Cruising Speed
Page 4
We come all the way around, I make the assignments, and we disperse. A few hours later, the writers begin to channel in the copy to Priscilla who puts it into the dumbwaiter that rises one floor to my desk, where, usually not sooner than Wednesday morning, I begin to scoop it out, edit it, and then shoot it back down to Pitts for the typists. When there are very specific questions, the writer and I communicate over the telephone. Occasionally Aggie solves research problems. But the crush is under control; we have about five hours to process seven thousand words of copy, so I can afford to throw away what would take too long to correct.
I lunch in the same room with Aggie, and with Tex Lezar, and Dan Oliver. Tex graduated with honors from Yale, and needs work pending a decision on his application for a Rhodes scholarship. Dan split off from Louis Auchincloss’s law firm in order to serve as a volunteer for Jim’s campaign. A few years earlier Dan had arrived at my own (mayoral) campaign headquarters, fresh from law school, volunteering his time at the lick-envelope level. He went to school with Jim Burnham’s son at Milton, then Harvard, then Fordham Law School, but the ideological juices ran, and he prevailed on Louis Auchincloss to give him the summer off to work for James Buckley. “For how long is Dan’s leave of absence?” a mutual friend asked Managing Partner Auchincloss in August.
“Until Jim loses,” the novelist replied. Now Dan, Jim having not lost, decides to ponder, for a few months, an extra-legal career, and the four of us discuss a big book I have promised, along with Aggie, to do for Viking Press; to wit, a Debater’s Handbook, the guts of which will be highly researched briefs on either side of fifty controversial public issues. Our problem right this minute is that the paradigmatic chapter, on which we have been working for months, is so long that we figure the book would come to three-quarters of a million words. I need to know right now whether that length is simply outsize, and put in a call to Viking President Tom Guinzburg, who was a roommate at Yale during sophomore year, and who brought out my book The Unmaking of a Mayor. He is out of town. Reach him, I plead. He is located at a restaurant in Washington, and he comes to the telephone, asking whether I am tracking him down in order to offer him an ambassadorship. We exchange the back-and-forth, and I ask him whether Viking can hope to merchandise something of the size we are thinking about. He replies that he will need technical consultation to answer that question, and finally confesses to me that he is sitting in the anteroom of a small Hungarian restaurant, that the phone call has already paralyzed conversation throughout the restaurant, and would I please wait until tomorrow, when he returns to his office? That means that we cannot make other than contingent plans for the Handbook; so, another delay, so what? Publishers do not seem to care, particularly.
I go back to my desk for the phone messages. Putnam’s wants me to get Jim to record his daily impressions on how-to-be-a-senator. I call him. He is interested, but doubts that he can bring himself to dictate into a machine every night. It is left that he will try but will feel no obligation to Putnam’s if it doesn’t work out. Jim tells me, as we chat, that he has just finished conferring with Senator Javits, his upcoming senior colleague who last week announced that he would protest Jim’s proposed inclusion in the Senate’s Republican caucus. After all, Javits was quoted as saying, he had devoted “a lifetime” to making the Republican Party more “progressive,” what now was he expected to do, the voters having sent a reactionary to the Senate, “fold”? I had written in my column, “There is one obvious solution. Since Senator Javits has devoted a lifetime to making the Republican Party of New York State what it now is not, what else can be expected of him? Two lifetimes? But it is the lot of man to have only one lifetime each, and not even a superprogressive political party can bequeath us two lifetimes. So that by the logic of Senator Javits’ statement, it is altogether appropriate, indeed it is mandatory, that he should—resign.” I then underscored the irony. “It occurs to me that by so doing, [Senator Javits] could revive that great dream of which he spoke so very eloquently all during the summer and fall—namely the re-election of Senator Charles Goodell. This way, Governor Rockefeller could, gamely, reappoint Senator Goodell to continue Senator Javits’ lifetime attempt to liberalize the Republican Party. That way, if you follow me, Senator Javits succeeds in passing along the torch to someone whose views he approves of so roundly.” Jim, having just met with Javits, tells me, “You know what he said? He said, ‘You know, your brother thinks I should resign.’ ” I didn’t ask Jim, after the laughter was done, how he explained it all to the senior senator from New York. Poor Jim.
After lunch I meet with a Social Democrat, a bachelor in his late fifties, of impeccable breeding and purpose, who trains his eyes, always, on the German thing. He wants me to know how dangerous he believes Brandt’s Ostpolitik has become, and who are the principal figures in New York who are expressing their fears privately to the State Department, and to the White House . . . Then a meeting with a former Hungarian (who no longer speaks Hungarian); a French scholar, who is the most prolific bookwriter since Georges Simenon. He is a formidable academic, who is disaffected with the Conservative Book Club and Arlington House. He has heard the rumor that I “own” the companies, and wonders, do I intend to effect any reforms, best defined as instructing them to publish more of his books? I explain that I am merely a minority stockholder and chairman of the board of a broadcasting company that bought the common stock of the two publishing companies last spring, but that even supposing I were bent on doing so, I would find it as unlikely that I could affect Arlington’s policies concerning my friend’s books as that I could affect them concerning books that I had already taken the initiative to promote. I came back from Russia in May overcome with enthusiasm for a book, Message from Moscow, that had been published a year earlier by Alfred Knopf, but got practically no notice at all. It happens to be the best book on contemporary Russia published, maybe, ever; and I called the president of the Conservative Book Club, urging him to consider it for selection by the CBC. He assigned it to readers, who reported back against it, on the grounds that the (anonymous, for reasons of security) author’s own prejudices, here and there revealed in the book, were in favor of socialism; and such heterodoxy a small minority of CBC readers would not tolerate, even as presumably they would not have tolerated twenty-five years ago the distribution of Animal Farm, in the light of Orwell’s persistent inclinations to socialism. I know, I know, said my friend the president, but it is a business matter; because if the smallest minority defects, that makes the publication of the book unprofitable; and we simply cannot survive if we publish selections that would result in significant resignations from the Club. I understood; and my Hungarian friend confesses, ruefully, that he too understands. His other purpose has to do with his newest book, just published in French. He hopes to bring out an edition in English, but the hot American publishing prospect, before saying Yes, wants to know whether I would write the introduction. Yes, I say. Sight unseen? he asks. Sight unseen, I say—tacitly relying on the assumption that my old friend has not gone cuckoo since his other books; if he has, I can withdraw my commitment, on honorable grounds. But surely I want to read the edition that now exists in French? No, I tell him, because it is a strain for me to read French.
At that moment the telephone rings. It is the son of a Latin American dignitary whose father I used to know well. The son tells me that his father has not heard from me since writing a month ago enclosing a letter which he charged me to deliver personally into the hands of President Nixon. I explain that the letter reached me almost three weeks late because I was traveling; that the situation is very difficult; that I simply do not see the President all that frequently; that I forwarded the letter, only yesterday, to someone who would pass it along; and that I have already written to his father that I had done so, but, I ask, is the address of the Safe House set down by his father in inexact hand, quite right? and I give him my reading of it. It turns out that I have transcribed it correctly, and the son, warning me that so seriou
s is the situation in his country that his own brother is at that moment in jail, promises to call his father, and tell him that the mission is accomplished.
The conversation had been in Spanish, a language my Hungarian friend understands (he understands every language), and with his cosmopolitan intelligence, he deduced who it was who had called, in behalf of what cause, and if he had stayed another five minutes, he’d have volunteered to write a book on that problem. If you can speak Spanish that easily, he persists, surely you can run through my book in French? Polyglots are that way, I find. They reach a point where every language silts up into a more or less recognizable vernacular. They find it hard to believe that someone who knows one foreign language will find reading a book in any major language a strain, let alone impossible. He agrees to let me have the manuscript when it is in English.
My accountant is next. A buoyant, expressive, energetic man, who would have been among those who counseled Ferdinand to have a fling with Columbus, the type I like; but today he is very dour, and I find myself wondering, as he tells me how extravagant I am, whether he actually rehearsed, in order to make himself more convincing. He urges me not to proceed with a coveted project I have in mind, a wonderfully impractical project, and I more or less agree, admiring the grace of his Calvinism, even while knowing that if I so much as wink at him, he will fatalistically wipe away the Maginot Line as easily as he would draw down a blind, thus chaperoning me across the immobilized positions of actuarial prudence.
It is time to dine with the senior editors—a sacred and functional weekly meeting. Usually we meet at 7 3rd, directly from the office, but tonight we go to Paone’s, around the corner, a) because Paone’s is the best restaurant in New York, b) because we are bound, after Paone’s, for Fillmore East, downtown. None of us has been there before. I got tickets on learning that Virgil Fox the organist would play Bach there tonight, accompanied by a “light” expert. Lights are big this season. One gathers that they greatly augment the likelihood that the audience will groove along with the soloist. I had heard Fox a year before at Philharmonic Hall, marveled at his virtuosity, and appreciated his familiarity with Bach. And I had heard about the glamor of Fillmore East, as Jim Burnham had, so we looked forward, the lot of us, to the experience. A wonderful meal, and on the way out of Paone’s I am greeted by a man my own age who writes me twice a week, a reformed alcoholic, an undeniable Catholic, who a few months ago, at the urging of several of us, enrolled in a Catholic seminary particularly designed to meet the needs of former alcoholics. But, he wrote me last week, he is pulling out, no hard feelings against the Church, it is merely that he has no vocation; and there he is, as we walk out, having dinner with a lady friend, a Coca-Cola by his plate of fettucine. I shake hands, and only after we are in the taxi, reflect that I have two extra tickets, Jeffrey Hart having declined to join us. But it is too late.
We arrive, and there are hippies and non-hippies trying to get in, a sell-out. One young man ventures forward, do I have an extra ticket? I give him one of the two tickets, thinking to keep the second, under the circumstances, as cordon sanitaire. We are astonished by the crowd, only a minority of which is Woodstock Nation. We learn that that is because the prices have been raised by 25 per cent. V. Fox comes on, and speaks a minute or two before each number, attempting to attract the audience to God by stressing the common wavelengths on which He, and Bach, operate. The performance is godawful, because Fox clearly wants to impress the kids by a) the noise, and b) his virtuosity. At one point during a prelude, I am tempted to rise solemnly, commandeer a shotgun, and advise Fox, preferably in imperious German, if only I could learn German in time to consummate the fantasy, that if he does not release the goddam vox humana, which is ooing-ahing-eeing the music where Bach clearly intended something closer to a bel canto, I shall simply have to blow his head off. During the intermission, a boy and girl who serve as ushers explain the economic situation, and advise that a week hence, the owner of Fillmore East will repeat Virgil Fox at the old prices, in case I want to come back. After the intermission, Fox introduces the Passacaglia at Wagnerian length, almost but not quite to the point of causing mutiny in the audience, whose stirrings become discernible after the fourth or fifth minute. The maestro then turns and snows them with his dexterity, which is undeniable, the problem being that it will be ten years before I can appreciate again the music he has played, so over-loud, so throbby, so plucky-wucky the portamentos, so Phil Spitalny the cantandos.
We drive home. I speculate. How come it didn’t hurt Fox more than it hurt us? And Jim Burnham as usual offers the only acceptable explanation, namely, that Fox is so much the evangelist, he must have figured that it was more important to fill the house with listeners who would hear Bach for the first time than worry about those who would resolve, like me, to have heard Fox for the last time. We have a glass of champagne at Jim’s, before I go home to write the column due tomorrow morning.
Wednesday. Dan Mahoney comes for breakfast, to discuss pressing political questions and, we both hope, less pressing problems concerning my will. I first met him in 1954 when he was a student at Columbia Law School, before whose forum he had asked me to speak, and I agreed, but the meeting was canceled because that was the day my father had a stroke in South Carolina. Somehow we stayed in touch over the years, and I came to know his closest friend Kieran O’Doherty, who is the sword-militant of the Conservative Party, and Dan’s wife, who is Kieran’s sister.
Dan is most easily described, among the politicians of this world, as a bird of paradise. Three weeks ago, at Mr. Nixon’s retreat in the Bahamas, we were together. There are two islands, side by side, both owned by Mr. Nixon’s friend Bob Abplanalp. One is reserved for the President. On the other is a small resort hotel. I arrived at the President’s island as Dan and Kieran were concluding their meeting with him, and when I rejoined Dan at the hotel after dinner I found him surrounded by Kieran, his wife, my wife, and one or two others, Planter’s Punch in hand, looking heavenward with a pleased expression on his face, all the more affecting inasmuch as it turned out that he was sound asleep, managing however not to spill a drop from his glass which was propped up in totally reassured equilibrium. He quickly came to in response to my greeting. It was now five days after Jim’s victory, a couple of hours after discussing the consequences of it with the President of the United States, and he said to me, “You know, Bill, on the whole, I would say that this has been an above-average week.” Eight years ago he had founded the Conservative Party of New York, with Kieran, acting on a suggestion made by National Review, which would never have had the organizational machismo to pull it off; from the beginning, it had been their operation; and right now they were feeling pleased. I asked Dan whether the press had accosted him as he came back by helicopter (Marine Force One) to the hotel where we sat, and he said yes, they had indeed, AP, UPI, and the New York Times. What had he divulged to them about the meeting? “I merely told them”—he drew on his unlit cigar and aimed his Planter’s Punch approximately towards his lips—“that the President informed me that he considers J. Daniel Mahoney the country’s most distinguished American.” Next morning, he didn’t remember this, and was both relieved—and surprised—that it did not appear in the newspaper accounts of the Conservative invasion of the Bahamas.
Dan wants to discuss one or two points involving personal relations in the Conservative-Republican picture, and one or two others involving the eccentricities of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Then we go downtown together, Jerry driving, with Rowley happily at his side, and we pick up Jim Burnham en route. I ask Jim to read the column I have written analyzing the Coast Guard scandal off Martha’s Vineyard, because he will be writing the editorial on the subject for NR. My own column homes in on Admiral Bender, who yesterday spoke some nonsense in behalf of the Coast Guard. “Well, says the admiral, you see [I paraphrase], the Russians insisted that the defector, Simas, had stolen $2,000 from the ship’s cash fund. No doubt they did say that [I mock]. The ques
tion is why the Coast Guard believed it. Would the Coast Guard have believed the Russians if they had said that it had just then been established that Simas was the guy who killed Kirov?” I couldn’t remember Kirov’s name last night. Jim gives it to me now. “What proof did the Coast Guard demand to see, before believing that poor Simas was a common thief, rather than someone who sought political asylum? And then the admiral went on to say something so mystifying as to achieve absolute inscrutability. You see, he said, Simas greatly prejudiced his case because instead of leaping from the Soviet cutter into the water (as Simas had whispered he was going to do), whence the U.S. Coast Guard would have plucked him out, Simas leaped from the Soviet boat directly to the American boat, missing the water altogether. Get it? I reasoned that there must be some meaning to this, that perhaps the Geneva Convention has a clause in it assigning to water some sacramental property which transubstantiates a common refugee into a legitimate claimant to political asylum. So I called the greatest lawyer in the world and asked him, and he simply shook his head in dumb amazement. The only relevance I can think of to the Water Version is that maybe the admiral figured that the reason Simas didn’t throw himself into the water is that he didn’t want to wet those $2,000 he had stolen from the ship’s strong box; and therefore, he must have been a common criminal after all.”