A Shade of Difference

by Allen Drury

  “You don’t think I’d let that little old resolution get through the House, now, do you, Senator?” he had demanded indignantly. “Speaker wanted it out of committee, so I let it get out, but you sure enough don’t think I’d stand for that kind of nonsense on the floor, do you?”

  “Will you speak against it?” Senator Cooley had asked quickly, and Representative Swarthman had replied without a moment’s hesitation, “Got to, Senator. Got to!” But whether he would if the Speaker got sufficiently threatening, Senator Cooley was not at all sure. Jawbone might just do what he had done before at crucial moments, duck out home and not come back until it was all over.

  And of course behind the Speaker stood the President and Orrin Knox, playing their game of global politics and try-to-please-everybody, which, as he had told Orrin the night he had eaten dinner at his house, simply could not work in the face of all the fantastic and unending pressures confronting the United States. He had not heard from the Secretary since he had attacked him and set in motion the wave of press condemnation of Cullee as the stooge for Orrin’s political ambitions, and he told himself with a grim little smile now that he wasn’t about to make the first move. Orrin could beat him in the House, if he got the Speaker and everybody else lined up, but he would have a tougher time of it in the Senate and he knew it.

  Even so, the Senator from South Carolina was uneasy and disturbed. He was seventy-six and the winds of time were blowing about him. Added to them now were the winds of change in a hurrying, heedless century. He did not know whether he could withstand the two of them together.

  “That was a powerfully moving statement, Mr. Attorney General,” he said with a sleepy sarcasm. “We will try to take all you say into account when we put our grubby little hands upon your bill.”

  “I think,” the President said as the early sunfall of autumn began to sift across the White House lawn and throw a golden light into his oval office, “that the best thing is to make them a simple offer without any strings attached. Export-Import Bank can do it, or the Bank for International Development. Or I may even be able to lay my hands on a couple of million somewhere in the Defense Department budget. The important thing is to get to them fast.”

  “Without strings attached,” Bob Munson echoed rather dryly. The President smiled.

  “Well, only one, of course—that Felix withdraw his amendment and behave.”

  “Mr. President,” Orrin Knox said with some irony, “you are not trying to tell us that the President of the United States is resorting to international bribery. How shocking.”

  “The President of the United States is doing his best to protect the United States,” the President said calmly. “It is a duty he has.”

  “And one that Felix won’t be moved by in this instance, I’ll bet,” Senator Munson said. “I’m afraid there’s something deeper there that can’t be bought off with a gift of a few millions.”

  “I agree,” the President said. “But, after all, Felix isn’t the government of Panama.”

  “Yet,” the Secretary of State said. He frowned. “I wonder if it would do any good to talk to Patsy.”

  “Assuming there is anything left of that marriage,” the President said, “perhaps so. But is there? Lucille tells me there isn’t.”

  “The feminine grapevine,” Senator Munson said, “is something beyond the comprehension of mere man. Dolly tells me the same thing. Senator Bessie Adams tells me the same thing. No doubt Beth tells you, too, Orrin. But there are still plenty of reasons why Felix wouldn’t want it to collapse just now. He isn’t President of Panama, and he needs the Jason family for a while yet. God help us when he becomes so, however.”

  “He will,” the President said. “Of that I am convinced. In the meantime, as long as a reasonable man sits in La Presidencia, we’ve got a chance to stop this present monkey business.”

  “Perhaps we can also dislodge Felix,” Orrin said, “or at least set back his timetable a while. Suppose I ask Hal Fry to make the offer direct to him at the UN and meanwhile let his government know about it in an informal way. Then if he turns it down he should get a reaction from home. It might give him pause.”

  “Of course,” the President said thoughtfully, “he must have the support of his government in offering his amendment or he wouldn’t offer it.”

  “I don’t think so,” Orrin said. “He occupies a rather peculiar semi-independent position down there because of his father. He’s been excused a great deal already because of Louie, and the same tolerance apparently extends to what he does at the UN—up to a point. Maybe we can arrange for this to be the point.”

  “I hope so,” the President said. “Maybe we can also offer something along the lines of giving Panama more say on the Canal Board. That might be more appealing than money.”

  “He’s obsessed with the Canal, of course,” Orrin said, “and of course so are they all. It may make it difficult to create a division, but at least we’ll try. I’ll talk to Hal.”

  “Good,” Senator Munson said. “Meanwhile, back at the Capitol, there is the little matter of passing Cullee Hamilton’s resolution. I understand the Speaker has the skids greased in the House, but you know the Senate. Those who grease skids in that great body sometimes find themselves sliding down ass-over-teakettle while those who were supposed to slide stand on the sidelines and give out with the merry heehaw. Sentiment is very divided on my side of the Hill, however smoothly Bill’s machine may be operating.”

  “I’m not so sure it is,” the Secretary of State said. “The reports I get are of considerable uncertainty there, too. It’s going to be a very close vote, I think, and that of course will encourage all the skittish in the Senate. You have your work cut out for you once again, dear Robert.”

  “Great,” the Majority Leader told him. “Dolly and I were supposed to be boarding the Leonardo da Vinci this morning to sail for lovely Italy and the golden isles of Greece. Here I am in Washington, plotting crafty stratagems. There ought to be a law.”

  “I’d veto it if there were,” the President said with his comfortable smile. “Another week of work won’t hurt anybody, even if it has been a long session. The problems of the world don’t diminish.”

  “Lord, no,” Bob Munson said. “How reliable is young Cullee, Orrin?”

  “He has troubles. I believe his wife and LeGage Shelby and a lot of his own press and people are after him for not being radical enough. And for being a stooge of the Secretary of State, in Seab’s handy phrase.”

  “Can he stand the gaff, do you think?” the President asked. “It’s my impression he will, but one never knows when the pressure grows.”

  “It will test him,” Orrin said. “But he’s been tested before.”

  “Not like this, though,” Bob Munson said. “It’s different when your own people turn against you.”

  “Well, of course, a great many of them won’t,” Orrin said. “It’s only the noisier elements who will. He can assess that for what it’s worth. We’re all going to have to bolster him up, however, both when he’s up there and when he’s down here for that House vote on Monday.”

  “Talk to Hal about that, too,” the President suggested. “How is Hal?”

  “I don’t quite know,” the Secretary of State said thoughtfully. “It’s hard to tell. Lafe thinks he has something seriously wrong with him, and I think he does too. But the doctor he’s gone to at the UN can’t seem to find anything.”

  “Maybe just overwork. Should we send him on vacation for a while?”

  “I don’t think he’d go. He conceives it to be his duty to stay there. I expect it would do more damage to take him off than to leave him on.”

  “It’s a tough time. We’ve got to be able to rely on him.”

  “I trust him to tell me when he needs a rest,” Orrin said. “When he tells me, I’ll relieve him. You know Hal’s problems. It’s the least we can do.”

  “All right. I’ll trust you to trust him. Just keep an eye on it, though.”
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br />   “Lafe is,” the Secretary of State said. “I’ve put him on a special detail.…And speaking of Seab, Bob—”

  “Ah, yes,” the Majority Leader said, “speaking of Seab.” He sighed and shook his head soberly. “Our old friend may be about to meet his Waterloo. The times are against him. The world is against him. Right is against him. I’ll try to protect him as much as I can, but—”

  “I think we all should,” the President said with equal soberness. “Fifty years of service to the country demands some kindness and respect, whatever you may think of him on individual issues.”

  “Imagine!” the Secretary said in a bemused tone. “Who ever thought we’d have to talk about protecting Seab?”

  “It will come to us all,” the Majority Leader said softly. “May we have friends so loyal when the time arrives.”

  “I wish I were certain we were doing the right thing in this resolution,” the President said slowly. “But I find out in this job that one is never certain of anything. There are always a dozen sides to it, so you make up your mind as best you can and go ahead. You can’t stand still.”

  “The curse of our times,” said the Secretary of State. “The compulsion to move. Just move, it doesn’t matter where, as long as you keep moving. There’s no time to plan, to study, to think things through. The world whirls too fast, and if you don’t stay on the merry-go-round, you get thrown off.”

  “I wonder if they’re as uncertain in Moscow,” the Majority Leader said.

  The President smiled.

  “There is a gap between those of us who are responsible to an electorate and those who are responsible to no one but themselves. But I live in the faith that judgment will be rendered upon them in due course.”

  “So do we all,” said Orrin Knox. “I’ll talk to Hal.”

  “Do that,” the President said. “Give my love to Seab, Bob. In fact, tell him I’d like to see him, if he cares to come down.”

  “Better call him yourself,” the Majority Leader suggested. “He’s not much of a one for liking intermediaries, at his age.”

  “I’ll wait until the chips are really down,” the President said, “and then maybe I will. Meantime, Orrin, you take care of Felix.”

  “I’ll try,” the Secretary of State said as they rose to go, “but it won’t be easy … Are you all right?” he asked, with a sudden shrewd glance at the President. The latter sighed.

  “I’m a little sad about the world. But that’s a chronic condition. Aren’t we all?”

  For the Ambassador of Panama, as evening deepened into night and Manhattan came ablaze, there were no such philosophic musings, for indeed he had no time for them in the wake of the Assembly vote to delay consideration of his amendment pending Congressional action on the Hamilton Resolution. He had been astounded by the vote, because four days of intensive politicking in the corridors, the lounges, and delegation headquarters of the United Nations had persuaded him that he had a sufficient margin of support to block any such delaying tactics. Now he was tagged with at least a partial failure, and he was too experienced a student of men and events not to know that the partial failure, barring some sharp reversal or effective change of position, was heading toward a total failure when the Assembly cast its final judgment on his amendment.

  As things stood now, two-thirds would be necessary to pass it, and no two-thirds had been on his side on the question of delay. Delay usually brought attrition rather than accretion when the issue was as controversial and close-fought as this. Of the possibilities he was considering to reverse the trend, the simplest and most effective would be for Cullee Hamilton to abandon his own resolution in the Congress and join in the condemnation of his country which seemed to come so easily to so many American Negroes. How it could come easily to Cullee after his statements in the Assembly, however, Felix could not see, unless there were pressures of some major kind brought to bear. And what they were, he could not perceive, except the obvious ones of Sue-Dan and LeGage and the general hullabaloo of the radical Negro groups and press, encouraged and inflamed by certain white groups and commentators.

  Certainly, he thought with a frown on his small, neat features, the pressures did not include persuasion from Felix’s brother-in-law. Cullee’s speech had certainly indicated a growing impatience with the Governor and his family, even though there was so far no comparable indication that Ted Jason was becoming impatient with him. Ted still hoped, Felix reflected with some scorn, that he could win Cullee’s support for his Presidential ambitions despite Cullee’s apparent inclination to side with Orrin Knox. At least the Congressman had volunteered to act as errand boy for the Secretary’s resolution, and that was sign enough that he was inclining toward him in the nomination battle that loomed next year. But Ted still hoped, apparently, and perhaps he was right to. In the politics of the great Republic, Felix had observed, time wrought startling changes, and many men who said this thing this day were found tomorrow to be saying something else.

  So he had perhaps best not worry too much about Governor Jason and concentrate instead on how to encourage the other pressures that might bring Cullee around. At the same time, he must also intensify his efforts within the UN, where some who had assured him blandly of their support before the roll was called had been found among the opposition when they cast their votes. Brazil, for instance, attempting as usual to prove to the world that she was independent of absolutely everybody. And Colombia, possibly afraid of him and what he might do if he became—when he became—President of Panama.

  Of course Washington had not been idle, either, in the days preceding the vote. There had been sudden approval of certain long-pending international loans, conferences between the Secretary of State and, in some cases, the President himself and certain Ambassadors. Promises had been made, admonitions delivered, assistance proffered or withheld. He would say for Orrin Knox and the outwardly bumbling Executive who sat at 1600 Pennsylvania that they had not been willing to let the issue go by default. Some very shrewd international politics had been played; and, fortified by the activities of the delegation here in New York, what he had believed to be his own solid majority had been turned into a successful, if narrow, one for them.

  Now, he supposed in bitter anticipation, he could expect another conference call from the Jason family, another suggestion, twice as strong, that he be content with having made his record and not pursue the matter further. Well: he had much more of a record to make, and he was not going to abandon it now. That final vote—win, lose, or draw—on his amendment was necessary to his future, and he would not be deflected from his purpose for one minute by anybody.

  He made up his mind, as he finished dressing for dinner and began turning over the names of favorite restaurants where he might eat before going on to the dance being given in the Delegates’ Dining Room by the delegation of Nigeria, that he would give further and intensive thought to one or two other ideas which might yet put a new and more favorable complexion on things before the issue was finally decided. Felix, grandson of Jorge, was not through yet.

  He was giving his room a last glance before leaving, a determined expression on his darkly handsome face, when the phone rang and he received, much to his surprise, an invitation from the acting head of the United States delegation to have dinner at Chateaubriand before going on to the dance at the UN. With a tight little ironic smile on his lips and a quizzical little light in his eyes as he spoke quickly into the telephone, he told Hal Fry that Yes, he’d be delighted.

  The drinks came, the food came, the wine came, the coffee came. And when, Felix asked himself impatiently, are we going to get down to business? His host, he decided, looked tense and somewhat strained, and there crossed his mind the rumor in the Delegates’ Lounge that Senator Fry was unwell. He decided to put an end to shadowboxing and ask, for whatever it might be worth in throwing his opponent off balance.

  “How are you feeling, Hal? You don’t look so well, lately. I hope it’s nothing serious.”

 
“Just a little overwork, probably,” Senator Fry said, and by the effort of will that he found necessary sooner or later in all conversations now, he managed to sound sufficiently unconcerned. “You’ve kept us on the jump so much these last few days that I’ve hardly had time to take a nap. We hope,” he said with a reasonably comfortable smile, “that you have reached your high-water mark and will now recede.”

  “I am not prepared to admit that yet,” Felix said stiffly.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Senator Fry agreed. “Poor strategy. But if you have to, I am authorized by my government to make the event more palatable.”

  “We do not want American bribes,” the Ambassador of Panama said in the same tone. “Do you have any realization of how much ground you have lost by trying to buy off votes here in the UN?”

  “Apparently not enough for you to beat us,” Hal Fry said tartly. His companion frowned.

  “We haven’t voted on the amendment yet. We shall see.”

  “Indeed we shall,” Hal said with an equal coldness, wondering if the nausea he felt would permit him to conclude the conversation with dignity. “In the meantime, my government is prepared to offer yours a loan of two million dollars and—just wait, Felix, don’t give me that superior smile of yours until you hear it all—give Panama vice-chairmanship of the military government of the Canal and additional representation on the board of directors of the Canal Company. In return you will withdraw your amendment here.”

  For several minutes the Ambassador of Panama remained silent, a frown on his face and thoughts darting visibly behind his dark eyes. Then he looked up with an air of scornful puzzlement.

  “Why are you doing this? It’s like shooting a mosquito with a shotgun. The concessions are out of all proportion to the issue. Why is it this important to you?”

  Senator Fry made an impatient movement.

  “Oh, come off it, Felix. The last thing in the world that you do well is be ingenuous. Why is it so important to you? Why is it so important to the Soviet Union? Why is it so important to Africa and Asia? You tell me. If it is that important to all of you to attack the United States, then it is that important to the United States to fight back. So don’t give me any of that ‘why is it so important’ guff. It doesn’t become you.”