by Allen Drury
“Indeed I could, Your Honor!” George Wattersill cried. “Indeed I could! The Committee does have that option now, true enough, but”—and his voice came with a low, confidential rush, and his eyes were fixed upon the Justice’s in a stark, hypnotic stare—“it is a frightened Committee. It is not a truly free Committee, happy and glorious in its democratic right—it is a frightened Committee.
“It dares not move because it knows that over it stands the Commander-in-Chief, his troops surrounding it, his military might brooding ominously over its deliberations.
“True, the bayonets are fixed—outward.
“True, the guns are pointed—outward.
“But, Your Honor”—and his voice became husky with emotion—“bayonets that are fixed outward—can be turned inward. Guns that are pointed outward—can he turned inward.
“Who knows, Your Honor”—and now he was down almost to a whisper, ominous and nerve-tingling—“who knows when the order may be given?”
(“To use a word I practically never use,” the President said slowly in the Oval Room, “what—utter—crap.”)
But, WATTERSILL CHARGES PRESIDENT’S ARMED MIGHT MAY FORCE COMMITTEE TO TAKE KNOX, the headlines cried; and all over the nation, yea the great globe itself, many sincerely worried people were frightened and dismayed by the specter he had so adroitly created.
“Your Honor,” George Harrison Wattersill said solemnly, “we too will reserve the balance of our time. I defer now to my distinguished friends across the table.”
“Are you actually going to vote for this damned thing?” Lafe murmured to Claude Maudulayne as the Ambassador of Cymru polled the Council on the Soviet-French resolution to condemn U.S. aggression in Gorotoland and urge dispatch of a UN force to reopen the fighting.
“Abstain!” the British Ambassador said clearly.
“Very well,” Lafe snapped with an equal clarity that rang across the crowded room. “The United States votes No.”
“On this vote,” Cymru said, “there are eleven votes Yes, one abstention and one No. Since the No is cast by the United States, the resolution is defeated, is it?”
“Is it,” Lafe agreed. “What further surprises do you have for America this afternoon, Mr. President?”
“The Ambassador of Panama,” Cymru announced, not without a certain relish, as Felix Labaiya-Sofra came soberly down the aisle to take his seat, his small, trim presence and dark, perfectly tailored business suit forming a nice contrast to giant Obifumatta, glittering and coruscating in the light beside him.
“The Council is now seized of SC/128,” Cymru said, “introduced by Britain, France and the Soviet Union, to protest the proposed blockade of Panama by the Government of the United States and to pledge all efforts of the United Nations and of individual member states to exercise their rights upon the seas with respect to said proposed blockade. The Ambassador of Panama and President of the Government of the Panamanian People’s Liberation Movement has requested permission to address the Council. If agreeable he will do so, is it?”
“No objections here,” Cullee said as there was a general nodding around the circle. “What must be,” he added with a wink at the Ambassador of South Africa, who winked back, “must be, is it?”
“Mr. President,” Stanley Danta said, and the emotion in his voice brought an instant hush to the crowded Senate and galleries, “it is, as you know, with a special interest that I rise to speak on the pending bill.
“Normally, I might regard with some misgivings a bill ‘to further curb acts against the public order and welfare.’ But, Mr. President”—and he passed a hand that visibly trembled across his forehead in a slow, bone-weary gesture—“I have had more occasion than most to appreciate the vicious things that are alive in this country today.
“I will not,” he said, while his colleagues listened intently, “burden the Senate at this point with a recapitulation of recent events. Suffice it to say that you all know what my”—his voice threatened to break for a second, but he went on—“what my daughter has been through. Nothing could more clearly indicate the necessity for any and all measures that will curb once and for all the beast which has been let loose out of the gutters of America to prey upon decent, innocent people.
“Mr. President, the pending measure is, perhaps, drawn too broadly in some sections, and it may well be that the Senate will wish to examine the bill, as introduced, very closely, and perhaps amend it. We may wish to do the same thing with the House version when it is passed and reaches us. But the essential purpose, I think, is something we must come to grips with, and something we must take action upon.
“There is too much, Mr. President,” he said, and again the emotion was very close to the surface, “there is too much going on these days in America which is alien to our traditions and our spirit, which is desperately dangerous to all our laws and stability, but which is more than this: it is simply and truly evil, and as such it must be rooted out of our country if our country is to survive.
“We all know, Mr. President, that these things exist in the subterranean depths of the human spirit, but we also know that if society is to survive, these things must be curbed and driven back and driven out. All societies have known that; all intelligent men have known that, through recorded time. The measure of the decline of nations can be found in the rate at which lawlessness and viciousness were allowed to come to the top. When they got there, it was all over, except for the dying throes, which may have gone on for a few more years or even decades. Once the process was allowed to get out of hand, no society has ever succeeded in reversing it. The end has been inevitable. It will be here, too, unless we stop it while we can.
“Now, as I say, Mr. President, I do not know that all features of this bill are desirable; I rather suspect, from a quick first reading, that they are not. It would be a rare piece of legislation if they were. But I do know that the essential purpose, to curb this growing evil of deliberate, coordinated, vicious violence which is aimed at the very destruction of America itself, is one which we must endorse and support.
“We have means, through fair debate and open discussion and public consideration, to change the things in our country and our policy which this violence claims to be trying to correct. These means are slow at times, but they are orderly: they preserve what must be preserved in any human society unless it is all to go down, namely stability.
“I for one, Mr. President,” he said quietly, “do not want it all to go down. I want it to remain stable, for the sake of my country and for all those I hold dear. I want my”—he hesitated, the emotion returned, his voice trembled but he finished firmly—“I want my grandchildren to have a decent country to live in, and to know all the wonderful things about it that we have known, underneath the sad things and the unhappy things which are here. Because the wonderful things are here also, and more of them, if we can only save them.
“And we must, Mr. President.
“We must.”
And he started to sit down. But before he could do so a familiar, near-psychotic whine came from a desk near the back of the Senate, and at once the tension in the room shot up as Senators turned to see their most unmanageable colleague standing in the aisle calling on a rising note, “Mr. President! Mr. President! Mr. President!”
Lacey Pollard of Georgia, in the chair, looked about desperately for someone else to recognize, but the Senate had been caught short: no one else appeared to be ready.
“The Senator from Wyoming,” Lacey said in a voice which made no attempt to conceal his impatient annoyance. Fred Van Ackerman of course took him up on it at once.
“Now, Mr. President,” he said sharply, “the Chair knows he has no right to recognize me in that tone of voice. The Chair knows—”
“The Chair knows he has recognized you,” Lacey Pollard said. “Does the Senator wish to speak or does he not?”
“Yes, I do!” Fred said angrily. “But I will say to the Chair that I resent this impatient, offhand, disparaging man
ner in which he recognized me. The Chair is required by the rules of the Senate, I believe, to show a decent courtesy to a member—”
“There is no such rule,” Lacey snapped. “Senators get the courtesy they earn. The Senator from Wyoming doesn’t have much in the bank. Does the Senator wish to speak on the pending bill?”
“Yes, the Senator wishes to speak on the pending bill!” Fred said with a sneering mimicry. “He wishes to ask the distinguished Senator from Connecticut if he will yield for a question?”
“Don’t do it, Stanley,” Johnny DeWilton of Vermont said in a low but clearly audible voice, and the galleries laughed. At once Senator Van Ackerman was off.
“I am not asking for smart-aleck comments from other Senators, I will say to the distinguished Senator from Vermont! I am asking the Senator from Connecticut if he will yield. Does the Senator yield? Does he? I am asking!”
For a moment Senator Danta hesitated; and then, without looking at Fred, but straight ahead at the Chair, he spoke in a cold and measured voice.
“If the Senator expects love, affection, admiration and respect if I yield to him,” he said, “then I am afraid he will be disappointed, since I regard the Senator as being one of those responsible for what happened to my daughter.” There was a gasp from the galleries, a stirring in the Senate. He went on inflexibly. “And I do not know what else. If he is willing to settle for a minimal courtesy, I shall talk to him, yes.”
“Very clever,” Fred said bitterly. “Very clever. The Senator is so busy making points about his daughter—”
“My God, have you no decency at all?” Stanley Danta cried, swinging around then and staring at him, as so many of his colleagues had at one time or another, as though he were looking at an insane person, as perhaps he was. “What are you composed of, anyway?”
“I am ‘composed of,’” Fred said, perversely and characteristically becoming quieter as his victim became louder, “a United States Senator who is deeply concerned about this vicious and inexcusable bill which would take this country a long way toward dictatorship. What is the Senator concerned about, I will ask him, except trying to impugn the motives and integrity of those who disagree with his hysterical endorsement of this monstrous and inexcusable gag bill?”
Senator DeWilton got up quickly, came down the aisle and slid into the seat beside Senator Danta. “Don’t let him throw you off balance,” he cautioned softly, but Stanley was too upset to pay attention.
“I am interested in trying to save this country,” he snapped, “which is something I sometimes think is rather far from the Senator’s mind!”
“Mr. President,” Fred Van Ackerman said calmly. “Now, Mr. President. I submit that the Senator’s language—”
“The Senator from Connecticut will take his seat,” Lacey Pollard said promptly, for there was obviously nothing for it but to go through the standard formula used when tempers grew too hot and language unparliamentary. Stanley sat down, grim-faced.
“Mr. President,” Johnny DeWilton said, “I move that the Senator from Connecticut be allowed to proceed in order.”
“The Senator will proceed in order,” Lacey Pollard said, and Stanley got up again.
“I apologize to the Chair,” he said, controlling his temper with an obvious effort, “but I have made perfectly clear that I have misgivings about some aspects of this bill. But the main thrust of it, namely to control the violence growing in the country—violence with which, Mr. President”—and for a mild man, his tone became savagely sarcastic—“I think I may safely say the Senator and his associates have had some connection—I am one hundred per cent for, I will say to the Senator and I make no apologies for it.
“Why is this bill here, anyway, Mr. President?” he inquired with a sudden exasperation. “It is here because the violence is here, not the other way around. Stop trying to confuse the issue! Now did the Senator have a question to ask me, or was his request that I yield, a while back, just a typical maneuver?”
“Careful,” John DeWilton murmured, but this time Fred chose to ignore it.
“Mr. President,” he said blandly, “of course I had a question. To wit: is the Senator aware that this bill contains two very odd clauses, the first of which would establish a National Riot Control Board to approve use of ‘any facilities within one mile of any Federal building or installation’ for gatherings of three or more people, and the other defining as illegal any gathering of three or more ‘if there is obvious intent to create civil disturbance and/or riot’?”
“I am aware, I will say to the Senator,” Stanley Danta said. “I think I have covered them in my previous remarks.”
“Does the Senator think that this bill, with these clauses, when taken in conjunction with the enormous military display the President is putting on at the Kennedy Center—”
“Now the Senator is taking his cues from television,” Stanley said, and again there was a titter from the galleries.
“Oh, the Senator can scoff,” Senator Van Ackerman said softly. “The Senator can sneer and joke and poke fun. But the fact remains, our good friend Mr. Wattersill—”
“Not mine,” Senator Danta snapped, and the riffle of laughter spread across the floor as well.
“—has a point, you know. He does have a point. Does the Senator think that this bill, taken in conjunction with the military display put on by the President, indicates the beginning of a real dictatorship in the United States of America? Doesn’t he think possibly that this is an evil as great as any he professes to see in a little genuine protest against our stupid and foredoomed foreign policy?”
“What genuine protest?” Senator Danta demanded. “If you mean the organized riots and carefully controlled violence whose only aim is the deliberate destruction of this Republic—”
“Mr. President!” Senator Van Ackerman cried.
“I have the floor,” Stanley Danta said angrily. “Whose vicious and only aim is the deliberate destruction of this Republic—is that what you mean when you say ‘genuine protest,’ Senator? How naïve can you be? Except that you aren’t naïve, are you? You aren’t naïve at all. You know exactly what these people are doing, because you are one of them. So much for ‘genuine protest.’
“I yield the floor.”
And he sat down abruptly. There was a little ripple of laughter and applause through the galleries, and at once Fred Van Ackerman was off again.
“Mr. President!” he cried, and when Lacey Pollard gave him the floor:
“Mr. President, listen to them laugh. Listen to the great American boobs laugh!” There was a sudden hiss and at once his voice sailed up into its high, psychotic register. “Yes, Mr. President, laugh and hiss, laugh and hiss! That’s all some people know how to do, but thank God, Mr. President, they are few and getting fewer in America! Thank God we do have genuine protests, by sincere and troubled citizens who want to stop this insane policy of war, war and more war! Thank God there are great patriotic leaders like the great Governor of California, whose nomination is even now being assured by the Supreme Court of the United States—”
“Mr. President,” said Powell Hanson of North Dakota, but Fred swung around and shot him a savage glare.
“No, Mr. President, I will not yield to the Senator from North Dakota! The Senator from North Dakota is typical of all the blind, mixed-up Americans who follow the present incompetent incumbent of the White House and his guide and mentor, the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State! Why, Mr. President—”
“Mr. President,” Powell Hanson said loudly as he sat down, “what about Helen-Anne Carrew, who was buried today?”
Fred stopped short, and for a few moments there was a shocked and startled silence in the chamber. Then Senator Van Ackerman smiled, a savage, humorless grimace.
“So typical, Mr. President,” he said. “So typical of all the elements who are supporting this crazy, dictatorial attempt to place iron military bonds on this country and prevent free, genuine protest! Drag in a name, Mr. Preside
nt! Hint something ominous, Mr. President! Create a sinister atmosphere, Mr. President! Imply all sorts of who-knows-what, Mr. President! All right,” he said, and his tone became heavily sarcastic, “I will say to the Senator: what about Helen-Anne Carrew? Does he know something we ought to know?”
“No, Mr. President, if the Senator will yield,” Powell Hanson said, “I just wanted to know what you know about her? She was buried today. I thought the Senator might be able to enlighten us, that’s all.”
“How should I know?” Fred inquired contemptuously. “I thought she was just a reporter who got onto the wrong story. It happens. It’s probably going to happen more from now on, if the press gets curious about the wrong things.”
“Is the Senator threatening the press?” Senator Hanson asked sharply, looking up at the Press Gallery above the Chair. “Is that the next step?”
“I’m not threatening anything,” Fred Van Ackerman said, still with the contemptuous smile, “and I’d suggest the Senator stop trying to raise bugaboos and red herrings here. Yes, Mr. President,” he cried, and his voice suddenly shot up again, the moment passed, the ominous undercurrents were pushed aside, he concluded as he wanted to conclude, “I suggest to the Senator, and the Senator from Connecticut, and all Senators, stop trying to confuse the issue and concentrate on what is best for this country, for a change! I suggest we kill this monstrous, dictatorial gag bill whose only purpose is to further the purposes of Orrin Knox and his captive President, which all decent Americans protest and deplore! I suggest we fight dictatorship before it’s too late, Mr. President! Now’s the time to do it, not after pious Orrin and his captive President have slapped it on us!”