by Allen Drury
Yet he did not see how he could do other. He wanted a livable accommodation with the ever-surging, ever-probing, ever-imperializing Communist tide—and to him “livable” was the key word.
What could you live with? That was the heart of it. Long ago in World War II, he remembered, the columnist Dorothy Thompson had done a piece on “Who Would Go Nazi?”—a cleverly bitter speculation on which among the many public figures of whom she disapproved would embrace fascism if it should, as then seemed very possible, conquer the world.
The same thing might be done now, on the other side. “Who Would Go Communist?” Who—as she had then portrayed them and as many still were, weak of will, avid of ambition, consumed by fears for personal safety, the desire to be on the winning side and the arrogant intellectual conviction that they could handle anybody and survive—would go Communist?
He suspected there were quite a few, leaving well aside the never-resting minority in all countries around the world who were already actively committed. The media were always the first who had to bow to Communism when it took a country, because in the electronic age they were the keys to the control of public opinion. Therefore they were placed immediately under dictatorship. Inevitably many among them would point proudly to past sympathies and claim that this gave them a right to survive: because they had always “understood.” They would eagerly and naïvely “go Communist.” But this would do them no good. Having been free, inevitably in short order they would try to act as though they still were free. And immediately they would be eliminated, because the mindless state can brook no opposition from the mind.
For this reason he believed, although they would never concede it to him, that in a fundamental way he was protecting Supermedia and its friends as much as he was protecting anything else when he advocated a firm policy vis-à-vis history’s latest imperialism. It lent an extra impatience to the mood with which he thought of them. They thought they could embrace those who wished them death, and survive, did they? They would find out damned fast, if it ever came to that.
The same thing applied to the many millions who, conditioned by the constant drummings of Supermedia through newsprint, screen and tube, felt a perfectly innocent aversion to his policies—regarded him as warmonger and warmaker—desperately feared what they were told was his “belligerence,” his “arrogance,” his “intransigence” and his “refusal to negotiate for peace.” He was protecting them, too, though they were daily conditioned to give him no credit for it.
Having said all this, however, there remained a cold reality of which he was entirely aware:
What he was doing was dangerous. The policies he was pushing did carry the potential of final disaster. He was gambling. The outcome could be terminal.
Orrin Knox indeed was dealing in the fate of mankind. He did not blink at the awful thought. The only difference between him and his critics was that he believed that some things were more important than disaster—that some things were still worth fighting for, whatever the risks—that there were still principles valid enough to warrant saying, “No!” and taking one’s stand in the path of Juggernaut.
He believed this because, being a close student of history, a discipline now highly unpopular with entire generations, he had observed that time and again when men finally reached this conclusion, when they finally took leave of their fears, when they finally dedicated themselves selflessly to the principles of freedom, justice, truth and the other frayed but still valid achievements of the independent mind, the Lord sometimes moved in and rescued them. Events turned their way. They held firm against all potentials of disaster, all prophets of doom—and somehow, somewhere, frequently at the very last millisecond before midnight, things shifted in ways unpredictable, and they survived and made it through and saved what they were fighting for.
It was to this, he thought now as he prepared to leave the Oval Office and return to the Mansion and a sleep that might be broken at any moment with news of further disasters on the field of battle, that he clung, against reason, against logic, against the facts as they appeared to be aligning themselves all along the perimeters of the beleaguered democracy he led.
He knew his forces were in retreat—he knew the country’s sadly reduced military strength permitted him very little margin and very little time—he knew he was engaged on a gigantic gamble that could end everything—but he knew he had to stay with it, at least a while longer. The end result might be defeat, disaster, surrender … but it might not be.
He could not, being true to what Orrin Knox had always believed and been, remaining true to his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the nation it governed, open the door and invite disaster in. It might come through his policies, and if it did he would have to face it as best he could and take the consequences. But he could not, and he would not, give in to it without a fight. “Cooperating with the inevitable” had never been his style, because he had learned in life that the inevitable was frequently only as inevitable as men, in their fear, caution, lack of courage or cupidity, made it.
He walked slowly back to the Mansion along the arcade overlooking the snow-buried Rose Garden.
It was almost midnight.
Orrin Knox was receiving the full impact of the world’s terror, hatred and dismay.
But Orrin Knox was not yielding.
So the fifth day of his Presidency passed into night, with no prospect of salvation to relieve its gloom and no ray of light as yet visible at the far end of the dark passage through which he and his country were struggling.
4
Nor did salvation come any closer in the week that followed, nor did any faintest glimmer reveal itself ahead. Day marched after day and on each the forces that threatened his country grew stronger on the fields of battle, the gloom that gripped his countrymen became deeper, the frantic howls of his critics domestic and foreign wailed ever louder around an increasingly isolated White House. American troops, planes, tanks, their retreats stabilized—but only just—continued to fight savage holding actions, a growing number captured, a growing number dead. Television and the press dwelt long and lovingly on every American reverse, every American mistake, their treatment of the enemy so sparse and gentle that one might almost have thought the United States was the sole country involved. Inevitably this had what he thought of as “the Vietnam effect” on his countrymen. Daily he sank lower in the public-opinion polls, daily his supporters grew more discouraged and more timid, daily more and more in Congress charged, denounced, demanded, daily the number who dared speak out in his behalf declined. The UN met, raged, passed new resolutions, raged some more when he had Ceil veto them. Rumors increased that Britain and France might be joining the Communist powers to form a naval task force to challenge the blockade of Panama. Hysteria soared. Still the basic deadlock remained. He kept himself aloof, made no further statements, held to his own counsel. He would not yield, the Communists would not yield, his critics foreign and domestic would not yield. The world screamed toward a climax of hatred and terror at whose center he appeared to be as serene and unshakable as though nothing at all untoward were going on.
But it took its toll, and all who were close to him knew it.
On the tenth day of his Presidency it took a toll he did not know that he could stand.
But he saw it through and stood even that, though looking back he marveled that he had.
“Bill—” he said, coming forward late in the winter-dark afternoon to shake hands with his troubled predecessor. “Bob—Warren—please be seated. And don’t look so solemn,” he added with a smile. “It isn’t as bad as all that.”
“It isn’t?” William Abbott inquired with a sigh. “You must know something we don’t know.”
“I know we’re holding them,” he said crisply.
“But at what a cost!” Warren Strickland said quietly. “At what a cost!”
“And would you be doing it any differently if you sat here?” he demanded sharply; and after a moment th
e Senate Minority Leader also sighed.
“No … I guess not. But it is imperative that we have some hope, Mr. President. We must have some hope.” The room became silent as he asked a quiet question: “Is there any?”
He studied their worried faces for a moment, elbows on chair arms, chin on fingertips in his characteristic pose. All were deeply troubled, all were looking to him for reassurance. For the first time it crossed his mind that even these might leave him, if the agony went on long enough.
“Hope?” he echoed, the thought giving his tone an extra edge. “Hope? Yes, I can give you hope: the hope that a just cause will ultimately win, that courage and decency will ultimately prevail, that freedom and democracy will not go down if brave men remain unflinching in the defense of them.”
“We’re brave men,” Bob Munson said, as quietly as Warren. “But we need encouragement.”
“I have been in office ten days,” he said, his tone still edgy. “The new fighting has been under way ten days. Ten days is sufficient to judge the way a war is going? Ten days is enough to give up hope?”
“Nations have fallen in far less in this century,” Bob Munson pointed out. “And today time telescopes even more.… No,” he said gravely, “we aren’t judging the war—finally—Mr. President. We aren’t giving up hope—finally. But we are telling you that things are getting increasingly tight, on the Hill, in the country, everywhere.”
“And you think I don’t know it?” he demanded, unable to keep some bitterness out of his voice. “I’m told it in every broadcast, every newspaper, every phone call, every piece of mail that reaches this house. I feel it in my bones as much as you do—you can’t be in politics as long as I’ve been and not have a gut instinct for what the country is thinking. At least I can’t.”
“And still you remain unshaken,” William Abbott said thoughtfully; and then with a wry smile added, “But of course you do, just as I did, and just as any other character worth his salt in this office, does.… Except that this time”—and again he sighed, heavily and unhappily—“this time, I just don’t know.… I just don’t know.”
“Well, I do,” he said with an outward calmness he did not entirely feel. “I do, Bill. And so did you, up to now. What’s happened?”
“The wars,” the ex-President said. “World opinion. Domestic opinion. The UN, nattering away. Congress, still holding up your Cabinet. The defense bill you have got to have to keep going, still pigeonholed. The whole head-on, intransigent atmosphere. No slightest sign of charity or compassion or understanding for you anywhere, at least in any influential spot in this country. Or the world, for that matter. The whole thing, Orrin. It’s just beginning to wear me down. As it must,” he concluded gravely, “be wearing you down too, though you seem remarkably resilient … at least on the surface.”
“And surface,” he remarked dryly, “is what the world goes on.” His expression changed, sobered. “No. I am worn down, Bill. Desperately so. But I will not—I cannot—give in and change course now. I simply cannot do it, because the minute I did, everything would be lost.” He looked from somber face to somber face. “Is that why you asked to see me? To urge me to give in?”
“Not to give in,” William Abbott said quietly. “You know none of your real friends wants you to do that. Just to—bend a little, perhaps. Give a bit. Don’t be quite so—arbitrary.”
“This is a change,” he said, finding it hard to keep the anger from his voice. “You three telling me this? I can’t believe it!” He mastered his annoyance with an obvious effort, forced his tone to become more reasonable. “All right then: how do I ‘bend a little’? How do I ‘give a bit’? How do I become less ‘arbitrary,’ when I face an absolutely unbending, ungiving, completely arbitrary adversary? We’ve all known each other all our political lives, nobody on the Hill has been any closer over the years: advise me. I’ll listen.” A fleeting smile crossed his face, but the moment was too serious for it to linger long. “I may not do anything about it, but I’ll listen.”
“Have you considered,” Bob Munson asked, “reopening the possibility of a conference? As you say, we are holding them—”
“Barely.”
“Yes, barely—but we are. Mightn’t this be an opportunity to start talking?”
His expression became set.
“It’s got to be more solid than this.”
“But will it be?” Warren Strickland inquired.
“Can it be?” asked William Abbott.
“I don’t know,” he said, “but I’ve got to hold on and hope.”
“Can you hold on?” Bill Abbott asked. “Can we even hold what we’ve got, without a bloodbath even worse than we’re having right now? My part of the war was relatively easy, things were pretty calm over the past six months. Now we’re into Operation Meatgrinder—”
“Who came up with that one?” he snapped.
“It’s on the Hill. You’ll see it in your friendly media tomorrow morning. I’m not saying I agree with the spirit in which it’s used, but in essence—”
“Yes?” the President inquired with an ominous quiet.
“In essence,” the ex-President said calmly, “that is exactly what it is, Orrin, and you know it.”
“I cannot give in,” the President repeated, his voice curiously remote but unyielding. “And I cannot talk—yet.”
“You may never have a better chance,” Senator Munson remarked.
“At least some gesture—?” Warren Strickland suggested. “Some sign of willingness to meet, if only to take the propaganda initiative away from them? It would make it so much easier for you—and for the sizable number who still, I think, support your course, although with growing difficulty.”
He gave them a long, moody, searching look.
“How long can you fellows continue to support it?”
“How long can you?” his predecessor inquired with equal moodiness.
“As long as I have to!” he said sharply.
“Not quite, I’m afraid, Orrin,” William Abbott said somberly. “Not quite.”
“I have to, Bill!” he exclaimed in an almost desperate way. “I simply have to! Until they agree, until they make a sign, until they come halfway. There’s no other alternative at this moment.” His tone became suddenly almost beseeching, almost wistful, an Orrin they had very rarely seen in all their years of close association. “Now you know that … don’t you?”
“We’ll stay with you just as long as we can,” Bob Munson assured him quickly, deeply troubled by this insight into depths of Presidential anguish. And Warren Strickland, leaning forward with equal haste, agreed, “Of course we will—and beyond that if need be. Although”—he shook his head with a worried frown—“we probably won’t have much company.”
“I can’t help that,” he said, voice low, eyes far away, mind somewhere in the bitter night. “I have got to do what I think is right for this country and the world even if they both hate me forever in the process. There is no other way … is there?” he demanded of his predecessor with a sudden reviving challenge, a sudden return to the Orrin Knox they knew so well. “Is there?”
William Abbott studied him for a long time.
“We’ll be with you a while yet,” he said finally. “But, Orrin,” he added quietly, “for your sake—for the country’s sake—for everybody’s sake—I hope it doesn’t have to be too long.” He too looked far away. “I don’t know whether we could all stand it.”
“If I can, you can,” the President said, sounding fully himself again, but softening the near-flippant tartness with a smile.
“Yes,” the ex-President agreed, “if you can.”
“Try me,” he said with a suddenly reviving cheerfulness, for he was confident now, with a sudden upsurging relief, that these old friends would not desert him, no matter who else might. With them, his family and a few others, he felt his strength was as the strength of millions.
And so he continued to feel after they left, despite the continuing burden of disc
ouraging reports that continued to flow to his desk from the Situation Room. The mood continued until shortly after 11 p.m., when he decided to go to bed; then it changed.
He had just reached the Mansion and stepped off the elevator onto the second floor when one of the young Secret Service men on duty throughout the heavily guarded house hurried forward down the long central hall. Something about the agent’s haste, his manner, the way he was carefully suppressing emotion though so obviously in the grip of it, sent a cold shiver through his body.
“Yes?” he called sharply. “What is it?”
“Mr. President,” the agent said. “I’m afraid there’s bad n—”
“My children,” he interrupted flatly, a great abyss seeming to open up at his feet, the house, the world, everything, almost literally spinning away from him, beyond grasp, beyond redemption.
“Yes, sir,” the agent said, his voice shaking a little now. “I am so sorry. We just this minute received word—”
“What?” he asked, a monstrous impatience seeming to seize his whole being. “What is it, man?”
“They’ve been kidnapped, sir,” the agent said hurriedly, his earnest young face white with strain. “They went to the benefit at Ford’s Theater, and just after the performance ended, while they were waiting to get into the car, a group of six people—”
“Why weren’t they guarded?” he demanded, his voice grating harshly in the hushed corridor.
“Three of our men died, sir,” the agent said simply; and for several seconds neither of them said anything more.
Then he sighed from some great depth, passed across his eyes a hand that shook, and in a voice that was lower and by some miracle almost normal, said quietly:
“I’m sorry, I apologize. I should have known. Who did it?”