1988 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION : NBC Is First to Tell Nation, Quayle’s Mother the News

NEW ORLEANS — For lack of any other suspense, it was the story--the only story maybe--and NBC News broke it Tuesday, scooping Vice President George Bush on the announcement of his running mate.

Sometime around 2:30 p.m. CDT, NBC News correspondent Tom Pettit got word from a Bush campaign operative that the vice president was calling those candidates who were not selected. NBC correspondents and producers started calling those candidates they had identified.

Reached Several Candidates

They reached New York Rep. Jack Kemp, Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, former Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole, New Mexico Sen. Pete V. Domenici, and former White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr.

At 2:55 p.m., NBC aired a special report saying the list had been narrowed.

NBC hadn’t reached two key names, Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson and Indiana Sen. Dan Quayle. But Simpson earlier in the week had virtually taken himself out of the running. That left Quayle.

“We just started calling everybody we knew,” explained NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, “senators, governors, anyone we thought might know.”

Called Quayle’s Mother

NBC Vice President Timothy Russert called Quayle’s mother, Corinne, in Roanoke, Ind., who hadn’t heard a thing. Just then Mitchell called NBC anchor Tom Brokaw on the other line that she had it pinned down.

Mitchell, for the record, declined to reveal her source to The Times.

So Russert gave the phone to Brokaw. And the anchorman told the senator’s mother that her son had just been chosen to be the vice presidential nominee.