U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James, 1. Four delegates abstained.

Photographers were invited into Reagan's suite to memorialize the occasion and the nominee looked serene. His family members—Nancy, daughter Patti, sons Mike and Ron, and daughter-in-law Colleen—were smiling brightly. Casey, Wirthlin, and Meese, on the other hand, had no time to savor the nomination they'd worked so hard for. They were up in Ford's suite desperately trying to salvage the Dream Ticket, but it was falling apart.

Allen informed Hannaford, Nofziger, and Marty Anderson of his unauthorized initiative to Bush via Stef Halper and the good news that Bush would support the platform. Hannaford, with Mike Deaver also present, told the group that it might be best to start arguing for another option for Reagan.

Ford, on the advice of his men, had told Reagan when the Gipper called earlier that he wanted to sleep on the whole matter, but Reagan dug in his heels. He told Ford in no uncertain terms that he needed to have Ford's answer that night. Deaver said Reagan was “not happy.” Reagan's men later realized that the Ford team wanted to wait another twelve hours so the Dream Ticket would become an unmistakable fact with the world, making it impossible for Reagan to back out without losing face.

Just before 11:30 P.M., Meese, Casey, and Wirthlin reported back to the governor that negotiations were not going well. Deaver warned Hannaford and Nofziger that the convention “is about to go up in smoke, out of control … if we don't give them a decision.” Nofziger proposed that they go upstairs and tell the negotiators. They bounded up the stairs to find Kissinger, Greenspan, and Barrett in the room. Deaver told them that it was decision time and added, “The governor wants us to see President Ford.” After a brief silence, Barrett excused himself to go into Ford's room. He soon came out and said, “He's going downstairs, and I think the answer is ‘No.’”

Around 11:30, Ford, with Barrett in tow, arrived at Reagan's suite. Reagan and Ford closed the door and went into the dining room by themselves. Five minutes later they emerged and shook hands, and Ford departed after they bade each other goodnight.

“I have to say the answer is ‘No,’” Reagan told his men. Ford had told Reagan that his “gut reaction” was that it “just wouldn't work.” Maybe Reagan was acting. No one will ever really know. He had outmaneuvered the fearsome Hollywood moguls as head of the Screen Actors Guild, and it was possible he'd just forced a former president's hand, leading Ford to pull out of the co-presidency concept. Hannaford said years later that it was typical Reagan to let all the “elements play out.” In any event, Reagan had just dodged a bullet. He was relieved.

The Candidate said, “Well, what do we do now?”

After a prolonged silence, Peter Hannaford said, “Governor, maybe it's time to call George Bush.”

Seeing no objection from his most trusted advisers, Reagan reluctantly said, “Well, let's get Bush on the phone.”

BUSH HAD BEEN IN the downstairs bar of the hotel with two of his sons, George and Jeb, having a quiet beer. When they got back to the suite, Jeb grabbed his friend David Bates and said, “Let's go drink some scotch,” and they went to another room to be alone. Bush stayed in the suite with Jim Baker, Vic Gold, and some family and other close aides. Drinking a Heineken, he awaited a courtesy call from a Reagan aide to formally tell him that Ford was going to join the ticket, as if he didn't already know that.

The phone rang, but it wasn't from Reagan. It was the Secret Service, telling Bush that they had taken up a position two floors down. They wanted to know whether Bush needed anything. “Need anything? What the hell's that supposed to mean?” To this day, no one can account for the speedy actions of the Secret Service, although it is plausible that agents assigned to Reagan heard about the movement toward Bush and took action, detailing agents to the soon-to-be running mate even before Reagan had called Bush.

At 11:37, shortly after the mystifying Secret Service call, Bush's phone rang again. This time it was Mr. Reagan calling.

Jim Baker answered, handed the phone to Bush, and then just as quickly cleared the room of nearly everybody except Barbara Bush, their son Marvin, and Dean Burch, the former head of the party. Reagan brightly said, “Hello, George, this is Ron Reagan. George, I would like to go over there and tell them that I am recommending you for vice president. Could I ask you one thing—do I have your permission to make an announcement that you support the platform across the board?” Reagan asked specifically about the pro-life plank. Bush, flabbergasted, readily agreed to support the conservative document “across the board” per his testy but productive conversation with Halper. “I'd be honored, Governor.” And that was that.

Someone knocked on the door of Jeb's room and told him that his father wanted to see him. Jeb, halfway into his cups, went and saw his parents “not looking very happy.” He asked whether Reagan had made a courtesy call and the elder Bush languidly said, “Yes.” After a pause, the father added, “Yeah, he asked me to be his running mate.” Jeb almost fainted. Ambassador Bush pulled the same gag on Vic Gold, but rather than fainting, Gold jumped five feet in the air.

A few minutes later a television set in the Bush suite showed a network reporter shouting, “Not Ford! It's Bush!” The suite quickly filled with a crush of friends and well-wishers. Bush was absolutely stunned by Reagan's call. Before the phone rang he'd been sitting in his suite, nursing bruised feelings toward Reagan and Ford. Vic Gold had been so angry at Ford for touting Bush, telling everyone he didn't want the vice presidency—and then apparently taking the post—that Bush aides felt compelled to gently escort Gold away from the few reporters who were attending what they thought was Bush's political deathwatch.

Now reporters descended on the suite for the celebration. Bush didn't even have time to put on a suit and tie, so he met with the media wearing a red Polo shirt. He frankly told them how shocked he was: “Out of a clear blue sky … Governor Reagan called me up and asked if I would be willing to run with him on this ticket. He was most gracious in the invitation and I, of course, was very, very pleased to be invited to do this.… I was surprised.”

Just as shocked were the media outlets that had breathlessly reported the Dream Ticket story most of the day as if it were a done deal. As Reagan was calling Bush, a network anchor told his audience that “it would be an electrifying moment” when Reagan and Ford appeared together on stage that night. The Associated Press and United Press International had already moved several stories about the Reagan-Ford tandem, and the Chicago Sun-Times and the Wall Street Journal had even printed early editions announcing the news of the Dream Ticket.

REAGAN HAD FINALLY MADE his choice, but he still faced the real danger of a runaway convention. Deaver “had just been down to the convention and he came in and said, ‘Boy, this place is so tense down there it is about to explode,’” recalled Hannaford. The situation would become even more disastrous if the delegates retired for the evening thinking that the choice was Ford only to wake up the next morning and find out it was Bush.

It was a taboo in politics for a candidate to appear before he'd actually accepted the nomination. But the normally superstitious Reagan listened to Deaver and recognized that he needed to get the convention under control. If he waited to the make the Bush announcement until the press conference scheduled for the 11 o'clock the next morning, there would be mass confusion—and mass disappointment. Worse, the media would become fixated on picking apart what had happened in the Ford negotiations. The Gipper knew he needed to change the subject quickly, and get people to focus on Bush, not Ford. Consequently, he broke with precedent and went to Joe Louis Arena.

The networks informed their viewers of the Bush selection before Reagan got the chance to tell his own convention. NBC went first, less than fifteen minutes after Reagan had called Bush. Chris Wallace, the thirty-two-year-old son of television legend Mike Wallace, was covering his first convention, but he got the biggest scoop of the night. Sporting the standard-issue headphones, he was on the floor with the Illinois delegation, which included Reagan's Midwest political director, Frank Donatelli. Reagan operatives had just passed Donatelli the stunning news, but the campaign had given no directives about what to tell the media. Donatelli wasn't sure, but figured what the heck, so he told Wallace, who at 11:55 P.M. went live with the dramatic news bulletin that Reagan was headed to Joe Louis Arena to announce his surprise choice of Bush.

CBS went with the story maybe thirty seconds later. When a stunned Cronkite was told on air by Lesley Stahl that it would be Bush—and not Ford—the newscaster “buried his head in his hands.” Stahl went with the story only because yet another Reagan official was screaming it in her ear.

NBC came in dead last in the announcement. Sanctimoniously, John Chancellor told his audience, “You have just seen an example of politics out of hand in an electronic age,” as if his network had had nothing to do with the “out of hand” quality of the day.

By now, all the networks, having been a part of the problem, upbraided Reagan for allowing the situation to get out of control. Hal Bruno of ABC said the fiasco “doesn't show very good judgment” on Reagan's part. David Brinkley complained that the networks had been used as “something of an intercom” by the Ford and Reagan camps and their supporters. Only Tom Brokaw at NBC had given the story a wide berth, having been warned by Stu Spencer that it was all nonsense.

Reagan, accompanied by Nancy to help soften the blow, addressed the hall around 12:15 A.M. The place exploded when the Gipper arrived. Everybody was cheering but nobody seemed to know what for: Reagan-Ford, Reagan-Bush, or Reagan-Ford-Kemp, which would have made a pretty good touch-football team.

The hall became hushed as Reagan mounted the podium. Many of the delegates were surprised that Ford was not there with the Gipper, as had been previously billed. Reagan told the audience that he'd come down there to straighten out “the rumors and the gossip.” He informed the astonished conventioneers that he and Ford “have gone over this and over this and over this, and he and I have come to the conclusion, and he believes deeply, that he can be of more value as the former president, campaigning his heart out, as he has promised to do, and not as a member of the ticket.”

The Dream Ticket was dead.

Reagan took four minutes to get to the other subject he wanted to discuss, and he did not seem completely comfortable with the idea yet. He announced the Bush selection “with a taut smile on his face,” as Hedrick Smith reported in the New York Times. Reagan called Bush “a man we all know and a man who was a candidate, a man who has great experience in government, and a man who told me that he can enthusiastically support the platform across the board.”

The hall rang with cheers for Bush, or perhaps because the long night of drama, which had frayed everyone's nerves, was coming to a close.

Reagan's quick announcement of the Bush selection had succeeded in keeping a bad situation from getting worse: reporters were forced to deal with the new story rather than just pick apart what was now an old story.

As for what had scuttled the Reagan-Ford negotiations, both camps stayed tight-lipped. The line coming out of Team Reagan was “The governor finally decided the price they wanted was too high.” Maybe.

The official line from Team Ford was that the former president had never wanted to do it in the first place and had finally said, “Goddamn it all, it's not going to work. I knew it wouldn't work.” Maybe.

WITH HIS DRAMATIC POST-MIDNIGHT announcement of his running mate, Reagan had stanched the wound he and his team had inflicted by getting caught up in the high-profile Dream Ticket negotiations. Had he not moved so quickly, the bloodletting would have been much worse.

But that didn't mean Reagan had defused all criticism.

Ed Rollins, a GOP consultant from California and a Nofzinger protégé, was in the command-post trailer when the phone call came down saying that Bush was the pick.

 “Fuck,” Rollins grumbled. Then he was told he needed to break the bad news to Paul Laxalt. Not wanting to deal with an angry Laxalt, Rollins turned to Frank Fahrenkopf, Laxalt's friend from Nevada, and told him, “It is going to be Bush. And they want you to tell Laxalt.”

But before Fahrenkopf could reach his friend, Laxalt spotted Bill Timmons on the phone writing down names: “Baker, Kemp, Vander Jagt …” Realizing that Timmons was on the line with Reagan, Laxalt tried to speak to his old friend, but Timmons was saying to Governor Reagan, “You can't call them yet. You've got to call Bush.” Laxalt suddenly understood that Reagan had chosen Bush; Timmons was writing down the names of the men Reagan had passed over, who would need to be notified of the nominee's decision. Jack Germond and Jules Witcover reported that Laxalt “turned white” and grabbed the phone from Timmons, but found Ed Meese now on the line. Laxalt pleaded, “Ron, Ron. I've got to talk to Ron.” Meese replied, “He can't talk to you, he's on the phone to Bush.” Laxalt implored Meese to delay the announcement until the next day, but to no avail; Reagan had already left for Joe Louis Arena.

Laxalt was “pissed off” when he found out about the Bush selection, as he acknowledged years later. “And then I was pissed off at Judy Woodruff, too, who was pestering the hell out of me.” It wasn't just that the conservative Laxalt had deep reservations about the Brahmin Bush; Reagan's old friend and adviser was especially angry that he hadn't been consulted on the choice after the Ford deal had fallen through.

When a reporter asked Laxalt about his feelings on Reagan-Bush, he gamely replied, “I think it's a winnable ticket.” Then he stormed out of the convention.

Laxalt wasn't alone in doubting Reagan's decision. One of Reagan's closest confidants—someone who had been with his campaign for six years—grumbled on background to a top political reporter, “This is the sorriest day in a decade for Republicans.”

Reagan had to figure out how to turn this lemon into lemonade.

Más detalles, aquí.

Para jugar a una realidad alternativa en la que Reagan no hubiese escogido a Bush como número dos, aquí, aquí, aquí, aquí o aquí.