Al Gore, Midnight Toker

The questioning didn’t stop there, though, as a Supreme Court nominee, Douglas Ginsburg, had just made national headlines by admitting he’d smoked marijuana while a professor at Harvard Law School (Ginsburg’s nomination was withdrawn shortly thereafter). After flying to Miami that night for Florida’s state Democratic convention, Gore met with campaign advisers to hash out a strategy for further disclosures. At 4:30 A.M., he called a state party press official and told him he wanted to hold a press conference at the Fountainbleau Hilton a little more than four hours later to elaborate on his history with marijuana.

Perhaps sensing his statements the day before hadn’t been completely honest and candid, Gore opened the press conference by saying, “I’m going to be honest and candid in describing what was an insignificant matter for me in my life.” He then admitted he’d smoked pot “several times” while a student at Harvard, “once or twice in the Army, once or twice as a graduate student.” “I’ve never used anything beyond that. It was never a significant part of my life. It was infrequent and rare.” Indeed, 15 years had passed since his last toke, said Gore. “I decided that it was wrong for me. When I became a man, I put away childish things.” A few days later, he described his pot smoking as a “false experience,” and told a group of donors that telling his children about it was “the single hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

That put an end to the stories about Al Gore and marijuana for the rest of the 1988 presidential campaign. Indeed, so smoothly had Gore handled the matter that reporters considered it a non-issue in 1992 and 1996, and until last week it hadn’t generated any interest during this campaign either.

But the story has now reemerged. One of Gore’s close friends, a colleague from the Tennessean, the Nashville paper where Gore worked for four years until the age of 27, has come forward to say the vice president hasn’t been “honest” or “candid” in characterizing his marijuana use. Indeed, the friend says Gore’s use was neither “infrequent” nor “rare.” He also charges that Gore heavily lobbied him not to say anything when the issue came up in November 1987. Gore has contested some of the specific claims, like the lobbying, while saying of the alleged pot smoking, “There is nothing new about this.” This non-denial denial is about as illuminating as Bill Clinton’s famous response in 1992, “I didn’t inhale.”

John Warnecke first met Al Gore in 1970, when Gore’s father was running for reelection to the Senate, and Warnecke was a reporter at the Tennessean. They couldn’t have been more different: Gore, the strait-laced son of a senator, and Warnecke, a San Francisco native and former road manager for the Grateful Dead. But they shared an interest in music and politics, and they were both newlyweds. Gore left for Vietnam shortly after the election, and during the five months he was there, his wife, Tipper, spent a great deal of time in Nashville with Warnecke and his wife, Nancy, who shared an interest in photography. “We made our house open to her,” recalls Warnecke.

Gore’s first job upon returning from Vietnam was at the Tennessean, and it didn’t take long for him and Warnecke to cement their friendship. Gore seemed to like Warnecke’s easy-going ways. Al and Tipper even moved into the Warneckes’ old house in a section of Nashville near David Lipscomb College. The two couples began socializing on weekends — the Warneckes lived just a block away — and Al and John saw each other almost daily in the Tennessean newsroom. “Through their wives, they seemed to be very good friends,” recalls Andrew Schlesinger, a reporter at the paper in the early ’70s and the son of historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

Warnecke’s reputation at the paper was that of a California radical, and it was well deserved, given his leftist politics and his habit of smoking pot three to five times a week. Gore, who’s said he suffered from disillusionment after his experience in Vietnam, began hanging out at Warnecke’s house, and, according to Warnecke, getting high became a regular feature of their frequent get-togethers, even after Warnecke left the paper at the end of 1971. Warnecke was always the supplier — he had a number of friends from California in the smuggling business — and he and Gore tended to smoke potent forms of marijuana and hashish that had been dipped in opium. “He was probably pretty impressed with the stuff I had,” laughs Warnecke, “as it was much stronger than what could be found in Tennessee.”

Gore and Warnecke would often play basketball at the nearby college, and then light up in the living room of Warnecke’s two-bedroom home. While enjoying their high, they’d talk politics and listen to everything from Otis Redding and Buffalo Springfield to Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. If Tipper was present, she and Al would often insist on playing “Please Come to Boston” by Dave Loggins (a song one music journalist recently included on a list of the 100 worst hit singles of the 20th century). Gore and Warnecke would sometimes quiz each other on how they would vote on a variety of public-policy issues, such as defense spending. And they’d occasionally talk about legalizing marijuana, which they both favored.

Gore never advertised his pot smoking to his friends or colleagues, and Warnecke says the most amusing thing about their sessions was Gore’s fear that they were being spied on. He always insisted they turn out the lights and close the curtains before sharing a joint, and there was an understanding that Warnecke would not talk about their activities with others (Gore was particularly fearful his father would find out).

Asked to estimate how many times he and Gore lit up together, Warnecke refuses to give a number, saying instead “a helluva lot,” and notes it was enough for Gore to have his own roach clip. (Warnecke has kept it as a souvenir.) The pot smoking continued, says Warnecke, right up until February 1976, when Gore decided to run for Congress (the incumbent had abruptly announced he wouldn’t seek reelection). Warnecke never smoked with Gore again, and was kept out of the campaign. “I became too hot,” he says, “too much of a risk for him. He just sort of blocked me out.”

Warnecke moved back to northern California in 1978, and spent the next six months in a rehabilitation center for alcoholics (he’s been off drugs and alcohol for 21 years). Having cleaned himself up, he began working for his father, an architect who worked on the redesign of Lafayette Square, John F. Kennedy’s grave, and a number of other landmarks. Gradually, Warnecke was reintegrated into Gore’s world, and he began seeing Al and Tipper when they came to San Francisco (the Warneckes were divorced in 1980). Indeed, Warnecke often escorted Gore from one event to another, and in October 1987 he introduced him to the San Francisco Chronicle’s legendary gossip columnist, Herb Caen, at a cocktail party at the St. Francis Yacht Club.

When Gore launched his presidential campaign in 1987, Warnecke helped with fund-raising, and acted as a surrogate speaker, reassuring potential supporters that the Gores were not the pillars of comstockery they seemed (Tipper’s crusade against explicit rock lyrics was unpopular among San Francisco Democrats). But nothing could have prepared him for the call he received from Gore one morning in November 1987.

Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg’s marijuana use had just hit the media, and Gore wanted to talk with Warnecke about their pot smoking. Reporters were likely to be making inquiries, said a panicked Gore, “and you should tell them it’s none of their business.” Warnecke had never spoken with any journalists about Gore’s marijuana use, but he says he told Gore he didn’t agree with the stonewall strategy, and didn’t think it would work. They argued back and forth for 10 minutes, with Warnecke assuring Gore he wouldn’t do anything to hurt him, but an exasperated Gore ended the call. An hour later, Gore called back, and put more pressure on Warnecke not to disclose their marijuana use (Tipper weighed in as well). Warnecke reiterated his doubt about this strategy, and the call ended a few minutes later. Gore took one more stab at Warnecke that day, but made no more progress.

The three calls did, however, have an impact. Shortly afterwards, the Tennessean called Warnecke. Instead of fessing up about Gore’s pot smoking, he said he knew of only one instance when Gore had lit up. The paper ran a story on November 10, 1987, quoting Warnecke to this effect, but emphasized that an internal investigation showed he was the only one of 40 colleagues or friends who said they’d seen Gore smoke pot (three declined comment). The apparent thoroughness of this article is one reason Gore’s statements about his marijuana use have received little scrutiny. Warnecke counters that the investigation, and another one last week, was meaningless, given that Gore concealed his pot smoking from his colleagues.

The most interesting material in the article, however, was a condensed account of an episode from Gore’s first race for Congress in 1976:

Alan Carmichael, then a Tennessean reporter and now a TVA information spokesman, asked Gore if he had smoked marijuana while interviewing him on the general subject of pot laws during a brief car ride between campaign stops in 1976. Gore, who was driving, stopped the car and got out to think about the question, Carmichael said. He then got back in the car and questioned Carmichael about the appropriateness of the question.

Gore never had to answer the question, as Carmichael withdrew it, but the account highlights Gore’s unease with talking about his marijuana use. Indeed, Warnecke says the two haven’t spoken since the three calls in 1987. This freezing out only compounded Warnecke’s guilt about the stonewall. “I sold my soul to Al,” he says.

Some have doubted Warnecke’s credibility, given his history of depression (he lives on disability in northern California, with his two teenage daughters). Schlesinger, his former colleague, who lives in New Hampshire and identifies himself as a “Gore supporter,” won’t address the specifics of the pot smoking allegations, but says “I always found John to be honest and idealistic.” Warnecke says he’s willing to submit to a lie-detector test.

So why is Warnecke coming forward now? He says he deeply regrets not having told the truth about Gore in 1987, at a time when “the public was making up its mind about Al.” When he was approached in 1998 by Bill Turque, a Newsweek reporter writing a biography of Gore, he agreed to tell him his story (Warnecke says his therapist recommended he go public, as it would help him purge his guilt). The book is being published next month, and an excerpt detailing Warnecke’s story was supposed to have been published in Newsweek two weeks ago. But the magazine retreated at the last minute, prompting Warnecke to grant interviews to a prodrug-legalization group, Jake Tapper of Salon, and this magazine.

Gore’s dismissal of the allegations has mostly succeeded in snuffing out press coverage. The issue has been raised on the Fox News Channel and the Today show (Katie Couric asked Gore about the allegations during his January 25 appearance), but the network news has given the story no airtime. As for the papers, the London Daily Telegraph ran a longer article than the New York Times or USA Today. The media, in other words, seem to agree with Gore, who said on January 24, “This is something I dealt with a long time ago. It’s old news.” Old it may be. But if Gore is willing to fudge on this, what else is he trying to hide?

Matthew Rees is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.