by Allen Drury
“Now, we are not so sure.
“It may be happening here. There were episodes during the campaign that the public knew about—and private incidents that never reached print. Now come these latest events surrounding the President’s departure for Moscow. Hard on their heels comes the announcement by Senator Van Ackerman, one of NAWAC’s most powerful leaders, that he no longer opposes the dangerous and ill-advised ‘anti-riot bill’ that died in the last session of Congress. Now he favors it and will introduce a new version with ‘amendments and perfections’ to give the government ‘ironclad control’ of public meetings.
“Whose public meetings?
“And why?
“President Jason has more on his mind at this moment than any mortal man should have to bear. But when he returns home, we respectfully urge, he should have one overriding priority: to break completely with NAWAC once and forever, and to repudiate the vicious, inexcusable and desperately dangerous Van Ackerman bill.”
And now, he thought, tearing the paper out of the typewriter with a sudden savage motion, you do your damndest, you bastardly sons of bitches.
But the defiance did not last long, as he rose and went again to the window to stare far down “Salubria’s” softly rolling acres. It was succeeded by something that had happened very, very rarely to Walter Dobius. The last time had been three months ago when he had visited the grave of his estranged former wife Helen-Anne Carrew, society columnist for the Washington Star-News, assassinated because she was getting too close to what lay at the heart of NAWAC and its influence on the Jason campaign.
Not since then had tears come into his eyes.
“I don’t care if you burn the whole place down,” he cried out suddenly, weeping because he knew he didn’t mean it, it would kill him to have “Salubria” destroyed. But the tears of anger and anguish were coming now because he realized finally that he had to write these things, he had to. Tommy was right, they had all been responsible for what was happening, and he more than a great many, for he had held much greater influence and power.
Like many already in this unhappy hour for the United States, and like many more yet to come, Walter Dobius was one of the proud, self-confident and arrogant whom the Presidency of Edward M. Jason was forcing to face themselves, at last.
Rising at 8 a.m. London time, partially rested but still not really refreshed, he found Walter’s anguished urgings among the many journals and commentaries transmitted to the embassy for his perusal from all over the world. He skimmed it rapidly, tossed it aside; the smallest of grimly ironic little smiles touched his lips. Across his desk the screaming headlines sprawled, describing his speech, the disturbance, his departure. Here and there he saw concern like Walters, but mostly he saw, particularly in the world press, an almost unanimous tendency to minimize the dissent and concentrate instead on his journey.
Miraculously, even in Russia and her satellites, even in China, Africa and Asia, he saw very little contempt for his journey as such. On the contrary, he sensed a great relief, as though they had not been quite sure but what he would do something drastic and dreadful. He was behaving as they wanted him to, and in return they were sensible enough to give him praise. There was almost no reminder that he was going under threat, almost no hint that this could be considered humiliation, hardly a word to convey anything other than that the world wholeheartedly admired, respected and applauded his patience, his statesmanship, his good will and his determination to work for peace.
At his elbow the Secretary of State picked up Walter’s column as the President tossed it aside, and read it through. Then he remarked quietly,
“I’m afraid that for once I find myself agreeing with Walter, Mr. President. Your decision still stands? You still don’t feel you should issue a statement deploring the riot and criticizing NAWAC?”
The President looked up with a sudden sharp impatience, and Bob Leffingwell felt a little shiver of genuine fear, because for the first time since he had known him, there was an expression almost vindictive in Edward M. Jason’s eyes.
“Those dissenters did their best to ruin my departure and cast a shadow on the whole trip,” he said with a harshness that brooked no argument and accepted no answer. “I don’t find it possible to feel very sorry for them.”
Forty-five minutes later the helicopter had taken them to Heathrow and they were airborne for Moscow in Air Force One.
It was not a particularly talkative journey. Frequently during its silences Robert A. Leffingwell found himself staring down moodily at the farmlands of Eastern Europe speeding away beneath.
O my President, he thought; and after a while, with a deep, profound and growing sadness, O my country.
In Moscow the reception was very formal, very cold. The President of the Soviet Union, a tired old party hack looking ostentatiously grim and unyielding, met the American party. The Foreign Minister and five minor, unidentified officials accompanied him. Tashikov was nowhere to be seen. One American flag and twenty Russian flew in the subarctic breeze that the small accompanying corps of twenty American newsmen blamed, in their reports, for cutting the ceremonies short. But they knew what Edward Jason knew: nothing in the weather cut the ceremonies short. They were short. President Jason shook the old man’s hand, the old man shook his. President Jason started to read a prepared statement, the old man cut him off with an impatient wave of the hand. One small ten-piece military band played the two national anthems, the Russian first. Then the American delegation was led to waiting limousines and rushed away to the Kremlin through snow-piled, carefully empty streets.
That night there was a “working dinner” between the American President and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and their aides, lasting until 10 p.m. After that the aides were dismissed and the two men continued alone. Newsmen were not given access either before or after to any of the principals and spent their evening at the National Hotel getting progressively more drunk and progressively more worried. At 4 a.m. they were notified that the meeting was over and were told to go to bed. At 7 a.m. they were roused from uneasy sleep and told to get ready as fast as they could, the American party would be departing Moscow at 9 a.m. Baffled and deeply troubled, they filed hasty bulletins and complied.
At the airport they were hustled aboard the plane by blank-faced Soviet soldiers prior to the arrival of the President. Shortly thereafter another limousine whirled up with the Secretary of State, the Speaker and the Senate Majority Leader. Peering out, the reporters could see that all three looked grim and openly worried. Seconds later the last limousine rolled up through the now lightly falling snow. The door opened and the President stepped out, followed by Vasily Tashikov, his wiry little figure and clever little face peering owlishly up at the President who towered above him.
It was very obvious that the Chairman was smug, triumphant, almost openly jubilant. It was equally obvious that the President was ashen, shaken, so profoundly depressed that he made only the most perfunctory of attempts to conceal it. Tashikov shook his hand fulsomely, laughed merrily, said some last thing no one heard. The President blinked and shook his head as though trying to clear it of some heavy weight, managed a small nod in return. He turned and started up the steps of the plane. He did not turn back to wave. His eyes met those of the watching reporters in the after cabin. They felt, as the New York Times expressed it in a hushed whisper shortly after they were airborne, as though they had seen a man coming out of Hell.
The official communiqué was issued simultaneously two hours later in both capitals and at the United Nations. It told the world nothing of what it wanted to know.
“Following a conference held in Moscow between the President of the United States and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, the President and the Chairman are pleased to announce that many outstanding differences between their two countries have been settled. Further explorations of those problems still outstanding will be held at a mutually agreed date in the near future.
“The Chairman
of the Council of Ministers wishes to state on behalf of the Soviet Union that he is satisfied his country’s objectives in the search for world peace have, in major degree, been achieved.
“The President of the United States reserves the right to comment on these matters at a future date.”
But no future date was given, and this time there were no plans for a speech to Congress or a press conference. At Andrews the President and his party were hurried directly from Air Force One to a helicopter. The media were kept back. No reporter was allowed to come close or interrogate. Telescopic lenses zeroed in on the somber faces of somber men, none of whom bothered to try to smile or pretend cheerfulness. On the White House lawn when the helicopter landed, newsmen pushed with sheer weight of numbers through the protective police lines. “Mr. President—” many of them cried as the guards hurriedly pushed them back. A haggard man gave them a haggard glance from haggard eyes.
“Get away and leave me alone!” he snapped in a voice so savage they recoiled as if physically struck. They did not dare venture further word nor did he and his party offer any as they walked hurriedly into the Diplomatic Entrance and disappeared.
Around the world speculation bloomed, blossomed, raced, roared.
In the United States of America, palpable fear was suddenly everywhere.
***
BOOK THREE
1
Promptly on the convening of the Senate at noon the next day, Senate 1776, “A Bill to Strengthen the United States Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic,” was introduced by Fred Van Ackerman. Its identical companion, House of Representatives 1776, was introduced a few minutes later by youthful Representative Bronson Bernard of New York. They referred to it in their brief joint statement as “the Help America Act.” The media instantly picked up the phrase, which was handy, colloquial, had immediate recognition value, and looked and fitted well in headlines. By nightfall opponents led by ex-President William Abbott, ex-Senate Majority Leader Robert D. Munson and Minority Leader Warren Strickland had begun to call it “the dictatorship bill.” But the positive emphasis of the words “Help America,” with their appeal to patriotism in a deeply troubled time, had already given it a substantial advantage in the public mind. This advantage, however, did not extend to a great many thoughtful citizens. Thus the stage was set for a tense and extraordinarily bitter debate.
By the same nightfall the impression was beginning to seep into the national consciousness and across the world that there were to be no immediate dramatic consequences of the Moscow meeting (unless, as some were beginning to suspect, S. 1776 was a consequence). Sporadic Soviet-supported fighting continued through the day in Gorotoland and Panama under the new anti-American governments. The airlift of American prisoners apparently was continuing to flow into Kiev. Word came in from Alaska that three American fishing vessels, though not sunk, had been driven back into Anchorage when they tried to venture out, by a Russian trawler now openly armed with weaponry sophisticated beyond the knowledge of American intelligence.
In Lafayette Square a new and much larger anti-Jason crowd assembled during the afternoon. This time many of its members were fully armed. They constantly shouted warning threats across Pennsylvania Avenue to the rows of NAWAC guards who stood along the White House fence, openly and successfully defying the police who tried, in a gingerly and cajoling fashion, to persuade them to move on. At 6 p.m. a line of army tanks rolled down Pennsylvania Avenue, closed it to vehicular traffic, and took up position between the two contending factions.
In seven cities across the country from New York to San Francisco, impromptu parades of protesters, carrying signs denouncing the President, clashed bloodily with NAWAC and others supporting him.
An anxious clamor that he address the nation, led by those who had been his most ardent and active supporters, began to rise in the media. But no word, save a terse announcement by the press secretary at 7 p.m. that telegrams and telephone calls were running 4 to 3 in his favor, issued from the hooded Mansion. Shots of its brooding, floodlit front, looking somehow suddenly awesome and forbidding, appeared frequently on television. No word came from the man inside, though he was receiving many words and many more were being said of him as uneasy day crept slowly into frightened night.
“Bob,” William Abbott said, and the Secretary of State could tell from his expression on the Picturephone that he was in no mood to accept any nonsense, “I want you to level with me. What in the hell happened in Moscow?”
“Mr. President,” Bob Leffingwell said, “—Bill: I’m damned if I know. And that’s the God’s truth. You heard it exactly as it went. Arly, Jawbone, Ewan and I accompanied the President to Tashikov’s office. Tashikov was flanked by the Foreign Minister and the Minister of Defense. They looked grim and so did we. There were no courtesies exchanged. Tashikov launched into a tirade that lasted almost an hour about all our crimes and sins of commission and omission. I would say it was about one-half show and one-half genuine indignation. The President replied at almost equal length—”
“How was he?” Bill Abbott interrupted. “Show any guts?”
“Oh, yes,” the Secretary said. “In fairness to him, he was calm, unhurried, polite and firm. And also, at that point, unafraid. He seems to have been supported by some inner vision these last few days—”
The ex-President interrupted again.
“Is he supported by it now?”
“I don’t know,” Bob Leffingwell said gravely. “He is a very badly shaken man, that’s for sure. Anyway, after this exchange of pleasantries, Tashikov abruptly dismissed his men and indicated with a gesture I can only describe as arrogant, impatient and unpleasant, that the President do the same. The President started to protest but Tashikov looked around with an elaborately sarcastic air at the empty seats on his side of the table and then gave the President a deliberately insolent stare. So after a moment the President gave in. I suppose you could say Tashikov shamed him into it, but there really wasn’t much he could have done, under the circumstances. So we left them alone and were shown back to our quarters. Four hours later we were awakened and told to be ready for departure at 9 a.m. He remained in his cabin for the entire trip and did not speak to any of us. We barely spoke to one another. It was a somber journey.”
“Has he seen any of you since?”
“Arly, Roger and Jawbone briefly—”
“Probably to prepare this hell’s brew we have up here now,” Bill Abbott snorted. “By God, I tell you, Bob … and who else did he see? Surely he’s given you and Ewan at least a nod during the day?”
“He had us in at 4 p.m. for about fifteen minutes. His instructions were vague and he didn’t seem to focus very well on what he was saying. He gave us no idea what happened after we left. He gave us, really, no idea of where we go from here. Right now I’m afraid we’re drifting, Bill—an obviously shaken President—a brand-new Cabinet whose members hardly know each other yet—and nobody in charge.”
“The senior member of the Cabinet ought to carry a little weight,” the ex-President said. “Don’t let Roger grab the wheel.”
“I have some ideas,” the Secretary of State said firmly. “I don’t intend to, if I can help it.… What’s going to happen in your bailiwick?”
The plain, massive old face before him twisted in a savage, almost despairing, grimace.
“Have you read this monstrosity yet?”
“I saw the text in the Star-News. It is monstrous.”
“You’re damned right it is. ‘Help America,’ my hat! Destroy America is more like it. First we have all the features of the old anti-riot bill—”
“Which you yourself proposed,” the Secretary could not resist. William Abbott shook his head with an angry impatience.
“Only to scare NAWAC, you know that I never intended to push it at all, otherwise that little monster Van Ackerman wouldn’t have been able to filibuster against it for ten minutes, let alone twenty hours. I’d have crushed him in an hour with the Congress we h
ad then.”
“Which isn’t,” Bob Leffingwell pointed out, “the Congress we have now.”
“The Congress we have now will do anything,” Bill Abbott said darkly. “It’s composed of kids, kooks and incipient Ku-Kluxers out to lynch everyone who doesn’t agree with them 100 per cent. Such is the noble dispensation that rode in on the Jason coattails, conditioned by many years of careful education and propaganda to consider the Russians just kindly old bears and their own country history’s most nauseating villain. Quite a job they’ve done on us in these past few decades, Robert; quite a job. Anyway, such is the Congress, as you know, and such is the bill we now have before us. Except that Freddy has tightened it up a bit. You now have the restrictions on public meetings, plus a couple of nice new phrases that lay us wide open to an absolute dictatorship and no kidding.
“‘In order to preserve domestic peace and tranquility, the Attorney General is empowered to establish and administer a new ‘Special Branch’—why do police states love that term ‘Special Branch,’ I wonder? So many of them seem to use it—and this ‘Special Branch’ is to work ‘in close conjunction and cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Central Intelligence Agency, the intelligence branches of the respective military services, and any and all other governmental or private agencies engaged in the collection of data concerning American citizens.’ The purpose of this ‘collaboration’ is so that the Special Branch may ‘more speedily and effectively meet the threat posed to democracy by citizens found, suspected or deemed to be, subversive to the best interests of the government of the United States.’
“‘Found’ to be by whom?” he demanded with a sudden surge of anger. ‘Suspected’ to be, by whom? ‘Deemed to be’ by whom? ‘Best interests of the government of the United States’ as determined by whom? I tell you, Bob, this thing is dreadful. Dreadful. And in addition to that we have censorship proposed too, as our friends in the media are desperately, and I’m afraid too late, beginning to realize.