(1964) The Man

by Irving Wallace

  Even after his entry through the main gate of Cape Kennedy, acknowledging the saluting security guards and uniformed staff and workers, he had found the atmosphere more courteous than hostile. His short speech to the assembled personnel and the press, promising full support of the administration to the Apollo program, to its forthcoming three-man reconnaissance of the moon, had been received without snickers or protest, with full attention and respect.

  Yet, after visiting the sprawling Central Control Building, with its four intricate IBM electronic computers, after arriving at the Gemini launching pad to pose for the photographers, Dilman’s sense of anxiety had been revived. The session of picture taking, much of it by cameramen who had trailed him constantly from the White House to this site, had reminded him of the whole disastrous trip and of what was taking place on the floor of the House of Representatives this moment.

  Leaving the Control Building, Tim Flannery had whispered to him that the members of the House had reconvened, and that the summations had been concluded, and that there had been heartening support of Dilman from several Western representatives, notably Collins of Montana, who had warned his colleagues that their evidence for impeachment was “built on quicksand” and “if they indicted a President for his personal habits and his friends and his opinions,” they were opening the way for future Congresses to control the executive branch completely, and “punish Presidents for the cut of their clothes or the behavior of their wives or the score of their intelligence quotients.”

  Nevertheless, the knowledge that the debate had come to an end, and that the final vote on impeachment was about to begin, had filled Dilman with oppressive concern. If the House, which more closely reflected the feelings of the voters than did the Senate, felt the same hatred for him that he had recently witnessed around the nation, he was doomed.

  Still he could not believe it would happen. His firm belief was that the House members, having enjoyed the catharsis of vituperation, would now realize the historic gravity of the decision they faced. They would realize that an impeachment in modern times was unthinkable, that the legal instrument of reproof and discipline in the Constitution had become obsolete. In fact, just the other night, unable to sleep, Dilman had come across the words of an eminent political scientist who had once characterized impeachment as a “rusted blunderbuss, that will probably never be taken in hand again.” Surely, the more judicious of the House members would see that, would think twice before signifying aye or nay. In the end, these members would not give their vote to Zeke Miller, whose own political motives were more questionable than those he had attributed to Dilman. There could be no question about it. When the vote came shortly, cooler heads would prevail.

  Dilman heard General Fortney’s Texas-accented voice drawl forth, “All righty, you fellows, you’ve had enough of your picture taking for now!” Fortney turned to General Leo Jaskawich. “What next? Want to put us into orbit?”

  Jaskawich offered the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a restrained official smile, then he said to Dilman, “Mr. President, I hope you’ll allow me to ride you up to the top of the pad. There is a wonderful view from there.”

  “I’d certainly like to see it,” said Dilman.

  Dilman stepped into the elevator, followed by Fortney, Jaskawich, and the Operations Director. Slowly they ascended alongside the upper portion of the Titan rocket until they rattled to a halt 100 feet above the concrete pad.

  Emerging onto the platform between the rocket’s nose and the steel tower overheard, Dilman found it windier and cooler. He followed Jaskawich’s arm and hand, straight as a signpost, as the astronaut pointed out the blockhouses, the Test Annex, the workstands, the service towers, the other launch rings, the moonport on Merritt Island. For the most, Dilman was inattentive, absently gazing out at the indigo-blue ocean to the east, the ocean that led to Washington.

  Suddenly he became conscious of the fact that Jaskawich was looking at him, and that they were alone. Fortney and the Operations Director had moved to another section of the platform.

  Jaskawich offered an understanding smile. “I can’t blame you for not listening, Mr. President,” he said. “I’m sure your thoughts today are more concerned with what’s happening on the ground than with what’s happened in outer space.”

  The young man’s directness and quick perception nudged Dilman’s interest in him. He attempted to smile back. “As a matter of fact, you are quite right, General.”

  “I—while I can speak to you like this—there is something I wanted to say to you, sir. I’ve been reading about your trip around the United States. I’ve been following the debate in the House of Representatives on television. I’ve never been more ashamed of my fellow Americans, or their representatives, and I wanted you to know. I want you to know also, there are many of us who feel this has been rigged, blown up out of all proportion, and that you are being judged solely because of prejudice against your color. Maybe I’m out of line, but I had to tell you.”

  Not in days had Dilman been so genuinely moved by the friendliness of another human being. His eyes moistened, and he averted his head. “I thank you,” he said, almost inaudibly. “I sincerely appreciate your understanding. I—in fact, I was impressed from the moment I arrived here—by the courtesy, an air of decency, such as I have not seen in four days.”

  Jaskawich’s frank, open face had become intensely serious. “We are another breed here at Cape Kennedy—not everyone, but certainly the men who have finally gone up, and the handful most closely involved with them. We’re trained to be cast closer to heaven and its planets. And when you leave the earth for orbit in space, as I have three times, you can see how small our little mudball of a world is in true godly perspective. When a one-and-a-half-million-pound thrust puts you up there, alone in the Mercury capsule, or with one other in the Gemini capsule, and you swing around the earth for several days, you come to have some spiritual knowledge of what the Maker meant when he packed our patty-cake together, and populated it with living beings, and gave this mudball a semblance of order and its men a modicum of intelligence. Believe me, Mr. President, you lose all petty poisons that corrupt men and spoil life. You lose all that in outer space. You come to understand how lucky man is even to exist, how fortunate he is to survive, and you come to speculate on why he lacks appreciation of his lot, and why he destroys so much of his own pleasure and the enjoyment of those around him with incredible pettiness of mind and action. One period, when I was up there, I thought—I know this will sound odd—but I thought, if only men like Caligula, Attila, Torquemada, Hitler, the jurors of Socrates, the witch burners of Salem, the bombers of Birmingham, the ravagers of reason and decency had been made to don our twenty-pound pressurized space suits and been hurtled into orbit, to look above and look below, and then had fired their retrorockets to descend to earth once more, they would come down like resurrected saints. That’s what can happen, Mr. President. No matter how many or few your failings, when you return from there to here, you are never the same again. You’ve left prejudice, hatred, destructiveness, lying, cheating in the reaches of outer space. You look upon your fellow men with the eyes of eternity, as your equals on the earth, and you want to live and let live. That’s why so many of us here—”

  He stopped in mid-sentence. General Fortney and the Operations Director had walked back to join them again.

  Fortney said to Dilman, “Had enough of this?”

  Dilman smiled. “I find I like it up here. But I guess it’s time to get down to earth.”

  In the elevator he studied General Leo Jaskawich with new interest. During an era already becoming jaded from continuous space exploits and achievements, Jaskawich was a special hero. He was the only astronaut to have been in orbit three times, once alone and then twice in the two-man Gemini capsule for six days. His physical aspect was deceptively average, in no proportion matching his legend. Dilman judged the astronaut to be perhaps five feet ten inches in height, and weighing around 160 pounds. His h
air was short-cropped and sunblanched, his eyes quick and kind, his nose the most prominent feature on his swarthy Lithuanian face. He wore his uniform not as a martinet would, but with the confidence of one who had earned it through calculated and accepted risk. Not since Dilman had first met Nat Abrahams, and later The Judge and Tim Flannery, had he so quickly allowed himself to like and trust another being.

  After that, for the remainder of their ground tour about the heart of Cape Kennedy, Dilman was entirely attentive to Leo Jaskawich. Especially in Hangar R, where rested the enormous Apollo spacecraft, with its two outer bays for equipment, that would hold three astronauts and bring them within 40,000 feet of the surface of the moon, did Dilman appreciate Jaskawich’s eloquence and become infected by the astronaut’s enthusiasm over the approaching lunar exploration.

  The last stop before riding out to the beach was the horseshoe-shaped, one-story dormitory where the new astronauts, twelve in number, now training for the next Apollo flight, were supposed to reside while on the base.

  As they examined the neat, furnished rooms, Jaskawich stated, “Ten of them live here, while their families live in Cocoa Beach.”

  Some inconsistency joggled inside Dilman’s head. “Ten live here? I thought you said there were twelve in training.”

  Before Jaskawich could reply, General Fortney brusquely intervened. “A couple of them preferred to stay in the old barracks. It’s the same as this. They’re doing special work that keeps them up later. Let’s move on.”

  As he started away with the directors and public relations officers, Dilman held Jaskawich back. “Those other two, who are they? Why are they living separately?”

  For the first time, Jaskawich appeared uneasy. “They are Negroes, sir,” he said.

  “But I thought this place was—”

  “I know, Mr. President,” Jaskawich said sadly. “When I spoke of a new breed of men that had grown out of this program, I meant the ones who had experienced orbital flight or been thoroughly indoctrinated for it. The new trainees are just groundlings, and while they are superior in some respects, they still carry the infection of groundling education and prejudices. Officially, like all military installations since 1951, this is a desegregated base, entirely so. But if two newcomers are made to feel—well—different, and know they’ll have more peace of mind for concentrating on their training if they can remove themselves from social abrasion, they do so, they volunteer. I don’t think our two colored astronauts give a damn. They’re too devoted to the work. That’s all that counts. Eventually, I promise you, the others will be inviting them back to this building.” He hesitated, and then added, “Even when done on a so-called voluntary basis, I didn’t back this segregation. I’m not running the show, but I stepped out of channels long enough to buck a note up to Fortney at the Pentagon. I never had a reply. Maybe Fortney never saw it.”

  “Maybe he did,” said Dilman. “He knows what is going on here.”

  “Dammit, I’m sorry, Mr. President.”

  “You’ve done your best. Now I’ll do mine. You see that I have a memorandum waiting for me at the White House, reminding me to order that all the astronaut trainees on the Cape henceforth, whatever their wish or anyone else’s, live in the same quarters, receive the same food and teaching, without discrimination or favoritism. You can bet I’ll act on it.”

  Jaskawich’s eyes were bright. “You’ll have that memo. Thank you, Mr. President.”

  “To everyone else I may be a groundling, but you and I know, General, I’ve been up there and returned.” Dilman started to go, then had an afterthought and stopped. “Tell me, General Jaskawich, are you permanently assigned to Cape Kennedy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you do here?”

  “I’m supposed to teach,” he said, and then he grinned. “I don’t really. There are a hundred men who can handle that better than I can. I’m not a teacher, I’m a doer type. I was supposed to direct the Apollo operation, but that was just publicity. I’m really based here to guide eminent visitors around, like congressmen, especially the ones on appropriation committees, or columnists, who can give us the right public image. I’m reduced to the profession of being an animated monument or showpiece. I make commencement addresses, too. Very good ones, I might add.”

  “Are you going to be sent up again?”

  “I’m afraid not, Mr. President. I’m past my thirty-fourth birthday, and the limit for men going into space is now thirty-five.”

  Dilman took out a cigar and busied himself with it, and then remembered to offer Jaskawich an Upmann. “Allowed to smoke?”

  “Absolutely,” said Jaskawich. “But no, thanks, that cigar is too much for me. Mind if I have one of my own?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Jaskawich took out a slender cheroot and his crested lighter, hastily lit the President’s cigar first and then his own cheroot. He inhaled. “Good,” he said.

  “Tell me,” Dilman said, “do you like Washington?”

  “I like any place where there’s action and challenge, and I guess that describes Washington.”

  “It certainly does,” said Dilman. He resumed walking, with Jaskawich keeping in stride beside him. “I was thinking,” Dilman went on, “how much we could use—in the Pentagon, maybe even in the White House—the judgment of a person who has been a little closer to heaven than any of us are ever likely to be.” He cast the astronaut a speculative glance. “Think you’d be interested?”

  “Mr. President,” said Jaskawich fervently, “you signal retrofire—and Washington’s where I’ll land.”

  “All right,” said Dilman, “you stand by, and when I—”

  Dilman came to a jarring halt, teetering for a moment, waiting, as he stared straight ahead. He could see Tim Flannery rushing up the dormitory corridor toward him. At once, discerning the upset expression twisted across the press secretary’s usually pleasant countenance, Dilman’s heart began to hammer. Gone were his cheer and high hopes of the past minutes.

  “Mr. President, I wanted to catch you before you went outside,” Flannery said breathlessly. “The reporters and photographers are piling up out there, waiting for you. I had Fortney order guards to hold them in line a few minutes. It’s just happened, Mr. President—goddamit—” The redhead’s freckled face became contorted, and Flannery looked as if he might weep. “The vote in the House, it’s over—” he said brokenly.

  Curiously, Dilman suffered no pang of fear, and no hurt. He said quietly, not as a question, as a flat statement of fact, “I’ve been impeached.”

  “Yes—goddamit, it’s terrible—I don’t know what—”

  Dilman’s hand touched Flannery’s shoulder. “Easy, Tim. Details are unimportant, but—was it close?”

  “The vote was 287 for impeachment, 161 against it.”

  Dilman nodded. “I see. The voice of the people.”

  “The voice of bigotry!” Jaskawich exclaimed fiercely.

  Dilman licked his lips, and was embarrassed by his uncontrollable Adam’s apple. “Well,” he said, with a slight shrug. His eyes moved from Jaskawich to Flannery. “What next, Tim?”

  “According to the radio, an announcement just came from the Senate Office Building—no wonder they call it SOB—it came from Senator Hankins. He said the Senate will be convened as a High Court, and be ready to try you a week from now. Mr. President, about those newshounds yelping outside the door—”

  Dilman’s knuckles crept to his forehead. He felt dizzy and displaced. “I—I can’t see them yet, Tim. Get me out of it.”

  “What can I do?” Flannery said wretchedly. “They’re fifty feet deep outside the front door and even in back. There’s no—”

  Jaskawich clutched Dilman’s arm. “I can help you. There’s a fire exit at the side of this building—no one’ll know—we can slip out of there—give you a two-or three-minute jump on them before—”

  Immediately Jaskawich started off, with the President and press secretary following him.

>   Five minutes later, dusty and panting, Dilman reached the Cadillac limousine behind Jaskawich and Flannery, as the surprised Secret Service agents and Cape security guards closed in from either side.

  Quickly Dilman shook hands with Jaskawich. “Thanks for everything, General. Too bad, but I don’t expect I’ll have the authority, very soon, to send for you. You’d have liked Washington.”

  “I don’t like it now,” said Jaskawich angrily. “That’s why maybe I’ll show up whether you send for me or not. You’ve still got a big chance—”

  “I don’t know,” said Dilman. “I just don’t know.”

  As Dilman settled heavily into the back seat, then made room for Flannery, he could observe, through the curving surface of the car’s bubble top, the herd of reporters and photographers on the run in the distance, hurrying to assault him again.

  “Patrick Air Force Base,” Dilman ordered the chauffeur, as two Secret Service agents slammed into the limousine. Up ahead, the motorcycles were forming a protective wedge. The Cadillac moved, wheeled right, and pointed toward the exit gate.

  “Mr. President, I was just thinking,” Flannery began earnestly, “when you make your last speech in St. Louis tomorrow, you’ll have a chance to answer the impeachment. The minute we get to St. Louis tonight, we can sit down and revise—”

  Dilman had been immersed in thought. While the car sped through the gate, leaving the Cape Kennedy missile site, he suddenly said, “Tim, there’s going to be no St. Louis. No St. Louis. Do me a favor, do you mind?” His limp hand indicated the radiotelephone beside Flannery. “Ring the airport for me, and notify the crew we’re changing our flight plans. Have them get clearance to take me straight to Sioux City, Iowa. Then locate Noyes in Washington and have him cancel the St. Louis speech, the whole visit. Tell him to make any excuse. Tell him I’m sick. I am sick.” He alleviated the press secretary’s instant concern with the faintest smile. “Not the way you think, Tim.”