As Wallace Lay Healing How Holy Cross Hospital Met the Pressure Press Relations Administrator By Aileen Jacobson Tom Burke: - "We lost control of the building for - a few hours." One day in May a small man with a cold smirk nity institution run by the Sisters of the Holy and a gun reached out for in a Cross, is the-only American hospital in recent crowd and shot five times. The governor years to house the survivor of a political assassi- fell back to the pavement; his wife rushed to nation attempt. shield his bleeding body. Wallace lived and other So for a few weeks in late spring, the modest politicians began to muse. Maryland hospital basked in the spotlight of na- Even on that night of near-assassination, politi- tional recognition--and balked at, but met, the cos around the country were wondering what unexpected pressures. might happen if the Presidential aspirant arrived I. at the 1972 Democratic convention—pained but t was nothing new for the technician. Mike proud in a wheelchair. Hall, 20, in his gray lab coat, heard the emer- Gov. Wallace may not make such a dramatic gency call "Code Blue" crackle over the appearance at the convention beginning tomor- loudspeaker. In his year at Holy Cross, Hall had row. But his political power was evident, even as handled dozens of Code Blues. Wallace lay healing. His room at Holy Cross Hos- It was May 15, 4:45 in the afternoon. Hall pital in Silver Spring became something of a polit- waited. As the emergency patient was wheeled ical touchstone. President Richard Nixon came to by, the technidan looked down and was shocked pay his respects and so did Rep. Shirley Chisholm by the dark-browed famous face of Governor (D-N.Y.). Sent George McGovern (D-S.D.), then George C. Wallace. _ the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, "You say to yourself, golly, this is an official showed up at Holy Cross, as did Sen. Hubert running for President. Then I got to thinking, I've Humphrey (D-Minn.) and Ethel Kennedy, wid- got to get this man straightened out. I had to get owed in America's previous major political assas- to work right away. Thinking about the proced- sination. ures got my mind straight, ' remembered Hall, Holy Cross, a nine-year-old, 340-bed commu- who had often agreed with the feisty "messages" of the Alabama aspirant. Aileen Jacobson is a staff reporter with Potomac. Things then got "right hectic." Medically, Wal-

lace's case seemed to be nothing unusual; Holy Cross had treated 31 cases of gunshot wounds in the last year. The tiny Code Blue room, where Wallace lay, had been set up just two weeks ear- lier to handle the overflow. But this gunshot wound was already causing an extraordinary ov- erflow, a situation that the hospital administration could not have foreseen. Tense, hard-shouldered Secret Service men - were swarming through the hospital corridors,. "I couldn't tell you how many there were. It was unreal," Hall said later. "They tried to get out of the way, but every time I went out to the hall, to ' push a piece of equipment in or out, they were all over.' - He remembers Cornelia Wallace coming in and out of the room, her face composed,. whispering to her husband while the doctors cleaned the wounds that a lonely janitor had blown open with a snub-nosed, five-shot pistol.

n that first day, CBS camerman Laur- ens Pierce had filmed an astounding Osequence—the glint of a gun barrel, bursts of smoke, shocked old faces, Wallace bleeding on the pavement, the frantic whirl of ..k The Washington Post/Potomac/July 9, 1972 the procedures got my

"Thinking about

mind straight."

Mike Hall:

Technician

keep her (Mrs. Wallace)

her eyes would fill

"When I couldn't

Roger M. Fortin:

busy enough,

with tears."

Father

to have Wallace here,

"It's been interesting

but it's ... wearing."

Assistant Director of Nursing

Moreno McKenna: lawmen capturing the would-be assassin. Those pictures, moving at regular pace and in brutal Another nurse, who also worked in the inten- slow motion, were being watched all over the sive care unit, agreed. "It's the first exciting thing country while Wallace still lay in surgery. that's ever happened in the five years I've been Pierce had been following George Wallace into here." the crowd at Laurel Shopping Center. He was Not all the nurses were as unabashedly excited. only three feet behind him when he heard what at Assistant Director of Nursing Norene McKenna first sounded to him like a firecracker. "After the noted, "In nursing, patient care comes first. It's first crack," he recalled a week and a half later, "I been interesting to have Wallace here, but it's thought, what a bad joke." Then he saw the gun. also a lot of responsibility, and it's wearing." She "My first real feeling was to put the camera pointed proudly to a survey of head nurses show- down and to come to his aid. But I knew that put- ing that nursing care had not been impeded by ting it down would do no good, that other people the sensational emergency. were there to help him. During those first few nights, when Wallace "I knew that recording the event was an ele- would wake up almost every hour, Cornelia Wal- ment that should be done, and that it was just as lace stayed up until 3 or 4 o'dock in the morning important. It never dawned on me to take my eye to be at his bedside when he called. She slept in a off the camera. I've been knowing Wallace 23 or semi-private room on the same floor, sometimes 24 years now." He continued, without embarrass- accompanied by her mother, "Big Ruby," or by ment, "I couldn't help but cry." some of the Wallace children. Even at three in the During the first two weeks of Wallace's hospital morning, with fatigue clouding her beauty queen stay, Pierce filmed the governor once, briefly, face, Cornelia Wallace always appeared, said sev- with his family standing around him. "George , eral nurses, impeccably dressed and coifed. winked at me as I came in, and said, 'Hi, Laurens.' For their efforts amid the turmoil the nurses did But he said 'hi' to everyone." not go unappreciated or unrewarded. They were Over the years, the silver-haired cameraman given gold charms imprinted with the seal of the had become a friend to the Wallace family, just as governor of Alabama.

The Washington Post/Potomac/July 9, 1972 Continued on page 14 9

he had grown close to the Martin Luther IGng Holy Cross Hospital amily. Four years ago, as he waited to hear from page 9 whether the Nobel Peace Prize winner would live or die, he had filmed Kins's aide, the Rev. Andrew Young, reenacting the balcony scene of that other nation-shaking shooting—and the tears had come then, too. During his weeks at Holy Cross Hospital, Pierce joined Mrs. Wallace in several "warm family gath- erings." One time, he recalled, "She said to me, 'Laurens, I guess you'll win some kind of award for this.' I told her, 'Cornelia, this is not the kind of award I want to win: " Cornelia Wallace squeezed his hand.

he unaccustomed bustle in the hospital halls continued for weeks, and some nurses found it an exhilarating change. A nurse's life can gray a bit in the daily cycle of bed pans, sponge baths, thermometers, endless pa- tient complaints. "When I heard on TV that Wallace was coming to Holy Cross, I was really excited," one chipper nurse- in crisp white recalled. "I knew that he would be in my unit, the Intensive Care Unit. It's alming Cornelia a great honor for the hospital—and at least it Wallace that first night was a job that breaks the routine a little." C fell to the hospital's chap- lain, Father Roger M. For- tin, a gentle man with a warm voice. First, in the emergency room, Father Fortin spoke made a point ofgoing into to Wallace, who was asking the emergency room and for medication for his pain. making her presence "I told him that I'd pray known." for him, and that I was After about an hour and there. Then I turned to a quarter in the emergency Mrs. Wallace and said, room, Wallace was moved 'There must be a lot of down a long, pale green people we have to call.' I corridor to the main oper- wanted to get her into the ating room for four hours office and out of the oper- of surgery. During those ating room. It was good four hours, the doctors therapy for her, to keep announced that no major her busy, doing something organs had been hit. "After that demands concentra- that, Mrs. Wallace felt a tion. It doesn't dispel any great sense of relief. We of the upset, but it does were over the hurdle." A spread out the focus." little later, while waiting He led her into a room at with rather Fortin and the end of the emergency '.some staff members in the corridor, where they spent doctors' lounge, Mrs. Wal- half an hour trying to reach lace reassured the rest of Wallace's personal doctor, the staff: "He's going to be so they would have a com- all right. I talked to him." plete list of his allergies 's sn u b- and other information. She nosed, five-shot pistol had made calls to her family in not dressed Cornelia Wal- Alabama and talked with lace in widow's weeds. members of her staff about In the following weeks, how to get the children to the Alabaman s never called Silver Spring, where they in another clergyman— would sleep — ,"practical Wallace is Methodist, Mrs. things, so that she Wallace is Baptist—and wouldn't go into a tailspin, Father Fortin grew to be which she never did," understandably a bit proud Father Fortin said. All this of that. activity kept her "periodi- And, he admitted shyly, cally misty. When I with the ready smile that couldn't keep her busy precedes his bursts of enough, her eyes would fill speech, he had also found with tears. She would stop it "thrilling, in a funny sort and be silent, and there of way," to sit down on that would be a pause." Corne- first night and have coffee lia Wallace, in that bitter with Sen. Hubert Hum- night, had her secret phrey (D.-Minn.) and Mrs. moments. Wallace. Veteran of hundreds of On Friday, four days after the shooting, Mrs. Wallace asked Father Fortin if they could pray in the similar, agonizing waits, the chapel together. When she bespectacled priest consid- arrived at 10 in the evening, ered Mrs. Wallace's reac- she was accompanied by a tions normal, though he woman friend and a Secret was impressed by her rela- Serviceman. tive composure. At one As they were coming point that night, "She ex- out, Father Fortin recalled, pressed fears for him (the a 15-year-old boy stood governor). She said she "gawking at her. She talked didn't want him to be alone to him and asked him his with 'all strangers.' And she name." It turned out to be Mike Schanno, son of the head of the team of six Press Club. fice to Billy Jqe Camp, Wal- physicians who had oper- The administrators re-. lace's public relations man; ated on Wallace, Dr. Jo- sponded by eventually Camp spent 45 minutes seph F. Schanno. throwing the press out—a there alone, making phone "She hugged him and decision they continued to calls. (The long distance kissed him, and the poor think was right, but which ones were on his credit card; Burke, a sharp-eyed Vashington Post/Potomac/July 9,1972 administrator, made sure of that beforehand.) Then Camp spent two hours conferring with his staff. kid didn't know what to Burke never got his office say. Then she invited him rankled the frustrated back. and his father to visit the press for much of the epi- He gave it next to Secret governor's mansion in Ala- sode at Holy Cross. Service agents, so they bama. The kid's eyes were Burke, who had to deal could screen gifts and visi- like saucers. I think he was with the grumpy _press, •tors to Wallace. The first ready to fly there that eve- heard of Wallace's impend- bomb threat came within ning. It's little things like ing arrival from a nurse at 25 minutes of Wallace's ar"- that I like to remember." 4:30. By the time he arrived rival. in the emergency corridor The caller said that a with Sister Helen Marie, bomb would go off at 6:30. the hospital's top adminis- The bomb squad arrived, ittle things that cer- trator, the hallway had al- 6:30 came and went, unev- tain people at Holy ready been cleared of the entfully. Within the first 10 LCross don't like to extra stretchers and beds days, the hospital received remember include what usually stored there. 10 or 12 bomb threats. befell the hard-charging Burke sent out a call for Before the night was press that first night. The surgeons over the loud- over, the Secret Service hospital administrators speaker and doctors began were to receive a shock to arrive from all over the The Wa that they had never antici- hospital. An -obstetrician pated, even after they were came. He was told it was told George Wallace was not his kind of emergency. coming. Another doctor, tempo- had requested another "We lost control of the rarily a patient, 'heard the room in the seventh floor building for a few hours," call, ripped out his own in- it Intensive Care Unit where press relations administra- travenous injection and Wallace was to stay. And tor Torn Burke remem- went down in his pajamas. Camp's staff had asked for bered. By the time he got there, additional space to handle Reporters scattered to though, enough surgeons phone calls, well-wishers, every floor.- They walked had already gathered for a flowers, gifts. (Burke again into patients' rooms, into team. made sure they would pay nursing stations, anywhere In one sense, it was the their own phone bills.) The a phone was available. A best of times for Wallace to reporters, meanwhile, had woman repotter from the get shot. Most major sur- taken over the second floor New •York Times allegedly gery is performed at the auditorium, and before was roughed up by a Secret beginning of the week, in surgery was completed at Service agent when she the morning, and the sur- 11 p.m.,, a crew had in- refused to leave one geons stay for afternoon stalled a microwave. an- phone. (The incident is visits with their recovering . tenna on the roof of the being investigated, ac- patients. hospital. The visiting digni- Cording to a Secret Service Taking care of Wallace taries, Maryland Gov. Mar- spokesman.) proved to be something vin Mandel and Sen. Hu- Several reporters said the hospital could handle bert Humphrey, were sent afterwards that they saw —quite routinely. But all up to the auditorium. "That journalists there whom those other people who gave us an hour's breathing they'd never seen actually came with him filled the time," said Burke. covering a story before— halls and the lobby and the But in- that time, the ad- the kind they'd usually seen waiting room. ministrators decided that just hanging around the Brisk, pipe-smoking Tom the press center should be Burke gave up his own of- somewhere else. They ments to have a pool of turned away and handbags made arrangements with network newsmen record were searched. Burke the Boys' Club across the Mrs. Wallace's statement, feared that the hospital's street to use their gymna- even though the hospital reputation as a friendly, sium. Unfortunately, they administration had forbid- relaxed place might be didn't check with the boys, den any more interviews permanently damaged. who complained bitterly inside the building. As for cost, the mainte- when the press moved in At her press conference nance and housekeeping and ruined their floors with Cornelia Wallace's eyes staffs had overtime and the heavy cameras, scraping were tired and sunken but hospital was charged for chairs, spilled drinks, and her words never wavered. extra message units that hard-soled shoes. "Then "He didn't earn the title of first night when the calls the problem was, how to the 'Fighting Little Judge' flooded in and out of the break it to the press, who for nothing," she said of hospital switchboard, re- had al ready installed all the her stricken husband. laying the news of George equipment and brought in The breach of rules on Wallace's agony. their big cameras." Burke's that press conference "We'll never be able to job included breaking all made Burke angry but it sort it all out," Burke la- the unpleasant news that was over before he knew mented. " . . . We'll never first night. "I gave a medi- what was happening. really know how much it cal briefing, then I took a By the next week both cost." deep breath and said,'this Burke and Camp were is the last bit of public in- more philosophical. "We t the end of the formation that you'll get in each had our own needs, corridor that leads this building.' Man, the our own- structure of com- left out of the lob- howling and screaming munications, and our own A by, two heavy wooden that started then." independent chains of doors open into the hospi- The doors were closed to command," Burke re- tal's conference room. It is any newly arriving journal- marked wearily, referring a well-lit, wood-paneled ists, no matter what their to the hospital staff, the room with a crucifix on one press qualifications, and Wallace staff, the Secret wall and a long table in the this set up a hue and cry Service and the reporters. center. outside the doors. The By that time quiet compro- For almost two weeks it Wallace people were not mise had set in. was taken over by the Wal- pleased. Mrs. Wallace Billy Joe Camp, likewise, lace staff as a place to re- wanted to make a state- no longer had any harsh ceive phone calls and take ment about her husband's words for the hospital ad- messages. Flower arrange- health. Reporters from ministration. Wallace had ments brightened, then major publications were won the Michigan and wilted, in there; one was stuck outside the door. Maryland primaries by shaped like Alabama, an- Billy Joe Camp came out to wide margins, "I would other was sent by some appease them. "It's not me, have preferred that the troops in Vietnam. News- it's not me," he said to one press could have been in- aper-sized cards signed reporter trying to get in. side the hospital," the pub- by people from-all over the "He seemed to be dis- lic relations man said. "But country lay on tables next traught and upset," the I understand their limita- to plates from the Silver reporter recalled. "He said tions, and their responsi- Spring Holiday Inn, where it was the hospital adminis- the Wallace staff stayed. tration, and made some At the end of the second reference to, 'They're play- week, the hospital admin- bilities toward all the pa- ing politics."' istration reclaimed • the tients." Then, the reporter said, room, which it had offered In the weeks to come, the Wallace staff on the during Wallace's stay, shington Post/Potomac/Jay 9,1972. night of the shooting. The Burke and the other ad- hospital needed it for its ministrators worked doz- Friday board meeting. One Camp grumbled in exas- ens of hours of overtime, at had been cancelled al- peration, "Maybe they're no extra pay. A report to ready. So had a number of trying to make people the Joint Commission on training sessions for super- think he's worse than he is, Accreditation of Hospitals vote for him visors. The Wallace staff so they won't was 'delayed; meetings tomorrow." (The Michigan moved their operations were cancelled; and at the over to the Silver •Spring and Maryland primaries front door visitors were were to be held the next Holiday Inn. day.) As the hospital board Camp made arrange- entered the room on Friday morning, it was greeted friend until I got here, and the Wallace family—the naturally I packed all the first half of the Catholic With a message on the wrong clothes," said Ann service, without commun- blackboard: "Thank you Smith, in a pink frilly dress, ion—she remarked to him, very, very, very much. The her blond hair neatly "You know what the best Wallace staff." teased and styled. "I've felt thing about the service That's the way the Wal- all tense and wound up. was? There was no collec- lace staff people who The continual ring. You tion." worked in that room were hear it in your ears all day Judge Jack Wallace, the —soft-voiced, thoughtful, long. I still can't believe it. I governor's brother, also "ni-ice" with a long "i" and feel like I'm in a dream. It's wandered into the confer- a drawl. not a hysterical feeling. But ence room from time to Helen Hines, Billy Joe it's hard. Especially when time, and picked over the Camp's secretary, was one they cry. When the men mail, though he spent most of those who answered the cry, that's worse than any- of the time with the family phone calls that came in all thing " on the seventh floor. On day long. Many calls came "We've gotten quite a Wednesday of the second from cripples. The name week, he visited the con- and address of each person The Washington Post/Potomac/lay 9, 1972 ference room again. As he who called was written on a left, he came out into the pink slip, and each was to lobby with a slow walk, his receive a thank you note. feet shuffling, hands in his "People have been so pockets. kind, you just can't believe few calls from colored He approached the glass it," Mrs. Hines said. "Men people," Mn Smith ex- wall that and women break down looks onto the plained, "and they've been green lawn of the hospital. and cry. It just tears your just as upset as the rest of A larger-than-life-size heart out. Cane little old the people. They've been stone statue of the Virgin lady called and said she very nice." Mary stands on the lawn's had prayed that the Lord edge, beyond the concrete would spare the Gover- entrance steps where nor's life and take her life Other, less serious, newsmen were gathered at instead. She said she was moments Cheered the staff, the other end. He tapped glad to hear that the Gover- especially when certain the glass a few times with nor was going to live. She gifts came in. One elderly his knuckles, stared out the said she was 77. Then she woman sent a pair of salt window. Then he turned told me that she was dying and pepper shakers to the and slowly walked away, of cancer. It just killed me. governor, explaining she toward the elevator. The "One little fella calls ev- knew how hard it was to ery day and asks 'how's my tear open the paper ones man today?' Another fella they give you in hospitals. said,'The people will do the Another well-intentioned judge had other sickness in walking for him, we'll walk soul sent a magnet—for his family as well. That for him,' I thought that was removing the bullet. If it's night he flew back to Ala- so sweet." steel, he explained, the bama. Helen Hines and Ann magnet would work. If it's Smith, another member of lead, it won't. The Secret II this time, Holy Wallace's press staff, had Service men who checked Cross Hospital was both been in the gover- every piece of mail, and taking care of other nor's office in Alabama every gift and flower ar- sickness, too. No one can- when they heard of the rangement, had quite a celled out because Gov. shooting—not through of- time with that one. Wallace was there. As soon ficial lines, but from two Cornelia Wallace looked as Mrs. Wallace moved out people who had called in in occasionally and of her semi-private room simultaneously, saying thanked the staff members on the seventh floor, two they had heard it on the for what they were doing. patients moved in. Another radio. The next morning, Her mother, "Big Ruby," patient filled the gover- they came into the office as until she left for Alabama nor's Intensive Care Unit usual, and at 11 a.m. they again, came down to pick cell as soon as he was were told to pack and catch out flowers for the family. moved into a regular pri- a plane that was leaving in As usual, "Big Ruby" had a vate room on the seventh 45 minutes comment for every occa- floor. Cornelia Wallace "I didn'.t have a chance to sion. After a Sunday service started traveling to other call my family and my boy that Father Fortin held for parts of the country; Billy joe Camp left for California and for Houston, taking care of Wallace's political interests. Pragmatic politics took them away, but the hospi- tal was as crowded as ever. A 70-year-old woman was placed in pediatrics be- cause there was no other space for her. Mike Hall, the techni- cian, was back to pushing equipment in and out and splinting hands, keeping busy, thinking, "Will something like this happen again ?" The hospital received its last bomb threat on May 26. The next day, the hospi- tal went back to its policy of allowing anyone over 16 in to see a patient, relative or not—though the police- men still stood at the door to search suspicious-look- ing packages. Tom Burke and the other administrators got back to their regular schedules. The accreditation report got in on time after all, and meetings were back on schedule. The press corps started thinning out. Ann Smith went back to Montgomery for a few days, and came back; then Helen Hines returned to her husband and 12-year- old son. The phone calls kept coming in at Holiday Inn Wallace headquarters —well wishers and dis- pensers of miracle cures. The pink slips with names of those to be thanked continued to be stacked. Wallace, in his hospital bed, practiced sitting up. And two more gunshot vic- tims came through the emergency room. Holy Cross Hospital was return-■ ing to normal.