FAME AND FAMILY POLITICIANS’ WIVES OFTEN BECOME POWER CASUALTIES

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33563, 18 June 1974, Page 16

FAME AND FAMILY POLITICIANS’ WIVES OFTEN BECOME POWER CASUALTIES

(By MYRA MacPHERSON in "Newsweek." She is a Washington reporter who is writing a book on the family life of politicians.) (Reprinted by arrangement) To an elected politician there is no such thing as indecent exposure, ople who hold public office are as dependent on the voter as a heart tack victim is on an oxygen tent, and thus the constant pursuit of Obscurity is a dirty word and almost all exposure is decidedly ecent. Oh, a few bemoan the fact that they have no anonymity — they an’t go out to dinner unmolested, can’t tell a heckler to go to hell, can’t jet so publicly drunk as to get caught at it — but most are willing to sign away their private lives to become public property. Then, sooner or later, mostly sooner, they become media junkies and the adulation of the masses is far more nourishing than anything they can get at home.

For the private persons who are merely appendages to the public man, it is no easy trip, this perilous journey that propels them jinto the often lonely fringe of the limelight. Some wives are as greedy and ambitious for it all as their husbands, but for many more families, national office was gained only through enormous sacrifice of what was ever there in their private life, and for them, the trappings of power spell entrapment. While they often felt abandoned, there were few Angelina Aliotos in the past who would speak of it publicly. So brainwashed were they to their back-of the-bus status that what was aberrational to others seemed normal to them; the wife and family needs, without question, ranked far below political considerations.

(Mrs Alioto is the wife of the Mayor of San Francisco. She left her husband temporarily because he was so involved in politics.) And so, even as Abigail McCarthy (the now separated wife of former Senator

Eugene McCarthy) was rushed into X-ray for possible complications after giving birth to one of their children several years ago, her husband, she recalls, left the hospital to get to the Hill for a vote. The doctor was shocked; she wasn’t. And in 1958, the now separated wife of a prominent senator gave birth to a son, only to see him die the next day. The next morning her husband, who was running for re-election, took off for a convention. Another senator’s wife faced a terrible death in her family with only members of her husband’s staff to comfort her for hours while her husband guided a bi l through. I recently remarked to the wife of a senator — whose husband has been off campaigning every single weekend this past year — that being married to a senator sounds like being divorced Wives are often left out of important decisions. When Hubert Humphrey announced he was running for the Presidency in 1959, it came as a surprise to his wife. She wired him a humorous jab, “let me know if I can be of help.” Poison darts As for divorce, many political ex-wives have poison darts for the male-dominated legal profession. They found that Establishment lawyers — and judges — are less than eager to tackle a senator or congressman in the divorce courts. Politicians’ wive: also feel that psychiatrists tend to side with their husbands. As the former wife of a famo-s senator • said, “My psychiatrist was in such awe of my husband when he came to see him that I knew it was all over.”

The latest casualty of political fame and power may be the family of the Vice-President Gerald Ford, judging from the dehumanising note that seems to be creeping into their relationship. Until he was elevated by President Nixon, Mr Ford was considered, however simple, one of the most decent men on the Hill, but twice at recent functions he snapped publicly at his wife for being late — even extending his arm to show her his wristwatch at one point, as if chastising a child. She did the best she could to rush from a doctor’s appointment where she was treated for a scratch on her eye, but he told her was “no excuse for being late.”

When Mr Ford’s son, Jack, said he was disillusioned with President Nixon and hinted that his father was too, Mr Ford firmly suggested that h's son give no more interviews. Politics is always an uncertain business, but the Fords have had little control over their lives. Betty Ford hasn’t known what her hus band was going to say from day to day, much less what was going to happen from day to day. Psychiatrists say that

when people are unable tc affect the changes that zap their lives around, thex become depressed ant anxious. Not long ago, when I asked Betty Ford whethei she thought her husbanc would go back on his prom ise to her to get out of politics, her eyes glazed ovei with ill-disguised terror. "1 certainly hope not,” she said, without a smile. (Not long afterward Mr Ford wa< discussing with a reportei what people he would like to have have in his Cabinet.) A few years ago Betts Ford got psychiatric help; she had a pinched nerve in her neck and she was sick of politics. Mr Ford, who was then house minority leader and away more that 200 nights a year, promise to get out of politics. Basic disdain Whatever hopes she h; for a private life are gon now. Co-operative to th bone, Mrs Ford ha; bee averaging three appearanci a day, at times composed b by tranquillisers, floatin through official functions. And that amazing aphrod siac, power, turns Mr Foi — with his rather Teutons square-jawed face and thin ning blond hair — into Rob ert Redford. Mobs swan: and reach out to touch i title and husbands say, “Ge closer, honey,” and then wives snap pictures an Secret Service agents hok them back.

Ail this and that balancing act Mr Ford has been going through — trying not to gel too close to President Nixon but still appear loyal — is bound to get to you. But many in Washington were surprised that Ford, the lifelong politician, would take it out on his wife twice with reporters around to write it up. This has nothing to do with concern that he might have humiliated her publicly, you understand. It was simply bad politics. This reaction points up an American political tradition of basic disdain for wives. The sadder fact is that most political families accept it. On one hand politics is consummately anti-wife — she is to say little and to think less. And yet, in no other profession are wives so “used” — at least so publicly. Necessary to corroborate the voters’ image of an ideal family man, the wife is nonetheless regarded in power circles as some inconsequential smiler who was grafted to her husband’s side at the senior prom. And the women’s liberation movement has only worsened her situation.

Because* of her “prop” image, a political wife is looked on with contempt byfeminists as the ultimate non-liberated lackey. That view in some cases is dead wrong, but if these political wives are to have many defenders it is up to them to show that they are fed up with the confinement and hypocrisy of their secondclass roles.

(Copyright 1974 Newsweek Inc.) .

Across 1— Does he guard the nursery? (11) 9—Bill speaking? (7) 10— Useful quality in the way laid down. (5) 11— He will get a ring, and answer it thus. (5) 12— Take back about pamphlet. (7) 13— Obstruct movement of picnic basket. (6) 15— Any resident must lead a dog’s life. (6) 18— I am sane, but confused by loss of memory. (7) 20— Coach as a means of transport. (5) 22— “Squeeze”, to be precise. (5) 23— Shocking underground movements, no doubt. (7) 24— Peter led, say, in defiance of consequences. (11) Down 2— Its author is obviously no stick-in-the-mud. (5) 3— Such dope is a fatty material. (7) 4— It’s her version of them. (6) 5— An agent of ferment as yet. (5) 6— Keep away from sailor who has a blemish. (7) 7— Delirious through having no weighty matters on the mind? (5-6) 8— Dignity of ranks in countries. (11) 14— Commission worker to take on engagement. (7) 16— Beg leaderless men to come to terms. (7) 17— Stuff of importance. (6) 19— Establish how disputes finally arose. (3, 2) 21— A tax on a coral island. (5) (Solution tomorrow) Yesterday’s solution * Across: 1, Pencraft; 5, Sped; 9, Able; 10, Strikers; 11, Order; 12, Ragtime; 13, For the present; 18, Recovery; 19, Also; 20, Entente; 21, Visit; 22, Yell; 23, Standard Down: 2, Embargo; 3, Clement; 4, Future perfect; 6, Preside; 7, Dissent; 8, Single; 13, Forgery; 14, Recital; 15, Having; 16, Seabird; 17, Nastier;