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He first entered Congress in 1953 with the immense advantage of being the protege of Democratic Whip John McCormack, a fellow Boston Irishman who was later to become Speaker of the House. McCormack got O'Neill to look at issues not just from the point of view of Boston, as he had been raised to do, but from a broad national perspective. In O'Neill's second term, McCormack got him a place on the powerful Rules Committee, a rare honor for a new man since the committee controlled the flow of legislation to the floor.
With McCormack as his patron, O'Neill soon entered the inner circle of the House, where his blarney and good fellowship made him a quick favorite. O'Neill regularly attended the select meetings of Sam Rayburn's "board of education," afterhours sessions in the Speaker's office where the likes of Lyndon Johnson, Albert and McCormack met over bourbon to discuss the business of Congress.
O'Neill was also invited to take part in another congressional rite reserved for the elite—the late-night poker games involving some of the top leaders on the Hill. O'Neill more than held his own; he had helped earn his way through Boston College by playing poker. In one night of good hands, recalls O'Neill, a man could win $400. "Nobody ever got hurt," says O'Neill.
Reforming Pol. At the card table O'Neill met and for a while became friends with another poker player of repute—Richard Nixon, then the Vice President. But for all Nixon's reputation —he had won a bundle in the Navy during the war—O'Neill found him lacking. "Nixon was one of the lousiest players I ever played with," Tip remembers. "He didn't follow the cards. He talked too much. But he was an affable and likable guy in that friendly atmosphere, and the other players were nice to him because he was Vice President."
In the crunch of politics since then, the President and the Congressman have ceased to be friends, but O'Neill knew him long enough to offer an insight into his personality that he feels may partially explain Watergate. Because he is such a loner, suggests O'Neill, the President does not do enough personal assessing of the men being considered for his staff, taking them on the judgment of others. What is more, says O'Neill, "Nixon is well briefed—but he's briefed the way his people think he wants to be briefed. He's not briefed on the other side of the question."
For all his easy manner, O'Neill is a deeply ambitious man, a man completely confident of his ability to lead after his long years of experience in the House. In his early days, the Rules Committee was stalemated by a split between conservatives and liberals. To get any legislation he supported moving, O'Neill had to learn the House technique of bargaining, bluffing, pleading and bargaining again. Years later, O'Neill was able to use his position on the committee to drive a key bargain with President Johnson. When Johnson phoned to ask him to vote for a bill that he wanted badly, O'Neill replied: "Gee, I don't know if I can be there. I'm so busy trying to save the Boston Navy Yard." Said Johnson: "Let me worry about the Boston Navy Yard. You be at that committee. I need your vote."