by Allen Drury
“Nor am I impugning yours,” he said. “I am simply saying that underlying all these rationalizations is an ugly racial fear—an ugly gut terror—of what our friend from NBC and many, many others, I remind you, refer to as ‘the onrushing hordes of China.’ This to me is more terrifying than the Chinese themselves, because in one phrase it throws us back a hundred years or more into a blind emotionalism that simply cannot produce the kind of steady thinking we must have in this situation. It just can’t produce it.”
“But, Mr. President,” the Times said with a noticeable patience, “your general condemnation cannot possibly include us, because we have all specifically said in the past twenty-four hours, and less, that we too deplore racism, that we too want calm and careful policy. So—you puzzle us. We feel you are talking about one thing and we are talking about another.”
“Not really,” he said. “Not really. We are both talking about intervention.”
“And your only argument for being against it,” Walter said, “is that in some people’s minds it may have a racial reason!”
“That is not my only argument against it,” he said angrily. “My argument is that possibly the only way we can save the world and ourselves is by not intervening, by staying free, keeping our strength together, standing ready to pick up the pieces. Not by letting ourselves be stampeded by fears of ‘onrushing hordes’—”
“I am so sorry,” NBC said dryly. The President ignored him.
“—‘onrushing hordes’ and ‘alien cultures,’ or by dreams of ‘the balance of power,’ and my presumed ability to end the conflict by the simple act of waving some sort of magic wand and crying, ‘Stop!’ Good lord, do you know what intervention would mean? It would mean missiles and planes and bombs and, yes, maybe men and a great many men, before we were through. It would mean total commitment. ‘Surgical strike,’ you are all saying now, making it sound very neat and sanitary. War isn’t like that, at least on the scale that’s under way now. It handles things strictly on its own terms. It runs wild. That’s your intervention for you!”
“Nonetheless, Mr. President,” the chairman of The Greatest Publication said gently, “we for our part seem agreed that there may be very valid and compelling reasons for going in—particularly if the Russians continue to fall back in such disarray as they are now doing. If this continues, Mr. President—and there is no indication right now that it won’t—then I think we are agreed that we must continue to call the shots as we see them.”
He gave them a long look, from face to set, unyielding face.
“Which means, very shortly now, an all-out attack upon me, personally, does it not?”
“I would not like to consider it an attack, as such, Mr. President,” the chairman of the G.P. said, still gently. “Just a disagreement, such as we have had before.”
“Very well,” he said, standing up and speaking calmly as they followed suit. “Like you, I must continue to do as I see best. As I said at the start, I should like to have your pledge that you will help me in keeping the country calm, in attacking racism, in fighting intervention, in staying out. Apparently I am not going to have it. I shall make no attempt to conceal the fact that I am bitterly disappointed. Neither shall I make any change in the policy that I, as President of the United States of America, deem soundest and best for the country.”
“So once again,” Walter Dobius said, not without a certain satisfaction, “the media and Orrin Knox are at loggerheads.”
“Is that really a happy thing, Walter?” he inquired bleakly. “Is it really so good for us all?”
But for that, of course, Walter had no answer. He looked, in fact, quite taken aback and, surprisingly, for a moment even ashamed of himself. Very briefly, so did they all.
This of course changed no minds, shifted no positions, softened none of the attitudes that were hardening under the terrible pressures of the hour. They parted, as they had begun so many years ago, diametrically opposed on foreign policy. Only now he was where they had been, and they were where he had been, and strange were the ways of the awful war.
“The Congress must not tie the hands of the President with this resolution,” Cullee concluded in the tense and silent Senate. “We must not take sides. And above all we must not give way to ugly racial fears, for they become us not at all and weaken us most fearfully.”
In the plush offices of NAWAC, at the corner of Connecticut Avenue and L Street, Northwest, the chairman reached over and snapped off the machine with a short and ugly expletive.
To this his colleague Rufus Kleinfert, chairman of the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism (KEEP), responded with nothing more informative than a grunt.
From his colleague the chairman of DEFY came a response more emphatic.
“What the hell do you mean by that?” LeGage demanded sharply.
“I mean screw the black son of a bitch,” Fred Van Ackerman said with an angry impatience. “I’ve had more than enough of his crap, I can tell you.”
“I’m a black son of a bitch,” ’Gage said with an ominous quiet.
The former Senator from Wyoming gave him an appraising look and a shrug both lazy and arrogant.
“That’s right,” he agreed, “but don’t tell anybody, ’Gage, boy, and maybe they won’t notice.” He raised a casual hand as LeGage started from his chair.
“So I’m a white son of a bitch, so what?” he inquired blandly. “Does it really matter? We’ve got a war to get into, ’Gage. It’s no time for us to start fighting each other.”
“I’m not so sure I’m going to get into any war,” LeGage said dourly. “I’m not so sure DEFY is going to follow you on this racial shit. In fact, I know we’re not.”
“So?” Fred Van Ackerman asked, sounding perfectly confident and not at all disturbed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means just what I said,” ‘Gage said flatly. “DEFY is pulling out.”
“Well, well,” Fred said softly. “So DEFY is pulling out. Did you hear that, Rufus? DEFY is pulling out.”
“It iss no time for dissunity,” Rufus Kleinfert observed in his heavy accent. “It iss a time to stick together.”
“So it iss,” Fred said, unable to resist his usual unkind mockery even with an ally. “You do as Rufus says, ’Gage. We need you, boy. In fact,” he said, and his tone became suddenly cold, “any attempt by DEFY to break away at this particular time, just when we’re gearing up to bring old Half-Ass Orrin around to do the job he’s got to do to save this country and Western civilization, would be regarded most unkindly by a majority of your fellow members of NAWAC. Most unkindly. I think I can promise you that, LeGage.”
“You never asked me about that statement of yours,” LeGage said angrily. “You never consulted me before jumping on this race bandwagon about the war.”
“I didn’t jump on it,” Fred observed, not without satisfaction. “I started it going, boy. I got in the driver’s seat before this stupid country even knew where it wanted to go. I told it it had arrived before it even knew it had started. As of course,” he added with a curiously impersonal thoughtfulness, “it had.… Hell, ’Gage! Grow up, man! If you want to stampede this country, how do you do it better than by appealing to race? It isn’t your race, after all. They’re yellow, man, yellow. You-all’s black as de ace of spades, I do b’lieve.”
“You listen to me,” LeGage ground out, and suddenly he had the chairman of NAWAC by the lapels, half lifted out of his chair. “I don’t want any more of your eternal crap, Senator. You turn on one race, next thing you’re going to turn on another. I don’t like that, hear? I don’t like that!” And he slammed Fred, who had possessed the sense to let himself hang limp and not fight it, back into his chair.
There was a silence broken only by their heavy breathing and Rufus Kleinfert’s gently drawn and carefully unobtrusive respiration. Then Fred looked up at him with a glazed and ominous expression in his eyes.
“I don’t like that kind of business either, boy,”
he said softly. “I don’t like it at all. I consulted Rufus. I didn’t do it all by myself.”
“Consulted another white man!” ’Gage exclaimed. “Of course! Of course! Why didn’t you consult me, you damned coward? Because you knew I’d object, that’s why! And you knew why I would, too! Because one of these days after you’ve accomplished this evil purpose, I’ve no doubt you’re planning to turn on the black people in your own country for some other evil purpose, damned if I know what it is but I’m sure you’ve got one. That’s why you didn’t consult me! Well, I’ve said it and I mean it: we’re leaving. DEFY’s getting out of NAWAC and you and your fat friend here can take what’s left and shove it.”
“Suppose you listen to me,” Fred said, becoming suddenly, in one of his lightning changes, perfectly calm, perfectly reasonable, “before you go flying off the handle to do something you’ll regret. Whatever the reason, the United States of America cannot let Russia be defeated by China. We’ve got to save her. Our whole civilization depends upon that. Why, hell! You talk about your precious race! What’s going to become of it if the Chinese win? Do you think they’re going to say, ‘Come on, brothers and sisters, we love you now, ’cause black is best?’ Are you kidding? They’re going to say, ‘Lif dat barge and tote dat bale, brothers and sisters! Yellow’s best. Haven’t you heard, soul folk?’ … It’s your skin, too, ’Gage, baby, that’s why I didn’t bother to consult you. I knew you’d react this way without stopping to think. I knew you’d listen to some blind stooge of Whitey like Cullee—”
“You leave Cullee out of this!” LeGage cried angrily. “Cullee makes more sense than you ever made in all your twisted, empty life!”
“Oh, so we love Cullee now, do we?” Fred inquired softly. “We love big old black Cullee, now. Well, well, well, well. And don’t hit me,” he cried harshly as LeGage started forward, apparently intent upon doing just that, “or you won’t live long, either!”
“What do you mean, live long, either?” ’Gage shouted. “What are you going to do to Cullee?”
“We’re going to give him and his damned President a lesson!” Fred shouted back, for once genuinely carried out of himself by anger. “We’ve got to do something to jolt that damned fool in the White House into doing what he has to do to save this country and Western civilization!”
“You leave Cullee alone,” ‘Gage cried, old unhappy bitternesses with his life’s friend-enemy forgotten as a conviction of terrible danger to Cullee overwhelmed him, “or I’ll kill you!”
“The plans are all made, boy,” Fred said, suddenly corning out of his schizophrenic high to turn cold and composed again. “All made, and nothing you can do about it. Nothing at all. And if you want to take your damned DEFY out of NAWAC, God-damn you, go ahead. We’ll manage very well without you to save our”—and he spat out the words—“white civilization, thank you very much!”
“You—” ’Gage cried in a harsh, wounded voice. “You—”
“Too late,” Fred said blandly, and no one would ever know whether it was fact or just another of his cruel and cruelly enjoyed threats. “Just too late, baby.”
The last thing LeGage heard as he flung himself blindly out the door, knowing he must get to a telephone, go to the Hill, warn Cullee, do something, was the mocking laughter of the chairman of NAWAC and Rufus Kleinfert’s heavy voice saying politely, “KEEP iss quite ready for whatever you propose, Fred. Unity iss very important if we are to save the civilization of the West.”
For several moments thereafter there was silence in the room while Fred stared down at the hurrying traffic along Constitution Avenue, a strange, twisted, moody half grimace still on his lips; not really amusement, Rufus decided, but something wild, remote, uncaged, uncontrollable beyond the ordinary ken of ordinary people: the impersonal amusement of an animal, perhaps, feral, vicious and on the prowl. Rufus, who was far from being the most sensitive and perceptive of men, found himself shivering.
“That slimy little black son of a bitch,” Fred said finally, his voice very soft, his eyes still riveted on his unsuspecting countrymen below but obviously not seeing them. “That slimy, worthless, no-account nigger! Nigger, nigger, nigger!…
“Why, listen!” he said, and he rounded on Rufus Kleinfert with a sudden savage motion of his entire body that made Rufus jump and instinctively half raise a hand to ward him off. “Do you think I’m going to let a stinking black tramp like that get in my way, when I’ve got this whole country moving behind me now? When all of America is listening to me? To Fred Van Ackerman? To the guy old Half-Ass Orrin thought he’d driven out of public life forever and ever, amen? When I’m leading the whole parade? When I’ve put my finger on all those silly stupid sheep down there, and all their silly, stupid, craven, hypocritical fears that they won’t admit to themselves but can’t wait to give in to? When they’re loving me for it?…
“It won’t be long now,” he said, and his voice and thoughts seemed to turn inward to some vision that Rufus Kleinfert knew was far away from him and perhaps from all sane human contact. “It won’t be long. Russia’s falling and we’ve got to save her, and the man who stands in the way is going to be wiped out by the people of this country. They’ll kill him or they’ll impeach him or they’ll do something—anyway, they’ll sweep over him. And when he’s gone, which won’t be very many more days or maybe even hours, now, they’ll turn to the man who’s leading them the way they want to go, the man who understands them and knows how to appeal to what they really want, not all this idealistic crap we’ve had to feed them in recent years to get them to follow us. I won’t have to feed them anything to get them to follow me, after this—except maybe”—his eyes looked oddly tortured for one seeing a vision apparently so attractive to him—“except maybe a few of the damned niggers and the damned kikes and the damned conservatives, and maybe even”—and for a moment a savage humor touched his face—“maybe even a few of these high and mighty liberals whose asses I’ve had to kiss for so long to get where I’m going.…
“And nobody,” he said, his eyes returning at last to Rufus and at last appearing to focus upon him, “but nobody, Rufus, baby, is going to stop me. You stick with me and NAWAC and we’ll go places. Because nobody”—his eyes swung again far away to some inner landscape unknown to reason, and again Rufus shivered—“nobody can stop me now.”
But in this, of course, he was mistaken as some demagogues—sometimes—fortunately are: not all, but enough to permit the human race, when its members are very, very lucky, to just scrape by the pitfalls of a destiny that would be perfectly justified.
Even as he finished speaking there was sudden turmoil in the outer office, the scream of a secretary, a door flung open.
On the threshold stood a black man, looking, grotesquely, almost white-faced in his terrible anger.
He held a knife that glistened ferociously in the light.
The chairman of KEEP, and presently the chairman of NAWAC, screamed too.
The chairman of DEFY had come back.
Russian rout continues as Congress enters second day of debate on aid resolution. Both governments flee devastated capitals for secret hideouts. European leaders may make direct appeal to Knox as yellow tide sweeps on. UN relief agency pledges a-cloud aid.
Hamilton gives senate administration case for neutrality but party leaders in both houses confident resolution will pass. Many members favor surgical strike to end the war.
Surgical strike! the Vice President thought with a weary disgust as the afternoon dragged on and speech after lengthy speech repeated Arly Richardson’s catch phrase. It had been a true inspiration, that slogan, sounding so neat and clean and antiseptic, one of those ideal softening substitutes, beloved of democracies, behind which men could hide in comfort from the harsh realities of what they proposed to do. Surely a surgical strike could not be something frightful, dreadful, awful, atomic; a surgical strike could only be something nice and quick, free from horror and in some magical way not involved at all with the blo
od, brains, guts, lives and small, desperate worlds of human beings. He had seen it happen often on the Hill in regard to less cataclysmic matters; not surprising that it should happen with the gravest matter of them all. Even more imperative now, in fact, that men hide themselves from what they contemplated.
On the House side, he knew, the same situation prevailed. Bill Abbott had walked over a while ago to sit and chat with him for a few minutes on the dais, invoking murmurs from floor and galleries and a desperate craning from the press seats above their heads as members of the media tried to guess what they were saying. But they kept their voices low and against the drone of speeches nothing could be heard. It was obvious from their expressions, however, that they were not happy. The headlines were quite accurate: the resolution was on its way to passage, either late tonight or, at the latest, at the special early session already set for 9 a.m. tomorrow.
“I can’t understand it,” he said moodily as he contemplated Hugh B. Root of New Mexico, whistling and roaring in his usual unintelligible fashion but somehow managing to convey with his mushy voice and wildly waving, cellophane-wrapped cigar that he was in favor of the resolution. “I just can’t understand it. The country’s being stampeded—just stampeded. People are terrified of atomic war. And yet here they go, wanting to rush into it.”
“Apparently,” Bill Abbott said bleakly, “they’re more terrified of the Chinese. You and I don’t want to believe that, but it seems to be true. They see those ‘hordes,’ you see—the ‘hordes’ are very vivid, now, yellow and savage and menacing and running amuck. And let’s face it, Cullee: the hordes are there, there’s no getting away from it. They are advancing. They are managing to absorb their losses, which must be fantastic, and still move on. To many, many minds they are beginning to seem almost superhuman, larger than life, doubly terrifying. They are beginning to seem invincible. And the Russians are falling back, falling back, falling back. The result has raced with an inevitable progression in the past few hours: the Russians are losing, the Chinese are winning—people like us are losing, foreign people are winning—WE are losing, THEY are winning—… Ah,” he broke off with a sad disgust, “it’s a hell of a situation.”