by Allen Drury
“I don’t mean to sound self-righteous,” Brig said finally in a lonely voice. “I’ve thought of all the things you say. I know I’m not perfect. But somebody has to judge, in this world, and I’ve been elected to do it.”
“We’ve all been elected to do it,” the President told him bluntly, “and I most of all. My charter runs from Hawaii to Cape Cod and the Gulf to Alaska. Yours is bounded by the state of Utah. Are you saying your right to judge is superior to mine, or that your judgment is superior to mine?”
“No,” Brig said with a sort of desperate quietness, “I’m not saying that. You’re trapping me in words, now, and you’re clever enough to do it, I expect. All I know is that you have named to conduct and in large measure influence our foreign policy in a time of great peril a man who is demonstrably untrustworthy and dishonest. There is proof of this available, and I happen to have it. I know you’re a lot more your own Secretary of State than many Presidents have been, but there still are a lot of day-to-day things he’d be deciding that you wouldn’t know about. How could we ever trust him? For the sake of the country I can’t let you go through it. I must ask that this nomination be withdrawn.”
“For the sake of the country,” the President said with equal quietness, “I must say that this nomination will stand, and that it must be confirmed.”
“Brig,” Bob Munson said in a desperate last effort to placate, “are you quite sure the President doesn’t have a point, and really a very valid one, considering all the circumstances?”
The Senator from Utah turned abruptly to the Vice President, sitting low in his chair as if hoping to stay out of it entirely; but as it turned out, he wasn’t being craven.
“Harley,” Brig said, “what do you think? Am I being too bullheaded? Is he right? Am I wrong?”
“You’re right,” said the Vice President with a firmness that surprised them. “I think you’re entirely right.” Then he sounded less positive. “On the other hand...” he began, and his voice trailed away.
“On the other hand,” the President took him up on it quickly, “you can understand just as well as I can what I’m faced with, Harley. Suppose you were sitting here”—and he spoke with a sudden naked bitterness that startled and moved them all—“yes, let me state it in the terms all the ghouls in town are thinking of right now—suppose I died and you became President. You know very well that your whole approach to this would change. You can imagine pretty well, I expect, just what your position would be. It would be the same as mine, wouldn’t it?”
“I—” Harley began, and stopped.
“Wouldn’t it?” the President demanded, and the Vice President gave him a look compounded of reluctance and trepidation and understanding and something else that his host could hardly stand to see, sympathy.
“It probably would,” the Vice President admitted in a low voice. “It probably would.”
“All right, then,” the President said. He looked very tired and the room was very still until he spoke again. It was in a voice that sounded defeated, and such is the nature of that office that Harley and Brig immediately felt that they must build up his confidence again, restore his spirit, help him to face things, since so much depended upon him and so greatly did they feel the necessity that he lead.
“I guess you’ve beaten me, Brigham,” he confessed with a rueful smile. “I really haven’t much of an argument, at that, and I really couldn’t defend it before the country if you cared to disclose what you know. So I guess I’ve got to yield.”
At this both the Vice President and the Senator from Utah looked pleased and overwhelmingly relieved, but the Majority Leader felt an ominous prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck. This wasn’t the President he knew, and he felt a fearsome premonition as though he were watching a rattlesnake carefully disposing itself in position to strike. But there was nothing he could do about it, except determine with grim intensity that the President would never get from him confirmation of what he apparently thought he knew about the Senator from Utah.
“Well, Mr. President,” Brig said in a tone of such quick acceptance and great relief that it revealed how much tension he had been under, “I want you to know that I think that’s just fine. I really do. It’s the only possible solution, it seems to me, that we could reach for the sake of the country. I’m awfully happy you agree, and I’m sure it can be done in a way that won’t look like a retreat. Make him your special trouble shooter, if you like, or a roving ambassador or something, so he can still help you. But send somebody else up for State, and I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to get his confirmation through right away. We all will, won’t we, Bob?”
“Sure we will, Brig,” Senator Munson said, feeling as though he were in a dream. “Of course.”
“Do me one favor, Brigham,” the President said. “This can’t be done overnight, you know how that would look. Give me until Monday, will you? Make another announcement to the press—in fact, you can call them from here, why don’t you? Tell them you’ve met with me and we’ve talked it over and have agreed on a solution—I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell them what it was, yet—and that accordingly you’ve decided to postpone reopening the hearings until Monday. That ought to be sufficient to do it. Then by Monday maybe I’ll have been able to think of somebody else and have the name up there for you.”
“Good,” Brigham Anderson said, his voice becoming more happy by the moment, for his fears had proved groundless, the President could be trusted after all, he did have the country’s interests at heart and he was worthy of Brig’s basically quite idealistic concept of him. “That’s what I’ll do, and then we can rush it right through on Monday.”
“Fine,” the President said. “Call them right now,” he suggested, offering one of the phones on his desk, and as Brig did so, first the wire services and then the morning papers, the Times, the Herald Tribune, the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, the President remained seated, looking subdued and even a little dazed, smiling from time to time in a rather beseeching way at the Vice President. He did not, however, meet the eyes of the Majority Leader, who got up suddenly in the midst of the telephoning and mixed himself a very heavy scotch and soda. He was quite sure he was going to need it.
“Well, Mr. President,” Brig said as he concluded the calls, rising and holding out his hand, “I am awfully glad this has worked out as it has. I was sure we could reach agreement on it. I was sure you would do the right thing.” A genuine emotion came suddenly into his voice. “It makes me proud to belong to the same party and to acknowledge you as leader,” he said.
“Well, thank you, Brigham,” the President said, seeming to revive both in spirits and in fatherliness. “Harley, I think your car followed us over from the hotel, didn’t it? Maybe you can drop our young friend off in Spring Valley on your way home.”
“The Statler,” Brig said. “My car is over there.”
“Yes, I can,” the Vice President said, sounding rather puzzled at this sudden collapse of controversy. “It’s all settled, then?” he asked, tentatively.
“Sewed up,” the President said matter-of-factly. “Keep it under your hat, of course, you old gabble-mouth. Otherwise it will be all over town in ten minutes.”
“Not from me,” the Vice President said, looking a little starchy for a second, and the President poked him in the ribs.
“This man always believes everything I say,” he said. The Majority Leader suddenly snorted right out loud.
“Don’t we all?” he asked in a peculiar sarcastic tone.
“Stick around a bit, Bob,” his host suggested easily. “I want to go over some of these names with you and see what we come up with.”
“Must I?” Senator Munson asked in the same strange voice, and the President suddenly looked annoyed.
“Yes,” he said coldly.
The Majority Leader shrugged. “As you say. Brig,” he said, shaking hands fervently, “it was a great fight and you won it. Or did you?”
; “I don’t regard it as that,” his young colleague said seriously. “It’s much too important.”
“Oh yes,” Bob Munson said in a tone Senator Anderson couldn’t fathom. “Oh my, yes.”
“I’ll talk to you in the morning,” Brig said with a smile. “I think you’ve done a little too much celebrating tonight. Come on, Harley.”
“Good night, Bob,” the Vice President said. “Good night, Mr. President. I’m glad it worked out so smoothly.”
“So am I, Harley,” the President said pleasantly. “Come down again soon. I really mean it.”
“I will,” the Vice President promised, looking pleased. “I’ll do that.”
“Good,” the President said, patting them both affectionately on the back as they went out the door. “I’ll be looking forward to it. Sleep tight, Brigham. You come down, too.”
“I will,” Brig promised.
After they had left there was silence for a while, the President thoughtfully fiddling with his letter opener, the Majority Leader thoughtfully drinking.
Then the President spoke in a businesslike tone. “I think you’d better show me that picture. This was passed along to me at dinner.” And he tossed over a folded piece of paper which Bob Munson slowly opened.
“Bob has a picture of Brig you ought to see,” it said. “T.D.”
The Majority Leader tore it across once and dropped it into one of the ash trays on the desk.
“God damn him,” he said slowly. “And you for a treacherous and deceitful man.”
“Well,” the President said with a tight little smile, “I’ve been called that by experts, and I guess you’re one of them. Now suppose you hand it over.”
“I haven’t got it,” Bob Munson said. “I tore it up, just like that note.”
“Oh no,” the President said. “Oh no. You’ve got it, and the reason you’ve got it is that you’ve known subconsciously all along that you were going to give it to me. You know Brig and you knew we’d need it when all was said and done. So let’s have it.”
“You’re a fearfully shrewd man,” the Senator said, as though he were finally appreciating the fact in all its magnitude. “I wonder if you’ve been good for the country.”
The President shrugged.
“I have to think so. I couldn’t keep going otherwise. Which particular facet of our young friend’s character does this picture illuminate?”
“An unfortunate one,” the Majority Leader said, “and one I’m quite sure he put behind him a dozen years ago.”
“Ah,” the President said softly. “Just like Bob Leffingwell. No wonder he’s so vindictive about it.”
“He isn’t vindictive, for Christ’s sake,” Senator Munson said angrily. “He’s only doing what he thinks is best for the country.”
“Who doesn’t?” the President asked dryly. He looked gray, the Majority Leader thought, and very tired, but still with a force of personality that was ten times that of most men. “Well?”
“I want to exact one promise,” Senator Munson said wearily. “Not that I believe your word is worth anything, but just for the record.”
“You don’t want me to hurt him,” the President said thoughtfully. “Yet what other outcome is possible, obdurate as he is, and now that you are giving me the means?”
“It isn’t necessary to hurt him,” Bob Munson said desperately. “You wanted something to threaten him with. All right, threaten him, if you feel you have to. But I want you to let it stop there. It doesn’t have to go any further than that. A threat will be enough, with this.”
“What in the hell is it?” the President demanded in some exasperation. “You make it sound like the end of the world.”
“It could be the end of his world,” the Majority Leader said. “I want your word, Mr. President.”
His host stared at him for a moment and in some insane way the Majority Leader felt they were the last two men on earth, so silent was the great historic house and so devoid of any indication of other life as the clock neared 1 a.m.
“For seven, years,” the President said softly, “I have had just one aim and one purpose—to serve my country. I have allowed nothing—nothing—to stand in the way of my concept of how best to do it. Nor will I now. I have just one loyalty, in this office, and it so far transcends anything you could conceive of—any of you could conceive of, except perhaps the other Presidents, and maybe not even some of them—that it just isn’t even in the same universe, let alone the same world....No, I won’t give you my word not to do something, when it may be the very thing I will have to do to protect the country. Now let me see the picture.”
The Majority Leader felt for one wild second that he should turn and run, that he was so close to the absolute essence of the American Presidency, in the presence of a dedication so severe, so lonely, and so terrible, so utterly removed from the normal morality that holds society together, that he should flee from it before the revelation proved too shattering and some great and dreadful damage was done to Brig, to him, to the President, the country, and the world. But men do not often act on such impulses, which are immediately thwarted by reminders that this is the workaday world, after all, and here they are, after all, and such gestures would be completely irrational, after all, and what in the hell are they thinking about, after all; and so they do not do them. Instead with a bitter expression on his face he extracted the envelope from his pocket and tossed it on the President’s desk with much the same desperate unhappiness that Mr. Justice Davis had initially felt when giving it to him.
There was a long silence while the President studied it, and somewhere down the hall outside a Seth Thomas clock went, “Bong!” once for one o’clock. The Majority Leader jumped, but his host gave no sign. At last he put the picture quietly back in its envelope, placed it neatly to one side on the blotter, and stood up.
“It’s late, Bob,” he said, “and tomorrow is another day. I’m quite tired, really; it’s been a very long day for me and I’m stretched out to my limit, which seems to be getting more restricted all the time. Thank you for coming by, and thanks for all your help on the nomination. I’ll be in touch with you. I’ve got to get to bed and get some sleep now or I won’t be worth much in the morning.”
“What will you do with it?” the Majority Leader asked in a low voice, and the President looked at him gravely.
“Who can say?” he said. “Certainly not I, at one o’clock in the morning.”
“You never did intend to change your position on the nomination in the slightest, did you?” Bob Munson asked bitterly. His host held out his hands side by side, palms down, and looked at them for a moment, well-manicured, competent, strong, and not really trembling so very much more than was normal for his age.
“Never,” he said quietly. “Good night, Bob. I appreciate your coming by.”
“You try to keep the world the same by being polite,” the Majority Leader said, “but you can’t do it, it isn’t the same. It won’t ever be the same again.”
“Get some sleep, Bob,” the President said in a kindly voice, taking his arm and escorting him to the door. “Take the elevator down and I’ll call a car and have them run you home.”
“I don’t want to go home,” Senator Munson said as if to himself. “I want to go to Dolly’s.”
“Very well,” the President said without surprise. “Tell the chauffeur and he’ll take you.”
“Thank you,” the Majority Leader said elaborately. “Thank you for nothing, nothing at all.”
“Give my best to Dolly, Bob,” the President said impassively. “Good night.”
And so the senior Senator from Utah felt very happy and very secure and as though all the cares of the world had rolled away, and off his shoulders, and would not come back. The Vice President, too, seemed much relieved by the outcome, explaining again on the brief run to the Statler that he could see the President’s point of view but that he really felt at heart that it was best under the circumstances to withdraw Bob Leffingwell
’s name and get someone else. He was a little surprised, he said, that the President had yielded so easily, for it was his own impression that he possessed a much more tenacious character than that; but he agreed with Brig that the surrender apparently was genuine, that it was evidently based upon a real perception of what was best for the country in the wake of James Morton’s appearance, and that the solution Brig had suggested seemed much the best. They agreed as they arrived at the hotel that this instant ability to change course and move forward along new lines dictated by patriotism and integrity was an example of what made the Chief Executive the great President he was, and Brig said again with a perfectly genuine sincerity as he bade the Vice President thanks and good night that he was proud to have him in the White House and leader of his party. When he reached home he tiptoed in and kissed Pidge, who turned over, mumbled something and went right back to sleep, and then went into the bedroom to find Mabel still awake. He looked so handsome and so relieved and so happy about the way the evening had gone that she too felt suddenly an equal happiness and relief, and they turned to one another eagerly without any complicating worries and then drifted off to sleep with a sense of peace they had not known together for some time.
And at Vagaries a White House limousine deposited the Majority Leader at the door and his hostess started to greet him with a jest about the lateness of the late, late show, only to have it die on her lips as she saw how very unhappy and tortured he looked. So without further word she drew him in and said no more about it until much later in the small hours of the morning when he finally told her what had happened and his fears concerning it, and she too felt afraid for him and for Brig and aware suddenly that no matter how complacent one might become about a man in the White House, no one ever really knew his full capabilities until the chips were down and then it was often too late.