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

by Allen Drury

  “Oh, yes, Mr. President,” he said, and the satisfaction was open and self-congratulatory now, “we have studied Edward M. Jason very well. And everything we have done has been based upon that study. From the moment you failed to respond to our calculated challenge after your inaugural, we knew you would do as you have done. Everything has followed, just as we had foreseen, from that first challenge which produced so weak a response. From that moment to this moment we have predicted you accurately every step of the way. And you have not failed us once, we will say that for you, Mr. President. You have shown an unwavering, if from America’s standpoint fatal, consistency, every hour of every day. It has been beautiful to watch … and to take advantage of.…

  “And so,” he concluded, his tone abruptly harsh and emphatic, “here we are, to tell you what will happen next.”

  “Who are you,” the President demanded in one last show of anger and fear, too alone and too far adrift now for it to sound anything but petulant, desperate and hysterical, “to tell me what to do?”

  “We are your new allies and your intimate—very intimate—collaborators in the great adventure of bringing lasting peace to the world,” Vasily Tashikov said smoothly. “And this is how we are going to go about it, together.… ”

  JASON, TASHIKOV CONCLUDE DAY-LONG WHITE HOUSE MEETING, ANNOUNCE ACCORD ON NEW U.S.-RUSSIAN “AGREEMENT OF FRIENDSHIP AND COOPERATION.” HINT AMERICA TO WITHDRAW PERMANENTLY FROM MAJOR POSITIONS AROUND GLOBE, ACCEPT SOVIET LEADERSHIP IN FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD PEACE-KEEPING.

  TWO LEADERS TO MEET IN FORMAL SIGNING CEREMONY AT CAPITOL AT NOON TOMORROW.

  WORLD HAILS NEW ERA OF STABILITY AND GOOD WILL.

  “It is with the utmost rejoicing,” the Post exclaimed in its lead editorial, “that we hail the conclusion of the historic ‘Agreement of Friendship and Cooperation’ reached between the President of the United States and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union. Its signing will truly mark a new era of stability, serenity and hope, not only for the great American people and their great Russian allies, but for all of humanity which has been so long harassed and endangered by the foolish, pointless, inexcusable rivalry between the two superpowers.

  “If there be those Americans who grumble—and inevitably, as always, there will be some—at what may appear to be a voluntary acceptance by this nation of a somewhat secondary role to the Soviet Union in world affairs, then we can only say to them, ‘Oh, ye of little faith, await events and see!’ To do any differently, of course, would invite the immediate and righteous anger of the state.

  “For we know, as our two great and farseeing leaders know, that from this willing, voluntary and realistic readjustment of the world situation by a great American and a great Russian, there will come only good for mankind—an end to tension, an end to suspicion, an end to fear and aggravation, an end to the eternal nagging threat of ideological explosion and world war.

  “Is there more sane men could ask?

  “We suggest to the Nobel Committee that this year’s Peace Prize should logically have, not one, but two recipients, their names and achievements to be engraved equally forever upon the hearts of a grateful humanity—Edward M. Jason and Vasily Tashikov.

  “If there be those elsewhere—in China, let us say—who do not like this, we say to them: ‘Do not interfere with the inevitable tide of history as it runs toward peace. Those who stand in the way of peace in today’s world can only destroy peace. The consequences, now, could only mean annihilation’”

  And from the Times, its customary self-conscious judicial air enlivened by its new proprietors’ obvious joy at the turn of events, a commendation equally emphatic and grateful:

  “‘Agreement of Friendship and Cooperation!’ At last the world hears the words it has longed for decades to hear from the two superpowers who rule the globe!

  “Now the doubts and fears of almost three generations have at last been swept away by the farsighted and fearless statesmanship of two great men, one an American, the other a Russian—Edward M. Jason and Vasily Tashikov, whose names will go down forever in the annals of a grateful humanity. We suggest that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize go equally to them both—a very small beginning to the tribute which will grow and swell and surround their names with honor as long as men anywhere believe in peace.

  “For peace, we think, is now at last within the world’s grasp. To those Americans—and inevitably, there will be some carpers, bewailers, men and women of little faith—who deplore the apparent decision of the United States to accept a somewhat lesser role in world affairs and rely upon the wise leadership of the Soviet Union and the great Russian people, we urge patience, understanding, trust and hope. All are inherent in this new and more practical readjustment of world realities which will lead in turn to world peace. There is also a practical reason for acceptance: while the great venture goes forward, protest would not only be futile. It would be treasonable, and as such, bring harsh reward.

  “And to those elsewhere—Peking is one obvious place—who would seek in some way to thwart and subvert this great new move toward world peace, we would point out only that those who stand in the way of history in the end find history rolling over them. It is a lesson we commend to the one nation in the world which perhaps does not applaud, because it does not understand, the new reality of power that now exists in the world. It would do well to adapt, for the consequences of non-cooperation there, too, would be both futile and disastrous.

  “So the world enters a new day, and the signing at the Capitol this noon will symbolize it as nothing else could. It is a great day for America, for Russia, for the world; but greatest of all, perhaps, for Edward M. Jason, President of the United States. Idealism, patience and the truest type of statesmanship could do no more, nor could they bring any greater personal satisfaction.”

  So caroled the new press of the nation (lesser journals across the land, even when not yet overtly controlled, following the lead very rapidly, self-preservation being the wonderful convincer that it is); so said the successors of Frankly Unctuous and friends who now spoke the new tongue from TV screen and radio; so echoed many from pulpit and hall of academe, from haunt of Thespis and nest of legal eagle. So sounded the New Day—new day in truth, and with a vengeance.

  From the private words of many troubled citizens who viewed the newest development with the utmost of appalled concern, one conversation might have been selected as typical. It was monitored and recorded, of course, and very shortly was to bring upon its perpetrators the same consequences already meted out to those who had shown themselves to be too blind and reactionary to march with the enlightened times. It was earnest, honest and sincere in its expression of anguish, and so could have remained something of a historical symbol—had it not, of course, been erased and obliterated as soon as it had been used to produce the desired result from the new justice of the New Day.

  “Bob,” the ex-President said and his voice sounded old and very weary as he spoke from his office in the House of Representatives shortly before 10 a.m. on the day of the signing, “I think—”

  “I know what you think,” Senator Munson said, and he too sounded very old, very weary. “I agree with you. It’s all over.”

  “But it can’t be all over,” William Abbott protested. “It cannot. America cannot go down as easily and swiftly as this.”

  “Who’s to prevent it?” Bob Munson inquired bitterly. “Not you and I, certainly. Not Walter Dobius or Frankly Unctuous or their friends from the Times and the Post, undergoing God knows what in St. E’s. Not Bob Leffingwell or Ewan MacDonald or the Joint Chiefs, awaiting drumhead trial at Fort McNair. Not any of our steadily dwindling band of friends up here, all of us subject to arrest at any moment. We won’t any of us be here in another week, Bill, you know that as well as I do.”

  “I cannot believe,” Bill Abbott said, “that this great Congress, in which you and I have served together so long, with all its profound traditions and habits of democracy, wit
h all its proud record of two centuries of free men solving their own problems in their own way, with all the great history of parliamentary government behind it, can be wiped into nothingness almost overnight on the whim of a—of a—”

  “Dictator,” Bob Munson supplied, “for that is what he has become. And the worst sort, if there is any better or worse in that category—a weak dictator, a scared dictator, a dictator being driven under by a bigger and tougher and stronger dictator, a desperate dictator, a terrified dictator, a frantic dictator, striking out blindly at everybody and everything in search of scapegoats and justification. I don’t think he’s sane any more. How could he be, with every pressure in the world on him in these past few days and months?”

  “And he is taking us all down with him,” the ex-President said bleakly, “because he would not listen and he would not let us help. He knew it all, he couldn’t be convinced, he couldn’t be warned, he couldn’t be persuaded: he knew it all. He could play with all the violence in the country, he could hand our enemies the world on a silver platter, he could let people he should never have trusted become more and more ruthless with those who dared oppose him, he could go all the way down the bitter road until now we face the end of the Republic, never to be reborn again as Americans have known it for more than two centuries.… It makes the heart cry, Bob. It makes the heart cry.”

  “And all so unnecessary,” Senator Munson said. “Each step so clearly dangerous in its implications, so clearly fateful in the eyes of thoughtful and prudent men. But he was not a prudent man. He was a man in love with his own good intentions, eager to accept the assistance of anyone, no matter how evil, who could pretend to be in agreement with his purposes and sufficiently flattering of his ego and his public image. And weak … weak … weak.”

  “And always, be it remembered, adored by a majority of his people,” William Abbott said, “who love a handsome face, the statement of high ideals and the glamor of high position.… Well: I suppose bitterness is childish and doesn’t help. But what does, Bob? What does?”

  “Nothing,” Senator Munson said, “except to remain true to the Republic as we have known it, to continue to act as we have always acted in the democratic tradition … and to be brave enough to take the consequences when they come, as inevitably, now, they will.”

  “Yes,” the ex-President said with a sigh. “We will be brave, you and I and our friends, because we have the character to be brave, and also because in a sense it doesn’t really matter to us: our lives are fairly well along, even in the case of such as Lafe and Cullee or young Hal: the pattern is set, we have done what we could, we will all do it to the end, whatever the end may be. But what of the new generations coming along, Bob? What kind of America will they have?”

  “The kind of America they know,” Bob Munson said. “And since it is the only America they will ever have known, they will probably be reasonably content, if they have enough to eat and sufficient shelter. I am sure history will be rewritten to leave no wistful memories of the dream of free men that died. Give the thought manipulators twenty years, and there will be no memories of anything but things as they are then. This has been the pattern in other countries, and every day new inventions make it easier to achieve in America.”

  “I hear the agreement calls for ‘the closest possible coordination of programs between the two governments to guarantee a mutually friendly climate within each nation,’” William Abbott said. “This in addition to the abandonment of bases and the subordination of foreign policy. It may not take twenty years.”

  “It will take an hour,” Bob Munson said. “Books, records, documents, national memories—they can be destroyed or changed by computer in an instant nowadays. It will be very simple and very swift once the process starts in earnest.… Are you going to the signing?”

  “I have been invited to sit on the platform,” William Abbott said. “One of life’s grimmer ironies. I am not going.”

  “Nor I. Nor perhaps a third of the Senate.”

  “And about as many in the House. Not that our protest will be of any importance. But it may give a little heart to some.”

  “I hope so,” Senator Munson said. “I intend to watch it on television, however. I want to see him sign us away.”

  “I still cannot believe it,” the ex-President said. “I still cannot.”

  Outside the Mansion he heard again the preparations for departure to the Capitol, the myriad busy bustlings of pomp and circumstance that just a short while ago had heralded his triumphal progress to inauguration. In an hour or less they would come to tell him that all was ready, and that the time had come to keep his appointment with destiny.

  Then they would bear him away, along Pennsylvania Avenue between the solid human walls of his frantically cheering countrymen—for only those who would cheer would be allowed to be present this day. Those who would not cheer would not be allowed to be present, nor would they be allowed to mar his progress, ever again.

  As usual in these recent days he had slept very poorly, risen very early, eaten very little; talked briefly to Patsy, Selena and Herbert, who had called from Dumbarton Oaks at nine to wish him well; responded to their anxious questions with the assurance that he was “all right,” whatever is meant by that all-inclusive, all-purposive phrase; given orders to his staff that he was not to be disturbed because he was going to draft a few appropriate remarks to make at the signing; and then had retired to the Lincoln Study to do so, equipped with pens, pencils and yellow legal writing pad. Now, an hour later, he had two lines. He knew at last, with a great and final certainty, that no more would come.

  Confronted by this knowledge, inescapable, unchangeable, unbearable, he sat for some time unmoving, the jumble of his mind at first turbulent and chaotic, then moving into some suspended state where at first nothing stirred to break its abandoned desolation. But in time—he did not know how long, five minutes, ten, twenty, thirty—two things did. On a sudden impulse he called the Vice President, conducted a conversation—very brief on his part, quiet, unshakable, strangely serene; ending in tears and sobs and anguished protestations on the part of Roger P. Croy. Then he rang for his secretary, directed that the portraits of Ceil and Doña Valuela be brought up from the main hall; and now was thinking a little more clearly, aided by the two faces which for him had always meant stability and certainty and a world that made sense.

  In some last, desperate, curiously comforting way, it still did—for a minute or two—as he looked at his wife, so lovely, so straightforward and so honest, and at his grandmother, so determined, so indomitable, so wise and also so honest.

  “I tried,” he said aloud to them at last, like a child seeking their approval. “I really tried. I wanted it all to be so right for the world and so good for America. It all went wrong, but you know I tried.”

  His eyes filled suddenly with tears, he sounded like a lost little boy, which indeed, in history’s unending parade of well-meaning hearts and ill-managed hopes, he probably was.

  “I wanted to be good,” he told them earnestly. “I really tried.”

  But the two faces, frozen forever in time and place, were unable to answer and now, at last, unable to help; and presently, turning his eyes away from them, trying carefully to look at nothing at all, he did what the honor of a President of the United States, accepting at last without reservation or self-protection the full responsibility for his actions, seemed to him to require.

  At almost the same moment, standing outside the Vice President’s office in the Executive Office Building just across West Executive Avenue from the White House, the worried little group of nervously gossiping secretaries and Secret Service men heard a single, sharp sound.

  The girls screamed, the Secret Service rushed in. Pompous, ambitious, overly clever but at heart well-meaning, Roger P. Croy had kept his appointment with honor too.

  Now the sun, having struggled since dawn, broke at last through the sullen icy haze and cast its pale but determined light upon all the gl
ittering and glamorous scene in front of the Capitol.

  It shone upon the stolid ranks of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen as they stood, facing outward, rifles ready in an enormous U that framed the central steps of the building. It shone upon the inaugural stand which, more than half-dismantled, had been hastily resurrected during the night and now stood surrounded by a mounted honor guard. It shone upon four members of the Supreme Court, perhaps two thirds of the members of Congress, upon George Henry Wattersill and the remaining members of the Cabinet, upon many foreign ambassadors, officials, dignitaries and friends who, deeming it best to be there, filled the viewing stands on either side. It shone upon the eager members of the new media who crowded the press section below, avid to report this day so full of hope and glory for long-beleaguered mankind.

  It shone upon the numerous Russians who mingled with the Americans in the stands, jovial, laughing, excited, indulging in many heavy jests to which their new allies responded gamefully, though, it must be admitted, with a certain forced friendliness, uneasy and uncertain. It shone upon the many thousands who filled Capitol Plaza beyond the heavy ranks of military—at least two hundred thousand, the new media reported, though the old media might have seen no more than fifty thousand and many of them unhappy, although afraid to show it.