Show and Tell

By KURT ANDERSEN

The anxiety was high. The suburban living room was still. The press conference finally flickered on the television set, live from New York. If Geraldine Ferraro was going to humiliate herself, and doom the Democrats' chances, at least Walter Mondale would be able to witness the dreadful spectacle at home, in Minnesota, alone except for his wife Joan and a couple of aides.

Ferraro sat before a thicket of microphones, three dozen TV cameras and 200 insistent reporters in a hotel ballroom near Kennedy Airport, ready for one of the memorable political press conferences of modern times. The questions, about her family finances and personal ethics, were complicated and often barbed, yet she managed to seem neither combative nor defensive. Her manner was precise and serious, but relaxed and good-humored too. Her answers were lucid and carefully organized, anecdotal and unpretentious. In North Oaks, Mondale stared at the TV image of his running mate, transfixed by her grace under extraordinary pressure. "The tone is right," he marveled. "The honesty is coming through. Her integrity shows. Her integrity shows."

When he stepped out into the fresh air a little later, his sense of release was palpable. "I've never seen Mondale so relieved," said Campaign Chairman James Johnson. "He had an enormous amount riding on that." The worst seemed past and, even more important, Mondale felt his instincts about Ferraro had been vindicated. After her "superb performance," he told reporters, "I'm even more confident that I made the right choice. There has been a clear demonstration here of leadership, of strength, of candor, of values that the American people will respond to favorably."

Ferraro certainly showed that she has an astonishing knack for handling journalistic inquisitors. The reporters in New York were as jumpy and eager as hounds. For 18 hours they had been able to examine the financial records of Ferraro and her husband John Zaccaro, a real estate executive. The candidate was open to a slew of questions about her compliance with congressional finance rules. In 1978, during her first run for Congress, Ferraro's husband and children had loaned her $134,000; federal election law permits only $1,000 from each family member.

The Federal Election Commission notified her of the violation; to repay the loan, Ferraro arranged through her husband to sell her share of a Manhattan building. The property was bought by a middleman, then repurchased by Zaccaro--a curious transaction resulting from Zaccaro's apparent ignorance of campaign finance laws. Then the couple miscalculated their profit on the deal and ended by owing the IRS $29,709 in back taxes plus interest of $23,750 (see following story).

Equally intriguing to the press was Ferraro's apparent misinterpretation of the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, which requires members of Congress to disclose their spouses' income and assets if they stand to benefit from them, as well as their personal assets. Ferraro, who is a lawyer, had never disclosed Zaccaro's; she says she believed their separate careers entitled her to an exemption. Finally, Ferraro would have to answer for her husband's sometimes haphazard and occasionally controversial business dealings.

After a technical question-and-answer session between reporters and a team of Ferraro's lawyers and accountants, the candidate arrived, got a last-minute briefing from her aides on the thrust of the queries, and sat down before the microphones, only to find that the sound system was not working. Ferraro retreated to a back room and paced, talking to no one as she waited for the most critical single political moment an American woman has ever faced. Not only was her vice-presidential candidacy in jeopardy, but so, in a fashion, was much that she portended for women and their political hopes. The Republicans had tossed out the question again and again since her nomination: How could a three-term Congresswoman from Queens be expected to stand up to the rigors of national office? Now the whole country wondered: Could Geraldine Ferraro take the heat?

Ferraro returned to the room in ten minutes, the sound system repaired. When she spoke, no nervousness showed. "I released more than anybody has released in the history of this country," she boasted of her financial disclosures. Ferraro quickly and effectively established that she was fluent with the facts and that she would not be pushed around. "Let's stop there first of all and correct that," she said to the opening questioner who stated that money from her husband's business financed her 1978 campaign. "My money paid for my campaign ..." When she was asked a complex and tendentious question by a reporter from the right-wing daily Washington Times, she maintained her humor. "I knew I shouldn't have called on you," Ferraro said--and then answered.

Not once did she obviously dissemble, or weasel away from a question. But she did make some wise tactical retreats, giving ground as necessary. For instance, a questioner asked about her nominal positions in various Zaccaro business entities: sometimes she is listed as treasurer, sometimes secretary, sometimes vice president. "It's sloppy, I'll grant you that," Ferraro said. She even managed to be self-deprecating and defiant at the same time. "I probably brought it all on myself," she said, "by promising more [disclosure of Zaccaro's finances] than I was able to deliver ... But I ended up delivering it anyway, didn't I?"

Her flip humor continued to flash. Has all the attention on her finances hurt the Mondale campaign? "Well, let me put it this way," Ferraro said, "it has not been a positive thing." Her new accountants "hold themselves out to be experts. I sure hope they are. Just kidding, guys."

When the minutiae were beyond her, she did not hesitate to summon one of her lawyers from the wings, and later an accountant. As the accountant started whispering information to her, she showed impeccable instincts: "Irwin," she asked, "why don't you tell them?" She described intimate family decisions to explain some of her actions. In 1971, after her husband's brother and father had died of cancer in quick succession, Zaccaro suggested she get a license " 'in case something happens to me,' to keep the business going and, you know, take care of our kids."

When one reporter suggested that her family lives high on the hog, Ferraro's reply was angled perfectly to catch the prevailing political winds. "You're seeing people who work very hard. We're not flashy--we buy property and we maintain it, and it appreciates. That's what America is all about." When asked if she was being held to a double standard because of her sex, she did not rise to the bait. Nor at other opportunities did she hide her feminism. When she went to a bank to finance her first House campaign in 1978, Ferraro revealed, she was aghast to learn she needed Zaccaro to co-sign for a loan. In order to establish her technical financial autonomy and thus avoid such humiliations, Zaccaro and she began filing separate tax returns. "I can give you a speech about how hard it is for women to raise money to run for office," Ferraro said.

She sounded frank and loving about her husband. "He is a very private person, and he's not the candidate--I am." Before finally agreeing to release his tax returns, "we got through a whole discussion, and ... his reaction then was, 'Gerry, I don't want to hurt you, you know--here they are.' " Still, when a defense of Zaccaro would have been foolish, she demurred. After learning early this year that he had, in 1979, bought back her half-share in the Manhattan building, she said, " 'Why did you do it?'... He said, 'It was legal.' And I said, 'Sure it was, but it doesn't look so hot.' But you know--what can I tell you?" She made a que sera gesture of bemusement an actress would have admired.

When it came to explanations of the financial disclosure exemption she has claimed as a House member, however, Ferraro was earnest but unpersuasive. Her tax returns report income from Zaccaro's business, and he pays the property taxes on all four of their homes. Yet to claim an exemption, a House member must get no benefit from a spouse's wealth, nor even have "the possibility of an inheritance from the interest." Ferraro's basic argument is that because she and Zaccaro have separate incomes, his wealth and its sources are irrelevant to her congressional performance.

If the criteria for an exemption are really so strict that she does not merit one, Ferraro suggested, then the other 17 House members who claim it should be set right, too. "You can carry it to the full extreme," she said, and the law would require that "you have two separate refrigerators." The exemption criteria do indeed seem impossibly narrow. Says a male Mondale adviser: "It's a man's law, written by men with men in mind." The system isn't set up to deal with two-income families." But sensible or not, the rules are clear, and have been on the books for several years. Ferraro said at the press conference that she had read those rules, "believe it or not, as recently as last May."

Despite losing her way on that issue, Ferraro gradually won over the reporters. One moment showed that she was home free: when she was rather slow in answering a question from Wall Street Journal Editorial Writer Gregory Fossedal, and Fossedal shouted at her, "Answer it!" he was booed by fellow journalists.

Francis O'Brien, a Mondale aide who is managing the Ferraro damage-control operation, let the session drag on and on, correctly figuring that the impression of candor would be reinforced by her total submission to the process. Finally, O'Brien suggested that things wind up in five more minutes. "How about 15 minutes?" Ferraro countered. But even before that time limit, the questions petered out. After an hour and 40 minutes, longer than any press conference reporters could recall, it was over. Backstage, Ferraro hugged every aide and adviser in sight.

The rest of the week had its small ups and downs, but her public triumph sustained her. When Press Secretary Pat Bario was fired, the candidate was magnanimous. "I love her," she said of her ex-spokeswoman. "She's terrific. Evidently there was a little chemistry that didn't work." Ferraro's main campaign event, a speech to 3,000 members of the American Federation of Teachers in Washington, was a cinch to be successful. She is a former teacher and AFT member. "Normally I begin a speech by saying I'm delighted to be here. After this week," she told the cheering, chanting union members, "I have to tell you I am absolutely thrilled."

Zaccaro's week did not finish so buoyantly. In a New York City courtroom on Thursday, he was obliged to explain his questionable performance as the paid, court-appointed conservator of an elderly woman's assets: in the past year Zaccaro borrowed $175,000 from her funds to use in his business. He reported the loans to a representative of the court, and when notified that he had acted improperly, paid the money back promptly with 12% interest. He did nothing illegal, but the judge could remove him as conservator. Said a New York banker: "He's an honest man with poor judgement."

Zaccaro's troubles are certainly not all his doing. He is an Italian American who owns real estate in New York's Little Italy; questions about any possible underworld ties are constantly asked, as if such a connection were inevitable. Even the most tenuous bits of information made huge, unfair headlines: a pornography distributor is a tenant in one Zaccaro building; a reputed mobster rents an apartment in a building Zaccaro inherited from his father 13 years ago and immediately sold; an imprisoned swindler once owned a building that Zaccaro managed. TIME learned that U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani asked Zaccaro to his office last Thursday to talk about a 1972 real estate transaction. Zaccaro is only a minor witness in the case, and has cooperated with the Government. Explained the U.S. Attorney: "He is not under investigation." Why, then, was it necessary to interview Zaccaro last week of all weeks? Giuliani, a Reagan appointee, did not elaborate on his unfortunate timing.

The fascination with Zaccaro's finances began two weeks ago, when Ferraro announced that his tax returns would not be made public, as she had promised earlier. "The hesitance to release her husband's tax returns," wrote George F. Will in his syndicated column, "may mean he has not paid much in taxes." Indeed that had been the common suspicion. On an ABC news program, This Week with David Brinkley, Ferraro said her husband had relented because "people were jumping to the most outrageous conclusions on a lot of things." Columnist Will, an interviewer on the program, asked if the disclosures would show that her family had paid its fair shares of taxes. Replied Ferraro: "They sure will. And George Will, tomorrow afternoon you're going to call me up and apologize for your column of today."

They sure did -- more than 40% out of an average combined income of $173,000 a year. (Instead of a telephoned apology, Will sent a dozen pink roses and a note: "Has anyone told you that you are cute when you're mad?" Ferraro's reply: "Vice Presidents are not cute.") The couple declared a net worth of $3.78 million, nearly all of it in real estate. They did not release copies of the IRS forms that Zaccaro files in connection with his businesses. Only those documents, experts say, would depict the full scope of his holdings and financial habits.

By now, however, the "public's intuitive judgments of Ferraro are probably more important than particulars. "There will be thousands of facts on the table," says O'Brien, "but only one thing matters: Will the public think she's honest? If so, none of the facts will be remembered. But if they decide she's not honest, then all the facts will be perceived as a mosaic of conspiracy and deceit."

In this respect, Ferraro seemed at least as success ful as a previous vice-presidential candidate in a bind. Eight presidential elections ago, a young Republican Senator named Richard Nixon went on TV to justify his receipt of political donations -- and of a cocker spaniel named Checkers. Nixon, of course, faced only the camera, not 200 reporters, and he had a script. With Ferraro, every thing is different, special, more consequential. The stakes are higher because whatever happens to Ferraro happens to a pioneer, a historic figure. Mondale edged close to a complaint about the intense public focus last week. "It may have occurred in the past," he said, "that when a man ran for office, they dragged the wife before the public and went through their records and their businesses the they have Mr. Zaccaro. It may have occurred, but I cannot remember when."

Ferraro wants desperately to get on with the campaign. Said she at her press conference: "I hope by Sunday, which is my [49th] birthday, we're going to start a new year." But the troubles of the past two weeks may not simply fade away. The House ethics committee could take up the question of her disclosure exemption on Sept. 12 at its final meeting of this congressional session. An inquiry is unlikely, however, since Ferraro is leaving Congress at the end of this term. There is also the Federal Election Commission, which has begun a review of the 1978 campaign loan from Zaccaro.

If investigative interest subsides, the G.O.P. may try to revive it. As Ferraro knows well, when national figures come under suspicion, the public and press fasten on to the reputed rascals and do not easily let go. There can be a rather voyeuristic zeal about such searches for official wrongdoing, and prosecutory momentum, once begun, is difficult to slow. Bert Lance, Jimmy Carter's budget director, was forced to leave office, tried and found guilty of nothing. So great is the power of stigma, however, that when Mondale tried to make him his campaign director, Lance was forced to step down within three weeks. In addition to making other serious mistakes, Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese neglected to report a $15,000 loan to his wife from a friend who later won appointment to a Government post. Meese is still under investigation by a special prosecutor, and his nomination las Attorney General is on hold. Last June, Congressman George Hansen, an Idaho Republican, was sentenced to five to 15 months in federal prison for not disclosing $334,000 he and his wife received. His violation of the Ethics in Government Act was more willful and serious, of course, than the infraction Ferraro may have committed: he might be compared to someone who hides income from the IRS, she to someone who files a tax return but makes an undeserved claim. Still, the perception of impropriety can be as ruinous as the real thing.

Politics being politics, many Republicans are delighted by the Democrats' difficulties. Their partisan pleasure may be brief. If the scrutiny Ferraro is undergoing now becomes the new national bench mark, future G.O.P. candidates and spouses will not be spared. Moreover, thoughtful people in both parties are concerned about the longer-term effects. They are worried that post-Watergate laws, combined with informal standards intensely applied by the press, could be creating a glare so fearsome that even scrupulously honest people hesitate to seek public office or accept major Government positions. Ferraro's special candidacy, with all the extra attention it naturally receives, has made the problem plain. --By Kurt Andersen. Reported by Robert Ajemlan/Washlngton and David Beckwlth with Ferraro

With reporting by Robert Ajemian/Washington, David Beckwlth, Ferraro