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The first memo was written by Robb in August 1987 to executives of the Hunton and Williams law firm, where he had been practicing law and biding his time until his 1988 Senate run. "I'd have to acknowledge that I have a weakness for the fairer sex -- and I hope I never get over it," Robb wrote. "But I've always drawn the line on certain conduct" despite being with "some pretty alluring company ... I haven't done anything that I regard as unfaithful to my wife, and she is the only woman I've loved, or slept with, or had coital relations with in the 20 years we've been married."

The other damaging memo was written by Johnson after Squier had dispatched Team Robb to Virginia Beach. Johnson wrote, on Dec. 5, 1990: "Interviews with people familiar with Robb's activities at the beach indicated that [Robb] allegedly was joined on perhaps two dozen occasions by people who were heavy drug users and served federal prison sentences on cocaine and drug-related charges ... Others have alleged that Robb was sexually involved with at least half-a-dozen women approximately 20-25 years his junior at random times from 1982-1986 ... Robb did engage in sexual relations, or oral-sex, with at least half-a-dozen women."

Asked about his 1987 memo in an interview with Baker, Robb foreshadowed Slick Willie a decade later with his own version of Parsing 101: "I choose my words with care ... I previously said I hadn't slept with anyone, hadn't had an affair. I clearly did not limit anything more than that. I drew a line and stuck by that line. And I really don't think it's any of your business or anyone else's business."

Didn't matter. It was in the papers and on the TV again. All that hard work, his diligence on national security and team-building with Republicans as a member of the dwindling Senate Centrist Coalition, now seemed for naught. His name was dragged through the muck once again.

Didn't matter that he and Lynda had patched things up, that he had devoted himself to her since those days, and to their three daughters, and to being the best senator he could. He was still being crucified for things that he may or may not have done some 10 years earlier.

Joked then-Gov. George Allen, "Virginia is for lovers, but maybe not that type."

The sleaze was given even more air time when Robb's Republican opponent, Iran-Contra figure Lt. Col. Ollie North, aired ads asking, "Why can't Chuck Robb tell the truth? About the cocaine parties ... or about the beauty queen in the hotel room in New York?"

"Robb says it was only a massage," the ad sneered.

North led in the polls and in fund-raising, but everyone knew the race would come down to the last few hours. "In 1994, the only person Chuck could beat was Ollie, and the only person Ollie could beat was Chuck," says Baker.

Lucky for Robb, North had his own baggage. In 1989, he had been found guilty of aiding and abetting an obstruction of Congress and two other crimes. Though all three convictions were overturned on appeal, moderate Virginia Republicans nonetheless protested his candidacy, urging an independent Republican to run, siphoning off 11 percent of the vote and handing Robb a reelection victory previously considered impossible.

But had his execution been stayed, or merely postponed?

Enter George Allen Jr., whose dad had been the legendary coach of the Washington Redskins. The senior Allen took the team to the playoffs in his first season as coach, in 1971, and to the Super Bowl the year after that.

At his father's funeral in 1981, Allen Jr. quoted his pop: "To be successful, you need friends," he recalled, "to be very successful, you need enemies."

Allen Jr. has always seemed determined on being very successful. He is as tough and competitive and merciless as was his father. It's the kind of attitude that wins Super Bowls -- and elections.

Sitting in his office at the Richmond law firm McGuire Woods Booth & Battle these days, Allen can scarcely stay in his seat. He is clearly juiced and ready to take Robb on. He cancels another meeting to keep talking to me -- or at me, rather.

"This is a good exercise," he tells an aide.

In May, driving home from Shenandoah, Allen ran into a deer. The deer was killed. "There were no charges against me, just so you know," he jokes. Now, he says, he's preparing to gun for Robb with the same speed and force with which his new Jeep Durango killed that deer.

"Why be a spectator when you can be a warrior?" he asks.

He's always been pugnacious. In 1976, Allen clerked for a law firm in Alexandria, Va., where legend has Allen expressing disapproval at a senior partner's willingness to fraternize with prosecutors. It was a battle for him, a war. Not just a job.

Allen began his political career in 1982 as a member of the House of Delegates from Charlottesville, where he had played football for the University of Virginia. Allen's goofy, folksy manner didn't exactly have them thinking of him as a future governor, much less the man who could someday fell Chuck Robb.

"In the House of Delegates, he was widely perceived as dumb and awkward, a buffoon," says Baker. "Boy, were we wrong."

In 1991, U.S. Rep. French Slaughter, D-Va., retired, and, in a special election, Allen faced off against Slaughter's cousin, Kay Slaughter, for the seat. It got a little ugly. The National Republican Congressional Committee ran a TV ad on Allen's behalf featuring Slaughter's image superimposed over a photograph of an anti-war rally with a banner reading, "Victory to Iraq." Allen won with 63 percent of the vote.

But he didn't piss off only Democrats. "I have not come to be a member of a club but rather to fight for the taxpayers of Virginia," Allen told his colleagues shortly after taking the oath of office. Almost immediately, Allen upheld a campaign promise -- going against the wishes of the GOP leadership -- by voting to overturn the "gag" rule that barred federally funded clinic employees from talking about abortion.

Soon, after his congressional district was eliminated in a redistricting engineered by the Democrat-controlled House of Delegates, Allen suggested that another Republican congressman, Rep. Frank Wolf, move to a new district so he could take over Wolf's old one -- a district where Wolf had lived for a generation.

Wolf demurred.

So instead, after only a few months in the House, the Copenhagen-chawin' Allen decided to run for governor.

No one took him very seriously, at first. "We thought, 'Good ol' George, spittin' his way to the governor's mansion,'" Baker says. After the respective nomination contests, Allen lagged 40 points behind Democrat Mary Sue Terry in the polls.

But Allen always plays to win. President Clinton was starting his long slide into disrepute, and Allen campaigned against the "Clinton-Robb-Terry" style of governance. After the House passed the Clinton economic package and Clinton appeared at a fund-raiser for Terry, Allen said, "Today, as Democrats nationwide revel in their victory over taxpayers, Mary Sue Terry is sipping wine and nibbling cheese at the Rockefeller mansion in Washington." Terry, for her part, was running a horrible campaign.

"Clinton is deeply unpopular in Virginia, even among a lot of Democrats," says Sabato of the University of Virginia. "And Allen projects the image of a very friendly, almost populist Republican."

Allen, who was born in Malibu, Calif., overcame his large deficit in the polls and surfed the first wave of the Republican revolution right into office.

On Nov. 2, 1993, a buoyant Allen declared that "the days of tax-and-spend liberalism are over in Virginia ... You, the people, know better how to spend your money than the bureaucrats in Richmond do. We'll also make sure we have a welfare system that encourages independence rather than dependence. Workfare rather than welfare. From Day 1, my focus will be on creating more and better job opportunities for Virginians."

Baker, who got to know Allen at the time, says he realized the extent to which he'd previously underestimated the young conservative's political gifts. "I did a 180 on him," Baker says.

"He is almost entirely ideological," Baker says. "If you ask him about an issue he knows nothing about, he'll ask you two or three questions about it, then he'll put it into his ideological prism, which determines the outcome of his position. He's able to understand intuitively on which side of the issue he should come out. When I saw that, I thought, 'This guy is very Reaganesque.' He's able to explain his position in plain terms ... he'll 'Aw-shucks' his way through the whole thing, and that really comes across to voters. It's such a contrast with Robb, who studies the issues to death."

"Of course, because George is the way he is, it cuts both ways," Baker says. "He doesn't compromise."

Next page | "I'll knock your teeth out"