New York, Oct. 6— One week before the story broke, Robert Bauman and his wife, Carol—as appealing as when, twenty years earlier, the three of us had convened with a number of others to found the Young Americans for Freedom, whose anniversary we were now celebrating— were talking, before the formal festivities began, in Washington. Bauman asked after a mutual friend, and I reported that he was, finally, on the wagon. “Is he with AA?” Bauman asked. I said I didn’t know. “I hope so. I couldn’t have managed without AA.” I was astonished, having no idea that Bob Bauman had a problem with alcohol. “That’s right. I haven’t had a drink since April.” Carol smiled; there was pride in her expression, also sadness.
Later in the evening, chatting with an old friend as the program unfolded, Carol said something inexplicable. She said she privately wished that her husband would “get out of politics.” Discussing her statement the next morning my friend and I deduced that the political life evidently accosted Bob with too many temptations to drink: all those cocktail parties, the strain of public speaking, the general hecticity. It is rumored that Gerald Ford’s half-hearted bid to return to public life was influenced by the fear that immersion in it would undermine his wife’s newfound resolution to live without sedatives and alcohol. It is a commonly accepted truism that politics is a breeding ground for alcoholism.
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