She Shall Not Be Moved

In the bustling market house on the docks of Annapolis, Md., radio music wafted over the stacks of fruits and vegetables. "Please release me," the voice wailed. "Let me go. I don't love you any more." A woman at the bakery counter called to a friend in the fruit department: "Oh, they're playing the Governor's song."

Governor Marvin Mandel is the talk of his state--for all the wrong reasons. These days his mouth is clenched more tightly than ever around one of his collection of 400 pipes; he endures the humiliation of being balked by his wife of 32 years. The pair are living in separate homes--only it happens that Barbara ("Bootsie") Mandel, 53, is occupying the 54-room Governor's mansion in Annapolis while Marvin has taken refuge in a five-room bachelor pad two miles away. Mandel was once considered a shoo-in for re-election in 1974; if his marital standoff continues, he may face stiff competition from politicians who are living--however uneasily--with their wives.

The ruckus began with a simple announcement in July. Just as in a political matter, the Governor figured that the best way to solve his problem would be to make it public. He issued a press release at the State House: "I would like to announce that I am separated from Mrs. Mandel. My decision, and the separation, are final and irrevocable, and I will take immediate action to dissolve the marriage. I am in love with another woman, Mrs. Jeanne Dorsey, and I intend to marry her. There will be no further comment or discussion."

Well, not quite. It seems the Governor had not won the approval of Bootsie, who had staunchly resisted separation. "He should see a psychiatrist," she said in reply. "The pressure of the job must have gone to his head. I am astonished, amazed, unbelieving." She was also unmoving. She had been elected First Lady of Maryland, she insisted, and First Lady she would remain. As she told TIME's Arthur White: "I'm not getting a divorce. I'm trying to save our marriage. I've had a happy married life for a long time. I worked while he went to law school. We climbed the ladder together. We achieved the impossible dream [the governorship]."

Limited Options. Bootsie has not only elected to stay put in the 105-year-old Georgian mansion, she continues to carry on business more or less as usual. She conducts occasional tours of the mansion as her bodyguard, a state trooper, stands at the ready. (His accompanied Marvin to the apartment.) She attends outside events, such as a meeting of the United Democratic Women's Clubs of Southern Maryland, where members of the audience openly wept over her plight. "I intend to stay politically active," she assured them. "Male candidates must remember they cannot do it without the women. I think that women such as myself and all those you see here make the difference in an election." Last week, she was the guest of honor at a $25-a-plate dinner sponsored by Hot Line for Youth, Inc., a Baltimore group that counsels troubled teenagers. At the outset, she had trouble with her microphone. She asked the audience: "Are you sure that the p.r. man who works for my husband didn't set that up?" Once properly amplified, Bootsie declared: "We must seek the moral standards we want our children to follow." Her two children, Ellen and Gary, took out a full-page advertisement in the dinner program stating: "Congratulations, Mother, on an honor you truly deserve."

How to get back into the mansion is only one of the thorny problems facing the Governor. His options are limited. He could storm the place and forcibly eject his hard-to-estrange wife, but at the risk of never winning another woman's vote in Maryland. As a friend of the Governor's observed: "If she goes, she'll have to go under her own steam." He could file for a Maryland divorce, but since it is contested, he could have as much as a three-year wait. If he sought a speedier divorce elsewhere, he would have to establish out-of-state residence, and thus give up his office.

Last week the Governor tried another kind of pressure tactic. He ordered the state controller to make out the quarterly voucher for the expenses of the mansion to himself and not to Bootsie. "I don't know why he did it," she objected. "Why is he changing a system that was working so well? We always paid our bills on time. Will the Governor do the same?"

Willing to Wait. Although no position papers are available, it can be assumed that the conscientious Governor put as much thought into his separation as he does into complex legislation at the State House. It was no overnight decision. He has known the comely, ash blonde, 36-year-old Jeanne Dorsey for ten years; she divorced her husband, a former state senator, in 1969. She takes their romance very seriously. A recent convert to Judaism, the Governor's religion, she is willing to wait for Mandel, however long it takes him. "If it took forever, I would wait," she declares. "The type of love we have does not know time. He's my whole life. I love him totally. All we ask is that people try to understand." Except, of course, for Bootsie, who is obviously beyond understanding. Jeanne will not discuss her tenacious rival for the Governor's mansion, if not for his affections.

Public opinion is sympathetic to the homeless Governor, but many Maryland women have sided with Bootsie. Wrote one indignant woman: "The Prince of Wales had to abdicate an entire kingdom when his personal life interfered with the laws of the realm. Should not Marvin Mandel give up the governorship?" Complained another: "As a taxpayer, I resent my tax money's being used to pay secret service men to accompany the Governor on his love trysts. Who was watching the shop while the Governor was pursuing his ladylove? I always thought any man who smokes a pipe was above reproach."

Adamant about not moving, Bootsie is not especially hostile toward her wandering husband. "I want us to have another chance," she says. "I want to end my life with my husband." Whatever their personal differences, she respects Marvin politically as much as ever and intends to back him for reelection. There, for the time being, the impasse rests. Or, as the motto on the great seal of Maryland proclaims, "Fatti maschi parole femine [Manly deeds, womanly words]."

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