Promise of Joy

by Allen Drury

  Sullen, protesting, angry and unappeasable, the animal sound retorted. Inside, united on this one thing as on perhaps no other, the Committee applauded with heartfelt concurrence, while some among the audience looked skeptical and some among the media made appropriately ironic remarks.

  “We meet again today,” he said quietly, “with our problem still unsolved. I have considered very carefully several courses of action.

  “I could throw the nomination open and let it be decided on this floor. This is what will eventually happen anyway, of course; but to do it without any suggestion from me would be to create even more controversy than might normally be expected. I think there is a responsibility resting on me to again offer advice, and I think many of you feel that I should have the opportunity.” There was a restless stirring in some parts of the room, and with a sudden smile he added calmly, “In any event, I intend to take it.…

  “I could also be arbitrary, of course, and demand that it be my suggestion or no one. This would automatically increase the controversy by a very substantial degree. Nothing would be gained by such an arbitrary policy save greatly increased bitterness, and, perhaps, the complete breakdown of our proceedings.

  “By the same token, of course, any similar arbitrariness on the part of those who don’t quite see eye to eye with me would produce the same result. Therefore, it seems to me, we had best find another compromise. I have one to suggest. No doubt there may be others. But at least we should begin in a reasonable spirit of discussion. With luck this will lead us on to agreement—hopefully, a reasonably early and cordial agreement. We can then get on with what is, after all, our major business: winning the election.”

  He paused, took a sip of water, appeared to study his notes for a moment while he let the thought sink in. Again he had issued the tribal call to battle, and again they were realizing, as he knew they would, that their paramount interest as politicians was just what he said it was: winning the election. He hoped, although he wasn’t as sanguine as he appeared, that it would help to keep all but the most maverick in line.

  “Today,” he resumed with a return of the quick, appealing humor, “I am going to offer you a man. I didn’t have too much success with a lady yesterday. Maybe I’ll do better today.…” The humor faded, seriousness returned.

  “This is a man well known to all of you, a young but already much-distinguished member of the Congress who has served his country superbly in several fields. Not only has he distinguished himself in Washington, but as a diplomatic representative of his country he has performed with great integrity, under great provocation, in another arena.”

  In the audience, seated side by side, Congressman Cullee Hamilton of California and Senator Lafe Smith of Iowa, members of the American delegation to the United Nations, suddenly began to breathe very softly and listen very intently, not daring to look at one another, though very many were suddenly looking at them.

  “There are others,” Orrin said quietly, “to whom I might have turned; others with more years, longer records in national position. But after considering those who to me seemed most deserving, I decided upon this man for four fundamental reasons: he is young, he is experienced, he is supremely able and he is as devoted to peace as anyone in this room or anyone within sound of my voice. Those, I think, are the desiderata which must govern us today.

  “He has one other qualification that he was born with”—he smiled, and Lafe, without turning his head, gave Cullee a nudge with his elbow and whispered, “Right on, man!” Cullee, with a great effort, suppressed the start of an excited grin and kept his face impassive. But he returned the nudge. “A qualification which in a sense both is, and isn’t, important. To those who attach great importance to it, it may outweigh all his other qualifications. To those who regard him first and foremost, as I know he regards himself, as an American, it will be nice but not overwhelmingly relevant. It may give him a slight edge in working with the many diverse interests among his countrymen” (“And a slight edge in stopping opposition here,” the Times remarked sardonically to Newsweek. Newsweek nodded) “but other than that, it is, in the last analysis, immaterial when it comes to judging him. Certainly it has been immaterial in my mind” (“Oh, sure,” Newsweek whispered. The Times responded with a knowing glance) “as I hope it will be in yours.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the Committee,” he said with a concluding fall in his tone that brought them all to a tense silence, “you need no lengthy or flowery introduction. You know him well and favorably. I have faith and confidence in him and believe he would make a great Vice President, and also a great President should the need ever arise. His name is Cullee Hamilton and he is presently Congressman from California. I commend him to your most serious consideration.”

  And he left the lectern and sat down, exchanging a glance with Cullee, who beamed back with such innocently happy excitement that all friendly observers were pleased. Not all, however, were friendly.

  From outside there came a long, astounded, uncertain sound. In the room applause rose, pleased and enthusiastic from Orrin’s supporters, dutiful—and ready to have second thoughts—from the Jason camp. It was apparent that the second thoughts were swift in coming. Roger P. Croy was on his feet requesting recognition. The President granted it, a certain tiredness in his voice. Roger Croy picked it up at once.

  “Now, Mr. President,” he said, showing a carefully calculated testiness of his own, “if I bore the Chair, I am sorry, but it does seem to me that we had better stop, look and listen now, rather than later. This nomination by the candidate for President faces us squarely once again with the fundamental issue we have been contending over ever since the convening of the national convention.

  “Let me state it with some of his own famed candor.

  “It is salvation or disaster.

  “It is war or peace.

  “It is life or death.”

  There was an approving roar beyond, a vigorous burst of applause within. Blair Hannah was on his feet, flushed with annoyance. A mask had come down over Cullee’s handsome face. He looked somber and ominous. The innocent happiness was gone already. Such was the withering effect of the present suspicious world.

  “Mr. President,” Blair Hannah said, “I think we can do without the flamboyant rhetoric of the national committeeman from Oregon. The distinguished nominee for President has offered us the name of a candidate for Vice President worthy in every respect of our trust and support. He is a fine young man, able in public service, dedicated to the cause of world peace, thoroughly responsible in every way. He is also—”

  “He is also,” Roger P. Croy interrupted, “one of the chief architects of a consistently disastrous foreign policy, and the fact that he is black is not going to be sufficient to bamboozle those who abhor that policy into forgetting it. If the candidate for President thinks this, he is unhappily mistaken. He is, as usual, being too clever.”

  “Mr. President,” Mary Buttner Baffleburg cried angrily, roly-poly little body shaking with indignation, “look who is dragging in the race issue here to confuse everything. That—great—liberal, Mr. Roger P. Croy! It has no place in these discussions, Mr. President! It is so much hogwash!”

  “Hogwash or no,” Roger Croy retorted, flushing but holding his ground, “it is patently clear to many of us that the candidate for President is making deliberate use of it to confuse the issue and secure approval of a Vice Presidential candidate who agrees one hundred per cent with his own point of view.”

  “Is that bad?” Asa B. Attwood inquired innocently, and at once Roger P. Croy rounded on him with a fine show of righteousness.

  “Yes, it is bad!” he said sharply. “And I will tell the committeeman from California why. It is bad because it would reverse the hard-fought decision of this committee when it chose Edward M. Jason. It is bad because it would wipe out all the elements of balance that we struggled so hard to achieve. It is bad because it would make the ticket simply Tweedledum and Tweedledee, betray all the supp
orters of Edward Jason and give the man who may be our next President virtual carte blanche to continue headlong down the road to endless overseas involvement and endless war. That is why it is bad, Mr. President, and I for one intend to oppose it as vigorously as I know how.”

  “I think the issue is race,” Asa B. Attwood said with a calculated indifference, turning his back deliberately upon Roger Croy. “If the committeeman wants to be tagged with that, it’s his responsibility.”

  “The issue is not race!” Roger Croy cried, his anger entirely genuine this time. “That is a vicious, unprincipled, unworthy falsehood, I will say to the committeeman from California! It is entirely typical of the tactics with which Orrin Knox and his supporters have acted here, throughout. It is just one more of those vicious, unprincipled—”

  “Well, now!” William Abbott interrupted with a sudden thunder that startled into silence all except CBS, who murmured dryly to NBC, “I thought that would bring a little work with the gavel.” And the President did indeed use it, so hard that it seemed it must break the lectern.

  “I do not propose,” he said, as the room became abruptly silent, keeping his tone level but breathing hard, “that this committee degenerate once more into the name-calling aggregation of political asps that it turned into a week ago. We have some responsibility to proceed in an orderly fashion to make the grave decision that devolves upon us, and I for one don’t intend to let us get into personalities if I can help it. The committeeman from California and the committeeman from Oregon will both be in order, because we shan’t proceed until they are.”

  And he stopped and stared angrily at Asa Attwood and Roger Croy until both began to avoid his gaze and subside, looking annoyed and resentful but not quite daring to challenge him. Seated at the President’s side, Orrin stared out impassively at the room, face devoid of expression. From outside there came a scornful, mocking sound.

  “Now,” the President said after a sufficient period of silence had elapsed, “we will proceed. You have heard the nomination, you know the man, you are all aware of all the issues—God knows we have discussed them enough in recent weeks. Your candidate for President has given you his second nomination for Vice President. How many more must he offer before you condescend to act? Who will move that we approve this nomination and give the country what it seeks from us, a worthy and responsible choice for Vice President?”

  “Mr. President!” Esmé Harbellow Stryke cried, as across the room a dozen other Jason supporters also sprang angrily to their feet. “Oh, no, you don’t, Mr. President! We won’t have that kind of railroading here! We just won’t have it! There will be a fair and open debate on the qualifications of the proposed nominee, or I for one will walk out, Mr. President, and then where will your precious committee be? And I don’t think I will be alone, either!”

  And she sat down, her sharp-featured, intelligent face peering angrily about like that of some shrewd little fox. From many of her colleagues came supportive shouts of “Hear, hear!” and from beyond the walls a massive, approving roar.

  Abruptly the nominee for President made a sudden decisive gesture, rose and came forward to the lectern.

  The President, taken by surprise, said, “Are you sure you want to—?” Orrin nodded with something of his old brusqueness. The President shrugged and turned to the Committee.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “Secretary Knox.”

  He stood for a moment, supporting himself with a firm grip on the lectern, while his audience first stirred, then settled down. An intent, absolute concentration came upon them. Into it he spoke with a biting impatience and an annoyance he did not bother to conceal.

  “Members of the Committee—my co-workers in this campaign: either we choose a nominee for Vice President here today or we open the door to squabbles and divisions that could occupy us for weeks, ending in a party so badly split that we could never win. That is not how I conceive your function. It is to achieve unity, and to win.”

  “Whose fault are the divisions?” Ewan MacDonald MacDonald inquired in a gentle undertone just loud enough to be heard. There was some amusement in the room, a raucous hoot from the grounds outside. Orrin raised his head with a sharp, uncompromising anger and stared straight at Ewan MacDonald.

  “If you think it is mine,” he said with a harsh directness that left them breathless, “I am prepared to get out of the way. If you want me to withdraw Congressman Hamilton’s nomination, I will do so. If you want me to withdraw my own, I will do so. Is that what you want? Make the motion!”

  (“Make it, God damn it!” the Times whispered savagely to the Post; but the moment for a decisiveness to match the nominee’s was gone almost before it existed. “They haven’t got the guts,” the Post whispered savagely back; and as Orrin had accurately foreseen, they didn’t. His gamble was won the instant he took it.)

  For perhaps thirty seconds there was absolute silence while his gaze remained locked with that of the committeeman from Wyoming. No one whispered further, no one spoke, no one moved. The world hung suspended until Orrin exercised his option to set it back in motion. When he did, it was his world again. “Orrin’s little extra” had once more carried the day.

  “Very well,” he said quietly, and in the room and outside there seemed to be a universal expulsion of tightly held breath. “So we go forward together. And if we go forward together, we go forward together. I have offered you my choice of Vice President. Vote him up or vote him down, but vote. The whole world is waiting on you.”

  And he turned and went back to his chair while the tension held just too long for the supporters of Ted Jason to take advantage of it.

  “Mr. President,” Blair Hannah said quickly, “I move the Committee approve the nomination of Representative Cullee Hamilton of California to be our nominee for Vice President of the United States!”

  “Second the motion!” Mary Buttner Baffleburg cried.

  “Vote!” cried the friends of Orrin Knox.

  “BOO!” cried NAWAC.

  “Mrs. Jennings,” the President said quickly, “will you be so good as to act as clerk for us again?”

  “Alabama!” Lathia Talbot Jennings cried, so eager to comply that she uttered the name even as she got up and scurried to the stage, trailing a startled amusement in her wake to lighten, if only briefly, the angry moment.

  And the vote was on.

  When it concluded the President stood for a moment looking over the wildly excited room. Then he faced full into the cameras, the watching nation, NAWAC and the world.

  “On this vote,” he said, his voice showing just an edge of the universal tension, “the Yeas are 651, the Nays are 642, and the Honorable Cullee Hamilton of California is the Vice Presidential nominee of this party.”

  After that, for a few minutes, there was pandemonium as the media scurried to broadcast, note and record the reactions of the Committee, the audience and the crowds outside. When all the counterclaims of “Marvelous choice!” and “Railroad!” had been faithfully reported and immortalized, the room settled down again into a restive, buzzing semblance of order. Into it the President said quietly, “Ladies and gentlemen, the next Vice President of the United States.”

  Cullee came forward to the podium, helping Sarah Johnson up the steps, seating her in the chair hastily provided by one of the sergeants at arms, shaking hands with the President and with Orrin. Then he turned to face the room. His expression was somber. The burst of excited applause that had greeted him from Orrin’s supporters quickly died away. In the tumbling minutes since Orrin had offered his name his mind had raced through several alternative things to say. He had finally decided to tell them exactly how he felt. With the honest bluntness that had distinguished his utterances in the United Nations and in the House, he proceeded to do so.

  “Mr. President,” he said, “Secretary Knox, members of the Committee, ladies and gentlemen:

  “I accept your nomination and I shall do everything I can to help this ticket win in November,
and to help create a responsible and forward-looking Administration starting next January.

  “I don’t think,” he said, raising a hand to silence the automatic response that came from his friends and Orrin’s, “that this will be easy. I don’t think any of us should be under any illusions about that. It is going to be very difficult for all of us, and mostly so for President Knox. Let’s talk about that for a minute.” His expression turned stubborn, curiously youthful.

  “To begin with, I don’t think either Orrin Knox or I should have to apologize for the fact that I am black. There’s not much either of us can do about it at this late date. There it is. If it makes it impossible for some of our colleagues to support the ticket, so be it. I daresay we can get along without them if we have to.”

  From the press tables there came a hardly muffled snort of derision, from outside a long, rolling roar of boos. Roger P. Croy flushed with indignation and Esmé Stryke’s tense little body seemed to quiver with it. But he gave them look for look and went on, unimpressed.

  “It looks as though maybe we’ll have to get along without some other people, too, and to them I say: we couldn’t care less. Neither the Secretary nor I have been beholden to the kooks, the crazies, the vicious or the violent. We haven’t had them and we don’t need them now. But we do need everybody else—all responsible Americans who believe, as we do, that we must return to a reasonable ground of decency in our public life, while at the same time maintaining a strong foreign policy abroad—above all, a patient but firm attitude toward the Soviets.”

  (“Those damned right-wing clichés again,” the Christian Science Monitor whispered to The New York Post. “We thought we had all that licked with Jason,” the Post agreed morosely. “And now look where we are. Right back where we started.”)