Come Nineveh, Come Tyre: The Presidency of Edward M. Jason

by Allen Drury

  It was not until he got inside the door and was going through the formalities of giving his name to the police officer on duty that he suddenly perceived, like a bolt from the dull December sky, what the occasion must be. At the other end of the hall, sitting on one of the sofas in the waiting area, he saw a familiar figure who spotted him at the same moment and waved, with a wry and somewhat rueful smile. Beaming with pleasure, Tommy Davis hurried forward, hand outstretched.

  “My dear boy!” he exclaimed. “My dear boy! Do I dare think what I am thinking? Does your presence here indicate—”

  “My presence here indicates that I am here, Tommy,” Robert A. Leffingwell said, “and as far as I know, that’s absolutely all it does indicate.”

  “But surely,” the little Justice said, “surely it indicates more than that. Surely it must mean that he has decided—”

  “Sit down and keep your voice down, Tommy,” Bob Leffingwell ordered, looking about uneasily; but nobody was around except the cops on the doors and a secretary or two hurrying by on the endless treadmill of White House paper work. “I don’t know what he has decided. I haven’t spoken to him since the convention. I haven’t wanted to and he obviously hasn’t wanted me to. So I’m just as much in the dark as you are about this.”

  “But you will take it if he offers it to you, won’t you?” Tommy Davis asked anxiously, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial level. “It would be such an encouraging thing to the whole country, such a worthy action on the part of both of you. It would be a truly noble act.”

  “Would it?” Bob Leffingwell asked moodily, his expression turning somber as he stared out at the winter-bare Rose Garden under the leaden sky. “I can’t imagine anybody who would be pleased. The Secretary-ship of State and I are an old, old story by now, Tommy. Orrin and the Senate didn’t want me—and so I lost Then Orrin as candidate decided he wanted me—but he died. I started out on the ‘liberal’ side of foreign policy, if you want to call it that—I ended up on the ‘conservative.’ I’ve been to the well twice and wandered all over the lot and finally wound up in a bitter personal argument with Ted Jason. And you think he’s going to offer me the job on the third go-round? Not very likely, Tommy. Not very, I think.”

  “I don’t know why not!” Justice Davis said stoutly. “There still isn’t anyone better equipped than you are, or one who has been more educated—and chastened, I think one can fairly say—by events. You have the support of Orrin’s friends, you are still highly thought of by the genuine liberals in the country, and—” he finished with a triumphant little smile—“you are a good man and I like you, and so how could he go wrong if he took you into his Cabinet?”

  “Maybe he couldn’t go wrong taking me into his Cabinet, Tommy,” Bob Leffingwell said wryly, “although that’s a matter of considerable argument, it seems to me. But the question arises, and very seriously, in my mind: couldn’t I go sadly wrong if I accepted? Even if it were conceivable that he and I could yet come to an agreement on foreign policy, what about the general atmosphere and climate that is apparently going to surround his Administration? I made very clear to him in our last talk what I thought of that. Where do I fit into it now? That’s what I’m wondering about.”

  “When you accept a President,” Tommy said thoughtfully, “you accept everything about him. You select the things you particularly believe in and you support him on those; and you close your eyes, gulp hard and swallow the rest in return for what you think he can do in the areas you’re interested in. I doubt if anybody is ever completely satisfied with everything about a President. How can you be? They’re human.”

  “You’re assuming,” Bob Leffingwell said, “that I accept this President. I fought this President to the bitter end, and I don’t like what he’s doing now. On what grounds, therefore, do I join his happy group?”

  “On the grounds of serving your country,” Justice Davis said shrewdly, “which is something you still believe in, I think.”

  “Yes,” Bob Leffingwell agreed moodily. “But is this the way to do it?… Anyway,” he added with a sudden impatience, “this is all nonsense. Strictly speculation. And pointless speculation, at that.”

  “I can’t think of any other reason for both of us to be here at the same time,” Tommy Davis said. “He wants you to take it and he wants me to help persuade you. I’ll bet you.”

  And when, five minutes later, a brisk young man from the appointments office came to get them, taking them along the long corridor past the Rose Garden, through the hushed and busy hallways and so to the door of the Oval Office, it began to seem that Tommy must be correct. When the door was opened for them and they were shown in, he could not suppress a triumphantly murmured “You see?” as they walked forward to greet the two men who awaited them. “I told you so!”

  “What are you muttering about, Tommy?” the President inquired with a smile as he shook hands. “Always something. Always some gossip or other! Don’t you ever stop?”

  “He couldn’t,” Governor Jason said, coming forward to shake hands in his turn. “He’d die.” He turned to Bob Leffingwell and for a moment they stared at one another virtually without expression. Then he held out his hand. “Bob—thank you for coming.”

  “Thank you for inviting me, Governor,” Bob Leffingwell said in a level voice, shaking hands briefly and then turning to the President. “Mr. President,” he said with a genuine cordiality, “good to see you.”

  “We are glad you could come,” the President said, emphasizing the pronoun in a way that indicated he had decided to give this project his backing. He gestured to chairs across the room. “Now,” he said, when they were all seated, “the President-elect has something to say.”

  “Bob,” Ted said without preliminary, “I would like you to be Secretary of State in my Administration.”

  “Oh, I think that is marvelous!” Justice Davis exclaimed. “Simply marvelous! What a stroke of genius, Governor! I’m sure Bob will accept. He will accept at once!”

  In spite of the solemnity produced by the fact that Bob Leffingwell looked as though he thought the idea anything but marvelous, the President could not suppress a chuckle.

  “Are you sure now, Tommy?” he asked. “Doesn’t look to me like much of a foregone conclusion at this moment. Have you consulted Bob about this?”

  “I most certainly did,” Tommy said stoutly, “while we were waiting. Isn’t that what I was brought here for? I told him it would be the chance for a great public service.”

  “Well?” Ted asked, his eyes unwavering upon Bob’s. Presently Bob looked away, his eyes wandering over the portraits of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on the cream-colored walls. Then he sighed heavily and looked back.

  “Why should I?” he asked quietly. “To bail you out of something? Take the heat off Wattersill? Stop the flak about NAWAC? Lend respectability? Provide a suspect character to serve as lightning rod when you turn the country around 180 degrees in foreign policy? Why, Governor? I don’t get it. I thought you and I parted company forever several months ago. Why go into the political graveyard and resurrect this old skeleton? Surely you can do better than that?”

  Ted smiled, a small, unamused grimace.

  “I’m not asking you to like me,” he said with an equal quietness, “so I think we can abandon all the small dramatics about it. I’m asking you to serve with me as Secretary of State because I believe we have a tough job ahead and I believe you’re the man to help me do it. Now, if there is some service more vital to the country that you can perform, or something in private business you’d rather do, then of course I shan’t try to persuade you further. But if you agree with me that the search for peace is more important than anything else, then you’ll come along.”

  “But why me?” Bob Leffingwell asked.

  “Because you have the brains, the ability and the breadth of vision—and also, to be completely honest with you about it—because you’re the nearest thing to a political heir that Orrin Knox has, and I want the peopl
e behind me that you can bring.”

  Bob Leffingwell gave him a quizzical glance.

  “What more do you need than you got on Election Day?”

  “I want them to stay with me,” Ted said. “Besides which,” he added dryly, “leaving all else aside, I think you’re a man of character and a man of integrity who would be good for the country.”

  “Well,” Bob Leffingwell said with his first show of humor, “that’s a mixed bag of motives if I ever saw one.”

  Ted smiled.

  “Aren’t Presidential motives always mixed?”

  The President grunted. “You can say that again.… I think you’d better do it, Bob. The Governor here wants to make various changes, and since they’re going to be considerably different from what’s been going on, he’s going to need a man at State that a lot of puzzled and upset people can put their trust in. A lot of them who were Orrin’s friends may not trust Ted Jason—but they’ve got to have somebody. You’ll serve a real purpose.”

  “How worthy a one?” Bob Leffingwell inquired, his eyes again distant and unyielding. “To assist in the abandonment of every principle of foreign policy I have come to believe in—that you have come to believe in? This President is coming into office pledged to dismantle our entire foreign policy and turn it all around. That’s what he told the country he would do, and knowing that, the country elected him overwhelmingly. I assume they want him to do it and I assume he’s going to. How can you cooperate with that—let alone me?”

  It was the President’s turn to look moody, but his answer came without flinching.

  “Because of exactly the reason you say—he was elected overwhelmingly; he made no bones about what he intended to do, it was a fair decision in a free election—and that’s that. I’m too old a war horse to start balking at the popular will now, Bob. When the voters speak, I listen. That’s been my lifelong training and habit, and I’m sticking with it. He’s the man in charge, and what he wants goes—within reason, of course.” He smiled at Ted with a certain quizzical tenacity, and Ted smiled back in the same spirit. “It’s no secret to him that I still have a very lively interest in seeing that whatever changes are made, whatever withdrawals or rearrangements are worked out, should be done with the best interests of the United States in mind. I think he agrees. We’ve had some talks about it in the last few days, and I’m satisfied he is basically just as concerned as I am with the safety and preservation of this nation. Campaign oratory and campaign supporters sometimes get a little more dramatic and arbitrary than things can afford to be in actual practice. Isn’t that right, Governor?”

  Ted nodded.

  “That’s right. I don’t suppose I will be believed or get much credit for it, in this room, but in my first talk with Roger Croy after he became the Vice-Presidential nominee, I said that we must get out of Gorotoland, but we must do it in a way that would not jeopardize the strategic interests of the United States or the strategic balance in Africa. And I said that we must try to work out an arrangement in Panama that would respect the wishes of the Panamanian people and at the same time protect our own security and interest in the Canal. So I’m not as rabid about it as some of my supporters—” he smiled—“or maybe even some of my campaign oratory would lead you to believe. I doubt if it will be 180 degrees, Bob. More like 90, I suspect. Or even 75.”

  “But, Governor!” Justice Davis said in a tone of such open dismay that they all looked at him, startled. “Mr. President-elect! How can you say such a thing? How can you go to the voters, as you did, on a complete anti-war platform, accept their votes, accept your victory—which has come to you in a spirit of complete good faith on their part—and then turn right around and indicate that you’re going to make a mockery of their good faith and betray their trust? I beg of you, Governor—you must not do it! How can you? You must not!”

  A silence followed his words and into it Bob Leffingwell uttered one crisp word:

  “Exactly.”

  “Well,” Ted Jason said after a moment, and he spoke with a careful slowness, “you must understand, Mr. Justice, that there are ways of doing things which are more—subtle—than the words that describe them, perhaps. There are also many different ways of doing things. Now, it is entirely possible that things could be worked out in such a way that even a change of government in Gorotoland would not, in the long run, be hostile to us—that we could help to bring it about in such a way that whoever took control would do so with a friendly feeling toward us and that we could thus have good friends who were not reactionary or illiberal or dictatorial, and who at the same time would be friendly toward our attempts to maintain the strategic balance in Africa. By the same token, it could well be that we could accept a change of control in Panama, but do it with such friendliness and encouragement of the liberal forces led by my brother-in-law that they likewise would emerge feeling friendly and cooperative toward us in our desire to maintain free passage of the Canal.

  “You see, I believe these things can be done. I don’t believe everything has to be a head-to-head confrontation. I think we can concede a great deal, and in the very fact of doing so emerge with strengthened friendship and strengthened ties with those who are now our enemies around the globe. That is how I see it.”

  And once again, though heavily and moodily this time, Bob Leffingwell said:

  “Exactly … Governor,” he said, shifting in his chair. “Ted—do you really believe that? Do you really, honestly think that we can assist Obifumatta’s Communist-backed movement to take control in Gorotoland and have him give us anything in return? Do you really, honestly think that if we assist Felix in Panama, he will have anything but contempt for us as a result? In fact, do you really, honestly think that the Communists would allow either Obi or Felix to stay in power for a year, or even a month perhaps, after their forces take control?” He shook his head in a baffled, uncomprehending way. “Obviously you really do believe that. I wonder on what grounds?”

  “I, too, wonder that,” the President said somberly, “especially when I have shown you the evidence. I really do wonder.”

  “I don’t wonder,” Tommy Davis said triumphantly. “I think it is a most farseeing, worthy and noble spirit in which to approach world problems. I think it is truly Christian and wonderful. I think it will succeed because it is the good-hearted desire of a good-hearted man. And after all: doesn’t he already have the personal pledge of the new leader of the Soviet Union to cooperate in a genuine attempt to achieve world peace? You don’t have that pledge, Mr. President. You don’t have it, Bob. I don’t have it. But the next President of the United States does. Suppose you were he, having received such a pledge. Wouldn’t you be optimistic and finally, at last, freed from the fears that have dogged this country and plagued the world for a generation?”

  “If you’re asking me,” the President said tartly, “I’d be damned suspicious and scared to death.”

  “Well,” Ted Jason said quietly, “I am not. In the last analysis, that is what I place my faith in. I was reasonably optimistic before, but when I received his letter in San Francisco that night I decided that it came in good faith and I must accept it in good faith. And suddenly the way grew clear and I stopped worrying so much. Because, after all—how could he put himself on record that way, before the whole world, unless he intended to keep faith with me? The reaction of the world would be too violent if he betrayed me. The damage to him and his country would be too great. He wouldn’t dare.”

  “Ted,” the President said in a voice that combined the explosive and the hopeless in a barely controlled mixture, “Governor—Mr. President-elect—Mr. President—for God’s sake look at the world as it exists, will you? Just look at it! Let me take you around the globe in two minutes and show you what your friend is up to, behind his pretty words.

  “Take Gorotoland. I showed you the intelligence reports on the build-up that threatens to overwhelm the country again the minute the Communists think they can get away with it. That has not ceased
since Vasily Tashikov took over. It has increased.

  “Take Panama. I showed you the intelligence reports that prove the conspiracy that is waiting to assassinate Felix Labaiya the minute he has finished his job for them. Those plans have not been scrapped since Tashikov took over. They have been perfected further.

  “Take the Middle East. I can show you other intelligence reports that prove the conspiracies that wait to take over Egypt and the Arab world the instant the time seems propitious. Tashikov has ordered them stepped up.

  “Take the Far East. I can show you the intelligence reports that document the build-up for a pre-emptive strike against China the minute Moscow thinks it can get away with it. It continues, with Tashikov’s cooperation and approval.

  “Take India. I can show you the reports on the conspiracy that waits to take over there. Tashikov approves.

  “Take South America. There are a dozen reports on a dozen countries there. Tashikov approves.

  “Take our own situation vis-à-vis the Soviets. You have already seen the reports on relative military strength and the desperate situation we are in—and will continue to be in, unless you build up our defenses just as fast as you can. And look at the reports I get about domestic subversion, about elements in your own campaign—” he held up his hand at Ted’s movement of protest—“yes, elements in your own campaign that you won’t believe and won’t do anything about. Take the report that is coming soon on the death of President Hudson, the death of Orrin Knox, the death—” Ted flinched but the President drove inexorably on—“if you will forgive me, but this is no time to be gentle, of your own wife. Take the reports on all the deliberate disruptions around the globe all the time, from these little pinpricks in Alaska on the fishing question to the latest riot against an American embassy someplace this morning—I don’t know where, yet, but I’m sure there’s been one—this constant, incessant drive to stir up every trouble that can possibly be stirred up, inflame every hatred that can possibly be inflamed, destroy every hope of peace that can possibly be destroyed, because war is the climate they thrive in and peace is the last thing they want. They couldn’t live with real peace in the world. It would destroy them.…