From September '92:

Ax Him No Questions, He'll Tell You No Lies

By Rick Horowitz

"...and now I consent to answer your inquiries. Yes? In the front row?"

Q. Thank you, General Washington. I know your campaign for Chief Executive is going quite well, sir, and meaning no disrespect, but I do have a subject I'd like to raise with you. You have been portraying yourself as a protector of the natural environment --

A. Quite correct.

Q. Yes sir, but we've heard reports that in your youth, you chopped down a cherry tree. Could you comment?

A. Let me just say that there is nothing to those reports. When you get into a campaign year, you always have these kinds of rumors floating around. So no -- my answer is no.

Q. If I could follow up, sir, and just to be clear: Then you never chopped down that cherry tree?

A. That's right. Any other questions? You there, go ahead.

Q. Thank you, General. If I could stay on this tree thing for a minute. There's a surveyor's report of your father's property taken right around that time, and here on page three it says very clearly, "one downed cherry tree." Now --

A. I'm sure there were cherry trees on my father's property, if that's what you're asking, and one of them may have come down someplace back then, I don't really remember, it wouldn't have been anything special. Yes?

Q. Begging your indulgence, sir, but we have a letter you wrote at the time to your young friend Richard Henry Lee. In this letter, you say -- and I'm quoting here -- "What a splendid day I had chipping away at that cherry tree. I shall never forget the sound as it toppled to earth..." and so on. Now sir, my question for you is --

A. You said "chopped."

Q. Excuse me?

A. You all asked me whether I "chopped" down a cherry tree. Nobody ever asked me if I "chipped" down a cherry tree.

Q. So then you're admitting you did it?

A. Absolutely not. It wasn't really a tree -- more like a shrub. You wouldn't even have needed a hatchet to bring it down, a pocket knife was quite sufficient. In fact, a strong wind might have done it while I was simply standing there.

Q. Are you saying the cherry tree might have been caught in a draft?

A. Something like that, yes. Just a few more questions, and then I really must -- yes?

Q. General, we've just published an interview with your family's former groundskeeper, and he says he distinctly remembers your uncle Raymond Washington putting a hatchet at the base of that particular cherry tree a day or so before it was chopped --

A. Chipped.

Q. -- down.

A. It's all news to me. This is the first I ever heard of any of this.

Q. Well, sir, the groundskeeper also says he told you about your uncle's assistance months ago.

A. Right. That's -- it's exactly what I mean. The first I ever heard of it was when the groundskeeper told me. That's when it was all news to me. But it all happened such a long time ago, there wasn't any way to confirm it. Not that anything happened. So I didn't mention it. One more, and then I absolutely -- yes?

Q. General Washington, my paper has just acquired excerpts from your father's own diaries. In one of the entries, your father apparently tells of finding you standing beside the cherry tree in question. He asks you what happened and you say, "I cannot tell a lie -- I chopped down that cherry tree." Now, how does --

A. Look, even if all this stuff is true, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Even if I did chop down that cherry tree, I never broke a single law of the United States by doing it.

Q. Sir, there wasn't any United States back then.

A. Exactly.

Q. Sir?

A. Yes?

Q. Have you ever been to Arkansas?