Adam Wren is a contributing editor at Indianapolis Monthly.

A Republican Party tearing at the seams amid an open convention. Candidates desperately wrangling and wooing delegates. Backroom battles over changes to the rules and the platform. John Kasich on the floor, haggling individual delegates for last minute votes. Many of the contested convention scenarios Republican candidates are bracing for ahead of Cleveland this summer already happened—even down to the Kasich cameo—over four muggy days in August 40 years ago at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri.

We tend to think of modern party conventions as staid, choreographed affairs, but not the 1976 convention, which was an electric party confab that drew gavel-to-gavel coverage on the networks. That year, Republicans entered the convention torn between incumbent Gerald Ford and conservative crusader Ronald Reagan—and the 20 attendees interviewed for this article, from then-Senator Bob Dole to Reagan adviser John Sears to Trump consigliere Roger Stone, remember a turbulent series of events, some never-before-reported.


“It was riotous,” says Craig Shirley, the author and historian who chronicled Reagan’s 1976 campaign in his book. “It went on for hours, and there were melees in the hall.”

Back-to-back-eruptions greeted the candidates’ wives. A Ford delegate who broke her leg in the chaos was kept from the hospital for fear that her replacement would vote for Reagan; she suffered in a brace made from convention programs until the voting was over. Meanwhile, in a back room, Henry Kissinger was “raising hell” over a change to the platform, threatening to resign and demanding a roll call of delegates who were drunk as they deliberated.

The convention even began with an optical nightmare: On Monday morning, at the start of the proceedings, a 55-foot-tall inflatable elephant meant to welcome the delegates took flight in downtown Kansas City only to drift into nearby nylon wiring, ripping its stomach apart. It was an apt metaphor for what was happening to the party that year.

The list of those present at the chaos reads like a who’s who of the Republican Party. Dole, Ed Meese and Haley Barbour, not to mention John Kasich and his 2016 strategists Charlie Black and Stu Spencer were all in the Kemper Arena over those four wild days in 1976. Trump also recently hired 1976 veteran Paul Manafort, who helped lead the Ford floor operations, to lead his delegate operation in Cleveland. And many of them see Kansas City as a case study of how events could transpire in Cleveland this summer.

It was riotous. It went on for hours, and there were melees in the hall.”

The 1976 convention is not a perfect analogy to 2016—there were only two candidates bracing for a contested convention, not three, and anything more than a first ballot round was always unlikely—but there are parallels, including the uncertainty factor.

“You just don’t know what’s going to develop right now,” Black says. “I do know that every delegate will be important, and nobody can rig the rules.”

In many ways, a look back at the events of Kansas City offers what could also be a look forward to the Cleveland proceedings, from how delegates were romanced by each candidate (they routinely phoned delegates and invited them to personal dinners weeks ahead of the convention) to complex rule and platform stratagems designed to reset the nomination fight inside the convention hall (could the much-bandied Rule 40 become this year’s 16-C?) to petty gamesmanship and outright shenanigans (the Ford committee who planned the convention booked accommodations for the pro-Reagan Texas delegation 50 miles away from Kemper Arena).

Here, an oral history of 1976’s kerfuffle in Kansas City.

Ford eats in his hotel suite while watching coverage of the Republican convention in Kansas City, at left, while Reagan, at right, watches coverage at his own hotel room in Kansas City. | Getty

***

Before the convention

As the 1976 Republican primary unfolded, a contested convention seemed unlikely. Conservative insurgent and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan had dropped a string of five pivotal states to Ford, including Iowa and New Hampshire.

Roger Stone, Youth for Reagan activist: We were at the point where many were urging Reagan to drop out.

Michael Reagan, Ronald Reagan’s son: He was dead broke. We had planes sitting on the tarmac with no fuel. … If it wasn’t for [North Carolina Senator] Jesse Helms actually getting behind my dad, going against a sitting president … had dad not won North Carolina, he would have had to have dropped out of the race. It would have been over.

On March 23, Reagan beat Ford in North Carolina 53.4 percent to 46.6 percent, and his campaign celebrated with champagne and vanilla ice cream on their way back to California. A string of impressive victories, including in Texas, followed.

George Will, covering the campaign as Washington editor for National Review: Ford had started fast against Reagan, and Reagan had closed fast against Ford, so there was a sense of Reagan coming tantalizingly close to the nomination.

After the primaries, an August 6 Washington Post tally had Ford at 1,106 delegates and Reagan at 1,034, with 119 still uncommitted. 1,130 delegates were needed to win the nomination.

Lou Cannon, Washington Post political reporter: Reagan people didn’t have enough delegates, and I wrote that, and the Reagan people were absolutely furious with me. They were denouncing me on every television program they could. But we had done a very, very careful delegate count. … We talked to every uncommitted delegate count there was. … They just didn’t have the delegates. They were hoping that something would dislodge.

John Sears, Reagan’s campaign manager: The whole convention was a battle for 50 or 60 delegates. Nobody had ever dared to run against an incumbent before.

My job was to find out who was getting the gold watch, and what the dog’s name was, and what their favorite sport was.”

Haley Barbour, Mississippi delegation chief of staff: We were the largest bloc of uncommitted delegates. Everybody wanted Mississippi’s 30 votes. But there was a lot of tension. Reagan met with our delegates. Lots of our delegates were invited to the White House. Or got calls from the White House. And a lot of people got calls from Jimmy Stewart and Pat Boone. There were a lot of people from Hollywood for Reagan. Our people were getting courted very actively. When we had the convention, I kind of sketched out on a notepad, “Here are the 30 delegates that were chosen: I thought 24 were for Reagan and six were for Ford.”

Ed Meese, Reagan adviser: We had come into the convention slightly behind. The White House was working very hard. They were having state dinners, to which they were inviting potential delegates.

Stu Spencer, deputy chairman for political affairs, President Ford Committee: We had an 86-delegate lead. That’s not a lot of votes. … Trying to get a first ballot victory was important. In many ways, Reagan owned our delegates emotionally.

Delegate kits in shopping bags were stored at Ford campaign headquarters in Kansas City’s Union Station a week before the convention began. | AP Photo

Brad Minnick, President Ford Committee: I was just a kid from upstate New York, and ended up getting an internship my freshman year in college with a United States senator from Michigan by the name of Robert P. Griffin. Senator Griffin was very close friends with Jerry Ford, and Ford asked Griffin to become his campaign floor manager at the convention. And Griffin took me with him as his intern, and I prepared his briefing book that he used on the convention floor, with all the details about the delegates. ... My job was to find out who was getting the gold watch, and what the dog’s name was, and what their favorite sport was, and all of that kind of stuff and put that all into a briefing book for Senator Griffin, so that he would have background information on every single delegate at the convention.

Stone: We in the Reagan camp, under the leadership of John Sears, had two gambits, which essentially put the convention in question. One was [to push for] Rule 16-C, which would have required each presidential candidate to name their vice-presidential candidate in advance of the presidential ballot. That’s because we knew Ford had promised it to [a lot of people]. Ford had more vice-presidents than you could imagine. And of course, Reagan announced his selection of [Pennsylvania Senator Richard] Schweiker, which was our second gambit, which was an effort to pry off enough Pennsylvania delegates to get nominated.

Charlie Black, Reagan’s midwest field director: These were John Sears’ ideas which he sold to the rest of us from the inner circle, vetted them with us and then went to Reagan with them.

Cannon: The Ford people were really happy when the Reagan people decided to make it a rules fight. A rules fight had no pizzazz to it.

Meese: The tactical reason was that we had pretty much come to a point where there was not much the campaign could do for getting additional delegates. We’d gone through all the primaries, through the caucuses, and there needed to be something to invigorate Republican attention on the Reagan campaign. And it was at that point that he decided that he would name Richard Schweiker as his proposed vice-president candidate.

On Monday, July 26, Reagan announced Schweiker as his running mate. Many conservatives bristled at the pick, whom they viewed as too moderate to be a fit for the ticket. Reagan’s audacious move to name his running mate before the convention would later become de rigueur for both parties.

Steve Antosh, Oklahoma delegate for Reagan: We were all devastated by what seemed like Reagan’s desperate gambit of nominating Senator Schweiker of Pennsylvania. In my view, he kind of ranked right up there with Rockefeller. It seemed like pandering, and I don’t think it bought him anything.

***

Monday through Wednesday, convention week

On Monday, August 16, Republican National Chairman Mary Louise Smith gaveled the proceedings into session at 10:30 a.m. local time. Ahead of the convention, North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms floated conservative New York Senator Jim Buckley as a compromise pick for bitterly divided Ford and Reagan supporters, and reporters had hounded Buckley about a potential dark horse bid from the convention floor.

Jim Buckley, New York Senator: Helms’ pitch was, if there was a deadlock at the convention, and that if another candidate was put there, [I] could break things and make it an open convention. I didn’t think very much of it. I wouldn’t object, but it was nothing I wanted.

By 12:30 p.m. later that day, Buckley announced he would not be a candidate. Meanwhile, Ford and Reagan met outside the hall with a number of the 106 uncommitted delegates. Both sides said they already had a lock on the 1,130 delegates they needed for the nomination, even though an AP tally had Ford at 1,118 and Reagan at 1,035. The campaigns spent the first three days of the convention in riotous chants on the floor that caused proceedings to miss a primetime audience on purpose. The candidates’ wives, Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan, entered to a roaring hall on Tuesday evening. Reagan delegates fiercely lobbied for rule 16-C, and braced themselves for a platform fight over Ford’s foreign policy in Vietnam.

Cannon: The whole convention had a kind of electricity to it.

Minnick: I would just go back and forth by taxi from the dormitory down to the Kemper Arena where the Ford operation was in the hotel. And it was all incredibly exciting for me because I grew up watching contested conventions on television, black and white televisions. And all of a sudden, here I was, 19 years old, and this thing that I had watched on TV every four years, all of a sudden, there I was. There was the floor. There was the podium. There was ABC News and CBS.

Ford signs were ubiquitous in Kemper Arena on August 17, 1976 as the convention devolved into chaos. | AP Photo

Frank Donatelli, executive director, Young Americans for Freedom: This was not a stage-managed convention like they have now where everybody is quiet and then the next speaker talks and it’s all managed. … It was almost kind of like a sporting event, if I can use that analogy in the sense that … the crowd controlled the pace more than the podium.

Barbour: There was tension in the delegation. It was not ugly or angry.

Minnick: There was a gentleman’s agreement, supposedly, between the Reagan camp and the Ford camp to not hold any floor demonstrations the first two nights of the convention. And about 8:00 on [Tuesday] night, Nancy Reagan walked in and the whole place went ballistic with a spontaneous hall demonstration. My assignment Tuesday was to get a hold of every Ford state chairman ... and these were governors and senators. And my job was to contact them and to get them to find two people out of their delegation, and get them all to a room … at a certain time. And then, we worked it out; they’d bring in signs under their jackets and things. And at 8:00, when Betty Ford walked in on Tuesday night, the place was going to go ballistic for Ford, which is what happened. I remember being at the very top of the Kemper Arena working on this all day long and getting the people together, and in the right room and everything, and just going up to the very top and standing there, and all of a sudden, watching Betty Ford. … I could see her coming in and going to her box, and the whole place went crazy. And I felt like, “I did that.”

Barbour: In the hall at Kansas City, the leaders of both sides [of the Mississippi delegation] were having a discussion. My concern was it was right in front of the press. There were reporters all around. There were drapes around a nearby stairwell. I got the people in the conversation to go up under the stairwell so people would be out of the sight. You could still hear them after they got under there. So, I just started talking. Reporters knew what I was doing. I named the 82 counties of Mississippi in alphabetical order, which I was able to do when I was younger. … They all were just laughing out loud. I was trying to out talk the delegates’ conversation. I got to the end of the alphabet, and a reporter said, “What are you gonna do now?” And so then I said the counties backwards, and that got them shrieking with laughter. It was that random effort to give our guys some confidentiality as they were talking about whether we should caucus or shouldn’t caucus [to see how many votes we had for Ford vs. Reagan].

Black: We were trying to convince people. Some people were pretty solid conservatives but who somebody had convinced to be for President Ford. We were trying to convince them to vote with us at least on [16-C]. But others we just tried to convince that Reagan would be the best president and the best guy to win the general election because the Ford people, it’s natural, they were peddling Reagan was too old, was too conservative, probably not smart enough, etc. So with a lot people you were disabusing them of bad information and then trying to persuade them why it would be good for Reagan to be the nominee. We had a lot of volunteers that we pulled in to also work specific states and specific people. So I was managing quite a few people in that process. One of my whips, by the way, at that convention was John Kasich. John was just out of college and he was working for a state senator in Ohio named Buz Lukens, who was a big Reagan guy. So he volunteered his time and before the Ohio primary he put in a few weeks helping us try to round up votes. We were on a very slim budget there and we lost, but nevertheless, I was impressed enough with him that I asked him to come to the convention and help us out. So we ended up giving him deputy duties in some of those Midwestern states to go work on individual delegates, and he was just as proactive and, I thought, persuasive as he is now.

Tom Korologos, official proceedings with RNC: There was a delegate that broke her leg, or hurt her leg. The convention floor is raised four or five inches so they can put the wires underneath, and the phones and the lights and all that. So it’s a wooden floor. Well this one lady stepped off the floor and hurt her leg pretty bad, and probably broke it. And she was sitting there writhing in pain, and they wanted to haul her off to the emergency room or to the hospital. But I remember … we wouldn’t let her go because her alternate was a Reagan delegate. We couldn’t afford to lose the votes, so we got some delegate doctor. I think it was a congressman from Kentucky as I remember. They came over and put a splint on her leg made out of convention programs or out of something, and made her sit there for an extra hour until after the vote. Then they carried her off.

One lady stepped off the floor and hurt her leg pretty bad, and probably broke it. ... But I remember we wouldn’t let her go because her alternate was a Reagan delegate. They ... put a splint on her leg made out of convention programs.”

Black: There was a lot of arguments, heckling; luckily, very little violence. I had a sleeper delegate in the city of Philadelphia delegation, and the Ford people, they didn’t want me to communicate with her. So they put her in about six seats deep and put this great big guy that must have weighed 300 pounds on the end, so I couldn’t get by him to go in and talk to her.

On Tuesday, delegates finally voted down the 16-C by a vote of 1,180 to 1,069 votes. Before the voting, the California delegation, taunting Ford, chanted “Who’s Our Veep? Who’s Our Veep?”

Barbour: 16-C won in the committee the week before, but the convention voted on the rule on Tuesday.

Angelo: And when we lost on that, we knew we were dead.

Meese: That was a really good indicator that President Ford had the necessary votes, so that was pretty much the end of our campaign until the night of President Ford’s acceptance.

Ford’s team entered the convention taking no chances on losing a first ballot vote. For them, that meant avoiding a fight over changes to the platform. But when Reagan’s strategist drafted a foreign policy plank, known as “Morality in Foreign Policy,” to challenge Ford’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his policy on détente, Kissinger wanted it struck. Dick Cheney, working for the Ford campaign, would later tell Shirley that the platform change “did everything but strip Henry bare of every piece of clothing on his body.” But Ford’s campaign, not wanting to alienate any delegates, accepted the platform change.

Angelo: The week prior to the convention, we were constantly working up ideas for platform changes that we thought we could force a vote on and break some of the poor delegates away from Ford. And just about anything we came up with, the Ford campaign would accept.

Spencer: My biggest concern was something ideological coming out of the platform committee would help [Reagan’s team] steal the Florida delegation. If [Reagan delegates] wanted it, we said, “Give it to them.”

Korologos: There was a plank in the platform [Reagan’s team was proposing]. It was a plank having to do with détente. [Secretary of State] Henry [Kissinger] started raising hell that we got to get this piece of out the platform. And we’re in a meeting with Ford and Cheney. … We were in there, and Henry said, “I will resign.” We were counting votes. Everybody was half in the soup. The convention delegates had gone all over hell town, came back half soused, and there was no way we were going to have a roll call vote at night. Henry kept demanding and insisting that [the platform vote] was a close call. And I blurted out in the meeting, “Hey Henry, will you resign now? We need the votes.” And everybody laughed and it broke the ice. And Henry still grumbles about it every time he sees me. It’s almost 50 years ago, but that’s in there.

An agitated Ford and Reagan walk from a late night meeting the two had on Wednesday, August 18th in Reagan's Kansas City hotel room during the 1976 Republican convention.| Getty Images

Cannon: The Ford people just gave the Reagan people the platform. I was in some of those platform committee hearings, and the Ford people were under instructions: Don’t get into a fight. “If they want this on abortion, if they want that on defense, give it to ‘em.”

Barbour: The Reagan people should have been harsher. Ford’s people would have had the choice of abandoning their own people to avoid a fight, and that would have been hard to do.

Angelo: After we saw we weren’t going to win on the voting aspect of it, we kept trying to think of something else to do. And finally some of the group decided that if Reagan would withdraw Schweiker that that might make a difference. So [another Reagan worker] and I were delegated to go see Reagan to ask him to do that. And we went to his hotel very early in the morning. In fact, if I remember right, he was still in a bathrobe. And he came out to visit with us. And I don’t remember now exactly how it got started. But he said, “That’s it guys.” He knew us both pretty well. He said, “You know, that’s it, stop. If you were to stand here right now and tell me that you could guarantee that I’d get the nomination if I did that, there’s no way that I’m gonna do it. Schweiker has stood up for us. And his family’s been with us.” And he said, “That’s over. Just don’t even bring it up. Don’t even talk about it.” And we were both embarrassed to have ever even thought about asking him to do it. We felt like a couple dummies. But it showed what kind of guy he was. He wouldn’t even let us talk about it.

On Wednesday, Reagan’s and Ford’s name were placed into nomination, and the convention again went off the rails.

Donatelli: I was in the hall Tuesday and Wednesday night and I do remember. … I remember it being incredibly raucous both nights. I don’t recall any altercations on the floor. But what I do recall is incredible intensity and emotion. And chants sweeping around the floor.

Ernie Angelo, Texas campaign co-chairman, Citizens for Reagan: At one point, the Texas and California delegations, which they had put on opposite sides of the convention center, we shouted our slogan from the Texas convention: “Viva Ole,” which is a Hispanic cheer. I’m not sure now. One side would yell, “Viva.” And the other side would yell, “Ole.”

Betty Ford stands with her sons and daughter at the nominating session of the GOP convention, Wednesday, Aug. 18, 1976. | AP Photo

Antosh: I certainly remember the raucous Texas delegation in their cowboy hats and with their “Viva Ole!” chants. We were situated right next to them.

Angelo: We literally shut the convention down for 45 minutes. Which drove the Ford people nuts, because they were trying to get things in prime time and we kept them from doing it just out of pure orneriness.

Minnick: The actual floor demonstrations were on Wednesday night. You don’t even get that anymore. Where they actually would stand up and run around, and parade around the convention hall, and how long they mattered in terms of, “Oh, his went on 10 minutes longer than the other guy’s.”

Angelo: The Ford family was right above us. We were kind of under the overhang. At one point in the convention, one of the Ford sons bought two big baskets of trash and dumped them on the Texas delegation. It was that kind of stuff going on.

Jack Ford, president Ford’s second-eldest son: It wasn’t trash. It was red, white and blue confetti, about 1-inch a piece. And it wasn't two containers, just one. I should know: I was the son who did it. My mom was sitting beside me, and she wouldn’t let me dump trash. Also, I dumped it everywhere, it just happened to fall on the Texas delegation, because they were sitting right in front of us.

The Ford family was right above us. We were kind of under the overhang. At one point in the convention, one of the Ford sons bought two big baskets of trash and dumped them on the Texas delegation.”

Reagan: My sister Maureen wanted to be a delegate for my father, to be able to cast a vote for her father. She went to my dad, and he told her, “My brother Neil”—his brother Neil was also at the convention—he said, “I’m going to have my brother Neil be my delegate in the California delegation.” My sister said, “Why?” Because he didn’t know if Neil would be alive or around if he ever ran again. So he wanted to get Neil who had helped him so much in the past [as a delegate]. It worked out because in 1980 my sister was able to cast her vote for my father as part of the 1980 delegation.

Black: Because the seating was alphabetical or somewhat close to it, the New York delegation was right behind the North Carolina delegation. And Rockefeller decided to go sit down on the floor and he was a lame duck [because he wouldn’t be vice president in Ford’s second term, which was widely reported before the convention]. So he decided to go sit on the floor at the head of the New York delegation. Well, some of the North Carolina guys who were rabid Reaganites in the row or two ahead of him were heckling him or he was heckling them. At any rate, a guy named Jack Bailey—who’s also dead now; he was from Rocky Mount, North Carolina—we had these phones that were the equivalent of walkie-talkies. He was on the phone calling back to the [Reagan] trailer saying something and he had made Rockefeller mad.

According to news reports that day, it appears the fracas started over a stolen “Reagan Country” sign. “Rockefeller said later that Bailey handed him the Reagan sign,” according to the AP report at the time. “But Bailey says the vice president took it from him, folded it and put it under his chair, placing his feet on it. He said he asked Rockefeller to return it, but the vice president refused. Bailey said he then went to the chairman of the New York delegation, Richard Rosenbaum, and told him, ‘I’ll have to have my sign back or I’ll take [Rockefeller’s] telephone.’ At that, witnesses said, Salt Lake City, Utah, delegate Douglas Bischoff entered the argument and ended up ripping out the delegation’s telephone as retribution for Rockefeller’s taking the sign, leaving Bailey holding the receiver. … Bischoff was taken off the convention floor by security guards, but later returned to his seat across from the New York delegation. He said the Secret Service held him for an hour, took a statement from him and checked his credentials. Then he shook hands with Rosenbaum, apologizing for taking the telephone.”

Angelo: And then Clarke Reed from Mississippi, who was supposed to be a Reagan guy, betrayed the Reagan group and took most of his delegates for Ford. Four years later, I was able to beat him for the vice chairmanship of the southern region. Which was kind of a little retribution.

Clarke Reed, Mississippi State Republican Chairman: I don’t think I screwed up at all.

Barbour: Clarke was really upset about the Schweiker deal, and so were a lot of people. The Schweiker announcement really sat poorly with a lot of people in Mississippi and across the South. People like Clarke Reed had spoken out often that “we don’t do that,” if you elect a conservative president, you need to know that if the president dies, for example, the one who will take his place will be just like him.

Reed: It’s been written the wrong way. The main thing is, everybody over-simplified what happened. Reagan was embarrassed, in my opinion, because he did what he said he was not going to do [in nominating Schweiker]. Here’s the simple facts. It’s in the record. We wound up giving Ford 16 votes and Reagan 14 votes. Had we given [Reagan] the other 16, he still would have wound up about, give or take 100 short. The whole convention. There was no “there” there. Thirty votes wouldn’t have put Reagan over the top. It’s been written that Mississippi and its 30 votes would have put Reagan over the top. It didn’t happen. The world believes Mississippi gave Ford the nomination. We didn’t, and we couldn’t. (“What’s he overlooking is the psychological effect it had on Reagan’s soft supporters,” Shirley says today.)

The final vote on Wednesday night was 1,187 for Ford and 1,070 for Reagan.

Black: Sears set up for Reagan and Ford to meet the next morning, and there was plenty of tension between them, too.

***

Thursday

Spencer: I got hardly any sleep. After Ford won it, we were in all night meetings about picking vice presidents.

Bob Dole, senator from Kansas: I got a call about 6 a.m. in the morning from [ABC reporter] Bob Clark, and he said, “You’re going to be named Ford’s running mate.” And I said, “You’re pulling my leg.” And he said, “No, you’ll be hearing from the president’s people soon.” We were on pins and needles. After that 6 a.m. call came I could hardly sit still.

Standing between their families, Ford and Dole wave to the crowd in Kemper Arena prior to Ford’s acceptance speech. | Photo courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation

Spencer: We needed somebody who could bring the farm states from Carter to Ford. Dole delivered them.

Dole: At 7:30 a.m., I got the call [from Ford] asking if I would accept. He asked me to come to his hotel and we had a good discussion. … [Ford] wanted to chit chat first, “How you doing? What do you think of the convention?” Then he said, “I’ve looked at a lot of people, and with your coming from the heartland and your service as a veteran, I would like to ask you to be my running mate.”

Reagan: I remember after Ford was nominated we were up in our suite with my dad waiting for Ford to come up. My sister and I were thinking, “If he offers [the VP slot] take it. You’re too old to get another shot at this. You’re too old. If he offers it take it, and go from there.” When Ford came up, they went into a private room. He came out, and we all went, “What happened? What’d he say?” He said, “he never asked me, he just chose Bob Dole.” We all just looked at him. … That’s how we found out Bob Dole was chosen.

Black: They met, just a kind of a courtesy meeting, and Ford asked Reagan to speak to the convention, and Reagan said, “No. You’re going to win. It’s your night. It’s your show.” and then you know the rest of the story there, where Ford gave his acceptance speech and called Reagan down from the grandstands there.

And it was when Ford announced that Bob Dole was going to be his running mate... and it was like a wave. That’s all I can think. It was a wave of the, “Dole? Dole? Dole?”

Minnick: There had been conversations going on through the middle of the night and such, and the night before, and when they finally settled on Dole, I remember Senator Griffin sitting up in the front of the bus [on the way from the Ford headquarters hotel to Kemper Arena] with a microphone, briefing the Ford chairs, so all these politicians, on “why Bob Dole?” so they could sell Bob Dole to their delegates.

Zorine Shirley, volunteer for Ford’s “The Presidentials” youth group: We were in a conference room. It was at the Crowne Plaza. It was a huge room. And it was when Ford announced that Bob Dole was going to be his running mate. It was the strangest thing because they announced it at the huge podium. We were pretty far back. We were the young kids able to stand at the back of the room. And they announced it and it was like a wave. That’s all I can think. It was a wave of the, “Dole? Dole? Dole?” No one was really—it wasn’t like a huge cheer went up. A few people up in front, there was a huge cheer, but most of the people were just very surprised that he picked Dole. And yet, we were in Kansas. You would think it would’ve been a huge cheer.

Reagan: Earlier in the day was one of the convention bigwigs from California had come up, had had a bit to drink, and knocked on the door of the booth [where the Reagan family had gathered], and was looking for Michael Deaver (public relations for Citizens for Reagan). We said, “Why?” He said, “Come with me.” He walked over to that glass, and he pointed down to where his seat was in the convention hierarchy, and he was drunk. He said, “Here’s what going to happen … the president of the United States is going to speak, and when he gets done speaking, he’s going to look up at the booth, and say ‘Ronnie, why don’t you come down and say a few words, and bring your lovely wife, Nancy.’” And then he left. He said, “Please tell Michael Deaver this, so he can relay it to the governor.” Nobody told Michael Deaver this, because the guy was drunk and nobody believed it was going to happen.” The president of the United States, was not going to, after he spoke, look up and invite the Great Communicator down to address the convention. While the president was speaking, we started to empty out of that booth, and beat the crowd out of the convention hall. So Maureen and myself and my wife Colleen … we were all across the street at the hotel at the bar having a glass of wine, watching the president finish his speech on television. The president finishes his speech, and sure enough, he looks up at the booth and he goes, “Hey, Ronnie, bring your lovely wife Nancy down and maybe say a few words to the convention.” We all looked at each other and said, ‘You have got to be kidding.’”

Stone: There was no plan for him to go, that’s true. The whole thing was spontaneous. But with Ford coaxing him from the podium, there was no way not to go and look like a sore loser. And I think Reagan was well aware of that, and as I’m sure you’ve read, he had no remarks prepared. He went totally off the cuff. And it was the defining moment of the convention.

Ford and Reagan shake hands on the convention stage at Kemper Arena following Reagan’s speech on August 19, 1976. | Photo courtesy of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation

Black: Reagan could have still declined but he decided to go on once the convention exploded in applause, five times as much applause as Ford got from any line in his speech. So the Reagans looked at each other and they went down. Now Reagan had been working on a speech he had to give in Los Angeles a couple of weeks later. He hadn’t finished it but that’s what he did about the time capsule and everything. He had it in his head.

Donatelli: Reagan’s speech was Thursday night. And since we had lost, I didn’t go to the convention hall Thursday night. I watched it on television. I went out to dinner with friends and we had the TV on. We were at a restaurant. Reagan wasn’t supposed to speak. All of a sudden, he was at the podium and one of the guys said, “He’s about to speak.” … It must have been kind of like a bar-restaurant or they wouldn’t have had a TV on. And we asked [the bartender], “Turn it up.” And that’s when we heard the speech.

Barbour: I was 28 years old. I was so tired that on Thursday, the night of the president’s speech and Dole’s acceptance speech, [my wife] Marsha and I ate an early dinner, and watched the speeches in our hotel room. People were worn out.

Fred Barnes, political reporter, Washington Star: It was an incredible speech. The crowd went wild. They just—they were moved. I have to say it was an awfully good speech.

Dole: That was quite a moment to be on the same platform.

Angelo: When he got to the microphone nobody sat down. They didn’t sit down while he spoke. And the applause was thunderous.

Dole: He just had them in the palm of his hand.

Cannon: It wasn’t a concession. He was really talking about the age of nuclear war. It was both a very sober reminder of the fact of the reality, and a campaign speech for 1980. It was a remarkable moment.

And the applause was thunderous. And as people were walking out of the Convention Hall, I personally heard a number of people say, “We’ve nominated the wrong man.”

Shirley: As I started to hear what was being said, you started to wonder if Ford—I don’t really remember questioning if Ford was the right man exactly beforehand, but Reagan's speech was just one of those that caught your breath. You just listened to him. I know later on I saw the footage of a woman saying we elected the wrong man or nominated the wrong man. And I think there were a lot of people in that room that walked away saying, even us kids—I say kids. We weren’t that young really. We were in our early 20s and 18, 19, 20. And I still think a lot of us walked away thinking, “Oh my word. Oh my word, that was powerful.”

Angelo: Hundreds of thousands of people have said it, but after Reagan made his concession speech—first of all, when he got to the microphone nobody sat down. They didn’t sit down while he spoke. And the applause was thunderous. And as people were walking out of the Convention Hall, I personally heard a number of people say, “We’ve nominated the wrong man.” And I’d look around and I’d see somebody wearing a Ford button saying that. It wasn’t just one or two.

Spencer: Ford wasn’t overly nervous. Pins and needles, maybe.

Barnes: Ford was not a great speaker, but he gave the best speech he ever gave, accepting the nomination, which wasn’t as good as Reagan’s speech. Impossible to beat Reagan. Reagan was so good. He knew enough to be able to give a speech that was riveting and important and helped put him in place for the 1980 nomination. Heaven knows Reagan delivered a fantastic speech.

Minnick: I actually turned 20 on the last evening of the convention when Ford gave his big speech and Reagan came and spoke. … I felt like leaving that hall on my birthday night, that the party was unified.

Ronald Reagan waves to the crowd on the final night of the Republican National Convention August 19, 1976 in Kansas City, Missouri. | David Hume Kennerly/Getty

Shirley: And of course, it was hard, because Ford, when he got up there, he was up there with his family. It was all very cute and everything, but he did not command the room. That was just a simple thing. He gave his speech and it was fine and everything else, but he did not take control of the room. And I think that was the one thing that Reagan, when he spoke, it was just sort of an eruption of, “This man is right, he’s right, he’s right, this is what we’ve got to do.”

Angelo: Four or five years ago, I went to a reunion of the Reagan campaign people. And they included me in it. I was not paid [as a campaign staffer]. But we put so much time and effort into that they included me as one of them. They replayed his speech. And there were a bunch of men and women both at the group, probably 40 or 50 of us. And there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. The women were sobbing.

Sears: We weren’t given much of a chance, but we made it close, scared them some. A lot of people were very excited. We haven’t had a spirited convention like that since.

Shirley: It’s one of those things. At the time, I had no idea. We were just there holding up placards and supporting somebody. I had no idea just how much history we were there for and what we were witnessing.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Bob Dole as Vice President Bob Dole. He was the vice presidential nominee.

Update: This article has been updated to include Jack Ford's comments.