Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [33]
I told him I wanted to publish his name in a local newspaper advertisement with the names of some other prominent citizens who were endorsing me. Then I said that when people asked him why he was for Rumsfeld, he had to be ready to make my case. It was a lot for me to ask a major businessman who had met me only a half hour earlier, but we needed his help and we needed it then, not later.
As I continued to press—maybe press my luck—Lourie again said he would get back to me. Not long after, he contacted us and said he’d sign on. It was, as expected, a major boost—one of the area’s most prominent citizens had put his backing behind a young unknown who was not the favored candidate of the Republican organizations in the district. It caused others to wonder why, and take a look. Soon community leaders in the district indicated they were backing me. Among them was Dan Searle, the CEO of the pharmaceutical company G. D. Searle & Co. He came on as our finance chairman and helped open the door to contributors and community leaders. Chuck Percy, the head of Bell + Howell, came onboard and led me to Arthur Nielsen, Jr., who signed on as chairman of the Rumsfeld for Congress Committee. By the election in early April, we had recruited some fifteen hundred volunteers and mounted a grassroots effort with everything from “Rumsfeld for Congress” earrings to cartops and bumper stickers to help to get the word out.
In those days newspaper endorsements were important. The biggest paper in the district, the Chicago Tribune, already had a candidate. They had endorsed the front-runner in the GOP primary, a prominent state legislator named Marion Burks. But the Tribune’s major rival, the Chicago Sun-Times, had not endorsed anyone yet. We knew that the Sun-Times was not likely to back the same candidate as the Tribune, so I took a gamble that I might be able to persuade that paper to throw its support behind me.
The paper was owned by the legendary Chicagoan Marshall Field. As it happened, the father of a close friend of Joyce’s and mine from high school, Carolyn Anderson, had a business connection to Field, and he arranged for me to meet him. Field made himself available for about three minutes. He was on his way out of town but said he would ask the editors of both of his papers, the Sun-Times and the Daily News, to meet with me, and then it was up to me to persuade them to support me. The editor of the Sun-Times was a well-known, crusty, old-time journalist named Milburn “Pete” Akers. He agreed to see me that morning and at least give me a hearing.
I found my way to Akers’ office and faced a large, somewhat disheveled man sitting behind a desk piled with papers. Akers started peppering me with questions right away: Who was I? What had I done? Who had I met in the congressional district? What places had I visited? Who was supporting me? Why was I running? And so on. It was all done in a courteous but penetrating way. I answered the questions as best I could. But I had never done anything like this before and was somewhat dazed by the encounter. I left our meeting without any idea what Akers might decide.
In fact, he got on the phone the moment I left and started checking out my answers. Not surprisingly, Akers wanted to talk to his numerous contacts to see what they thought of me. The political editor of the Sun-Times, who had predicted I would run seventh in a field of seven in the GOP primary, had to change his prediction when a month later, to his certain amazement, his paper, thanks to Akers, endorsed me for Congress. And the battle was on between Chicago’s two morning papers—the Sun-Times and the Tribune.
From there on out, whenever my name was mentioned in the Sun-Times’ editorials, it said that I was thirty years old, which was not yet the case.2
“Mr. Akers, I’m grateful for the mention,” I told him on the phone, “but there’s a problem. You keep writing that I’m thirty, but I’m only twenty-nine.