Shall We Tell the President?

by Jeffrey Archer

  Did he now intend to kill the President in order to reach the highest office himself? It didn’t add up because if Kane were assassinated the Vice President Bill Bradley, who was younger than he was, would take her place and then Brooks would be left with no chance. No, the senator didn’t look a serious threat but Mark still needed proof before he could cross him off the list.

  The hearing room had light-colored wood paneling, accented by green marble on the lower part of the wall and around the door. At the end of the chamber, there was a semi-circular desk of the same light wood, which was raised one step above the rest of the room. Fifteen burnt-orange chairs. Only about ten of them were occupied. Senator Brooks took his seat, but the assorted staff members, aides, newsmen, and administrative officials continued to mill around. On the wall behind the senators hung two large maps, one of the world, the other of Europe. At a desk immediately in front of and below the senators sat a stenotypist, poised to record the proceedings verbatim. In front, there were desks for witnesses.

  More than half the room was given over to chairs for the general public, and these were nearly all full. An oil painting of George Washington dominated the scene. The man must have spent the last ten years of his life posing for portraits, thought Mark.

  Senator Brooks whispered something to an aide, and rapped his gavel for silence. “Before we begin,” he said, “I’d like to notify Senate staff members and the press of a change in schedule. Today and tomorrow, we will hear testimony from the State Department concerning the European Common Market. We will then postpone the continuation of these hearings until next week, so the committee may devote its attention to the pressing and controversial issue of arms sales to Africa.”

  By this time, almost everyone in the room had found a seat, and the government witnesses were glancing through their notes. Mark had worked on Capitol Hill one summer during college, but even now he could not help feeling annoyed at the small number of senators who showed up at these hearings. Because each senator served on three or more committees and innumerable sub- and special committees, they were forced to specialize, and to trust the expertise of fellow senators and staff members in areas outside their own specialty. So it was not at all unusual for committee hearings to be attended by three or two or sometimes even only one senator.

  The subject under debate was a bill to dismantle the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Portugal and Spain had gone Communist and left the Common Market, like two well-behaved dominoes, at the turn of the decade. The Spanish bases went soon after; King Juan Carlos was living in exile in England. NATO had been prepared for the Communist takeover in Portugal, but when Italy finally installed a Fronto Popolare government in the Quirinal, things began to fall apart. The Papacy, trusting to tried and proven methods, locked itself behind its gates, and American Catholic opinion forced the United States to cut off financial aid to the new Italian government. The Italians retaliated by closing her NATO bases.

  The economic ripples of the Italian collapse were thought to have influenced the French elections, which had led to a victory for Chirac and the Gaullists. The more extreme forms of socialism had recently been repudiated in Holland and some Scandinavian countries. The Germans were happy with their social democracy. But as the west entered the last decade of the twentieth century, Senator Pearson was declaring that America’s only real ally in NATO was Britain, where a Tory government had recently won an upset victory in the February general election.

  The British Foreign Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, had argued forcefully against the formal breakup of NATO. Such a move would sever Great Britain from her alliance with the United States, and commit her solely to the EEC, seven of whose fifteen members were now Communist or close to it. Senator Pearson thumped the table. “We should take the British view seriously in our considerations and not be interested only in immediate strategic gains.”

  After an hour of listening to Brooks and Pearson questioning State Department witnesses about the political situation in Spain, Mark slipped out of the door and went into the Foreign Relations Committee suite down the hall. The secretary informed him that Lester Kenneck, the committee staff director, was out of the office. Mark had telephoned him the day before, leaving the impression that he was a student doing research for his dissertation.

  “Is there someone else who could give me some information about the committee?”

  “I’ll see if Paul Rowe, one of our staff members, might be able to help you.” She picked up the telephone and, several moments later, a thin bespectacled man emerged from one of the back rooms.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Mark explained that he would like to see other members of the committee in action, particularly Senator Nunn. Rowe smiled patiently. “No problem,” he said. “Come back tomorrow afternoon or Thursday for the discussion about arms sales to Africa. Senator Nunn will be here, I guarantee. And you’ ll find it much more interesting than the Common Market stuff. In fact, the meeting may be closed to the public. But I’m sure if you come by here and talk to Mr. Kenneck, he’ll arrange for you to sit in.”

  “Thank you very much. Would you by any chance happen to know if Nunn and Pearson were present at the hearing on 24 February, or last Thursday?”

  Rowe raised his eyebrows. “I have no idea. Kenneck might know.”

  Mark thanked him. “Oh, one more thing. Can you give me a pass for the Senate gallery?” The secretary stamped a card and wrote in his name. Mark headed for the elevator. Arms sales. Africa, he thought. Thursday’s too late. Damn. How the hell am I supposed to know why one of these guys would want to kill President Kane? Could be some crazy military thing, or a severe case of racism. It doesn’t make any sense. Not why, but who, he reminded himself. As he walked, Mark almost knocked over one of the Senate pages, who was running down the corridor clutching a package. The Congress operates a page school for boys and girls from across the nation who attend classes and work as “gophers” in the Capitol. They all wear dark blue and white and always give the impression of being in a hurry. Mark stopped just in time and the boy scooted around him without even breaking stride.

  Mark took the elevator to the ground floor and walked out of the Dirksen Building onto Constitution Avenue. He made his way across the Capitol grounds, entered the Capitol on the Senate side, underneath the long marble expanse of steps, and waited for the public elevator.

  “Busy day,” the guard informed him. “Lots of tourists here to watch the gun control debate.”

  Mark nodded. “Is there a long wait upstairs?”

  “Yes, sir, I think so.”

  The elevator arrived, and on the gallery level a guard ushered Mark into line with a horde of gaping visitors. Mark was impatient. He beckoned to one of the guards.

  “Listen, officer,” he said, “I have a regular public pass for the gallery, but I’m a student from Yale doing research. Think there is any way you could get me in?”

  The guard nodded sympathetically.

  A few minutes later, Mark was seated in the chamber. He could see only part of the floor. The senators were seated at desks in semi-circular rows facing the Chair. Even while someone was speaking, staff members and senators wandered around, giving the impression that the really significant maneuvering took place in hushed tones, not in dramatic debate.

  The Judiciary Committee had reported out the bill two weeks before, after prolonged hearings and discussion. The House had already passed similar legislation, which would have to be reconciled with the stricter Senate version if it were to be approved.

  Senator Dexter was speaking. My future father-inlaw? Mark wondered. He certainly didn’t look like a killer, but then which senator did? He had given his daughter her glorious dark hair, although there was a little white at his temples. Not as much as there ought to be, thought Mark—a politician’s vanity. And he had also given her his dark eyes. He seemed fairly contemptuous of most of the people around him, tapping the desk with his long fingers to emphasize a point.

/>   “In our discussion about this bill, we have sidestepped a critical, perhaps the most crucial, consideration. And that is the principle of Federalism. For the past fifty years, the federal government has usurped many of the powers once wielded by the states. We look to the President, the Congress, for answers to all our problems. The Founding Fathers never intended the central government to have so much power, and a country as wide and diverse as ours cannot be governed democratically or effectively on that basis. Yes, we all want to reduce crime. But crime differs from place to place. Our constitutional system wisely left the business of crime control to state and local jurisdiction, except for those federal criminal laws which deal with truly national matters. But crimes committed with guns are of a local nature. They ought to be legislated against and enforced at the local level. Only at the state and local levels can the attitudes of the people and the specific characteristics of the crime problem be understood and dealt with by public officials.

  “I know that some of my colleagues will argue that, since we require registration of cars and drivers, we ought also to register guns. But gentlemen, we have no national car- or driver-registration law. These matters are left to the states to determine. Each state should be allowed to decide for itself, taking into account the interests of its people, what is reasonable and necessary.”

  Senator Dexter monopolized the floor for twenty minutes before yielding to the Chair, occupied today by Senator Kemp, who recognized Senator Brooks. When Brooks had finished his preliminary remarks, he launched into a prepared speech:

  “ … have consistently decried the killing in the Middle East, in Africa, in Northern Ireland, in Chile. We ended the bloodshed in Vietnam. But when are we going to confront the killing that takes place in our own communities, our own streets, our own homes, every day of every year?” Brooks paused and looked at Senator Harrison from South Carolina, one of the leading opponents of the bill. “Are we waiting for another national tragedy to compel us to take action? Only after the assassination of John F. Kennedy was Senator Thomas Dodd’s Handgun Control bill taken seriously by a Senate committee. No legislation was passed. After the Watts riots of August 1965, in which purchased, not looted guns were used, the Senate held hearings about control of handguns. No action was taken. It took the slaying of Martin Luther King, before the Judiciary Committee passed legislation, controlling interstate sale of handguns as a rider to the omnibus Crime Control bill. The Senate approved the bill. The House concurred after Robert Kennedy was murdered too. In response to the violence of 1968, we enacted the Handgun Control act. But the act, gentlemen, contained a huge loophole—it did not regulate domestic production of these weapons, because at that time eighty percent of available handguns were manufactured overseas. In 1972, after George Wallace was shot with a Saturday-Night Special, the Senate finally acted to close the loophole. But the bill died in a House Committee.

  “Now, some twenty years or more later, having disregarded the fact that President Reagan was seriously wounded in 1981 by a man wielding a handgun in the streets of Washington, even with all that history someone in America is killed or injured by gunfire every two minutes, and we are still without an effective gun control law. What are we waiting for? Someone to try again to assassinate the President?” He paused for effect. “The American people favor gun control legislation. Every poll indicates that this is the case, and it has been true for a decade. Why do we allow the National Rifle Association to manipulate us, to persuade us that they and their views are compelling when in fact they are hollow? What has happened to our capacity for the clear weighing of alternatives, and for outrage at the violence in our society?”

  Mark, along with many other observers, was astonished by this impassioned outburst. His impression from informed political journalists was that Brooks would not support the President as, quite apart from personal animosity, he had been a key figure on a number of constitutional issues and in the fight against two of Kane’s Supreme Court appointees, Haynsworth and Carswell.

  Senator Harrison of South Carolina, an urbane, quietly distinguished man, asked to be recognized. “Will the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts yield?”

  Brooks nodded to the Chair.

  Harrison addressed his colleagues in a soft, firm voice.

  “This bill completely negates the concept of self-defense. It asserts that the only legitimate reason for owning a handgun, a shotgun, or a rifle is for sporting purposes. But I would like to ask my distinguished colleagues from the urban states to consider for a moment—just a moment—the plight of a family on a farm in Iowa or on a homestead in Alaska which needs a gun in the house to protect itself. Not for sport, but for self-defense. In my estimation, they have a right to take that step. For what we face in this country, in urban as well as rural areas, is increasing lawlessness. That is the root problem—lawlessness—not the number of guns in circulation. Increased lawlessness means more crimes involving guns, to be sure. But guns do not cause crimes, people cause crimes. If we want to fight crime, we should investigate its root causes instead of trying to take guns away from people who would use them legally. As many a bumper sticker in this great land proclaims, ‘If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns’.”

  Senator Thornton of Texas, thin and gaunt, with greasy black hair, whom Mark remembered from Mr. Smith’s Restaurant, had only just begun to express his agreement with the views of Senator Dexter and Senator Harrison when six lights around the numbers on the clock at Mark’s end of the chamber came alive. A buzzer sounded six times to signal that morning business was concluded. The “morning hour” on the floor of the Senate, from midday until no later than 2:00 P.M., was set aside for the presentation of petitions and memorials, reports of standing and select committees, and introduction of bills and resolutions.

  Senator Kemp looked at his watch. “Excuse me, Senator Thornton, but it is noon and now that morning business is over, a number of us are expected to appear in committee to debate the Clean Air bill which is on the calendar for this afternoon. Why don’t we reconvene at 2:30? As many of us who can get away from the committee at that time can meet back here to discuss this bill. It’s important that we move as quickly as possible on this legislation, as we are still hoping to vote on it in this session.”

  The Senate floor was cleared in a minute. The actors had said their lines and left the stage. Only those who had to get the theater ready for the afternoon performance remained. Mark asked the guard which was Henry Lykham, the other staff director he had to see. The doorman in the official blue uniform of the Senate Security Staff pointed to a short fat man with a thin moustache and a jolly open face sitting firmly in a large seat at the far side of the gallery, making notes and checking papers. Mark strolled over to him, unaware that a pair of eyes behind dark glasses was following his every movement.

  “My name is Mark Andrews, sir.”

  “Ah, yes, the graduate student. I’ll be free in a moment, Mr. Andrews.”

  Mark sat down and waited. The man in dark glasses left the chamber by the side door.

  “All right, Mr. Andrews, how about some lunch?”

  “Great,” replied Mark. He was taken to the ground floor, to G-211, the Senators’ Dining Room. They found a table at the side of the room. Mark chatted convincingly about the hard work a committee staff director must have to do, while others get the praise and publicity. Henry Lykham readily agreed. They both chose their meal from the fixed menu; so did the man three tables away, who was watching them both carefully. Mark told the committee staff director that he intended to write his thesis on the Gun Control bill if it became law, and that he wanted some interesting inside information that the general public wouldn’t get from the newspapers. “Therefore, Mr. Lykham,” he concluded, “I have been advised to speak to you.”

  The fat man beamed; he was duly flattered, as Mark had hoped, and he began.

  “There is nothing I can’t tell you about this bill or the bunch of politicians involved in it.” />
  Mark smiled, he had studied the Watergate hearings in an elective seminar at Yale and he recalled a particular remark of Anthony Ulasewicz, a retired NYPD detective. “Why bother to bug the place? Politicians and officials will tell you anything you want to know, over the phone, they’ll even want to send it to you in the mail, whoever you are.”

  Senator Sam Irvin of North Carolina, the committee chairman, had reprimanded him for treating the committee lightly and turning the matter into a joke. “It’s no joke—it’s the truth,” was Ulasewicz’s reply.

  Mark asked which of the eleven senators on the committee were for the bill. Only four of them had been present at the morning discussion. From his research, Mark was fairly certain about the opinions of most of them but he wanted his assessments confirmed.

  “Among the Democrats, Brooks, Burdick, Stevenson, and Glenn will vote for the measure. Abourezk, Byrd, and Moynihan are keeping their own counsel, but will probably come through in support of the Administration position. They voted for the bill in committee. Thornton is the only Democrat who may vote against it. You heard him start to speak in favor of Dexter’s states’ rights position. Well, for Thornton, young man, it’s not a matter of principle. He wants it both ways. Texas has a strong state gun control measure, so he can claim that his stance means that states can take whatever action they deem necessary to protect their citizens. But Texas also has a number of firearms companies—Smith and Wesson, GKN Powdermet, Harrington and Richardson—which would be seriously affected by a federal gun control act. The specter of unemployment again. As long as those companies can sell their wares outside Texas, they’re okay. So Thornton fools his constituents into thinking they can control guns and manufacture them at the same time. Strange games are being played by that particular man. As for the Republicans, Mathias of Maryland will vote for the bill. He’s a very liberal guy—I’ll never understand why he stays in the GOP. McCollister of Nebraska is against, along with Woodson of Arkansas. Harrison and Dexter you heard. No question where they stand.