Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [62]
As Harlow set himself up in Ford’s minority leader office, just off the House chamber, we crafted a campaign of legislative maneuvers to stall the suspension of equal-time provisions. Any member could stop business in the House of Representatives by requiring the clerk to call the roll in order to have a majority of members (a quorum) present. So before the debate legislation came up for a vote, one of us would ask for a quorum call and the rest of us would work to ensure that there were never enough members present on the House floor for debate or votes to continue. From noon on October 8 until well into the next day our group arranged for thirty-three consecutive intentionally unsuccessful quorum calls.
This was not well received by the Democratic Speaker of the House, John McCormack. He threatened to send out the Capitol police force to physically round up members and lock them in the chamber. At one point, Congressman John Anderson of Illinois was barred from leaving the House floor—leading to a bizarre scene in which a member of Congress was pounding on the doors of the House chamber, shouting that he was being held hostage by the Speaker.
In addition to the repeated calls for a quorum, we also managed to arrange votes on a series of amendments to the legislation that dragged things out even further. LBJ must not have been pleased. We were outmaneuvering the legislative master himself.
Before we were done, we kept the House in session all night in what became the longest continuous session of the U.S. House of Representatives since the battle over the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Some of the tradition-conscious Republican leadership considered our efforts unseemly, but Minority Leader Gerald Ford stood apart and cheered us on. Our effort was dubbed “The Longest Night.”
Our goal was to delay the bill because we knew we did not have the votes to defeat it. We were trying to hold out for two days so Senate Republicans could make a similar effort and prevent the bill from being voted on before Congress was set to adjourn on October twelfth. It worked. The bill was shelved indefinitely. Humphrey and Nixon never debated, nor did Governor George Wallace. Our efforts caught Nixon’s attention, and the candidate let it be known that he was grateful for our assistance.
A week later, Nixon invited me to accompany him on a campaign swing through the South and Midwest, where I got to know him a bit better.11 Despite his somber, pensive, and businesslike demeanor, Nixon showed himself to be an engaging stump speaker. He worked at it, meticulously preparing his notes beforehand. At one point he became so involved in his speech that he nearly fell off the crate he was standing on.
Toward the end of one flight, Nixon called me into his private compartment. Then fifty-five, his hair, touched with gray, was receding. He got right down to the business of the campaign and asked me where I was scheduled to speak over the closing weeks. I told him I was going to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
“That’s good,” he said, putting on his master political strategist hat. “Stay out of Illinois.” Though he might have been elected president in 1960 if Illinois had tilted to him over Kennedy, Nixon seemed to think he would win the state this time.
On the next leg of our trip we had a longer conversation.12 Nixon was relaxed as we spoke. He seemed to want to know more about me—he asked me if I smoked, and I told him I did smoke a pipe. He expressed irritation at the campaign and what he considered to be Humphrey’s attempts to characterize him as a racist. “If I did that to Humphrey I’d never hear the end of it in the press,” Nixon mused. “Do you think I should debate him?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied.
He told me his advisers were telling him to hit Humphrey harder in his speeches. I told him I thought he was doing fine. Humphrey was a likable character, and