Emil Pitkin

Young Republicans

On the wings of euphoria after my speech to the hundreds of lobbyists and the triumph of the “GovPredict business associates,” I flew down the corridor outside the conference hall, caught up to Donald Rumsfeld. He had just published “Rumsfeld’s Rules,” a compendium of adages and anecdotes, and he had talked about some of them as an invited speaker to the conference.

“Mr. Secretary, we were all privileged to learn about life’s sacramental rules from one of this generation’s luminaries. On behalf of the Young Republicans of the University Club of DC, I would like to invite you to meet with our group and teach us some more.”

“I’d be delighted. Give your business card to Remley there and she’ll be in touch with you.”

So his chief of staff got the business card. His chief of staff got the business card, and an email or two a month for the next six months, as each time, she wrote with regret, sincere or imagined, that “the Secretary will be unable to meet with the group.” I tried everything in my arsenal: I read that Rumsfeld had an interest in the post-Soviet Central Asian republics, so I offered an introduction to the ambassador from Turkmenistan, an old friend of my father’s (“the Secretary would appreciate an introduction, but is regrettably unable to meet with the group”). I suggested that Rumsfeld, twice a CEO,  might want to speak at Wharton and command a nice honorarium (“the Secretary would be interested in pursuing this opportunity, but, regrettably, is unable to meet with the group). Appeals to fortifying the next generation of conservative fighters (“the Secretary takes every opportunity that his schedule allows to give back to the movement; regrettably…”).

I ran into Robert Flock at the Capitol Hill Club. Robert lobbied for the credit unions lobby. I’m sure he was fairly informed about bank-to-bank overnight lending regulations, but he had a genius for being in the right place in the right time. He told me that during committee hearings – that’s when a dozen members of Congress will conduct a meeting with testimony from a private citizen, like the CEO of Wells Fargo about banking practices, or with Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook ad policies – he always sits in the front row, furthest seat on the right. When the hearing concludes, the congressmen step down the steps and have to walk past him. He stops the one he needs to talk to, and they have nowhere to hide. Instead of sitting in his office, he sat in the plush club chairs, drank diet cokes all day, waited for the right congressman to walk past, said hello, the congressman would say “come visit with me” (translated for the northern ear: have a seat with me, son), they’d talk for 5 minutes, and the credit unions would be well taken care of in the next bill to be voted on.

Robert told me how he missed his girlfriend. She had gone out west with her boss, Wyoming I think, to help her boss write his memoir out on his ranch. I had a faint glimmer of a memory of a specific former Secretary of Defense with a weak spot for Wyoming.

“Any chance she works for Don Rumsfeld?”

“That she does. She’s been his chief of staff for a few years now.”

“You don’t say.”

I told Robert that his girlfriend was the model chief of staff, that she guarded her boss’s time impeccably, and that I’d be in his grateful debt if he’d prevail on her to put the Young Republicans on the boss’s schedule.

Three days later:

“The Secretary will be in DC two weeks from today and would enjoy spending the evening with the Young Republicans of the University Club of DC.”

The glad tidings having arrived, I sprang into motion: I called Jeff, I called Ashton. They agreed to meet with Rumsfeld. On the day of, we met in the U Club pub and in a spontaneous act of officialdom verbally chartered the Young Republican Club of the University Club of Washington, DC, the presidency, vice-presidency, and secretariat of the most reverend society going to the three of us. The membership was capped at 3.

The Secretary arrived, still sinewy and lithe at 84, ordered an Old Fashioned and settled at the high-top between us three. He held court for two hours and clearly enjoyed himself, generously dispensing anecdote after anecdote. He genuinely looked rueful when recounting the time he ran with the bulls in Pamplona as a young man. He’d flown planes in the Navy, but that was when he felt closest the breath of death, and told us to take only calculated risks in life. He told the intimate story of the evening in the hotel after President Ford (Rumsfeld was his chief of staff) famously slipped down the staircase descending from the plane. “Instead of blaming the techs for not mopping off the floor or the cameramen for not erasing the footage, he looked at me like a teenager and said ‘Gosh, Rummy, I’m such an idiot.’”). The three of us young Republicans were a bit tongue-tied. Rumsfeld was a man like us, hewn of flesh and sinew like us, but he had turned the needle of history, more than once, and seen it turned many times over, and that inspired awe.

The evening had to end, he took his leave, the three of us continued to quietly gape in wonder, and officially disbanded the Young Republican Club of the University Club of DC, whose life was brief and storied.