Saving Graces - Elizabeth Edwards [91]
And that was the scene—Cate’s graduation paraphernalia spread across the kitchen, invitations, awards, robe; Sam and Charlie putting in a new ceiling in the once-dining-room-now-family-room; Emma Claire under constant watch so that she didn’t get harmed by the construction and so that she didn’t, at two, overreach with her new brother; Jack, mostly trying to sleep; company coming by to meet him and to say goodbye because we were moving to Washington a week after graduation; boxes and suitcases open in the hallways so that whenever we had a minute to spare we could pack something; me at the computer scanning my favorite photographs so we could take copies with us to Washington.
It was the Friday afternoon a week before Cate’s graduation, two weeks before the move, and John was due home from Washington anytime. The phone rang, and a very proper elderly man with a whisper of a voice asked for John. Could John call him back when he got home? Andrew Young was picking John up at the airport, so I called Andrew, who relayed the message that Warren Christopher had called, but John, seeing no urgency—he assumed Christopher had another question about another senator—waited to call when he got home.
Over a hungry baby, a toddler trying to get her returning father’s attention, banging hammers, and adult chatter in the next room, John could not quite make out what Christopher was whispering; he could understand about every other word. John was apparently in a final group of potential running mates, and Christopher wanted to know if John would submit to a vetting. When John got off the phone, I asked what he had said. “Well,” said John, “I can tell you what I think he said. I couldn’t hear him.” Had he said John was in a final group? That he was pretty sure of. How many others were in that group? No idea. What did vetting entail? No idea. The one thing he had heard clearly was that this was a secret and we could tell no one. So we told no one.
Well, vetting, which started right away but for me was just background noise—or among the background noises—involves turning your life inside out for someone to see. Professional, financial, social, academic, everything. All of our income tax returns, all of John’s medical records, every legal case he’d ever done. A campaign finance expert went through John’s contributions. Everything was scrutinized. John met with the whole team once, in a small office used by Senator Ted Kennedy and once used by John Kennedy. The vetting by an entire team of investigators was secret, since John’s place on the list was secret, and the small office tucked into the Capitol was away from all possible press scrutiny. Eventually I was quizzed for an afternoon by Bill Taylor, an affable Washington, D.C., lawyer. All this time, we told no one.
Of course, a select group of people in the office knew, people who had to pull together John’s votes and speeches. And a select group from the Senate campaign was particularly useful. In political campaigns, you investigate the other candidate’s records, of course, but you also investigate your own, put yourselves in your opponent’s shoes and see what would turn up in an investigation of you. Although it was not as intensive as the vice presidential vetting process, the campaign research staff, David Ginsberg, Christina Reynolds, and John Dervin, were invaluable. John and I could talk to them about it, but to no one else. The talk everywhere in Washington was all about who the vice presidential nominees would be, on both sides. Everyone assumed that the reason I never said anything in these conversations was that, since I had just moved up there, I knew nothing. No one suspected that the real reason I was quiet was because I knew something. This went