Schwarzkopf Tries Not to Wear Out Hero’s Welcome : Fame: In an age that often can’t tell valor from vanity, he acts with grace and grows quietly wealthy.

Like Charles A. Lindbergh and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf left home a mere mortal and returned from distant conquest as a sort of grand marshal of heroes, his fame gold plated and his life changed unalterably.

But however overwhelming the financial rewards, the walk of fame he has embarked on can be a perilous one--Eisenhower went on to become a beloved two-term President, but Lindbergh became a man the public shunned or forgot once his exploits faded.

The perils of returning a hero are particularly acute in an age when Americans embrace the Madonnas and Trumps of the land as icons, and when press agentry has helped blur the distinction between hero and celebrity.

Some Americans winced when Schwarzkopf, just home from the Gulf War, seemed to show up in a million places at once--posing at parades with Mickey Mouse in Tampa and chorus girls in New York--and then in a West Point speech referred to post-Vietnam bureaucratic peaceniks as “military fairies.” Oh-oh. Would Schwarzkopf next be promoting Jell-O and self-destructing with militaristic pronouncements?

Apparently not. He has dismissed out of hand all merchandising and endorsement offers, including one megabuck foreign promotion that would not even have been seen in the United States, and, according to friends, he is determined to avoid any association that could be construed as undignified, either to himself or to the U.S. troops of Operation Desert Storm.

Except for lucrative appearances before business and collegiate audiences, Schwarzkopf, 57, has assumed a low profile. He declines interview requests, does not permit cameras at his speeches and spends most of his time at home, working with a collaborator on his autobiography, due at Bantam Books May 1.

Aware of the public’s short attention span--”Being a hero,” Will Rogers once said, “is about the shortest-lived profession on earth”--Bantam plans to publish the book quickly, before next year’s elections.

If Schwarzkopf’s concern these days is how to deal gracefully with the demands of an adoring public, it wasn’t too long ago that what occupied his thoughts was how to pay for his three children’s educations once he retired. He told a friend, John Gillette, who owns Orvis sports accessory company in Tampa, early last year that ideally what he would like to do was emulate the post-military career of Chuck Yeager. The former Air Force pilot earns a six-figure income from product endorsements and public appearances.

“Unfortunately,” Gillette replied, “you didn’t break the sound barrier. No one’s heard of Norman Schwarzkopf.”

When the Gulf War ended, things were different. To Schwarzkopf in Saudi Arabia, Gillette sent a two-word message: “Chuck who?”

Yeager, whose autobiography sold 1.1 million copies in hardback in 1985, and Schwarzkopf sat together last May at the Indianapolis 500. At the time, Schwarzkopf was contemplating the stacks of offers and million-dollar opportunities he had received as the first American general to come home victorious from a major war in 46 years.

“He said to me,” Yeager recalled, “ ‘you went through this--everyone bugging you, everyone wanting you to do this and that. How’d you handle it?’ I said, ‘Hey, man, just sit back and don’t sign nothing. Don’t take a job where you have to work from 8 to 5. You’ve earned it. Money is very easy to make when you hit celebrity status.’ ”

It was timely advice to a man whose father--himself a West Point graduate and distinguished Army general--had died leaving an estate valued at $3,000.

Schwarzkopf in his first year of retirement stands to earn more than $8 million. It would have taken him 70 years to make that in the Army but it is, nonetheless, a modest figure compared to what he could earn if money was the prime goal.

His ledger for the 12 months will show $5 million to $6 million for the world rights to his autobiography, one of the highest advances ever for a work of nonfiction, and a couple of million more from three to four speeches a month to business and college groups, at a reported $50,000 to $80,000 per appearance. Taxes, agents’ fees and his ghostwriter’s commission will eat up at least half his income.

“You know, it’s funny, and he’ll admit this,” Yeager said, “but when you’re assigned to that command Schwarzkopf had at MacDill (Air Force Base) before the war, you’re just short of being put out to pasture for retirement. So, in terms of timing, he really lucked out. But he also had the skill and talent to take advantage of the opportunities.”

Since retiring from the Army Aug. 31, Schwarzkopf--who 18 months ago was virtually unknown to the public, earned $113,000 a year and commanded a small noncombat planning staff at MacDill--has moved into a new million-dollar-plus home in the Cheval Polo and Golf Club, a 2,000-acre gated community in North Tampa. His neighbors include top corporate executives and former hockey star Phil Esposito, president of Tampa’s new National Hockey League franchise.

The general’s fatigues have been replaced by suits from Bergdorf Goodman--size 49 long--and his military staff has dwindled to three: an aide, Maj. Roger Murtie, assigned to him until next February, and two Army security officers. Gone, too, along with the size-11 desert boots, is the media blitz that accompanied his return from the Gulf and was so extensive that the “Doonesbury” comic strip had him appearing on “Hollywood Squares” and the “Miss Hooters Contest.”

Schwarzkopf’s meteoric rise is unusual because his fame was built over days, not months or years as with most other military legends. Though fame may not often equate with greatness--Al Capone, after all, used to be applauded when he took his seat at Chicago’s Comiskey Park for a ballgame--Schwarzkopf seemed an echo from the old days when heroes were made by their deeds, not the media, and were judged by achievement more than image. He filled a void for a nation that no longer felt invincible and no longer saw in its politicians and military men and professional athletes the role models of the past.

At Southern Methodist University in Dallas last month, 6,900 people, including 1,800 students admitted free, turned out on a rainy night and, with tickets costing $15 to $150 each, were captivated by Schwarzkopf’s upbeat 45-minute assessment on Operation Desert Storm and the performance of American troops. “Was it (the war) worth it?” he asked rhetorically. “You bet it was!” The remark was greeted with thunderous applause.

Earlier last month, Schwarzkopf traveled to Manchester, Vt., to participate in a sporting clay shooting competition. His presence caused such a stir that the other celebrities at the match--athletes John Riggins, Denis Potvin, Johnny Rutherford and Steve Garvey, and former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon--were all but ignored in the excitement.

“From the way I read it, Schwarzkopf isn’t exactly sucking up all the attention, but he certainly endures it with good grace,” said free-lance writer Geoffrey Norman, a member of the general’s victorious five-man shooting team. “There was a lot of, ‘General, can I take a picture of you with my kid?’ He was unfailingly polite, never discourteous. It was really rather touching.”

Though Schwarzkopf is the first returning hero to find his favorite steak--a Roquefort-stuffed filet mignon--named for him at Gallagher’s, a popular New York restaurant, and a video of his briefing high on the best-seller charts, the welcome accorded him is hardly without precedent in a nation that attaches mythical significance to individual feats.

When Lindbergh returned to New York City in June, 1927, from the first solo flight across the Atlantic, 3.5 million letters, 14,000 parcels and 100,000 telegrams awaited him. The New York Times devoted its first 16 pages almost exclusively to him. One manufacturing company offered him its presidency and a cigarette company proposed paying him $50,000 to promote its brand. (Charles Curtis of the U.S. Senate was endorsing Lucky Strike at the time.) Lindbergh wrote back that he didn’t smoke. The manufacturer, he recalled, “offered me a package so I could speak truthfully and from experience.”

Lindbergh wrote a quick autobiography, titled “We,” that was published late in the summer of 1927. It immediately shot to the top of the best-seller list and went through 28 printings in six months. But by 1942, Lindbergh--having already become a recluse after the much-publicized kidnaping and murder of his baby son 10 years earlier--had come to be viewed as pro-Nazi and his name was seldom heard. By 1957, when the movie “Spirit of St. Louis,” starring Jimmy Stewart, was released, it did poorly at the box office; an audience poll revealed that few viewers under age 40 knew about Lindbergh.

Eisenhower came home a legend, too, and wrote his World War II memoirs--a 400,000-copy best-seller, “Crusade in Europe”--in 14 weeks, dictating for hours on end to a stenographer, who, note pad in hand, trailed behind the general as he paced back and forth across his office at Ft. Myer, Va. His contract contained a clause that Doubleday would never reveal how much it paid for the book.

“I asked Ike once what he had on hand to give him such detailed recall,” said Kenneth McCormick, 85, his Doubleday editor, “and Ike said all he did was spread out a map of that day’s subject. He didn’t use notes or memos. Just the maps brought everything back into focus.”

Now it is Schwarzkopf’s turn to be at work on a book. One reason he has been held up by the public as a man of Eisenhower’s stature is suggested, indirectly, by historian Daniel J. Boorstin, in his book “The Image,” published in 1961. Discussing the nation’s propensity to confuse hero worship with celebrity-worship, he wrote that Americans in the television age were coming dangerously close to depriving themselves of all real models and were degrading all fame into notoriety.

“The household names, the famous men, who populate our consciousness,” he wrote, “are with few exceptions not heroes at all, but an artificial new product--a product of the Graphic Revolution in response to our exaggerated expectations. . . . Two centuries ago when a great man appeared, people looked for God’s purpose in him; today we look for his press agent.” Boorstin concluded that the qualities that now “commonly make a person into a national-advertised-brand are in fact a new category of human emptiness.”

By Boorstin’s definition, Schwarzkopf came to represent the very antithesis of how the public often perceives celebrities. He seemed real .

The 6-foot-4 general was tough enough to face down the wicked Saddam Hussein and vulnerable enough to weep at his farewell to the troops. He delivered on his promises, was not the synthetic creation of a press agent, cared about those around him, looked trustworthy and decent and said what he thought. In the process, of course, he won one of the most lopsided wars in history and lost far fewer American lives than had been predicted.

“The cynical perspective of the hero-versus-celebrity issue is that everyone has his 15 minutes of fame, but I don’t believe that,” said James Fisher, a professor of American Studies at Yale. “Like everything else in our consumer culture, there has to be some genuine feeling, some chemistry or admiration, between the audience and the performer. And in Schwarzkopf’s case, that chemistry is there.”

But, paradoxically, had it not been for television Schwarzkopf might have received the thanks of a grateful nation and been quickly forgotten. For the Schwarzkopf the public got to know was the Schwarzkopf who performed so masterfully at his briefings. “You watched those briefings and something started clicking almost immediately,” said Norman Brokaw, chairman of the William Morris Agency, whose clients have ranged from former President Gerald R. Ford to Mark Spitz and Marilyn Monroe. “You knew this was someone special.”

Although it was unknown to everyone except his wife, Brenda, when Schwarzkopf walked to the podium early in the air war for his first briefing, he had already decided to retire from the Army once his campaign against Iraq had been won. That decision, he has told friends, enabled him to speak on his own terms, without worrying how Washington or the media would react to his remarks. Other than receiving some anticipated questions from his staff, Schwarzkopf did not prep or rehearse for the briefings. He simply walked out cold and took over center stage.

“Put Gen. Schwarzkopf in front of a group, with a slide presentation, and he is by far the best flag-officer speaker I’ve run into in 24 years,” said Capt. Ron Wildermuth, a member of his Desert Storm staff. “What people saw on television was the magic that was already there.”

By the time Richard Stolley, editorial director of Time Inc. Magazines, arrived in Saudi Arabia in April to discuss a book deal with the general, a Gallup Poll was showing that 42% of the public would like to see Schwarzkopf as the Democratic presidential nominee. Stolley was the first publishing representative Schwarzkopf had met, and although he did not come with a firm offer from Time-Warner, Stolley told the general he thought a package for book and television rights would probably fetch seven figures. Schwarzkopf was stunned.

Publishing sources estimate that Bantam Books--which eventually outbid Random House for the autobiography--will have to sell 500,000 copies in hardback and 1.5 million in paperback to break even, making the venture a risky one. Simon & Schuster, for example, took a bath in red ink when it paid a reported $7 million for Ronald Reagan’s memoirs and a collection of his speeches and found that the nostalgia it thought would sell the books had evaporated.

“One of the things that makes the Schwarzkopf deal unique is the staggering danger of how quickly the American public forgets,” said a senior New York publishing executive. “Holy mackerel, is that a danger! You can lose a lot of money on Danielle Steele (novels), too, but at least you haven’t tied yourself to the headlines.”

Bantam, however, is betting that Schwarzkopf’s autobiography can be as compelling as was Lee A. Iacocca’s (which, published in 1984, sold 2.6 million copies in hardback). In turn, Schwarzkopf’s handlers, literary agent Marvin Josephson and speaking agent Bernie Swain, are betting that their client has durability. Once his book is written, corporate positions and various platforms for speaking out await Schwarzkopf.

The general has denied having any interest in politics, as did Eisenhower seven years before running for President. Asked at Southern Methodist about his future plans, Schwarzkopf quoted five-star Gen. Douglas MacArthur, saying: “Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.”

After a moment’s pause, he added: “I would rather not fade.”