(1964) The Man

by Irving Wallace

  “It’s in its final form right now,” said Talley. “It’s in the hopper. It’s being introduced. It’ll go to the Subcommittee of Employment and Manpower. Anyway, as you’ll soon hear, the majority of the Cabinet are involved in support of it. Attorney General Kemmler, Secretary of Interior Ruttenberg, Secretary of Labor Barnes are prepared to go to the Hill to fight for it. T. C. felt that not only would it give our economy a shot in the arm, but it was the only reasonable solution to the—the civil rights issue. We’ve found the majority of responsible white and colored leaders are behind it, Mr. President.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Dilman. “I know the Crispus Society, the NAACP, and the Urban League have approved, with reservations.”

  Eaton had been not only listening to Talley, but watching the President’s broad, black face. Except for an expression of unceasing anxiety, nothing else, either affirmative or negative, was betrayed. On familiar Caucasian faces, Eaton was always able to detect inner response, a closing, a widening, a dilation, an expansion, a wrinkling of some feature, that was often as eloquent and revealing as words. On this unfamiliar black face Eaton could read no subtle definition of reaction. The blackness hid Dilman’s thoughts as successfully as the darkest moonless night.

  Eaton’s instinct, which he and T. C. had regarded as unerring, led him to a quick decision. To continue overwhelming Dilman with a landslide of information would be useless now. He had been made aware of the key issues, the immediate ones, and of how T. C. had felt about each. It was enough for the time. If more indoctrination were required, the Cabinet meeting might supply it.

  Eaton straightened, and squinted down at his wristwatch. “I’m afraid we’re expected in the Cabinet Room.”

  Talley protested. “There’s still some more to—”

  “You’ve briefed the President on the main points, Wayne. That’s enough.” He rose, and smiled at Dilman. “I’m sure you’re ready to say uncle to this stuff, Mr. President. I know that I am.”

  Dilman smiled back. “I appreciate your understanding, Mr. Secretary. I feel like a computer that’s been overloaded with data. I’m afraid something might clog or short-circuit.”

  Eaton waited for the President to rise and precede him. Then, with Talley, he followed Dilman across the Oval Office, through Edna Foster’s cubicle, and into the cool chamber that was the Cabinet Room.

  T. C.’s team was present and seated, and immediately upon Dilman’s entrance they rose to their feet. Dilman took his place in the handsome chair at the center of the twenty-foot mahogany table, the only spot on the table covered by a desk blotter, near which a telephone rested. About the table were ceramic ashtrays, some partially filled, silver carafes of water and trays of glasses, and sheaves of notes and documents belonging to individual members of the Cabinet.

  Once the President was seated, and Eaton had taken his chair next to Dilman, the others in the room sat down. Talley found his place at the far end of the tapering table, near the fireplace and the portrait of George Washington above it. Across from Talley sat the only other non-Cabinet member in the room, Ambassador to the United Nations Slater.

  Eaton’s gaze swept the table, taking in the attendance: Secretary of the Treasury Moody, Secretary of Defense Steinbrenner, Attorney General Kemmler, Postmaster General Guthrie, Secretary of Interior Ruttenberg, Secretary of Agriculture Allen, Secretary of Commerce Purcell, Secretary of Labor Barnes, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Mrs. Cummins. They were each well-known to Eaton. Despite their differences in years, their varied backgrounds—some had been university professors, some businessmen, some career politicians—they had always been a lively and unceremonious clan. But that had been at another time, under the informal leadership of the one who had appointed them, and knew and respected them.

  This morning they were different, Eaton could see. They were quiet, almost hushed, inquisitive about their new Chief Executive. They were strangers to him, and he to them. In the afterwave of shock, Dilman had asked them to stay on, to assist him. They had agreed. Now they were confronted by one with whom they had had little previous contact, a man whose mind they did not know, whose desires were a mystery to them, a man separated by a color barrier that made understanding of him almost impossible. It was reflected in their cautious eyes, and probably loomed large in the brains behind those eyes, Eaton guessed. He could be wrong, he told himself. He doubted it.

  He wondered why the meeting had not begun, and then he realized that Douglass Dilman had pulled an envelope out of his inner suit-coat pocket and was reviewing some notes penciled on the back of the envelope.

  Dilman placed the envelope on the blotter, and scanned the Cabinet personnel surrounding him.

  “I’ll call our first meeting to order,” Dilman said. “I know that we met once last week, but I cannot think of it as a conference on government business. Now we must not fall out of step with one another. We must go ahead together. I do not know you. I have inherited you. And you do not know me. You have inherited me. However, we do have one mighty factor in common, and that is our belief in the ideals T. C. represented.”

  Dilman reached forward and picked up the envelope upon which he had scribbled.

  “Leaving the second floor of the White House for this meeting, I had occasion to run into the late President’s widow. We talked, and coming down in the elevator I jotted a few reminders of our talk. I was moved that, in this period of her deep personal grief, her one concern was that I, as her husband’s successor, continue to uphold his program for the welfare of all the people of the nation. This good woman was thinking not of herself but of others. She hoped I would be the transmitting agency of a solution to her concern over the fate of her husband’s vast and dependent following.”

  Dilman laid down the envelope and looked around the table.

  “I am here to pledge to you that I shall, to the best of my ability, within my limitations, serve the United States in such a way as to relieve the First Lady’s concern about our program ahead, and in such a way as to assure the millions who voted for and backed T. C. that their support was not given in vain.”

  The ringing out of applause was spontaneous, and it surprised Arthur Eaton. He could not remember ever having witnessed such a demonstration during T. C.’s tenure. He cast a glance at the black man to his left, sitting hunched forward, head lowered, one hand folded over the other on the blotter. The blackness still made Dilman impenetrable, but now, for the first time, Eaton wondered if behind the stolid, dull mask there lay astuteness and the intuition needed for winning favor. Now it occurred to Eaton that perhaps Dilman had not been elected to Congress by political accident and shenanigans, but that he had been elected because he was clever enough to judge people and use them. Yet this evaluation of Dilman was so drastically the opposite of Eaton’s judgment of the man the past week that he was not ready to accept it. More likely, Dilman had just scored because of the emotional climate created by T. C.’s death, which had affected not only his listeners but Dilman himself.

  Eaton looked down the table at Talley, who winked. Then Eaton understood why Talley had winked, and what had just happened. Dilman had made his pledge. He would not walk outside of T. C.’s shadow.

  Dilman was addressing them once more.

  “At this first meeting, I have no specific problems or legislation about which to ask your advice. It is too soon. Except for my knowledge of what is going on as a senator, and from briefings by the former President’s advisers, I am not yet fully conversant with what T. C. had to face and what I must now face in his stead. I require all the information I can get, as fast as possible, and I need any suggestions you have to offer. So let me say, for this get-together at least, I would like each of you, specialists in your own fields, to speak of your problems, so I may understand my problems. You do the talking today. I’ll be only too ready to listen. At the next meeting, perhaps, I’ll be able to be more constructive. There are ten of you, and the Ambassador, eleven of you, and if you each take f
ive minutes, I’ll be sufficiently befuddled and informed to feel we’ve got off to a good start, and I’ll still be out of here in time to keep a heavy day of other appointments. . . . Mr. Secretary Eaton, do you wish to start off my education?”

  Eaton tried to smile. “Mr. President, you are doing so well that I feel you can educate us. As a matter of fact, there are a number of foreign—policy problems of the most pressing nature to remark upon.”

  Eaton found himself vividly reporting to the Cabinet the last conversation with T. C., and T. C.’s desires up to that moment when he had been killed. Carefully, he elaborated upon what Talley had tried to tell Dilman in the Oval Office. Premier Kasatkin and the Russian Presidium were suspicious of United States intervention in emerging Africa.

  “The Russians,” said Eaton, “feel that our renewal of membership in the African Unity Pact, promising these African countries economic aid and military support if their independence should be threatened from the outside, is a provocative slap at Moscow. In short, another NATO. However, T. C. said, the Russians would overlook our Pact if we would cease to encourage anti-Communist legislation in Baraza. Almost the last words T. C. spoke were that we must compromise with honor, maintain a moderate course, to insure world peace. While he wanted the Pact ratified, he also wanted to give the Russians their bone—our promise that Baraza would lift its anti-Communist measures. This week, as Secretary of State, I did two things—I brought Ambassador Slater from the United Nations meetings to hold talks with the Barazan Ambassador to this country, and I sent Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Stover to Baraza City to feel out President Amboko. Perhaps Ambassador Slater would like to tell you about his conferences?”

  The United Nations Ambassador, a diminutive, onetime history professor celebrated for his eloquence, launched into a detailed account of his talks with Ambassador Wamba of Baraza. The talks had made it clear that while Baraza was fearful of American abandonment by its not joining the African Unity Pact, the little country was equally fearful of giving its minority of Communist-trained natives a free hand. Ambassador Wamba would make no promises. The decision would have to come from President Amboko.

  Here Eaton took over again. Stover’s one long conversation with President Amboko had reflected the same fears and indecision.

  Eaton turned in his chair to Dilman. “Amboko wants to see you in person, Mr. President, before he makes up his mind. If I may be frank, I think he suspects that because you are an American Negro, while he is an African Negro, you will be more sympathetic toward his views, perhaps let him have his cake and eat it, and promise to defy Russia.” Eaton could see Dilman squirm slightly at his undiluted candor, but he felt that it was time to let Dilman know that there were those abroad who might make use of his color. “Mr. President, no matter what our African friend may have to say to you, our own course has been distinctly charted by T. C. We cannot risk a nuclear war to serve the self-interests of one tiny African country. This can be discussed in detail before Amboko’s arrival. I suppose you will have to receive him.”

  “Yes,” said Dilman quietly, “I think I’d like to.”

  Now Eaton brought up the resumption of the Roemer Conference, and promised to see Russian Ambassador Rudenko about a mutually satisfactory date and the possibility of holding the conference in or about Paris. Then, feeling that he had dominated the table long enough, Eaton hastily told Dilman that foreign policy had become so complex it overlapped from his Department of State into numerous other Departments, notably those of the Defense and the Treasury.

  As if on cue, Secretary of Defense Steinbrenner, a mirthless, ponderous, shrewd aircraft millionaire, made a statement about the country’s current standing in the weapons race, emphasizing the number of stockpiles of nuclear warheads, and the country’s situation as to overseas bases. Except for the recent development of the Demi John guided missile, mainstay of the nation’s highly mobile airborne rocketry force known popularly as the Dragon Flies, Steinbrenner deplored the fact that in readiness for limited warfare the United States was woefully behind the Russians. He wanted greater expenditures devoted to select units like the Dragon Flies. Furthermore, he wanted reorganization of the Pentagon, especially in the areas of enlarging the military manpower draft and in enforcing speed upon government-subsidized contractors’ production schedules.

  Immediately Secretary of the Treasury Moody leaped into the fray, protesting the cost of a Pentagon reorganization and opposing part of Eaton’s foreign-aid program. Listening to the contentious banker’s rasping voice, Eaton took out a cigarette and his silver holder, fitted them together, and smoked. He had heard all this before, and he could see that Dilman had heard it, too, in the Senate, and Eaton tried to hide his boredom. As Moody went on about deficit spending, lower interest rates, tax cuts, economy, Eaton shut him out. Then, suddenly, the Secretary of the Treasury mentioned the budget of the proposed Minorities Rehabilitation Program, and immediately there were six voices, one from every part of the table, superimposed upon each other.

  Eaton tried to distinguish one voice from another, but it was difficult, and then, he knew, unnecessary, for the voices were saying almost the same thing but in different languages of self-interest. Unanimously they favored the Minorities Rehabilitation Program and they wanted no paring of the budget. Secretary of Labor Barnes was saying that the Program would create jobs and guarantee prosperity. Secretary of Agriculture Allen was saying that farmers were satisfied that the Program would absorb their own surplus foods for use in depressed areas at home and abroad. Secretary of Interior Ruttenberg was saying the Program would help him develop and conserve natural resources, as Ickes had done with the WPA. Secretary of Commerce Purcell was speaking of his public highways, and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Mrs. Cummins was speaking of her expanded school-building program, and Postmaster General Guthrie was speaking of the promise of more post office branches and more carriers.

  Ideas were flying, and despite the initial unanimity, there were suddenly acrimonious exchanges. Hearing the cross fire, the participation of almost the entire Cabinet, Eaton was pleased. T. C.’s genius, he told himself, had made such intellectual vitality and excitement possible. Here they were not suffocated by the tedious monologues that had often taken place in earlier Cabinets, ones divided by departmentalism. Eaton recollected a conversation, long ago, with a member of one of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Cabinets, about a typical meeting during which Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins had lectured the others on her problems, and Harry Hopkins, James Farley, Cordell Hull had been inattentive, and Robert Jackson and Henry Morgenthau had exchanged jokes about other matters. Only President Roosevelt, the catalyst interested in everything and everyone, listened to Madam Perkins.

  Eaton cast a sidelong glance at President Dilman. His black face was as set and unchanged as ever. His hands were immobile, but his cautious eyes moved from speaker to speaker.

  Then came the slapping of a palm on the mahogany table, and a voice louder than the rest. Immediately the others fell silent, fully concentrating on Attorney General Clay Kemmler, whose flinty eyes were colder than ever and whose prominent jaw was extended farther than ever.

  “Why don’t we stop this economic and prosperity nonsense about the Minorities Rehabilitation Program, and all the sidetracking and disagreements about the money aspects, and speak right out about the only damn thing that is important about that bill?” Kemmler demanded. “We’ve had a Negro problem since Reconstruction days, and it didn’t get attention until the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations, because the Negroes kept quiet and were poorly organized, and then all hell broke loose. Under T. C., all hell was still breaking loose. His administration had to dig up something fast or be witness to daily massacres of whites and blacks. So he thought of how F. D. R. pulled the WPA out of his hat, to keep the unemployed busy, keep them from open rebellion. Then he thought of the Urban League’s old notion of a domestic Marshall Plan to help Negroes, who have been deprived so
long, to bring them up quickly, through increased income and education, to ready them for complete equality. That’s how MRP was born and that’s the sole reason for it.”

  Attorney General Kemmler seemed to gulp for breath, and then he whirled toward President Dilman, and leaned against the table, wagging a finger at him.

  “Mr. President, there’s no aspect of that bill for you to consider except one—that it’s designed to help your people, and therefore your country.”

  Eaton could see that while Dilman’s broad face held to its impassivity, one hand folded over the other more tightly, until the dark knuckles lightened.

  “Mr. President,” the Attorney General went on, “I hope you will find time to visit our Department of Justice someday soon, and walk through our Civil Rights Division. Under Kennedy and then Johnson we had a hundred men and women, lawyers, investigators, secretaries, working there. Under T. C. we had two hundred in this Division. In the past week, since you, a Negro, sir, have become President, we have had to bring our personnel up to two hundred and fifty and in a month it should be three hundred and fifty. Why? Because your sudden accession has doubly reminded the average Negro of what he is missing. He is tired of standing in line with his hungry belly, waiting for his citizenship and his book learning. He is tired of the Crispus Society and the NAACP fighting his battles with law books. He wants action. There’s this Turnerite Group, to name only one of a hundred others springing up, all putting on the heat, not merely demanding our action but acting themselves, and threatening all kinds of unnamed horrors. And there’s the Klan, and its offshoots, militantly revived, and doubly revived because they fear your administration may be anti-white and vindictive, and they’re getting ready for every kind of violence. Only one thing can stop the civil warfare that’s right ahead, and that is immediate passage and effective implementation of the Minorities Rehabilitation Program. Maybe it won’t solve everything permanently, but it’ll get this country back to normal right now, and give my Department a fighting chance to handle what is going on. I recommend strongly, because of the race issue and nothing else, that you, like T. C., throw the full weight and prestige of your office behind the bill.”