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The death on April 19 of former Vice President and 1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale reminded me of our meeting aboard Air Force Two — an extremely brief meeting — in the heat of the 1977 New York City mayoral campaign.The vice president was coming to the city to campaign for Democratic mayoral candidate Ed Koch. As a young campaign staffer, I was instructed to go to LaGuardia Airport to greet the vice president and his entourage and usher them back to Manhattan. At least, that’s how I interpreted the assignment. Nobody told me what my specific job was. Just a few keywords such as “The vice president,” “Airport” and “Go.”
Needless to say, I was miffed. Not only wasn’t I going to brief the vice president, I wasn’t even going to see the vice president. My disappointment must have been palpable because the vice president’s staffer took pity on me, telling me that should I acquit myself with honor — in other words, not lose any of the luggage — he would try to arrange for me to join the vice president aboard Air Force Two the following morning for a brief meet-and-greet before the veep’s return to Washington, D.C.
Morning invariably arrived, and I showed up bright and early to collect the vice president’s bags at his midtown hotel. The only other person loitering in the corridor was the candidate himself, Edward I. Koch, the future three-term mayor of New York.
Sensing an opportunity, I endeavored to be as personable and calming as possible. My hope was that the future mayor would recall me fondly when it came time to divvy up the copious political plums and other produce that accrue to the winner of New York’s mayoralty.
Despite my loyalty to then-congressman Koch — I’d interned in his Capitol Hill office in college — a job was by no means certain. Besides, a role at the White House would be far more impressive than one at City Hall. So, I’d worked on my resume the previous evening. My plan, should I find my way aboard Air Force Two, was to slip the V.P. my curriculum vitae.
Apparently, the identical number of bags made their way back to LaGuardia that had been loaded into the van the previous afternoon, because I was shepherded aboard the vice president’s plane to meet him. Introductions were made, and Mondale agreed to pose for a snapshot. That detail returns to me only now because I never saw the photograph — I’m assuming there was film in the camera — even though I politely reminded the veep’s staffer more than once to send me a copy.
If he’d done so, the memento would have showed the former Minnesota senator, pragmatic liberal and Jimmy Carter’s vice president much as he’s remembered today. I, on the other hand, had tremendously more hair than I currently do, as well as sharp ‘70s sideburns. To the naked eye, and despite the fact that I was undoubtedly dressed in a jacket and tie, hoping to make a good and lasting impression, I could easily have been mistaken for a hippie or even a radical.
I mention my appearance as the possible basis for the vice president’s reaction when I reached into my inside jacket pocket and whipped out my resume. The veep recoiled instinctively, arms raised, as if — rather than a sheet of paper bearing my scant job history, education and hobbies — he feared that I was going to produce a weapon.
While I suspect his relief was major that I wasn’t an assassin, that didn’t mean I was moving to Washington. Several weeks later, I received a letter on “Office of the Vice President” stationery. The note thanked me for my enthusiasm in becoming a member of the vice president’s staff but made it emphatically clear that, despite my yeomanly efforts on behalf of the vice president’s luggage, there was no need for me to start packing my own bags.
“Because we appreciate your interest,” the letter went on, “I am sorry to say that all positions in the office are filled and I don’t anticipate that we will have any openings in the near future.” It was signed Michael S. Berman, Counsel to the Vice President.” (A follow-up 1979 letter applying for a job as a speechwriter — by then I’d served a couple of years as spokesman for the NYC Department of Correction, my reward for toiling on the Koch campaign — was similarly rebuffed.)
But, I didn’t come away from my encounter with the vice president completely empty-handed. The staffer who’d parried my disappointment as a baggage handler with that visit aboard Air Force Two had rummaged through his own carry-on and found me a souvenir Vice Presidential Guest pin. I have it to this day, a memento of my service to the nation.
Ralph Gardner Jr. is a journalist whose work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The New Yorker. He can be reached at ralph@ralphgardner.com. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of The Berkshire Eagle.