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

by Allen Drury

  “‘In order to create a more favorable public climate for the solution of foreign and domestic problems confronting the government of the United States,’ there will be established a ‘Domestic Tranquility Board’ which will ‘advise, suggest and encourage’ a ‘positive, constructive and affirmative approach on the part of all sectors of the nation toward the policies deemed necessary for the solution of such problems by the government of the United States.’ Again, ‘positive, constructive and affirmative’ by whose standards? Administered how in order to ‘advise, suggest and encourage?’ Violation of the regulations—not spelled out—of this ‘Domestic Tranquility Board’ to carry a penalty of $10,000 fine for each offense, and/or not less than one nor more than five years’ imprisonment in a ‘suitable place of detention.’ What ‘suitable place of detention’—an insane asylum, like our Communist friends, those vicious, awful people? I tell you, Bob, this one is a doozy. And I’m not at all sure we can lick it.”

  “You’re going to have some powerful help when the media finally get the message,” Bob Leffingwell said.

  “Why don’t we have some powerful support from him?” Bill Abbott demanded. “What kind of a President is he, to give such a measure his endorsement and backing?”

  “I’m sure he hasn’t,” Bob Leffingwell said mildly. “They slipped it over on him and he just hasn’t had time to rally and denounce it, what with everything else that’s been going on.”

  “He damned well better had,” Bill Abbott snapped. “He should have this afternoon, the minute it was put in. Anyway,” he added dourly, “it’s too late. Too late.”

  “You aren’t going to give up, I hope?” the Secretary asked in some alarm. The ex-President gave him a sharp, implacable look.

  “I certainly as hell am not. We’re mounting quite a battle plan up here. Roger recessed the Senate, you know, at Freddy’s request, almost immediately after the bill was put in, and Jawbone did the same on our side. So we couldn’t start the debate today, which they no doubt thought was smart. Actually it gives us until noon tomorrow to get organized—and for the full import of the bill to sink in to the country. We’re working on it. I’ve got Hal Knox and a few other old and new hands helping me here, and Bob Munson and Warren are hard at work over there. I think sentiment is roughly 60-40 against us at the moment in both houses, but there are a lot of parliamentary tricks we can use, and Bob and Warren are certainly going to use them in the Senate even if they don’t succeed over here.

  “Meanwhile, we’ll work on time. Time is what we want to achieve. Time is our ally, time is our friend. Time, time, time: the more we can manage, the more opposition we can build up in the country and the nearer we’ll come to success.…

  “But,” he said, and his voice sobered and grew lower, “time isn’t your friend down there, is it? Basically, I can’t see that a thing has been accomplished overseas. The longer time runs overseas without something from us, the worse off we’re going to be, aren’t we? What is the U.S. going to do, Bob? Got any ideas?”

  “Why don’t you try to see him?” the Secretary suggested. William Abbott dismissed it with a shrug.

  “Already have tried. He’s turned me down, speaking through George Wattersill, who obviously enjoyed every minute of it. Anyway, what could it add to what I’ve already said to him a hundred times? He knows where I stand.”

  “Somebody’s got to get him out of this lethargy,” Bob Leffingwell said with a sudden, almost angry insistence. “Somebody must.”

  “I suspect that the only one who might is dead. So he’s on his own, I guess.… Let’s see how it’s running in a day or two. Then if he hasn’t snapped out of it may be enough of us can get together to demand that he see us, and he won’t be able to refuse. Will you join us?”

  “Oh, yes,” Bob Leffingwell said quickly. “But in the meantime—”

  “Keep trying, you and Ewan,” Bill Abbott advised. “Sooner or later he’s got to snap out of it. Let’s hope to God it’s sooner.”

  But he did not know whether he could, as he slowly walked the second floor of the fabled old house, brooding and alone, nodding absent-mindedly to the guards, pausing from time to time to stare at the portraits of his predecessors hung in conspicuous places along the walls. Valuela and Selena had gone to New York to do some shopping together; Herbert was keeping a speaking engagement at the University of Chicago (“I am sure my nephew is doing what he believes to be right for the country,” he had declared stoutly on the early evening news, in a film clip taken during his arrival at O’Hare); Patsy had returned to Dumbarton Oaks to put things in order before leasing the house and moving into the Mansion as his official hostess. Only soldiers, secretaries and servants were around for company now, and although all were friendly, worried and sympathetic, none was really the kind of human contact he needed. None was a friend.

  He realized suddenly, as he turned on an impulse into the Queen’s Room and walked slowly to the windows overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue, that outside of his family he really had no friends—that he had never really had any, save one, since he had left Stanford. The standard Presidential crony who pops up—simple, rough-cut, unsophisticated—even, occasionally, a little crude—perfect counterpart to the suave, accomplished Presidential figure as they boat together, fish together, escape the madding crowd and enjoy the remote, well-photographed joys of nature together—did not pop up in his life, because there was none. The inner aloofness of the Jasons had been most pronounced in him, and only a few friends, transitory and not particularly intimate, had ever managed to break through. None had been quite the type who lasts to become, ultimately, the officially recognized Presidential Pal; nor, indeed, had he ever felt the need for one. He had always been confident, self-possessed, powerful, decisive, assured. He had always been in command of his world. Until now, when literally everything depended upon his retaining command, and when a friend he could really unburden himself to would be a benison beyond price.

  He had possessed one—just one; and the ache of her absence was sharper than he thought he could bear, as he raised the curtain and stared down at the somber line of tanks dividing the Avenue. The mobs had dispersed in considerable degree, without violence, but both in Lafayette Park and along the White House fence many of the antagonists were still arrayed. In the cold antiseptic glare of the street lights he could see the soldiers moving uneasily around their vehicles, the guards of NAWAC holding their ostentatiously rigid poses, the anti-Jason forces facing them across the way. An enormous placard meant for him caught his eye.

  ARE YOU ASLEEP? FOR GOD’S SAKE, DO SOMETHING.

  He let the curtain drop and turned back to resume his restless pacing of the silent halls. Do what, my friends? He wondered. If you knew what i know—

  But that way lay the dragon, and he must not let his mind go there again. It could only confuse him further. He could not afford to be confused. Or, at least, he could not afford to let those out there, and all the millions and billions over the globe whose clashing opinions they represented, know that he was confused.

  In due course, he supposed, he must speak to the nation. In due course he must decide what to do. In due course he must act. In due course he must be the president again, instead of what he was now, a lone and shattered man.

  In due course.

  But not now.

  Outside, America drifted.

  Inside, he drifted.

  He knew he must stop it, he knew he must take the one decisive action that might somehow turn today into yesterday—into some day prior to the time when, idealistic, well-meaning and thinking to play to the gallery of his ravenous supporters, he had deliberately yielded up all of his advantages.

  Somehow he must find his way back.

  But not now.

  “I think,” Beth Knox said quietly as they sat in a comfortable semicircle of chairs and sofas before a crackling fire in the enormous living room at “Vagaries,” the Munsons’ beautiful home in rock creek park, “that it’s time we
formed a committee. I think our side has got to do something and do it fast. It seems to me the best way is to organize, raise funds, form a speakers’ bureau, start advertising, focus public opinion. I think there’d be plenty of support for it around the country. Because we’ve got to stop it, you know. We’ve got to stop the bill, and we’ve got to show him that there’s a great segment of the nation that wants him to take a more forceful stand abroad.”

  “It’s so late,” Bob Munson said gloomily. “Things have moved so fast. But you’re right, of course. There’s got to be some counterweight.”

  “You wouldn’t get into the sort of thing NAWAC’s doing, would you?” Warren Strickland wondered. “We wouldn’t find our people arming because NAWAC’s armed, would we?”

  “Some of our people are already armed,” Lafe Smith pointed out unhappily. “I hate to see it, but if somebody comes at you with a gun, you don’t have too much choice, do you?”

  “But that isn’t America,” Crystal Knox protested.

  “What is America?” William Abbott asked moodily. “America is a fragile web that people have been trying to tear apart for a couple of decades, now. ‘The consent of the governed.’ That’s really all it is, you know—the consent of the governed. Once somebody realized that all you have to do is persuade enough of the governed to withhold their consent and you’ve got it made, then America began to change into something a lot different from what she had been. I hate to think of Americans taking up arms against each other, too, but they’ve started it, we haven’t.… My God!” he added with a sudden explosive bitterness. “What has that man got us talking about? Civil war?”

  “Suppression of dissent, I think,” Hal Knox said. “You come to power on a wave of dissent, proclaiming the right of dissent as loudly as you know how, and then once you get into power, you turn around and suppress dissent—when it’s against you. That’s the routine of it, and that’s what Jason’s little pals are up to right now. And he’s condoning it, if he isn’t openly pushing it.”

  “Maybe he is, with this damned bill,” Cullee Hamilton said. “‘Help America, but woe to you if you don’t go along with us.’ Why doesn’t he say something about it? He should have issued a statement against it the minute it was introduced. In fact, he should have prevented it from being introduced.”

  “In fairness to him,” Senator Strickland said, “he may not have known it would be.”

  “Van Ackerman certainly made no secret of it,” Lafe said sharply. “He announced his intention.”

  “But the President was involved with the Russians,” Warren Strickland pointed out mildly, “and, like all of us, he may have had no idea of what Fred really had in mind.”

  “But surely just the innate nature—just the simple conscience—of the American people will prevent such a thing from becoming law,” Dolly Munson said. “It’s unthinkable Congress could pass it.”

  “It would be unthinkable if two things happened,” William Abbott said. “If he opposed it—and if he reacted strongly and positively to the Russians. The two go together. As long as he doesn’t do anything about the Russians, protest and dissent are going to grow very rapidly. As long as protest and dissent grow very rapidly, Van Ackerman and NAWAC and the rest are going to be able to argue—and get real support for it—that protest and dissent are dangerous to the conduct of government in these parlous times, and therefore a law must be put on the books to control them. The two things dovetail very neatly.”

  “And both come back to him,” Beth Knox remarked quietly. “What is the matter? He seems paralyzed.”

  “I talked to Bob Leffingwell a while ago,” William Abbott said. “Bob thinks he may be. Nobody knows what went on in that conference with Tashikov. Maybe Tashikov threatened him with the end of the world.”

  “Even if he did,” Cullee said with some contempt, “Ted should have threatened back. You have to be tough with them, it’s all they honor, in the long run.”

  “Maybe this time we don’t have a tough President,” Senator Munson said softly, “and maybe they know that. But I agree: somehow we’ve got to force him to do something. What do you want to call your committee, Beth?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Beth said, and her eyes narrowed with the shrewdness that had always made the Knox team so politically formidable in Illinois, “that it might be called ‘In Defense of Liberty.’ Or if you prefer, ‘the IDL.’ How does that sound?”

  “No good,” William Abbott said promptly. “The next step would be to refer to it as ‘Idle.’ We certainly don’t intend to be that, I hope.”

  “All right,” Beth conceded with a smile. “I defer to superior judgment. What do you suggest?”

  “I don’t exactly know, now that you pin me down,” Bill Abbott said. “Lafe, you’re clever. Come up with something.”

  Lafe smiled.

  “Not very. And rarely on command. I think Beth’s got the germ of it.”

  “In Defense of Freedom,” Hal suggested. “The IDF. Not very swinging, but typical of us on this side—earnest, well-meaning, a little awkward, a little funny. But determined.”

  “Fine,” Bill Abbott said quickly. “And to chair it, who more fitting than the widow of—”

  “Oh, no,” Beth said hastily. “I’m not suggesting it for my own aggrandizement but because I think it’s something we’ve got to do. Who more fitting than the ex-President of the United States?”

  “Let’s make it a joint effort, then,” William Abbott said. “We need your name and most of all, your abilities. How about two co-chairmen—”

  “Might as well hit all the bases,” Cullee Hamilton said with a rather dry smile, “and I don’t say this for my own aggrandizement, or just because I’m black. On the other hand, you have that damned LeGage Shelby and COMFORT on the other side. Don’t you need a house nigger?”

  “Well,” Bill Abbott demurred as they all looked startled and somewhat embarrassed. “I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

  “I wouldn’t either,” Cullee agreed cheerfully, “but some will. Anyway, it makes sense, doesn’t it? And I’m not afraid to lay my convictions on the line. I want to, in fact. How about a triumvirate? You can handle the political and financial side of it, Beth can handle the women, I can talk to the minorities—”

  “Perfect,” Warren Strickland said and they all concurred with hearty approval.

  “Now all we need is two expensive floors on Connecticut Avenue,” Hal remarked, “and we’ve got it made.”

  “We’ll need an office, all right,” Bill Abbott said, “but let’s keep it small. An administrative director and a couple of secretaries ought to do it.”

  “If we’re not being overly optimistic,” Bob Munson said with a smile, “it’s going to grow a lot faster than that.”

  “The faster the better,” Beth said.

  “I’ve thought of the ideal location,” Lafe said. “How about the northeast corner of Connecticut and L?”

  “That’s where NAWAC is,” Crystal objected.

  “We can spy on them,” Hal said wryly. “I’ve no doubt they’re spying on us.”

  And so they were, though not in quite the basically good-natured and humorous way in which Hal and the others were still able to contemplate the situation. At NAWAC’s newly established headquarters on Connecticut Avenue they meant business. And none meant it more than the individual who stared down at the snow-clogged, slow-moving, home-going traffic with a moody expression on his customarily tense and restless face. Fred Van Ackerman, recently re-elected junior Senator from the great state of Wyoming, was, as usual, at war with the world. Only this time Fred had the feeling he was going to win.

  The methods by which he intended to do so might not, in another time, have appealed to a United States Senator. There had been a very few to whom the idea of actually destroying the traditional democratic processes of the country in order to establish something drastically and even dreadfully different had appealed, for a time. But none had possessed quite the inner drive an
d inner conviction that Senator Van Ackerman had, and none had operated in quite the strange climate that he was operating in now. And almost none had quite the incredible brashness and contempt that permitted him to challenge and dismiss, quite sincerely, all the assumptions of a free society upon which America had lived for more than two centuries.

  Had the nation’s politically minded psychiatrists turned their attention to analyzing Fred Van Ackerman with half the zeal with which they publicly analyzed statesmen whom they considered more conservative, they would perhaps have found many harsh explanations for his behavior. Since he had always been on the Right Side of Things they had never given him such kindly treatment. Yet, in many ways, the junior Senator from Wyoming was a classic example of all that they alleged, and condemned, in others. And now it appeared that he might be about to get away with it all, at last.

  He had come, of course, from a broken home. He had been, of course, a loner as child and youth. He had not, of course, participated in games, achieved with any particular distinction in school, succeeded in acquiring or keeping friends. His attempts at romance had been, of course, sporadic, feeble, unsatisfactory, unfulfilled. At an early age he, of course, acquired a contempt for authority, a deep and ineradicable suspicion of his fellow beings, a desire to get even with society for all the vaguely defined but terribly hurtful things that seemed to go wrong with his inward life. And he combined all this, of course, with a brilliant, almost animal, shrewdness in discerning the main chance, and an intelligence limited in scope and compassion but supremely able in seizing upon and profiting from the weaknesses of others.

  All of this had made him, of course, almost completely amoral, almost completely ruthless and almost completely cold and dead inside.