by Allen Drury
At the Sheraton-Park Hotel the Senator himself completes his dressing and starts downstairs to breakfast, stopping on his way at the apartment of Victor Ennis of California to see whether he wants to share a cab later to the Hill. Vic and Hazel Ennis invite him in for coffee, which soon expands to breakfast, and before long Bob Munson has discovered that both Vic and his junior colleague, Raymond Robert Smith, a child of television out of MGM who progressed easily from Glamour Boy No. 3 to TV Commentator No. 1 and from there to the House and then to the Senate, will vote for Bob Leffingwell. They have already talked it over, Senator Ennis explains—Ray called from the Coast as soon as he got in last night from the Academy Awards dinner, “and of course you know Hollywood will be behind him, and Ray thinks he’d better be, and so do I.” This is entirely aside from the merits of the nominee, but Bob Munson, who knows his two Californians thoroughly, is quite content to accept their votes without quibbling over motives, the first and most valuable lesson he learned in Washington and one he never forgets. Senator Ennis volunteers the information that he called Arly Richardson, just for the hell of it, and the Majority Leader asks quizzically:
“And what did that sardonic son of Arkansas have to say?”
“He said, ‘I guess this will make Bobby sweat a little,’” Senator Ennis reports, and Senator Munson laughs.
“I think I’ll put him down as doubtful, but probably leaning to Leffingwell,” he says, and Victor Ennis nods.
“If you can ever expect Arly to stand hitched,” he says, “that’s where I’d hitch him.”
And as Hazel comes in briskly with the firm intention of diverting the conversation from politics for at least ten minutes, they turn to her excellent meal and start talking baseball.
While the Ennises and the Majority Leader are thus occupied they do not know—although they would hardly be surprised if they did—that at this very moment, out Sixteenth Street in an apartment high in the Woodner, the Honorable Lafe W. Smith, junior Senator from the state of Iowa, is engaged in a most intimate form of activity with a young lady. This is the fourth time in eight hours that this has occurred, and Lafe Smith is getting a little tired of it. The young lady, however, a minor clerk on a House committee and new to the attractions of living in Her Nation’s Capital, is still filled with a carefree enthusiasm, and so the Senator, somewhat against his better judgment, is doing his best to oblige. After the standard processes have produced the standard result, the young lady will shower, dress, and amid many tremulous farewells and mutual pledges will peek nervously out the door and then hurry away down the corridor, hoping she has not been seen. The Senator, who thinks he knows something the young lady does not know, which is that he will never see her again, will also shower, shave, examine himself critically in the mirror, be amazed as always at how his unlined and engagingly boyish visage manages to stand the gaff, and then will depart by cab for the Hill, where he is scheduled to meet two elderly constituents from Council Bluffs for breakfast. These kindly folk will be suitably impressed by his air of All-American Boy, and they will go away bemused and bedazzled by their meeting, never dreaming that their All-American Boy, like many another All-American Boy is one hell of a man with the old razzmatazz.
As this tender scene, so typical of life in the world’s greatest democracy, is unfolding at the Woodner, Walter F. Calloway, the junior Senator from Utah, is also standing before the mirror in the bathroom of his house near Chevy Chase Circle just inside the District-Maryland Line, muttering and whistling through his teeth in his reedy voice just as he does on the floor of the Senate. “It iss my opinion,” he is saying (downstairs Emma Calloway, preparing the usual eggs and bacon, hears the faint droning buzz and wonders tiredly what Walter is practicing this time), “that the confirmation of Mr. Leffingwell to thiss vitally important posst would seriously endanger the welfare of the United Statess in thiss most critical time...” None of Walter’s colleagues would be surprised to hear this, and later in the day, when he issues the statement to the press and takes the time of the Senate to read it into the Congressional Record, they will shrug and look at one another as much as to say, “What did you expect?” They will be convinced then, prematurely as it turns out, that it is not among the Walter Calloways of the Senate that the fate of Robert A. Leffingwell will be decided, and they will promptly dismiss the opinion of the junior Senator from Utah, who is likable as a person, mediocre as a legislator, and generally ineffective as a United States Senator.
Also practicing, although unlike Walter Calloway not on his own superb voice, is Powell Hanson, the junior Senator from North Dakota. Powell is sitting in his study in Georgetown surrounded by Powell, Jr., twelve, Ruth, seven, and Stanley, four, and he is practicing the violin, an instrument he played in high school and hadn’t touched since until about six months ago when Powell, Jr., began to play. Now by popular demand of the younger generation, he has resumed it; and since he never manages to get home from the Senate Office Building much before seven or eight, and then only for a brief meal before either going out again socially or locking himself up with legislation, it is only in the half hour before breakfast that he can manage to really see the children. The violin was Powell, Jr.’s own idea, which the Senator feels should be encouraged; under the impetus of their joint scratching Ruth now thinks she may want to start piano, and Stanley bangs a mean drum, purchased for his recent birthday. Elizabeth Hanson, who gave up a promising future as a research chemist to marry the young lawyer in whom she saw the same possibilities he saw in himself, is quite content with the uproar created by the maestro and his crew, even though it makes breakfast a rather catch-as-catch-can meal. The price exacted by public office sometimes seems more to the Hansons than they are willing to pay; but since they know perfectly well that they will go right on paying it just as long as Powell can get re-elected, they are doing what they can to protect their children and their home. As long as the half hour is set aside as a special time, they feel, as long as it comes regularly every day, it forms a small but unbreachable wall around the family; not much, but enough to do the trick.
Also living in Georgetown in houses of varying quaintness and antiquity whose price increases in direct proportion to their degree of charming inconvenience are some twenty-one Senators whom Bob Munson refers to for easy reference in his own mind as the “Georgetown Group.” The quietest of these domiciles on this morning of Robert A. Leffingwell’s nomination is probably that of the senior Senator from Kansas, Elizabeth Ames Adams, eating breakfast alone overlooking her tiny back garden; the noisiest is probably that of the junior Senator from Wisconsin, Kenneth Hackett, with his hurly-burly seven. Somewhere in between, in terms of decibels and general activity, come such homes as the gracious residence of John Able Winthrop of Massachusetts, the aunt-run ménage of Rowlett Clark of Alabama, and the parakeet and fish-filled home of ancient John J. McCafferty of Arkansas and his sole surviving sister, Jane.
Far from the Georgetown Group along their delightfully tree-shaded and quaintly impassable streets, certain other colleagues are also greeting the new day in their separate fashions. Twenty-two Senators are out of town, taking advantage of the lull which has come about during the debate on the pending bill to revise some of the more obscure regulations of the Federal Reserve Board. Some people, like Murfee Andrews of Kentucky, Rhett Jackson of North Carolina, Taylor Ryan of New York, and Julius Welch of Washington, can throw themselves into this sort of abstruse economic discussion with all the passion of Lafe Smith on the trail of a new conquest; but most of the Senate is quite willing to leave such topics to the experts, voting finally on the basis of the advice of whichever of the experts happens to be considered most reliable.
Consequently the experts, aware of their responsibility, are leaving no cliché unturned. All but Taylor Ryan, in fact, are already up and going busily over the economic theories they will hurl triumphantly at one another in a near-empty Senate chamber this afternoon. The small, chunky body of Murfee Andrews is already in imagin
ation swiveling around scornfully as some scathing point sinks home in the unperturbed hide of Rhett Jackson, who in turn is contemplating the delicate sarcasms with which he will show up the ignorance of Murfee Andrews. Julius Welch, who has never gotten over having been a college president, is readying another of his typical fifty-five-minute lectures with the five little jokes and their necessary pauses to permit the conscientious titters to flutter over the classroom. Taylor Ryan, a man who likes his comfort, is still abed, but his mind is busy, and no one need think it isn’t. He has no doubts whatever that he will be able to bull his way right through the flypaper arguments of Jay Welch and Murfee Andrews with the sort of “God damn it, let’s be sensible about this” approach befitting a man who made his millions on the Stock Exchange and so knows exactly what he’s talking about in a way these damned college professors never could.
Among the absentees, there are as many interests on this morning of the Leffingwell nomination as there are geographic locations.
In the great West, Royce Blair of Oregon, that ineffable combination of arrogance, pomposity, intelligence and good humor, is up very early preparing an address to the Portland Kiwanis Club luncheon on the topic, “The Crisis of Our Times.” He has selected this title, with his small, private smile-to-himself, as being a sufficient tent to cover all the camels he wants to crowd under it; and the news of the nomination of Robert A. Leffingwell, provoking from him, as it did from the Majority Leader, a startled, “Oh, God damn!” provides the biggest camel of them all. Royce Blair does not like this nomination and Royce Blair, polishing sledge-hammer phrase after sledge-hammer phrase, is going to say so in terms that will take wings from the Portland Kiwanis Club and echo across the nation by nightfall. Already he has tried, in vain, to reach Tom August and tell him what to do, but the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, as usual in moments of crisis, is nowhere to be found.
Actually, by one of those happy coincidences which have characterized his turtle-like progress through three terms as Senator from Minnesota, Tom August at this moment just happens to be completely out of touch with almost everyone at a plantation in South Carolina. This is just as well from his point of view, because he knows that a lot of people are just as anxious as Royce Blair to tell him what to do and in his vague and gentle, otherworldly way, Tom August doesn’t like to be told. So he is quite happy to be out of touch, and if his host should ask him to stay another day or two—there won’t be a vote on the Federal Reserve bill until next week, so there’s no rush—Tom August would be quite delighted to remain. The time for departure is nearing, however, and the Senator is beginning to perceive that the invitation will not be extended, and so with his usual philosophical and faintly resentful air of being buffeted unjustly by an unkind fate, he is getting ready to go back and face the music. His calm is not enhanced by the fact that for some strange reason known only to their host, his fellow house-guest and fellow voyager on the flight back to Washington is Harley M. Hudson, the Vice President of the United States. “What this country needs,” Arly Richardson once remarked, “is a good five-cent Vice President,” and Harley has never gotten over it. He has been fretting about the Leffingwell nomination ever since the news came over the radio, dropping all pretense that he had been informed of it in advance and professing freely a worry as deep as it is voluble. Harley always means well, but Tom August can’t stand him when he gets in a fussing mood, and the prospect of six hundred miles of this is almost more than the soft-voiced and wistfully willful senior Senator from Minnesota thinks he can stand.
In Albuquerque at this moment the first Senator to give a comment to the press has been waylaid by reporters on his way to the plane for Washington. Hugh B. Root of New Mexico, chewing his cellophane-wrapped cigar and giving the whistling, wheezing, mushlike wail that passes for his particular version of the English language, is blurting something that the wire-service reporters hear as, “—mushn’t shpend our time on sucsh shtupid—sucsh shtupid—mushn’t—I’m opposhed—opposhed—we shimply mushn’t—” which they agree among them must mean, “The Senate must not spend its time and energies on such stupid nominations. I am unalterably opposed to the nomination of Robert A. Leffingwell to be Secretary of State.” When they read this back to Hugh Root for confirmation he gestures with his dripping cigar, looks at them with sudden sharpness like an old badger unearthed in the sunlight, nods, waves, and clambers aboard, shaking his head indignantly. Then he takes the wings of the morning and is gone into the cold bright wind of the desert dawn.
In something of the same vein, though more quietly and cogently, the senior Senator from New Jersey, James H. La Rue, bravely fighting the palsy which always afflicts him, says in his quavering voice in St. Louis that “the Senate must and will reject the nomination of Mr. Leffingwell. Mr. Leffingwell’s views on world affairs do not agree with those of many patriotic and intelligent Americans. It would not be safe to have him in the office of Secretary of State.” It is not an opinion Bob Munson will like to hear about, but Jim La Rue, a good weather vane, has indicated the ground on which the nomination battle will really be fought. It is ground to which Seab Cooley will presently repair along with the rest, and it will make of the matter something much more serious than a thirteen-year grudge. It is ground which is already concerning not only the capital of the United States and its Senate but London, Paris, Moscow, and the whole wide world, which is now beginning to get the news. The fight to confirm Bob Leffingwell is not going to be a simple thing, as Jim La Rue, with customary prescience, foresees.
For seven Senators this fact is brought home with an extra impact, for they are dealing, or have just dealt, with areas where the Leffingwell nomination will create the most lively interest.
High above the Atlantic in a plane bringing home the American delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting in Stockholm, the news coming smoothly over the radio brings much the same dismay to John DeWilton of Vermont as it has to Bob Munson and Royce Blair. Turning slowly about in the stately way which is his custom—“Johnny DeWilton,” as Stanley Danta once put it, “doesn’t bend, he sways”—the silver-topped human edifice which is the senior Senator from the Green Mountain State clears its throat and demands sharply of Alec Chabot, “Now, why in the hell do you suppose—”
The junior Senator from Louisiana shrugs and looks down at his impeccably kept hands and expensive suit, then darts a quick sidelong glance at Leo P. Richardson of Florida.
“Leo probably knows,” he says, a trifle spitefully. “Leo knows everything about this Administration.”
At this jibe Leo’s round and earnest face squinches up in its usual preoccupied expression of intent concentration and he blurts out a short Anglo-Saxon word he does not customarily use. This indication of feeling is not lost on his seatmate, Marshall Seymour, the acerbic old hell raiser from Nebraska, who gives his dry chuckle and asks of nobody in particular, “Did somebody say there’s going to be a hell of a fight? Because if nobody did, I will.”
The junior Senator from Missouri, Henry H. Lytle, leans forward from the seat in back with the dutifully worried expression he always wears when he is considering matters affecting the fate of mankind and with one of his usual complete non sequiturs blurts out, “But what will the Israelis do?”
“Who gives a good God damn about the Israelis?” Johnny DeWilton snorts brusquely. “What will I do is what I’m worrying about.”
In somewhat the same fashion, in the suite they are sharing at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City, the two Senate members of the American delegation to the United Nations, Harold Fry of West Virginia and Clarence Wannamaker of Montana, are also getting the news. They are being apprised of it by the wife of the British Ambassador, who is in the hotel on a brief shopping visit to the city with the wife of the French Ambassador. Kitty Maudulayne and Celestine Barre, up bright and early to ready themselves for a descent on Fifth Avenue, have received the news on a daybreak telecast and Kitty has wasted no time in calling Senator Fry
.
“Hal,” she says excitedly as the sleepy Senator takes up the phone, “do you know what the President has done? He’s appointed Bob Leffingwell Secretary of State! Aren’t you excited?”
Hal Fry gives the slow and delightful grin that splits his fascinatingly ugly face, and chuckles into the receiver.
“Kitty dear,” he says kindly, “I’m not excited, but just listen to Clarence.”
He reaches out a foot to the other bed and kicks Senator Wannamaker, who rolls over and grunts.
“It’s Kitty Maudulayne,” Hal Fry says, “and she says the Old Man has appointed Bob Leffingwell Secretary of State.”
There is a moment of silence, violently broken.
“What?” roars Clarence Wannamaker. “What the hell did you say?”
“Did you hear that, Kitty?” Hal Fry asks happily. “I told you he’d be excited.”
“I do think it’s thrilling,” Lady Maudulayne says.
“What does Celestine think?” Senator Fry asks.
“She just smiles,” Kitty replies.
“She would,” says Senator Fry.
“Yes,” says Lady Maudulayne.
At this point Clarence Wannamaker rears to a sitting position and begins some really scientific cursing. Hal Fry hangs up with best wishes to Lord Maudulayne and Raoul Barre, after briefly considering and then rejecting as useless the idea of probing to find out what those two astute and self-possessed allies think about the Leffingwell nomination. They will all be at the party at Dolly’s in Rock Creek Park tonight, he reflects, and perhaps there will be some inkling there. More than one crisis has been solved at Vagaries, that great white house amid the dark green trees, and possibly this one will be too, although he rather doubts it. He remembers as he pushes away the phone and lapses back for another half hour’s sleep that the Indian Ambassador, Krishna Khaleel, will be there, too. Much more to the point than Henry Lytle with his querulous wonder about “What will the Isaraelis do?” the senior Senator from West Virginia wonders what “K.K.” and the Asians will do. Given the state of the world, the answer to that may really be of some consequence.