Over years, aide became `a reflection of John Chafee'
In a 23-year journey, David J. Griswold rose from being the senator's driver to serving as his chief of staff.
By MARIA MIRO JOHNSON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE -- U.S. Sen. John H. Chafee -- in a bowling alley.
That was a bad night, says David J. Griswold, reflecting yesterday on his life alongside the man he'd served for 23 years.
Griswold started out as his go-fer and driver, then rose through the ranks to become his chief of staff, a position he has held for 10 years.
Now he sat in the senator's sunny office on Dorrance Street, having just come from a service, which he wrote himself, at the State House rotunda. His mind, he said, was ``numb.'' At one point, he interrupted himself in mid-sentence -- ``It's so hurtful to be referring to him in the past tense, I cannot tell you.''
But he also laughed now and then to recall certain stories. Such as the bowling alley story.
It was an October day in 1982, says Griswold, the closing days of a tense reelection campaign against Democratic Atty. Gen. Julius Michaelson. President Ronald Reagan had tumbled in the polls and people were anxious about the economy. Republicans feared people might vote Democratic simply to signal their displeasure with the president.
Griswold, working as a scheduler then in Chafee's Providence office, had an idea: Why not campaign in a Cranston bowling alley on a Saturday night? The place was sure to be full of good-natured Rhode Islanders.
Chafee had never campaigned in a bowling alley, Griswold is sure, but ``he said, `All right, we'll try this.' '' So they loaded up the car with brochures and headed for the lanes on Elmwood Avenue.
``And it was just awful,'' says Griswold. The place was full of kids and teenagers, the adult leagues having bowled during the week. ``They didn't know who he was. They weren't rude, but they were just not tuned in. Many of them were not even voting age.''
Nonetheless, ``we schlepped along -- dowwwn one side and baaaaack up the other side,'' with Chafee shaking every hand. ``He must've been just ready to burst and I was feeling like I wanted to die, 'cause I knew immediately, `Oh, boy, this was not a good idea.' ''
Griswold drove the senator home to Warwick, and that's when ``he let me have it.''
``He said, `Whose idea was this? That was the biggest waste of time I ever had. Don't you know how tired I am? Don't you know how stressful this is? What was the point of wasting time in there with that crowd? They weren't very friendly.'
``And I said, `Senator, it was my idea. I'm sorry.' And he was very quiet. The whole way home, neither of us said anything, and I dropped him off.''
The next day, Griswold returned from some errands to find a phone message: ``Senator Chafee called. He called to say that he was sorry that he was cross with you last night. He appreciates everything you do, and he's very proud of you.''
``I saved that note,'' says Griswold. ``Here it was the Sunday before the election. We were all in a state of terror. I would have forgiven him for being much worse to me than he had been. I would have forgiven him for hitting me. . . .
``I fell in love with him forever at that point. That made me know I would stay with this organization for as long as the door would open.''
DAVID J. GRISWOLD, 45, grew up in Warwick, the son of David F. and Nancy Griswold, a salesman and a secretary, both of them Republicans who ``revered'' John Chafee, as did so many members of their generation.
Over the years, he says, parents of younger staffers have expressed the same feeling his own parents did -- that working for Chafee ``lifted up their families'' and made them proud.
Griswold was only 14 when, in 1968, he first encountered then-Governor Chafee, who was throwing a rally at Providence City Hall for Nelson Rockefeller, who was seeking the Republican nomination for president.
``I heard about it and came downtown,'' says Griswold. ``In those days, we didn't have C-Span and all these constant reports of everything, minute by minute. When a presidential candidate came to Providence, Rhode Island, it was a big deal.''
The teenager handed out fliers directing people to City Hall, and then he went to the rally himself. The speeches were great, he said, and afterward, Chafee shook Griswold's hand -- ``It was thrilling.''
Later, as Griswold headed to the Outlet building to catch a bus, a limo came rolling by. ``And Rockefeller looks out of the car and gives me a thumbs-up. And I knew in that split second it was me that he was gesturing to. And it was magical. And then in a flash, the car was gone and the day was over and real life returned. . . .''
But ``that day, I began to love politics because I had made a connection with this figure and had felt that he was reaching out to me.''
GRISWOLD KEPT volunteering for Republicans, who kept going down to defeat after defeat. (Republicans in Rhode Island, says Griswold, are ``a pathetically lonely, small community.'') And it wasn't until 1975, when he was a 21-year-old Providence College student, that he encountered Chafee again.
Chafee had lost his first Senate race to Claiborne Pell in 1972, but was gearing up for a run in '76.
``Oh, he didn't know me from Adam,'' says Griswold of their meeting at Chafee's headquarters in the Turks Head Building. ``I was one of a hundred people, but he made me feel as if he and I connected.''
The day after graduating from PC, Griswold joined Senator Chafee's staff. He has never looked back.
One of his early jobs was to drive the senator to his appointments. Though Chafee was a friendly enough passenger, Griswold made it a practice to only speak when spoken to. For one thing, he was nervous about getting lost -- which, at times, he did.
Inevitably, he says, it was Chafee who got them back on track -- ``He knew all the roads of Rhode Island. He knew every village in the state.'' Realizing that Griswold felt awful about it, he'd say, `` `Well, you know David, if that's the worst thing you ever do, you don't have much to worry about.'
``It always felt so good to hear that.''
AFTER HIS REELECTION in 1982, Chafee -- aware that Griswold was a conscientious worrywart and was a bit afraid of him -- invited him to be one of his legislative assistants in Washington.
``He valued thoroughness,'' says Griswold. ``He valued the willingness to stay until the job was done at night. He valued commitment and honesty. He valued -- when you didn't know the answer to something, you said, `Senator, I don't know,' rather than inventing a guess about what the answer might be, because that would just be a waste of time.''
Griswold went on to become Chafee's chief legislative assistant, then his legislative director, then his chief of staff.
One former colleague, Christine C. Ferguson, now head of the state Department of Human Services, worked closely with Griswold from 1981 to 1995 -- ``some of the best working years of my life.''
Unlike some chiefs of staff, who are ``really political animals, operators, very slick,'' she says, ``David is very much a reflection of John Chafee.''
As Griswold recalls those days, the work of advising Chafee could be ``painful.''
He and Ferguson were always having to remind the senator of the political ramifications of his upcoming votes. ``We would say things like, `What good is it to know you're gonna do the right thing if in the end, you lose an election and you can't come back here and try to keep on doing what you're doing?'
``And he struggled. I remember nights that he would pound his fist on the desk and say to us, `Thank you. I've heard enough.' ''
Griswold was seldom sure how Chafee would end up voting when he to the floor -- ``He had his own compass.''
Griswold sometimes warns young applicants for staff jobs that it's easier to work for a conservative or a liberal than for a moderate like Chafee, ``because you at least start out kind of knowing where you're headed.''
On the other hand, ``it made us do our jobs better. You really had to think -- to step back from each question and try to look at it from everybody's side.''
OVER THE YEARS, Griswold became ``very slightly less afraid'' of Chafee, but still never called him by his first name, always ``Senator.'' Frankly, he says, he resented staffers who did otherwise, because it presumed an equality that could never exist. (Chafee, for his part, never complained about it, Griswold says.)
``This is the biggest person that has served this state in this century,'' he says, ``in terms of length of tenure, in terms of types of jobs he's done, in terms of the barriers he's broken politically and in terms of just his statesmanship.''
When it's pointed out that Griswold has given his entire adult life to serving Chafee, he says that in fact, it's Chafee who has given him something. ``He's given me opportunities at every turn which I could not have expected I was ready for.''
In recent years, Chafee has reminded Griswold to ``smell the roses'' and indeed, Griswold has eased up a bit on work. ``Ironically,'' he says, ``it is he that I wanted to be smelling roses.''
GRISWOLD HAD KNOWN that the senator was ailing, and that the job was requiring more of a struggle. But he was active to the end.
``He had made a wonderful speech, just three or four days before his death, at the National Cathedral to a huge gathering of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.''
Chafee had worked hard on the speech, and it won him a standing ovation from the crowd of 2,000 people. ``He felt pumped up and he knew he'd done a good job.''
Then, last weekend, Chafee called Griswold to say he wasn't feeling well, and needed to cancel two planned events. Griswold thought he heard something different in his voice.
``I think he was always prepared for everything,'' he says -- even death. ``He was a person of faith and a person with a compass that guided him and he was ready -- even when he was unprepared, in the sense of having no script in hand -- just ready to do what he was called to do, and do it with grace.''
ON SUNDAY NIGHT, at about 8, Griswold got the call from Chafee's daughter, Georgia Nassikas.
``When I heard her voice, my heart just fell to the floor. I knew this had to be something bad.'' But the way she said the last three words -- ``my father died'' -- with such composure and strength, helped Griswold.
He realized ``this was where we were now,'' and felt prepared.
Nonetheless, as he paced around the room with the phone in his hand, he found himself double-checking his facts: `` `Did you tell me now that your dad has died?' '' he asked. ``And she laughed, and said yes.''
Such, he says, are the habits born of working for John Chafee.
SO MANY LOGISTICAL details are involved in helping arrange today's massive funeral that Griswold has had no time to grieve.
It's as if the funeral was one more big project, which the staff is handling as it has handled so many others through the years. ``At any given point in the process, we've all thought he might walk in and say, `Well, how's this coming along, folks?' ''
Now, every morning, when Griswold wakes up, it takes him a moment to remember that ``the world is different now, completely different. . . . I never thought he'd leave. I never believed that John Chafee would leave. And it's scary to me, not to have him.''
In the smallest, most everyday actions -- just making a phone call -- Griswold remembers him. It's always, Hello, this is David Griswold with Senator Chafee.
``I had five names. David Griswold With Senator Chafee. I'm afraid that I will say that for a long time.''
Add on this topic
Copyright © 1999 The Providence Journal Company
Produced by www.projo.com