by Allen Drury
With such dramatic beginnings, and coming as it fortuitously did at such a dramatic moment in the Leffingwell nomination, it was not surprising that this particular White House Correspondents’ dinner should have gone down in history as one of the best ever. All the major characters in the drama were there in the great turbulent room filled with music and the uproar of eating, and whether they looked at one another or didn’t, what they said, what they did, who they shook hands with, who they didn’t shake hands with, whether they were relaxed and pleasant or ill-at-ease and nervous, was immediately noted by a thousand pairs of eyes, each belonging to someone who had access to newsprint. That heightened awareness, that extra alertness, that sending out of little perceptive antennae that characterizes every Washington social gathering, and particularly this one, was everywhere present; and although a number of distinguished gentlemen of the government and the press got very well oiled before the evening was over, as usual nothing much was missed by anybody.
Paramount in interest, of course, was the aspect of the President, for the racing rumors about his health that were currently traveling around town had made his physical appearance of extra interest to everyone. But so vigorous and dramatic had been his entry and his opening activities at the head table that only a few paused to note that he looked possibly a little grayer, perhaps a little tireder, than he should look, and that now and then he seemed to lapse into a rather blank look, with a certain slackness around jowls and eyes, that did not augur well. These moods of his seemed to pass so rapidly, and he appeared to be so animated and triumphant most of the time, that even those who saw these signs with some worry concluded presently that probably all he needed was a few days of rest in the sun. There were reports he would head for Key West as soon as the nomination was out of the way, and this was taken to mean that he would shortly be back in top form again.
It was carefully recorded that he seemed to make quite a point of dividing his nods and winks and waves between the nominee, seated down the head table at his left, and the chairman of the subcommittee, seated below and six tables away. These attentions invariably seemed to please Bob Leffingwell, who returned them with a pleased smile, and it was observed that Brigham Anderson, although beginning to look a little bored with the game after a while, nonetheless contrived to return the looks with an air of pleasant politeness that was completely correct. If it was nothing more, that was to be expected under the circumstances, and the President did not seem annoyed. At one point Senator Munson got up from his seat down the table at the President’s right to come along and lean over his shoulder and chat for a moment The newsmen nearby heard only banalities, and the two of them nodded together at Senator Anderson, who smiled back rather cautiously. Several tables away Orrin Knox made a tart comment to his host, who laughed and passed it around the table, and further away Seab Cooley, noting the continuing elaborate presidential performance, smiled to himself over some private joke that his fellows at the table were not privy to, and looked for a second rather grim. Only one odd little moment occurred, which was marked by quite a few, and that was when Senator Anderson left his table for a moment and started toward the head table, apparently intending to speak to Mr. Justice Davis. For a strange moment the Justice looked absolutely panic-stricken, and turning his back on the room with great haste he plunged deep into conversation with the Indian Ambassador, who appeared startled but obliging. After a second Senator Anderson turned back, looking puzzled and a little hurt; but he concluded after a moment that Tommy was just in one of his moods and decided with a certain amusement that he and K.K. were well-matched in that area and deserved one another. He soon forgot the episode.
As for the nominee, he played host all during dinner to a steady stream of well-wishers who came up from the floor to shake his hand and wish him well. Columnists, news analysts, bureau chiefs—the whole dazzling array was there, those who really deserved their fame, and those who had come from little towns to the nation’s capital to master the portentous knack of representing great newspapers and dropping great names. He received them all with the same gracious air, looking dignified and steady and every inch the man who could be entrusted with the great office to which he had been appointed. Just to hedge their bets, for one never knew who had what on whom in Washington, a good many of these famous citizens also came by Brigham Anderson’s table to extend the same courtesy, but it was obvious in most cases that this was something they felt they should do and not, as with the nominee, an indication of warm personal support and endorsement. If Brig received them a little sardonically though with impeccable courtesy, it could be understood under the circumstances.
So the dinner drew on and ended, the time came for entertainment. Upon the stage vacated by the Navy Band two tired dancers, an aging ventriloquist, a shopworn babe with a big bust and a tiny voice, and a weather-beaten jazz trio took their turns; the program ended with a star from Hollywood who thought he was very funny but managed only intermittently to impart the same conviction to his audience. It was noted that the President seemed to be getting a little restive, to be fiddling a little with his cuffs and to be looking, now with a little more direct appraisal, at the impassive face of the senior Senator from Utah and the rock-like bulk of the senior Senator from South Carolina a few tables beyond. The correspondents became nervous at his nervousness, hoped the enter-tainment would end speedily, clapped with hearty relief when it did, and settled back as the president of the Correspondents’ Association made his traditional introduction of the guest of honor.
“Tonight, gentlemen,” he said, “as always at these affairs of ours, there are no reporters present. With that assurance and that caution, I present to you the President of the United States.”
And once again they were all on their feet applauding vigorously as the President smiled and waved and embraced them all in his fatherly warmth. There was nothing fatherly, however, in the tone with which he began as they sat down again, and in no time flat the room was deathly still. To Bob Munson’s dismay he was proceeding exactly as he had said he would.
“Mr. President,” he began easily, “fellow members of the Association—the man says there are no reporters present. Well, tonight I’m going to exercise the privileges of the special gold membership card I got in this room just seven years ago tonight, and reverse his ruling. Tonight, gentlemen, there are reporters present, so get out your pencils and let’s write ourselves a story.”
There was a burst of excited sound, a babble of exclamations and comments, and a great many people did take out pencils or pens and begin scribbling on the backs of their programs as he stood confident and commanding above them and looked slowly over the room.
“You see before you,” he said, “the President of the United States. You see down there at his left his nominee for Secretary of State. You see here at Table 8 and there at Table 15 the senior Senator from Utah and the senior Senator from South Carolina. And thereby”—and he cocked his head with a quizzical expression and everybody laughed in a sharp, explosive way that revealed the height of the tension in the room—“hangs the story. Now, the President of the United States thinks his nominee for Secretary of State is a good man and he wants him confirmed. But the senior Senator from South Carolina, for reasons—” and he drew his words out comically, so that they all laughed again—“with which we are all too, too familiar, doesn’t think he’s a good man and he doesn’t want him confirmed. But up to late last night, the President thought—he had been assured of it by such well-informed sources as the Majority Leader of the Senate, and you all know what a good source he is”—Again he invited them to laugh, and they did so while Bob Munson permitted himself to look openly annoyed “—the President thought that the senior Senator from Utah liked the nominee too and also wanted him confirmed, just like the President did. Imagine my surprise,” he said, and he said it with such a comical air that once again he got the response he wanted, “when I got up this morning and found that this wasn’t so. Indeed, imagine
my chagrin when the day drew on and I found it wasn’t to be so. Imagine my feelings when I have come right up to this very moment, and it still isn’t so. Well, gentlemen,” he said, “and I must hurry this along, for I see the Senator from South Carolina is scowling, and you all know what an explosion that portends, and the Senator from Utah is looking disapproving, and you all know what a monumentally disapproving young man he can be—this is your story.” His head came up in its challenging way and the fatherly eyes no longer looked fatherly but cold and strong and unyielding. “You can tell your readers that the President of the United States is standing by his nominee. You can tell them he hasn’t heard anything to persuade him that he shouldn’t. And you can say that he is going to fight with everything he’s got to see that his nominee is confirmed.” And he concluded with three words that startled Lafe Smith at Table 27, spacing them out with an unyielding emphasis: “No matter what!”
There was a spattering of applause which soon grew to a vigorous roar and in the midst of it the President once more looked down the table to the nominee and waved as the applause grew even more tumultuous.
“The Secret Service,” the president of the Association said hurriedly into the din, “has asked that we all remain in our places until the President has left.”
The drums rolled again, the trumpets blared, and the band broke once more into, “Hail to the Chief,” as the President left, still waving and gesturing and smiling to them all.
“That was certainly a constructive move toward a peaceful solution,” Orrin Knox snapped disgustedly, materializing at Seab’s elbow, and the senior Senator from South Carolina smiled in a sleepy way. “He is an evil man,” he said softly; “a strong evil man. But he hasn’t won yet.” “He thinks so,” Orrin said tartly. All around them the correspondents and their guests were beginning to move out in the wake of the President’s departure, many to go upstairs to the suites retained for the night by the major newspapers and magazines and rehash the events of the dinner over drinks. At Table 8 the senior Senator from Utah turned down an invitation to come up to the Herald Tribune suite, bade his host farewell, and began slowly working his way out through the crowd, moving parallel to the head table. So it was that the Majority Leader was able to intercept him near the door.
“Why don’t you go out and wait for me at the corner of Fifteenth and K,” he suggested. “I’ll swing by in a minute and pick you up.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Senator Anderson said indifferently. “Just home.”
“Look,” Senator Munson said desperately, “don’t be like that, Brig. I told him not to do that, it was against my advice.”
“Well, he did do it,” Brig said quietly.
“All right, he did do it,” the Majority Leader said, suddenly angry and not caring much that Claude Maudulayne and Raoul Barre had come along behind him and were listening with unabashed interest. “That doesn’t change matters, it’s still got to be talked out.”
“Not by me,” Brigham Anderson said tersely, waving to Tommy Davis, who was brushing hurriedly by and who again did not speak.
“Brigham,” Bob Munson said, staring after the Justice, and his tone was a mixture of command and plea so peculiar that his young colleague stopped and stared full at him. “I am begging you for your own good not to be like this. You don’t know—you just don’t know—” He stopped lamely and then went on. “I will pick you up in ten minutes where I said. I beg of you to be there. Believe me, I am asking it as your friend. I am afraid of what may happen if you don’t. Please, Brigham.”
Senator Anderson looked at him thoughtfully for a moment.
“What’s the matter, Bob?” he asked. “This isn’t Russia, you know. I’m not going to be shot.” But the Majority Leader was turning away with a strange expression of pain and worry and fear and anger all rolled into one.
“Please,” he said as the two Ambassadors watched closely. “Please.”
“All right,” Brig called after him suddenly. “Don’t forget to bring Harley.”
“Harley’s already left,” Senator Munson said. “He went with the President.”
And so, much to his surprise and some trepidation, he had. It was not unusual that this should have passed virtually unnoticed in the closing moments of the banquet, for the relationship between the White House and the heir apparent was so well known to Washington that even those few celebrants who had happened to perceive that the man the President was walking arm-in-arm to his car was actually the Vice President had refused to believe it. “Do you see wha’ I see?” one had said to another; and the other, blinking carefully and looking twice, had dismissed it abruptly with, “S’mirage!”
However, a mirage was exactly what it wasn’t, even though Harley himself felt rather as though he were in the midst of one as he was escorted along to the sleek black Cadillac to the accompaniment of a running barrage of confidential comments on the people they met. “Hi, Bill!” the President would cry happily to some panjandrum of the press; “Damned bastard is out to get my scalp if he can,” he would mutter to the Vice President; “Harry, it’s great to see you!” followed by, “Double-dealing son of a bitch!” in the Vice President’s ear. This immediately established a feeling of intimacy and rapport of such hearty warmth that if Harley hadn’t had a thousand and one snubs over the past seven years from his newly acquired buddy his head would have been quite turned by it. As it was he felt as though he were walking along a very thin edge of ice just above a crack in a glacier, and he thanked his lucky stars that he and Tom August had decided to have one gin-and-tonic apiece and then stick to tomato juice. He was bedazzled, but in his own slow, goodhearted, well-meaning way, he was not a fool; and so he was going along with the gag with a lively awareness that at any moment it might end abruptly and he might find himself sliding down the chasm into that outer darkness where the President usually preferred to keep him. This lent a certain understandable caution to his responses.
“How do you think it went?” his companion asked after they were safely ensconced in the car and, with one last smile and wave, had been swept grandly out onto the street in the center of a flying squad of six motorcycle cops with sirens blaring. “Do you think it showed them where I stand?”
“I don’t really think,” Harley said as they ran the red light on K Street and roared the three blocks to the main entrance to the White House grounds, “that anybody had any doubt, did they, Mr. President?”
“Well,” the President said comfortably, “I thought just possibly Seab and our young friend from Utah needed a reminder. Tell me about Brig, Harley. Is he going to give me a lot of trouble tonight?”
“I don’t know,” the Vice President said cautiously.
“He insisted that you and Bob come along too,” the President said with a chuckle, “so I guess he must expect he’ll need friends. Do you like him?”
“Yes, I do,” Harley said. “I like him very much.”
“Got a lot of spirit,” the President said thoughtfully as the cavalcade drew up under the great portico and the butler came forward quickly to open the door. “Out with you, Harley. Want to race me up the steps ?”
This sudden, unexpected reference to an old joke involving Presidents and Vice Presidents so startled and shocked the Vice President that for a moment he looked completely aghast. This being exactly the reaction the President had hoped to produce, he gave a roar of laughter and pounded his companion on the back.
“Harley, you’re a sketch!” he cried. “Here, give me your arm and help me up. I couldn’t make it without your assistance, let alone race you. So you like young Anderson, eh?”
And still chortling he accompanied the Vice President up the steps while around them the watching Secret Service and house servants laughed and were amused and hardly noticed at all that he did indeed lean on Harley’s arm, and very heavily, too. But Harley noticed, and it made his blood run cold.
“Yes, I do, Mr. President,” he said again as they entered the main hallway and
turned toward the elevator. “I really think Brig is one of the finest young men we have in government.”
“The press didn’t seem to like him much tonight,” the Chief Executive said with some satisfaction.
“Oh, not on this,” the Vice President agreed. “They’re mostly for Leffingwell. But on everything else they like him fine, I think.”
“Yes,” the President said as they reached the second floor and proceeded toward his study. “Well. Maybe he won’t recover from this, if he doesn’t behave.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what he has in mind,” Harley Hudson said. “He hasn’t told me.”
“Hasn’t told anybody, apparently,” the President said. “Here, take that big chair, Harley, and make yourself comfortable. Let me ring for a drink. What would you like?”
“I think just a little ginger ale,” the Vice President said politely, and his host looked astounded.
“No!”
“Yes, I think so,” Harley insisted in a rather defiant tone of voice.
“Well, I’ll order the works,” the President said, proceeding to do so, “and you can mix up whatever you like. I suppose Brig won’t drink either and everything will be very grim. I thought we might just talk this over pleasantly like old friends.”
“Like we always do,” Harley couldn’t resist saying quickly with an irony that was rare for him, and his host gave another roar of laughter.
“Touché,” he said cheerfully. Touché. Actually, Harley, I’d have you down here more often except that you’re so valuable to me right up there where you are. Bob tells me you often give us invaluable support on these Administration measures. I always feel you’re there when I need you. It’s a comforting feeling to know I have a real friend up there. You have no idea how lonely you get down here, Harley.”