Roeser story used to help Oberweis in 2006

The other night I was asked to introduce State Sen. Bill Brady at a Christmas party for his governor’s campaign contributors and well wishers—and I told this story: in much less time than I’m devoting now or else I would have been thrown out. (Incidentally, if your Republican candidate holds a party and wants an introducer, I’m available—also for wedding toasts and bar mitzvahs). But in an elongated fashion, this is the story I told and it will have to be divulged in two parts.




This political year with many Republicans divided about whom they will support for governor seems a lot like the year 1979 when state Republicans were split up seven different ways in their presidential choices. As the government relations officer at Quaker, I worked for a man who was for John Connally, the silver-haired ex-treasury secretary, ex-navy secretary and survivor of the JFK assassination who was just cleared of a corruption charge and was hailed as a champion of big, decisive yet conservative (on foreign-military policy) government and pro-choice on abortion. The entire Republican establishment was for Connally, headed by the state Republican chairman, Harold Byron Smith, Jr. who was both enormously influential money-raiser and political activist.



Most of the big money and the big political influence, with Gov. Jim Thompson staying neutral, was for Connally. Others, however, were for George H. W. Bush who like Connally touted his resume: former Congressman, former UN ambassador, former CIA director, former representative to China, former RNC chairman. Bush was a moderate and pro-choice. Others supported Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), the Senate minority leader who made his reputation at Watergate and had Illinois connections through his tie by marriage to Everett Dirksen’s daughter, Joy. He was pro-choice. Still others supported Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas), a moderate though discreetly and somewhat quietly pro-life. A group endorsed the most conservative of the lot, Rep. Phil Crane (R-Ill), a member of Ways and Means, an author and according to the women, devilishly handsome, who was pro-life. Another endorsed Rep. John B. Anderson (R-Ill.) of Rockford, chairman of the House Republican Conference, a decided liberal, author of a campaign finance reform law which was expected to drive all corruption from fund-raising—a pro-choicer.



That was a lot of people: Connally, Bush, Baker, Dole and Crane. And then we had some people for Reagan, headed by philanthropist Dan Terra, although Terra’s organization was, by no means, more than a few hundred names on a list. My boss, Bob Stuart, was for Connally but was the most tolerant chief executive I ever heard of before or since, in that if I wished to express my views in the papers or on the radio I could do so if I did not tie Quaker to it: a highly enlightened view that I cherished and still do. At any rate I hadn’t made up my own mind about who to back (not that my weight would add any importance). I knew Connally rather well, having hosted him at my Northwestern University seminar and spent many hours with him. I met Bush at a City Club event and heard lots from his campaign. I knew Baker, knew Dole, new Crane. Baker struck me as too flexible with malleable views. Crane was too rigid with a polarizing argumentative style. Anderson whom I knew the best and personally liked was the polar opposite to Crane, an oracular Old Testament prophet on liberal ideas. Dole was another ultra-flexible lawmaker with no set convictions who by his own words became a Republican because he lived in a Republican county and wanted to get elected its prosecutor. Reagan I had met once and while he was memorable at that time, we were surrounded by others and I couldn’t get over the view that he may have been an actor with a good script: possibly dumb, too dumb to be president.



It was about at that time that my phone rang with a call from John Sears. Sears and I were close friends, both having been booted out of our jobs in the Nixon administration at the same time and who toasted our good fortune occasionally in Washington. Sears was reputedly the world’s best delegate counter; he managed Nixon’s delegate count in 1968 and came very close as Reagan’s delegate counter to toppling President Ford in 1976.



Sears said that Reagan was coming to Chicago after having toured the south, would be coming into O’Hare alone and would have four hours or so to spare before he was to board a flight for Los Angeles. Reagan hated flying and needed the break, he said. And by the way, could you round up a group of business types for lunch as Reagan would be arriving about 11 a.m. at the O’Hare Hilton (we’ll pay the freight, he said) and see that he gets back on the plane for L.A. at 4:30? Sounded good to me so I called around only to be turned down by everybody of any financial worth in the Ilinois GOP. Dan Terra was Reagan’s fund-raiser and even he would be overseas. So in summary, I had nobody but myself. I called Sears and said that this might well be the first time I ever flopped on an assignment like this, but I had. Sears was not surprised, given the state of the Illinois GOP. He said, well what are you doing for lunch that day? I said nothing but Reagan wouldn’t want to eat with a punk like me. No, he said candidly, but Reagan’s got to eat with somebody and he’s an extrovert so you’re elected. Here’s what you do, he said. You hire a room at the O’Hare Hilton, order him a lean steak sandwich and take him over there. I asked: why a room for just us? He said there’s not going to be just you two, but two off-duty Chicago cops who volunteer to guard him. You don’t have to feed them but they’ll come along.



I said: why don’t we just go to the Seven Continents restaurant at O’Hare and save the trouble. I remember his reply: You don’t understand. This guy is the most recognizable of Americans, having been in the films beginning in the 1930s and on TV with “Death Valley Days” and having garnered media attention as governor. Why, he said, at Warner Brothers there was only one guy who got more fan mail than he and that was Errol Flynn. I was not impressed but said I’d do as he said so long as he paid the tab. So on a fall day in 1979 I went out to O’Hare, met the two off-duty cops and waited for the Allegheny airlines plane to come in. He was just about the last one down the ramp, carrying his own bags, looking very much as old as he was—69. I introduced myself and he put down his bags and said, “Mr. Ro—ser?” I asked him if he had had a good flight. He didn’t hear me very well and cocked his head to catch it. We chatted a bit and started off, me wondering what the two cops would do.



Very shortly, they were very busy. I met Reagan at Gate K8 and by the time we got to K5 we were having trouble getting through the crowd, with the cops gently leading the way. Somebody said, “that’s Reagan!” to which he bowed his head deferentially, smiled and we moved on. There was a ripple of shouts in the crowd, and he acknowledged it in the same way he did later with the press when he walked to the helicopter on the White House lawn. By the time we got to K1 we were pushing through the crowd. I was amazed. Some weeks before I had escorted Connally through O’Hare and while there was scattered recognition (being a survivor of the assassination at Dallas had some star-power), there was not the buoyant familiarity I saw here. As we went down the escalator there was a group at the topmost rail. . One guy shouted, “Hey, Ron! What was your name in `King’s Row’? I got a bet with this guy!” He heard it, looked up and smilingly said, “Drake McHugh!” The guy said to his chum, “See? I was right! You owe me $50!”



When we got to the room, the lunch was set. As we sat down I started to pop the questions about the country, foreign policy but he held up his hand and said, “Wait. Do you hear that?” I didn’t know what he was talking about. “The bathroom sink is running,” he said. “When I was an actor and traveling around I usually got the room with the running faucet.” The cops who evidently knew the drill said, watch this one. He got up, pealed off his suitcoat and opened up his suitcase, took out a cloth such as women wrap silverware in. Then he beckoned me to go with him. And so I tell my grandchildren, I entered the bathroom with the man who was to become the 40th president of the United States. He produced a wrench and expertly undid the faucet, tightened the screws and quickly replaced the faucet. Smiling he said to me: “There, that sonuvabitch won’t keep anybody else awake.”



After he fixed the faucet, Ronald Reagan returned to the table in the hotel room and we started talking. I asked him this provocative question, almost an insulting one—more of a statement than a question (a style I discourage on my radio shows but this was long before there was one). It went: “Governor, here we are in 1979 when the nation appears to be in solid disagreement with everything you stand for. It seems like the nation doesn’t want to see us involved in a continued internecine war with the USSR but wants détente. It feels it’s been stung in Vietnam. Yet you seem to be talking about America winning the Cold War when so many believe it is a war that cannot be won but only settled.”



Continuing: “On domestic affairs, it seems like the nation has accepted a larger role for government in everything from the GI Bill to farm subsidies to student loans. Yet in listening to your radio programs, it seems you’re hearkening back to the old days of Calvin Coolidge, if I may say so. On social issues, the rise of feminism and so-called reproductive rights is embraced by many in the Congress including your prospective opponents. In short, you’re pretty much of a minority even in your own party. How are you going to win the nomination and even granting that you win it, how are you going to win the election against a Democratic party which seems to have subsidized the interest groups and is tough to counteract. Let me also say that I agree with you on almost everything—top to bottom—but for the life of me I can’t figure out how you’re going to win unless you change your stance, and that would cause cynicism.”



I don’t intend to go into the details of his answer because after years of familiarity with his views, you know the answers. But I want to leave this with you: he responded with as thorough a grasp of domestic policy as I’ve ever heard and, in fact, recited more statistics than I ever imagined. I was shaken and exultant because I had found my presidential candidate. We talked for a long time, he working the cops into the discussion so they felt they belonged. The one lesson I took with me, besides the fact that here was a very knowledgeable guy was significant. I asked him how he would win. He asked if I had ever seen him in “Knute Rockne: All American.” I had not once but many times on midnight re-runs.



He said: There was a scene in there that was ultimately cut but it was meant to capture the first time George Gipp met Rockne. I’m playing Gipp and throwing a baseball on the campus of Notre Dame. Rockne—played by Pat O’Brien (he was a big star, much bigger at the time than I or anyone else in the film)—sees me throwing the baseball. He strides over to me and has this line (O’Brien never flubbed a line): Hey, kid, if you can throw a football like you throw that baseball, you’ve got a job of my team. Are you game?” The cameramen said: it’s a wrap, Pat. Terrific. Then they set up for my response shot. My line was supposed to be: “Gee, Rock, I sure would like to try.” I did that line seventeen times with poor O’Brien having to stride over to me and toss out his line which was always perfect: Hey, kid, if you can throw a football like you throw that baseball you’ve got a job on my team, are you game?” And here I go with what I thought was a snappy way of delivering the line but the director would keep yelling “cut—give me some humility.” Give me some humility? What did that mean? I didn’t know how to deliver it.



Finally the director, Lloyd Bacon called us both over and said flatly, “Reagan we don’t have to have you in this picture at all. We can get somebody else. I couldn’t imagine what was wrong with the way I delivered the line. He kept saying, “it’s not right; it’s not right. I want some humility and you give me cocky kid.” Finally he said to O’Brien: Pat, you know what I want. Take him out and tell him, show him. And if that doesn’t work, tomorrow we’ll get somebody else.” And he stalked away.



So, Reagan said, we were in LA with a cardboard backdrop of Notre Dame on the set. So we went to a quiet bar with a glass mirror over the bar. Pat filled up his drink. I ordered a very light one and stayed with it. Pat said, Reagan, in order to play this scene well you’ve got to be a very humble kid. You understand the line: Gee, Rock, I sure would like to try? You deliver the line like a cocky kid. That’s not the approach. You got to show you’re humble.



Reagan said: I was desperate and said Pat, how do I do this?



O’Brien said: Remember this, the camera is seduce-able. The old line that the camera always tells the truth is goofy. The camera can be seduced, even by a cocky kid like you. The way to con the camera is to bob your head deferentially—like this [and he did it], sort of speak haltingly, maybe use the word “well” before you begin. This is how I would give the line. [I will always remember Reagan imitating Pat O’Brien teaching Reagan]. A lot of it is in the bobbing of the head which shows you’re humble. Now try it. Reagan said he did it fifteen or so times. O’Brien said: I think you’re getting on to it but it needs work. Tonight after dinner, you stand in front of the mirror and do it over and over. Tomorrow is a big day. You’ve got to do it right. Then O’Brien added these very important words: Incidentally, Reagan, that style of deferential appeal could really help you in this business. You’re somewhat of a cocky kid yourself. You might adopt it as a style. It could get you a lot of roles.



Reagan said he went home and followed O’Brien’s orders. The next day on the third take, it was a wrap and his role was safe. For all the anxiety about the scene, it was scrubbed in the final film cut and another scene written and filmed quickly without the humility. But it was clear that Reagan agreed with what O’Brien had said: incidentally, Reagan you’re a cocky kid and you’re more attractive when you seem humble. Reagan applied this to his persona. Actually it became so much a part of him, he said, that when he played his biggest film, “King’s Row” and he had the part of a cocky kid named Drake McHugh, he had to work himself over to get the part down and he sat down again with O’Brien to re-make himself as an upstart kid. “But don’t forget the old Reagan,” O’Brien said. “It’s your trademark.” (O’Brien’s own trademark, incidentally, was that of a very cocky Irishman, not unlike Jimmy Cagney’s).



Hearing him relate this story was so fascinating that I had forgotten my question, but he didn’t: how was he going to sell his ideas? He said that when he ran against Pat Brown for the governorship, he was given a sheaf of manuscripts full of statistics six inches high to master for a television debate. It was clear he was coming to this political game late and couldn’t pound it all into his head so he gave up. He called O’Brien on the phone and they got together. O’Brien said: Ron, you know what you believe should happen to state government, don’t you? Reagan said: yes. Do you remember what you learned years ago? You get humble. You bob your head deferentially and say this is what I want to do and I sure would like to try.



At the outset, I thought it was simplistic. But when I saw him later in a debate with John Anderson, a man who knew not only the fine points of legislation but the sub-paragraphs and phrases, I saw him bob his head deferentially and say what he wanted to accomplish and “I sure would like to try.” The audience understood that he wasn’t going to rival Anderson who served in the House for decades. They felt he was conservative—maybe too conservative, I don’t know—but maybe we’ll give “the kid” (Reagan was hardly youthful but appeared as such) “a chance.” When he debated Carter he used the technique, plus (bobbing the head to show humility) “there you go again.”



In essence, I recognized in the hotel room that afternoon that here was a genius, every bit as much a genius as the man he originally admired so much: Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had learned his own persona differently: with uplifted cigarette-holder to display his jaunty confidence when the nation was hurting. Whenever I saw Reagan as president in a TV news conference being confronted by Sam Donaldson who would say: the government did this-and-this and you said this-and-this and how do you square these things, I’d see him bob his head and indicate virtually, he’d just like to try. Believe it or not this story isn’t finished yet. I just thought of something else: it has to go to a third chapter tomorrow. It’ll begin with his statement made when he was walking through O’Hare with me that he once lived as a child in Chicago. I thought: if this guy gets elected, he will have been the only president to have actually lived in Chicago. The only two other Illinoisans—Lincoln and Grant—didn’t (they weren’t actually Illinoisans by birth anyhow). Reagan was the only Illinoisan by birth. What transpired then, trying to find his original home may be fascinating—and tell you very much about how comfortable he was in his own skin