Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [130]
Now all of the defense team’s careful plans came unglued when Jim McDougal announced, as the Whitewater trial entered its homestretch, “I’m going to get up there and kick their ass.” Sam Heuer, who had represented McDougal since the first Whitewater prosecution seven years earlier, said he begged his client not to do it. In Jim’s case, “there were no pros. There were all cons. He was going to get slaughtered on cross-examination.”
There is no sound explanation of why Jim McDougal made this sudden reversal. Of late, he had certainly developed a deep “distrust” of Governor Tucker, whom he had accused of cheating his mother in a recent business deal. It may have been that he was swayed, in part, by new celebrity friends like ABC’s Chris Vlasto, who were encouraging him to tell his side of the story to the world.
As Susan McDougal psychoanalyzed her former husband, Jim was in a manic phase and had simply gone over the edge. Both McDougals had taken up temporary residence in the tacky pink Legacy Hotel across Capitol Avenue from the court house. Susan and Claudia Riley, who were sharing a single room, checked in on Jim daily. It was not, they recalled, a pretty scene. “He was taking so many drugs,” Susan McDougal said, “he was smoking marijuana, he had little girls, you know, nineteen, twenty years old, bringing him, you know, uppers, downers, walking around Little Rock with him, driving him back and forth. You know, I’d go by his room, and it would just be heavy with marijuana smoke.” Jim had been swept away with his new role as media darling, holding impromptu sessions outside the Legacy Hotel, where he spoke to the assembled journalists, waxing eloquent and quoting Shakespeare. “And loving it,” said Susan, “because this was his time. You know, he hadn’t been anything in quite a few years. He had lost everything, and now everyone’s looking to Jim. It was his moment. And he was going to take it.”
When Susan learned that Jim planned to testify, she marched down to his room and pounded on the door. “Jim, we agreed! …” Susan stood up to her ex-husband eye-to-eye. “None of us is going to testify! This could mess up everything.”
Calmly, Jim replied, “My people expect to hear from me, Susan. They’ve heard the allegations, and now the people expect me to respond.”
ON the appointed day at the appointed hour, the fifty-five-year-old James B. McDougal was “looking paler than usual.” He leaned on the arm of one of Susan’s brothers as he entered the federal court house, rather than using his walking cane. His physician, Nolan Hagood of Arkadelphia, had just run tests and determined that at least one carotid artery that fed blood to McDougal’s brain had be come reblocked. He wrote to McDougal’s lawyer that his client needed “prompt and thorough” medical attention and that he absolutely “should not testify.” The doctor stated pointedly: “I believe Jim is taking a calculated risk in doing this.”
Jim McDougal waded through reporters and joked: “He [Hagood] gave me some 12-hour nitroglycerin, which just blows your head off because it speeds your heart up.” Smiling, he told his media friends: “So it could get interesting today.”
Until this time, the momentum seemed to be moving strongly in the direction of the defendants. Judge Howard had just thrown out four counts against both Governor Tucker and Susan McDougal. These included a key ruling that Susan had not participated in the “825 loan.” Still, none of the nineteen counts relating to Jim McDougal had been dismissed. As he entered the courtroom flashing his best Southern-gentleman smile, McDougal appeared to be a man walking toward his destiny.
Within minutes of swearing on the Bible to tell the whole truth, Jim McDougal began digging a hole from which he and his codefendants would never be extricated. The first casualty was his ex-wife. McDougal introduced Susan as a savvy businesswoman who worked side-by-side with him on every facet of the questionable business ventures. He told the jury with gallantry: