Dole Considered Leaving Senate in 1991

Bob Dole, in an updated autobiography, discloses that after receiving a clean bill of health following the removal of a cancerous prostate in 1991, he seriously considered whether he should “move on” and retire from the Senate.

But he says that he changed his mind after President Bush urged him to run for reelection and the floor debate over the Persian Gulf War lent new energy to his legislative passions.

“More than anything else, it convinced me I could still make a difference,” Dole declares in the newly released version of his autobiography, “Unlimited Partners,” written with his wife, Elizabeth, and originally published in 1988.

The Times received an advance copy of the new book Thursday. It includes several new sections. In it, the World War II hero, longtime Senate leader and presumed Republican presidential nominee criticizes President Clinton for his “apparent lack of candor” about his efforts to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.

But Dole praises Clinton’s “dazzling verbal skills” and says he has never underestimated his “formidable abilities as a campaigner.”

Symptoms of Dole’s prostate problem developed in the summer of 1991 when he began “getting up more frequently at night.” Following blood tests and a biopsy that confirmed cancer, he decided on surgery to remove his prostate.

In early 1992, some time after the Dec. 18, 1991, surgery, Dole pondered if he would seek reelection. “I loved my work, but, to be honest, there had been times when I thought it might be best to move on.

“At the White House one afternoon,” he writes, “I mentioned the possibility of retirement to President Bush. . . . After saying he hoped I was joking, he asked me to run again. I could help him in his second term, he told me. The subsequent debate over the Persian Gulf War reinforced the president’s generous words.”

Dole does not explain what he meant about the “subsequent debate” over the war. The war started in January 1991 and Congress debated it at some length that year, not in 1992.

In 1994, when Dole began contemplating running for president, he decided that “I could never match Clinton’s dazzling verbal skills. . . . Indeed, there have been occasions when I have been accused of having a sharp tongue. Better to be yourself, imperfections and all, than pretend to be something you aren’t. Better to be guided by the values of Russell, Kan., than manipulated by electronic groups and political handlers.”

Some people might consider his attitude “old-fashioned,” the 72-year-old former senator observes, but “you can be old-fashioned without being outdated.”

His shortcomings on the hustings are seen as so serious that his advisors have urged him to loosen up, joke more, smile more and tell more anecdotes. In the book, Dole describes himself as “a plain-spoken man, with a Midwestern preference for candor over concealment,” and he makes it clear he has little or no interest in changing his style.