Capable of Honor

by Allen Drury

  They could see now that the front of the headquarters building was spattered with mud, eggs, and manure. Even as they looked two windows on the second floor were shattered by flying rocks, and an approving shout went up. There was an extra disturbance just in front of the door, a flurry of motion, a sudden great splash of oil across the door and the ground-floor windows immediately adjacent. A great “Yeaaay!” rose exultantly from the crowd. It was repeated with an even wilder, more savage, and triumphant note as the oil was followed by a flare that ignited it instantly, sending a great wave of flame running up the front of the building.

  “Excuse me,” the mounted policeman said abruptly and swung his horse away, directly into the crowd as his fellows did the same from all around the periphery. There were screams, yells, groans, boos, but the mob at last began to give way. Staring intently into the sea of insanely contorted faces, Cullee saw at last the two he knew must be there. For a brief instant his wife Sue-Dan and LeGage Shelby stared back at him as though from a cavern in hell. Then they were lost again in the crowd, but not before he knew that they had seen him, too, and not before a terrible pain for a moment wrenched his heart. They were lost to him, lost; yet was not he still lost to them? His face must have said as much, for he became conscious again of Sarah Johnson’s hand upon his arm.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked with concern. “Do you feel all right?”

  “I feel fine,” he said, trying to sound as though he meant it. But the mood in which he had started to address her before the riot, whatever it had been, was gone for now. “I think we’d better try to get on in as soon as we can.”

  “All right.” She shivered and drew her coat more tightly about her. “What an awful age we live in,” she said quietly.

  He sighed.

  “And getting worse.”

  South 250 miles, in front of the White House, several hundred pickets carrying similar banners pushed and shoved and tried to block traffic along Pennsylvania Avenue. The police fought them back but more kept coming. By 11 A.M. forty-three were seriously injured and one was dead, a white student from Georgetown University who lost his footing and fell beneath the wheels of a patrol car attempting to herd the mob.

  A sense of the world unloosed began to grip America and turn decent men everywhere to a somber and desolate mood.

  Such was Walter Dobius’ mood, and it needed no further turning, as he arrived, walking from the East Side Airlines Terminal, at the UN esplanade just as the mounted police were pushing back the last group of rioters who had attacked U.S. headquarters. One quick look at the building with its coating of filth, its shattered windows, and its great scar of flame and smoke, one quick look at the burned limousine being towed away, the littered street, and the little core of picketers who still obligingly waved their banners before banked television cameras on the UN steps, and the reporter’s instinct that never failed hurtled him across the slowly resuming traffic. Out came his pad and pencil as he ran. He was already jotting notes when he arrived at the knot of rioters and reporters who were paying little heed, so fascinated were they by each other’s attentions, to the still arguing, angry police shouting to them to move on.

  “LeGage!” he called as he recognized the lithe, tense figure that appeared to be dominating things. “Walter Dobius here. What happened?”

  “There’s our friend!” LeGage cried happily. “There’s Mr. Walter Dobius, the man who understands what we’re trying to do this morning, the man who’s against this crazy deal in Gorotoland! Stand back for our friend there, Mr. Walter Dobius!”

  There were cheers from the forty or fifty rioters who remained, respectful looks and greetings from many of the reporters. Helen-Anne’s standard advice—don’t let yourself be made to look ridiculous—flashed across his mind, but he instantly rejected it. This was no ridiculous cause, this was literally the cause of world peace. Anything his presence could do to serve it he would contribute. Years of conditioned caution against placing himself too obviously in a partisan position found themselves consumed by his absolutely sincere conviction that it was now or never for the world.

  “Thank you,” he said, stepping forward with dignity. (Behind his head as the eager cameras swung in upon him and LeGage Shelby, a white rioter from the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism held high a tattered but still-legible placard reading DON’T FALL FOR COMMIE TRICKS! NEGOTIATE NOW!—KEEP. And behind that, looming beautifully for all the pictures, the scarred delegation building made a perfect backdrop across the street.)

  “I have just arrived,” he said in his most gravely pompous voice to the intent cameras, the hushed and feverishly scribbling reporters, “but it is obvious that there has occurred here this morning a sincere and genuine protest against the irresponsible policies of the present Administration in Africa. I hope it will be noted in Washington. I believe it to be representative of the reactions of most sober and sensible citizens in this period of fearful crisis provoked by President Harley M. Hudson and Secretary of State Orrin Knox.

  “America abhors the kind of violent action this Administration has ordered in Gorotoland. America rejects this kind of dangerous gambling with the lives of this nation and all others on the face of the globe. America wants peace, not war.”

  He flung out his hand with a sudden vigorous gesture and the cameras obediently swung around to climb the glassy monolith of the UN Secretariat looming above them.

  “There is where this issue should be decided,” he said firmly as they swung obediently back. “There in the UN. Not with guns and planes and squadrons of Marines, in violation of all the rules of civilized behavior, but in the UN!

  “I applaud the genuine outpourings of protest that are apparent throughout the nation this morning. They are in the great tradition of a free people. May Washington take heed and bring this matter speedily to a peaceful settlement here in the world organization where it belongs.”

  He stopped and again there were shouts of approval, cheers, and applause. LeGage shook his hand fervently, a clever fox-faced girl whom he remembered from Washington cocktail parties as Congressman Hamilton’s wife came forward and did the same while further pictures were taken. He bowed, waved gravely to the crowd, and pushed through the respectfully opening ranks of his fellow journalists. With his steady, trudging gait he moved forward across the broad esplanade toward the doors of the UN. Behind him his older colleagues looked at one another with some skepticism, but his younger assured each other with a genuine excitement that they had seen one of the authentic greats of their profession, brave enough to lay his reputation on the line for what he believed. It was a real inspiration. They assured one another that they would never forget it.

  “Have you seen this quote on the news ticker from Walter Dobius at the UN?” the President asked half an hour later when the Secretary of State entered his oval office in the west wing of the White House. “Walter’s taking himself seriously indeed.”

  “Do you still want to go to his luncheon on Thursday?” the Secretary’s wife asked when she talked to him fifteen minutes later after hearing about it on the hourly news roundup.

  “Hell, yes, I want to go,” Orrin snapped. “It’s time somebody pinned his ears back.”

  “Right now,” Beth said thoughtfully, “I’d say he’s the one who’s doing the pinning.”

  And so he believed himself, as he stood just within the entrance to the Delegates’ Dining Room waiting for Vasily Tashikov, while the multicolored garbs and faces of the peoples of earth went by. Many recognized his stocky, determined figure and proud, self-confident air, frequently he was flattered with their polite and respectful greetings.

  “Walter!” Krishna Khaleel said, bowing low and shaking his hand vigorously. “We are honored by your presence, dear friend. You will be here for the Security Council debate this afternoon?”

  “I will indeed. What do you think will happen, K.K.?”

  The Indian Ambassador frowned.

  “It does not look good f
or America, I am afraid,” he said sadly. “These are difficult times. I think the President and Orrin have”—he sucked in his breath and shook his head with a worried air. “I do not know exactly what they have done, goodness gracious!”

  “Gone to war, I think,” Walter said grimly. Krishna Khaleel nodded quickly.

  “I read your column. I thought it magnificent.”

  “Will we be ordered out, do you think?”

  “I do not see how it can be otherwise,” the Indian Ambassador said.

  “I hope so. I hope we are forced to leave at once.”

  “Of course,” K.K. noted with a wistful delicacy, “there is just one thing, you know. We can order, but … if you do not want to go … what then?”

  “I cannot conceive of an American Administration so brutal and so unresponsive to world opinion as to do such a thing!” Walter Dobius said, and the Indian Ambassador could see that he was genuinely shocked at the concept.

  “Possibly not,” he said gently, “But Orrin and Harley, you know … would it surprise you?”

  “They would destroy themselves politically,” Walter said somberly. “They would destroy the United States in the eyes of the world. I cannot conceive of it. I simply cannot conceive of it.”

  “Well,” K.K. said with a worried frown, “I hope for all our sakes you are right, dear Walter. We shall see as events develop. You have a luncheon companion?”

  “Vasily Tashikov has invited me to be his guest. It seemed to be a worthwhile invitation to accept. Although I did not know when he called me yesterday that we would have quite so many things to talk about.”

  “My, yes,” the Indian Ambassador said. “I am waiting for the delegate of Brazil.”

  “How does he feel?”

  “Our governments are quite agreed, I think.”

  “I doubt that we have a friend in the world,” Walter said, and was aware as he spoke of a cheerful presence coming up to him out of the throng of arriving delegates.

  “I heard that!” Lafe Smith said, giving his arm a jocular squeeze. “I heard it! Shame on you, Walter, you old warmonger. We’ve got millions. Literally millions.”

  “I don’t think the occasion is one for levity, if you’ll forgive me,” Walter said coldly, disengaging his arm.

  “O.K.,” Lafe said, matching his mood instantly with obvious relish. “I think that was the God-damnedest column you’ve ever written this morning, and I think that was the God-damnedest stupidest performance you ever put on, out there in the street. I think it was close to treason, if you want my frank opinion.”

  “My goodness,” Krishna Khaleel said in an alarmed tone. “My goodness, Lafe, what are you saying!”

  “What he always says,” Walter said through lips compressed with anger. “The most fatuous nonsense in the United States Senate.”

  “You’re getting too big for your breeches, boy,” Lafe told him with the same infuriating air of enjoyment, while a number of delegates, seeing their expressions and hearing the tones of their voices, drifted nearer with attentive faces. “You think you run this whole country, don’t you? Maybe you’re wrong.”

  “We’ll see who’s wrong, after this little episode in Gorotoland,” Walter said harshly. “If you’ll excuse me, I see my host. Goodbye!” But he found his way blocked by the giant frame of the chief American delegate, who was holding a copy of the Daily Mirror in his hand.

  “Before you go,” Cullee said softly, “just one little word with you, Walter. Do you realize what happened out there this morning before you came along and gave it your grand endorsement? Take a look. You see that burned car? I was riding in that car, with Sarah Johnson and a driver. We got out just in time, Walter, while your grand, democratic, liberty-loving friends were rioting against your country. Would it have made you happy if we’d been killed?”

  For a long moment Walter Dobius stared up at him with a look of studied contempt. When he finally spoke it was in his most clipped and heavy tones, biting off the words as though he would spit out each one.

  “No, it would not have made me happy if you had been killed. How infantile can you be? As for my grand, democratic, liberty-loving friends, as you call them, I was happy to endorse their protest against the irresponsible, inexcusable act of a war-mad Administration. I would do it again. I will do it again, in my column and in everything else I say. Is that clear?”

  From his compact height, Cullee looked down with an equal contempt. Again he spoke softly, while all around the watching nations goggled and stared.

  “What you overlook, Walter, dear, is the fact that some thirty-five or forty people have been killed, that American property has been destroyed, that honorable American rights guaranteed by honorable arrangement with a legal government have been violated.…It’s always the same, with you and your crowd, isn’t it? You always succeed in turning everything upside down so that you get the whole world arguing about what the United States has done—instead of about what has been done to the United States. Ignoring, of course, very conveniently, the fact that if nothing had been done to us—we wouldn’t be doing anything. I swear to God I don’t see how you people can do it with a clear conscience. I swear I don’t.”

  “Well, now, Cullee,” Krishna Khaleel said nervously. “It is not only ‘Walter and his crowd,’ as you put it, who feel the great measure of concern about what the United States is doing. It is all of us. It is because of your greater power and your greater potential to do damage to the world. We are all concerned.”

  “I can understand you,” Cullee said, making his voice less contemptuous with an obvious effort. “But”—and the contempt came back—“I can’t understand him and his friends. They’re beyond me and they always have been. Now go have lunch with your pal, Walter. Who is it, Tashikov?”

  “Yes!” Walter spat out.

  “That figures,” Cullee said in a tired tone. “That sure as hell figures. Come on, Lafe.”

  “Dear me,” Krishna Khaleel said to no one in particular as three angry Americans strode away toward their respective tables. “Mercy!”

  ***

  Chapter 5

  For quite a few moments after he and his host had claimed their table and ordered drinks, America’s leading philosopher-statesman found it almost impossible to think coherently, so angered and embittered was he by the degrading and inexcusable humiliation to which he had been subjected by his countrymen before the avidly interested eyes of the nations. If anything had been needed to alienate Walter Dobius permanently and implacably from the Hudson administration and its present course of action in Africa, his public tongue-lashing by Congressman Hamilton and Senator Smith would have done it. Everything was now in place, all things were clear, his own course was finally and completely justified. Behind Cullee and Lafe, as vividly as though they had actually stood there, he could see the figures of the incompetent President and the irresponsible Secretary of State, the warmakers who were challenging all the principles of civilized and orderly international behavior to whose strengthening Walter and his friends had devoted themselves in all the difficult years since the end of World War II. Their policies were so violently contrary to those Walter knew in his heart to be right, their attitude toward him personally so mocking and disrespectful, that he was convinced now that he had been absolutely sound in his column, absolutely correct in the statement he had made after the riot, absolutely justified in everything he was doing and intended to do to hinder, defeat, and discredit permanently if he could, the present policies of Washington and the men responsible for them.

  Despite this righteous certainty, however, it was not until the drinks arrived—the Soviet Ambassador had ordered Dubonnet on the rocks and Walter in spite of his whirling anger had retained enough caution to do the same, for he was not about to engage in any conversation with Vasily Tashikov half-drunk—that he finally calmed down enough to be able to pay attention to the comments with which his host was setting the stage for their discussion.

  He was pleased bu
t not surprised to find that Tashikov was stating opinions exactly paralleling his own concerning the painful episode in which he had found Walter involved when he stepped off the escalator into the dining room.

  “It is disgraceful,” the Soviet Ambassador said. “Disgraceful, for your countrymen to make of their greatest journalist such a cruel public spectacle! It is typical,” he added matter-of-factly, “of those who have gone mad in the pursuit of their imperialist ambitions.”

  “It was not pleasant,” Walter admitted, taking a long swallow of Dubonnet and stilling the last erratic thumpings of his heart by a sheer effort of will. “But,” he added grimly, “I think events will prove who is right.”

  “They will prove it is you who is right. There is no doubt of it, for I ask you, how could they do otherwise? You are right! The United States is engaged in insanity, as you said in your column this morning. Civilized peoples everywhere regard it so. The world, I think, will show the United States what happens to neo-colonialist warmongers!”

  “I would hope the Administration could be forced to withdraw,” Walter said, ignoring the anti-American rhetoric, they always felt they had to use that, and anyway it was more important to have them opposing the Administration than it was to quibble over words. “I should think that would be sufficient to place the matter back on a reasonable basis on which the UN might then consider the merits of Prince Obifumatta’s complaint versus ours.”

  “Mr. Dobius!” Vasily Tashikov said in a disbelieving tone. “Mr. Dobius! Surely you do not believe the imperialist warmongers in Washington have a case in Gorotoland? Your writings do not indicate this.”

  “I believe there is some merit,” Walter said carefully, for by now he was calm enough to be on guard against what he knew from long experience with Communist diplomats in Washington could easily turn into an attempt to entrap him into saying things he didn’t mean, “in the argument that missionaries working peaceably in a country have a right to be unmolested. I also believe—although,” he said with a smile indicating that in this he and his host were probably close to agreement, “I feel that one may legitimately be suspicious of American commercial enterprises in underdeveloped lands—that once a company has entered into a legal arrangement with a government, it has some right to just recompense if it is dispossessed or damaged.”