Senator Exhausted by Ambulance Trip in Budget Fight : Reagan Praises Wilson’s Dramatic Vote

Sen. Pete Wilson, exhausted by his dramatic role in lifting Republicans to the narrowest possible victory on a compromise plan to cut the federal deficit, was asleep in his hospital bed Friday when President Reagan called.

“Pete, you made the difference. It was a courageous act, and I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart,” an aide quoted Reagan as telling the California Republican.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” the aide said Wilson replied, “and I hope you don’t mind if I go back to sleep now.”

In National Spotlight

The brief conversation between the President and the drowsy senator took place a few hours after Wilson had propelled himself into the national spotlight by leaving Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he had undergone an emergency appendectomy Wednesday, to go by ambulance to the Capitol.

There, he was rolled in a wheelchair into the Senate chamber to cast the vote that forced a 49-49 deadlock and allowed Vice President George Bush to cast the tie-breaking vote on the White House-supported budget plan.

Wilson’s post-midnight arrival on the Senate floor was a moment of high drama--not since 1964 had a senator left his hospital bed for a vote--and it quickly was interpreted as boosting the political stock of the first-term senator.

“I wouldn’t want to run against him for a while,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said, noting the sudden swirl of attention around the former San Diego mayor.

With all its drama, Wilson’s wheelchair appearance in the Senate was not without its lighter moments--and logistical difficulties.

On Wednesday, soon after surgeons removed his ruptured appendix, Wilson had talked with Dole by telephone, volunteering to return to the Capitol if necessary during Senate consideration of budget cuts. Several parts of the White House-sponsored deficit-cutting package had been rejected in Senate votes, and aides said Wilson joked with Dole: “The only cutting being done around here is by my surgeon.”

Bush Hurries Back

Dole replied that he hoped it would not be necessary to interrupt Wilson’s scheduled two-week hospitalization, but it became clear Thursday that the showdown vote would be very close. Wilson’s staff arranged for an ambulance to stand by at the hospital; and the vice president, who votes in the Senate only in the event of a tie, hurried back to Washington from a speaking engagement in Arizona.

At about midnight, the ambulance brought Wilson to the Capitol building. His gurney would not fit into the elevator, so the senator was placed in a wheelchair. When he reached the Senate cloakroom, Dole was waiting with a question for the Navy doctor who accompanied Wilson. “Let me ask only one thing--can he say yes?” Dole quipped.

“I can’t get him to stop talking,” the doctor replied.

At about 1:30 a.m. Friday, Wilson’s wheelchair was rolled from the cloakroom. Four security guards lifted it up the two steps to the chamber’s center aisle, and Wilson, wearing a brown robe over blue pajamas and with his legs covered by a tan blanket, received a standing ovation when he came forward to vote “aye” in a strong voice.

Wilson, 51, was the first senator in 21 years to leave his hospital bed to cast a Senate vote, historians said. On June 10, 1964, California Democrat Clair Engle, who had undergone brain surgery only weeks before, was wheeled into the chamber to vote to end a filibuster on the Civil Rights Act. He died the next month.