“Absolutely,” said Nicholson. “If you get any static later, I’ll take responsibility for it.”
Brothers took the phone at once and asked for the White House number.
“Luther Smith on the detail,” he told the White House operator.
Agent Luther Smith left the west lobby of the White House on a trot, ran past the front portico of the mansion and fetched up, panting, at the police cubicle at the east entrance. It was 4:22 P.M. Two minutes later, Senator James MacVeagh descended from a cab at the gate and paid off the taxi driver.
Smith walked casually toward MacVeagh, grasped his right arm firmly, and propelled him across East Executive Avenue toward the basement entrance to the old Treasury Building.
“I’m sorry, Senator,” said Smith in a low voice, “but we’ve got orders to detain you.”
MacVeagh tried to wrench his arm free. “What the hell for?” he exploded.
“I don’t know,” said Smith, “but you’ve got to come with me.”
MacVeagh, a larger and stronger man than the swarthy Secret Service agent, again sought to free his arm, but Smith now had one hand on Jim’s right biceps and another clamped on his wrist. By the time Jim had decided how to break the grip, he was already being pushed into the shadows of the Treasury garage. A second agent grabbed Jim’s left arm and MacVeagh was thrust bodily, although not roughly, into the back seat of a sedan.
“D.C. General,” Smith commanded the driver.
“Am I supposed to be sick?” asked Jim.
Smith looked away, embarrassed. “I don’t know, Senator. We’ve got orders to take you to the psychiatric clinic.”
The Pentagon limousine of Defense Secretary Sidney Karper pulled up at the east entrance of the White House just as the car carrying Jim MacVeagh left the Treasury basement garage at the other end of the short block.
Karper looked at his wrist watch as he backed out of the limousine. He was two minutes late for the appointment which he and Senator MacVeagh had with Brigadier General Maury Leppert, physician to the President. Karper nodded to the White House policeman standing in front of his white guard cubicle.
“Has Senator MacVeagh arrived yet?” Karper asked.
“Senator MacVeagh?” The guard looked puzzled. “Why, yes, Mr. Secretary. He got out of a cab here a couple of minutes ago, but he was led away over to the Treasury Building by one of the Secret Service agents.”
19.
Paul Griscom’s
Sidney Karper, inwardly seething, strode across East Executive Avenue to the Treasury Building, entered the Secret Service suite of offices and demanded that the girl receptionist take him at once to Chief Brothers.
The girl, accustomed to dealing with cranks and crackpots, patted at her stringy black hair and sought to appease him with a forced smile. But a middle-aged administrative assistant at the desk behind her recognized the Secretary of Defense. He bolted forward as though shot from a catapult. Fussing over Karper’s rank and calling him “Mr. Secretary” three times in one obsequious sentence, he explained that Chief Brothers had just left a conference on Capitol Hill and was expected back momentarily.
“I’ll wait in his office,” said Karper, scowling.
“Yes, sir. Of course, Mr. Secretary.”
When Brothers returned a few minutes later he found Karper pacing about his office, his hands clasped behind him and his lips compressed in a thin line. Karper wheeled on him.
“Just what in the hell has the Service done with Senator MacVeagh?” he demanded.
Brothers, taken aback at the ferocity of Karper’s inquiry, took a moment to settle himself behind his desk. Then he tried a placating smile.
“That’s an administrative matter,” said Brothers. He could think of no better word.
“Administrative!” Karper roared it. “What does that mean—in English?”
“I’m not at liberty to reveal the circumstances.” A tremor in Brothers’ voice betrayed his anxiety behind the officious tone. How did the Secretary of Defense figure in all this?
“I’m a Cabinet officer,” said Karper coldly. “James MacVeagh is a United States senator. I have an official right to know what you’ve done with Senator MacVeagh. I know he was escorted to this building by one of your agents.”
Brothers hesitated. In these last months the swirling crosscurrents of Washington politics had buffeted him more than at any time in memory. He felt an urge to sneeze and he eyed Karper bleakly, accusingly. Didn’t the Secretary of Defense have enough to worry about with his missiles and nuclear fleets?
“Senator MacVeagh has been detained for investigation,” said Brothers with a sigh. “We were forced to do it as a precautionary measure.”
“By whose authority?” demanded Karper. “I didn’t know this was a police state.”
“Now, Mr. Secretary,” said Brothers, essaying a soothing tone, but not quite bringing it off, “while I agree it’s highly unusual to detain a United States senator, we had reason to believe that Senator MacVeagh had designs on the President. In such circumstances, the Service can take no chances.”
“Tommyrot!” boomed Karper. “Jim MacVeagh wouldn’t harm a bird. I demand to see him at once. Where is he?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t reveal that.”
“I am a member of the Cabinet and I have a right to know.”
“And I’m an agent of the President of the United States, and I’m only doing my duty,” said Brothers. He sighed again, wearily, and inwardly cursed MacVeagh for fetching him this packet of woe. “Why don’t you appeal to the President? Perhaps he can help you.”
Karper shot a glance of frustration at Brothers and hastily changed course.
“You say ‘we’ have reason to believe Senator MacVeagh has designs on the President,” said Karper. “Who is ‘we’?”
Chief Brothers eyed Karper balefully. Why, he thought, should he, a beleaguered civil servant, take the heat alone for the apprehension of a senator?
“The ‘we,’ ” said Brothers, “includes the Speaker of the House, Mr. Nicholson, the chairman of the Democratic committee, Mr. Donovan, and a prominent Democratic attorney, Mr. Paul Griscom. We’ve just had a meeting in the Speaker’s office. They made the decision. I merely concurred in it and ordered MacVeagh picked up as he entered the White House.”
“Thanks,” said Karper, and he marched from the office without further word.
Karper’s temper cooled somewhat as he strode along the old Treasury corridors. He considered calling Speaker Nicholson or Chairman Donovan, but dismissed the idea. He knew neither man well enough. Instead, he decided to call on Paul Griscom, the lawyer every Washington official knew and with whom Karper had been paired occasionally for golf at the Burning Tree Club. He found his limousine and chauffeur awaiting him at the rear driveway of the Treasury and he gave orders to be driven to Griscom’s home on O Street.
A maid answered Karper’s summons, two rings of the doorbell plus one loud clap of the shiny brass door knocker. A narrow hallway, with marble flooring, ran back into the recesses of the Georgetown house. Two sliding oak doors, similar to those used in nineteenth-century parlors, opened to the left on a spacious living room. At the foot of the hallway, Paul Griscom was talking on the telephone.
“All right then,” Karper heard Griscom say. “We’ll discuss it in detail when you come down next week for spring vacation. Okay? Now don’t worry, Mark. Sure. Good-by.”
Griscom turned to Karper and smiled. If he was surprised to see the Cabinet officer, he did not show it. Griscom’s colonial O Street residence had received scores of prominent government officials over the years.
“Good evening, Sid,” he said. He gestured toward the telephone. “That was Mark Jr. up in New Haven. The boy’s worried over some letter or other from the President that he thinks overdoes the parental bit. Grades, I gather.”
Gris
com advanced and shook Karper’s hand. The lawyer’s trousers bagged at the knees and his face looked as lived in as the old house about him. “Nice to see you, Sid.” He eyed Karper inquiringly. “Anything the matter?”
Karper nodded. “Did you say young Hollenbach is worried about a harsh letter from his father?”
“Harsh?” echoed Griscom. “No, I don’t believe I described it that way. But, well, I suppose it is harsh, as young Mark read it to me. Actually, it concerns two letters his father wrote recently. Both are a bit strange, I’d say.” He shrugged. “But it’s just one of those family things. The boy needs somebody’s shoulder to cry on. What can I do for you, Sid?”
Karper ignored the diversion. “What do you mean, ‘strange’?”
“Now, just a minute, Sid,” said Griscom. He adjusted his rimless spectacles on his nose and peered at Karper. “This is a personal matter, and I’m not really at liberty—”
“If young Mark got an ugly letter from his father,” cut in Karper, “it’s my business as well as yours. As a matter of fact, it’s public business. If I were you, I’d get that boy on a plane down here right away. Tonight.”
Griscom removed his spectacles and stood staring in bewilderment at Karper. “What the devil are you talking about?”
Karper hesitated as he watched Griscom’s reaction. Ordinarily, he would lead into the subject gingerly. But there was no time left for caution. He might as well lay it on the line.
“I’m talking about insanity,” said Karper. He thrust his big head forward and fixed his eyes on Griscom’s. “Paul, President Hollenbach is in very, very bad trouble. You’ve made a terrible, although understandable, blunder. It isn’t Senator MacVeagh whose mind has deserted him. It’s the President.”
The two men stood facing each other in the hallway. Above the veined pouches, Griscom’s eyes scanned Karper’s face as though seeing it for the first time.
“I think you’d better explain that statement,” said Griscom slowly. His look was one of skepticism, but his tone seemed to reserve judgment. “Let’s go into the living room.”
Griscom motioned Karper to a brocaded sofa while he seated himself in a painted wooden armchair. The room was furnished in a stilted French seventeenth-century style that seemed as out of character with Griscom’s unpressed suits and his Wyoming twang as was his opulent law office. Karper leaned forward, his long arms resting on his knees.
“Paul,” asked Karper, “do you think I’m crazy?”
“No, of course not.”
“You’re right,” said Karper. “I’m not. And neither, my friend, is Jim MacVeagh. We’re two of a kind. We both have become convinced that the President’s mind is not all there. We’re convinced he’s suffering some kind of paranoia. We arrived at this conclusion independently, based on independent evidence, and only today was either of us aware of what the other had found out. We were on our way to consult General Leppert by appointment when the Secret Service apprehended Jim.”
The lawyer played for time, removing his spectacles, yanking out a shirttail and polishing the lenses with it. “That’s a pretty strong dose, Sid,” he said. “I could use a drink. How about you?”
Karper nodded. “A martini on the rocks.”
When the drinks had been served by Griscom from a portable corner bar, Karper told the whole story, including his exchange with MacVeagh that noon. Only with Project CACTUS did he grow cautious. He referred to it only as a classified Pentagon study.
“And so,” he concluded, “I think the situation is growing worse. There’s absolutely no evidence that Mark’s mind is straightening itself out. On the contrary, the aberration I noted about six months ago appears to have become fixed. He thinks he’s the victim of conspirators who are plotting to destroy him, and he has obvious delusions of grandeur.”
Griscom remained silent a moment as he toyed with his glass. “Those letters of young Mark did seem strange,” he said in a half-voice, as though musing to himself. “What worried young Mark was a sentence in his father’s letter that spoke of a conspiracy that was afoot to harm him in some way, or at least ruin his reputation. The other letter was an extraordinary one too. Apparently the President wrote an accusing letter to a fellow named Carmichael out in West Texas, the cotton farmer young Mark worked with last summer.”
Karper nodded assent. “It all fits in,” he said. “Paul, I don’t think this thing can be allowed to slide any longer. Hollenbach’s meeting with Zuchek is only twelve days off. We just can’t permit a deranged president to go to that meeting. Several defense matters—I can’t discuss their nature—are hanging fire. When I think of what a paranoid president might tell the Russians, the kind of deal he might make, God, it gives me the shivers.”
“I just can’t bring myself to believe it,” said Griscom, shaking his head. “I see him two, three times a week, and I can’t remember a single thing he’s done or said that appears the least bit abnormal. There’s his hyperactivity, of course, but he’s been that way ever since I’ve known him.”
“But,” protested Karper, “the paranoid’s ability to fool people is uncanny. With some people, he can always appear completely normal, and in fact, he is. With others, his logic can be brilliant—if you accept his fantastic premises.”
“I realize that.” Griscom frowned. “I recall that when Jim MacVeagh called on me and described the symptoms of a man he refused to name, I thought many of the ideas made sense, if you were willing to accept the premises. I’ve experienced the same thing in a number of legal cases involving paranoids. Still, Mark Hollenbach. It seems incredible.”
“But look at that absurd conspiracy delusion he has,” said Karper. “It reappears over and over again, with O’Malley, with Davidge, with MacVeagh, with me. He even mentioned it to his own son. That’s the symptom of a diseased mind, Paul, and you know it.”
Once again Karper went over the series of incidents, from the hoisted inkwell in the White House to the promise to Mrs. Byerson to make her chrysanthemum the flower of the new super-union. Griscom listened without interrupting, his lanky body slouched in a chair and his eyes fastened on the drink which he held cupped in his hands.
At last the lawyer held up a hand. “That’s enough, Sid. You’ve convinced me. I’ll just go tell my wife to cancel me out of dinner, and see if I can’t get us a couple of sandwiches. I suppose we ought to get the leaders over here, the same ones who were at Cavanaugh’s. What do you think?”
Karper nodded. “Yes, we ought to get that same group, plus Joe Donovan and Arnold Brothers, since they’re in on it now. Also, you ought to get young Mark to fly down here and bring those letters.”
Griscom smiled a bit sheepishly. “And get Jim MacVeagh out of custody?”
Karper grinned. “Yes, I almost forgot Jim. Where is he, by the way?”
“At D.C. General, for psychiatric examination.”
Griscom went to the hallway telephone and quickly got Mark Hollenbach, Jr., at Yale. “Mark,” he said, “you’d better fly down here on the first plane. Yes, tonight. Something has come up that makes it imperative. Come straight to my place and bring those letters with you. No word to your folks, please. I’ll explain when you get here.”
After a few more words with Mark he hung up, then called all those involved, Vice-President O’Malley, Senators Odium and Gullion, Speaker Nicholson, Justice Cavanaugh, Chief Brothers, and Joe Donovan. All were at home except Odium, who answered a page at Dulles International Airport, where he’d just arrived from a New Orleans speaking date. He too promised to come at once. While Griscom telephoned, Sidney Karper paced the living room. His big hands swung at his sides and a frown held his great forehead.
Some of the group arrived within a few minutes, but it was almost an hour later when Odium, the last to reach the house, came in, puffing his apologies. Griscom closed the sliding oak doors and invited all hands to serve themselves from the portable b
ar.
“I think we’ve made a grave mistake,” Griscom said simply when the amenities were finished. “It’s President Hollenbach whose mind we should be worrying about, not Jim MacVeagh. There isn’t a man in this room who would question the integrity of Sid Karper. I think we should all hear his story.”
Karper told it again, graphically depicting the President’s maniacal rage against Carter Urey, the CIA director, and his threatening gesture with the inkwell. He told of the missing medical data from Hollenbach’s service record, of Hollenbach’s charge that a Pentagon committee had joined a conspiracy against him, of the letters received by Mark Hollenbach, Jr., and of his own shuddering concern over the nuclear firing decision and the coming conference with Premier Zuchek.
Griscom took over when Karper finished. “You all know my part in this business. For several weeks I was under the misapprehension that my friend Jim MacVeagh was ill. Now, speaking as a close family friend of the Hollenbachs and as a lawyer accustomed to weighing evidence, I think there’s no longer much doubt in this matter. Apparently the President’s mind is off balance. If so, we’re faced with a grave national crisis. It’s fairly obvious, I think, that we must consider invoking the formal procedure on removal of a president.”
“What do you suggest we do?” asked Justice Cavanaugh.
“Two things,” said Griscom. “First, we ought to review Pat’s agreement with the President and decide precisely how and when he should take the matter to the Cabinet—with our backing. Second, Chief Brothers must get Jim MacVeagh out of the hospital and bring him here right away.” The lawyer turned to O’Malley. “Where’s the text of that agreement, Pat?”
O’Malley had been brooding, trance-like, while Karper and Griscom talked. His big jowls sagged and he seemed sunken within himself.
“What do you mean, take the matter to the Cabinet, Paul?” he asked.
“He means prepare to take over the office of president,” said Karper bluntly. He stared at O’Malley, challenging him.
Night of Camp David Page 29