I don’t know how I found out about it, maybe through a newspaper association, but Jimmy Carter wanted to see me in Washington, D.C. — at the White House, no less.
All I had to do was pay my way out there and have a place to stay. I made up my mind I was going.
Carter had come up with this scheme to bring in journalists from all over the country as kind of a meet-and-greet exercise. We ink-stained savages would be exposed to the inner workings of the administration and would even have a press conference with the president during a two-day outing.
I had a feeling that my superiors at the Hibbing Daily Tribune would choke a little bit on the thousand dollars this might cost, and I was right. I used all my charm and persuasive skills and they finally agreed to pay half the cost. I booked the cheapest hotel I could find in the District and I got an airline flight that wasn’t exactly non-stop; in fact, I think we did stopovers in some foreign nations.
I found out why the hotel, a Holiday Inn, was so cheap. It was quite a distance from the government part of Washington and the neighborhood was a little dicey for a young journalist from Hibbing.
Despite the long walk, I was on time for the first day of our conference and we spent the day meeting various government officials, cabinet members and politicians. It was a blast. We weren’t learning about our government from the wire services, we were right there in the heart of the beast.
The big event on the second day was an hour with James Earl Carter, the president of the United States, former officer on a nuclear submarine, former atomic scientist, former peanut farmer and brother of Billy Carter.
Our group was made up of about 15 reporters and editors from all over the country. We all jammed into what might have been the Roosevelt Room. It was a room in the White House where big meetings were held. We were given some rules about being civil in our questions and we were told that, at the end of the press conference, we would have an opportunity to shake hands with the Leader of the Free World. The final rule was this: The president is a busy guy and DO NOT TALK TO HIM. Evidently they had had a problem before with journalists trying to chat up the man and so we were told several times in no uncertain terms, do not talk to the president.
This seemed a little unreasonable to me, but I really didn’t have any words of advice for Carter (like “watch out for Iran”) and so I thought I’d go along with the crowd and be mute as we pressed the flesh. But somewhere in the line, I thought I had to say something. I couldn’t let this moment pass. When my turn came to shake hands, I blurted out, “You ought to come to Minnesota’s Iron Range sometime.”
He looked me right in the eye, flashed that 300-megawatt smile and replied, “I’d like that.” Except he said it in his Plains, Georgia, dialect. “Ahhhd like that.” I was ooshy-gooshy all over. I’d gotten away with my forbidden conversation. The president and I had shared a moment in time.
Our coterie of reporters and editors made its way to our next event, probably a high-level briefing with the secretary of state, but there was a tall guy standing in the passageway calling out something as we passed. At last I got close enough to hear, and he was saying, “Al Zdon, Al Zdon, is one of you Al Zdon?”
I was terrified. I figured they had traced down the journalist who had spoken to the president, and I was going to get the heave-ho from the West Wing. Yes, I actually thought this.
But instead of silently slipping by, I did go up to him and identify myself. “Oh, great,” he said. “Vice President Mondale wants to see you.”
He was Al Eisele, Mondale’s press secretary. He said the vice president had carved out some time for me to interview him in his office. I thought I was in Never Never Land. But sure enough, greeting us as the door was Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota, known to us close friends as “Fritz.” Remember “Fritz and Grits?”
We spent about half an hour as I tried to think up cogent questions while Mondale did his best to make the answers better than the questions deserved. Eisele sat to the side and tried to look studious and interested.
Finally, with a gleam in his eye, the vice president ended our one-on-one and said, “Would you like to see the Oval Office?” I said I would. Pretty soon, it was me and Fritz working our way through the West Wing and he was pointing out historical factoids by the bushel-full. He had to find out first if the president was using his office, but was told the room was empty. And there we stood in the most famous office in the world, in front of the historic desk and looking out into the Rose Garden. Pretty stunning.
Soon I was back with my group and they all wanted to know where I had gone. “Oh, I was just interviewing the vice president and then he took me to the Oval Office.” I was the center of attention for a few minutes.
It turns out that Mondale would have his staff check out the list of writers on the Carter Press Tour list and, if someone from Minnesota was on the list, they got the special treatment.
So, there in one afternoon, I had a chat with the president and got a tour of the West Wing by the vice president. Yeah, it was good day.
The president never did come to the Iron Range, but I’m sure he would have liked it.