Advise and Consent

by Allen Drury

  “Hell, no,’” the Majority Leader quoted crisply. “Good night, Seab.”

  “Good night, Bob,” Seab said gently. “I hope you sleep well, Bob. Tomorrow may be a busy day.”

  ***

  Chapter 5

  And so it was. Busy for the two of them, riding again together in the early morning traffic from the hotel to the Hill, sparring warily but good-naturedly on the way; for press, television, and radio, arriving early in the galleries, gulping their coffee quickly in the restaurant, hurrying over to the Caucus Room to stake out their places of vantage; for Brigham Anderson and Orrin Knox and Arly Richardson and John Winthrop and Johnny DeWilton, leaving their respective homes early and making their separate ways as fast as possible to their offices to get mail and dictation out of the way before the burden of the hearing came upon them; for other members of Foreign Relations who had decided to be on hand today, and for Fred Van Ackerman who had decided the same, doing the same quick housekeeping duties in their offices; for Dolly and Kitty and Celestine, each choosing with quick skill the exactly right dress, the exactly right hat, the exactly right expression to wear for today’s session; for the nominee, leaving his home in Virginia early after a restless night, driving in over the Fourteenth Street Bridge, turning right on Constitution and moving through the rush past Agriculture and the Botanical Gardens and up the Hill not far behind the Majority Leader and his shrewd old companion; for Herbert Gelman, coming in on the bus from Northeast, unseen and unseeing, unknown and unknowable; for the Capitol cops who had to be on duty at 7 a.m. to handle the crowd, and for the crowd itself which began arriving shortly thereafter and by nine forty-five when the doors opened was lined up four deep back from the doors, across the hall, and clear around the balcony of the front rotunda of the Old Office Building, well over a thousand more than could possibly get in.

  This was in truth to be a busy day, for it was, and everyone knew it, the climactic episode in the committee-hearing stage of the Leffingwell nomination.

  “Mr. Chairman,” Arly Richardson said into the quivering silence that fell after Brigham Anderson gaveled the room to order, and the television cameras obediently peered around upon him like impassive black cows watching impersonally with little red eyes. “I have a brief statement I should like to make, and something to put in the record.”

  “Certainly, Senator,” the chairman said. “Go right ahead.”

  “I have received this morning,” Senator Richardson said, “an airmail special-delivery letter from the president of the University of Chicago. He tells me that there was found late yesterday afternoon a record of the student Herbert Gelman, who did attend the university as he says he did, and who did take the administrative government course from Mr. Leffingwell as he says he did. The letter states, however, that no record has been found of his ever having taken a seminar from Mr. Leffingwell. The letter concludes with an affirmation of continuing confidence in the nominee, and attached to it is a statement of endorsement signed by 346 members of the faculty of the University of Chicago. I ask that the letter and the statement of endorsement be placed in the record at this point.”

  There was a loud and prolonged clatter of applause which the chairman permitted to run its course. Then he spoke calmly.

  “Without objection,” he said, “it is so ordered. Mr. Leffingwell, I think if you will move your chair to the left-hand side of the witness table, as you face us, and Mr. Gelman, if you will move yours to the right-hand side, so that you face one another, that we can begin.”

  And after the nominee had done so, regarding Herbert Gelman with the same half-amused, half-contemptuous look as when he had seen him last, Herbert Gelman looking vaguely away, Senator Anderson spoke directly to the audience.

  “The Chair,” he said, “wishes to make very clear to the audience, who are reminded that they are here as guests of the subcommittee, that this morning there will be no more demonstrations of any kind. The Chair has been more than lenient in the past two days; but now we come to the nub of this matter, and I am not going to have it complicated by outbursts of emotion on either side. We are all under strain enough in this room without adding to it. So I will have your co-operation if—you—please.” He paused and looked searchingly over the crowd, and the room was absolutely silent. Then he went on in a more conversational tone.

  “Mr. Leffingwell,” he said, “you have been the target of the most grave and serious charges made by this witness, Herbert Gelman; and because of their nature and the fact that, unless disproved, they cast the most damaging light upon your general integrity, if not indeed upon your personal loyalty to your country, the Chair thinks, if the subcommittee concurs, that you should be given the right to cross-examine without interruption or interference from us, just as though you were a member of the Senate and a member of the subcommittee. We of course reserve the right after you have finished to question both of you again if we deem necessary. The Chair will even go so far as to say that if you desire it in order to clear your name, the subcommittee will exercise its right of subpoena in your behalf to bring other witnesses before us. These are extraordinary courtesies, not without precedent though not often resorted to, but the Chair feels that in fairness, considering the nature of the attack and considering the nature of the office to which you have been nominated, and how important it is to all of us that you embark upon it, if you do, with your name and reputation in the clear, that they should be extended to you. Is that agreeable to the subcommittee?”

  “Perfectly, Mr. Chairman,” Orrin Knox said firmly, and John Winthrop said approvingly, “No one could ask for more.” The nominee bowed gravely in agreement.

  “Mr. Chairman,” he said, “I appreciate your courtesy and that of the subcommittee more than I can say. This is, as you realize, perhaps the decisive moment of my life, up to now, and I am very grateful that you have seen fit to grant me such consideration to help me in it.”

  “You might point out, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Knox said dryly, “that the motives, at least mine, anyway, are not entirely unmixed. Whatever develops here this morning, Mr. Leffingwell, I don’t want anyone afterwards to ever be able to say that you did not receive fair treatment at the hands of the Senate of the United States.” And he smiled, rather grimly, at the nominee.

  “Do you wish to have counsel with you,” Brigham Anderson asked, “or are you going to act as your own counsel?”

  “I have no counsel,” Bob Leffingwell said simply, “but the truth.”

  “We hope it stands you in good stead,” Senator Anderson said. “Mr. Gelman, the subcommittee wishes you, too, to know that this final phase of this inquiry is not being undertaken in any spirit of hostility toward you. We are grateful that you have returned here voluntarily, without the necessity of subpoena, and we know you understand why we are adopting this particular course of procedure. Your charges against the nominee are of an extraordinary and hurtful nature, and it is only right that he should be given every opportunity to disprove them if he can. You are reminded that you, like Mr. Leffingwell, are under oath to tell the truth.”

  The witness gave his shy little half smile.

  “I know that,” he said in a low voice. “I told it yesterday and I am going to tell it today, too.”

  “The subcommittee commends both you and Mr. Leffingwell for your devotion to truth,” Brigham Anderson said with a certain dryness in his voice, “and it hopes that out of your differing versions of it the real truth will be clear when this is over. Mr. Leffingwell, your witness.”

  For a moment, while the nominee opened a briefcase on the table before him and took out some papers, while he arranged some pencils and paper and the microphone and a glass of water, and while Herbert Gelman shifted once in his chair and then sat forward with an almost willfully dogged expression on his face, there came one of those friezelike instants of time which might, if there were Rembrandt to capture it, stand beside the “Night Watch” as a rendering more lifelike than life. “The Committee Hearing,
” it might be called, the chairman and his colleagues waiting intently, the audience tensed and silent, the press and television ready, the great marble room, filled to its utmost capacity, focused in a frightening fascination upon the two men seated at opposite ends of the witness table, the one so dignified, handsome, steady and sure, the other so wisplike, isolated and alone, yet filled with the fearful tensile strength of the righteous weak. Then someone coughed, the nominee leaned forward, the press tables stirred, the committee members shifted, there was an angry exclamation from somewhere among the television cameras, the moment broke, the picture moved and was lost.

  “Mr. Gelman,” the nominee said quietly, “do I know you?”

  The question, unexpected in its indirection, brought a stirring of surprise from the subcommittee and the press, and from the witness a hesitant little laugh. But there was nothing hesitant about his answer.

  “I believe you do,” he said.

  “You heard me testify that I did not,” Bob Leffingwell said, and Herbert Gelman nodded slowly.

  “And you believe I was deliberately lying,” the nominee said.

  “That was my impression,” Herbert Gelman replied and the nominee frowned a little, glancing toward the subcommittee as he did so.

  “I couldn’t have been simply mistaken, could I?” he asked. “I couldn’t have been puzzled, and not remembered you at first, and later had my memory refreshed by your testimony about the Power Commission, could I? It had to be a deliberate lie, in your mind, did it?”

  “That was my impression,” Herbert Gelman repeated stubbornly, and Bob Leffingwell looked him square in the eye.

  “Why was that your impression, Mr. Gelman?” he asked.

  “I could not believe that you would have forgotten such a thing,” the witness said.

  “What thing, Mr. Gelman?” Bob Leffingwell asked. “Playing cops and robbers with you in Chicago, or having you retired from the Federal Power Commission for reasons about which you were somewhat less than candid with the subcommittee yesterday?”

  “You tell ’em, Bob,” the Philadelphia Inquirer whispered with satisfaction. “Nail the bastard to the mast,” the Newark News agreed with a chuckle.

  Herbert Gelman’s steady stare at the nominee widened a little, but he spoke in the same evenly stubborn tone of voice.

  “Are you admitting you played cops and robbers with me in Chicago, Mr. Leffingwell?” he asked.

  “Well get to that, Mr. Gelman,” the nominee promised. “Well get to that in due time and in full, believe me. But first I want to know why you think I have lied to anyone in this matter of such gravity to the country, to say nothing of its gravity to me? You realize you have made a deliberate attempt here to destroy me, don’t you, Mr. Gelman? Why, Mr. Gelman?”

  The witness gave him an oblique glance and his face set in still more stubborn lines.

  “How many questions are you asking me at the same time, Mr. Leffingwell?” he asked.

  “Am I going too fast for a man in your mental condition?” the nominee inquired with a certain savage politeness. “Then I will take them in order. Why are you convinced that I have been lying here, Mr. Gelman? Answer that one and then well proceed to the others one by one.”

  “Just because I believe you are,” the witness said doggedly.

  “And just because you say you’re convinced, you expect that to convince this subcommittee?” Bob Leffingwell demanded.

  “I think some people may think I’m telling the truth,” Herbert Gelman said quietly.

  “And what is the truth, Mr. Gelman?” the nominee asked.

  “What I said yesterday,” the witness said.

  “Very well, suppose we go to what you said yesterday,” Bob Leffingwell said, turning to a blue-covered manuscript. “I have here a transcript of the proceedings yesterday—”

  “I don’t,” Herbert Gelman interrupted. “Can I have one too?”

  “You mean your story today would change from what it was yesterday if you didn’t have a transcript to remind you?” the nominee demanded sharply, and the witness looked at him with an almost insolent blankness.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I just thought if you had one it would be fair for me to have one, too.”

  “Here,” Orrin Knox said, sliding his copy across the table, “take mine.”

  “Thank you, Senator,” Herbert Gelman said with a little smile.

  “Now,” Bob Leffingwell said, laying his copy aside unopened, “suppose we talk about your career at the University of Chicago. You have testified, and the university has now confirmed it, that you did attend during the time I was a teacher there. The university also confirms that you took my administrative government course. How many people would you say were in the two sections of that course each week?”

  “About three hundred,” Herbert Gelman said without hesitation, and there was a little stir of excitement in the audience.

  “Does it seem strange to your mind that out of all those students I should not have been able at first to remember the name of one of them?” Bob Leffingwell asked.

  “It wouldn’t be strange if that had been our only contact,” Herbert Gelman said quietly, and the nominee permitted himself to look a little annoyed.

  “Well, Mr. Gelman,” he said, “if you’re going to come back every time with an answer like that, then we do have to bring it down simply to your word against mine, don’t we? Because I am going to prove here that the facts refute everything you’ve said. If you’re going to counteract every fact with an insistence that you’re right and no one else is, then that’s going to leave you in a rather sad position, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s see the position I’m in when we’re finished,” Herbert Gelman said in the same soft, stubborn voice, and again there was a stirring through the audience.

  “As you please, Mr. Gelman,” Bob Leffingwell said indifferently. “We have now established, at least to my mind and I think to any fair mind judging this, that you were in a class of three hundred—which was only one of four different classes over four years, each containing approximately the same number of students, so that there were some twelve hundred, all told, over that period of time—and that it was entirely possible that I should not remember your name out of all those students. So now suppose we go on to the seminar. The university says you didn’t take it. Are you still going to maintain you did?”

  The witness looked at him with his closed-off, stubborn expression; some inner struggle was apparently going on, and when he spoke it was in an almost inaudible voice.

  “No,” he said, “I didn’t take it.”

  There was a wave of excited murmurings over the room, and the first relay of wire-service reporters jumped up and raced downstairs to the press room with their bulletins. Behind the committee table Fred Van Ackerman drove his right fist into his left palm with an expression of triumph on his face, and at the table John DeWilton gave a disgusted snort. His colleagues, however impassively reserved judgment.

  “Why did you say you took it, Mr. Gelman?” the nominee asked patiently. “Wasn’t that a lie?”

  “I started to take it,” Herbert Gelman said doggedly, “because you asked me to. Then I got sick for a while and had to drop it. But we were still friends just the same, and we still did what I said yesterday.”

  “Yes,” Bob Leffingwell said, looking thoughtfully through the papers before him, “you got sick. I believe you did get sick, Mr. Gelman. I, too,” he said with a little bow to Arly Richardson, “have received an airmail special-delivery letter from the president of the University of Chicago. It contains the information, Mr. Gelman, that in your senior year you suffered a nervous breakdown, were under treatment in the university hospital for two months, and had to leave school, returning to complete your senior courses a year later. Is that true?”

  “Yes,” Herbert Gelman said almost inaudibly, “that’s true.”

  “Speak up, Mr. Gelman,” Bob Leffingwell said savagely. “Speak up loud and clear. You were
loud enough yesterday when you were trying to destroy me. I want you to be just as noisy today while you’re destroying yourself.”

  “Yes,” Herbert Gelman said loudly, “that’s true.”

  “That’s good,” Bob Leffingwell told him. “Now we can all hear. So you suffered a mental breakdown.”

  “It wasn’t mental,” Herbert Gelman said stubbornly. “It was just nerves.”

  “Well, you draw the distinction if you care to, Mr. Gelman,” the nominee said contemptuously. “I’m sure we’ll all listen. So how much credence are we supposed to put in the word of a mentally ill individual who was mentally ill at the time I was supposed to be conspiring with him to overthrow the government? Why should we believe anything you say?”

  To this the witness did not reply, but instead stared at the nominee without expression until Bob Leffingwell went on.

  “So you didn’t take the seminar,” he said. “You had a mental breakdown, and it’s your word against mine about these little revolutionary get-togethers of ours. Where was it you said we held them, Mr. Gelman?”

  “At 2731 Carpenter Street,” Herbert Gelman said promptly. “On the second floor in that room on the left at the back.”

  “You have a great talent for specific detail that might lend credibility, Mr. Gelman,” the nominee told him. “Perhaps it goes with a mind a little more—inventive, shall we say—than most. At 2731 Carpenter Street. You’re quite sure of that.”

  “Pretty sure,” Herbert Gelman said slowly. “Of course I might be mistaken in a digit or two—”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Gelman,” Bob Leffingwell said quickly. “Don’t try to dodge, now, just because you can see what’s coming. And don’t ever admit the possibility of your being mistaken. Your whole case here rests on the fact that it’s your word against mine, and that you, at least, never lie, are never wrong, and are never mistaken....Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the distinguished Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Van Ackerman, might be permitted to tell the subcommittee what he has told me about this magic address of 2731 Carpenter Street?”