consultant for the gary hart for president campaign in the 1988 election cycle. so on the hart campaign, struther was the counterpart to what lee atwater did for george bush. here is james fallows again, quote, during what lee atwater realized would be the final weeks of his life, atwater phoned struther to discuss one more detail of the 1988 campaign. atwater had the strength to talk for only five minutes. it wasn t a conversation, strother said when i spoke with him recently. there wasn t any bless pleasant. it was like he was working down a checklist. what he wanted to say the episode that triggered gary hart s withdrawal from the race which became known as the monkey business affair, it had been a trap. strothers says, quote, i thought there was something fishy about the whole thing from the very beginning. lee told me that he had set up the whole monkey business deal. i did it, he told me. i fixed hart.
a checklist and he had something to tell me before he died. what he wanted to say the episode that triggered gary hart s withdrawal from the race which became known as the monkey business affair, it had been a trap. strother says, quote, i thought there was something fishy about the whole thing from the very beginning. lee told me that he had set up the whole monkey business deal. i did it, he told me. i fixed hart. strother s conversation with atwater happened in 1991. he mainly kept the news to himself. as the years went by, he discreetly mentioned the conversation to some journalists and other colleagues, but not to gary hart. quote, i probably should have told him at the time. it was judgment call, and i didn t see the point in involving him in another controversy. but late last year, strother learned that the prostate cancer he had been treated for a dozen years ago had returned and spread, and that he might not have long to live. strother began traveling to see people he had know