'I could have become the next Monica'

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'I could have become the next Monica'

NEWK TELLS: DUBYA AND THE DEMON DRINK
By MICHAEL SHELDEN
Sunday 11 March 2001

John Newcombe, one-time enfant terrible of Australian tennis, is not usually camera shy. In the early '70s, when he was the number-one player in the world, his rugged good looks and dashing manner made him a media favorite. But late last year the flamboyant Australian suddenly went into hiding.

"A lot of newspaper and television people were looking for me," he recalls, "and I just went underground for several days. For a time, there were only three people in the world who knew where I was."

Newcombe's disappearance was staged for the sake of an old friend who was in big trouble in the American presidential election campaign.

With only five days to polling day, George W. Bush's enemies had embarrassed him with the revelation of an old conviction for drunk driving.

When it was reported that, on the night of the arrest in 1976, young Bush had been drinking with John Newcombe, a worldwide search for the tennis player began.

"But nobody found me," he said. "I guess I could have become the next Monica, but I kept my mouth shut."

He laid low until after the election, and then emerged briefly to say that the story was no big deal - "just a couple of young blokes having a good time".

"I didn't want to answer a lot of questions. These guys will get you on television and grill you. They'll say, `How many beers did he have? Was it six or eight or what?' I didn't want any of that."

But with Bush now in the White House, Newcombe seems happy to discuss his friendship with the new leader of the free world.

They are still friends. That night out in 1976 was the first time they had spent much time together.

No doubt young George, just turned 30, was eager to impress the freewheeling, hard-drinking Newk, who was not only two years older but internationally famous.

Bush was still struggling to find direction in his life and was living very much in the shadow of his famous father. He had left college eight years earlier and was staying in a bachelor apartment in the small town of Midland, Texas, where he was buying and selling oil leases on a modest scale.

"I had known his dad since 1968 and was invited to spend some time at the family's holiday home in Maine. My wife, Angie, and I went up there. We met George and went out to the local pub one evening. I guess we spent a few hours just enjoying a good time, talking and having a few beers."

So how many beers did Bush have?

"Oh, six, I guess. Not a lot. Nobody was incapacitated or anything like that. But I did think afterwards: 'George, your big mistake was to go out and drink with an Aussie'."

Indeed, after the incident came to light, George's father described Newcombe as a "black-belt beer drinker", implying that his son was ill-advised to visit a bar with the Australian.

Was Newk really a serious drinker?

He winks: "Well, let's just say that when I was growing up, you had to be able to hold your own pretty well."

If George W. felt the need to prove something in Newk's company, one factor might have been the champion's friendship with the elder Bush.

In a family that places a high value on athletics - George senior was a star baseball player at Yale - young Bush had achieved little.

His father was clearly very fond of Newcombe's company.

"When he was the director of the CIA, Mr Bush picked me up in a limo one day and took me to visit the White House.

"That was a pretty incredible experience. One minute I was just this guy who played tennis, and the next I was standing in the White House with the head of the CIA, who was introducing me to Henry Kissinger and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Newcombe's friendship with the elder Bush dates back to when the Australian decided he needed a permanent base in America.

"I was looking for a home-away-from-home, a place where the weather was good and where I could always play tennis.

"I had a friend in San Antonio who recommended an old run-down dude ranch in south Texas. I bought it, turned it into a tennis camp and made it my home for half the year."

More than 30 years later, Newcombe still owns the ranch. He has transformed it into a resort complex with 28 tennis courts, a swimming pool, apartments and a conference centre.

He raised his son and two daughters there and is still married to Angelika Pfannenburg, the German tennis player he wed 35 years ago.

In those early days, Newcombe's biggest fan was the congressman from nearby Houston, the elder George Bush. They played tennis together, and Newcombe helped to raise campaign money in Texas.

After several years, the tennis star had become almost a member of the family and so, in the late summer of 1976, it was only natural that he should be invited to the Bush family's annual gathering in Kennebunkport, Maine.

"There was only this one little pub in the town. It was down this narrow road from the house. Well, after we went there that evening, Angie and I got in the car and George started to drive very slowly up that road. His sister Dorothy was also with us. I think the local cop was waiting for people to leave the pub so that he could stop them to check for alcohol.

"He had George get out and walk up and down. When George failed the test, the cop put him under arrest and George was very cooperative. He didn't make a scene or try to use his dad's name to get out of it. But, boy, was that cop in for a shock when he found out who he had arrested. He looked really nervous when he realised that he had picked up the son of the CIA director."

George admitted his guilt, paid a fine of $150 and was briefly banned from driving in Maine. According to Newcombe, nobody ever told him to keep quiet about the incident. "No, quite the opposite. I used to tease George about it from time to time. I'd say: 'You know, George, you better watch out, you're going to run for some important office one day and I might just tell someone about that night in Maine.' But he knew I was joking. I wasn't going to make anything out of it. As I said, I didn't think it was that big a deal. But we joked about it for years."

The morning after his arrest, George was prepared for a lecture from his dad, but Newcombe says the elder Bush didn't blow up.

"Considering that, as CIA director, he didn't want any bad publicity, you'd think he might be very angry. But he just looked at him and said: `Well, son, I hope you learnt your lesson.' And that was that." That might have been that if the official record of the incident had not been unearthed during last year's campaign.

A year after the incident, George W. spent a weekend at the tennis ranch and brought a date with him, a young librarian named Laura Welch. Two months later, she became Laura Bush.

Contrary to the impression Bush gave last November, he always knew that the Maine incident was a potential timebomb. It is possible that its sudden revelation cost him votes and made a close election even closer.

Newcombe thinks that the best policy would have been to confess to the small crime and avoid bigger problems later. But that was Bush's decision, and Newcombe was content to lie low until the long election struggle was over.

Now, with the dust settled, he is happy to talk.

"Once something's out there in the open and everybody's discussing it, it's just not in my nature to keep my mouth shut. I'll always say what's on my mind."

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), March 11, 2001

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