“There was something they didn’t pick up on at the hospital,” Joe Adams said, “something they wouldn’t have detected unless they had been looking for and tested for it specifically. I’d had some symptoms that only Sue and I knew about; that’s why we arranged the New York trip. My old college roommate is now one of the two or three top neurologists in the country, and he put together a very thorough series of tests, some of them quite new. Those things that had to be accomplished at a hospital were done in the middle of the night, and under an assumed name, with a minimum of trusted staff present. The other tests were conducted in a suite at the Waldorf Towers, adjacent to our own quarters. The results of all this testing, by the top experts in the field, were conclusive.” He looked at Kate, then back at Will. “I’m in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.”
Will had been holding his breath; he let it out in a rush. “Joe...” he began.
Adams held up a hand. “Please; let me tell you everything. I know your first question will be, shouldn’t I get a second opinion. My testing encompassed three opinions, independently arrived at. They were all in complete agreement. I have it; it’s going to get worse; and, unless I get lucky and have a coronary, I’m eventually going to die from it.”
Sue Adams returned from the window and took her seat. Her eyes were red.
Kate put her hand on Sue’s.
“Joe and I have a hard road ahead of us,” Sue Adams said, “and we’re going to need your help.”
Adams continued. “Your next question is going to be, I know, will I resign? The answer is no, and I’ll tell you why. I talked with the president yesterday, before he left for California, and I told him I was thinking of resigning my office in order to pursue my presidential campaign full-time. He neither encouraged nor discouraged that action. As you know, he hasn’t made any promise to support my candidacy. We weren’t the best of friends or the closest of colleagues before we were elected — he picked me as his running mate for purely pragmatic reasons — and we’ve disagreed as often as we’ve agreed on issues. So I asked him, frankly, who he would appoint as my successor if I resigned.”
Given what he had heard so far, Will was very anxious to hear the president’s answer to this question.
“To my surprise,” Adams continued, “the president told me he had anticipated my thoughts about resigning. He knew that not being vice president would allow me to disagree with his policies more often. As a result, he said he had given a lot of consideration to whom he might appoint. I half expected him to ask for my recommendation, and I was going to recommend you, Will.”
“Why thank you, Joe,” Will managed to say.
“But he didn’t ask. Instead he told me he had decided not to appoint a new vice president. He’s under no constitutional obligation to do so, of course, and he said that, with barely more than a year left to serve, he thought that the speculation surrounding the appointment and the jockeying for advantage by various groups would create too much distraction from the important issues he wants to resolve before he leaves office. As it happens, I think he’s right, but if I resigned, his failure to appoint a successor would leave us with an unacceptable situation: It would put the Speaker of the House in line to succeed the president, if he should die before his term ends.”
Will nodded his understanding.
“Now, I’ve always made a great effort to have good relations with the Speaker, and I’ve tried to consider his position on various issues, but I have to tell you that his positions are so bizarre, sometimes, and always so self-serving and partisan, at the expense of the country, that I swear, if he became president, I’d have to shoot him myself.”
Will and Kate both laughed.
“But rather than entertain that possibility,” the vice president continued, “it seemed simpler just not to resign my office and continue to campaign for the presidency as vice president.”
Will blinked. “Continue to campaign?” he asked incredulously.
Adams held up a hand. “Easy, Will; I’m not crazy yet. In my condition, I’d never try to be elected president. There’ll come a right moment to leave the race, and when it happens, I’ll recognize it, but it’s not now. The best medical advice I can get is that the progress of my disease will be slow, and that there’s no reason why I shouldn’t serve out my term. I’d like to do that, especially because I know now that I can never be president. I think that I can have a positive influence on events and, particularly, on the next session of Congress, if I remain in office.”
Will conceded to himself that that was so.
“However, I don’t want my medical condition to become public knowledge as long as I can lead a fairly normal life. That would keep me from having any influence on events, and I don’t want that while I can be a positive force in national affairs. I announced for the presidency early on, in order to discourage some other potential candidates, and if I withdraw now, I’ll have to explain why, and I can’t think of an explanation that would ring true. I’d have the press all over me, probing into my life for the real reason, and eventually they’d find it.”
“That’s true enough,” Will said.
“So I plan to continue as if nothing were wrong,” Adams said. “I’ll do my job as vice president, I’ll do the minimum necessary in the way of campaign appearances, and I’ll continue to raise money.”
“Joe,” Will said, “that troubles me, because when you finally do withdraw from the race it will be apparent that you will have been accepting campaign donations under what amounts to false pretenses. I don’t think you can do that.”
“I’ve already addressed that problem,” Adams said. “What I plan to do is to make an offer to every campaign contributor at the time of my withdrawal. I’ll give them a choice: I’ll refund their donation; I’ll direct it to the campaign of any candidate they designate; or I’ll turn it over to the Democratic Party. I’ll mail a form to every contributor that they can fill out, sign, and return, and I’ll act on those wishes.”
“Have you given any thought as to when you might withdraw?”
“Early on, but after the Iowa caucuses and the earliest primaries, like New Hampshire.”
Will nodded. “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, Joe?”
“No, I’m not. I’m just making the best decision I can in the circumstances. If I announce my condition and resign now, then all I can do is go home to Florida, sit on the beach, and wait to go crazy and die. If I stay on, I can have some real influence on the president’s legislative program and on next year’s congressional elections. The Republican majority in both houses is razor-thin, and I want to win back both the Senate and the House, as well as a great many governorships. If I’m out of office, I’ll leave a vacuum, and I don’t want that.”
“I can understand your position, Joe,” Will said.
“Sue supports me in this,” Adams said. “She’s always been my closest advisor, and she’s going to stick close to me to be sure that I don’t do the wrong thing because of a memory lapse — which, by the way, is my principal symptom so far — short-term memory loss. I’d like to stress that I am not delusional. I plan to deal with my memory lapses by having notes taken at every opportunity, so that nothing will get by me. I’ll depend a lot on Sue for that.”
“That’s a good idea,” Will said.
“There’s something else, Will,” Adams said. “When I withdraw, I’m going to do so in your favor. I’m going to ask my contributors to assign their contributions to your campaign.”
Will had not yet given any thought to his own position, and he was stunned. “That’s incredibly generous of you, Joe,” he managed to say. “But Kate and I are going to have to talk about this.”