Mayor Marion Barry with son, Christopher, and wife, Cora Masters Barry, at his announcement May 21. (By Michael Williamson/The Washington Post)

By David A. Vise and Hamil R. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 24, 1998; Page A01

They stood in a circle during the final private moment -- hand in hand, heads bowed, eyes closed -- and prayed.

They asked the Lord for the "right words" to describe the "difficulty" of the decision.

"God is in him, with him, through him and for him," intoned the Rev. Willie Wilson, "and where God is, there can be no imperfection."

As a round of "amen" brought the prayer to a close, Marion S. Barry Jr. opened his eyes and looked to his wife, Cora, and son, Christopher.

"Let's go," he said. "I'm ready."

Then the man whom some called "mayor for life" turned toward his office door and the elevator that would carry him down 10 floors to the waiting crowd of loyalists and a phalanx of television cameras and other news media. He was finally ready to forsake the mayor's office he had held for 16 of the last 20 years.

With great hope but no concrete promise of a second career, Barry made the leap on Thursday without a safety net. The rumors that he had no stomach for a fifth term in office had been thick for months, but all the while the mayor himself had wavered with indecision.

As recently as last Sunday, Barry had told his wife he had decided to run, though she didn't believe him.

Pieced together through interviews with the people involved -- Barry, Cora Masters Barry, Wilson and others -- the following is an account of the private discussions in the final days leading up to the decision.

It was a decision that did not come easily.

Seeking Counsel

The mayor and his pastor sat across from one another in the Southeast Washington church where Barry first came long ago for spiritual guidance and now turns for the temporal sort as well.

"There are a lot of people out there that still want me to run, but I don't think I'm going to do it," Barry said. "What do you think?"

The rain that had fallen off and on for days on end had passed, giving way to the first real sunshine in weeks. Outside on this day in mid-May, one week before he would make his announcement, it finally felt like spring.

For months, Barry had been listening to foes and supporters, teasing the press, taking polls and wringing his hands. He had agonized with his coterie of close friends. His heart and his mind were at odds over what to do next. His passion for political combat, for overcoming the odds and his enemies, was at war with realities that he knew too well.

He had survived prostate cancer and battles with alcoholism and drug addiction. Boxed in by a Republican Congress that had stripped him of power, he was tired of fighting "every day just to stay even." Some of his closest friends were arguing for retirement from office and trying to engineer a face-saving soft landing for him in academia.

At 62, he was inclined not to seek reelection.

But as he traveled through the streets of the city -- talking to the young and the old, the ministers and the homeless -- Barry found himself nodding and smiling as people urged him to run again. They set his adrenaline pumping as he pondered entering a mayor's race he felt certain he could win.

Now, he had an audience of one: Wilson, pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church, a man he trusted to provide honest advice untainted by any hidden agenda. The deflected sunlight of early afternoon infused the office decorated with Kente cloth and an African chief's staff. A Swahili edition of the Bible sat on the large desk that separated them as Wilson considered the mayor's question.

Wilson deeply resented the way Barry had been blamed for all of the city's ills. But he also was convinced that for too long, Barry had sacrificed his health, his well-being and his family life in order to serve as mayor. Wilson knew that in no other major city in the nation was a mayor first elected in 1978 holding office 20 years later.

He sensed it was time for a change.

Enough, Wilson told Barry. Enough.

The season had arrived to enjoy life, reduce the stress and go out on his own terms, Wilson said. He pointed to polls that showed that even without announcing he would seek another term, Barry had a commanding lead over a trio of rivals who had declared their mayoral candidacies.

Barry nodded in agreement. After months of agonizing, the right decision finally seemed clear. Wilson strode from behind his desk and took both of the mayor's hands in his own. The two men, bound by decades of rebellion and resistance, closed their eyes to end their 30-minute session in prayer.

"You are first with the people, and you are first with the people because you have served the people," said Wilson, who received the mayor's permission to describe their private session. "And the scripture says, 'He who would be first of all, must be servant of all.' Notwithstanding some of your personal shortcomings, you have truly served the people. . . . When you give that much service, it is time you enjoy yourself and enjoy your family."

Wilson asked God to "guide and direct" the mayor in coming to terms with this momentous decision. Relieved, Barry offered his thanks, bid farewell and departed.

Making Up His Mind

In the distance, the roar of morning rush hour was beginning to subside as Cora Barry sat with her husband in the tranquillity of their porch overlooking a wooded thicket in Southeast Washington.

Earlier that day, they had played tennis on courts built with money raised by a charity she founded. Now, as they sipped coffee and she flicked crumbs to the birds, Washington's other first lady considered whether to broach the subject of the future. The mayor, who knew how strongly she opposed a reelection bid, had sidestepped any discussion to avoid confrontation.

It was a day or two after the mayor's meeting with Wilson, and word had reached Cora Barry that her husband and political soul mate had made up his mind.

Somebody told me you're going to make an announcement, she said. What are you going to say?

The mayor hesitated, caught in a moment of reflection.

"You are human; tell me how you really feel and think," she pressed.

I've decided not to run, the mayor responded.

They were the words Cora Barry said she had been waiting to hear since Jan. 2, 1995, when the mayor was inaugurated to a fourth term in office after an extraordinary political comeback. It was a comeback -- after a videotaped FBI sting led to a drug conviction and prison term -- that she says she initially had opposed. Cora Barry relented after a family friend persuaded her to heed her husband's loyal supporters whose spirits needed the lift of seeing their fallen mayor redeemed.

The fourth term in office proved painful for the Barry clan. During the first year, the cancer was discovered and successfully excised through surgery. The following year, with the help of friends, she abruptly whisked him away to a "spiritual retreat" amid rampant rumors of a lapse into drug or alcohol abuse. And the year after that, Congress took away virtually all his control over city government.

Stripped of power, Barry no longer could deliver the things he cherished most: summer jobs for young people, contracts for minority firms, or jobs that had elevated many African Americans to the middle class.

On Capitol Hill, legislators sneered that he symbolized all that was wrong with a crime-ridden city and a bloated bureaucracy that seemingly had produced more potholes and problems than promise. Cora Barry knew that power would not be returned to locally elected officials as long as her husband was the city's elected leader.

"I just never assume that there is not someone out there trying to get Marion. . . . It is very healthy to be paranoid. I just assumed from the moment he took the oath of office that there was always some kind of form of investigation. I assume our phones are tapped and all that. Who needs it?"

When one friend suggested that the mayor should seek yet another term this year, she exploded.

"I said, 'I'm going to say this, and I hope you don't take this the wrong way. You are very selfish. Anybody who is true to his friend would tell him not to run. . . . You are not talking about what is best for him,' " she said.

Cora Barry says she desperately wanted time with her husband out of the glare of the public spotlight so they could reclaim their personal freedom and get out of harm's way.

"I married Marion and wanted to work on a personal relationship and not a political career," she said. "And I knew that him being mayor would make it more difficult.

"Marion is a lightning rod to many people who love him and many people who don't. At this point in his life, he has collected a diversified group of friends and enemies."

Wavering With Emotion

A few days later, Cora Barry sat on the family room couch watching one of her favorite television shows, "Touched by an Angel." The episode was about a troubled trip to China, and she and the mayor planned to depart for China in less than a week.

"Cora, I am going to do it," her husband said as he entered the room. "I am going to run for mayor."

She paused, keeping her eyes fixed on the television screen.

"You'll get over it," she replied.

The decision, as far as she was concerned, had been made.

"I didn't take him seriously," she said. "I thought it was a fleeting moment of emotion."

She was right.

Two days later, Barry summoned his communications director, Linda Wharton Boyd, who already had sensed that he had come to terms with his political future.

His walk "was lighter, it was quicker. He could laugh. It was that 'Marion Barry' laugh you hadn't heard in a while. I remember saying to people, 'He knows what he is going to do now.' "

He asked for her help in preparing the most difficult speech of his remarkable and often divisive political career.

Back in Campaign Mode

A colorful bouquet of balloons awaited as Marion Barry strode confidently to the podium on Thursday afternoon.

Flanked by Cora, his son, Christopher, and Wilson, Barry delivered his message with the kind of vigor more often reserved for a campaign kickoff than a farewell address.

"This has been one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in my 40 years of public service," Barry said. "It's a decision that had to be weighed against a backdrop of personal and professional successes and failures; against a backdrop of ups and downs; against a backdrop of a city that has regained a great deal but has lost some degree of democracy; against a backdrop of a mean-spirited, Republican-led Congress that assaults us to break the spirit of our people and recolonize our souls. . . .

"I want to lead the fight to revive our spirits, to give hope again to Washington. And to fight as hard as we can to get the masses of our people involved in this fight to retain and regain democracy. . . . As American citizens, we have to rise up against this tyranny. . . . And you'll see me there doing that. . . . I've decided to serve in another way. But rest assured I'm going to serve. I'm going to serve. I'm going to serve."

Wilson's telephone rang shortly after 6 o'clock the next morning. It was Marion Barry.

"Thank you, Reverend Wilson, for your prayers and your concern," Barry said, "and I feel real good this morning.

"I know I made the right decision."