Word: schweikered
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...cozy with the Washington establishment. Conspicuously missing was the ability to lead the nation if elevated to the Oval Office. The choice apparently narrowed to William Ruckelshaus, the Deputy Attorney General in the Nixon Administration who refused to carry out orders to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, and Schweiker, whose name, Sears says, "kept popping...
...Reagan operatives had settled on Schweiker by Friday, July 16. Laxalt tried to reach him in Washington, but discovered he was on vacation. He could not make contact until the following Monday, when Schweiker returned his call from a pay phone in Ocean City, N.J. Laxalt said that he had something so important to discuss that he could not reveal it on the phone. Schweiker agreed to meet him and Sears in Washington on Tuesday morning. At a 90-minute meeting in Laxalt's office, Sears recalls, "we told him if he was agreeable, we would recommend...
...Schweiker recalls it more dramatically: "It was a stunning shock. I was numb. It crushed me down." He conceded that he had "some negative conceptions" about the offer and asked for time to think it over. He spent most of the night weighing it with his wife. Finally he decided to accept. Though he talked about wanting to help unify the party, it was clear that he was also tempted by what almost certainly was his only long-shot chance to be more than just another U.S. Senator. He expected criticism from friends but was surprised at their cries that...
...Sears moved to persuade Reagan. "It was too sensitive to telephone Governor Reagan about," Laxalt explained. "We decided he should be told personally." Sears flew to Los Angeles on Thursday night, July 22. On Friday morning he told Reagan and his wife Nancy for the first time about the Schweiker choice. That day Schweiker, traveling under the alias of Troy Gustavson, an aide, checked into the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles. He was told by Sears to meet Reagan on Saturday at noon. He spent a restless night...
Even though Reagan had Schweiker under the most serious consideration and was about to discuss the vice presidency with him, the former Governor told Los Angeles Times Reporter Richard Bergholz in an interview on Saturday morning: "The compatibility of the political philosophies of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees is preeminently important. I don't rule out balancing the ticket geographically ... Philosophically is the only place where I say it is hypocritical to choose some one of the opposite view...