by Allen Drury
“The dream of peace.
“How wonderful it would be, America thinks this morning as it awaits his message to us, if he would abandon all those imperial trappings and desperate fears which have for so long made American foreign policy the shame of a trembling world.
“If he would lay down American arms.
“If he would bring home a Navy too far-flung to do anybody any good, let alone America which it is supposed to protect.
“If he would bring home an Army and a Marine Corps too scattered overseas, in places where they have no business, to be of any real value in protecting America if a genuine crunch should come.
“If he would bring home an Air Force whose bases serve only to threaten others, not to protect America.
“If he would trust the Soviet Union, as it is willing to trust us.
“It says it wants peace.
“What a glorious thing if he became the first American President to really believe it, and to act fearlessly in that belief!
“Today America waits and hopes. Will Orrin Knox respond to that waiting, and answer those hopes?”
And finally Walter Dobius, having sat up late at “Salubria” to frame the stern advice which he felt the new President must have if he were to begin his governance aright, his conclusions appearing in his 436 client newspapers across America that fateful morning:
“Orrin Knox faces his greatest test at the Capitol shortly after noon today.
“He will have been sworn in as President.
“He will step forward to deliver his Inaugural Address.
“It is possible for him to go down in history at that moment as one of America’s greatest Presidents—perhaps its greatest—or to continue down the same dreary road he has been on so long, of conservatism, reaction, fear, lack of vision, lack of responsibility, lack of the statesmanship that the times, and the cause of peace, demand.
“Two possibilities lie open to him in the speech which will open his Administration and his particular segment of history.
“He can pursue the same old tired, shopworn, exhausted, cliché-ridden, cataclysmically dangerous policies of hatred and suspicion of the Soviet Union that have crippled America and the world so dreadfully in recent years.
“Or he can turn to the Soviet Union, and through it to the Communist world, and with open arms and a confident heart offer the trust and good faith which are the only means of securing trust and good faith in return.
“He can do this, in the judgment of one observer at least, if he will, in this opening statement which will set the theme and mood of his entire Administration, do several fundamental things which have long—too long—cried out to high heaven for doing:
“Abandon the overseas bases of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines which serve only as a constant irritation in the world—which do not really protect anybody—which are simply the futile gestures of an outmoded dream of ‘balance of power’ which in the end can only come crashing down in disaster for all humanity.
“Bring the forces home, where they belong, to protect us, not threaten somebody else.
“Make America’s defenses truly that—America’s defenses. Not the arrogant symbols of an imperial ambition.
“Not the mailed fist of a potential conqueror feared by all the world.
“Not a flaunting of ‘American power’ or ‘American strength’ which no longer has any validity in a world moving ever more inexorably toward a true peace among mutually trusting and responsible nations.
“Orrin Knox has it in his power, at this moment in his country’s brief and sometimes not entirely noble history, to make a gesture of friendship and faith to the Soviet Union so dramatic and overpowering in its impact that the Soviet Union can only respond in kind.
“If given the opportunity, it will respond.
“Let no one be mistaken about that.
“All Americans who truly love their country must hope that God will give Orrin Knox the vision to see his opportunity, and the strength to seize it.
“The benefit to America and to the whole world would be incalculable, and marvelous beyond belief.”
So echoed many an editorial writer, commentator, broadcaster, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, across the land, on this fateful morning of the start of the Presidency of Orrin Knox.
So urged many an editorial writer, commentator, broadcaster, statesman, governmental leader, ordinary citizen, around the globe.
So sang all the hopeful, the idealistic, the yearning, and—in some high and secret places—the calculating and the crafty, at home and overseas.
Alas, as most well knew, their wistfully dreamed and loudly urged vision of a world in which the lion would lie down with the tiger and the angels sing in peace was not to be.
Most of them knew, with a desperate anguish for their fallen hero, that had Edward M. Jason stood on the steps of the Capitol at that moment, he might well have given them what they wanted.
Most of them also knew that to expect such concessions from Orrin Knox was hopeless.
Deliberately informal, almost conversational, calm and flat, his level voice punctured the dream and returned the world to the cold reality of “old, outmoded, cliché-ridden” things.
“My fellow Americans—” he said, and a rustling hush descended upon the sparse crowd that had braved the new-fallen snow and the bright freezing day to come to the Capitol (A scant twenty-five thousand, most observers guessed. “Because nobody really likes Orrin Knox,” his enemies said. “Because of the weather,” his friends angrily responded), “we meet in a solemn hour for America—as indeed all hours, for America, seem to be solemn now.
“Yet I think we need not despair, for with faith, with diligence, with persistence and with courage, I believe we shall come through as we have always come through before.
“The first thing we must do is clear our minds of naïve dreams, futile wishes and mistaken concepts of where we stand.
“We must take off the blinders and be tough enough to accept, analyze and study the realities that face us.
“Only then can we begin to work our way out.
“We are confronted with two wars in being, and a continuous threat to the peace of the world and our own national existence from the imperial ambitions and imperial conquests of the present rulers of the Russian people.”
(“There he goes!” they wailed in the newsrooms of CBS and NBC, the editorial sanctums of the Times and the Post. “By God, will that reactionary bastard never learn!”)
“We face a constant drumfire of crippling criticism abroad and would-be crippling subversion at home.”
(“You see?” they cried to one another. “Jesus!”)
“We have fallen to a dangerously weak and dangerously low level of national defense.
“Too many of us have permitted ourselves to be persuaded by our critics that our history is rotten, our ideals are fraudulent, our purposes are corrupt, our future is hopeless.”
(“Is there a cliché he’s missing?” they demanded of one another. And answered themselves, “Give him time, give him time!”)
“Too many of us take counsel of our fears, and not of the basic decencies and basic strengths of this often stumbling but still good-hearted nation.
“How do we handle this rot which eats at us?”
(“There he goes!” “It’s too perfect—he’s unbelievable”)
“How do you expect me to handle it?
“This is the time above all times when you have a right to ask a new President that question. It is the time above all times when a new President should answer, as fully, as completely and as candidly as he can.
“First, the wars.
“We are involved in Gorotoland and in Panama for simple reasons which involve the security and the honor—”
(“Oh, no! Not ‘the honor’!”)
“—of this country and of the non-Communist world.
“In Gorotoland we became caught in the conflicting ambitions of two men, the hereditary ruler, the M’Bulu of
Mbuele, and his cousin, Prince Obifumatta, who is attempting to take the country from him. Despite repeated warnings from my predecessors that we would protect our interests—”
(“Our interest in oil!” “What else?”)
“—American commercial enterprises were attacked, and a group of American missionaries was slaughtered, by the forces of Prince Obifumatta. We decided to give assistance to the M’Bulu, and with our aid, he is presently maintaining his control of the country.
“Prince Obifumatta is receiving heavy assistance from the Soviet Union, and from the People’s Republic of China.
“In Panama, similarly aided by the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, a revolutionary movement led by the former Ambassador to the United States, Señor Felix Labaiya, is attempting to seize the country and the Canal. We are assisting the legitimate Panamanian government in repulsing this attempt.
“So we have the United States on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China on the other, arrayed against one another in two small client states in two widely separated areas of the world. But though the countries are small, the stakes are very high. We know this, and Moscow and Peking know this. And that is why we are where we are.
“Now: how do we terminate these two situations and get out of each with our honor—”
(“There he goes again!” “He’s got a good cliché going, man. You don’t expect him to drop it now?”)
“—and with the security of this country and the non-Communist world intact? Because, believe me, my friends, both must be preserved. Gorotoland is the strategic heart of Africa, the crossroads of the continent, which is why the Communist powers are there. Panama’s strategic importance to us, and to world commerce, is obvious, I think, to everyone. Neither can be permitted to fall to Communist control.
“At the same time, we do not want, and we do not seek, any permanent controlling involvement ourselves. If we can guarantee Gorotoland’s genuine independence, the genuine independence of Panama and the freedom of the Canal to all traffic on an equal basis, then that is all we want.
“How to arrive at these objectives is not so simple. Yet we must try.
“Therefore I am issuing an invitation at this moment to the new Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, and to the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Republic, and such aides and assistants as they may wish to bring with them, to meet me and my advisers in the Palace of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, at noon one week from today.
“The purpose of our meeting will be to negotiate and settle the twin situations in Gorotoland and Panama.
“As far as I and my advisers are concerned, we are ready to stay in Geneva for as long as necessary to bring these two conflicts to an end which will establish peace and satisfy the legitimate interests of all parties, including the countries directly involved, and the major powers.
“I would hope to have a reply from the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, and the Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, at the very earliest possible moment—I would hope not later than noon tomorrow.
“I take this action on my own initiative, without prior consultation with anyone, because I believe the search for peace to be my first and overriding duty as your President.”
(“Well, how about that?” they asked one another knowingly at the Times and the Post—or the Pimes and the Tost, so mirror-image were they in their attitudes toward him, toward the world and toward anyone who did not agree with their own rigidly intolerant and illiberal views. “Old Orrin is certainly desperate for a gimmick, isn’t he?”)
“So we come, inevitably, to the matter of this nation’s defenses—because what we do in Geneva, and what we do thereafter, will depend to a great degree on how much strength we can put behind our words. Strength, as history shows, is all the Communists respect. Smiles, blandishments, ‘détentes,’ agreements, conferences, cozy talks, kindly gestures, ‘treaties,’ solemn pieces of paper—they all mean nothing.
“Strength is all that matters.
“When we have it, we get reasonable arrangements the world can live with.
“When we don’t, we get the back of the hand.
“I do not intend”—and for the first time his voice abandoned its measured cadence, his head came up in a sharply challenging way, he stared straight into the massed cameras—“for the United States in my Administration to take the back of the hand from anybody.”
(“Twenty minutes after he began speaking,” Frankly Unctuous reported with a certain smug satisfaction he could not quite keep out of his voice, “the President has received his first noticeable round of applause.”)
“Therefore, I am sending to the Congress this afternoon an emergency supplemental appropriations bill for the Department of Defense in the amount of ten billion dollars. This measure will provide for an immediate expansion of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines and the missile and satellite forces of the United States. I shall ask the Congress to give it immediate priority. I hope it can be passed and reach my desk not later than one month from today.”
(“There he goes, right back to the same old big-stick militaristic policy,” they said at the Pimes and the Tost.” You see, you can trust him: he always blows it.” “Damned war-lover!”)
“These, my fellow Americans, represent the two basic aspects of the foreign policy of my Administration:
“Frank and candid negotiation, tough but fair-minded bargaining looking toward lasting agreements to reduce tension and bring peace to the world—and the military strength without which that kind of negotiation and agreement is impossible in the modern world.
“Domestically, I hope that my Administration can be equally practical, equally tough-minded, equally firm—and equally fair.
“We have done much in recent years to strengthen ourselves internally. We need to do much more.
“Racial tensions still exist, their causes still abound. We will tackle them firmly and fairly.
“We will do the same in those areas of the economy where labor tensions exist.
“Full medical insurance for all citizens is not yet a reality despite many attempts to achieve it in recent years. We will continue to strive for that goal.
“Energy is still a major problem. We will continue to expand our exploration and development of new energy sources, particularly in the areas outside petrochemicals. We will continue to increase our network of atomic reactors.
“Unemployment remains at a relatively low level, but it is still too much. We will attempt to encourage new businesses and industries to provide more jobs. The gross national product is sagging. We will do our best to bring it up.
“Agriculture will continue to receive the same close attention from my Administration that it has received from others. The price gap between producer and consumer is still too low for the producer, too high for the customer, too close to profiteering for the middleman. We will seek ways to close that gap.
“Inflation continues to plague us—declining somewhat, but still too great for a healthy economy. We will use all the weapons available to government to control it, and bring it down.
“All of these things I pledge to you as our goals in this Administration. I expect personally to give all of them my diligent and continuing personal attention.
“But first we must, if we can, solve the foreign crisis and help the world achieve a viable and lasting peace. And to do that, we need not only an America strong in military defenses but strong in spirit, in hope and in idealism. The climate for that kind of America, my friends, can be set by me—but the achievement of it has to be done by all of us.
“We have here a land which still, for all its troubles of recent years, possesses as much of decency, good will and human goodness as any nation anywhere—more than most, I like to believe, though that may be too prejudiced. But I think not.
“I think that America, with all her faults—and they are many—and
with all her strengths—and they too are many—still guards and preserves what remains of human liberty in the world. She does so because it is her historic role, as it was her historic reason for being, in the first place. And she does so because you, a majority of the American people, I believe, still have faith in her and the things for which she stands.
“We Americans are human, and so we are a very complex conglomeration of good, evil, weakness, strength, certainty, uncertainty, carefully considered policy and sudden, unpredictable impulse. We swing like the pendulum sometimes, but always, so far in our history at least, we have come back to middle ground. So I pray it may ever be, for that is our greatest strength: that the storms rise and blow over, and the Republic still stands.
“With your help and your support, we will survive and continue to discharge our duty to ourselves and to all mankind—the duty to preserve, protect, defend and increase freedom in the world. We shall do it with humility but with a conviction that our hearts are good and our purposes sound: with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, but always—with firmness.
“Thank you, and God bless you all.”
(“How’s that for waving the flag and drowning in clichés?” they asked one another at the Tost. “Of all the crap,” they said scornfully at the Pimes. “Does he really think he’s going to get away with that?”)
“At the conclusion of his brief speech,” Frankly Unctuous reported to his listeners, who were aware of it already, “the President received his second scattering of applause in a routine performance which curiously seemed to stir little interest, and even less enthusiasm, in one of the smallest and least responsive crowds ever to attend an inauguration.”
Knox offers to meet in Geneva with Soviets, Chinese to negotiate settlement of Gorotoland, Panama. Inaugural stresses military strength, reliance on arms to gain “reasonable arrangements world can live with.” Congress cool to demand for new billions for armed forces. Anti-war groups condemn “return to big-stick diplomacy.” Sparse inaugural crowd seems unstirred by new President’s appeal to faith in America.