Rudy, This Book's for You

I turned on Imus in the Morning last Wednesday to find two middle-aged men on the verge of tears. Hamilton Jordan, the wunderkind behind the Carter presidency and the youngest chief of staff in history, was in the studio to promote No Such Thing As a Bad Day (Longstreet Press; $22). It's a book about his glory days in the White House and his inglorious ones, including the time he was falsely accused of snorting cocaine at Studio 54 and insulting the wife of the Egyptian ambassador by admiring her pyramids. But it is mostly a book about being struck by lightning three times, first by non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 40, then by skin cancer six years later, and by prostate cancer four years after that. Don Imus listened more than he talked for a full hour, giving a window into the mystery of how larger-than-life figures like Jordan and now Rudy Giuliani confront mortality.

Like Giuliani, who in the midst of his troubles says politics "comes at least second, maybe third, maybe fourth," Jordan deployed his energy into waging a campaign against cancer with the same single-mindedness with which he waged his campaign against all the forces that thought an unknown Governor from Georgia could never capture the White House. He chose the best experts, read every document, checked out every hospital and went where he had the best chance of winning.

But what we really want to know is, How do you go from one day being perhaps the second most powerful person in the country, as the Washington Post had it, to becoming a bloated, hairless, poisoned shell of yourself, without drowning in Why me? All lives are equally precious, but swashbuckling politicians who swagger through life surrounded by aides whispering in their ears, who exercise power over people like House Speaker Tip O'Neill (who once referred to the upstart Jordan as Hannibal Jerkin), shock us when they're stricken.

After Jordan shopped around for his physical care--he went to three different facilities for three different cancers--he discovered his spiritual cure at a summer camp his wife Dorothy founded in 1982 for kids with cancer. He told Imus, who's just built the Imus Ranch for sick children, how he was particularly affected by Corey Grier, a natural leader, who was told by his doctors that his 16th summer would be his last. But Grier made it through the year and returned to Camp Sunshine for his 17th birthday. After celebrating with cake and ice cream, he got back into a helicopter, which did a 360[degree] turn so he could wave to 300 kids gathered on the football field. The very next day he died, Jordan told Imus. "These kids, they have taught us how to live and sometimes have shown us how to die."

Well, there wasn't a dry eye in my house after that, and I'm hoping someone will press this book on Giuliani, because he needs the kind of help that a coterie of city hall advisers can't give. Prediagnosis, Giuliani managed a marriage that makes the Clintons look like Ozzie & Harriet, with the acquiescence of both the voters and his wife Donna Hanover. Two weeks after he got the news of early-stage prostate cancer, the mayor blurted out that he had a "very good friend" on the side and wanted to make his separation with Hanover official--although he had neglected to tell his wife of his plan. The only explanation for this--and I mean no offense--is that cancer drives you temporarily insane if you don't, like Jordan, tend to the metaphysical as well as the physical.

As Jordan found, cancer makes you discover new hungers to feed. Although he is sometimes asked for advice by political professionals or offered a spot on a Washington commission, Jordan has left politics behind. He launches dotcom start-ups from his home in Atlanta, which gives him time to fix breakfast for his kids and take them to school. He looks at Clinton and sees a man still consumed by ambition, just as he was on the day in 1975 when the breathlessly name-dropping candidate for attorney general of Arkansas arrived almost an hour late for a meeting with him and said he wouldn't be able to offer his endorsement until Governor Carter spent more time with him.

Jordan let go of his resentment that the Establishment never accepted Carter. He even gave up his fierce anger at Roy Cohn, who embroiled him in charges of cocaine use as a way to bargain down tax-evasion charges against his clients Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. As fate would have it, Jordan discovered that Cohn was down the hall from him at the National Cancer Institute and marched over to confront him. When he got there, he found a "human being wasted by disease," joined in the same battle Jordan would win and Cohn would shortly lose. He left without a word.

Jordan is happy to be well, but he writes, "I never want to forget the raw fear of cancer or the prospect of death." If he did, he would lose sight of the purpose and focus cancer gave his life. So, Rudy, forget the polls for now, ignore the tabloids. Here's a book for you. It could save you in more ways than one.