On the 61st floor of the Texas Commerce Tower in downtown Houston there are two large, expensively furnished executive offices, identical except that one has the pristine sheen of something new and unused. And for good reason:
No one has occupied it since the building was completed in 1982.
Ben Love, chairman of Texas Commerce Bank, intended the office, next to his own, for the man he hoped would be his successor.
He now recognizes that will never happen. The office was built for James Addison Baker III, who has opted for something grander-the office of secretary of state in Washington, D.C.-so the empty space in Houston stands as a kind of ghostly monument to one of the least conventional and most meteoric rises in modern American politics.
Twenty years ago Baker was a corporate attorney in Houston who had never displayed the slightest interest in politics. He didn`t bother to vote in most primaries, and he wasn`t involved in civic affairs. ”I was too busy trying to make it in the competitive atmosphere of a major Houston law firm, and I really didn`t participate in partisan politics in any way,” Baker says in a recent interview in his office at the State Department.
The patrician scion of one of Houston`s most distinguished families, he was little known outside legal circles and the precincts of the Houston Country Club where he and a close friend, an oilman named George Bush, won the tennis doubles championship twice in the early 1960s.
Then in 1969 Baker`s 38-year-old wife, Mary Stuart, died of cancer, and that changed his life. He began reassessing his priorities and concluded that he needed a new challenge, something outside the legal profession.
Bush, then making his second run for a U.S. Senate seat from Texas, persuaded Baker to be his campaign chairman for Harris County, of which Houston is the county seat. ”I always felt it was to give me something to take my mind off my grief,” Baker says.
His initial plunge into politics was intoxicating. When he first stood up to make a speech for Bush, he told his cousin Preston Moore, ”I thought I was making the Gettysburg Address.”
”Six years later, I was running the campaign of an incumbent president of the United States (Gerald Ford),” Baker recalls. ”I got initiated into national politics in a pretty fast way.”
Four years after running the Ford campaign, he managed Bush`s own presidential race, then was named chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan. Four years later he became treasury secretary, and now, another four years along, he has taken on the most prestigious and glamorous Cabinet post.
On the basis of Baker`s 30-year friendship with President Bush and his own record of achievement in Washington over the last eight years, there is little doubt that Baker will be the second most powerful figure in government. He is unlikely to become a kind of unofficial deputy president, as some Bush aides speculated after Baker was appointed, because the management of foreign policy is more than a full-time job. But no one close to the two men doubts that Bush will seek his advice on a lot more than foreign-affairs issues.
”Few people in this town can perform as well as Baker,” says Peter Teeley, a former Bush press secretary. ”There is nobody Bush will rely on more in terms of judgment and carrying out certain responsibilities.”
No one in the Reagan administration, with the possible exception of Secretary of State George Shultz, achieved the stature that Baker did, and even Shultz could not aspire to the same degree of popularity.
Baker carefully cultivated members of Congress, enabling him to achieve legislative victories that eluded others. He also assiduously cultivated the media by making sure that he or his staff always were available to answer questions, something that provoked Baker`s successor as chief of staff, Donald Regan, to tell a Republican group that he was ”appalled” at the amount of time Baker spent with columnists and reporters. And William Casey, director of the CIA, complained that Baker was the biggest leaker in town.
Baker`s supporters credit him with having pushed the essential elements of the Reagan legislative agenda through Congress and argue that if he had remained chief of staff, he would have saved Reagan from the greatest crisis of his presidency, the Iran-contra scandal.
His detractors on the Republican Right say that he hijacked the Reagan revolution, turning a pliant president from his natural bent as a conservative ideologue and subverting his intentions.
Despite his prominence, Baker has revealed little of himself over the years. But those who know him well say that he shares with Bush an old-fashioned sense of public service. His friends say the real key to Baker`s success, however, has been his fiercely competitive nature and his constant enthusiasm for fresh challenges.
A confessed workaholic, he is on the job from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and seldom has taken a vacation.
Most ambitious Washington officeholders who find themselves forced to work that kind of schedule do so for only a few years, then get out to reap their reward in the private sector. But not Baker, who at age 58 retains his youthful vigor, his taut athletic build and his appetite for hard work. He says he has signed on for eight years as secretary of state.
Asked if he doesn`t sometimes regret the time away from family and other pursuits, Baker says: ”Yeah, but you only come this way one time, and I think that this is something that my family not only accepts but is proud of. But I do sometimes worry about the extent to which I will be able to get to my ranch.”
He and his second wife, Susan, have eight children in all. All are grown except 11-year-old Mary Bonner, the only child they had together.
”I do make time for her, and in the 3 1/2 years I was at Treasury I would take off to go to her plays and recitals, and I will continue to do that,” he says. ”I can do this job and not neglect that, and I will not neglect that.”
He finds relaxation in the same outdoor pursuits that attract Bush:
playing tennis and golf, hunting, and wade-fishing in the Texas Gulf bayous. He owns a 1,400-acre ranch near Pearsall, Tex., southwest of San Antonio, and likes to go there to hunt wild turkey and deer.
There are no permanent structures on the ranch, and he and his friends sleep in tents, often in bitterly cold weather. Some are content to be invited just once.
The walls in the den of his Washington home, which was once owned by Democratic presidential nominee Adlai A. Stevenson III, are lined with stuffed ducks and big-game trophies from an African safari he made.
Baker has strong Eastern roots dating from his family`s long association with Eastern law clients, but he also likes to cultivate a Texas image, sometimes wearing Western belts and boots with his suits and chewing Red Man tobacco.
Some of his Texas friends are less than enchanted with that. ”It`s a disgusting habit,” says one who recalled with distaste watching Baker spit tobacco juice on the greens of a golf course.
Although Baker is a multimillionaire, friends and relatives say he is not among the Texas superrich. He has never been a part of the Washington social scene and disdains a costly lifestyle.
His wife was quoted a few years ago as saying: ”Jimmy Baker and I think it`s obscene to spend a lot of money for things that aren`t important. So some of the people we know think we`re kind of stodgy.”
Ben Love, one of Baker`s close friends, describes him as a paradoxical figure-”diplomatic and conciliatory, yet tough-minded, like lemon and sugar in iced tea. He`s a Texan who went to Princeton and chews tobacco-another paradox.”
Others find a paradox in Baker`s being a regular churchgoer-like Bush, he is a member of St. Martin`s Episcopal Church in Houston-and having an earthy side to his personality. One friend says a secret of his success in working with President Reagan was that they share a taste for faintly naughty jokes.
”He cussed a blue streak and told off-color jokes,” former Budget Director David Stockman wrote in a 1986 book.
Of Baker`s toughness, Love says: ”He`s a gutsy guy who doesn`t understand the meaning of the word `lose.` He is not easily dissuaded from what he wants, but he doesn`t go out of the way to wound those who oppose him.”
Preston Moore, the cousin regarded by many as Baker`s closest friend, offers a similar evaluation. ”He and Bush are cut out of the same piece of cloth,” he says. ”Both are as tough as $2 steaks. He`s strong, but he will never kick you when you are down.”
In Houston, where everyone calls him Jimmy, his friends say one of the remarkable things about Baker is that power and fame have not changed him. When he comes home, they say, he`s the same, unassuming man he was 30 years ago.
”He`s a low-key, old-shoe, easy-to-talk-to sort of fellow,” says Edward W. ”Mike” Kelley, a Texan who is a Federal Reserve Board governor in Washington. ”He`s as comfortable with a Mexican hunting guide as he is with the head of a European central bank.”
”One thing you can`t find, even among the few Democrats we have here, is anyone who will say an unkind word about Jimmy,” says Jack S. Blanton, an oil company executive and chairman of the board of regents of the University of Texas. ”He has enjoyed staggering respect in this city.”
Baker ran into controversy recently over his retention of substantial stock holdings in a New York bank holding company that has $4.5 billion in loans to Third World nations. He held the stock in a qualified blind trust while he was treasury secretary and making decisions affecting bank debt, and he continued to hold it when he became secretary of state.
When that became public and started to prove damaging to Baker, he decided to sell all of his publicly quoted stocks to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. That decision, going beyond government ethical requirements, subjected Baker to a heavy penalty-huge capital-gains taxes on his holdings.
But those who are close to him were not surprised. They say that Baker prides himself above all on his integrity.
Love notes that although Baker is a founding director of Texas Commerce Bank, he took a number of decisions as treasury secretary relating to currency control that were not beneficial to the bank.
”I was anything but offended,” he says. ”I did not agree with his policies in several instances, but I say that with total affection and respect for Jim Baker.”
Lovett Baker, another Houston cousin, says, ”It wouldn`t occur to him to compromise his game plan by doing anything that was not correct.”
Moore says he once visited Baker in Washington when Baker was secretary of the treasury, and the secretary invited him along on an appointment at the Chinese embassy. Moore accepted and observed that his company, a major oil-field supply firm known as Wilson Industries, had never done any business in China but was eager to do so.
”It was just an offhand remark,” Wilson explains. ”I wasn`t asking him to help me on that. He`d throw you right out the window if you did that.”
But Baker`s antennae were instantly alert. ”Let me think about that,”
he said. He asked an aide to check the Baker stock portfolio and see if he owned any shares in Wilson Industries, and the aide replied that he held 50 shares, worth about $1,500.
”Sorry, Preston, you can`t go,” Baker said.
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Baker was born April 28, 1930, in Houston. He is actually the fourth James A. Baker.
His greatgrandfather, Judge James A. Baker, moved to Houston from Huntsville, Tex., in 1872 to join what became known as Baker & Botts, now one of Houston`s Big Three law firms.
The judge`s son, known as Capt. James A. Baker because of his rank in the Houston Light Guard, a fraternal order and drill team, also served in the firm and became a towering figure in the development of Houston. A Houston businessman, William Marsh Rice, had left funds for the establishment of what became Rice University, and Capt. Baker was trustee of the endowment. He focused on lending money for the construction of large downtown office buildings.
”Baker and his friends literally contributed to the building of modern Houston,” Joseph Pratt and Kenneth Lipartito wrote in their history of Baker & Botts.
Capt. Baker`s son, James A. Baker Jr., followed him into Baker & Botts and worked for the firm 54 years. He was the father of the secretary of state. William Barnett of Baker & Botts says he believes Baker is a reflection both of his grandfather and his father. ”Capt. Baker, like Jimmy, was a man of extraordinary integrity, a doer, a very decisive man,” he says. ”But like his father, Jimmy is one of the nicest, most considerate people I`ve ever known.” He says Baker`s father used to call in young lawyers and lend them money interest-free to buy their first homes.
Baker has often described his father as a strict disciplinarian but also expresses great affection for him. ”He spent a tremendous amount of time with me,” he says. ”We hunted together, played tennis together. He was a wonderful father, and he and I had a terrific relationship.”
He says he profited from his father`s pressures on him to succeed. But family members believe these pressures had an opposite effect on Baker`s sister Bonner. In college she suffered a nervous breakdown and spent the next 30 years in and out of mental institutions, diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia. She now lives in Washington.
Baker`s mother, Bonner Means Baker, lives in Houston. She is 94 and in poor health, and Baker visits her often.
Those who have known Baker all his life say that, even as a child, he was exceptional.
”He has always been a leader,” says the Federal Reserve`s Kelley, who grew up a block away from Baker. ”When we were playing boys` sports, he was always captain of the team. There are a few people like Jim, born with a high level of nervous energy, physical drive and stamina and intelligence. Put those together and you have the raw material of a very powerful person.”
Baker was president of his class several times at the private Kinkaid School he attended in Houston, and one former teacher called him ”the most outstanding kid in the school.” He was also a member of the student council after he switched to the exclusive Hill School in Pottstown, Pa., which his father also had attended.
Baker went on to Princeton University, also his father`s alma mater, and was captain of the tennis team. Among his classmates was former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci. After graduating in 1952 with a degree in English, Baker entered the Marine Corps with a commission as a lieutenant. The Korean War was in full swing, but Baker spent most of his two-year enlistment on a ship in the Mediterranean.
In 1954 he entered the University of Texas Law School, again following in his father`s footsteps. By then he had married his college sweetheart, Mary Stuart McHenry, who had grown up in Dayton, across the street from a relative of George Bush`s, and they had had their first child.
When he graduated from law school, Baker & Botts had an antinepotism rule, which prevented him from joining the firm. So he went to Andrews & Kurth, a middle-sized firm.
”He was obviously an outstanding guy,” Barnett says. ”People at Baker & Botts now ask about his being excluded from the firm, `How the hell did we let that happen?` ”
Robert S. Weatherall, who joined Andrews & Kurth at the same time, says,
”Everybody knew he was a remarkable talent, destined for something above the average.”
Alfred H. Ebert Jr., a managing partner at Andrews & Kurth, also recalls that Baker had a great sense of humor and was something of a prankster in the firm. Weatherall, he says, had a habit of saying of certain people, ”That guy`s a real toad.” So when Weatherall and Baker were given their first private offices, Baker took advantage of Weatherall`s absence to have a painter put ”Mr. Toad” on the door to Weatherall`s office.
