Preserve and Protect

by Allen Drury

  “I’m not going to have it, Ted,” he concluded quietly. “I’m simply not going to have it. I’ll take Bob Munson or the President, here, on the ticket and we’ll go down to defeat together before I run and win with you, if you’re still equivocating on this subject. Either you cut those connections altogether or you don’t come along with me.

  “You decide.”

  And he sat back and continued to stare at the Governor, who this time, his face shadowed with a sort of weary anger, did not return the look but gazed instead out the window upon the monument to noble George, who had passed through a certain amount of violence himself before arriving at canonization. When he spoke it was not in a tone of anger, however, but in one of sober thoughtfulness that brought at least the beginnings of reassurance to his listeners.

  “Of course I am not happy with what has happened to the country. Of course I don’t want that element running loose, particularly in my name. Of course I am as concerned as you are about the safety and stability of the Republic. What kind of man do you think I am, that you can contemplate, even for a moment, that I am not?

  “But by the same token,” he said, and some of the reassurance began to ebb, “I cannot in all good conscience place myself on the side of those who refuse to allow honest democratic dissent its place in the United States of America. There may be conspiracies. There may be subversives. I agree with you, they would be fools if they didn’t try it, and they aren’t fools. But I cannot agree that the great majority are anything other than perfectly genuine, sincere, loyal, decent Americans who are simply deeply disturbed about what seems to be a drive toward war, and more wars, as a means of settling the world’s problems. You can’t, it seems to me, discredit that element, which I believe—and you probably believe too”—he looked now at Orrin, who nodded—“to be the overwhelming majority.

  “Now the question arises, then—how severely can you restrict what may be the few genuinely subversive elements without hurting and undemocratically restraining the genuinely loyal and the sincerely disturbed? At that point we seem to part company, because your way seems to be troops and helicopters, and mine seems to be tolerance and reason.”

  “How much can you tolerate?” Bob Leffingwell asked in a musing tone. “Where does reason have to take up arms against unreason?”

  “Granted, it isn’t simple,” Ted agreed, while they watched him with the same close attention they had accorded Orrin, “but when were democracy’s choices ever simple? I had rather come down, myself, on the side of too much tolerance and too much reason, than on the side of too little.”

  “Even if it genuinely jeopardizes the stability of the nation,” Senator Munson said.

  “Who knows where that point comes?” Governor Jason asked. “Who can honestly say—‘at this moment’—or ‘right here’—democracy is being jeopardized?”

  “I said ‘stability,’” Bob Munson reminded. Ted smiled pleasantly.

  “I prefer ‘democracy.’”

  The President shifted in his chair.

  “I don’t,” he said bluntly, “Because right now, our problem’s stability. You can have stability without democracy but you can’t have democracy without stability.”

  “I don’t think we can have too much democracy,” Governor Jason said quietly. “We can have too much stability.”

  “And we can also, of course, as we all know perfectly well, have too much democracy,” Bob Munson said with an equal bluntness. “We can take liberty to the point of license, which is where you seem to be taking it. And then the country falls apart because there are no sanctions to hold it together.” He shrugged and gestured for Ted to continue. “But this isn’t a debate. Go ahead.”

  The Governor nodded gravely.

  “In case of doubt, as I say, I prefer to come down on the side of too much tolerance—reason—democracy, rather than too little. So the question then arises—what about DEFY? COMFORT? KEEP? All the organizations affiliated, at my suggestion, in NAWAC? What about violence, which seems at first glance to be the principal unifying feature of this amalgamation that seems to be favorable to me?

  “In the first place, how responsible is a man for some of the support he gets? I know in California, and you each know in your states, that there are always free-loaders who climb on a bandwagon and come along, whether you want them or not, or whether you have anything in common with them or not. You can’t keep them away. So some of this I’m not responsible for, and can’t help. Most of it”—he raised a restraining hand as Senator Munson started to offer some skeptical comment, “I am.

  “I’ll admit that I have welcomed the support of the responsible elements in these organizations, because I believe the responsible elements predominate. If there are other elements,” he said solemnly, “I don’t know about them, and that is the truth.”

  “I know it is,” Orrin said. “That’s why I’m trying to enlighten you.”

  “If they exist, of course I shall repudiate them. If there is proof of their subversion, I shall denounce them as vigorously and relentlessly as you. If it is impossible to accept their support without jeopardizing the country, of course I shall cut them off.”

  “At what point will you admit the danger?” the Secretary inquired softly. “What sort of proof do you have to have?”

  “Orrin,” Ted said, and something in his tone indicated that he was concluding their discussion, “would you give me a couple of hours to decide that? Would you give me a little while to think about it? After all, you’ve presented me with some rather startling information. And you’ve followed it with an ultimatum that may seem reasonable to you, but seems to me to go to the heart of my integrity as an American, as a democrat, and as a public servant.

  “That takes a little time to digest. May I have it?”

  Once again they exchanged stare for stare.

  “How much?”

  “Not very long. I’ll call you in an hour or two.”

  “Call me at home,” the Secretary said. He frowned.

  “I hope you aren’t going to consult with them. This is a matter for your conscience and mine, now.”

  “No,” the Governor agreed. “I’m just going to Pat’s, and think. All right?”

  “All right,” Orrin said, and once again they were all on their feet, good nights were said, the elevator arrived. Ted turned as he stepped in and bowed pleasantly. The door closed, he was gone.

  “What do you make of that?” Bob Leffingwell asked.

  “I don’t know,” Orrin said. “I honestly do not know. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “I’ve called you ‘Aunt Beth’ for so many years that I really still find it difficult to say ‘Mother Knox,’” Crystal confessed from the doorway with a smile; but it was a troubled smile, her mother-in-law could see, and so she patted the bed and said,

  “‘Beth’ will do. Why don’t you come here and tell me what the trouble is? Is Hal very upset?”

  “Yes,” Crystal said in a sad little voice, sitting down beside her. “He hates what his father’s going to do.”

  Beth gave her a shrewd glance, closed her book, plumped the pillows and sat up attentively.

  “Do you?”

  Crystal shook her head slowly.

  “I don’t know … I just don’t know. I suppose I’ve expected it for quite a while … ever since the convention, really.”

  “So have I,” Beth said. “But I don’t think Orrin knew until this afternoon.”

  “What made him decide?”

  “Basically Ted’s popularity, I suppose. The overriding need to restore national unity. And the possibility that the best way to control the mob—”

  “—is to put the chief mobster on the ticket,” Crystal said with a sudden flash of bitterness.

  Beth smiled.

  “That sounds like my son talking. The Knoxes have a gift for the slashing phrase.… Yes, perhaps so, though I don’t really think in fairness to Ted one can quite call him that. He wants all the benefits of
the mob without accepting any of the responsibility for it. It’s a type that began to come into our politics a few years ago: always wealthy, always willing, always reaching out for anything, no matter how potentially or actually dangerous, that will get them where they want to go. I’m sure he actually believes he can control the mob and the violence. This afternoon must have made him certain of it.”

  “I think,” Crystal said, her eyes shadowed with the memory of her own tragedy at the convention, “that he is a very dangerous man. I hope Orrin knows what he is doing.”

  “I think he does.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “I guess,” Beth said thoughtfully, “because I believe in my husband.”

  “I do, too,” Crystal agreed. “Yours and mine. But I’m wondering if maybe thinking he can control the man—who thinks he can control the mob—isn’t equally unwise.”

  “It may be,” Beth conceded quietly. “It may be. These gambles sometimes have to be taken in politics.”

  “It’s a terrible risk just for the sake of winning.”

  “Well,” Beth said, “suppose he doesn’t win, Crys, what then? The country will go along all right, I suppose, although the mobs will continue, and they’ll grow, and the violence will flourish and increase. And regardless of who sits in the White House—probably Warren Strickland and the other party—things will become steadily more chaotic, until four years from now there won’t be anything to stand in the way of the mobs, and violence will take over completely. Ted will make it then, all right, and that will be the end of a free country. At least Orrin is strong enough to turn it back now while there’s still time, and at least there’s a pretty good hope that Ted will come around to seeing it that way, too, before it’s too late.

  “And furthermore—what’s involved in Orrin’s winning? Just ambition? Just to sit in the White House and say, ‘I’m President?’ You know him better than that, Crystal. He wants it because that’s where you can do things—that’s where he can try to make real the vision he has of the United States of America.”

  Her eyes softened with the memory of many things.

  “I’ve lived with that vision a long time, you know. Since way back down the years when I first met him at the University of Illinois and heard how Orrin Knox was going to be President and remake the world. It’s a good vision—a decent vision. The world could do worse.” She smiled. “I’m in the habit of believing in it. I thought Hal was too.”

  “He does,” Crystal said, “at heart. It’s just that my—episode—and now apparently rewarding the man whose supporters did it—have got him pretty well down.” She tried to look confident but didn’t quite make it. “He’ll get over it … I think.”

  “He will if you help him,” Beth said. “Will you?”

  Crystal sighed.

  “I don’t have much cause to like Ted Jason, either.”

  “No,” Beth agreed, and didn’t argue. “What does Stanley think about it?”

  Crystal smiled with a mixture of irony and affection for her father.

  “He’s a politician. He doesn’t like it, but he can understand why it’s being done.”

  “I don’t think,” Beth said slowly, “that Orrin really has a choice. He couldn’t maneuver if he wanted to, really. The need for unity is too great. And that’s a hard thing, for a proud man. I hope Hal can come to see that. He will if you help him. It may make him a little more tolerant of his father.” She smiled again. “It isn’t always easy, being married to a Knox, is it? They’re such combinations of idealism and practicality, bull-headedness and sensitivity. They need one’s help a lot more than they let on. Hal will accept this, if you help him. Do you think you can?”

  Crystal returned the smile, a little hesitantly.

  “If you can help Orrin, I guess I can help Hal.”

  “I hope so,” Beth said, “because I’d hate to have anything permanent come between them as a result of this.”

  “I wonder how Governor Jason feels right now,” Crystal said in a quizzical tone. “He must be feeling pretty smart, knowing he’s indispensable to Orrin’s victory.”

  “You know,” Beth said, “in a way I think I feel sorriest of all for him. Because he actually thinks he’s controlling the forces of history … and all the time, they’re controlling him.”

  If this were true, he did not know it, as he sat in the glass-enclosed veranda and stared out into the tastefully lighted garden in the still, humid night. Patsy had been up when he came in, but after a couple of attempts to find out what had happened at the White House, she had recognized the fact that he was not going to tell her and had gone to bed.

  “Surely there isn’t any DOUBT—” she had said in an exasperated yet worried voice, turning at the door.

  He had shaken his head impatiently.

  “No, I suppose not, but I’m going to think about it for a while.”

  “Well, just don’t take so long he changes his mind!” she urged tartly, and he smiled a tired yet ironic smile at the thought of boxed-in Orrin Knox.

  “He won’t,” he said.

  But there was, of course, the possibility, even now; for Orrin Knox, as he well knew, was not as boxed-in as many at this hour wished to think. Orrin Knox could never really be boxed in, because he was still, after three decades in politics, an independent man. He was one of the very few in Washington who still had both the option and the independence to say, “To hell with you,” and mean it. Ted was convinced that if he pushed the Secretary far enough, he would do exactly that: he would take Bob Munson or the President on the ticket, he would go down to defeat, rather than make the final compromise. Someone had to yield in this final confrontation of theirs, and the Governor knew that in the last analysis it would not be Orrin Knox.

  Therefore the problem came to him, and now as he thought back over all these recent hours and days and weeks and months, there seemed to him no very clear-cut way to approach it. He had deplored violence, but violence had come to his aid. He had criticized violence, but violence had refused to desert his cause. Finally this afternoon he had, in effect, turned on violence and shown it who was master; but still violence marched beneath his banner. How did you get rid of it, once it had made up its savage mind to adopt you?

  He had not put much stock originally in the story Helen-Anne had discovered, though he had been the first to think of the possibility of a further meeting, and to try to remove himself from any connection with it. Even now, he could not entirely believe the account of Vasily Tashikov, the agricultural attaché, the dark alliance with NAWAC to disrupt and if possible overturn American society.

  There was always something faintly laughable to most Americans about that sort of deep, dark conspiracy: their education, their press, their churches and their literature had conditioned them to laugh at it, and they did. It did not occur to them to reason why they had been conditioned to laugh: they just did, automatically, spontaneously, obediently. It simplified matters greatly.

  Now, however, he was being asked to take it seriously, and it had been presented to him in a context in which he must take it seriously or say goodbye to the Vice Presidency now and very probably to any chance of becoming President later. Helen-Anne’s scribblings carried an air of conviction, and they were detailed enough to compel belief. As Orrin had said, such things had happened in many other countries; it was quite logical to believe they could happen here. Indeed they had, but somehow in the face of all the facts over all the years, a great many Americans with the power and the position to ridicule had kept the country laughing, and somehow it had all been gradually fuzzed out, chortled away, jokingly forgotten. Meanwhile conspiracy had gone right on, though this, perhaps, was the first time it had moved directly into the campaign of a candidate for President. That it would eventually do so had always been inevitable. Now it had.

  So it was up to him to deal with it. And although a natural pride had prevented him from admitting it at the White House, he had been genuinely appalled and
even somewhat frightened by the disclosures in the notes. Not desperately frightened, for he had no doubt that he could control it in the showdown: this afternoon had already proven that. But disturbed enough so that he must acknowledge to himself the existence in his life of a factor he had not anticipated and had not originated—something from outside—something new for a Jason. He had apparently not been a free agent in his own house after all, during recent events. That, perhaps, was what stung and upset him more than anything else.

  So what was the problem? Orrin wanted him to make a clean break—the necessity of preserving his own independence made a clean break advisable—the welfare, perhaps the safety, of the country made it imperative—why did he hesitate? Why didn’t he stop debating with himself and call Spring Valley right now?

  His hand was halfway to the telephone when he paused and slowly withdrew it.

  He hesitated because he had too much faith in the country. He hesitated because he really did not believe, as he had said, that a drunken huddle at the Hilton could really shake the innate strength of the Republic. He hesitated because after this afternoon he was confident he could control the violent and presently bring them back to the safer channels of democracy. He hesitated because he felt that Americans had a right to protest policies they did not agree with, and he honestly believed that the great majority who did so were sincere, earnest, loyal.

  That was where his real battle came, as he saw it: that was the point at which he had to decide the sort of man Edward Montoya Jason was.