In My Time (42 page)

In Washington a few days later, I began putting together a small team to run the vice president selection process for me. Liz was home on maternity leave from her law firm, and I asked if she would assist. When she said yes, I’m not sure that she realized her home office would become the nerve center of the operation. I also asked Dave Addington to help out by reviewing the material submitted by each prospective candidate and preparing summaries that I shared with Governor Bush. My son-in-law, Phil Perry, and some other lawyers from his firm worked with Dave to produce the questionnaire we asked each candidate to complete. Dave Gribbin also assisted, particularly with reviewing voting records and public speeches of the candidates. And Jan Baran, a terrific
election lawyer, helped us review tax returns and answer questions about election laws in individual states.

It’s harder to find a good vice presidential candidate than you might think. You might start off with the idea that it is a very prominent job that thousands of politicians would be dying to have and that a lot would be well qualified for. But when you start looking, you find that everyone has negatives. Everyone has some kind of baggage—whether it’s a voting record, a financial problem, or something in his or her personal life.

We started with a list of everyone who should be considered and then began narrowing it down to the truly viable candidates. Sometimes the media refers to the “long” list and the “short” list, but it’s really more like the list for public consumption and the real list of possible choices. There are lots of reasons why someone might be put on the list for public consumption. Perhaps you’re trying to placate a certain wing of the party, or maybe you want to attract those who supported your opponent in the primaries. And so you mention certain people, although there’s not a chance they will be chosen.

I began placing calls to each of the people on the real list and asking if they would agree to be considered. Some, like Senator Connie Mack of Florida, said no way. Connie actually said he’d never speak to me again if I put him on the list. For those who agreed, I explained that we would be sending a questionnaire similar to the paperwork federal employees fill out for employment or for security clearances and warned that it had some intrusive questions on it. I said that I would also be setting up one-on-one interviews. These would be low-profile—with no media attention—and I would have to ask some personal questions. Most candidates who end up on the short list are seasoned enough to know that if they are picked as the nominee, nothing about them will be off-limits and nothing can be counted on to stay secret. The press will start digging, and the other side will unleash opposition researchers. Your whole life will be an open book. Most people understood this and realized how important it was to give us a heads-up about anything that could possibly cause trouble or embarrassment or worse.

We also asked each potential candidate to submit ten years of tax returns; copies of speeches, books, and articles; and videotape of recent TV appearances. We thought long and hard about the best place to receive and store this very sensitive information. We couldn’t use campaign headquarters in Austin, where so many curious people came and went every day. Somewhere in the Washington area would be better anyway, because that’s where the search team was. Lynne had an office at the American Enterprise Institute, but that was off-limits because you can’t conduct political activities on nonprofit premises. In the end, the governor and I figured that no one would guess that all the supersensitive vice presidential selection materials were being kept in locked cabinets in the basement of Liz’s house in the D.C. suburbs, so that’s where we had everything sent and stored.

On May 10 I had dinner with the governor in Austin to go over the information we had gathered on the first set of prospective candidates. I brought two copies of the binder that contained background information on each. I handed one copy to the governor and kept the other for myself, so I could walk him through it. We had not written down the most sensitive material, so I briefed the governor on it orally. Before we began this first session, I told Governor Bush that what we were about to discuss was highly sensitive, and we had to ensure complete confidentiality. Of course, he agreed, and at the end of each of our meetings to discuss the candidates, he would hand his copy of the briefing book back to me.

Two people not on our list were Colin Powell and John McCain. Both had made it clear that they weren’t interested. One candidate who spent a short time on the real list was Don Rumsfeld. Not long after I took on the assignment of managing the selection process, I placed a call to Don and said, “I’m pulling together a list of potential VP candidates, and I’d like to put your name on it. You don’t have to say yes, but if you don’t say anything, I’m going to put your name on the list.” There was silence on the other end of the phone line, so I added Don’s name and left him in a position where he could truthfully say he had not asked to be on the list.

His name didn’t stay on long, though, and we never went through the vetting with him, because it was pretty clear early in the next session I had with the governor that a Rumsfeld vice presidency just wasn’t in the cards. Some in the Bush camp had long believed that back in 1975 Rumsfeld maneuvered George H. W. Bush into the job of CIA director as a way of taking him out of the political arena and precluding him from running as Ford’s vice president in 1976. I knew the truth, which was that Democratic senators, in return for Bush’s confirmation as CIA director, had required a pledge in writing from President Ford that he wouldn’t choose Bush as his running mate in 1976. In fact, George H. W. Bush wanted to be CIA director. I remembered being in the Oval Office when he urged Ford to sign the letter sealing the deal.

One night over dinner in the Governor’s Mansion I went through this history with Governor Bush, not because I was pushing him to include Rumsfeld on the ticket but because I wanted him to know the facts as I’d seen them. I told him I was personally convinced that his father’s going to the CIA had nothing to do with Rumsfeld. Indeed, if you had to single out one person as responsible, you might point to Elliot Richardson, who had been Ford’s first choice for the CIA post. Over the years, Richardson had irritated a number of people, including Henry Kissinger, and it was that kind of resistance to the Richardson choice that led President Ford to move on to nominating George H. W. Bush for the CIA. Governor Bush didn’t say a negative word about Rumsfeld, and of course a few months later he picked him to be secretary of defense. But he made it pretty clear that as far as the vice presidency was concerned Rumsfeld wasn’t going to be an option.

Over the course of the next few weeks, the governor and I had numerous meetings and phone calls to review the progress of the search for his running mate. He said to me more than once, “Dick,
you’re
the solution to my problem.” I chose to take the comment as an indication that I needed to redouble my efforts to come up with a candidate.

On July 3 I flew down to Crawford again to brief the governor. We met in the small single-story white frame house he and Laura used on the property before their current place was finished. That morning I
sat inside with him and went through the updated binders giving him the latest rundown on everybody. After our meeting Laura joined us for lunch, and then he and I moved outside to the back porch. The porch was basically a concrete pad with a few posts holding up the roof, and it was punishingly hot out there. I remember looking out over the cactus and sagebrush and thinking that this was definitely Texas real estate.

Over the past few months, as I had listened to George Bush talk about what kind of vice president he wanted, I had been impressed. He had a strong sense of his own strengths and weaknesses, and he wasn’t looking for someone based on any purely political calculation. He was looking for someone who could help him govern, a person with experience in the kind of national security and foreign policy issues he knew every president must face. And, most important, his pick had to be someone who could step in and become president if the worst happened.

As we sat there looking out at the sunbaked landscape, he said once again, “You know, Dick, you’re the solution to my problem.” This time I said, “Okay, Governor, I will take a look at what I would have to do in order to be a viable candidate.” But I also told him that I needed to come and sit down with him and whomever else he wanted in the room and go through all the reasons he
shouldn’t
pick me. I told him he needed to be aware of the negatives about me. As I reflect back on it now, I suspect that George W. Bush had never really accepted my first answer—thanks, but no thanks—when Joe Allbaugh asked if I was willing to be considered. The governor had worked hard to convince me, but I didn’t want him to be surprised, and I needed to make sure he vetted the vetter.

I flew back to Washington that afternoon, and the next night Lynne and I went to Alan Greenspan’s July Fourth party on the top floor of the Federal Reserve Building. The Fed’s white marble headquarters faces the National Mall only a few blocks from the Washington Monument, and the view of the national fireworks from the top floor is spectacular. Alan and his wife, Andrea Mitchell, hosted a buffet dinner for
friends and then invited everyone outside on the roof terrace to watch the fireworks.

Lynne and I went through the buffet line and then selected open seats at one of the dinner tables. Washington is a funny place when you’re out of power, and that, added to the fact that we had a couple of grandchildren with us, meant that no one rushed to join our little group—except for Bob Woodward. The famed
Washington Post
reporter brought his plate over, sat down beside me, and after some preliminary small talk proceeded to pump me for information about the VP search process and who the pick might be. His instincts were right—there was a big story here—but none of his speculation was focused on me, and I felt no need to broaden his horizons.

After we returned to Dallas, I called Dave Lesar, my chief operating officer at Halliburton, and asked him to come by the house early one morning. I told him what was happening—that there was a possibility George Bush would select me to be his running mate. I told Dave that if that happened I would recommend to the Halliburton board that he take over as chairman and CEO of the company. From my first days as CEO, I had always believed that there should be somebody in the wings ready to take over. Some CEOs don’t do that because they think such a person may emerge as competition. They don’t want anybody around who would be an obvious successor. I had always operated on the basis that if I got hit by a truck, somebody had to be able to take over—and Dave was the clear choice. I knew that if I did leave Halliburton, the company would be in good hands with Dave, and I wouldn’t be walking away leaving them in the lurch.

I also called a meeting of the board of directors. Even though I still considered it to be far from a sure thing, I thought that they needed to know that I might be selected as the Republican vice presidential nominee. Although I had enjoyed excellent relationships with the board, I wasn’t sure just how this news would be received. One of the questions that had come up when they’d hired me was whether I was through with politics, and I had assured them I was, because that is what I had believed. Fortunately, the board was supportive. I had given the
company five years, and it had been a good five years for Halliburton. I had also picked a strong successor and brought him along. In addition, most of the board understood that when your party’s presidential nominee asks you to run with him, it’s the right thing to do. It’s an obligation.

The board was helpful as I worked to separate myself from the company financially. They even offered to accelerate the exercise dates on all Halliburton options that had been granted to me, so I could exercise them before I was elected, thus eliminating any accusations of a conflict of interest. I declined this offer because I did not want even the appearance that I was getting special treatment. After I left Halliburton I sold the stock I held outright and exercised options that had vested, but that left a significant number of options that had not yet vested. That is, they had been granted to me, but the dates when I could choose to sell them were in the future.

There was no legal requirement that we do so, but in order to sever all our financial ties to Halliburton, Lynne and I set up an irrevocable gift trust agreement that would donate all the after-tax profits from these unvested options to three charities of our choice: the University of Wyoming, George Washington University Hospital, and Capital Partners for Education, which provides scholarships to inner-city children in Washington, D.C. That agreement has resulted in more than $8 million being donated to charity.

I also had deferred income from the company from one year in which I had taken a portion of my salary and asked for the rest of it to be paid out over five years. This was salary that I had already earned, so it was due to me whether the company was doing well or badly. But before I became vice president, so that there would not be even the slightest confusion or suspicion that I had any ongoing connection with Halliburton or any interest or stake in the fortunes of the company, Lynne and I took the extra step of obtaining an insurance policy, for which we paid fifteen thousand dollars, that guaranteed these payments regardless of what happened to the company.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but after all the steps I
had taken to guard against any possible assertion that I had an ongoing stake in the fortunes of the company, it angered me that my critics continued to make false claims about my ties to Halliburton. During the 2004 campaign, the charges were especially outrageous. Early in that campaign summer, Senator Pat Leahy conducted a conference call as a campaign surrogate in which he suggested I was being dishonest and dishonorable and was profiting from Halliburton business while I was vice president. Not long afterward, when I was on the Senate floor for the annual Senate “class photo,” Leahy came over and put his arm around me, acting as though we were old buddies. I used a colorful epithet to suggest what he could do to himself and stepped away. It was probably not language I should have used on the Senate floor, but it was completely deserved.