by Gore Vidal
She stopped speaking; stared gravely at the audience; then, with only the hint of a smile, she raised her right hand as if in benediction and, turning away from the light, moved swiftly to the back of the stage before any applause could begin.
Senator Barkley picked up his cue smoothly. He praised the lady for her gracious wisdom. Then: “The clerk will now call the roll of the states.”
Peter was again at the back of the stage, watching with amusement as Mrs. Roosevelt made a swift arc around the three bosses. Photographers tried to catch her with this or that personage but she moved too swiftly for them, her two sons running interference for her. Peter joined Harry Hopkins, who was now shaking her hand, below the stage.
“I must say,” Peter heard Mrs. Roosevelt say very clearly to Hopkins, “you young things just don’t understand politics.”
In due course Wallace was nominated by an unhappy convention, which was then addressed from Washington by the President, his voice echoing eerily over a loudspeaker system. With a deep sense of responsibility he accepted their nomination because “today all private plans, all private lives have been, in a sense, repealed by an overriding public danger.”
Hopkins was well pleased when he met with his aides in the Blackstone suite. Joe Alsop, in Cassandra mood, said that if the British were not to get sufficient ships immediately, they could not defend the Channel should Hitler invade, as planned, in August.
Hopkins was reassuring. “The Boss is doing everything possible to get those ships to England …”
“Churchill asked for them over a year ago.”
“Maybe Churchill should talk to Congress. The Boss is convinced that if he sends so much as a rowboat on his own without Congress’s permission, he will be impeached.”
Mayor Kelly had arrived in the sitting room of the suite. Hopkins poured him a drink as they conducted a postmortem of the day’s work.
Peter hovered nearby. But learned very little. Professional politicians talked to each other mostly in code. Kelly did ask, “Is it true the Boss isn’t going to campaign?”
“Well, he’s got a lot on his plate, you know. Rearming the country. He also thinks Willkie’s going to wear himself out, dashing all over the place.”
“He’s picking up support.” Kelly looked unhappy.
“Now, Ed, you know how important it is to have a president who keeps a sharp eye on everything.” Hopkins grinned. “I can guarantee you there will be a lot of inspection trips around the country where all the defense plants are, and the votes.”
“Smart,” said Kelly.
“But no political trips. I think, Ed, we’re all agreed that the world’s too serious a place for old-fashioned politics. We are all of us real statesmen now.”
Joe heard this last. “By the end, Cousin Franklin will be tearing around the country like a banshee. This isn’t going to be an easy election. That’s why he took so long to make up his mind, about running.”
“When did he make up his mind?” Peter was curious.
“Whoever knows with him? Eleanor thinks that Dunkirk did it. The thought that Hitler might actually invade England set him in motion.”
“That’s history, which I like.”
“That’s journalism, which I like,” said Joe Alsop. “Anyway, there’s going to be quite enough of both to go around.”
Harry Hopkins said goodbye to the Mayor at the door. “To think,” said Joe, “if today were two years ago he’d be here complimenting him.”
“Him? Who?”
“Him, Harry Hopkins. He was the Roosevelts’ choice to succeed Franklin.”
“I can’t believe it.” Peter had come to admire Hopkins, as a brisk, brusque political manager. But this sallow unimpressive social worker out of the heartland, or wherever he hailed from, seemed no heir to the grand Hudson Valley squire.
“You didn’t know him before. Before the cancer. He was wonderfully fierce and bright and even attractive as a leader. He was ideal for continuing the New Deal which Cousin Franklin is now about to bury once and for all in order to play war president like Wilson.”
Peter was not surprised that war would take precedence over the New Deal, a worthy series of social enterprises that were all doomed in so reactionary a country: except for social security—a small income instead of the well-earned poorhouse for every senior citizen. But even that small victory had been a harrowing political battle; as for public works, Wendell Willkie was thoughtfully pointing out that nine million men were still out of work. “Any war president can end unemployment.” Peter parroted popular opinion. “This war could complete the New Deal.”
“Who cares? Because this war will give us the whole world this time. That was Uncle T’s dream. I think it’s Cousin Franklin’s too. He pretends to revere his old boss Woodrow Wilson, but every now and then, he says what he really thinks of him.”
“The man who made the world safe for democracy?”
“The man who made this bloody war inevitable.” Joe gave Peter a baleful stare, as a stand-in for Wilson, or was it Hitler? “Wilson was a pompous little professor who should never have left—no, not Princeton, he was already out of his depth there—his classroom at Bryn Mawr, surrounded by the brightest of bright bluestockings. Outside that classroom of young ladies, he was a bungler, to put it politely.” Joe poured himself a large glass of whiskey. “To Cousin Franklin.”
Peter held up his glass. “Let us pray,” said Peter, getting into the spirit that history now required of them, “that he does not bungle.”
“Or,” said Joe, ominously, “die on us. Before we get the world.”
FIVE
Two liveried footmen somehow did not look at least one too many as they opened the door to the Dupont Circle palace so that Caroline could make her one-woman entrance to be met in the great hall by Cissy Patterson, also alone. The ladies embraced and all that Caroline could think of, as she gazed over Cissy’s shoulder at the marble staircase, was the young man at the party making his way up the stairs to prepare himself as sacrificial goat upon peach-tinted crepe-de-chine sheets.
“You’ll have him all to yourself.” Cissy broke from their sisterly embrace. “I’ve got a meeting at the paper. Anyway, it’s better you see your old beau alone for lunch, just the two of you in the study.”
“Old beau? I thought it was to be the two of us.” Caroline wondered if the old beau might be James Burden Day; wondered if, after so many years, they would have anything to talk about.
“It’s a surprise for you, and a joy for him, of course, particularly if you’d talk about Harry Hopkins. I’ll join you all later.”
“I’ve nothing to tell. I hardly see him. He’s busy arranging the election for a president who says he won’t campaign.”
“Franklin always waits until Labor Day. By which time I’m afraid poor Wendell will have lost what little voice he has.” The butler had materialized beside Cissy. “Show Mrs. Sanford into the study. Serve the lunch.”
“Yes, Countess.”
Cissy winked at Caroline. “Ain’t I grand?”
“But you are a countess.”
“Only in Poland, which is now half German and half Russian. I would like to murder Hitler. Stalin, too.”
“So you aren’t an isolationist any more?”
“I don’t know about that. I do know I’d like to kill my daughter. Felicia’s just written a novel about how awful I am.”
“But that was years ago.”
“This is a new one. She’s arrived back from Europe. She also says how awful Drew was in bed.” Cissy laughed. “I can’t say I minded that part. What about your daughter?”
“Oh. I hate her, too. But she doesn’t write novels.”
“Count your blessings.”
Cissy was gone and the butler ceremoniously led Caroline through several grand rooms to a small book-lined study, where she found a mountainous old man standing in front of a fireplace, closely examining the underside of a Meissen plate.
William Randolph Hearst
must now be seventy-eight, she calculated; and somewhat deaf, as he’d not heard her entrance. Caroline motioned to the butler to go, quietly, while she prepared herself for this unexpected encounter. Even in France, she had been able to follow the shipwreck of the Hearst empire. Personally, he was well over a hundred million dollars in debt. He had bought too many castles, too many works of art, some beyond value, some of no value at all; the palace at San Simeon above the Pacific, with its zoo and its hundreds of attendants, was constantly being added to while the dozens of newspapers and magazines that supported all this spending did less and less well in the post-Depression era. A “conservation” committee of Hearst executives was formed to curb the Chief’s spending and sell off—usually at a loss—heavily mortgaged newspapers and properties, which was how Cissy Patterson had ended up leasing the Washington Herald from him and, as she was not shy in telling everyone, lending him one million dollars. Finally, and what probably hurt the most in Caroline’s view, he had to give up the film production company that he had shared with his mistress-for-life, as it were, the film star Marion Davies. Since Caroline and Tim had been grimly obliged to do the same, she was prepared to find the ancient Hearst like King Lear upon the heath as he slowly turned to greet her.
The eaglelike face with the clear close-set eyes was certainly ravaged by his misadventures upon the heath of bankruptcy. But he was neither mad nor in the least bit defeated. He gave her a bearlike hug. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his gray dry cheek. “Chief,” she said and felt like weeping to find that so much of her past was now before her, still alive, still full of energy. He had helped her become a newspaper publisher in Washington; helped her in her Hollywood career as an actress and, again, with film production. He was like some good father who was blessedly absent for all but the important moments of her life.
“Caroline. You don’t change.”
“You must see to your eyes.” She hugged him without meaning to. “Cissy never let on it was you who wanted to see me.”
“Cissy’s got class.” They sat on a long divan beneath yet another portrait of the lady of the house, wearing a fur hat with the steppes of Poland fleeing from her in the background.
Each occupied one end of the huge divan, covered in tapestry. Hearst stroked the material with practiced hand. “Gobelin.”
“Millefleurs,” said Caroline.
“I’ll bet you … But I’m not allowed to bet or to buy, only to sell.” He seemed chastened.
“Are you really so broke?” Caroline had found that plain talk was best with the genius who had discovered that the only truly credible—not to mention profitable—news was what one invented.
“On paper, I was. But then that’s where money always is, isn’t it? On paper. In paper. In newspapers. I’ve got most of them still. I’m supporting Willkie.”
“So I read.”
“This means he’ll lose. I never pick a winner. I can’t think why.”
“You’re too Californian for the Easterners who own the country.”
“Too American, I’d have thought. How would you like a Spanish monastery?”
“To enter? You mean a convent …”
“No. To own. It has a beautiful cloister.”
“I don’t think I want any property in Spain right now.”
“Oh, it’s not in Spain. It’s up in the Bronx somewhere. In a warehouse. The stones are all numbered. Couldn’t be easier to put it back together.” He gave one of the curiously high-pitched nervous laughs that oddly punctuated his speech. “I’m not much of a salesman.”
“That’s because you’re a buy-man.”
“I’d certainly like to get my hands on that chateau of yours.”
“So would I.” Caroline felt a pain between her eyes. Sinus? Regret? “I think German troops are in it.”
“We must stay out of the war. I write a regular column these days. Brisbane died, you know. So I took over. Couldn’t be easier, writing a column.”
“Except for him. You do it better than he did. I know. I read you.” But then, Caroline thought, anyone wrote better than the pompous Arthur Brisbane, Hearst’s prime minister, as well as viceroy at the New York Mirror. Caroline congratulated herself on having got out of the newspaper business. Let Blaise worry about competition from Cissy, the Evening Star, the newly awakened Washington Post, which Hearst was now studying with a professional eye.
“This one may have a chance,” he said.
“Here in the cemetery of newspapers?”
“Curious place, Washington. I hated it when I was in Congress …”
“… and living in New York.”
Hearst looked at the front-page headline. “Wrong size type. Too small. This is the biggest news since the fall of France. But no one understands how important …” The voice trailed off, as Caroline took the newspaper from him. On September 27, 1940, Tokyo had joined the Berlin-Rome Axis, as it was called, a military-economic alliance involving mutual aid.
“What does your friend Harry think?”
“Harry who?”
Hearst smiled his narrow knowing shark’s smile. “I publish Walter Winchell. Remember? That awful column of his is getting the syndicate back into profit, or so my guardians tell me.”
“We are just …”
“… good friends,” Hearst completed the usual disclaimer.
“Actually he’s been busy with the election. I’ve hardly seen him.” This was not true but candor with Hearst was never wise.
“As usual, I’m not on speaking terms with the President. But I hire his sons from time to time. Particularly Elliott.”
“Because he’s so stupid?”
Hearst’s mind did not exactly flit from subject to subject so much as take great leaps in unexpected directions, rather like Nijinsky in the Russian ballet. “Japan. That’s our only real enemy. And all because we’ve chosen the hopeless Chinese as our sentimental allies after demonizing the Japanese.”
“You speak as a Californian …”
“As an American with a better understanding than anyone in the White House will ever have of Asia. Japan needs to expand. Where to? To the mainland. To China, which isn’t even a proper nation. Just a bunch of warlords fighting each other. Teddy Roosevelt—personally I couldn’t stand him, but he was the only one that ever understood that Japan is our natural ally. When they beat the Russians in 1904—brilliant, that surprise attack on Port Arthur—TR got interested in the case. Even got himself a Nobel Peace Prize for something or other to do with them. Anyway, they scared the pants off him. And they scare me …”
“Yellow Peril, as you call them.”
“Yes. Red Peril, too, if they ever turn Bolshevik. So don’t provoke them. Taft. That’s what that was about.”
“What was what about?”
Hearst had found a small white jade dragon on a side table. He interrupted himself. “Imperial,” he said. “I bought six. Han dynasty. We’re talking about a sale at Gimbels. What do you think?”
“Of imperial jade?”
“Of the contents of a dozen warehouses. Since no art gallery could ever handle all my works of art, I suggested a department store. We’re taking over the boys’ department of Gimbels. You know, I’ve never not had money. No one ever bothered to tell me how inconvenient it is.”
Caroline tried not to show her amusement. “Now you are like your readers.”
“TR picked Taft to succeed him as president because he thought Taft understood Asia. High commissioner of the Philippines and all that. But Taft was a fool. Took against the Japanese. Sided with the Chinese over Siberia. TR was furious. After all, the Japs beat the Russians once. They could do it again with our help. And the Japs are as afraid of the Russian Bolsheviks as we are. So why shouldn’t they run Manchuria? That’s one way of keeping the Bolsheviks out of Asia. Tom Lamont even wanted to finance this railroad for them. But the Chinese somehow persuaded Taft—no, Hoover, by then—to stop the Morgan bank from financing a railroad that would have helped seal off Siberia
from the Japs. Stupid. Stupid. I wish Franklin was as bright as his cousin Teddy. But he’s not. He won’t recognize Japan’s takeover of Manchuria, which is no different from us in Haiti. Asia should be Japan’s.”
Who holds Shansi Province will control the earth. Caroline could hear, in memory, the slight whistle in Henry Adams’ voice on the word “Shansi.”
“Franklin spends all his time conniving to get us into a war with Hitler, a lunatic but no threat to us, while he keeps the pressure on the Japs because …” Hearst frowned. “I can’t fathom him.”
“The Delanos used to trade with China. His mother …”
“Tell Harry. Tell Franklin, if you can ever get a word in edgewise with that talking machine, that he must let up on the Japs. Recognize Manchuria. After all, he’s recognized Russia, of all places. You know, he’s threatening to turn off Japan’s oil supply if they don’t withdraw from China.”
“How do you know?”
“A letter from Joe Grew to Franklin. Last year. From Tokyo. He said if we stop the sale of oil to Japan, they’ll grab the Dutch oil fields in Java. Franklin said if they tried we’d intercept their fleet before it got past the Philippines.”
Caroline was astonished. If the story was true, Hearst had got his hands on a secret letter from the American ambassador in Japan to the President. “How do you get to read the President’s mail?”
“The same way I got to be me.” Hearst’s wintry smile returned; he giggled nervously. “Anyway, you don’t need anything but common sense and a knowledge of that part of the world to know Japan’s on its way up and the Chinese are going even further down and out.” Hearst tapped the Axis story in the Post. “Japan’s getting ready for a war with us. So, for insurance, they join up with the Nazis and the fascists. Hitler must be praying that they’ll do something to us which will take the pressure off him. Hitler doesn’t want a war with us, but Franklin and his banker friends like Lamont pretend that he does. Meanwhile the Japs are getting ready to go to war with us and we’re not told a word. Of course, it’s an election year.”