by Allen Drury
“I have a telegram here,” Senator Richardson said and paused as if to search for it, glancing sharply at the nominee, who remained impassive, “from someone who claims to have known you at the University of Chicago when you were a teacher there.”
“I was a teacher there,” Bob Leffingwell said, “and I am quite sure a great many people knew me. Who is it from?”
“Don’t be impatient, Mr. Leffingwell,” Arly Richardson said. “Let me proceed with this in my own way.”
“I’m sorry,” Bob Leffingwell said with a smile. “I thought possibly I might know him.”
“His name isn’t important,” Senator Richardson said. “Gelb—Gelman—Gelman, that’s it, Herbert Gelman. A student of yours. He says you had the reputation of running with a pretty shady crowd.”
“Good God,” the Baltimore Sun whispered angrily, “is nothing sacred? This man is going to be handling our foreign policy and dealing with other governments and he’s tagged with ‘running with a shady crowd.’ Good God!” “This Hill can be a brutal place sometimes,” the Times agreed. “You never know, though; maybe it was a shady crowd.”
“Well, Senator,” the nominee said with a trace of annoyance, “anybody can smear anybody with anything, of course, and if he wants to he can take advantage of a Senate hearing to do it.”
“Are you accusing me of smearing you, Mr. Leffingwell?” Senator Richardson asked slowly, and the Washington Post hissed, “Say yes, God damn it!” But Bob Leffingwell chose not to.
“No, Senator,” he said, “but it seems to me you are transmitting the unfounded allegations of someone else without checking.”
“I’m checking them with you,” Arly Richardson said bluntly. “There’s nobody better to check with, is there?”
“All right, Senator,” the nominee said coldly. “I did not ‘run with a shady crowd.’ Period.”
“He goes on here,” Senator Richardson said in a deliberately unimpressed tone, “to say that this group was generally supposed on the campus to be strongly left-wing and probably Communist.”
“All that line of questioning is going to produce, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said in a tone equally unimpressed, “is a statement from the president and faculty of the University of Chicago testifying to my good character. I’ll be glad to have it in the record if you wish.”
“You sound pretty sure of that,” Arly Richardson observed with interest “Have you already arranged for it?”
“I’ve been told it’s coming,” the nominee replied, “and I can’t conceive that this type of questioning will do anything but hasten it along.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Senator Richardson asked, and Bob Leffingwell smiled.
“I feel,” he said, with a smile that didn’t quite remove all the arrogance, though he obviously thought it did, “that I am armored in the integrity of my own record.”
“Well, well,” Arly Richardson said. “Do you, now? Do you remember Herbert Gelman?”
“Frankly, I don’t,” Bob Leffingwell said. “I had, I imagine, some three hundred students, all told, during that year—”
“During what year, Mr. Leffingwell?” Senator Richardson asked. “I didn’t mention any year.”
Bob Leffingwell looked puzzled for a moment, then shook his head and smiled.
“I thought you did, Senator,” he said. “My course only ran three quarters, it was completed in one academic year, students only took it for one year, I taught roughly three hundred students each year, and I assumed you meant the year that this fellow Gelb or Gelman, or whatever it is, took it.”
“Gelman,” Senator Richardson said. “Herbert Gelman. I am beginning to think,” he said as the room became suddenly very quiet, “that we should all remember Herbert’s name. G-e-l-m-a-n, Gelman.”
“All right, Gelman,” the nominee said. “I remember no Gelman.”
“Well, he remembers you,” Arly Richardson said.
“Now, see here,” Bob Leffingwell said abruptly. “Just what are you getting at, Senator?”
“I haven’t any plan,” Arly said placidly. “Just whatever develops, Mr. Leffingwell. So you don’t remember Gelman.”
“No, sir,” the nominee said, more calmly.
“Would you if you saw him?” Senator Richardson asked.
“Is he here?” Bob Leffingwell asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Arly said.
“Then how could I?” the nominee demanded.
“I just wondered,” Senator Richardson said.
“I don’t remember him,” Bob Leffingwell said again. “Presumably he was at the university when I was, took my course, and indulged in campus gossip about people who were more prominent, and possibly more secure and better-adjusted to life in general and college life in particular, than he was. What else do we know about him, Senator?”
“That’s all,” Arly said, “unless you can tell us more.”
“I don’t know any more, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said frankly.
“Sure?” Arly Richardson asked.
“Sure,” the nominee replied firmly. Arly shrugged.
“Very well,” he said, “let’s go back to your general philosophy. You’ve made it rather plain you don’t want war.”
“Who does?” Bob Leffingwell said shortly, and Senator Richardson smiled.
“That’s right, who does?” he said. “You mean, I take it, war under any circumstances, is that right?”
“I can’t conceive of a circumstance that would warrant it, Senator,” the nominee said, and Senator Richardson looked thoughtful.
“Suppose a conference were held and it was demanded that we yield certain strategic positions?” he asked.
“We should, I suppose, reject any such demand,” the nominee replied.
“But suppose we were confronted with the threat of immediate military retaliation if we did not,” Arly went on, “and this is not beyond the realm of possibility these days, you know, Mr. Leffingwell. What then?”
“In that case, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said, “I assume it would be far past the point where anything could be done about it.”
“Our only choice then would be what, Mr. Leffingwell?” Senator Richardson asked. “To give in, wouldn’t it? To yield? To surrender? Anything else would be preventive war, wouldn’t it?”
The nominee thought for a moment and then spread his hands wide before him again in that open, candid gesture.
“I suppose it would have to be considered so, Senator,” he said.
“And you don’t like preventive war,” Senator Richardson said.
“No, sir,” Bob Leffingwell said.
“And you wouldn’t recommend it, as Secretary of State, because not only you but many another American, including a recent President of the United States, have formally announced to the world and our enemies that they never need fear force from us, because we will never use it until after we have given them the advantage of striking first, isn’t that right?”
“I would never recommend it, no, sir,” the nominee said firmly.
“So how would you get your country out of this not-so-hypothetical box in which I have placed her, Mr. Leffingwell? Can you tell us?”
“I would try to find some solution that would save the world from war, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said simply.
“Which, if we really believed the Russians meant war if we didn’t yield, and if that was genuinely their intention, would be to surrender to their demands, would it not?” Senator Richardson asked. Bob Leffingwell smiled a little.
“I think you have me in a box too, Senator,” he said. “I don’t believe that the alternatives you state are the only ones.” Senator Richardson leaned forward.
“Ah, then we’re getting somewhere,” he said, “because neither do I, nor does the Senator from Illinois, with whom you discussed something of this same point a few minutes ago. What alternative do you feel should be followed, then?”
“It might be necessary, under th
e conditions you state, Senator,” the nominee said gravely, “to concede in some degree to those demands, providing there were some concessions on the other side. I think that might permit us to live with the situation.”
“And keep our freedom?” Senator Richardson asked sharply.
“And keep our freedom,” Bob Leffingwell said.
The Senator looked at him curiously.
“But where do we stop yielding?” he asked. “At what point do we say, ‘No, it goes no further. This is where you stop and where we stand up for the things we believe in?’ Do you have such a point in your own mind?”
Bob Leffingwell spread his hands again in that curious, candid gesture.
“All I can tell you,” he said patiently, “is that it would have to depend on the situation as it then existed, Senator.” Then his voice strengthened and he straightened in his chair. “But I tell you this, and I care not who challenges it: I will never recommend war to the President of the United States if I become his Secretary of State. Never!”
There was an excited burst of applause in the room and Brigham Anderson gaveled for order. Senator Richardson leaned forward again.
“You’re so afraid of war that you’d give up anything to avoid it, wouldn’t you?” he asked softly. “You wouldn’t draw a line anywhere, would you? You’d just keep giving and giving and giving, until there wasn’t anything left for us to give, wouldn’t you?”
“Do you want war, Senator?” Bob Leffingwell asked. Senator Richardson snorted and slapped the table with the flat of his hand.
“By God, I do not,” he said in a cold tone. “But I am not afraid of it if it should have to come in defense of the things we stand for. Let me make you a little speech, Mr. Leffingwell: I had rather go out of this world standing on my two hind legs like a man, fighting for the things I believe in, than yield and yield and crawl and crawl until nothing is left. Nor am I afraid of the consequences, which I grant you would be horrible beyond belief. But nobody ever achieved anything by running away, and I don’t think we can achieve anything now by running away except the disappearance of the United States from the stage of history, quietly and neatly and without any muss or fuss, which is just the way the Russians want us to go. As for me, I had rather go ahead in the cause of what I believe in than scuttle and run for fear of something that might or might not happen.”
“If it did happen, Senator,” the nominee said quietly, “nothing would be left of the world.”
“And if it did not, and we found that we had yielded ourselves beyond redemption simply because of the fear that it might, nothing would be left of us,” Arly said with equal quietness. “So there we are. I have no further questions of the witness at this time, Mr. Chairman.”
“I have one of you, though, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said with a smile as the room began to relax to normal.
“What’s that?” Senator Richardson asked, and when the answer came a strange little expression came momentarily into his eyes.
“Have you tried to find Herbert Gelman?” Bob Leffingwell asked. “Not,” he added with an easy smile, “that it matters one way or the other, but I’m curious.”
“Yes,” Arly Richardson said slowly, “I have. I called the president of the university and he had it checked for me, but he said they couldn’t find any record of any such student in the past ten years and the records for four of five years before that had been destroyed in a fire. He said he personally was unable to remember any such name.”
“As a matter of fact, then,” the nominee said pleasantly, “we don’t even know that he exists, do we? It could be just a figment of somebody’s imagination, couldn’t it; some crank who wants to embarrass me, which as you know often happens to people in the public eye.”
“So far as I know,” Arly Richardson said in the same slow way, “all there is of Herbert Gelman is on this piece of paper.”
“Then don’t you think, Senator,” the nominee suggested with perfect courtesy, “that possibly I am due an apology for the implications made here?”
Senator Richardson looked at him steadily for what seemed a long time, and then he smiled too and spoke with equal courtesy.
“Perhaps you are,” he said pleasantly. “But long experience on this Hill tells me that perhaps the record should stand as it is for the time being. If nothing further supports it on the day your nomination comes to the floor of the Senate I shall be glad to speak in your behalf and vote for you. Fair enough?”
Bob Leffingwell smiled again.
“If that is the extent of your concession, Senator,” he said, “I guess I’ll have to accept it as fair enough.”
“Good,” Senator Richardson said. “Then we understand each other.”
“As you wish, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said with sudden indifference, and reached to light a cigarette as Arly sat back slowly in his chair. There was a stir and buzz in the room and in the midst of it Stanley Danta observed that his young colleague, who had been watching intently without a word through Senator Richardson’s entire questioning, was about to comment.
“Why, hell,” Fred Van Ackerman said, with an intensity made curiously disturbing by the fact that he did not raise his voice above a half whisper, “they’re crucifying him, Stan, that’s what they’re doing, they’re crucifying him. This has got to be stopped. This has got to be stopped.”
“You’re hurting my arm,” Senator Danta said quietly, and Senator Van Ackerman let go with an embarrassed laugh.
“I didn’t even realize I had hold of it, Stan,” he said. “Honest.”
Below the city lay before them; the rain had stopped and a’ sharp wind was driving the clouds apart; great shafts of sunlight slanted down. Each in its accustomed place the Capitol, the White House, the Library of Congress, the Court, the Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson memorials, the medieval spires of Georgetown University, and the bulk of the Washington Cathedral stood out. The river wound brown and muddy under its bridges, stretching away south and east toward the Chesapeake Bay; over the rolling countryside of Maryland and west along the Virginia hills to the Blue Ridge and the Shenandoah the first light carpetings of green were beginning to show; around the Tidal Basin the cherry trees awaited the warming winds. Any day now—any minute, perhaps—spring would arrive in sudden glory and the world would be a lovely place.
Looking down upon the great white city, the winding river, the kind and gracious land stretching off into the hazy blue of the clearing horizons, Krishna Khaleel sucked in his breath in a small appreciative sound as the plane climbed swiftly and moved into its course for New York.
“It is beautiful,” he said, “It is a beautiful city and a beautiful land, Hal. You should be proud.”
“You can’t know,” Hal Fry said softly. “You can’t know.” But the Indian Ambassador smiled.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I can know. I come from a bare brown land, but it has its beauties, too, Hal, some of them equal to these. And it is mine, which makes it beautiful beyond all other lands to me. Yes, I know.”
“Why can we never—” Senator Fry began in a tone of angry frustration, and stopped.
“—get along together?” Krishna Khaleel completed for him. “Why must all this beauty in the world be so misused by the men who live in it? Why do we live and work and strive, only to achieve no more than new destructions of one another? It is a time to ask, with spring about to come; though there will be no answer, I think, in spring. Or summer. Or winter. Or fall.”
“But we try,” Hal Fry said bitterly. “We try. Why does it mean so little? Why is it all so pointless?”
“Oh, it is not pointless,” K.K. said, more lightly. “For instance, there were gains at Dolly’s Friday night. And though we may feel some doubts at times, you and I at least are going back to the UN, drawn by some compulsion of hope as well as duty, I assume. At least I should hope it is hope, Hal.”
“It is for us,” Senator Fry said, frowning a little. “Some others, I doubt. As for Dolly’s, I’m
glad you thought gains were made. I’m not sure.”
“A start,” K.K. said, “a modest start. There was some indication from Bob, was there not, of a new inclination to make new approaches? Much, I presume, depends on what is happening down there”—and he gestured toward Capitol Hill, now far back and growing tinier by the second—“right now.”
“I expect we’ll confirm him,” Senator Fry said. “It would be most unusual not to.”
“I think you should,” Krishna Khaleel said. “It is none of our business, really, but yet you all have asked our opinion, and of course it is our business, as it is all the world’s, who is Secretary of State of the United States. Especially if he is to lead the way to a new arrangement with Russia.”
“Don’t jump too fast,” Hal Fry said, “or too far. A new approach doesn’t necessarily mean new negotiations, and new negotiation’s don’t necessarily mean a new approach. Particularly when our good friends rush us into it with such overwhelming urgency that our hands are tied and we are automatically foreclosed from any real bargaining.”
“But, Hal,” the Indian Ambassador said. “We do not do that. It is simply that we all desire peace, and we think for all your faults, which, my dear friend, you must recognize you do have, you are probably most likely to achieve it for the world if we can but bring you to see the way.”
“I feel we’re losing hold of things,” Senator Fry said, staring out the window as Maryland sped beneath. “I feel that somehow the United States isn’t going to get anywhere unless it hangs onto the things that have always meant the United States. I feel you want us to give them up, if necessary, to win agreement; and I don’t see how we can and still retain the inner conviction we need and have got to have if we are to survive and help the world survive. This is what troubles me.”
“Possibly some of those things are not quite so—so applicable as they once were, Hal,” K.K. said. “That is our only thought. Do you know what is best for the world? Do you know what is best for peace? Do you know what is best for yourselves, even? Sometimes we wonder.”