Memorial Bridge

by James Carroll

  "Not necessary, counselor. Not necessary at all. Congressman Newfield's statement is in the record."

  "I understand, Mr. Chairman. I was thinking of those members not present yesterday." Nevin glanced along the full length of the dais. "I assume their attention has been drawn to the document in question, and copies have been provided."

  "That's correct."

  "My thought, sir, was to be sure the entire committee understood—"

  "Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!" Fuller of West Virginia, a Democrat and an air force ally, took the hint and now had his hand raised. "Point of information, Mr. Chairman. I for one was detained yesterday, and I do note the lack of attribution, which frankly troubles me. Given the gravity of what it contains, I would like to hear about the author of this—"

  "Mr. Fuller, we have Congressman Newfield's statement that this document was provided him by a constituent, that there are good reasons for anonymity. We have a member's word here, sir. And that settles it."

  "But, Mr. Chairman—"

  Down came the gavel.

  "The chair entertained objections to the anonymity yesterday. On the strength of a colleague's solemn assurances as to the integrity of the submission, the chair overruled those objections and does so again. Now, General Macauley, if you please, sir."

  Nevin once more preempted Macauley. "Mr. Chairman, for the record, sir. These are charges of a most serious nature, both as concerns the national security and the character and the conduct of a distinguished officer who, in leading over two hundred night air raids over Germany, risked his life—"

  "Mr. Nevin, if you please."

  But now Newfield spoke up. "Mr. Chairman, by your leave. If I can dispose of this by repeating what I said yesterday, I will gladly do so." Newfield was an owlish man whose dark-rimmed spectacles seemed too big for his face. The way he hunkered down on the dais made him seem even smaller than he was. Facing Vinson, he seemed the supplicant waiting for permission.

  Vinson nodded impatiently.

  "I was provided this document..." Newfield held up the dark pages of his photostat. Nothing in him hinted at insecurity or guile. His words were edged with, if anything, the melancholy of a reluctant witness. "...by a man personally known to me as a resident of the thirty-ninth congressional district in the state of California, and further known to me as an employee of the Consolidated Aircraft Company. For obvious reasons, given the unprecedented disclosures made in this document, I accept the author's contention that to reveal his identity at this time will result not only in the unjust destruction of a long career, but also in a terrible purging retribution among employees of firms contracted to supply the new Defense Department. We must protect such patriots who put country ahead of self in order to make sure that the Congress is informed of what is really going on in some of these companies."

  Nevin had Newfield's eye. "And the manner in which the document was delivered to you?"

  "Personally handed to me."

  "In California?"

  "Yes."

  Vinson slammed his gavel. "Counselor, you are not interrogating Congressman Newfield."

  Nevin sat back.

  "Now, General Macauley, if you please!"

  But once more Nevin darted to the microphone. "Mr. Chairman, since the allegations in this document involve not only extensive criticism of the B-36 airplane, but also and especially acts purportedly committed by senior air force officers, which, if true, would amount to numerous felonious violations of the law, the secretary of the air force was obliged by statute to immediately begin an official investigation of those allegations. Therefore, Secretary Crocker ordered the director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, General Dillon, to undertake said investigation. The first part of General Macauley's response, which is the air force response, is to be presented by General Dillon."

  Vinson shook his head. "An investigation in its most preliminary phases won't tell us what only General Macauley—"

  "Not preliminary, Mr. Chairman. General Dillon's investigation is complete. He has conclusive findings and is prepared to present them. I defer to General Dillon."

  Vinson peered across at Dillon, made a show of studying him.

  The eyes of all those politicians looked down on him, like the eyes of jurors, Dillon thought. He sat straight and still, aware that with his own eyes he had thrown up a solid, unmoving wall.

  "All right," Vinson said. He flicked his head at a clerk. "Would you kindly swear the general in."

  Dillon stood, raised his hand and, led by the clerk, made his oath in a loud, firm voice.

  "For the record, General, would you state your name, rank and present position."

  "Sean Dillon, brigadier general, United States Air Force. Director, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations."

  "Which is what?"

  "Mr. Chairman, the OSI is responsible for criminal, counterintelligence and security investigations within the United States Air Force."

  "It's a new agency, isn't it?"

  "The OSI was formally established by a directive of President Truman on June 2,1948."

  "Just six months ago."

  "That's correct, sir."

  "And you already have the capacity for far-reaching overnight investigations?"

  "We do the best we can, Mr. Chairman."

  "Well, by all means then, General, do us the honor of reporting your findings." The chairman fell dramatically back in his chair.

  Dillon turned to the easel behind him and took a yard-long rubber-tipped pointer from its ledge. He removed the covering blank display card and stepped back so that all of the congressmen could see the first exhibit. It was a photographic blow-up of the entire page of Newfield's document on which the explicit accusations against Macauley were listed. Dillon made a point to stand there reading the text to himself, allowing the members to do likewise. Displayed in such a way, the charges against the famous general were more sensational than ever. In the center of the blow-up, in red ink, were the four perfect lines of a box which set several sentences apart.

  Finally Dillon took a step closer to the easel. "Gentlemen, you all recognize this page." He tapped it once with the pointer. "Page four of the document in question. I draw your attention to these particular lines, and these words." He made his indication with three swift circles, then, with a practiced flourish, he removed the card and placed it behind the easel, to expose the next, which showed an enlargement of the center section of the four lines inside the box. "I want to draw your attention to the actual characters imprinted on this page by the typewriter keys themselves. This r, for example, the notch on its arm, here. This n, the blurred foot, here. This uppercase B. Notice the break between the two curving halves, which with the naked eye one would never notice."

  Dillon removed the card to expose another on which the same letters were blown up even larger. Each character was now the size of a human hand, and at that scale had begun to lose its definition. Dillon outlined each letter, as if to restore its focus, then touched with his stick the same points of detail he had identified on the previous card.

  "As you may know, every typewriter machine leaves what you can think of as its own fingerprints, minute but characteristic flaws or eccentricities in the typeface which, when seen under the microscope, set an individual typewriter apart from every other typewriter in the world. Same as our fingerprints do for us. It is possible—"

  "General Dillon, you have our attention with your charts and what not, but..." Vinson aimed along his index finger, without adjusting his posture. He remained sprawled back against his chair like a cornerboy at a backroads Georgia filling station. "What do you mean to tell us, son?"

  "Mr. Chairman..." Dillon braced the pointer with both his hands. "I'm going to tell you who the author of this document is."

  "We know that."

  "No, sir. With all due respect, you do not. And again with all due respect, the authorship changes the meaning of these accusations materially."

 
; Vinson glanced noncommittally over at Newfield. When Newfield refused to look back at Vinson, Dillon resumed. He reclaimed attention by slapping the card with his stick. "This exhibit was prepared by forensic experts, who at my request conducted an analysis of the typeface of Congressman Newfield's document, here"—Dillon pulled the card half free of the easel—"and found it to match exactly the face of the typewriter which produced these characters."

  He took the card away and handed it to the man seated near him at the witness table. The card remaining on the easel showed the blow-up of a page on which only the alphabet was printed. In the left lower corner of the card, four specific letters were lifted out in even larger magnification. "Note the r, the notch on its arm, here; the n, the blurred foot; the uppercase B, the break; the g, the broken tail.

  "An exact match of two separate samples, this one supplied by Congressman Newfield, and this one. . . "Dillon paused, touching the letters again while the congressmen had no choice but to hear the potent sound of their own silence."...taken from the typewriter on the desk of one Stephen Warner, a special assistant to Eliot Weld. Mr. Warner may indeed be known to members of this committee, because his job title is special assistant for congressional liaison. Whether Warner is the author of the document in question, it is certain that said document, including the highly incriminating charges made against General Macauley, was typed not in California and not on the typewriter of an unnamed employee of Consolidated Aircraft, but on Mr. Warner's personal typewriter, which sits even now on his desk in Room E-347 at the Pentagon, in Arlington, in the suite of offices belonging to Eliot Weld, whom you all know as the undersecretary of the navy."

  Vinson sat slowly forward. The creaking of his chair seemed amplified. "What are you saying?"

  "The anonymous document attacking both the B-36 and General Macauley, as well as other, unnamed senior officers of the United States Air Force, comes from the office of the undersecretary of the navy."

  "Are you saying Weld is behind this?"

  "I restrict myself to matters of fact. The typewriter is in his office. As of now, under my guard."

  "How do you know for certain that matching type sample came from the navy typewriter?"

  "I took it myself, from the machine on Mr. Warner's desk."

  "How did you know to do that?"

  Dillon shrugged slightly, his only answer.

  "And who did you say conducted this analysis?"

  Dillon put his hand on the shoulder of the man seated near him. "Special Agent Erik Simmons, the chief of the Document Section of the Laboratory Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His complete report..."

  Simmons reached into a briefcase and produced a stack of pages several inches high, which he placed on the table and pushed toward the clerk. The clerk came, collected the copies of the report and began to distribute them among the committee members.

  "...is available to you there, and Mr. Simmons is prepared to testify if you require further elaboration."

  For a few minutes there was a lull while the congressmen cursorily reviewed the FBI report.

  At last Vinson craned toward Newfield, who was sitting immobile, staring at the square of his handkerchief, which he had stretched between his hands on the wood surface before him. It was as if he were trying to press the wrinkles out of the cloth. Vinson said coldly, "Does the esteemed member from California have questions for the witness?"

  Coerced, Newfield sat forward, peering at Dillon through his oversized spectacles. His previous self-confidence was gone. He bunched his handkerchief, twisting it as he spoke. "I'm frankly stunned by what you are saying. The man identified himself to me as, as"—Newfield glanced toward Vinson, then back at Dillon—"as an employee of Consolidated."

  Dillon rebutted him immediately. "Congressman, we heard you assert only moments ago that the man was known personally to you."

  "Well, yes, personally, but that was after I met him. Obviously if what you say is true—"

  "You needn't take my word for it. The evidence is in the FBI report in front of you."

  Newfield stared glumly at Dillon. "So you think I was duped?" He applied his handkerchief to his mouth.

  "No, sir. I do not think that."

  Newfield glanced about at his colleagues, who avoided his eyes.

  Finally Vinson said slowly, "Your opinion, General, is that the congressman from California was not duped?"

  "My opinions, sir, are not material. I am prepared to testify to matters of fact."

  "Such as?"

  "The undersecretary of the navy recommended to the Naval Promotion Board that Congressman Newfield, who holds a captain's commission in the naval Reserves, be promoted to the rank of rear admiral, lower half."

  "When did this happen?"

  "The recommendation was drafted four days ago. It was formally submitted to the board yesterday, but not until shortly after this committee's session was adjourned—the session, obviously, in which Mr. Newfield introduced the navy's poison-pen letter."

  Congressman Fuller raised his hand slowly, as if pushing it through gauze. "Mr. Chairman?"

  Vinson nodded.

  "This committee owes an apology to General Macauley." Suddenly Fuller's voice shook with anger. "This is the shabbiest, most outrageous injustice ever done to a patriot, and I demand this committee make its apology to General Macauley!"

  "And to the air force too!" another added.

  A third congressman slammed the dais. "Be it moved that all materials and documents pertaining to the United States Air Force or its personnel introduced into the record of these proceedings by the member from California be hereby stricken from said record, and be it further moved that all copies of said materials and documents be collected by the clerk of the committee and forthwith destroyed!"

  "Second!" half a dozen voices cried at once.

  "Call the question!"

  "All in favor?" Vinson said.

  A chorus of "ayes."

  "Opposed?"

  Not a sound.

  Once more Vinson looked at Newfield. "Carried!" Vinson's face had broken out in red blotches. He shifted toward the open room and pointed his gavel at the lone navy man in the rear. "You, Captain!" He waited until the man looked at him. "You get across the river right now. You tell Weld and this man Warner that before this noon they are going to receive subpoenae from this committee. You tell them to prepare an answer to this question: Why I should not hold them in egregious contempt of the United States Congress."

  The navy captain sat there like one of the statues in the hallway outside.

  "And you tell Weld he had better promptly reconsider any recent recommendations he has made to any damn promotion board! Did you hear me?"

  "Yes, sir!" The captain stood up at his chair like a plebe.

  Vinson swept his colleagues with a quick glance. "We will move through this appropriations question tomorrow. I want a quorum, gentlemen. I want to report this matter out and be done with it. And Mr. Newfield, I want you in my office now!"

  Vinson raised his gavel, then stopped himself. He looked at Macauley, who sat slumped in his chair, pale-faced, his eyes unfocused. "General, for myself I do apologize to you. You have been ill-used. So has this committee."

  Macauley stared vacantly up at him.

  Before Vinson brought the gavel down, another congressman interrupted, one who had heretofore said nothing and whom Dillon could not identify. "Mr. Chairman, point of personal privilege, if I may, sir. I do have one question for the witness. For General Dillon, that is."

  Vinson sat back wearily.

  "General Dillon, this committee is in your debt. Your simple demonstration spared us a mighty embarrassment, not to mention what it did for your air force colleagues. I just want to know how you got that typewriter sample? Forgive me, I'm curious. Between yesterday afternoon and this morning, how did you do that? Did the secretary of the navy just let you come right in and sit at the typewriter?"

  "Under secretary of the navy, Con
gressman."

  "Well, did he?"

  "Undersecretary Weld, I think it is safe to say, was unaware of my interest."

  "So how did you get it?" The congressman smiled ingratiatingly.

  "May I know to whom I am speaking?" Dillon already knew something. At the sound of the man's familiar, flat accent, he had tensed.

  "George Delahunt, Democrat from the eighth Illinois."

  "That's Chicago," Dillon said calmly, but inwardly he raged at himself. Delahunt! He'd seen a dozen different case reports on Delahunt, a Kelly loyalist. How could he not have recognized him?

  "Yes, General, Chicago. St. Rose of Lima. A few parishes over from yours, I believe."

  Dillon said nothing.

  "We have acquaintances in common, General. Or we did..." Delahunt's hesitation had the effect of marking this as an announcement. "I knew Raymond Buckley," he said quietly.

  Buckley? Dillon waited.

  Delahunt said, "Raymond Buckley gave me my start in politics."

  Sean Dillon wanted to say, And have you followed in his footsteps? But he could not. Nothing would move. Raymond Buckley was still in Joliet prison, but it threw Dillon totally to have his image invoked here, as if Buckley were a source of Dillon's shame.

  "Now will you tell us, General, how you obtained that typewriter sample from someone's private office overnight? For example, did you have a warrant?"

  Dillon took hold of the back of the chair behind which he was standing. "My warrant?"

  "Yes, General, your warrant. The legal basis for your search of another's property or premises."

  Buckley? Warrant? "You are thinking, I suppose..." Dillon was like a stunned fighter, clinching, bobbing, holding on for an opening of his own. "That is, what body of law..."

  The opening he needed was in himself. Buckley. Buckley.

  And then he had it: Buckley was the key. An opening not to shame but to indignation. Who do these bastards think they are? "My warrant was in the charge..." He brought an arm up, and it was weighted by his clenched fist. "...to counter the false and malicious misrepresentation of the actions of another, libelous detraction, slander, a calumny..." He was falling back instinctively on the first language he had learned, the language not of the law or the military, but of the Church. "...against one of the few true heroes of our nation and our time!" Dillon's arm shot toward Macauley. "Have you forgotten already what these men did for us? What they did for the world? This committee carelessly allowed their essential virtue to be called into question, and with theirs, our very nation's. My warrant, sir, is not the question. What was yours?"