by Allen Drury
In the main, however, it was a serious business for the most part, and to a considerable degree a labor of love that had its own compensating satisfactions. He sometimes wondered, when he was arguing earnestly with someone as vapid as Walter Calloway of Utah or bargaining with someone as crafty as George Hines of Oregon, whether those who began it all had foreseen the down-to-earth applications of their monumental idea. Sometimes he would come out of the chamber and walk past the statue of Benjamin Franklin, who stood just off the floor at the foot of the stairs to the gallery, fingering his chin with a quizzical smile, and wonder if old Ben and the rest of them had ever had any idea, that steamy summer in Philadelphia, that their brain child would develop into as practical and bedrock a human process as it had. But then he would remember some of their discussions and decide that he probably knew why Ben was smiling. Dealing with prickly John Adams was probably no different from reasoning with prickly Orrin Knox, and certainly Arly Richardson in a pet could be no more difficult than Edmund Randolph.
Thus comforted by his wry imaginings of the past, he would reflect that this, in essence, was the American government: an ever-shifting, ever-changing, ever-new and ever-the-same bargaining between men’s ideals and their ambitions; a very down-to-earth bargaining, in most cases, and yet a bargaining in which the ambitions, in ways that often seemed surprising and frequently were quite inadvertent, more often than not wound up serving the purposes of the ideals.
In this eternal bargaining there were five principal middlemen: the President of the United States, the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and the House Minority Leader. Through these five changing-houses flowed the passions, the prejudices, and the purposes of the land, and on their particular skills in leading men depended that delicate balancing of dream and desire which moved the nation forward. At a time such as the present when all five were for all practical purposes equally adept, this made for a good deal of genuine progress in many matters. There had been times, as under the Roosevelts or Eisenhower, when one of the middlemen had either been strong beyond proportion or weak beyond proportion, when the balance was knocked out of kilter and the government either raced forward at a speed too fast to be comfortable or stalled at dead center and drifted helplessly through desperate crises without purpose, plan, or conviction at the heart of it. This was a penalty, and one that Ben and Company perhaps had not foreseen; but it was a penalty inseparable from freedom, and so far, despite great risks and perils, the country had survived them all. Whether it would under present circumstances was of course the question; and on that, it was too early to tell. All we can do, he told himself as he unlocked the door giving into his private office, took off his coat and hat, and prepared to buzz Mary to bring him the mail and start the day, is the best we can; aware that he was not alone in this, and that already, on the Hill, around town, and out in the country, others were already at work on the complex situation created by the nomination of Robert A. Leffingwell; some to help, some to hinder, but all, according to their lights, to do the best they could.
It wasn’t that you objected to these little duties you had to perform, Lafe Smith told himself as he paid his cabbie, ran up the steps into the Senate side of the Capitol, and hurried down the poorly lighted hallway toward the Senate restaurant. You liked people, usually, or you weren’t in this business. But the juxtaposition of breakfast with his upright constituents from Council Bluffs and a night with Little Miss Roll-me-over-and-do-it-again was one of those little ironies they didn’t tell you about in the civics books. They told you about the machinery, but they never let on that human beings were what made it run; they talked grandly about a government of laws, not of men, concealing from the idealistic and the young the apparently too harsh fact that it is men who make and administer laws, and so in the last analysis it is the men who determine whether the laws shall function. They made it all so unreal, somehow; and it wasn’t unreal at all; at least he didn’t think it was. Certainly he didn’t feel unreal, hadn’t last night, and didn’t now. It all hung together candidly in his pragmatic mind: Senators like it just as much as anybody, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less Senators for that. It was the sort of insight into the world that not very many of his colleagues knew he had. They all knew he had enough experience to have insight, but few were aware he had developed any.
However, he had, and those who realized it kept it in mind. That was why Bob Munson, for one, was so fond of him, totally unlike as their basic characters seemed to be; and that was why Lafe Smith was moving closer to the little group around Bob who generally called the tune for the Senate. And that was why, without even being asked, but just because he knew Bob would want to know, that he was about to make a quick, smooth, accurate, and reliable survey of what the Midwest thought about the nomination. Sometimes a single conversation could illuminate a whole region for you, if the people were representative and voluble enough; he knew his breakfast guests were. He had a good idea what their reaction would be: the Midwest wanted none of it. He wasn’t so sure he did himself, as a matter of fact, though that would depend on Bob and a lot of other things.
Just ahead of him, white-haired, kindly, and a little nervous about this venture into the great world of government, he saw his company, and with the engaging, comfortable grin that put constituents and conquests equally at ease, he stepped forward, held out a hand to each of them, said, “I’m Lafe Smith, sorry to be late,” and led them on into the restaurant.
At the press table in the restaurant as Lafe and his guests went by, Associated Press stopped in mid-coffee, looked up at United Press International and the New York Times and asked:
“What do you think he’s going to do?”
“Him?” UPI said. “Whatever Bob tells him to do.”
“I’m not so sure,” the Times remarked. “I don’t think this one is going to be so easy for Remarkable Robert.”
“A presidential nomination?” AP snorted. “Why shouldn’t it be?”
“But Bob Leffingwell,” UPI said. “And the Russians. And Seab Cooley. And what have you.”
“When Bob holds his press conference before the session we’ll have to ask him if this nomination is an example of that bipartisan unity we’ve been hearing about so much,” AP said. “I’ll bet it is.”
“I’ll bet he won’t tell us,” UPI said. “He’ll consider it a secret.”
“Oh, well,” AP said with a dry chuckle, “by noon he’ll have it all sewed up anyway.”
“That I doubt,” said the Times.
Dolly’s bedroom window, like most other windows in Vagaries, looked right out into the trees, and that was where Dolly was looking, too. The morning papers were spread across the bed and Dolly—Mrs. Phelps Harrison, generally described as “one of Washington’s most prominent hostesses”—was dreamily observing the first feathering green tips of spring along the branches. The sun was shining brightly, a crisp, fresh wind came in from the slightly opened window. It was a sparkling day out, and one of Washington’s most prominent hostesses knew she ought to be up and doing.
Instead, she was lying here thinking that once again events had conspired to guarantee the success of a party at Vagaries.
Things couldn’t, she reflected happily, have dovetailed more conveniently for her. When she had sent out the invitations she of course hadn’t the remotest idea that the date would fall on the day the President finally decided to appoint a successor to Howie Sheppard as Secretary of State. It was simply fate and her favoring star, therefore, that the guest list should include not only Howie, but Bob Leffingwell as well; and not only those two, but Bob Munson, Tom August, most of the Foreign Relations Committee, Orrin Knox, half the Cabinet, Lord and Lady Maudulayne, Raoul and Celestine Barre, Krishna Khaleel, and even Vasily Tashikov, to say nothing of a wide scattering of other Administration, Hill, and diplomatic people. This was the party of the spring at Vagaries—in three years’ time the society columns had become trained to the point where
they automatically referred to it as “the Spring Party,” without other identification—and it was always big. This time, though, she had an idea it was going to be positively sensational. Once again in a time of crisis, Vagaries might hold the key.
This, as she had congratulated herself so often before, simply confirmed again her great wisdom in deciding to settle in Washington in the first place. She had always had a lively interest in politics and world affairs, had fortunately been blessed with the native intelligence and shrewdness to give it point, and after the divorce when she was more or less at loose ends as to what to do next the idea had suddenly shot into her mind, “Why not go to Washington?” She and John used to visit there occasionally on business trips in the past, she had always liked and been thrilled by it, and now that she was adrift at forty-three with the family millions and no particular geographic ties, there was no reason why she shouldn’t.
“I’m going to live in Washington,” she had told everybody, and everybody had exclaimed; but not half so much as they did when they subsequently learned from press, radio, television, and newsreel just how overwhelmingly successful the move had proved itself to be.
Of course, that was the thing about Washington, really; you didn’t have to be born to anything, you could just buy your way in. “Any bitch with a million bucks, a nice house, a good caterer, and the nerve of a grand larcenist can become a social success in Washington,” people said cattily, and indeed it was entirely true. Dolly was no bitch, but the principle applied. First came the house—Vagaries, gleaming whitely, secretly yet hospitably among its great green trees on ten beautifully landscaped acres in the park, just happened to go up for sale less than a month after Dolly reached Washington and Dolly bought it outright at once—and then you began the routine. You got somebody you knew to introduce you to somebody she knew, and then you gave a small tea or two, and then a small cocktail party or even a small dinner, being careful to include the society editors of the Star, the Post and the News in one or more of them, and you were on your way. Then after the word had begun to get around a little, and you perhaps had been introduced to a Senator or two, and maybe a Cabinet officer and his wife or one of the military, you could sail right into it full steam ahead, set a date, send out invitations broadside to a couple of hundred prominent people, hire yourself the best decorator and caterer you could find, and sit back to await results. Since official Washington loves nothing as much as drinking somebody else’s liquor and eating somebody else’s food, the results were all you could hope for, and after that there were no problems. The quick-leaping friendships of stylishly dressed, scented, powdered, and bejeweled women screaming “Darling!” at one another, together with the amused tolerance of their amiable and almost always thirsty husbands, could quickly be parlayed into an endless round of party-going and party-giving that very soon took you to a social pinnacle limited only by your wealth and stamina. Before long you would find that Time and Newsweek were beginning to mention you in coy little asides in their news columns, and then would come the day when you picked up a magazine from the rack and found that all those carefully staged photographs at your last affair had finally resulted in a LIFE GOES TO A PARTY AT DOLLY HARRISON’S, and you could relax, at last, for you were finally, indubitably, beyond all peradventure of doubt and beyond all fear of challenge by mortal man—or, more importantly, woman—In.
After that, it was just a matter of continuing to lay out the food and the drinks and you could keep going indefinitely; especially if, like Dolly, you wanted to make it something a little deeper and more important, and so in time began to refine your guest lists to the point where they included not only the most important but also the most interesting people in Washington. Sometimes these were the same, but quite frequently they were not, and an astute realization of which was which and how often to mix them did much to give your hard-bought social standing a foundation as permanent as anything in the capital with its shifting official population could be permanent.
So it had been with Dolly, who along with her sister millionairesses was now one of the fixtures of the Washington scene. And, she told herself with considerable justification, quite possibly the best of them. Certainly her parties had a purpose—or at least they had since she had met Bob Munson. It was an event that had occurred last summer at Gossett Cook’s place in Leesburg, and it had been an event that had changed her life a good deal already. She was determined that it should change it a great deal more before she was through.
Later in the morning she would have to call Bob and talk about the party and find out what she could do to help with the nomination. Because she was quite sure that once again, as on several occasions before, she and Vagaries were going to be a big help to Bob. This thought with all its ramifications and frustrations annoyed her as it always did, and with a sudden, “Oh, poof!” she hopped out of bed, rang for the maid, and prepared to go downstairs and begin checking over the preparations for the party.
At the White House the press secretary went through the first batch of wires for the day and found them running about two to one against Bob Leffingwell. An impatient expression crossed his face. The Old Man wouldn’t like it, and it would just make him more stubborn than ever. The press secretary sighed.
The trouble with the president of General Motors, in the opinion of Roy B. Mulholland, was that he thought he owned the Senators from Michigan, or at least the junior Senator from Michigan, namely Roy B. Mulholland. He didn’t try to pressure Bob Munson very often, except indirectly through Roy, but he was always after Roy about something.
“Now, God damn it,” he was saying vigorously over the line from Detroit, “we don’t want a radical like that for Secretary of State. Now do we? Do we?”
“Bill,” Senator Mulholland said with a trace of asperity, “I tell you I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
“Well, make it up, man,” the president of General Motors said impatiently. “Make it up. Time waits for no man, you know. And you can tell Bob from me that we’re going to be watching his actions on this very closely. Very closely indeed.”
“Don’t you always watch Bob’s actions very closely, Bill?” Roy Mulholland asked. “I can’t see as it makes much difference to him.”
“Someday it will, by God,” said the president of General Motors. “Someday it will. The day will come, even for Bob, you wait and see. And for anybody else who doesn’t make the right decision for America.”
“You like that phrase don’t you, Bill?” Roy Mulholland said. “I’ve read it in at least three of your recent speeches.”
“Now don’t be smart-alecky like Bob, Roy,” the president of General Motors ordered sternly. “Just make the right decision for America, and we’ll be for you.”
“I’ll have to talk to Bob,” Senator Mulholland said.
“He’s more important to you than the voice of the people, eh?” said the president of General Motors tartly.
“In this instance,” Roy Mulholland replied with equal tartness, “he is.”
“Well, you tell him what I said,” the president of General Motors reminded him. “You tell him we’re watching him. And you too.”
“I’ll tell him, Bill,” Senator Mulholland said, “and I’ll be conscious of your piercing gaze. Give my love to Helen, and take care of yourself.”
“Sometimes I wonder about you, Roy,” the president of General Motors said in a disappointed tone. “Sometimes I do.”
On the East River a couple of mournful tugs were arguing with uneasy persistence with the fog. Senator Fry looked out upon them through the vast glass expanses of the United Nations Delegates’ dining room in a mood that nearly matched the weather. Already he was getting repercussions from the Leffingwell nomination. He had run into one of the members of the Saudi Arabian delegation in the hall just now, a billowing white vision of dark-eyed concern.
“Meestair Leffeen-gwell—” the Saudi had said abruptly. “Meestair Lefeen-gwell—Does eet mean you are shaingeeng your poe-leec
y een the Mheedle Heast?”
Hal Fry had suppressed an irreverent impulse to snap, “No, eet does hnot!” but had restrained himself. He had decided, rather, to give as good as he usually got from that sector.
“In the mysterious ways of Allah and the President of the United States, my friend,” he had said calmly, “the inscrutable becomes the indubitable and the indubitable becomes the inscrutable.”
“Yayess?” said the Saudi in polite puzzlement. “Yayesss?”
“Yes,” said Hal Fry firmly, and walked on.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t all quips and quiddities, by any means. It was going to raise hell in the Arab world, he could see that, to say nothing of a good many other places. And as for the Indians—well, he might ask K.K., but he knew that all he would get would be one of those typical Indian answers which go winding and winding off through the interstices of the English language until they finally go shimmering away altogether and there is nothing left but utter confusion and a polite smile. Still and all, he supposed he should find out if he could; and there was K.K. now, off on the other side of the room, and there was no time like the present. He picked up his coffee and made his way purposefully over. The Indian Ambassador looked up and flashed his gleaming smile.