by Allen Drury
“Well, maybe the Russians will have a diversion for us,” the Detroit News suggested.
“Apparently,” UPI said. “We got off a moon shot ourselves this morning, didn’t we? The Cape’s been closed off completely since yesterday afternoon, and something awfully big went up this morning.”
“Yes,” AP said. “I understand from the office everybody’s under a strict ban of secrecy, and we’re supposed to expect big things.”
“Everything’s big these days,” the Atlanta Constitution said humorously. “How do we all stand the gaff?”
“By not having time to stop and wonder how we do it, I imagine,” Newsweek said.
“I know,” AP agreed. “We shouldn’t be here right now, as a matter of fact. We ought to be over at Seab’s office, where they’re deciding how many pieces to cut Leffingwell into.”
“If I thought there was news in it, I’d go,” UPI said, “but it was all decided last night, really.”
“I just can’t quite believe they’ll completely ignore the President’s wishes,” the Newark News said. “I still can’t feel it’s really over.”
“If I may quote from the not-so-honorable Douglas Brady Bliss of North Carolina,” UPI said, flipping through his notes, “The only question now is the size of the vote. ’”
“I wonder who he’ll appoint instead?” the Philadelphia Inquirer remarked.
The AP grinned.
“Let’s not worry about that now,” he said. “That’s tomorrow’s story.”
In Senator Cooley’s office they heard their last from the principal backer of the nominee shortly before noon when the White House switchboard tracked down the Majority Leader there.
“Bob,” the President said, “who else is at your meeting?”
“Several people,” Senator Munson said.
“Will you tell them for me,” the President said, “that I shall make no further communication to the Senate on this nomination, but I want them to know that I regard it, in absolute seriousness, as being absolutely vital to the welfare of the nation. I have never been more serious about anything. I would regard it as a calamity for the world if he were not confirmed.”
“I’ll tell them,” the Majority Leader said, “but I don’t think they’ll listen.”
“But, God damn it, I may be beaten on this!” the President said angrily, and Senator Munson smiled with a certain grimness as he answered.
“Yes, Mr. President,” he said, “this time, something may happen to you....You know,” he remarked thoughtfully as he turned away from the phone, “I expect this is the first time in his life that he’s actually been able to grasp that idea.”
“It’s just about the first time he’s ever had to,” Stanley Danta said. And he added, half in jest but half-seriously, too, “I hope it doesn’t kill him.”
“Standing by itself, I don’t think it would,” the Majority Leader said soberly. “Combined with the Russians, I don’t know—”
“I’m going to help him with the Russians,” Senator Knox remarked and they all looked surprised. He shrugged.
“It’s a different matter,” he said.
And half an hour later on the floor, when a nearly full Senate had met in sober concern, not only about the nomination but about the impending Soviet announcement, he began to keep his word.
After Carney Birch’s somber prayer, filled with foreboding and exhortations to stand steadfast, and after the Majority Leader had announced that because of the great interest in the Russian broadcast the Senate would stand in informal recess until 1:15 so that they all might listen, the Senator from Illinois obtained the floor.
“Mr. President,” he said, “before the Senate recesses I should like to announce, for the information of Senators if they are interested, that immediately after we reconvene I shall make a statement in response to the broadcast, whatever it may be.
“I do this,” he said, while they all listened attentively, “at the express request of the President of the United States, who asked me to do so at our meeting yesterday.” And to their startled looks he said firmly, “He feels, and I agree with him, that this event will be of such a nature that there should be an immediate reply from the Congress to go with his own reply, which will be made at eight o’clock tonight. I shall of course not wish to pre-empt the right of anyone else to make a statement too, but since he asked me and I promised I would, I thought I should inform the Senate.”
“Now, what the hell does that mean?” the Christian Science Monitor asked the Houston Press in the press gallery above. The Houston Press shook his head. “Damned if I know,” he said. “It looks to me as though Orrin is patting him on the head at the same time he’s kicking him in the tail.” “That’s known as statesmanship,” the Times remarked with a grin. “Right now,” the Washington Evening Star said as the chamber began to empty, “I’m not interested. All I want to do is listen to that broadcast.” “Bob told me they have a couple of radios set up in the Senators’ lobby and we’re welcome to come down if we want to.” “We want to,” the Providence Journal said. “Let’s go.”
And so it was that the Senate gathered, and the press gathered, and the government gathered, and out across the land the country gathered, and around the globe the world gathered, to a turning point in time that most of them knew, instinctively, had always been destined to come. If it had not come over this, it would have come over something else, for sooner or later it had to come. The game of leapfrog played for so long by the United States and the Soviet Union inevitably had to reach a point where one party or the other would grow impatient; and since the Russians were better equipped, by temperament, by government, and by ambition, to be impatient, it was only natural that they, having made a great new leap, should finally move to bring things to a head and take advantage of it if they could.
But in few places of the world at that hour were sane men truly glad of this, and for most it was a thing of great foreboding. They were silent and grim in the Senators’ lobby, in the House, in all the government departments downtown, in homes and drugstores and bars and public places over the land, on all the great continents and all the broad seas where those who had some regard for human kindness and human decency contemplated the possibilities lying in the latest triumph of those who did not. A hush held the world as Moscow Radio came on the air promptly at twelve-thirty EST and an announcer said, in a strong voice:
“Peoples of the nations, we take you to the moon.”
This was followed seriatim by translations into Chinese, French, Spanish, and, finally and deliberately last, English.
This in turn was followed by a silence that lasted for several minutes while the tension rose everywhere and in Moscow somebody suddenly gave an exclamation, obviously of impatience, that echoed harshly around the world. But then the silence began to be punctuated by uneasy cracklings and weird howlings—sounding rather, some thought with shivers, like all the demons of time let loose—and again in Moscow someone said, “Da!” in a tone of great excitement and satisfaction.
And distant, lonely, broken, and interrupted frequently by terrific static and the darting atoms of the cosmic winds, yet still bearing resemblance to human sound, there came over 245,000 miles the first words spoken by man to man across the depths of space. They were not, characteristically, loving.
“We wish to report,” they said, while the winds rushed and the furies howled, “that representatives of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have established a successful permanent base on the moon, which we claim for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and for all the peace-loving peoples associated with the U.S.S.R.
“Everything went well on our journey. We are in good health and preparations are now under way for a return of part of our party to Earth.
“A base party has been established and will remain, equipped to repel capitalist imperialist invaders should any be so foolhardy as to attempt a landing on the moon.
“All hail the peoples’ peace!”
&
nbsp; The words stopped and for several more minutes only the crackling static from the void was heard on Earth before the Moscow signal abruptly cut off, and excited announcers, some coherent, some babbling, some on the verge of tears, told the nations that the first communication from the skies was over.
What was needed most after that was a strong dash of cold water, and that, as he arose to speak in the tense chamber ten minutes later, was what the senior Senator from Illinois proposed to provide.
“Mr. President,” he began slowly, looking thoughtfully about the room, “I see before me Senators of the United States, seated in the Senate of the United States, here in this great Capitol of the United States, with our sister house of the Congress just across the way and all around us the great symbols of our heritage and our purpose and our future. And I ask myself, and I put to you these questions:
“Are these things suddenly turned to nothing in half an hour’s time?
“Are a few words from the moon sufficient to erase all we have stood for and all we are?
“Should we who have done so much, and have so much, and have yet before us such great tasks for ourselves and for all humankind, be struck dumb and paralyzed because we have been temporarily bested in our continuing contest with the Soviet Union?
“Does this suddenly cancel everything that America is?
“Mr. President,” he said quietly, “I cannot believe it. I know not how others feel, but I know how I feel.
“There are certain things in this life that are still valid, and will always be.
“There are ways of dealing with other people which are just and honest and honorable and decent; and these have not been changed.
“There are standards of character and of integrity which honorable men, while they may not always achieve them, at least have before them for their goal; and these have not been changed.
“There is human good will and loving-kindness and tolerance towards one’s fellow man in all his shortcomings, whatever they may be and bearing in mind one’s own; and these have not been changed.
“There is a great nation and a great people and a great mission of liberty and freedom and justice for all, coming out of the past and moving on gloriously into the future, insofar as God helps us to achieve it; and neither have these been changed.
“Nothing of the essentials of the human heart or the human character or the human story as good men see it have been changed.
“Senators,” he said softly, and in the utter silence there was a powerful emotion in his voice that powerfully moved them all, “I commend to you your country: a very great nation, which has a job to do.
“Let us get on with it!”
And he sat down, and for a moment the silence continued. Then the chamber burst into a roar of approving sound, and Senators began hurrying from all sides, to his desk to shake his hand, and the press rushed out to file their stories, and in the mind of the Vice President as he blew his nose and then tried rather futilely to gavel for order an idea began to grow.
A little later, as Senator Knox passed his desk, he took the first step toward putting it in operation.
“Orrin,” he said, shaking hands, “that was wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“Well, thank you, Harley,” Orrin said with a pleased smile. “I meant every word of it.”
“That was part of what made it wonderful,” the Vice President said. “I was just wondering if you would like to join me in my office at three-thirty? Howie has an appointment set up with me for Tashikov and Khaleel and Claude and Raoul, and I thought possibly you would like to sit in on it with me.”
Senator Knox looked very pleased.
“Why, Harley,” he said, “I’d be delighted to.” He chuckled. “Maybe we can set friend Vasily back on his heels a little.”
“I hope so,” the Vice President said, “because I’m quite sure he’ll be insufferable.”
But how insufferable they did not at that moment know, though a little later they could begin to suspect. For at 3 p.m. sharp further word came from Moscow. It was addressed to the President of the United States and broadcast in all languages; and so cold and forbidding was its tone that men lifted up a little by Orrin’s speech were once again cast down.
To the President it said tersely:
Excellency:
I have the honor to inform you that the premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the chairman of the central presidium of the Communist Party, U.S.S.R., together with other peoples’ representatives of the U.S.S.R., will arrive in Geneva at 1200 hours Saturday to confer with you and such representatives of the United States of America as you may wish to have with you.
We are sure you will understand the vital importance of this meeting to the future of the United States.
—Varanov
They were not, as the Times remarked with a sigh to the Herald Tribune, out of the woods yet.
In the Vice President’s office just off the floor half an hour later, however, one would never have known it, for neither he nor the Secretary of State nor the senior Senator from Illinois seemed anything but calm and unperturbed when their distinguished visitors were shown in. If anything it was the Ambassadors whose feelings were apparent, for Vasily Tashikov could not conceal an obvious air of triumph, K.K. looked white and worried, and even the British and French Ambassadors were in the grip of a concern they could not quite conceal. In this situation, Senator Knox and Secretary Sheppard noted with surprise and a growing respect neither had believed possible, that the Vice President acted as though he had been meeting crises all his life; either that, or perhaps had made up his mind finally that he was going to have to be meeting them from now on.
Whatever the reason, he stepped forward with a bland air and a firm handshake to greet each of them in turn, ignoring the Soviet Ambassador’s triumphant aspect and the worried looks of the others, gesturing them easily to chairs and then taking his own behind the big desk on which he had caused to be placed several manila folders bulging with papers. Through these he went for a last look while they waited, riffling through them slowly, shaking his head a little here, nodding it a little there, exclaiming softly once or twice to himself, while the silence lengthened and his visitors began to look decidedly fidgety. Finally with a deliberation that both Orrin and Howie applauded silently inside, he put the folders by and leaned forward with a cordial but appraising air.
“Now, gentlemen,” he said calmly, “what can I do for you? The Secretary tells me you wanted to see me.” He looked at them pleasantly and suddenly focused on the Soviet Ambassador. “Why?”
The abrupt challenge seemed to take Vasily Tashikov aback for a brief second, and he permitted himself an expression of surprise. Then he shrugged.
“It seemed a necessary courtesy,” he said. “We had not met and I thought it would be helpful to my country to know you.”
“I think that is nice,” the Vice President said, and his tone was so noncommittal that they could not tell what it held. “I wish,” he added gravely, “to congratulate your country upon its latest scientific achievement. It is a great triumph and a great inspiration to us.”
“How is that?” the Ambassador asked quickly. “As I understand your use of the expression ‘inspiration to us,’ it means that one is inspired to do the same thing.”
“That is very true,” Harley said.
“But did you not hear our broadcast?” the Ambassador asked sharply.
“I am sure everyone on earth, more or less, heard your broadcast,” the Vice President said.
“We said we would repel any invaders who attempted to land on the moon,” Tashikov said flatly. Senator Knox snorted.
“Did you hear about my speech?” he asked. The Ambassador shook his head, though they all knew he must have.
“I said go to hell,” Orrin said. “And,” he added, “you understand my use of the expression.”
The Russian Ambassador lost for a moment his air of careful calm and seemed about to make som
e sharp rejoinder. The Indian Ambassador held up a hand in nervous placation.
“Well, now,” he said quickly, “I do think that gentlemen should try to remain courteous and pleasant with one another when things are on this—this high level. My government does hope everyone will continue to deal with one another kindly and with a full awareness of all those things which—which hang in the balance.”
“Thank you, K.K.,” Senator Knox said dryly. “It is always good to have you around to keep everybody well mannered.”
“We have found,” Krishna Khaleel said with the same nervous politeness, “that sometimes good manners are a barrier against—other things.”
“They are,” Lord Maudulayne agreed, “if they are based upon good will. Whether they are in this instance, my government is not sure. Indeed, on the basis of the evidence we have received so far today, they are not.”
“What do you propose to do about it?” the Soviet Ambassador asked bluntly, and Claude Maudulayne shrugged.
“We propose to wait just a little longer, and see,” he said. “Although your kind invitation to Geneva did not include Her Majesty’s Government, I feel Her Majesty’s Government will not be entirely unconcerned with what may go on there.”
“If anything does,” Raoul Barre suggested. “If the Americans accept.”
“They will accept,” Vasily Tashikov said coldly. “They will accept if they are not utter fools.”
“Mr. Ambassador,” Harley said quietly, “you will speak with proper respect for the United States or you will leave my office at once.”
The Soviet Ambassador turned on his sudden smile that the press made so much of, the smile that hovered around the lips and never reached the eyes.
“Well, Excellency,” he said, “you know how it is when one has just won a great victory. One is sometimes a little ruthless toward the delicacies of diplomatic conduct. I would not wish to indicate that I did not respect the United States as a second-cla—As a power occupying the international status which she does occupy.”