Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [50]
Though we were a reform-minded group, the Ford campaign team was not above playing old-school politics. This was the United States Congress, after all. We crafted a strategy for the vote-rich Ohio delegation that would have made Charlie Halleck proud. Among the Buckeye State’s GOP delegation were a number of old-timers who initially favored Halleck. But we had an advantage Halleck didn’t. Gerald Ford was the ranking minority member on the House Appropriations Committee, which had significant power over determining how and where tax dollars were spent. We pointed out to the large Ohio delegation that if Ford became the Republican leader, by tradition he would step off of the committees on which he served. Once he vacated his senior position on the appropriations committee, the next in line for that powerful position was Representative Frank Bow, from the great state of…Ohio. It was a strong incentive for the Ohio members to vote for Ford.
With the January conference approaching, we thought we might still be behind by a few votes. At that point, one bloc of uncommitted votes was in the Kansas delegation. And it just so happened that my next door neighbor in the Cannon House Office Building was a friend of mine from Kansas named Robert Dole. A World War II veteran who lost the use of his right arm in combat, Dole was a hardworking legislator and a wonderfully witty man. He and I would often walk together from our offices over to the House floor when a vote was called. We both often worked on Saturdays if we were not back in our congressional districts, and sometimes brought our children to the office with us. Dole and I were fiscal conservatives concerned about waste in the federal government and occasionally worked together to highlight the spending excesses of Congress. After I turned to Dole for his help in the leadership race, he invited Ford to speak to the Kansas delegation to help swing a few precious votes our way.
Gerald Ford was on the verge of an upset, but we couldn’t celebrate just yet. As the vote approached, I became concerned that some members—in an abundance of caution—might be leading both sides to believe they would be with them. So on the day of the balloting, I made a point of sitting right next to a key congressman from Ohio to try to make sure we kept his delegation in our camp.
With Halleck and Ford both present, the vote was taken. We each wrote our choice on a ballot and turned it in. When the ballots were counted, we noticed something unusual about the tally. While there were only 140 Republican members, there had been 141 votes cast. For a moment, it seemed we were back in Chicago. It was clear that a second vote was needed. This time each of the members would be observed carefully as they brought their ballots up to the box. When the final results came in—with everyone voting just once this time—the outcome was what we had hoped. Ford had won, by a vote of 73–67. We were elated. Ford was pleased as well, but, as was his way, also modest. He immediately reached out to Halleck and his supporters.8
From the time he first came to Washington, Ford’s goal had been to become Speaker of the House of Representatives.9 History, of course, had other plans for him. If Ford had not made that run against Halleck, he would not have become the House Republican leader, nor would he later have been selected by President Nixon as vice president when Spiro Agnew had to resign. Indeed, it can probably be said that the man who was never elected president by the American people became president of the United States by the narrow margin he received to become House minority leader on January 4, 1965.*
Our informal group that had helped elect