In High Places

by Arthur Hailey

  Howden got up from the chair facing the President's, took a turn away, then back. 'Raw materials,' he announced, 'Canada will control withdrawal permits and we want a guarantee against plundering. There's to be no bonanza for Americans -taking everything out for processing elsewhere.'

  Admiral Rapoport said sharply, 'You've been ready enough to sell your raw resources in the past - if the price was high.'

  'That's the past,' Howden snapped. 'We're discussing the future.' He was beginning to understand why dislike of the presidential assistant was so widespread.

  'Never mind,' the President interceded. 'There should be more secondary manufacturing on the spot and it will help both countries. Next!'

  'Defence contracts and foreign-aid buying,' Howden said. 'Canada will want some major manufacturing - aircraft and missiles, not just screws and bolts.'

  The President sighed. 'There'll be hell to pay from our own lobbies. But somehow we'll do it.' More notes.

  'I'll want one of my own cabinet ministers here in the White House,' Howden said. He had seated himself again. 'Someone who can be close to you to interpret both our points of view.'

  'I'd planned to offer you something of the kind,' the President observed. 'What else do you have?'

  'Wheat!' the Prime Minister announced. 'Your own exports and giveaways have taken over what were once our markets. What's more, Canada can't compete with production subsidized on your scale.'

  The President glanced at Admiral Rapoport who thought briefly, then stated, 'We could give a no-interference guarantee, I suppose, affecting Canadian commercial sales, and ensure that the Canadian surplus - up to last year's figures - is sold first.'

  'Well?' The President cocked a quizzical eyebrow at Howden.

  The Prime Minister took his time about answering. Then he said carefully, 'I'd prefer to accept the first part of the deal and leave the second to negotiation. If your production increases, so should ours, with matching guarantees.'

  With a trace of coolness the President asked, 'Aren't you pressing a little, Jim?'

  'I don't think so.' Howden met the other's eyes directly. He had no intention of conceding yet. Besides, his biggest demand was still to come.

  There was a pause, then the President nodded. 'Very well -negotiation.'

  They continued to talk - of trade, industry, employment, foreign relations, consular activities, foreign exchange, domestic economics, authority of Canadian civil courts over US forces ... In each instance the concessions the Prime Minister sought were granted, sometimes with minor modifications, in some cases after discussion, but mostly with none. It was not surprising really, Howden thought. Obviously there had been anticipation of most of the things he asked and the President had entered their parley prepared for speed and action.

  If times had been ordinary - as much as any time in history is ordinary, James Howden reasoned - the concessions he had already wrested would remove obstacles to Canadian development which previous governments had sought to change for generations. But - he was forced to remind himself - the times were not ordinary or any future certain.

  Lunchtime came and went. Absorbed, they had cold roast beef, a salad, and coffee on trays in the presidential office.

  For dessert the Prime Minister nibbled on a chocolate bar which he had pocketed before leaving Blair House. It was one of a supply which the Canadian Ambassador had sent around the previous day, the Prime Minister's sweet tooth being known among intimates and friends.

  And afterwards there arrived the moment for which James Howden had waited.

  He had asked for a map of North America and, during lunch, one had been hung on the wall facing the President's desk. It was a large-scale political map with Canadian territory coloured pink, the United States sepia, and Mexico green. The US-Canadian border - a long black line - ran clear across the centre. Beside the map, a pointer had been propped against the wall.

  Now James Howden addressed the President directly. 'As you observed an hour or two ago, Tyler, borders are not immutable. We of Canada - if the Act of Union becomes law in both our countries - are prepared to accept a change of border as a fact of life. The point is: are you?'

  The President leaned forward across the desk, his brow furrowed. Tm not sure I follow you, Jim.'

  Admiral Rapoport's face was expressionless.

  'When the nuclear firing begins,' the Prime Minister said, speaking carefully, 'anything can happen. We may gain victory of a sort; or we may be routed and invaded, in which case no present plan will help. Or, in a short time, we may reach stalemate, with the enemy as reduced and helpless as ourselves.'

  The President sighed. 'All our so-called experts tell me we shall virtually destroy each other in a matter of days. God knows how much or little they really, know, but one has to predicate plans on something.'

  Howden smiled as a passing thought struck him. 'I know what you mean about experts. My barber has a theory that after a nuclear war the earth will split down the middle and break into pieces. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't put him in the Defence Department.'

  'The real thing that stops us,' Arthur Lexington added, 'is that he's a damn good barber.'

  The President laughed. Admiral Rapoport's face creased slightly in what might have been a smile.

  Seriously once more, the Prime Minister went on, 'For our present purpose I believe we must consider the postwar situation on the assumption that we will not be defeated.'

  The President nodded. 'I agree.'

  'In that case,' Howden said, 'it seems to me there are two main possibilities. First, that both our governments - Canada and the US - may have ceased to function entirely, so that law and order are non-existent. In that event, nothing we say or do here can be of usefulness at that time; and I suppose, in any case, none of us in this room would be around as observers.'

  How casually we talk of it all, he thought: life and death; survival and annihilation; the candle burning, the candle snuffed. And yet in our hearts we never really accept the truth. Always we assume that something, somehow, will impede the ultimate ending.

  The President had risen silently from behind the desk. Turning his back to the others, he drew aside a curtain so that he was looking out across the White House lawn. The sun had gone in, Howden noticed; grey stratus cloud was filling the sky. Without turning the President intoned, 'You said two possibilities, Jim.'

  'Yes,' Howden assented. 'The second possibility is the one I believe to be more likely.' The President left the window, returning to his chair. His face, Howden thought, seemed warier than before.

  Admiral Rapoport inquired, 'What about your second point?' His tone said: Get on with it!

  'It is the possibility,' Howden said evenly, 'that both our governments will survive to some extent, but that Canada, by reason of our closeness to the enemy, will have taken the severer blow.'

  The President said softly, 'Jim, I swear to you before God that we shall do the best we can ... before and afterwards.'

  'I know,' Howden said, 'and it's the "afterwards" I'm considering. If there's a future for Canada, you must give us the key.'

  'Key?'

  'Alaska,' James Howden said quietly. 'Alaska is the key.'

  He was conscious of the rhythm of his own breathing, aware from outside of a sudden minuet of melding sounds: the muted, distant note of an automobile horn; a patter of first raindrops; a bird's soft chirruping. Arthur Lexington, he reasoned inconsequentially, could name what breed of bird it was ... Arthur Lexington, ornithologist ... The Right Honourable Arthur Edward Lexington, PC, MA, LLD, Secretary of State for External Affairs, his command on each Canadian passport: 'In the name of Her Majesty the Queen ... allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance ... afford assistance and protection.' Arthur Lexington ... now poker faced, challenging with himself, James Howden, the might and union of the United States.

  You must give us Alaska, he repeated in his mind. Alaska is the key.

  Silence. Immobility.

 
Admiral Rapoport, beside Lexington on the sofa: still. No warmth, no message, on the crinkled parchment face, the outsize head. Only steely eyes, coldly staring. Hurry ... come to the point... don't waste my time ... how dare you...!

  How dare he ... How dare he face, across that flag-flanked desk, the incumbent of the mightiest office in the world ... with himself - leader of a smaller, weaker power - outwardly calm, inwardly tense, his absurd, preposterous demand already spoken.

  He remembered the exchange between himself and Arthur Lexington eleven days earlier, the day before the cabinet committee. 'The Americans would never agree, never,' Lexington had said. And he had answered: 'If they are desperate enough, I think perhaps they might.'

  Alaska. Alaska is the key.

  The President's eyes were staring. They mirrored disbelief.

  And still the silence.

  After time which seemed endless, the President swivelled in his chair. He said evenly, 'Unless I have misunderstood you, I cannot believe that you are serious.'

  'I have never been more serious,' James Howden said, 'in all my political life.'

  Now, standing himself, he said forcefully and clearly, 'You were the one, Tyler, who spoke today of our "common fortress"; it was you who declared that our policies must concern themselves with "how" rather than "if"; you who affirm urgency, the absence of time. Well, I tell you now, and speaking for the Government of Canada, that there is agreement with all you say. But I tell you too, that for our own survival-- and this we are determined upon if the Act of Union is to be accomplished - Alaska must become Canadian.'

  The President spoke earnestly, pleadingly, 'Jim, it could never be done, believe me.'

  'You're mad!' It was Admiral Rapoport, his face flushed.

  'It can be done!' Howden hurled the words across the room. 'And I'm not mad, but sane. Sane enough to want survival of my own country; sane enough to fight for it - as, by God, I will!'

  'But not this way...!'

  'Listen to me!' Howden crossed swiftly to the map and took the pointer resolutely. He swung the tip in an arc, from east to west, the line he followed tracing the 49th parallel. 'Between here and here' - he traced a second line across the 60th parallel - 'your experts and ours tell us there will be devastation and fallout, perhaps - if we are lucky - in great patches across the country; perhaps overall, if we are not. Therefore our only chance of rebuilding afterwards, our sole hope for consolidating whatever is left of Canada, is to establish a new focal point, a new national centre away from devastation and until such time as we can regroup and move back, if ever we do.'

  The Prime Minister paused, surveying the others grimly. The President's eyes were riveted upon the map. Admiral Rapoport opened his mouth as if to interject once more, then closed it. Arthur Lexington was covertly watching the admiral's profile.

  'The Canadian regrouping territory,' Howden continued, 'must meet three main needs. It must be south of the tree line and the sub-arctic zone; if it were not, communications and support of life would be beyond our means. Second, the area must be west of our combined northern missile line; and, third, it must be a place where fallout is likely to be negative or light. North of the 49th parallel there is only one such area meeting all requirements - Alaska.'

  The President asked softly, 'How can you be sure about fallout?'

  Howden replaced the pointer against the wall. 'If, at this moment, I had to pick the safest place in the Northern Hemisphere during a nuclear war,' he said, 'it would be Alaska. It is fortified against invasion. Vladivostok, the nearest major target, is three thousand miles away. Fallout, either from Soviet attacks or our own, will be unlikely. As certain as anything can be - Alaska will come through.'

  'Yes,' the President said, 'I think I agree with you - about that at least.' He sighed. 'But as to the other ... it's an ingenious idea - and I must admit in honesty that a good deal of it makes sense. But surely you must see that neither I nor Congress can barter away a state of the Union.'

  'In that case,' James Howden replied coldly, 'there is even less reason for my Government to barter away a country.'

  Admiral Rapoport snorted angrily, 'The Act of Union would involve no bartering away.'

  'That scarcely seems true,' Arthur Lexington interceded sharply. 'Canada would pay a heavy price.'

  'No!' The admiral's voice took on a cutting edge. Tar from paying a price, it would be an act of amazing generosity to a greedy, vacillating country which has made a national pastime of timidity, fence-straddling, and hypocrisy. You talk of rebuilding Canada, but why bother? America did it for you once before; we'll probably do it again.'

  James Howden had resumed his chair. Now, his face suffused with anger, he sprang to his feet. He said icily, 'I don't believe I have to listen to this, Tyler.'

  'No, Jim,' the President said calmly, 'I don't believe you do. Except that we agreed to speak plainly, and sometimes there are things better said, and out in the open.'

  Tense with resentment, Howden fumed, 'Am I to assume that you subscribe to this vicious libel?'

  'Well, Jim, I grant that what was said could have been put more tactfully, but then that isn't Levin's way, though if you like I apologize for his choice of words.' The voice drawled easily across the desk to the Prime Minister, still standing erect. 'But I'd also say he has a point about Canada always wanting a great deal. Even now, with all that we are offering in the Act of Union, you're demanding more.'

  Arthur Lexington had risen along with Howden. Now he walked to the window and, turning, his eyes were on Admiral Rapoport. 'Perhaps,' he observed, 'it's because we're entitled to more.'

  'No!' The word snapped back from the admiral as though a needle had been jabbed. 'I said you were a greedy nation and so you are.' His thin voice rose. 'Thirty years ago you wanted an American standard of living, but you wanted it overnight. You chose to ignore that American standards took a century of sweat and belt-tightening to build. So you opened up your raw wealth that you might have husbanded instead; and you let Americans move in, develop your birthright, take the risks, and run the show. That way you bought your standard of living - then you sneered at the things we had in common.'

  'Levin...' the President remonstrated.

  'Hypocrisy, I said!' As if he had not heard, the admiral stormed on, 'You sold your birthright, then went searching for it with talk about distinctive Canadianism. Well, there was a Canadianism once, but you got soft and lost it, and not all your Royal Commissions piled on end will ever find it now.'

  Hating the other man, his own voice tight with anger, James Howden exclaimed, 'It hasn't all been softness. There's a list from two world wars you may have heard of: St Eloi, Vimy, Dieppe, Sicily, Ortona, Normandy, Caen, Falaise...'

  'There are always exceptions!' the admiral snapped. 'But I also recall that while US Marines were dying in the Coral Sea, the Parliament of Canada was debating conscription - which you never had.'

  Wrathfully Howden said, 'There were other factors -Quebec, compromise...'

  'Compromise, fence-straddling, timidity ... what in hell's the difference when it's a national pastime? And you'll still be fence-straddling on the day the United States defends Canada with nuclear weapons - weapons you're glad we have, but are too self-righteous to employ yourselves.'

  The admiral had risen and was standing facing Howden. The Prime Minister resisted an urgent impulse to strike out, raining blows on the face before him. Instead the President broke the hostile silence. 'I tell you what,' he suggested. 'Why don't you two fellows get together tomorrow morning at dawn by the Potomac. Arthur and I will be seconds, and we'll have the Smithsonian lend us pistols and swords.'

  Lexington inquired dryly, 'Which of the two would you recommend?'

  'Oh, if I were Jim, I'd take pistols,' the President said. 'The only ship Levin ever commanded missed everything it fired on.'

  'We had poor ammunition,' the admiral remarked. For the first time the ghost of a smile creased his leathery face. 'Weren't you Secretary of the Navy t
hen?'

  'I've been so many things,' the President said. 'It's hard to remember.'

  Despite the lessened tension, the heat of indignation still gripped Howden. He wanted to retaliate; to return words in kind, countering what had been said; attacking, as he could so readily: An accusation of greed came ill from a nation grown fat and opulent from riches ... Timidity was hardly a charge to be laid by the United States which had practised selfish isolationism until forced at gun point to abandon it ... Even Canadian vacillation was better than the blundering, naive ineptness of American diplomacy, with its crude belief in the dollar as an answer to all problems ... America with its insufferably virtuous air of always being right; its refusal to believe that other concepts, alien systems of government, might sometimes have their virtues; its obstinate support of puppet, discredited regimes abroad ... And at home slick, glib talk of freedom through the same mouth which smeared dissenters ... and more, much more...

  About to speak ... fiercely, wildly ... James Howden checked himself.

  At times, he thought, there was statesmanship in silence. No catalogue of faults could ever be one-sided, and most of what Admiral Rapoport had said was uncomfortably true.

  Besides, whatever else Rapoport might be, he was no fool. Subtly the Prime Minister had an instinct that a performance had been staged with himself as a participant. Had there been a deliberate attempt, he wondered, adroitly managed by the admiral, to throw him off balance? Perhaps; perhaps not; but brawling would achieve nothing. He was determined not to lose sight of the original issue.

  Ignoring the others, he faced the President. 'I must make it perfectly clear, Tyler,' he announced evenly, 'that failing a concession on the issue of Alaska there can be no agreement between our respective governments.'

  'Jim, you must see that the entire situation is impossible.' The President seemed calm and controlled, unshakable as ever. But the fingers of his right hand, Howden noticed, were drumming urgently upon the desk top. Now he went on, 'Couldn't we go back - let's talk about the other conditions. Maybe there, are more points we can cover, things we can spell out to Canada's advantage.'