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

by Allen Drury

  Applause rose again, wholehearted, encouraging, approving: they, too, or at least most of them, had faith in Vasily Tashikov.

  “So I go,” the President said, “secure in your affection and secure in your support—both here in the Congress and, I like to think, throughout the country.”

  “Yes!” someone shouted, and applause welled again,

  “I do not go thinking it will be easy, or comfortable, or even, at times—” and he smiled, a wry but confident smile—“even pleasant. But I go convinced that it must be done. Not because I and my country have been threatened. Not because I am giving in to what might appear to be bullying tactics. Not because I believe that we will suffer any dire consequences if I do not go. But just because it seems to me the simple—and the honest—and the trustworthy—and the decent—thing to do. Just because I believe in world peace (“Eight,” said UPI.) and just because I believe there are decent men in Russia who believe in it too; and because I believe that together we can work out our differences and resolve our disputes and, honoring one another’s genuine interests and the need of all men everywhere for a steady and a stable world, arrive with honor at an accommodation that will permit us all to live in harmony, in friendship and in peace.”

  “Nine, and the ball game,” UPI told AP as they leaned together over the gallery railing to watch the President, directly below, close his loose-leaf notebook and raise his arms, fingers of both hands forming the V for victory, in answer to the tremendous roar that met the conclusion of his speech. Again the cameras noted that some few sour and skeptical souls did not applaud. But they were quickly brushed aside as the cameras panned over the shouting, stamping, wildly applauding occupants of floor and galleries. Inside the Capitol it was Edward M. Jason a thousand to one. Outside was another matter.

  “Hello, New York, hello, New York,” the young network reporter said insistently to his intercom from his vantage point near the steps of the East Front. “God damn it. New York, I’m telling you there’s trouble here.… I don’t give a God damn if they gave him an ovation inside, I tell you there are people out here who don’t like him and they mean business. The damned right-wing reactionaries are organized out here and so are the NAWAC people. There’s going to be one hell of a fight the minute he comes out. I don’t give a good God damn if the whole farting Congress is shaking hands and saying goodbye, I need at least three cameramen out here right now. Oh, God damn it, don’t argue! I’m here, and I know what I’m talking about! Hurry!”

  But neither in New York nor anywhere else where the shrewd purveyors of the instant’s happenings directed their far-flung and, as in this instance, sometimes anguished cadres, was there any anticipation of what would happen when the President appeared on the balcony of the East Front to begin the long walk down the gently inclining steps to the cleared parking area and his waiting helicopter. Certainly Edward M. Jason himself was probably the least prepared of all, for the cameramen who were running along beside his official party did manage to capture one thing—quickly banished from the screens, destroyed, and never shown again anywhere—the expression of utter disbelief, disorientation and dismay that momentarily crossed his face as there came from somewhere a loud, harsh, angry, obviously well-organized roar of hostility and contempt.

  It was followed at once by a concerted rush from somewhere to the right among the trees. Slipping and sliding over the icy ground came perhaps three hundred men and women, some carrying banners which, hastily glimpsed, seemed to indicate that not all his countrymen loved Edward Jason or approved of his actions since taking office.

  STOP BETRAYING AMERICA! demanded one. DON’T BE A COWARD—FIGHT MOSCOW! insisted another. MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE, a third appealed to history, BUT NOT ONE CENT FOR TRIBUTE! NO RUSSIAN BLACKMAIL! urged a fourth, and HELL, NO, DON’T GO! demanded a fifth.

  Frantic, red-faced, not so well organized as the young TV reporter had thought but obviously in desperate earnest, the little crowd continued to stumble forward over the treacherous icy pavement. The Secret Servicemen around the President instantly closed ranks. One group of Capitol and District police formed a cordon to rush him and his traveling companions to the already revving helicopter. Another group formed a line to face the oncoming protesters who, their gesture made, now began to hesitate and waver. But from around the other side of the steps came a response far more effective. Black-suited, black-helmeted, perhaps no more than fifty in number but carrying guns, clubs and grenades, completely organized and ready, came what could only, now, be called a detachment of the troops of NAWAC.

  “Get us out of here!” the President snapped to the head of the Secret Service detail, and in less than two minutes they were airborne and looking back down upon a steadily receding mass of struggling little figures, dark against the snowy esplanade in front of the Capitol.

  Over the beautiful building the beautiful flag flew briskly in the cutting wind as they swung away north and east toward Andrews Air Force Base. Behind them they left a new hemorrhaging from the disease upon whose likely disappearance Edward M. Jason had congratulated himself, perhaps a bit too soon, more than two months ago.

  TWO DEAD, DOZENS BEATEN AS NAWAC “TROOPS” BATTLE PROTESTERS AFTER PRESIDENT’S SPEECH. BLOODY RIOT ERUPTS AT CAPITOL AS RIGHT-WING GROUPS OPPOSE MOSCOW TRIP. PRESIDENT’S FAREWELL MARRED BY OUTBREAK AS CONGRESS, NATIONAL LEADERS UNITE IN HAILING “JOURNEY FOR PEACE.” FURTHER PLANNED DEMONSTRATIONS AT ANDREWS FORESTALLED BY THOUSAND-STRONG NAWAC “HONOR GUARD” RINGING PRESIDENTIAL DEPARTURE.

  VAN ACKERMAN TO INTRODUCE NEW ANTI-RIOT BILL TOMORROW. SENATOR SAYS “THIS SAVAGE OUTBREAK OF RIGHT-WING REACTIONARIES” HAS CONVINCED HIM TO ABANDON OPPOSITION, EMBRACE MEASURE TO GIVE GOVERNMENT VAST NEW PEACE-KEEPING POWERS. CHARGES NATION IN “STATE OF SEMI-WAR” AGAINST POLITICAL DISSENTERS OPPOSING PRESIDENT. HINTS HE WILL PROPOSE “AMENDMENTS AND PERFECTIONS” TO GIVE ADMINISTRATION IRONCLAD CONTROL OF ALL PUBLIC MEETINGS. OPPOSITION EXPECTED FROM CONGRESS CONSERVATIVES.

  “It is possible to heartily applaud the President’s courage and the course he is following,” Walter Dobius wrote rapidly in the study at “Salubria” later that afternoon, “while at the same time deploring the excessive zeal with which his supporters, particularly in the ranks of NAWAC, seem to be treating all who raise any question about it.

  “This does not, it seems to this correspondent, aid the cause of democracy at home, nor does it really strengthen the President for the overwhelmingly difficult tasks he faces, now and in the days ahead.

  “This is a time for deep and fervent prayer for the Chief Executive in all the troubles he must resolve. It is also a time to remind him most respectfully that he has the sincere and heartfelt support of vast numbers—indeed the overwhelming majority, still—of his countrymen. If there are those who disagree, that is their privilege. Patient education and the accretion of loyalty based upon understanding are the means to win them over. These are the only means, it seems likely, consistent with the democratic heritage of these United States.”

  He paused for a moment to stare out, hardly seeing, upon the gentle white-clad hills and valleys of lovely Virginia. “These United States” indeed! When had he last used that corny old phraseology? It must have been twenty years ago, at least. Why was he reverting now to such unsophisticated, such hayseed rhetoric? He had noticed this tendency in his columns more than once in the past few weeks; a sort of harking back, as it were, a sentimental return, to an old-fashioned way of thinking about the country that he had not seriously entertained in decades. He had noted it also in the works of his closest colleagues, and he knew they were thinking, as he was, of their conversation prior to the election, and of the troublesome hidden events of the campaign. He knew they were all uneasy and disturbed. And he knew the events of the past three days had done nothing to allay the uneasiness or remove the disturbance, even though all of them were still loyally, in printed word or spoken message or carefully selected photograph, giving their support to Edward M. Jason in this most difficult
and frightening hour.

  But not all the frightening things right now were overseas, Walter knew,; and he knew that many of his old friends and comrades of the genuinely liberal cause were aware of it too. Only a couple of hours ago, after the busy cameras had brought the tragic details of the catastrophe at the Capitol (which had begun, he was sure, innocently and earnestly on the part of the protesters, only to be turned deliberately by black-jacketed bullies into something dreadful and savage, in a moment’s time), he had received a call from one worried old friend.

  “Walter!” Mr. Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis had said abruptly, his anxious little face staring urgently from the Picturephone. “Which of us will they try to murder next?”

  “Who, Tommy?” he had asked, although he knew.

  “NAWAC!” Tommy Davis said. “Those thugs, those despicable, worthless people! Walter, mark my words: they will be after the press next, and they will be after the Court, too. None of us is going to be safe if they are permitted to run on unchecked.”

  “You saw Freddie Van Ackerman’s statement,” Walter said dryly. “He’s going to put in a bill to take care of all that. It will stop public disturbances.”

  “Absolutely unconstitutional,” Tommy Davis said sharply. “Absolutely!”

  “I haven’t heard the Attorney General or the President denouncing it yet,” Walter observed, still dryly. “Although, of course, there hasn’t been time. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

  “They had better,” Mr. Justice Davis said, an unusual and uncharacteristic harshness in his voice. “They had better, because if it ever comes up to the Court—and it will very swiftly if it passes, I’ll predict—I shall certainly vote against it. And I think the rest of us will too.”

  “We may be borrowing trouble unnecessarily, Tommy. It may not even get through Congress. Perhaps we shouldn’t worry.”

  “This Congress?” Justice Davis asked with a snort. “Anything will get through this Congress. They scare me to death. Aren’t you scared, Walter?”

  “Yes,” Walter Dobius said, and he looked at his old friend without equivocation or evasion. “Yes, Tommy, I am. I don’t like this re-emergence of NAWAC. I thought it was a campaign phenomenon that had been buried and forgotten. I don’t like the President’s way of handling that subject, and I don’t really like his way of handling the Russians, although of course I can’t say that in my column. I approve of his patience and his refusal to be thrown off base by it—if that’s really what his attitude indicates—but I do not approve of his apparent refusal to fight vigorously to place our side of it before the world. He’s doing something no smart world leader ever does—he’s letting the enemy make the record. And that’s no good, Tommy. That’s really no good.”

  “Do you suppose he’s afraid of NAWAC?” the little Justice asked hesitantly, as though the thought was so awful it should not even be mentioned. Walter frowned.

  “I don’t really know,” he said thoughtfully. “But I have a hunch the two are related—or soon will be—or, in fact, are already, given this thing at the Capitol today and that farewell scene at Andrews. ‘The NAWAC honor guard!’ An American President going off between a row of storm troopers! I never saw anything like it in my life.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose he could really control it, could he?” Tommy suggested in the same hesitant way. “I mean, in fairness—maybe, suddenly, there they were, and what could he do? He couldn’t stop and make a scene, he was on his way to the plane, and so—”

  “And so they just took him over, by default,” Walter Dobius said somberly. “It’s happened in other countries. I think he should have made a scene, Tommy. I think he should have delayed the plane right there and ordered the Army to clear the area and not departed until it was cleared. He wasn’t in all that much of a hurry. And if that makes me sound like a damned reactionary,” he added as the little Justice gave him a sudden startled look, “then I’m afraid that’s what I may be turning into. I am, as you say, getting scared.”

  “Of course, though,” Justice Davis said with a typical quick, reviving optimism, “we have to remember that NAWAC does represent what you and I believe, basically. It is against war, and it is for a peaceful accommodation with the Russians, and it does support the President, who is trying to keep the world at peace. We have to remember all those things, Walter. It does represent the liberal point of view, basically.”

  “I’m beginning to think it doesn’t represent my kind of liberalism.” Walter said slowly. “Nor yours, either, really. We don’t believe, for instance, in killing our opponents. I may write harsh columns and you may hand down tough decisions, but we do it in the context of this democracy, not in the way this NAWAC crowd is doing things. We give the conservatives hell, and they give us hell, but there’s a basic tolerance and a basic compromise, a basic compassion, if you like, for each other’s views. At least we’re fair-minded.”

  “Have we always been, Walter?” Tommy Davis asked quietly. “Really, now? Haven’t we been just as rigid and just as arbitrary and, in our way, just as ruthless as NAWAC? Haven’t we opened the door to this, over the years, by being too willing to forgive excesses as long as they agreed with our point of view?”

  “Isn’t that what you were just doing?” Walter Dobius demanded with some indignation. “You were just defending NAWAC, Tommy, not I! Be consistent, now!”

  “Yes,” Justice Davis said with a sigh, “you’re right, Walter, as always: I am just rationalizing. But I think I have a point. They are bad—very bad. And we did help to open the way for them, and so I think it’s up to genuine liberals like us, more perhaps than to others, to be in the forefront of the fight to stop them and bring them under control again.”

  “You interrupted a column in which I was about to say just that,” Walter remarked.

  “Oh, my goodness, I’m sorry!” the Justice said, and his face was quite comical in its dismay. Walter smiled, somewhat grimly.

  “No, I’m glad you called, because you’ve helped to clarify my thinking.… I think,” he said, and his eyes were suddenly distant and in-turned as if foreseeing many things, “that we have some difficult battles ahead, in this old Republic. I think we’re rapidly getting to the time—with an insane rapidity, really, so much has changed in three long days—when men must show their colors.”

  “I shall do so on the Court,” Tommy Davis said stoutly.

  “And I, and I think most of our friends,” Walter agreed, “on the printed page and on the air. I just have one nagging question at the back of my mind.”

  “So do I,” Justice Davis confessed, and after a moment, with a candor almost defiant, stated it. “What colors will he show?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But of course,” Tommy added quickly, “he has so much on his mind, Walter. We must be patient. We must be tolerant. We must be understanding. We must help him. He has so many things.”

  “I wish he’d say something about NAWAC,” Walter replied glumly. “I really do, Tommy. I’d feel a lot, lot better.”

  “Maybe he will,” Justice Davis said comfortingly. “Give him time.”

  “He should have already!” Walter snapped, an odd desperation in his voice. “Timing is what escapes this man—the sheer importance of timing. He’s letting everything slide out from under him because he doesn’t understand timing.”

  “He’s hopeful,” Tommy Davis said, somewhat forlornly. “He hopes. It always used to be important, to be hopeful.”

  “It is now,” Walter agreed grimly, preparing to end the conversation. “But hope needs help.”

  And so he urged, as he turned back now from the empty countryside to his column, things that he might not otherwise have urged. They were things which represented chance—taking of whose dangers he was fully aware as he sat in beloved “Salubria.” But they were things he felt must be said, chances he felt must be taken. Already in the Post, the Times, The Greatest Publication, the networks, the newsweeklies, the note of warning to the President they had all wor
ked so hard to elect was becoming more and more open, more and more insistent. His own concluding paragraphs were strong, and in the new circumstances rapidly arising in the country, dangerous, but he felt with a curious, suddenly reckless defiance that he would not be true to twenty-five years of being Walter Dobius, Molder of Thought, if he did not state them.

  “And so,” he wrote, “it seems to this correspondent, as it seems to many of us who have for many years professed and, we believe, stoutly defended and maintained, the true liberal faith, that another profoundly grave matter waits upon the President for decision.

  “Heartily as we applaud his patience with the Russians, desperately as we believe that he must succeed in persuading them to abandon their present military follies, we yet cannot refrain from expressing another worry, equally deep, here at home.

  “We do not agree with NAWAC’s presumptuous attempt to ‘capture the President,’ in a sense. We do not agree that its members have any right to appoint themselves guardians of his policies or guardians of his person. We think he is encouraging a most dangerous and un-American (There I go again, he thought) trend when he does not speak out at once and repudiate their attempts.

  “For years this correspondent, like so many of his friends, has been persistent and unrelenting in warning against the fascism of the right. We have been equally scornful of what has seemed to us a smokescreen term, a right-winger’s bugaboo, a deliberately thought-confusing expression—‘the fascism of the left.’ We have not thought such a thing was possible, and particularly not in America.