Gerald FitzGerald: My 1982 campaign with Mike Dukakis

The 1982 Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial primary election results.

Mike Dukakis wanted two pilots flying the helicopter. He always did. I guess if you are going to raise a couple of million or more to run for governor spending a bit extra on pilots can’t hurt. Might just make the difference between living and dying.

It was Sept. 11, 1982. We were at the tail end of a very hard-fought Democratic primary election campaign against incumbent  Massachusetts Gov. Ed King, who had beaten Dukakis, first elected in 1974, in the 1978 Democratic primary. The plan was to fly to Springfield for a big rally at the Civic Center, then motor to Worcester for another rally, at the Centrum, and then on to Boston. I knew that Sen. Ted Kennedy would accompany Dukakis on our trip. And I had heard  that there might be a celebrity supporter joining us as well. It was a bit surprising when we shifted in our seats to permit movie star Lauren Bacall and singer/songwriter James Taylor to climb aboard.

I’d been Mike’s campaign press secretary since January. My job was to squeeze the best coverage I could from newspapers, radio and television.

Not all that squeezing was just knowing when and how to react to attacks from our opponent. A chunk of the job was anticipatory: Stay on top of what might be used to bring down the other guy. Except as an observer, I had had no campaign experience of any kind before joining the ’82 run. As a newspaperman, I’d always been precluded from taking sides politically.

When the campaign started, the candidates included Thomas P. O’Neill III, a son of U.S. House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip’’ O’Neill Jr.  “Tommy’’  was still serving as lieutenant governor.

When I came to Boston, after my tour in Vietnam, Tommy was the reason I voted against Dukakis in 1974 because I saw hypocrisy in “The Duke,’’ as so-called “Mr. Clean,” choosing a running mate whose experience amounted to a single term as a state rep but who just happened to be son of the speaker of the U.S. House.

The first shot I’d slung at King was triggered by an April blizzard that struck Boston out of the blue. First, I got a tip that King was spotted in Florida at Hialeah Racetrack playing the ponies while Massachusetts residents were being smacked around by the weather. Easy enough, I called a wire service and asked them to send a photographer to shoot the governor gambling in the sunshine. The resulting photo ran in newspapers across Massachusetts next day.

I turned it into a “two’fer” by going to Brooks Brothers to buy a gift-wrapped sweater to deliver to Tommy O’Neill, who was acting governor since King was away, along with a note from Dukakis offering to help Tommy to run things, as then-Governor Dukakis famously did in the Blizzard of ’78. A photographer and a couple of reporters made sure that the public’s recollection of Mike’s competent leadership was refreshed.

Tommy was knocked out of the race in May through the brilliance of John Sasso, our campaign manager, and Jack Corrigan, our field director, who had the foresight and organization to stuff the February caucuses across the state to elect delegates who could be counted on in May to keep Tommy’s floor vote at the convention under the 15 percent minimum required to earn a spot on the primary ballot. After Dukakis  neutered Tommy’s campaign, The Duke sponsored a big fundraiser for him upstairs at Quincy Market, in downtown Boston, to help retire O’Neill’s campaign debt. I remember that mostly because I got to shake hands and chat with Tip.

The next best chance to trump King came as a gift from Boston Herald political columnist Peter Lucas. Lucas wrote a shamefully derogatory column excoriating New Bedford as “Pit City.” I read his brutally satirical piece with one eye as I drove up from home. I think  that Lucas may have been prompted by one of King’s cabinet secretaries, who’d recently been widely quoted describing New Bedford’s location in southeastern Massachusetts as being “at the end of the universe.”

I live very close to New Bedford and had just spent six years working there as a reporter and an editor of its daily newspaper, the Standard Times. I knew that Lucas did not know the city well enough to mock it in the detail contained in his column, but I also knew that the guy at the desk next to his in the State House press room had once lived and worked there. I could just see the two of them riding gales of laughter into the night as they one-upped each other with one acerbic reference to The Whaling City after another. I convinced myself that we could exploit this despicable column and spin it into gold for my candidate.

Arriving at campaign HQ, I quickly found Sasso and outlined my idea: Dukakis should immediately telephone Lucas and invite the columnist to accompany him on a personal tour of New Bedford so  that The Duke could show Lucas how wrong he was about the city. If Lucas accepted, I would then call every major news outlet in Massachusetts to invite them along. It was a no-lose proposal, but it had to happen now – before King got the same idea.

John approved and I then pitched it to Dukakis, who came completely on board. Lucas accepted his offer. I knew that the idea was solid when big shot power broker from the New Bedford area, William Q. “Biff” MacLean Jr., a King supporter, later telephoned Sasso to threaten that unless Dukakis called off the escapade, MacLean would not back him for governor even if King lost.

When tour New Bedford day arrived, it was a smash publicity extravaganza covered by the A.P., U.P.I., The Boston Globe, The Boston  Herald, TV Channels 2,4, 5, 6,7,10, 12, 56 ,and radio stations WBZ, WHDH, WEEI and WGBH, plus the locals.

Back at Logan Airport our celebrity-laden helicopter lifted off to the sound of its rotors beating overhead and the usual jerky movements as it thumps and vibrates to gain traction on thin air. I was used to riding helicopters. In ‘Nam I was aboard numerous airborne combat assaults. To me, few experiences suggest the fragility of life more than the precarity of a rising helicopter. Aware of my companions as we beat our way above the buildings and traffic, I recall my thoughts precisely: If this chopper falls from the sky the story will be entirely theirs. “CRASH KILLS DUKAKIS, KENNEDY, LAUREN BACALL AND JAMES TAYLOR, TWO PILOTS AND AN AIDE.” They won’t even mention my name.

Of course, we all made it safely. Three days later we beat King statewide by about seven points. Dukakis carried the City of New Bedford by just 563 votes of more than 17,000 cast there. He was elected governor in November.

Gerald FitzGerald is a writer based on the Massachusetts South Coast. He has been a newspaper editor, reporter, prosecutor and defense lawyer.