Gary Hart Did Not Act Like A Womanizer

Gary Hart seduces a hard-charging business executive by behaving like a kid on his first date. Last of a four-part excerpt from ``Road Show,'' by Roger Simon.

Once, and this was weeks before they slept together, she asked Gary Hart if he was the biggest womanizer in Washington.

``No,'' Hart replied, ``Ted Kennedy is.''

They dated about a year before Hart met Donna Rice. And this woman was not exactly what you would call a party girl. She was 47, a mother, a divorcee, a businesswoman. She had little interest in politics and even less interest, at first, in Gary Hart. To her, he was a name out of newspaper headlines. Her life was occupied by things like mortgage payments and college tuition and dentist bills.

``He loved that I didn't know about politics,'' she said. ``He said it was so refreshing. He said he didn't have to debate with me and he liked that.''

Their first date was at the Jockey Club. She was nervous. She felt like she was in a play or a movie, standing outside herself and watching herself say lines. They sat at a highly visible table and had a drink. There were no preliminaries.

``He said he had never felt this way before about anyone,'' she said. ``He was perspiring. Nervous. But he treated me like I was a princess. Princess Diana. He wanted to be with me, he said. He was so taken with me, he could not wait. He would meet me anywhere I wanted. Here, there, in California, wherever.''

Trying to characterize him at at that first Jockey Club meeting, she would later say: ``He was not lecherous. Not macho. Definitely not macho. Boyish is what he was. Very boyish. Stumbling, bumbling. Not adept. I thought to myself: This must be the first time he has ever done this. I mean, there were beads of sweat on his forehead. He was that nervous.''

He told her how unhappy his marriage was. ``He said he would not still be married if he was not in politics,'' she said. ``Then he asked about my own divorce, my business, my children. Most men never ask you about yourself, you know. Gary Hart did. He was different.''

He told her he wanted to take her someplace special. He drove to the Lincoln Memorial and parked in front. The setting sun turned the white marble to a dusty rose. They sat in the car. Softly, Hart began talking about Abe Lincoln.

He told her he was uncomplicated and unsophisticated. He told her he was a sincere man who believed in the goodness of Abe Lincoln and the American people.

``I was flattered,'' she said of that night. ``I was flattered he was sharing this with me. These were his most private moments, his most private thoughts.''

As dusk faded into night, he drove her to her friend's home and dropped her off. There was no talk of sex. No double entendres. Not even single entendres. He was just a cowboy, leaving the girl at the doorway of the ranch house before riding into the sunset.

Weeks later after their first meeting, he called to tell her he had arranged to give a speech in the town where she lived. ``He was going to speak at some Democratic function and would be done at 6 p.m.,'' she said.

When he came to her town, they met in his hotel room.

As they rode the elevator down to the lobby, she turned to him just before the door opened. ``I'll walk behind you,'' she said. ``People won't know we are together.''

He was offended. ``You stand right next to me!'' he ordered. ``By now, I was head over heels,'' she said, ``He never made me feel that I was doing something wrong. It was like his wife did not exist. As we walked out of the hotel, people came up and said: `Senator! Senator Hart!' heads would turn as we walked by.''

Throughout the dinner, other diners made pilgrimages to their table. ``We could not eat,'' she said. ``People would come up and say hello, want to shake his hand.''

When the bill came, he even paid with a credit card. Most married men pay cash so there is no trace. But he did not care.''

They drove back to the hotel, and, as soon as they got in the lobby, she tried one more time to snap him back to reality.

``You go up first,'' she told him, ``and then I'll join you.''

``No way,'' Hart said. ``You're coming along with me.''

``It's going to look like we're going to your room'' she pleaded. ``There is no way I could be a reporter or a business acquaintance and heading for your room at a hotel at night.''

Hart did not care. They went up to the room together.

``In the room, I was a nervous wreck; he was a nervous wreck,'' she said. ``It was like two kids on a first date. He didn't want to make the first move. I didn't want to be aggressive.

``We talked and talked and talked,'' she said. ``We talked for three hours. Finally something happened.''

He had to make a speech the next day at 9 a.m., but did not set the alarm. He overslept and jumped out of bed at 8:45. ``You use the shower first,'' she told him.

``No, no, you first,'' he said. Then he said he felt terrible that he had to leave so quickly.

It was the last time she would see him.

``The fact that he trusted me so much made me trust him,'' she said. ``When (a year later) I heard about Donna Rice, I was amazed. From me to her? This was no ladies' man. Never. He was unexperienced, not suave. He acted like it was all new to him. Even in the sexual aspect there was nothing . . . unusual. Nothing. It was almost like it was his first time. It was not like he wanted to do all sorts of strange things to be turned on. There was no acting out fantasies, no weird things, no weird positions. He is very masculine. He wants a woman in his life. That's what I think he keeps searching for.''

Couldn't that have been part of his act? I asked her.

``I don't know,'' she said. ``Maybe he is the kind for whom the excitement is in the pursuit and then he loses interest.''

He called two or three more times and then the calls stopped. ``I was concerned it was me,'' she said. ``I thought I must have been, well, less than perfect. So I called him. When I would call his office in the past, they would say: `What is this regarding?' and I would say he'll know. And he would always call back.''

Now, he didn't return her calls. She flew to Washington. She called three times. He did not call back. She did not call again.

``I felt bad,'' she said. ``Disappointed. I was crazy about him. I was cutting out his pictures from the newspapers. I was like a schoolgirl. I thought: Either he'll leave her for me or he'll be the president and I'll be his girlfriend on the side. I was willing to be the president's mistress.''

(From the book ``Road Show,'' by Roger Simon. Copyright, 1990, Roger Simon. Reprinted by permission of Farrar Straus Giroux. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.)