2:00

America today is a proud, free

2:02

nation, decent and

2:05

civil, a place we

2:07

cannot help but love. George

2:10

H. W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan in

2:12

January 1989. Ken

2:15

interviewed the new Republican president one week after

2:17

he moved into the White House. Just

2:20

me and him and one adviser in the Oval

2:22

Office. I said,

2:24

are you concerned that you're following

2:26

this president who was so good

2:28

on television and frankly, you

2:31

don't have a reputation of being very good on

2:33

television? He said, you know, I've been six foot

2:35

three since I was 18 years

2:37

old and people have always thought I was

2:39

a little guy. And so

2:42

this is where the humility and even

2:44

an insecurity came out with him, which

2:46

made him very real, that he realized

2:48

he could never be the communicator that

2:50

Reagan, his predecessor was. The

2:53

former vice president wanted to be a low

2:55

key chief executive. When his

2:57

speechwriters handed him drafts full of sweeping

2:59

language, he'd scribble in the margins. That's

3:02

not me. The

3:04

hand remains extended. The

3:07

sleeves are rolled up and

3:09

now we must produce. He

3:11

always said, you know, I'm

3:13

not interested in what he called

3:16

stagecraft. He said it was

3:18

some disdain. George Bush may

3:20

have hated stagecraft, but he needed

3:22

it badly. The national

3:24

media called him a wimp, a

3:27

follower and chronically indecisive. Ken

3:30

actually thought that Bush's humility was kind of

3:32

endearing. But as a

3:34

White House correspondent, he found the Bush

3:37

administration deeply annoying to cover because

3:39

there wasn't much to cover. We

3:41

were going to the briefings, trying to

3:44

arrange interviews, but it wasn't leading to much. We

3:47

were running into a lot of brick

3:49

walls. Were you feeling frustrated? Sure,

3:51

there was a lot of frustration. They

3:54

weren't generating stories and

3:56

it was shaping up that this might

3:58

be frankly a boring presidency. In

4:01

his first year in office, Bush got featured

4:03

on the nightly news just one-third as often

4:05

as Reagan had been. Ken

4:08

could feel the White House beat becoming

4:10

irrelevant, and he was desperate to find

4:12

some news. So I talked

4:14

to many, many people, people who my colleagues

4:16

might not think were worth talking to, just

4:18

on the idea that maybe I'll pick up

4:20

a tidbit or something that would lead somewhere

4:23

else and have a good story out

4:25

of it. One of the

4:27

people he checked in with was a Republican

4:29

PR consultant named Sheila Tate. She

4:31

didn't work in the White House, but she had

4:33

been Bush's press secretary during the 1988 campaign. She

4:37

knew the president very well, so it was a good

4:40

potential source there, and so we decided to

4:42

go to lunch. I believe

4:44

we went to the Hey Adams, a really block

4:46

from the White House just across the street. After

4:49

a bit of small talk, Ken got straight

4:51

to the point. I just said

4:53

very bluntly, it doesn't seem like a lot of things

4:55

are going on at the White House these days. Is

4:58

there any story out there that hasn't come out

5:00

yet? With that question hanging

5:02

in the air, Ken's source looked down

5:05

at her plate. And

5:08

there was unfinished broccoli there that she

5:10

hadn't touched, and she sort of

5:12

sat back in her chair, and

5:14

then she said, have you heard the

5:16

President Bush banned broccoli on Air

5:19

Force One? And I said, no, tell

5:21

me more. The

5:25

story Ken Walsh heard that day would

5:28

cause pandemonium in Washington, D.C. and all

5:30

over the country. That

5:32

national frenzy would change the fate of

5:34

a vegetable, and maybe even alter

5:37

the course of a president. Well,

5:39

there's a bit of a brouhaha in Washington

5:41

over the president's eating habits of all things.

5:43

He is fed up with broccoli, the stock

5:45

and the talk. Mom, this is it. The

5:47

president doesn't like it, and I don't like

5:49

it, and I don't want to do it

5:51

either. I think the thing that we learned

5:53

is you don't mess with broccoli. This

6:01

is one year, 1990, Bush

6:04

versus Broccoli. Hey,

6:12

this is Mary Harris, host of Slate's

6:14

daily news podcast, What Next? Slate's

6:17

mission has always been to cut through the

6:19

noise, boldly and provocatively.

6:22

This election season and Supreme Court term

6:24

are no different. Important

6:26

coverage like this, though, it would not be possible

6:28

without the support of our Slate Plus members. So

6:31

I'm going to invite you to join

6:33

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7:04

that is three months for

7:06

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7:09

sign up now at slate.com. I'm

7:18

the only press secretary in history

7:20

to be appointed by two presidents,

7:22

back to back, President

7:25

Reagan and President Bush. Marlon

7:27

Fitzwater first got to know George H.W.

7:29

Bush when Bush was vice president. In

7:32

their years working together, the two men

7:34

became very close friends. They

7:37

often bonded over meals. I

7:39

think it was because he wanted somebody

7:41

that understood him and

7:44

that was not going to ask him a

7:46

lot of questions. Almost everybody

7:48

else in the world, if they get to go

7:50

to dinner privately with the president, they want to

7:52

start asking him questions about their issue. Not

7:56

me. I wanted to eat

7:58

my pork and forget it. So

8:00

we got along fine. How would

8:02

you describe President Bush's eating habits? Well, they

8:04

were strange, and it's just that he'd eat

8:07

almost anything in the world. In

8:10

1989, Bush was spotted

8:12

at a Houston hotel crumbling Butterfinger

8:14

candy bars into Oat Bran. But

8:17

he was best known for another snack food

8:20

indulgence. He somehow fell

8:22

in during the campaign of eating pork rinds.

8:25

And virtually everybody who traveled with him

8:27

thought they were the most ugly, distasteful

8:32

thing you could possibly eat. And he would

8:34

snarf those babies up. But

8:36

there were some foods that Bush couldn't stomach.

8:39

They did have a habit of pushing the vegetables off

8:41

to the edge of the plate. He

8:44

didn't like broccoli, and

8:46

I don't think he cared too much for

8:49

cauliflower and, of course, in the White House.

8:51

I mean, you have chefs and cooks, and

8:54

they prepare the best food around. So if

8:56

you don't like something, chances

8:58

are it's your own fault. How

9:00

did Barbara Bush feel about her

9:02

husband's eating habits? Well, she

9:04

thought they could be better. Barbara

9:06

tried to convince her husband to eat a

9:08

healthier diet, encouragement that

9:11

he described as vegetable totalitarianism.

9:14

By the time he was in the White House, she'd

9:16

pretty much given up that fight. No

9:18

matter what the First Lady or anyone else said,

9:21

President Bush was just saying no to

9:24

broccoli in particular. He didn't

9:26

want to eat it in the White House, or in

9:28

a car, on a train, on

9:30

a boat, or on Air Force One. The

9:33

food is prepared and served by

9:35

Air Force stewards. I

9:38

think the President must have told one of them

9:40

that he didn't like broccoli

9:42

and didn't want him to serve it. This

9:45

is the original page where I broke

9:47

the story. Washington Whispers, which is the

9:49

name of our sort of gossip column

9:51

in U.S. News at the time. 1990

10:00

under the headline against the green. After

10:03

eight years of swallowing his pride, George Bush

10:05

is enjoying a taste of victory. The

10:08

president has banned broccoli on Air Force One. As

10:11

Vice President Bush often complained that... I

10:13

suspect that story is 100% accurate. Very

10:17

few stories are in that category. The

10:20

facts of the story really were known to a

10:22

lot of people. And...

10:25

This wasn't like a closely held state secret. No, it

10:27

wasn't. And nobody was trying to keep it that way.

10:30

He didn't care and he probably was

10:32

surprised that they would have a story out

10:34

of it. I thought

10:36

initially it would be a fun story.

10:39

An unusual thing. And that's the essence

10:41

of news. Something unusual, something

10:43

new. We were in a news

10:45

desert there for a while. It was just something,

10:47

a legitimate story that

10:49

nobody else had and nobody else

10:51

dreamed of. US News and World

10:54

Report has discovered that the leader

10:56

of the free world has banished

10:58

broccoli from Air Force One. When

11:01

you hear that this is in the press, what's the first

11:03

thing that you do as the press secretary? I

11:06

didn't really see a value right off

11:08

the bat in the sense of trying

11:10

to initiate coverage or anything like that.

11:12

But I did believe that if anybody

11:14

raised the issue or asked about it,

11:17

that we should... Just

11:19

didn't admit it, yes. He didn't like broccoli.

11:23

And I turned to my own experience, of

11:25

course. And I'm one of the millions and

11:27

millions of young boys in America who don't

11:30

like one or another green vegetables

11:33

and have been chastised for it

11:35

by their mothers and fathers. And

11:38

I knew exactly what he felt like. I knew

11:41

exactly what he was saying. And

11:43

I said, I'll bet you most people in

11:45

America do. That was

11:47

how Marlon Fitzwater saw it in Washington, D.C.

11:51

2800 miles away in Southern California, Lisa

11:54

Cork had a very different reaction. Here's

11:57

this fantastic vegetable that's so

11:59

good for you. you. You can't ban broccoli.

12:03

In March 1990, Lisa was 24 years

12:05

old. She worked in marketing

12:08

for Appio Produce Sales in Guadalupe,

12:10

California. We would sell on

12:12

a daily basis over 70 different

12:14

fruits and vegetables. Cauliflower,

12:17

spinach, celery, red leaf,

12:19

green leaf, romaine, green

12:22

onions, kale. And we

12:24

were probably one of the top three

12:26

broccoli growers in the United States. Broccoli

12:29

has been around for thousands of years, but it

12:31

wasn't until the early 1920s that

12:34

it became a commercial product in the United

12:36

States. It didn't take long

12:38

for the green stock to get a bad

12:40

reputation. In 1928, the

12:43

New Yorker published a cartoon showing a mother

12:45

and daughter at the dinner table. The

12:48

mom says, it's broccoli, dear. The

12:50

child responds, I say it's

12:52

spinach, and I say the hell with it. Lisa

12:57

heard those kinds of complaints, and a whole lot

12:59

more. Mushy, gray,

13:02

and if it's overcooked, it can

13:04

have a pretty distinctive odor.

13:07

Those were the common, you know, dislikes.

13:10

That gray, mushy, boiled mess is likely

13:13

what George Bush got fed in New

13:15

England as a kid in the 1930s.

13:18

But five decades later, the

13:20

much maligned vegetable was having a

13:22

renaissance. Just wait till you

13:24

taste my broccoli. Whether I

13:26

mix it with the exotic straw mushrooms and

13:29

bamboo shoots in my latest farm fresh mixture.

13:32

From 1980 to 1988, the average

13:34

American doubled their broccoli consumption. Some

13:37

people loaded up their plates for the health benefits.

13:40

But that wasn't the only reason. The giant's

13:42

rich, delicious cheese sauce has three kinds

13:44

of cheese, so it's good broccoli, tastes

13:46

more delicious, is cauliflower more flavorful. Even

13:49

without the orange goo, plenty of Americans

13:51

loved how broccoli tasted, because by

13:53

1990, cooking techniques had come

13:56

a very long way. Broccoli

13:58

went, you know, freshly prepared and not... over

14:00

cooked. It's beautiful. I

14:02

guarantee you've never had anything like

14:04

it. It tastes fresh and just

14:06

tastes delicious. For Lisa,

14:09

there was no better time in history

14:11

to be trumpeting broccoli's virtues. And

14:14

then, on Monday morning, March 19th, 1990, she

14:18

walked into her office and got hit

14:20

with a full-on vegetable crisis. The

14:23

guys start rolling in and they're getting

14:25

the sense of this story from the

14:27

East Coast buyers who'd been, you know,

14:29

three hours ahead of us going, hey,

14:31

did you hear the news? The industry

14:33

was buzzing. One of the sales

14:35

guys would take a call going, God, yeah, Noah

14:37

hasn't heard about the broccoli. And then two desks

14:39

down, oh my God, somebody's talked about the

14:42

broccoli story. He hates it. He has always

14:44

hated it. Now with a snap of his

14:46

fingers, broccoli can be banned from the presidential

14:48

table. You're in the

14:51

broccoli business. Does that seem

14:53

like really bad news for you? Well,

14:56

it wasn't great news, you

14:58

know, because you think about the potential influence,

15:01

right? And so it

15:04

felt like news that

15:06

couldn't go unchallenged. By

15:10

this point, the story was everywhere. And

15:12

Lisa and her coworkers were watching the

15:14

clock, waiting for someone to defend broccoli's

15:16

honor. You know, somebody should do

15:18

something. And we

15:21

had kind of like two to three hours,

15:23

four hours of this. So it's 11 o'clock in

15:25

the morning and we're like, you know,

15:27

it doesn't sound like anybody's going to do something. And

15:29

then we're like, we should do something. It

15:32

was then that Lisa had a big idea. We

15:35

only send out truckload volumes

15:38

of produce. That's what we do every

15:40

second is we send out truckloads of

15:43

broccoli. What if we sent

15:45

a truckload to the president? It's

15:47

really the only thing that you can do. The only

15:49

thing your company does is send truckloads of things. It's

15:52

the only arrow in your quiver. Absolutely.

15:55

And so it was so organic and you

15:57

could just feel the shift when we.

16:00

said, well, we should just send a truck

16:02

load. Very

16:04

quickly, Lisa recruited a dozen growers

16:06

to donate fresh produce and

16:08

a freight company agreed to pay the shipping cost.

16:11

The plan was coming together. So we

16:13

have these cardboard boxes of fresh broccoli.

16:15

They're filled with what we would call

16:17

an ice slurry to keep it cold

16:19

and keep it fresh. And

16:22

the truck that arrived to pick up

16:24

the broccoli is kind of the

16:27

classic, you know, big massive semi

16:29

truck trailer. We fill the truck

16:31

from the front to

16:33

the back, 1008 cartons,

16:37

and that equated to approximately 20,000 pounds,

16:41

which when you do the math works out to be

16:43

about 10 tons. What were you hoping

16:46

to accomplish? We just wanted to

16:48

be heard. And we really

16:50

want America to know that if

16:53

you don't like it, it's probably something to do with

16:55

how you're cooking it because it's just too good

16:57

and too good for you to kind of walk

16:59

away from even though the president decided

17:01

that that's what he wanted to do. Do

17:04

you remember watching the broccoli truck

17:06

pull away? Absolutely. Absolutely.

17:08

I think we all just

17:10

kind of stood there and

17:12

went, wow, you know,

17:14

we've done it like we have a truck going

17:18

to Washington DC full

17:20

of broccoli for the president. The

17:23

broccoli began its cross country journey on

17:26

Tuesday, March 20.

17:28

That day, Lisa sent out a press release via

17:30

fax. It was the first one she'd

17:32

ever written. For immediate release, 10 tons

17:36

of broccoli donated to President

17:38

Bush, Washington DC.

17:41

President Bush will smile each time

17:43

he sees broccoli from now on.

17:46

Lisa's press release said that broccoli

17:49

was inexpensive, helpful, nutritious, and

17:51

delicious. It bragged that the

17:53

green vegetable had no cholesterol and was high

17:55

in dietary fiber. And it urged the broccoli

17:58

industry to dish up some new recipes. One

18:01

that might encourage the president to give

18:03

broccoli one more try. We feel strongly

18:05

that a voice that is heard around

18:08

the nation can influence

18:10

the public he represents. Before

18:12

President Bush eats another pork rind,

18:15

the nation will know broccoli

18:17

is a better substitute. There's

18:20

a line in there about how two boxes are

18:23

going to be presented to President Bush. Is that

18:25

a plan that you'd worked out with the White

18:27

House? No. No.

18:30

Not at all. We'd

18:32

had no contact with the White House. In

18:34

24 hours, that would change. A

18:38

simmering dispute between President Bush and

18:40

American broccoli growers is fast coming

18:42

to a head. We'll

18:46

be back in a minute. If

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Bank. FDIC. On

19:30

March 20th, 1990, Lisa Corke sent

19:32

10 tons of broccoli to Washington,

19:34

D.C., faxed out a press release, and

19:36

went to bed. The next day,

19:38

a Wednesday, she got up before the sun rose

19:41

and headed to the office. So

19:43

I roll in, you know, my normal time, 4.30. And

19:47

the phones are already ringing.

19:51

And who was calling was the

19:53

world's media. It all

19:55

started last week with a vicious and

19:57

unprovoked attack by the president. out

20:00

broccoli growers had a fit. The

20:02

farmers are sending tons of broccoli to

20:04

Washington hoping to persuade Mr. Bush to

20:06

restore the vegetable to the presidential menu.

20:10

Lisa's press release had worked. Her

20:12

truckload of broccoli was a sensation. And

20:15

this was just the start. It would

20:17

take nearly a week for the veggies to make

20:19

their way from California to Washington, D.C. In

20:22

the meantime, Lisa's phone didn't stop

20:24

ringing. We had a call from

20:27

Good Morning America. And one of

20:29

the things that they wanted to do was track the

20:31

trip. And we were just

20:33

a little bit nervous about being too exact

20:35

with the location, you know, in case, I

20:37

don't know, someone decided to hijack our truckload

20:39

of broccoli. Were you really worried that

20:42

the broccoli truck was going to get hijacked? We

20:45

had some concerns. Probably

20:48

not rational concerns, but you just

20:51

never know, right? To

20:53

avoid a possible vegetable hijacking, they

20:55

gave out the truck's location on

20:57

a 12-hour delay. Now

21:00

everyone in America could follow the

21:02

broccoli's progress in almost real time.

21:05

And some very powerful people were keeping a

21:07

close eye on the shipment. Suddenly,

21:09

we had a call from the White House. And

21:12

it was President Bush's media

21:15

team. What was the tone of that phone

21:17

call? Tirth.

21:20

And questioning. We

21:22

hear that there is a truckload of broccoli destined

21:25

for the president. And

21:28

we need to know what your intentions are. Did

21:30

you think that maybe you had made a mistake? I

21:35

have a feeling that that probably went through my mind.

21:38

Oh, Buggery, what have we done? Well,

21:43

I was at that point that I was

21:45

a little concerned that this story might turn

21:47

on us. White House Press

21:49

Secretary Marlon Fitzwater. I

21:51

was getting nervous about it. The broccoli manufacturers,

21:54

they want to come in and see the

21:56

president. I'm thinking, this is it. We

21:59

still didn't realize. have a huge plan.

22:01

You know, maybe when the truck got there, we

22:04

thought maybe, well, if nobody's going to meet with

22:06

us, we'll throw a couple of cases over the

22:08

fence and run. They wanted to

22:10

get in the game. So if

22:12

somebody went to the president and told him what was

22:14

going on. It was

22:16

now up to George Bush to decide how he

22:19

wanted to play this whole broccoli situation. But

22:22

on March 22nd, 1990, he had a

22:24

lot more than vegetables on his plate.

22:27

A short while earlier, Lithuania had

22:29

become the first Soviet Republic to

22:31

declare its independence from the USSR.

22:34

Soviet laws declared the parliament would

22:36

no longer apply in Lithuania. And

22:38

the word socialist and Soviet would

22:41

be dropped from the official title.

22:44

It was a seismic moment, one that looked

22:46

like it could reshape the entire globe. Standing

22:49

on the south lawn of the White House, reporters

22:51

pressed Bush on what might come next.

22:54

He was asked what he would do

22:56

if the Soviet response turned violent. His

22:58

answer was a Bush classic, a study

23:00

in caution. Stop right there. I

23:02

am not going to make an

23:04

answer to a hypothetical question of that

23:07

nature. What possible good would come from

23:09

the president of the United States standing

23:11

halfway around the world, speculating on something

23:13

that he doesn't want to see happen?

23:16

I was there. Yeah. Yeah. And

23:18

it was a beautiful day outside.

23:21

Ken Walsh of US News and World

23:23

Report heard Bush's answer about Soviet aggression.

23:26

But on that beautiful spring morning, Ken

23:28

couldn't help thinking about his big scoop on

23:30

the broccoli ban aboard Air Force One. I mean,

23:33

you know, as a reporter, my feeling was, well,

23:36

how is he going to address this? You know,

23:38

where does this end? After

23:40

those questions about Lithuania, someone

23:42

piped up and asked for a

23:44

broccoli statement. Well, we'd

23:47

talked about it in the Oval Office before he

23:49

went out there. And

23:51

then he went out and did this. Now, look,

23:54

this is the last statement I'm going to have on broccoli.

23:58

There are truckloads of broccoli. at this

24:00

very minute descending on Washington. My

24:03

family is divided. Here

24:07

the president pauses for four seconds, considering

24:10

what he's going to say and how he's going to say

24:12

it. And then George

24:14

Bush lets loose. I

24:17

do not like broccoli and

24:19

I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and

24:22

my mother made me eat it and I'm president

24:24

of the United States and I'm not going to

24:26

eat any more broccoli. Now,

24:29

he calls back at

24:31

the White House in this grand flourish

24:33

and he wasn't accustomed to doing

24:36

that sort of thing. He was not into

24:38

stagecraft. For me, that was good. He's basically

24:40

confirming the story in a very

24:42

dramatic way. As he

24:44

makes that dramatic flourish, a very

24:46

slight grin spreads across Bush's face.

24:49

He understands that all of this is

24:51

funny, but he's not exactly joking around. In

24:54

his journal the next day, the president wrote, I

24:57

refuse to give an inch on this. I

24:59

can't stand the stuff. It smells up everything

25:02

and I'm against it. It was really

25:04

this moment of awakening around, okay,

25:07

this is kind

25:09

of done. She was never going

25:11

to give broccoli another chance. Never.

25:14

Never. And immediately

25:19

we get the call from the White House

25:21

saying, you will have nothing further to

25:23

do with broccoli in the president. That's

25:26

over. But

25:29

that truck that Lisa had loaded with 10

25:31

tons of broccoli, it wasn't

25:33

turning around. Let's

25:38

take a quick break. And

25:52

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25:55

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26:46

The broccoli story had started as a single

26:48

paragraph in US News and World Report. Now

26:51

after just a handful of days it

26:53

had become a national obsession and

26:56

everyone in America was weighing in. As

26:58

far as I'm concerned that's just one more

27:00

thing that President Bush is wrong about. Way

27:03

to go Mr. President at last you

27:05

can stop hiding the broccoli under the

27:07

mashed potatoes. A White

27:09

House official said Bush was liberating America

27:11

from the masochism of the fitness craze.

27:14

The Washington Post critic claimed that

27:16

the president was rejecting his wasp

27:18

heritage. The New Hampshire chef

27:20

speculated that the real reason the 65 year

27:23

old Bush hated broccoli is that

27:25

it gives older people gas. Because

27:28

all of that swirled in the air. Lisa

27:31

Corks 10 tons of broccoli just

27:33

kept moving forward. So

27:35

every night when the truck stopped for dinner

27:38

they would give us a ring and say you know we're in

27:40

Tucson Arizona we're in Dallas Texas.

27:43

That's how America kept up with

27:45

where the broccoli truck was. Lisa

27:49

knew that her fleet of vegetables would not

27:51

be landing on George Bush's dinner plate. But

27:53

at that news conference on the south lawn of

27:56

the White House the president did something unexpected. He

27:59

left an opening. one that was wide

28:01

enough to drive a broccoli truck straight through.

28:03

But Bart, wait a minute. For

28:06

the broccoli vote out there, Barbara loves

28:08

broccoli. She's tried

28:10

to make me eat it. She eats it

28:12

all the time herself. So she can go

28:14

out and meet the caravan of broccoli that's

28:16

coming in from Washington. Outside, thank you. The

28:19

shuffle pass to Barbara Bush was

28:22

such a gift. It enabled

28:24

the story to continue

28:26

in a way that was going

28:28

to be positive. They gave

28:30

us the phone number for Barbara Bush's press secretary.

28:33

And probably within two hours,

28:36

we had a date and time for

28:38

a ceremony on the White House lawn. That

28:41

ceremony would be in just a couple of days,

28:43

and Lisa and her colleagues had to get ready.

28:46

They put together a cookbook with

28:48

recipes for broccoli soups, stir fries,

28:50

and casseroles. And they made

28:52

up matching t-shirts with a cartoon broccoli logo,

28:54

a cute little stock

28:57

and running shoes, sprinting its way to

28:59

Washington. And when we wore

29:01

them, we were blown

29:03

away by the number of

29:05

people who stopped us. And

29:08

they wanted photos. And everybody

29:10

would always recount their own

29:12

personal household story of broccoli.

29:15

This is how I cook it. This is how my mom

29:17

cooks it. God, you're the president, banned broccoli. Broccoli's a

29:19

great vegetable. It was just so overwhelmingly supportive

29:21

and positive. There must have been at least

29:23

one guy who was like, I hate broccoli

29:25

and I'm against you. Maybe

29:28

he was the one who just didn't come up and talk to

29:30

us. Ha ha ha. On

29:34

Sunday, March 25th, Lisa's special delivery

29:36

from California only arrived in the

29:39

nation's capital. I was in

29:41

the Oval Office, and I had been told the

29:43

broccoli truck was supposed to arrive at a given

29:45

time. And then I thought, well, maybe a little

29:47

pickup truck, you know? George

29:49

Bush's press secretary, Marlon Fitzwater. So I

29:51

looked out there and I said, well,

29:53

here it comes. My

29:56

God, this is a big truck. This

29:58

is like a semi-truck. We're

30:01

on the sideboard on

30:03

this truck, driving. I think we maybe

30:05

made one loop around the White House before

30:07

we got pulled over by the Washington DC

30:10

police and said, you know, you can't do

30:12

this here, right? What

30:14

were you thinking as you're on the sideboard?

30:16

Like, what have I done with my life

30:18

to bring me to this moment? You

30:22

know, I can only just remember being

30:24

absolutely euphoric. It

30:26

was beyond my wildest dreams as a 24-year-old

30:29

to be riding on the sideboard of a

30:31

truck at the back of the White House, getting ready

30:34

to present broccoli to Barbara Bush. The

30:37

big event came on Monday, March 26th. Lisa

30:40

wore a green blazer with a

30:42

broccoli corsage. Gosh, I just remember

30:44

the absolute precision to the minute. And

30:47

like, you know, three minutes until arrival, two

30:49

minutes until arrival, and then here come the dogs. The

30:51

dogs came first and you could hear their nails clacking

30:55

on the floorboards. And then there's Barbara

30:57

Bush, walks down the row and shakes

30:59

her hands and, you know, nice to

31:01

meet you. I love broccoli. With

31:04

that, they headed outside, led by

31:07

the Bush's English Springer Spaniel, Millie. Their

31:10

destination? The same South Lawn

31:12

where the president had just told the world

31:14

that broccoli was dead to him forever. There

31:17

was this huge semi-circle of

31:20

media representing every news agency of

31:22

any merit in the world. And

31:25

that was the part that just, I took

31:27

my breath away. It felt like a cast

31:30

of thousands. Barbara

31:32

Bush didn't have a microphone, so this is hard

31:34

to hear. But the first

31:36

thing she says, directed to all those reporters,

31:38

is, where are you when we're doing

31:40

a literacy event? Where

31:42

are you when we're doing a literacy event? She

31:45

then takes her place alongside the guest of honor,

31:48

a heaping stack of green vegetables

31:50

unloaded from Lisa's truck. Here

31:53

we have this table set up with three

31:56

cartons of broccoli, two unopened, one with loose

31:58

broccoli spread across the table. How

32:00

did the broccoli look? Did it look appetizing? Stunning.

32:04

Stunning. Fresh, green, vibrant,

32:07

healthy, delicious. After

32:09

the President of the United Fresh Fruit and

32:12

Vegetable Association says a few words, the

32:14

first lady takes the stage and explains that

32:16

her husband is a lost cause. My

32:19

tiny obstetrician, the president will

32:22

never get a rose. Plus,

32:25

I'm never going to eat more fruit

32:27

than ever to thank you. That's

32:29

why he's so married, 45 years old. A

32:33

moment later, Mrs. Bush gets handed a sprig

32:35

of broccoli wrapped in a white ribbon. That's

32:38

great. Very great. A

32:41

million, I thank you. A million. The

32:45

White House ceremony lasted only about six

32:47

minutes. When it was done, Lisa

32:49

got in a cab and headed to a local

32:52

food bank to donate those 10 tons of broccoli.

32:55

And that was it. Six days after

32:57

she'd written her first ever press

32:59

release, Lisa's DC broccoli adventure was

33:01

over. I mean, there was a

33:03

tinge of exhaustion, but

33:05

it was pure joy. I

33:07

was in an industry that I loved, the product

33:10

that I loved, doing work that I

33:12

loved. And I just

33:14

knew that I was in the career

33:17

I would be in forever. It

33:19

makes me teary to the state to think about

33:21

that moment and just realizing how

33:23

much I loved marketing fresh

33:26

fruits and vegetables. For Lisa

33:28

Cork, loving broccoli was the secret to a

33:30

happy life. And for broccoli

33:32

itself, getting damned to culinary hell

33:34

by the leader of the free world turned

33:37

out to be a pretty sweet deal. Lisa's

33:39

produce company claimed that broccoli had reaped

33:41

a hundred million dollars in free publicity

33:43

and that its sales shot up by

33:45

40 percent. And

33:48

George Bush, heating broccoli

33:51

and leaving into that hatred kind of

33:53

became his thing. My

33:55

apologies to all for speaking before

33:57

the broccoli and leaving.

34:01

President Bush joked about broccoli at least 70

34:04

times during his one term in office. He

34:07

said he preferred giving speeches over breakfast because

34:09

he knew broccoli wouldn't be served. He

34:12

also suggested that broccoli killed the

34:14

dinosaurs and President Zachary Taylor, and

34:16

he wasn't about to take that

34:18

risk himself. I had

34:20

the Secret Service come over here this afternoon and

34:23

do that usual security sweep before

34:25

a presidential visit. The

34:27

place was clean. No

34:29

broccoli. How

34:33

did the whole broccoli incident change

34:36

President Bush's image? Well

34:39

I think it did help a little bit

34:41

at least in the sense that he

34:43

was not afraid, that people

34:45

could see he thought

34:47

this was funny and he was not

34:50

afraid to be funny. Looking back

34:52

at the coverage, as you

34:54

can imagine, there's a thousand different angles, but

34:56

one of the ones that I found interesting

34:58

was finally Bush

35:00

takes a firm stance on something. I

35:02

mean, waffles on Lithuanian, this and that, but

35:05

by golly you know where he stands on

35:07

broccoli. No waffles on broccoli. On

35:09

broccoli he'll say exactly what he feels, but if

35:11

you're asking him about anything else he'll

35:13

be wishy-washy. We can't get a straight answer out of

35:15

the guy. You know that's

35:18

very interesting because later the same

35:20

year, Saddam Hussein went

35:22

into Kuwait and

35:24

the president took charge immediately. What

35:28

Iraq has done violates

35:30

every norm of international

35:32

law. You know

35:34

I don't know whether this incident, broccoli

35:36

was in his mind at all, but

35:39

I do know the press was

35:41

waiting for us on the lawn where they always

35:43

are and the president

35:46

looked down and he looked up and

35:48

he said this will not stand.

35:50

This will not stand, this aggression

35:53

against Kuwait. And

35:58

that was it. when

36:00

he was talking about broccoli. Yes! This

36:02

will not stand. I got my marching

36:04

orders. I'll admit it.

36:07

I'm not totally convinced that George

36:09

Bush's war on broccoli inspired him

36:11

to launch Operation Desert Storm. But

36:13

consider this. During his first

36:16

year in office, he was seen as too

36:18

boring to get on the evening news. Then

36:20

Bush lashed out at a vegetable, and

36:23

the American media couldn't get enough. This

36:26

President Bush may have sounded like a

36:28

petulant child complaining about yucky green stuff,

36:31

but he was not a follower. Even

36:33

when a poll came out in March 1990, showing

36:36

that 79% of Americans

36:38

actually liked broccoli, he

36:40

refused to back down. And while

36:42

he definitely played up his hatred for laughs,

36:45

I can assure you that it wasn't a put-on. His

36:48

post-presidential chief of staff told me that

36:50

Bush found broccoli so disgusting that he

36:52

wouldn't eat other foods that a stalk

36:54

of broccoli had touched. Every

36:57

time there's any development with broccoli, this

36:59

story comes up. So I've benefited from

37:01

this too, quite frankly. Journalist

37:03

Ken Walsh. From start to

37:06

finish, it was a bizarre story. I'm

37:08

the first to admit that. And as

37:10

I remember, at the eulogy, at his

37:12

death, his son, George

37:14

W. Bush, brought up the broccoli story.

37:17

The man couldn't stomach vegetables, especially

37:22

broccoli. And

37:25

by the way, he passed these genetic defects

37:27

and he touched a long dash. How

37:31

do you feel about broccoli? I

37:33

don't like broccoli. No.

37:36

I probably would have been happy with Bush's diet all

37:38

his life. Will you eat

37:40

broccoli though? I will eat it, yes. I

37:43

have succumbed to the broccoli

37:45

movement. Even today, I

37:47

will say things like, Melinda,

37:49

I don't like spinach, I don't

37:52

want spinach ever. Under

37:54

any circumstance. And

37:56

I not catch myself. My God, I'm sounding

37:59

like George Bush. So I have bad

38:01

news for you. There's a truck with

38:03

10 tons of finish that's pulling into

38:05

the driveway right now. No, there's not.

38:07

Not my driveway. I

38:10

don't know. That would be scary. Next

38:18

time on One Year 1990, an art

38:21

exhibit opens in Cincinnati. It kicks off

38:23

a massive culture war. Is

38:26

that the kind of thing that we want to put in public art

38:28

galleries? Do we want to put people

38:30

having sex with animals? Do

38:32

we want to put images of people

38:35

having sex with dead people? If

38:49

you want to hear all of our One Year

38:51

episodes without any answer, you should subscribe to Slate

38:53

Plus. As a member, you'll hear

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every Slate podcast without ads and never hit

38:58

the paywall on Slate's website. And at the

39:00

end of the season, you'll be able to

39:02

hear a special behind-the-scenes conversation with our team

39:04

about how we put together our 1990 stories.

39:08

If you'd like to sign up

39:11

for Slate Plus, go to slate.com/One

39:13

Year Plus. Again, that's slate.com slash

39:15

One Year Plus. This

39:19

episode was written by Olivia Bryley

39:21

and me, Josh Levine, one year's

39:23

editorial director. Our senior producer

39:26

is Evan Chan. This

39:28

episode was produced by Olivia Bryley and

39:30

Kelly Jones. It was edited

39:32

by Joel Meyer and Evan Chan. Derek

39:34

John is Slate's executive producer of

39:36

Narrative Podcast. Her senior technical

39:38

director is Mary Jaco. Polly

39:41

Allen created the artwork for this season. Ken

39:44

Walsh is the author of Feeding the Beast, The

39:46

White House versus the Press, and a bunch more

39:48

books about the presidency. Research

39:50

help for this episode came from the

39:53

George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

39:55

You can send us feedback and ideas, memories from

39:58

1990, by One Year Up to the East. You

40:01

can call us on the 1-U-HOT month at 203-343-0777. We'd

40:07

love to hear from you. Thanks

40:31

for listening. We'll be back next week with more

40:33

from 18th. It's

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