In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

20 Chapter 3 The Red-and-Black Plaid Shirt What is he thinking about? He’ll be hit by a truck. —Flo Alexander Ice was forming on the darkened streets of Nashville by the time Lamar and Honey Alexander sat down in the warmth of their home for a candlelight dinner. It was the fourth day of January, 1977, their eighth wedding anniversary. The two were now alone. Honey had tucked into bed the three children— Drew, seven; Leslee, four; and the two-year-old Kathryn—and had prepared veal piccata, the same meal that she and Lamar had shared in Washington, DC, in November 1968. That was the night he had proposed to her, at a restaurant on M Street, just days after Richard Nixon’s election as president of the United States. But this private evening in Nashville was soon interrupted—a telephone call from Senator Baker in Washington. Earlier that day, Baker had been elected Republican leader of the United States Senate. It was his third try for the position since the vacancy created by the death of his father-in-law, Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, in October 1969. Baker’s margin of victory among Senate Republicans was only one vote, but he was elated. “I want you to come to Washington to help me set up my leadership office ,” Baker told his former aide. Alexander knew that Baker really was asking him to come back to Washington not just to “set up” the leader’s office but to work in it with him permanently . Baker had a habit of turning again to aides he knew well, but on this call the senator was restrained in his invitation. He knew Alexander was trying to put down roots in Tennessee and remembered he had been turned down once before by this young protégé. In 1973, Alexander had declined Baker’s request to become minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee, recommending the senator hire Fred Thompson instead. Baker also knew that two years after that, Alexander had cited responsibilities at home when President Gerald Ford had asked The Red-and-Black Plaid Shirt 21 him to help manage his 1976 reelection campaign. So Baker now said, “Come just for a few months and help me get started.” Alexander promised to call him back the next day. Returning to the dinner table, he told Honey about the invitation and said that, of course, he would not be able to accept. To his surprise, she said, “Why not? You’re not really satisfied with what you’re doing here.” Since his defeat in the 1974 governor’s race, Alexander had been trying to find a satisfying path forward, remembering how Tennessean reporter Larry Daughtrey had predicted that Tennessee “would not elect a Republican governor again for fifty years.” There was even a $25,000 debt left over from the 1974 campaign. He had formed a new law firm with Lew Conner, Robert Echols, and Martin Simmons. To add gravitas, the young lawyers named the firm for their two senior partners, Bill Dearborn and Andrew Ewing. To earn extra money, Alexander had also formed a partnership with a real estate agent to buy dilapidated houses, fix them up, and sell them. This venture worked modestly well. Former senator Ross Bass bought one of the improved homes. Alexander also joined forces with Sandy Beall of Knoxville, ten years his junior , whom he had met on Baker’s campaign train in 1972. Beall had dropped out of the University of Tennessee to found a restaurant named Ruby Tuesday ’s. Alexander became the company’s lawyer and soon owned 10 percent of the stock. He and Beall then borrowed $110,000 from Commerce Union Bank to buy Blackberry Farm, a run-down bed-and-breakfast outside Alexander’s hometown of Maryville at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Each of the partners had wanted, one day, to build his own mountain cabin, and Beall and his wife, Kreis, dreamed of creating a fine resort. Alexander and Beall also wanted to preserve the Blackberry Farm property from commercial development. They secured options to purchase two thousand acres in West Millers Cove between Chilhowee Mountain and the national park, although at this point they had no idea how they would pay for the land when it came time to exercise the options. The Blackberry Farm project allowed Alexander to keep his official residence in the Republican-rich region of East Tennessee...

Share