The Rationing

by Charles Wheelan

  The Secretary of State continued, “If the military came to you and said, ‘We think we can repel this aggression successfully, but here are the projections for casualties,’ you would find the numbers we are looking at to be an acceptable cost for defending our vital interests.”

  “I understand the logic,” the President said noncommittally. He looked to the National Security Adviser.

  “I agree with the Secretary,” the National Security Adviser said. “If they asked only that we walk away from the South China Sea Agreement, or postpone it, then maybe it would be a harder decision, though if I’m being honest, even that would be a dangerous capitulation. But withdrawing all troops from East Asia? From a national security standpoint, I think there is only one defensible course of action here.”

  “What’s the most appropriate historical comparison?” the President asked. “Because this is not Pearl Harbor. There is no obvious aggression here that I’m asking Americans to repel.”

  “Probably Kennedy and West Berlin,” the National Security Adviser offered. “The East Germans started building the Wall. If Kennedy didn’t save West Berlin with the airlift, it would have been a major capitulation to the Soviets.”

  “There wouldn’t have been major casualties, even if it went wrong,” the President said. “He wasn’t asking Americans to accept thousands and thousands of lost lives.”

  “That’s right,” the National Security Adviser said. “The Cuban Missile Crisis might be more apt. Kennedy had to decide if the U.S. could tolerate Soviet missiles in Cuba. In facing down the Soviets, he was risking war. Maybe nuclear war.”

  The President nodded in agreement. “What’s the best case for accepting the agreement?” he asked the room.

  “For taking the Chinese Dormigen?” the Chief of Staff asked, trying to clarify what he was asking.

  The Strategist, always keen to take any side of any issue, said, “A lot of Americans may die. You have access to the medicine that will save them. That’s your first responsibility, to protect the country.”

  “Isn’t that what Cecelia Dodds is telling us?” the President asked. “It’s hard to watch people die when they could be saved. There’s something particularly terrible about that.”

  “Yes,” the Chief of Staff agreed softly. “But she did tell you to stand firm with the Chinese.”

  “While simultaneously reminding us of the price we’ll pay,” the President replied. “Maybe thousands and thousands of times over. All preventable.”

  The National Security Adviser said, “Well, if I’m playing devil’s advocate, I would argue that America could tolerate a lower profile in East Asia. We could cede that sphere of influence to China without meaningfully impacting our quality of life. The are a lot of costs associated with being the world’s only democratic superpower.”

  The President nodded to acknowledge the thought without betraying any obvious reaction. “Britain gave up its empire,” he said.

  The Secretary of State interjected, “But not to the Soviet Union. Or to China. There’s a difference between acceding to independence movements and acceding to the demands of a nondemocratic power whose interests are very different from our own.”

  “There are costs to leaving the world without a democratic superpower,” the President said.

  “That’s right,” the Secretary of State agreed.

  The Chief of Staff asked, “Who’s to say we can’t take the Dormigen and then ignore the agreement? Once we have the Dormigen, we don’t have to withdraw our troops from South Korea and Japan. Yes, they have the leverage now, but once we have the Dormigen that leverage goes away. Besides, an agreement made under duress, which this clearly is, is not legally binding.”

  “You didn’t read page nineteen,” the Strategist said.

  The Chief of Staff flipped through the document in front of her. After a moment she said, “Clearly I was not the only person who had that thought.” The Agreement stipulated that the U.S. would post a bond of some sort—nearly $500 billion in Treasury securities, along with the “deed” to assorted U.S. possessions in the Pacific, including Guam.

  The Strategist said, “If we go back on our word, they get Guam. It’s not exactly Pearl Harbor, but close.”

  The President, ignoring the comment, said, “Technically this is not duress. The Chinese government is offering us something that we are free to refuse. We can always walk away from the agreement.”

  “This is just their opening offer,” the National Security Adviser offered.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” the President replied. “In any event, it doesn’t change our response if we think this is a bad deal. The more forcefully we repudiate what’s on the table, the more leverage we have to negotiate something better.”

  “Is there any part of this, other than the UN parking, that we would be likely to agree to?” the Secretary of State asked the room.

  The Communications Director interjected, “We probably don’t have too long before the document gets leaked to the press. Shall I draft a statement? Even if we haven’t come to agreement here, I can say something about how we are weighing—”

  “No,” the President said sharply.

  “No statement, or no to the idea of being noncommittal?” the Communications Director asked.

  “No statement. I’d like to speak with the Majority Leader,” the President instructed. “As soon as he’s on the line, I want the room.” The advisers began filing out of the conference room so that the President could speak with the Majority Leader in private. “We should just release the agreement,” the President added.

  “Leak it?” the Communications Director asked.

  “Just release it to the press.”

  “And what kind of statement should we make?”

  “None.”

  “I don’t understand,” the Communications Director said.

  “Just make the agreement public,” the President said firmly. “Release it to the press. The American people should know what the Chinese government is asking in exchange for the Dormigen.”

  “With respect, sir, we should try to put our own spin on this.”

  “What is there to spin? It speaks for itself.”

  The Communications Director looked around the room, hoping to find some nonverbal support for his case. Like all the President’s senior advisers, he was expected to walk a fine line between offering candid advice and carrying out the President’s orders. “This is our only chance to frame the story,” he said.

  “Take the document to the back of the plane and hand it to a reporter,” the President said.

  The Communications Director picked up a spare copy of the agreement from the conference table but did not move toward the door, prompting the Strategist to interject, “The reporters are the cranky, poorly dressed people in the last cabin.”

  The Chief of Staff, seeking to ameliorate the tension, said, “Give it to the AP correspondent. She’ll share it with the press pool.”

  The Communications Director continued to plead his case: “Maybe we do a photo op of some sort, with the President reading the document—”

  “Just release it,” the President said angrily. “Don’t make me walk it back there myself.”

  One can second-guess a lot of the decisions made during the Outbreak, from the President on down, but this moment suggests to me that there is such a thing as political talent—just like athletic talent, or entrepreneurial instinct, or acting ability. I do not know if people are born with political talent, or if they acquire it through hard work and experience, or perhaps both. I do know that the President was elected student body president when he was in high school. He was elected editor of the Law Review at the University of Virginia. If one counts every election and reelection he participated in—from high school to the White House—there were sixteen times when he got more votes than the next man or woman (and two times when he did not, which might teach the more valuable lessons). As much as we despise politicians, the President h
ad something that his Chinese counterparts did not: a feel for voters.

  58.

  IT TOOK A FEW MINUTES TO CONNECT THE PRESIDENT WITH the Senate Majority Leader, who had been given a copy of the “Friendship Agreement” immediately after the Chinese Ambassador delivered it. “How are you doing, Mr. President?” the Majority Leader asked.

  “I’ve had more enjoyable trips to Hawaii,” the President said. “What do you think of the Chinese offer?”

  “I’m in shock,” the Majority Leader said. “Do they really expect us to accept this?”

  “It’s an opening bid,” the President replied.

  “Yes, but they’ve completely ceded the moral high ground. Did you see that thing about the UN parking? They come across as completely opportunistic, predatory even.”

  “That was my reaction,” the President said.

  “Are you going to make a counteroffer?” the Majority Leader asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think there is a deal to be had. Never mind troops in Korea and Japan, at a minimum they are going to ask us to walk away from the South China Sea Agreement.”

  “Yes,” the President agreed.

  “That leaves us in a tough spot.”

  “The NIH has raised their fatality projections because of all the Dormigen that’s gone missing,” the President reminded him.

  “If you turn away the Chinese offer, you’ll have my complete support,” the Majority Leader assured him. “I want you to know that. I’m confident I can get the Senate behind whatever you decide.”

  “I don’t care about the Senate, to be honest,” the President replied. “Could you sell it to a Rotary Club?” The President had enormous respect for the Majority Leader’s emotional connection to Main Street. The President’s senior advisers could speak compellingly of the Berlin Airlift and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Majority Leader could connect with Americans who had never heard of the Berlin Airlift and had only a vague sense of how the Cuban Missile Crisis played out. That was why the President called him first.

  There was a pause as the Majority Leader considered the question. “This situation with Cecelia Dodds, that makes it harder. They moved her to intensive care, you know.”

  “Yes,” the President acknowledged.

  “It reminds people of the reality. If we have to go to some kind of rationing . . . shit. A lot of people are imagining someone they love in that ICU, not able to get the pill that would send them home healthy.” There was a brief silence during which the President did not respond. The Majority Leader continued, “On the other hand, I think the Chinese have made it easier for us. This offer they’ve made says a lot about their designs in the region. If you were to give in to them, it would feel like appeasement.”

  “Yes, but when people start dying in hospitals because there’s no Dormigen, is anyone going to care about troops in South Korea?” the President asked.

  “I don’t think that’s the right way of looking at this,” the Majority Leader said. “You can’t make it about South Korea or carbon emissions or overfishing or any of that other wonky stuff. I can’t sell any of that at a Rotary meeting. I can’t justify Americans dying because we’re trying to play policeman around the world.”

  “Okay,” the President said, inviting him to continue.

  “But nobody likes a bully. Nobody likes to be taken advantage of. Most Americans know enough history to appreciate that there are good guys and there are bad guys and that you can’t let the bad guys get away with doing bad things. You’ve got to stand up to them.”

  “I need to make this about standing up to China,” the President said.

  “I think that’s right,” the Majority Leader affirmed. “When the United States needed medical help, the Chinese leadership made a grab for power. It’s like someone who knows you’re at the hospital visiting your sick wife, so they break into your house.”

  “But they haven’t violated any laws,” the President pointed out. “They’re not actually doing anything wrong, other than driving a hard bargain. Isn’t that what diplomacy is about? I don’t think the analogy works.”

  “Then find a different one,” the Majority Leader said quickly. “How about this: You need heart medicine to keep you alive. One week you come up a little short and you can’t afford it. Your rich neighbor comes over to your house and says, ‘Sure, I’ll spot you the money for your medicine. Just let me fuck your wife.’ How about that?”

  “I’m not sure that would work with a Rotary Club.”

  “If you fix the language, it would work real well. People get that.”

  “Did you watch the Chinese Ambassador’s remarks?” the President asked.

  “Yes. He made the whole situation seem like some kind of showdown—that whole flying east or west thing.”

  “That language came from Beijing.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  The President said, “I spoke to the Australian Prime Minister. She’s worried we’ll ditch our commitments to the region.”

  “Of course she is.”

  There was a long silence. As the Majority Leader would later describe it, he waited patiently for the President to steer the conversation. Eventually the President said, “Let me bounce an idea off you.”

  59.

  JENNA PERSUADED ME TO TAKE A WALK, TO GET OUT OF THE NIH building and clear my head. I had been awake since before dawn; I had not had enough sleep in the week before that. “Let’s see a movie,” she offered.

  “I can’t do that,” I said quickly. “It feels totally wrong.”

  “You’re not going to figure this out by grinding away,” she implored. “That’s not how inspiration works. What you should do is go home and sleep for twelve hours.”

  It was late afternoon and the spring day was turning cool. We did not plan where we would walk, but we headed toward the Capitol Mall, which felt like a logical place to go. The cherry blossoms were past their peak—they came early that year—but the view was still beautiful. Even in my most cynical moments, I appreciated the majesty of the Capitol, the White House, and the monuments in between. I had never taken the time to explore the city properly as a tourist, but I did pause on occasion to reflect on whatever monument or historical site I happened to wander past. Even on my busiest, most self-absorbed days, I could not rush by the Vietnam Memorial without giving some thought to the names on the wall, and, by extension, to the decisions that got them there. I was always affected by the mementos left at the base of the wall: a single boot, or a can of Pabst beer, or a Chicago Cubs hat—mundane objects that clearly had enormous significance for those who had taken the time to leave them behind.

  One day some months earlier I had accidentally shown up for a meeting at a Starbucks near the Mall an hour early. There was no sense in heading back to my office, so I took advantage of the found time to walk through the Roosevelt Memorial, wondering how the man was able to confront the unique challenges of the Great Depression and World War II. How might the U.S. have fared with lesser leadership? With someone who lacked FDR’s remarkable ability to reach and persuade the American people? Sometimes I wondered if the tourists—guidebooks in hand, checking off site after site—were really processing what they were seeing. Never mind the dates or the height of the sculpture or the other details that can get in the way of really thinking about FDR. The whole system had been under assault. Some really smart people had given up on capitalism, attracted by the false allure of communism. Another group of smart people were ready to ditch the untidiness of democracy for the efficiency they were seeing in Italy and Germany. How did FDR get out of bed in the morning? And by that, I do not mean anything to do with his paralysis, because to focus too much on the fact that he was in a wheelchair is to miss the essence of what really made him so extraordinary.

  Jenna and I sat on a bench in the shade with a nice view of the Washington Monument. I was struck by the sense of normalcy that was returning to the city, barely twelve hours after the fir
st news of the Outbreak had gone public. It was as if the public, unable to see any obvious manifestation of a crisis, began to assume that things must not be so bad. Shortly after we sat down, a Chinese tour group walked loudly by, following a guide carrying a large orange umbrella. Even in the moment, I appreciated the irony. I looked at my phone, where the first details of the Chinese offer were being reported. Jenna said, “Twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty minutes what?” I asked.

  “You’ve got twenty minutes to think and talk about Capellaviridae. After that, give your mind a break.”

  “The White House just released the details of the Chinese Dormigen offer,” I said.

  “And?”

  “It’s even more unreasonable than we expected,” I said, reading the first stories as they appeared. News organizations were rushing to get out their own versions of the story, but the “Friendship Agreement” was long enough that it required time to read and digest thoroughly. As a result, minutes after the Communications Director walked copies of the document to the back of Air Force One, media outlets began releasing details in bursts. The Associated Press was first, just three minutes after getting the report, posting: “Chinese Government Issues Demands for Dormigen.” Bloomberg followed shortly thereafter with more specifics: “Beijing: Ditch South China Sea Agreement, Withdraw from ‘Chinese Sphere of Influence.’ ” The New York Times and other publications posted the whole agreement to their sites. The public immediately fixated on the incongruity of Beijing demanding a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region and more parking permits at the UN. The pettiness of the latter somehow threw the sacrifice of the former into sharper relief.

  Jenna was reading from my screen. “I assume the President’s not going to accept that,” she said.

  “He’s going to make a statement in forty-five minutes.”

  “Okay, then you get an hour to think about Capellaviridae.”

  “How about if I think about it for the rest of the day, if I promise to get ten hours of sleep?” I pleaded.

  “That’s probably better.”