The Shadow President Read online

  The other Miller, call him the Main Street Miller, had transformed a modestly successful family business, Cummins Engine Company, into an industrial giant with licensing deals and new plants around the world. By the 1960s, the company was selling engines for trucks, ships, farm equipment, and other purposes in more than ninety countries. At the same time, Miller created and quickly expanded the Cummins Foundation, which began to fund local charities, cultural institutions, and scholarships. The foundation supplied low-cost financing for the local school system, bought equipment for the fire department, and most notably brought in world-renowned architects, including I. M. Pei, Eero Saarinen, Robert A. M. Stern, César Pelli, and others. These architects created a showcase of more than three dozen public buildings and houses of worship. This baby boom–era construction that was followed by the end of World War II brought significant development; Columbus’s population more than doubled from about twelve thousand to twenty-six thousand from 1945 and 1970.

  Adding public art, like Henry Moore’s huge bronze arch, and parks designed by great landscape architects, Miller arranged Columbus in the way that a boy might arrange the layout of a model train set. When locals wanted more recreation options, he gave them a municipal golf course fashioned by the preeminent designer Robert Trent Jones. When housing grew scarce, he purchased 1,200 acres of farmland, pasture, and woods and created a planned community, including the most expensive new construction in the region, built around three man-made lakes.

  In every instance, Miller made sure his efforts provided opportunities for all, regardless of race, religion, or politics. In this sense, he counterbalanced one of Indiana’s other great engines of social action, the John Birch Society of Indianapolis, which was founded in 1958 by two immensely wealthy men, Robert Welch and Fred C. Koch. (Koch’s sons David and Charles would later build the most formidable private political network in the country.) The Birch Society promoted paranoid conspiracy theories, including one that insisted that communists controlled President Eisenhower, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and almost everyone else in government. This was an embarrassment to Miller and Indiana’s other more sober leaders.

  As word of Miller’s efforts extended beyond Indiana, journalists, academics, government officials, and politicians came to his Athens on the Prairie to study what he had accomplished. This attention eventually led Esquire, then one of the most influential magazines in the country, to place a photo of Miller on its cover with the headline THIS MAN OUGHT TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Inside, a long article illustrated with fifteen photos—Miller on a private jet, Miller at the New York Stock Exchange, and so on—exclaimed that the American cognoscenti, including Mayor John Lindsay of New York City, wished Miller would run for office. “He’s one of the great people of this world,” said Lindsay.

  At home in Columbus, Miller’s star turn in a national magazine became a point of pride, and fifty years later, locals still cited the endorsement as evidence that their city had been formed and led by a civic genius. In the twenty-first century, people in Columbus extolled Miller’s early leadership in race relations and recounted how, beginning in the 1950s, Cummins had opened its doors to African American factory workers and actively recruited black executives. By the 1970s, when this effort was well under way, Columbus and the larger Bartholomew County remained among the least integrated places in America. Blacks in the 1970 census represented 513 out of 27,547 people—less than 2 percent of the population. With Miller’s efforts at recruiting blacks at Cummins, the black population of Columbus had tripled forty years later.

  Although he was civic-minded and thought that diversity was a public good unto itself, Miller also thought that his efforts were good for business. Cummins benefited from his efforts to make the community more welcoming to outsiders. He readily admitted that his effort to make Columbus a “forward thinking” community helped Cummins hire business, legal, engineering, and manufacturing professionals recruited from around the world. People who came to interview for positions inspected the schools, neighborhoods, and amenities, liked what they discovered, and happily settled in what they imagined to be an ideal place. Miller also profited personally from projects like an upscale housing development called Tipton Lakes, which he built on the outskirts of the city.13

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  Thanks to Miller and the ethos he created, Mike Pence grew up in a city dedicated to progress: good education, public art, and architectural masterpieces made possible by J. Irwin Miller. Yet Columbus was a company town, and the days proceeded as they did in countless small midwestern cities. Shift times at Cummins set the pattern for local traffic on workdays, while church services determined the rhythm of life on Sundays. Civic and fraternal organizations, including the Lions Club, Loyal Order of Moose, Knights of Columbus, and Kiwanis, thrived, and the local papers, The Herald and The Republic, were filled with reports on school activities and Little League scores. One of the biggest developments in the city was the construction of a second high school, opened in 1972 to accommodate expanding enrollments. At that moment, a rivalry was established between what were then named Columbus North and Columbus East. Students at East, who were sent to the new school, thought the crosstown kids looked down on them. In a state where basketball games were practically blood feuds, East’s first victory over North was such a big event that more than forty years later, people who had been there still got excited talking about the game.

  Mike Pence entered North High School and tried to succeed as an athlete. According to his own estimate, Pence was overweight by fifty pounds but this claim may be a latter-day legend devised to show he had triumphed over adversity. In fact, a review of the publicly available photos casts doubt on this claim. According to his own estimate, he barely made the football team. (His standard, self-deprecating quip about this experience—”I was one grade above the blocking sled”—was something he would start saying in 1988 and keep saying for decades.) Fortunately for Pence, North was a big school with lots of extracurricular activities. He joined the student newspaper as a cartoonist and showed some flair for drawing panels that featured a recurring everyman character named Mortimer who got into the kind of trouble that a good boy like Mike Pence generally avoided. The creation of Mortimer gave Pence a bit of local notoriety. The debate club made him almost famous.

  High school debaters like to say their game is football for nerds, which means it is a highly competitive endeavor that requires poise, quick reflexes, and more aggression that a casual observer might imagine. Like that rare high schooler who can throw a football fifty yards, Mike Pence was a natural and already accomplished before he ever enrolled at North. Carefully dressed for each debate—one outfit was a denim leisure suit with a wide collar and an attached belt—he was remarkably composed. In middle school, he did so well in an Optimists’ debate that he advanced to a regional competition. When he reached the high school team, he finished near the top in competitions all over the state.

  Each debate experience helped Pence grow more confident in his skill; he discovered which methods worked and grew more knowledgeable about the subjects assigned, which generally revolved around civics—the Constitution was a popular topic—and current events. One of Mike’s favorite resources was an odd little book called Growth and Development of the American Constitution, a self-published volume by a Columbus-born author whose future works would include Apocalypse: The Revelation—A Historical Rendition. Intended as a junior college textbook, Growth and Development of the American Constitution never entered wide circulation, but Mike Pence read it over and over, and it informed his debate presentations.14

  Nothing a high schooler might try would be better preparation for a life in politics than the debate club. Pence’s success also brought a measure of local fame for him and his family, as each top finish produced at least a snippet in the newspaper, which often reported he was the “son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Pence.” By his senior year at North High School, Mike apparently had shed the excess pounds he
claimed to have brought with him from middle school and grown his wavy hair out so that it fell over his ears. In a school where the big men on campus were athletes, he was invisible to classmates like Mike Harris, captain of the football team, who would say, “I didn’t really know who he was.” But among the earnest nerds, Pence did stand out. He was so self-confident that he ran for class president and actually won. (Pence began to mention to classmates that he might one day become president of the United States.) His gift for public speaking earned him the emcee’s spot in the annual talent show, and when he won the state championship in public speaking, the Kiwanis Club asked him to give a talk at its weekly meeting. Finally, at the end of his senior year came a trip to Seattle and a national tournament. The Optimists, Kiwanis, Cummins Engine Company, and others contributed to pay for a teacher to accompany him.

  With more than five hundred competitors accompanied by teachers and coming from every state, the scene in Seattle resembled a national spelling bee. When a virus attacked, afflicting many of the competitors with fever and other symptoms, the drama of the event increased. Though so sick his coach, Deborah Shoultz, reported he almost collapsed “after every round,” he finished third in one category—impromptu speech—and returned a hometown hero.

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  Like most young people, Mike Pence wavered in his ambitions, one moment imagining he might get into politics and the next considering broadcasting. Whatever his choice, he knew he would do well to stay in his father’s good graces. When his older brother Gregory had come home from college and opted to sleep in rather than get up for Sunday mass, Ed Pence suddenly decided to stop helping to pay his son’s tuition. This decision replicated what the elder Pence had experienced himself, when his own strict father refused to support his education. “He was black and white,” Gregory Pence told Jane Mayer. “You were never confused where you stood.”

  When it came time for him to apply to colleges, Mike Pence thought about attending Indiana University, but when he sought advice from a local radio host, he was encouraged to consider smaller schools. He wound up at Hanover, a 1,100-student liberal arts school affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Founded in 1827 at the time of religious fervor known as the Second Great Awakening, the college was initially a seminary and would maintain its conservative Christian culture. Fraternities and sororities dominated campus life, further reinforcing the traditional feel of the place. Pence joined Phi Gamma, became house president in his sophomore year, and made the fateful keg party decision that signaled where he stood when it came to choosing between his frat brothers and the campus authorities.

  Already a very well-behaved and religious young man when he arrived at Hanover, Pence became even more serious about his faith. On his weekly walk to and from Catholic services, he talked with a friend about becoming a priest. Then, in the spring of his freshman year, he went on a weekend trip to Wilmore, Kentucky, outside Lexington, where the tiny Asbury Theological Seminary hosted an annual Christian music festival. Named after the Greek symbol for fish, which stands for Jesus’ work as a fisher of men, the Ichthus Festival had begun in 1970 and regularly attracted more than ten thousand attendees. Many were high school students whose parents permitted them to attend what was billed as the Christian Woodstock because, unlike the original festival in upstate New York, Ichthus promised a (mostly) drug-free, sex-free experience.

  At Ichthus, Pence heard conservative Christianity’s answer to pop rock and folk music. The bill included Daniel Amos, a band that was moving away from a country-inflected style to a rock-and-roll sound, and Phil Keaggy, who began his career in 1960s mainstream music, where he had real success. After a hiatus, during which he lived in a cultlike Christian commune, he returned to performing but focused on evangelical-themed music. The headliner at Ichthus ’78 was Larry Norman, regarded as the Bob Dylan of Christian music. Like Keaggy, Norman had played secular music and was so successful that he had opened for the likes of the Doors and Jimi Hendrix. When his group, People!, failed to advance after its only hit single, a cover of the Zombies’ song “I Love You,” Norman became a salaried songwriter at Capitol Records, experienced a spiritual conversion, and began walking the streets of Hollywood to discuss his faith with whomever he met. In 1978, Norman was at the top of his career as a Christian artist and would soon play on the lawn of the White House at President Carter’s request.

  For a young Catholic who had, no doubt, heard some awful guitar masses growing up in the 1960s, the Christian music at Ichthus would have been a revelation of sorts. Evangelical acts of the time played loud and sang with emotion. Many of the musicians poured the drama and struggle of their lives into their lyrics. Phil Keaggy, for example, spoke openly of taking plenty of drugs before becoming a born-again Christian. Others were radical in a way that resonated with young people who recognized the hypocrisy around them. One of Norman’s most popular songs, “Christmastime,” mocked the commercialism of the modern American holiday. The performances at Ichthus went on for two days and included some traditional gospel groups. Mike Pence was moved by what he saw and heard and would credit his experience in Kentucky with beginning his conversion to evangelicalism.

  Pence would eventually say that the concert brought about a “deep realization that what had happened on the cross in some infinitesimal way had happened for me.” He never offered details about the private and personal suffering this comment suggested. However, the transformation he felt at Ichthus led him toward a more outwardly pious life—more in line with the small-town Indiana Protestants he grew up with and less and less like his Catholic grandfather from Chicago. He voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980 because he admired Carter’s religious bona fides and considered Ronald Reagan an actor unqualified for the presidency. Soon after Reagan took office, however, Pence underwent a political conversion similar to his religious one. Soon, Reagan was his hero and role model, and Pence embraced the GOP so fully that, like his religious fervor, it became an obvious and powerful part of his identity. The appeal, as Pence would explain it, was more a matter of perspective and style than specific policies. “His broad-shouldered leadership inspired my life,” said Pence.

  In Indiana, being a Republican would make Pence’s path to political success much easier; the GOP had won the governor’s office in four straight elections and, save for 1964, dominated the vote for president going all the way back to 1940. Republicans also controlled both houses of the state assembly by big majorities. Inside the party, evangelical Protestant Christians of the sort Pence met at Ichthus were the largest religious group. Their influence was growing with the recent development of political groups like Moral Majority, which turned church congregations into hotbeds of activism. Pence claimed it all as he embraced his new faith, but he hedged his bets by retaining some Catholic identity.

  He would call himself a “born-again, evangelical Catholic,” combining two generally exclusive faiths into one that suited him. This was an unusual but not unique choice, as Protestant conservatives were luring Catholics into new so-called megachurches where members could attend lively services and access gyms, schools, adult education classes, and sports leagues. As a self-proclaimed evangelical Catholic, Pence sought to have it all, including a religion that did not require the moral action inherent to Catholicism, while retaining a connection to his roots. By all accounts, his deeply religious Catholic mother was not pleased, but among the believers in his new faith, Pence could count on finding instant and broad acceptance.15

  Embarked on a religious journey that would lead him away from the Catholic Church, Pence set aside the idea of the priesthood and focused on the political ambition he harbored while still in high school—he wanted to be president of the United States. The choice was a matter of matching talents to vocation. In 1994 Pence would tell the Indiana Business Journal he believed his best assets were “my gifts: to articulate, to advocate.”16 The logical direction for a former high school debater was law school, but he encountered his first roadblock after graduation�
�he failed the admissions test for the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. Hanover College, where his tattling had aided administrators, came through with a job in the admissions office, which gave him two years to study and then pass the exam on his second try at the Indianapolis school. Once admitted, though, he hated his law school classes. “It was a bad experience,” he later said. On a personal level, though, the move to Indianapolis changed his life. He attended St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, where one day he spotted Karen Sue Batten Whitaker, a pretty young woman who sometimes played the guitar at mass. He fell in love.17

  Two years older than Pence, Karen was a second-grade teacher and had been previously married. Ambitious and competitive, she too had competed in speech contests in her high school days, but she had also been an excellent student while he had bumped along with a B average. Whitaker had met her first husband, John Steven Whitaker, at Butler University. They were married at Big Bend National Park in Texas and then returned to Indiana, where he studied medicine. After they were divorced, Dr. Whitaker became a drug company executive responsible, in part, for the development of the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis. He later said the marriage ended because he and Karen grew apart. “We were kids,” he told The Washington Post in 2016. “We probably didn’t know what we were doing.”

  After she had dated Mike Pence for almost a year, Karen expected they would one day marry. She bought a small gold cross, had it engraved with the word “Yes,” and placed it in her purse. Determined to propose in a memorable way, he bought a ring and hid it inside a loaf of bread, which he brought on a walk to feed the ducks who floated in a local canal. When the moment arrived, he fished for the ring and asked for her hand. She gave him the cross. The loaf of bread, shellacked to preserve it, became a memento. Their June 1985 wedding was at St. Christopher’s, a Catholic church two blocks from Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Karen had seven attendants. Mike was accompanied by a best man and six groomsmen. The reception party was held at a modest venue called the Midway Motor Lodge, where a Plexiglas dome covered the swimming pool and the restaurant overlooked a small lake.