The Long Count

The white, air-conditioned Cadillac crunched into the driveway of the Governor's mansion in Baton Rouge, as the sirens of its motorcycle escort growled into silence. State troopers pushed a noisy crowd of 150 people back while a plainly sick old man emerged from the car, blinked bewilderedly at the crowd, then waved his hand. Earl K. Long, Governor of Louisiana, was in the state capital.

It had been an eventful five weeks since Ole Earl made his profane departure from Baton Rouge to be committed to a sanitarium in Galveston for treatment of schizophrenia (TIME. June 15). It had been an eventful eight days since Long forced his release from an insane asylum, made a travesty of Louisiana's mental-health laws, and reinstated himself as Governor in a motel room near the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. Milestones in the hectic trail between the Pine Manor Motel and the Governor's mansion: P: With his bony feet sticking out of the sheet that covered his body, Ole Earl held a press conference from his motel bed, told reporters why his frightened wife, Blanche, was seeking a divorce. "Jealousy brought this on,1' he explained. "She wanted to be Governor." But Blanche had no cause for green eyes: "How can an old man take care of three or four women? I'm 63, going on 64, and when you get to be 64, you'll know what I mean."

P: After an 80-m.p.h. drive to the plantation of a friend, Long suffered what doctors called "slight heart failure," but recovered sufficiently to wolf a hearty dinner of roast beef, chicken and dumplings, corn, black-eyed peas, salad, beer, buttermilk and coffee. P: Raging at the wholesale desertion of his followers ("They're takin' a runout powder!"), Long began firing dozens of the unfaithful with the speed of a Cuban revolutionary tribunal. His worries increased when five other candidates, led by New Orleans' able Mayor deLesseps Morrison, announced their willingness to run for Governor against him. Meanwhile, federal Internal Revenue agents were winding up a full-scale investigation of his financial affairs, which may roil Ole Earl's troubled waters. P: Bedeviled by what one of his psychiatrists called "the pressures of being the childless branch of a dynasty." Long announced plans to adopt 14-year-old David Rankin. whom he had met in the Galveston hospital. The boy. said the Governor, had beaten him at poker with a "Mexican straight" (a hand consisting of deuce. 4. 6. 8 and 10). The boy's surprised parents demurred at the adoption plans, but let David go to Baton Rouge to welcome Ole Earl home.

P: Finally heeding his doctors' pleas, the Governor raced down to New Orleans for a checkup, startled a crowd of onlookers by relieving himself on the carpet of the hallway outside his Hotel Roosevelt suite. Then he grumpily submitted to an electrocardiogram (diagnosis: "He's in bad shape''), ordered some natty new clothes, received redheaded Blaze Starr, his favorite Bourbon Street stripteaser. at 2:30 a.m., later dashed off to Baton Rouge.

At week's end six doctors gravely warned Long that he would risk his life if he undertook any more strenuous activity. Waving them aside. Ole Earl resolutely took off in his DC-3 on a grueling Fourth of July speaking tour of four back-bayou towns, topped off with a "Miss Louisiana" beauty contest in the far northeastern corner of the state. Ole Earl was off and careening on his campaign trail for a fourth round in the Statehouse. The trail's end was not in sight, but Earl Long was set squarely on a tragic collision course, dragging the tottering Long dynasty and Louisiana behind him.

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