Advise and Consent

by Allen Drury

  As for what the man had accomplished, the lasting record he would leave in the history he was always so concerned about, that too the senior Senator from Illinois could not accurately discern. It took a long time to assess so dominant a personality and so forceful a career. Many men would be born and live and die before, looking back, their children could say with certainty, This was a good man, or, This was a bad.

  The cortege reached the station, the caisson went slowly in, the limousines began to park in ordered ranks, their occupants got out and began walking soberly forward. There would be brief trainside ceremonies, the casket would be placed aboard the train, the mourners and the crowds would disperse; the long journey home across a sorrowing continent would begin.

  Going in gravely with the Senator from Minnesota and the Senator from Arkansas, the eye of the Senator from Illinois fell suddenly upon an inscription carved high on the face of the great gateway building.

  He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies, it said, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.

  And he thought of his opponent as he had seen him last on television, the commanding presence, the magnificent defiance, and as he had seen him in their last talk together, laying the Presidency itself on the line in one supreme gamble to save his political reputation and his political power; and he thought with a grim, inescapable admiration that he had indeed brought home the wealth of the Indies, and indeed had carried the wealth of the Indies with him; and what it had all meant for his country, of good or ill, what man in this hour could truly say?

  ***

  Chapter 2

  “Bob,” the President said, and the Majority Leader, scarcely back in his office from the ceremonies at the station, was startled by the vigor in that heretofore hesitantly amiable voice, “I would like you to have Seab and the Speaker call both houses into session this afternoon—not jointly, but so they can transact business. Will you do that for me?”

  “Harl—” Senator Munson started to say reassuringly, and then stopped and started over again. “Mr. President,” he said, “I’m sure we can do that. It’s eleven-thirty now, nearly everybody is still in town, we can round them up without much trouble. Suppose we go in at one o’clock.”

  “Fine,” the President said. “I want you to pass a joint resolution for me, if you will, expressing the support of Congress for me when I go to Geneva.”

  “Oh, you are going?” Bob Munson asked, for the silence on this since the late Chief Executive’s death had caused great speculation and two arrogantly petulant calls at the State Department by the Soviet Ambassador. “You can probably duck it if you want to, you know. It was his obligation, not yours.”

  “It was the obligation of the President of the United States,” the President said, rather tartly. “Certainly I’m going. Furthermore, I want you to go with me. Also Tom. Also Warren. Also—” He stopped abruptly. “Also somebody else you’ll find out about later.”

  “The Secretary of State,” the Majority Leader suggested. “I suppose you’ll keep Howie on now and not make any change for a while, won’t you?”

  “No, indeed,” The President said. He chuckled. “Now figure that one out,” he said. Senator Munson chuckled, too.

  “I think you’re beginning to like the job,” he said.

  “It’s growing on me,” the President admitted, and he didn’t sound at all displeased. “I want to talk to the Senate about the State Department later in the afternoon.”

  “How do you mean, talk?” Senator Munson said.

  “What I said, talk,” the President told him. “After you’ve got the resolution out of the way, just stand by and I’ll be coming along to tell you about your new Secretary of State. Sometime around 3 p.m., I imagine—it shouldn’t take you long on the resolution, should it?”

  “Ten minutes,” the Majority Leader said.

  “Good,” the President said.

  “What’s the news from outer space?” Bob Munson asked.

  “All good,” the President said. “We’re on our way, high, wide, and handsome. We’ll be there by Sunday, just as the Pres—just as my predecessor said. Not that it will solve very much.”

  “Nothing ever solves anything, very much,” Senator Munson said, “particularly these days. But at least it will give us a little more equal standing.”

  “On the edge of hell,” the President said. “I’ll expect the three of you to go with me, then.”

  “Right,” the Majority Leader said. “And, Harley,” he added, “—Mr. President: don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid,” the President said firmly, and it was quite apparent that he wasn’t. “I just want my old friends with me.”

  “Nothing,” Bob Munson said, “could honor your old friends more.”

  “By the way,” the President added casually, “where is the senior Senator from Illinois at this moment?”

  “We’re meeting for lunch in fifteen minutes,” Senator Munson said.

  “No, you’re not,” the President said. “I’m going to appropriate him to have lunch with me. Send him on down, will you?”

  “Are you sure you can handle him alone?” Senator Munson asked dryly. “He’ll be bursting with ideas on how you ought to run the government, you know.”

  “I can handle him,” the President said.

  The Majority Leader chuckled.

  “All right, Mr. President,” he said. “You’re the boss.”

  “I aim to be,” the President said cheerfully.

  ***

  Chapter 3

  He didn’t know why Harley wanted to see him, Senator Knox thought as he caught a cab once more for the East Gate, but it was a good thing he had asked to, it would save a lot of time, they would have a good chance to talk about the government and get things squared away for the new Administration. He felt that at the moment Harley needed plenty of good advice, for all his outward calm in the cortege this morning. Orrin could not forget the daze in which he had taken the oath, white and stunned, shortly after midnight in the oval office at the White House. The Chief Justice, hastily routed out of bed, had administered the awesome words in the presence of everyone who could possibly crowd into the room, and Harley’s response had been barely audible. Many people had cried, and the new Chief Executive had looked as though he might,, too. He had started to say something and then stopped, overcome; finally, “I want you all to know I shall do my best” was all he could manage. It had hardly seemed enough at the moment, but the press had made a great thing out of it on Friday morning, its sincerity, its humility, its simple goodness.

  And those, the Senator reflected, were qualities that Harley could genuinely claim, and they were not by any means such inadequate qualities to have. In fact, they were about what he needed to meet this new situation; they and a little starch in his backbone which Orrin and his other friends might be able to give him. Certainly they had a duty to try, at any rate, for everyone who knew the President intimately must come to his assistance in this fearsome hour.

  Thinking these thoughts, which brought a look of frowning concentration to his face, he walked past the Rose Garden and came again to the door he had entered two days ago. Curiously, it seemed to have changed with the change in personality that sat behind it. It no longer looked ten feet tall; there was no longer the sense of an imperial personality on the other side, looming over the nation. It was only Harley. He knocked briskly, was invited to enter, and walked in, still frowning in deep thought.

  “My goodness,” the President said mildly, “what have I done?”

  “What?” Orrin asked, startled, and then smiled. “Nothing, Harley,” he said. “I was just thinking.”

  “About the President, I suppose,” his host said, and the Senator said, “No, about you.”

  “I am the President,” his host pointed out gently, and before Orrin had time to really digest the kindly but ironic way in which he had said it, he gestured him politely to a chair. “Do sit down, Orrin,” he said. “I’m awf
ully glad you could come. I’ve told them to send lunch for two in here. What would you like?”

  “What are you having, Harl—” Senator Knox said and stopped. “Mr. President,” he amended with a smile, and the President smiled, too.

  “I thought,” he said, “that I would have some soup and a sandwich and coffee.”

  “That would be fine for me—Mr. President,” Orrin said. He grinned. “You’ll have to give me a little time, Harley. I’m not quite used to it yet.”

  “Me, either,” the President admitted, “but I’m getting more so by the minute.” He looked more serious. “I asked you down, Orrin, because I wanted to talk to you about the government. I wanted your advice.”

  “Why, Harley,” the Senator said, looking pleased. “I think that’s very nice of you, Mr. President.”

  “Oh, I expect you thought I should,” the President said lightly. “Now, didn’t you? I’ll bet when you walked in here you were thinking, Well, I’m damned glad Harley had the sense to call on me. Isn’t that right?”

  Senator Knox had the grace to laugh. In fact he laughed quite hard, in honest amusement.

  “You know me too well,” he said.

  “That’s what I thought,” the President said. “I told myself, if anybody thinks he ought to be advising me, it’s Orrin Knox. And,” he added seriously, “I told myself that if there was anybody I wanted advising me, it was Orrin Knox.”

  The Senator from Illinois gave him a sudden smile.

  “Watch it, now,” he said. “You’re in danger of becoming as crafty as he was.”

  “Oh, I mean it,” the President said honestly. “Of course,” he added with a chuckle, “I didn’t say to myself that I had to take Orrin’s advice, you understand. I just felt I ought to have it.”

  Senator Knox smiled again.

  “I swear,” he said, “I think you’re going to be good. I really do.”

  “I’m going to try,” the President said. “I’m certainly going to try. Excuse me, and I’ll order.” He lifted the phone, did so, and turned back.

  “What changes do you think I ought to make in domestic policy, Orrin?” he asked. Senator Knox answered promptly.

  “Not too much,” he said. “Maybe a little more liberalizing of things here and there. And a great deal more tightening up all along the line. He wasn’t a very good administrator, for all his brilliance.”

  “No,” the President agreed gravely. “He wasn’t. I’d like to appoint a committee, mostly Cabinet but a few others, to go into that for me. Would you like to serve?”

  “Anything you say,” Orrin said. “Any way I can help.”

  “Good,” the President said. “And in foreign policy, I think you’ve made your views pretty clear in recent days.”

  “I think so,” the Senator said with a frown. “I’ve tried to do what I thought necessary and still explain it so people wouldn’t think I was just being obstructionist.”

  “I think you’ve succeeded quite well,” the President said. “I noticed the papers conceded you your sincerity yesterday morning after it was all over, even while deploring your actions.”

  “That’s a pet trick of theirs,” Orrin said dryly. “You’ll find out.”

  “I expect,” the President said as lunch arrived, “I’ll find out a lot of things before I’m through here.”

  They were silent for a little. Presently the Senator from Illinois looked up. “You know, Harley,” he said and added with a smile, “I won’t call you anything but ‘Mr. President’ after this, but just for a minute be Harley for me again—there’s one thing I’ve always regretted, and one thing I’ve always wanted to do. And that’s what I said at the convention. I want to apologize to you for it.”

  The President looked surprised, touched, and pleased.

  “Why, thank you, Orrin,” he said warmly. “You needn’t. I knew you were under terrific strain, so I tried to forget it right away. I’ve never held it against you.”

  “Well, I appreciate that,” Senator Knox said, feeling quite emotional. “It really has disturbed me many times, over the years.”

  “It’s gone,” the President said, and they shook hands solemnly. Then a little twinkle came into the President’s eyes.

  “By the way,” he asked curiously, “what made you so sure that night that I was going to announce for him? The delegation voted unanimously to leave it to me and back whatever I decided to do. I was on my way up there to announce for you.”

  And having by this piece of true and hitherto undisclosed history silenced, for once, his volatile and determined friend, he proceeded to tell him what he had in mind; finding that Senator Knox, as he gradually revived from the appalled silence into which he had fallen, had many arguments and objections to offer; but finding also that as he went on further to outline his idea and explain its advantages the practical politician and responsible citizen before him began the grasp its possibilities and find them good. And so he should, the President thought with a tartness to match Orrin’s own, for they were certainly hand-tailored for him.

  When the Senator from Illinois returned to his own office he called his wife. She laughed as he related the conversation and a curiously light and relieved note came into her voice.

  “You see?” she said. “Patience does it, Senator. Patience does it.”

  He gave a rueful laugh.

  “Maybe I’m beginning to learn that,” he said. “At last.”

  ***

  Chapter 4

  The joint resolution of support for the President, as the Majority Leader had predicted, went through the Senate in jig time, was sent promptly to the House, and by two-thirty had been passed there. A brief period of tense waiting ensued, while the galleries and chamber stirred restlessly expecting the Chief Executive’s arrival. Then there was a sudden stir in the hall, the sergeant-at-arms came in and announced to Senator Cooley in the Chair, “Mr. President, the President of the United States!” And looking a little nervous but smiling about him in a friendly way, the President returned to the friends he knew so well, who thought they knew him so well.

  Just before he began to speak, while they were all standing and applauding wildly, he took a pencil from his vest pocket, scratched out the word “peril” in the first line of his text and wrote in firmly “concern.” Then he began. “Mr. President,” he said, “my dear friends of the Senate: I come before you in this hour of our beloved country’s concern to make a brief statement of my plans and purposes for the government. I expect when I return from Geneva to appear before both houses in joint session and talk more fully about what I have in mind. I appear in the Senate this afternoon because here rests the most immediately pressing problem that faces”—and he said the next two words with a little air of pride that they found quite touching—“my Administration: namely, the selection of a Secretary of State.

  “I think,” he said, and he spoke with a deliberate slowness that held them absolutely silent, these men who thought they knew Harley Hudson and were suddenly beginning to wonder if they did, “that before I give you my nomination for that office, I should make a clear, unequivocal, and final statement of my own plans.”

  He paused and there was a tensing through the room, on the floor, along the walls, in the public galleries and in the press gallery, where reporters stood poised to dash up the steps and file their bulletins.

  “I did not,” he said quietly, “wish to be President of the United States. There was a time when I did, but that had long since passed. But now that the burden has been laid upon me in this tragic fashion, I expect to bear it to the best of my ability. I expect to bear it to the end of the present term. Then,” he said, “I shall lay it down.”

  At this there was an excited stirring through the chamber, quickly stilled. Oh, Harley, the Majority Leader told him silently in his mind, my boy, I expect you are about to be very clever, very, very clever indeed.

  “I shall not, in other words,” the President said, “be a candidate for election to the
Presidency next year. This announcement is final. I make it now so that you may act upon what I shall now ask you to act upon with no thought of partisan politics whatever, but only in the thought of what is best for our dear country. For it is in that spirit that I stand before you now.”

  He stopped and slowly took a sip of water as the first relays of wire-service reporters rushed out to file their FLASH. PRESIDENT WON’T RUN NEXT YEAR.

  “I am well aware,” the President went on quietly, “as are all of us in this Senate—more aware than anyone outside could be, for this has been our testing and our travail and our unhappiness here in this chamber, in a way no one who has not been directly involved in it could understand—of all the somber aspects surrounding the nomination upon which you voted Thursday night.

  “On that nomination you rendered your final decision. You decided, by an irreversible vote, that you did not wish Robert A. Leffingwell to be Secretary of State. In that decision I concur. “Yet”—and he looked slowly and directly across all the chamber, all the tensely waiting faces of the colleagues he knew so well—“I must tell you that I do not wish to lose the abilities of Robert A. Leffingwell, which are great, or the services of Robert A. Leffingwell, which are many and worthy. I must tell you that I wish him to be a part of my Administration.”

  Again there was a stirring, uneasy and almost hostile, but he went firmly on.

  “I say this because he is a valuable man within the sphere of his own competence. The reasons for his defeat yesterday were complex, and not all of them bore directly upon his abilities. I hope that having done what, under the circumstances, it had to do, the Senate will now reappraise this man, understanding that he has great support in many sections of the national community, understanding that national unity at this time is imperative, understanding that he, too, perhaps, may have paid in full, in his way, for his errors; and trusting”—and his voice became solemn with a note they had never heard from him before—“that you will have faith in your President, a man whose integrity as well as his frailties I hope you have all had occasion to note over the years, when he asks you to give this man another chance.