by Allen Drury
“So,” he said, rising abruptly, “that is where we stand. Thank you for coming to see me. I must now retire. Stay where you are. The Foreign Minister and the Minister of Defense will join you shortly to give you a detailed briefing on all our little toys.”
“I wish to leave,” the President said, eyes haggard but voice becoming stronger again.
“When the briefing is over,” the Chairman said coldly. “We cannot let you leave this room until it is finished. Remain, please. I shall see you in Washington in one month. Goodbye.”
“Mr. Chairman!” the President cried, his voice a mixture of anger, hatred and exhaustion.
But Tashikov was at the door, and gone; and after a few unbelieving moments Edward M. Jason the Peacemaker sat slowly down again, his eyes staring with a vacant despair at the brightly lighted map, the winking lights, the spider traceries darting above the model of the tortured globe … until another voice said with a cold, peremptory air, “Mr. President, if you please! Come over here and let us explain to you—” …
… “And so presently,” he said into the utter silence of the Oval Office, “when they had decided that they had sufficiently convinced me, they let me go … to come home to a country racked by a fear that I should only have increased had I taken you into my confidence, and clamoring for a leadership I could not at the moment provide because I literally did not know what to do.”
“Do you now?” William Abbott asked with an equal quietness; and with a candor and honesty the ex-President had never seen in him—a candor and honesty so completely without defense that they made William Abbott inwardly flinch—the President responded with one word:
“No.”
The desolate negative brought an uneasy stirring, a shifting in the room, a protest silent yet emphatic: You cannot do this to us. The President must know what to do, that is the job of Presidents. You must know. And after a moment, as if in response, he too shifted in his chair, sat up straighten His expression changed. Some shadow of the old, dominant Ted Jason came back.
“However,” he said—and there was a sudden release of tension, an abrupt relief prompted by what for the moment appeared to be a returning decisiveness—“I wanted you to understand why I have acted as I have in these recent days, and why I have a little hope—a little—that if I continue to act very carefully and patiently, we may yet come through.”
“I should like to hear that,” William Abbott answered for them all, though he sensed instinctively, with a sinking despair, that he already had the answer. But he put a good face on it, looked sympathetic, encouraging, attentive; sat back and listened, as he had known he would, to another variation on the theme of his successor’s inability to understand his times, his position, or the needs of his country—now that it was too late, of course, for understanding, even if it existed, to be of much help to any of them.
“I have felt,” the President said, “that if I continue to—lie low, so to speak—for a little while, I could perhaps avoid provoking them into any further harsh actions. It has taken me a while, of course—” he looked about the somber circle of faces, appealing for their sympathy which of course they could not deny him, so dreadful was his predicament and with it their own—“to recover, you might put it, from that interview.” The faintest trace of an ironic smile crossed his face. “I am not used to being browbeaten in that fashion. Jasons are not used to it. Presidents of the United States are not used to it.” (Note the sequence, the Secretary of State thought in unbelieving wonder. Note the sequence.) “It was not, as you can perceive, a pleasant experience. It has taken me a while. In fact—” and he uttered a sudden deep sigh that did not seem to relieve his tensions much—“in some ways, I may never recover. But life has to go on.…
“So, then,” he said, more strongly, “I have, essentially, been playing for time in these past several days. I have tried to do so without yielding too abruptly to his demands—”
“Mr. President,” Ewan MacDonald asked in an odd, uncertain tone, “what do you mean by ‘yielding too abruptly?’ Do you mean you intend to yield to them at all?”
The President shook his head with a certain impatience that also seemed odd, under the circumstances.
“Not really, no. Not openly. I’m counting on events. And so far, events have helped me to some degree. One of his points I can probably comply with, because it is already a fait accompli. The wars are over in Gorotoland and Panama, I think that’s obvious. Even my predecessor—” he smiled a dry smile at silent William Abbott—“would not, I suspect, reopen them under present conditions. It is simply a practical, pragmatic matter to recognize the new governments in Panama and Gorotoland. What would we gain by being stubborn? Possible Soviet retaliation and not much else, I should think. On the other hand, we would, I think, gain much international respect by recognizing the simple facts as they exist. Isn’t that true?”
And he looked around the circle again with a tired but defiant challenge. No one replied. Presently he gave a satisfied little nod and continued.
“So I will ask you, Mr. Secretary of State, to prepare a statement to that effect and present it to me by noon, for release at 3 p.m. All right?”
“But—” Robert Leffingwell began.
“Please,” the President said quietly, in a tone permitting no objection; and after a moment the Secretary said, “Yes, sir,” his face devoid of expression.
“And the Congress,” the President said, and now a strange, almost lighthearted note came into his voice, “has, of course, already aided me in another matter, and very well aided me. No one, of course, intends to make very much of the Help America Act, but at least it is a gesture in the direction of what they want. It is a bone—a very small bone—that we’ve tossed them. It doesn’t have to be implemented, but there it is. I think in that instance, although not understanding all the implications of the situation in which I find myself, the Congress has served me well.”
“That is how you see it?” Bob Munson asked harshly. “I wish Beth Knox could have seen it like that.”
For a moment the President did not reply, flushing with anger, then obviously controlling it.
“Please. Please, Senator. I have expressed my regrets over that, I have assigned all the agencies of government I could to it, I am doing my best. So, please: if you don’t mind… Now,” he went on presently, his voice again firm and strong, some plan in mind, again managing to stir them to a little hope. “In much the same fashion, I want the Congress to cooperate with me on something much more fundamental.” He paused as though savoring his little surprise, then let them have it. “I want it to pass, at once, a massive rearmament bill. And when I say ‘at once,’ I mean at once. By—let’s say—next Tuesday. Can you do that, gentlemen?”
With a somewhat dazed expression Jawbone Swarthman looked at Bob Munson. After a moment Bob responded.
“Well, as you know, Mr. President,” he said with some dryness, “you have taken pains to see that I am no longer responsible for the course of events in the Senate. But as nearly as I can assess this new Senate, what you want it will do. If you don’t want to express yourself outright, then of course the word can get around discreetly behind the scenes. Of course, I’m pretty sure that in that event the media, and the Russians, will pick it up. But the public façade would be preserved. You personally would not be calling for massive rearmament.”
“No,” the President agreed with an air of satisfaction, “particularly when I shall then veto the bill.”
“But, Mr. President, sir—” Jawbone began in a dismayed tone.
“And you will then, of course, pass it over my veto,” the President said, satisfaction now open. “And we will then proceed posthaste to build up our strength so that I shall never again—” the handsome face darkened, the intelligent eyes showed a genuine anger, the voice grated—“I shall never again be in the position of having to take that kind of bullying from any man.”
“I assume the United States would not be, either,” W
illiam Abbott could not resist, but his successor’s only reply was a rather startled, blank stare. The Speaker decided to fill the ensuing pause with a nervously cheerful burble.
“Now, Mr. President,” he said hastily, “I think that’s a mighty clever strategy, now, I really do. I think that’s mighty clever and mighty far-seeing. I think that’s really statesmanship, Mr. President, I really do!”
“Well, I don’t,” Cullee Hamilton said with a sudden explosive release of frustration. “I think it’s pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.”
“So do I,” Warren Strickland said quietly. “As pathetic as the American President sitting numbed and speechless in the office of the Chairman. As pathetic as this great nation crippled and foundering. As pathetic as are all feeble, clever tricks in the face of history’s implacable challenges to men. Mr. President,” he said to the suddenly pale-faced figure behind the desk, “why will you not handle this as the President should? Why will you not come before us, take the Congress and the country into your confidence, lay all the cards on the table, appeal for help and support—demand immediate rearming, and get it?”
“And risk a war?” the President cried with a genuine anger that broke through his carefully controlled composure.
“He won’t go to war,” the ex-President said bluntly. “He told you so and he meant it. They don’t want war. They want you to give in without a fight. Just as you are doing,” he added, an expression in which disgust, dismay and a sort of helpless bafflement, combined, crossed his face. “Just as you are doing.… ”
“I tried to tell you what I saw there,” the President said carefully. “I tried to describe it. Didn’t you believe me?”
“We believed you,” Bob Munson said. “But I agree with Warren. The only way out, the only way, is to act as though you are not afraid, and proceed with your duty as the head of this nation in the outward—and, I hope to God, the actual—conviction that what you are doing is right, and that it will succeed. Because you can’t bluff it. You’re going to have to mean it. Congress won’t go along with you on these backdoor tricks—even your new Congress. They’re all set to be suspicious of everybody except you. They still expect you to deal with them straight because you, in a sense, are their creation, as they are yours. If you betray that faith, they will turn on you like the pack of young savages I believe they are.… Again, and for what may be the last time, God help us, I beg of you: lay it on the line. Don’t be clever. Don’t be devious. Don’t be tricky. Don’t be starry-eyed in the face of evil. Don’t be scared. You can’t afford to. You must be decisive and daring. There is no other way.”
Again the Oval Office was completely silent while its occupant struggled to master what appeared to be surging and terrible emotions. But when he spoke it seemed to them that he had hardly passed through an ordeal by fire at all. From some deep recess, perhaps of reviving, if unfounded, confidence, perhaps of some certainty known only to Jasons and to this one in particular, perhaps even of some “inner vision,” as the Secretary of State had put it, came finally what appeared to be a composed and quite reasonable answer. At least the tone was reasonable, although to his Congressional critics, and indeed to his two Cabinet members, it seemed with a sudden wave of hopelessness that they must be confronting one of the great fanatics of the age, transported by the shattering of his hopes and the savaging of the Communists into some world where nothing could reach him anymore.
For the ex-President and his friends, it was a devastating thought:
The President might no longer be rational.
But he had to be.
He had to be.
And so he appeared outwardly, as he said at last, with a calm conviction that brushed aside their arguments as though they had never been,
“So, then. I may count on your cooperation, gentlemen?”
Again a silence, deepening, widening, more and more dismayed. Into it Walter Dobius spoke with an abrupt harshness that seemed to startle even the President.
“I should hope not!” he said in a choked voice. “I should hope not!”
“Well, now—” Jawbone began, but America’s most distinguished political commentator turned on him like some avenging tornado.
“And I don’t need you,” he said with an acid anger, “to confuse everything with your asinine chatter.”
“Well!” the Speaker said. “Well, I—”
“Be quiet!” Walter snapped, and turned back to the President, who surveyed him with a speculative and growing anger in his eyes.
“Mr. President,” Walter said, “no man, I think you will agree, has supported you more actively or done more to assist your political career than I have. I feel this gives me some right to speak. Over and above,” he added harshly, “my right as a concerned American citizen—a very concerned American citizen.
“I think the ex-President is entirely right. I think we are in a situation demanding desperate measures but practical desperate measures. I don’t think playing tricky games with Congress, the country and the Russians comes under that heading. I think it is a time for absolute honesty, all around.
“I cannot, of course, speak for my colleagues of the media except in a general way, but I think I can safely say that if you do level with us, if you tell the whole country the situation as it exists and call us to our own time of blood, sweat and tears, then you will have such an upsurge of popular backing as you cannot conceive. Certainly you will have the backing of most of the media, I think that’s safe to say. And you will have the Congress. And the country.”
“But not the Russians,” Arly Richardson said with a sort of sour triumph in his voice. Walter rounded on him as he had on the Speaker.
“No, not the Russians!” he agreed with a savage impatience. “But who, now, gives a damn about them—really gives a damn about them? I grant you everything they showed the President was probably genuine, they probably do have all those horrors, they probably could destroy us in an instant if they were so minded. But I agree with President Abbott—”
“Why?” Senator Richardson demanded, still sour, still unimpressed.
“Because I believe as he does that they still don’t want a war with us. Why should they?” Walter asked, and his mouth took a sudden bitter twist. “When they’ve gained so much over so many years because of fools like me? Yes!” he repeated angrily, “fools like me! Like all of us who excused them and rationalized them and justified them, all those years when they were moving into position to cut us down. Who were always so clever and so biting and so arch and so superior when some of our countrymen tried to warn of the trend of events. Who were always so smug and perfect.” Again his mouth twisted in a bitter, ironic way. “Smug and perfect! That was us, all right. And now we’re caught in the gale of history, just like you are, Mr. President. Just like you.…
“But,” he said, firm and forceful again, “I believe the situation can still be saved if you will go to Congress—go this afternoon, indeed, why not, the sooner the better—and be absolutely candid and ask for help.… Of course,” he said, and a certain irony came into his eyes, “that would mean admitting you have made a great mistake, Mr. President. And maybe you can’t do that. But maybe the situation is serious enough so that you wouldn’t mind. Anyway, I agree, as I say, with William Abbott: you must do this. There is no other way out.”
For a moment after he had concluded the President said nothing, merely studying him with a careful look as though he were seeing him for the first time, as it was true they were all seeing this particular aspect of Walter Dobius for the first time.
“That is all very well for you to say who don’t have the responsibility for war,” he said finally, and Tommy Davis protested with a dismay that seemed to surprise even himself,
“But, Mr. President—!”
“Yes,” the President said more strongly, “for you who don’t have the responsibility for war. Where is your certainty that this will work?”
“No certainty, Mr. President,” Walter Dobius said. �
��Absolutely none.”
“But an absolute certainty,” Lafe Smith said into the quiet that again fell on the stately room and its frantically worried occupants, “that if you do nothing, the speedy end of this Republic is inevitable.”
Again the President was silent. When he answered it was obvious that they had accomplished nothing.
“I am sorry,” he said, “but I must do it my way. They understand that I will not oppose them openly—”
“Did you enter any agreement?” William Abbott demanded sharply. Edward M. Jason shook his head.
“I think they understood.”
“Then why—” the ex-President began. But his successor raised a cautionary hand, and he fell silent.
“So I come back to my original plan,” Ted Jason said quietly. “I shall expect the Congress to act just as quickly as possible, because time, as we are all aware, is very important.”
“All right,” the ex-President said, and his tone was suddenly cold and unyielding. “You’ve said what you ‘expect.’ Now I’ll tell you what we expect. We expect an open declaration, an address to Congress, a call to the country to unite—an honest approach. And if we don’t get it, my friend, there is a reasonably large group of us still left on the Hill to make things really uncomfortable for you. God knows I sympathize with the President’s right to be supported in times of crisis, but I can’t go along with this back-door tricky business which is still, to my mind, too much Ted Jason and not enough President. Yes!” he repeated as his successor gave him a sudden angry glare. “Too much Ted Jason and not enough President. Now, you listen to me, Mr. President, because it’s the last time I’m probably going to talk to you, about this or anything.
“If you try to do this behind the scenes, I’m going to get up on that House floor, and I expect Bob and Warren are going to get up in the Senate—” his glance brought nods of confirmation—“and tell the whole wide world exactly what you’re up to. And that, I suggest,” and his tone was as savage as though he were physically slapping Edward M. Jason across the face—“is going to make you look even more pathetic than you do already. And I don’t know what it will make the Russians do.…