by Gore Vidal
Peter, opera glasses in hand, looked down on the floor as the round-faced Hoover with his Humpty Dumpty starched collar marched down the center aisle, accompanied by the governor of Pennsylvania. There was genuine enthusiasm for this least charming of presidents. Every delegate was now on his feet, applauding, while a number seized their standards in order to make a ritual parade about the floor, hailing the once and future chief.
“Poor old thing,” said Ernest Cuneo. “He’s the only one here who doesn’t know that he hasn’t a chance.”
“He’s still popular.” Peter indicated the cheering crowd of delegates below them.
“Right now. But watch what happens at the end of his speech.” The mischievous face of Cuneo had a jack-o’-lantern look to it so unlike the uncarved full pale pumpkin of Herbert Hoover who was now on the stage, waving jerkily to the newsreel cameras.
Although Cuneo maintained a quiet roar in Peter’s ear, he was barely audible through the shouts and screams inside the auditorium. “The isolationists are making their last stand. Hoover’s their voice. He’s been working on this speech since …” Cuneo’s voice was drowned out by cheering and by the banging gavel of the minority leader of the House of Representatives, Joe Martin, permanent chairman of the convention.
Finally there was silence; and Hoover spoke. The themes were familiar. The United States was safe from any attack in any foreseeable future no matter how many countries Hitler conquered. More to the point, the militarizing of the state—the current drafting of nearly a million men—endangered the republic, whose economy had been successfully turned around in 1933, only to be undone by the New Deal of Roosevelt, which had renewed the Depression. This, Peter could tell, was the reddest of red meat for a hungry crowd of conservatives whose true majority was always for Hoover.
But the audience was not responding. Hoover’s message was not getting through: literally, not getting through. Although Peter in the front row of the gallery could hear Hoover’s voice, he was aware that there were dead patches all around him. People were straining to hear, hands cupped to ears.
“It’s the very latest sound equipment,” said Cuneo, looking more than ever like a Halloween surprise. “I can’t think what’s gone wrong.”
Tim was only aware of his own soundman as he continued to film what was plainly an ineffective speech. The audience was now shouting, “Louder, louder!” as the droning presidential voice came to them between bursts of static. “Tragic,” said Cuneo. “Hoover’s last chance to be nominated. And no one can hear him.”
Peter knew exactly what had happened. “I hadn’t realized that Sam Pryor was also in charge of acoustics.”
Cuneo gave him a sharp look. “What makes you think of him?”
“Because the mike was perfect for Stassen yesterday.”
“Machinery.” Cuneo was vague. “Anyway there’s something a lot more serious going on than a bad mike.”
Wednesday afternoon Cuneo invited Peter to join him and a special police squad. “I’ve known the mayor for years.”
“How?”
“How does anyone know anyone?” Cuneo grinned. “I like to know things that connect with my business …”
“Which is?”
“Knowing things that connect.” They were outside the convention hall. A hot intensely blue evening. A popcorn vendor was doing good business in front of Gate 23, guarded now by Philadelphia police. Cuneo said something to one of them: he and Peter were admitted. Just inside the hall there was what looked to be some sort of utilities room; and more police.
Cuneo was greeted as an old friend by a police captain in a windowless room. On a trestle table, two large metal containers had been taken apart and their contents—nails, nuts, bolts—were strewn across the table.
“We think—we pray we’ve got all of them. No press!” The captain had spotted Peter’s badge, which he had, at Cuneo’s insistence, slipped inside his breast pocket, but enough of it was visible to alarm the police.
Cuneo soothed the captain. Son of Blaise Sanford. Friend of Mayor. Of Cuneo. “We don’t want any panic here, and if this story gets out …”
“It won’t. Not from us. But who is Adolph Heller? Who is Bernard Rush?”
The captain was grim. “We hope to find out. Soon. One of our men got lucky. They hired him. He’s a demolition expert. They—whoever they are—were planning to set off these bombs tonight. In the hall. To kill off the top Republicans. They also installed one at the Dewey headquarters. Anyway, this morning our man pretended he was sick. Got back to base. We arrested Heller and Rush. They showed us these two bombs already under the stage. We’ve defused everything.”
“But who are they?”
“Ask FBI. We’ve done our job. It’s their business now. Anyway, no word to anyone until after tomorrow.”
“Does the President know?” Cuneo asked.
“That’s why you’re here, Ernie. Isn’t it?” The chief then turned a cold eye upon Peter. “I hope you realize …”
“Yes. I do.” What Peter had taken to be inadvertent national comedy had become very dark indeed. For the first time Peter believed that whatever malignancy had created Hitler and Stalin was now loose everywhere in the world, including, of all places, dowdy dull Philadelphia. The idea of anyone wanting to blow up Herbert Hoover was so bizarre that he wondered if, perhaps, this was actually a comic scenario awaiting its punch line so that the stately Margaret Dumont could, once again, faint dead away into the arms of the leering Groucho Marx.
Cuneo and Peter returned to Tim’s high perch in the gallery.
“Why?” asked Peter.
“Why is easy.” Cuneo was for once not mocking. “Who is the question.”
“Germans? British?”
“What would either get out of something like this? Crackpots is our usual story.”
“Our?”
Cuneo repeated, “Our. Yes. Remember McKinley?”
“Before my time.”
“Shot and killed by an anarchist. Crazy, of course. But he’d been reading poor Emma Goldman and so she got deported to Russia, which she hated because she was an anarchist and not a communist, but our government can never tell the difference.”
Peter tried not to imagine bombs filled with shrapnel going off in the convention hall and, of course, could think of nothing else but flying nails and bits of metal spraying into a screaming audience.
Dewey was nominated by a New York politician who vowed that this “lifelong Republican will keep us out of war.” It was curious, thought Peter, for a moment forgetting the rain of shrapnel hurtling toward him, that everyone really knew everything. Roosevelt did intend to get the United States into war, and despite his ever more solemn public denials, no one for a moment believed him. All in all, an odd sort of nation whose true history might prove to be uncommonly interesting if one were ever able to excavate it from under so many other long-lost nations. Troy upon Troy upon Troy, some with, some without Helen, but all once afire with wrath.
The demonstration for Dewey—delegates marching about holding high various state standards—all cheering but none ecstatic, none really passionate, like the little man himself, who was, no doubt, listening to the radio in his suite at the Walton.
A vain publisher named Gannett had spent a fortune to get himself nominated and seconded. Next, Senator Robert Alphonso Taft was nominated while his mother, the widow of the largest president in American history, William Howard Taft, took a decorous bow from a balcony. Taft was also certified by his nominator to be a “lifelong Republican”; also, there would be no war if he were president, and everyone believed him. Peter suspected that, barring tricks, Taft would be the nominee, with Dewey as his vice presidential candidate. Of course, one major trick had already been played the previous month. The late Ralph E. Williams was to have served the Taftites well until his … How did one get a look at an autopsy report? The movies always made it look so simple. Perhaps if he got to know a son or daughter of Williams he might discover something
after all. If Williams had been murdered, the family would be the first to want the story known and Sam Pryor—it had to be he—brought to justice.
Then Congressman Halleck, mildly drunk, came forward to the microphones, all in perfect working order now. Breaking with precedent, he mentioned the candidate’s name in his first sentence. Peter duly wrote in his notebook, “I nominate Wendell Willkie because, better than any man I know, he can build this country back to prosperity!”
There was a howl from the delegates beneath the gallery. Then much booing. Willkie would lead them into war. Willkie was a Democrat. Willkie was Roosevelt’s Trojan horse.
Then there was nothing but noise in the galleries. Peter thought he would go deaf as the roaring became a rhythmic shout: “We want Willkie!” Several thousand voices chanted in unison.
Cuneo shouted into Peter’s ear: “Standing-room passes. Just people in off the street. A miracle!” He laughed but Peter only saw his shoulders heaving; he could hear nothing until the chanting stopped and Halleck got on with his speech, which was mercifully short.
The chanting began, even louder than before; then a demonstration began on the floor. Several state standards were uprooted and marched about. The New York delegation was the scene of a fight between the Deweyites and the Willkieites, who won as their floor leader was, by far, the largest man of all. The New York standard then dominated the demonstration.
Peter looked at Tim Farrell, who was directing reaction shots, particularly of the famous “passersby” from the street who were standing in the aisles of the gallery, shouting “We want Willkie.”
At breakfast on Thursday in the dining room of the Benjamin Franklin, Peter found Ernest Cuneo with a stack of newspapers beside his plate. “I hope you’re enjoying democracy in action.” He held up the New York Herald Tribune. On its front page, presumably for the first time ever, there was an editorial endorsing the candidacy of Wendell Willkie.
“I don’t think Father is going to go so far overboard.” Peter had already seen the Washington Tribune; there was a mild pro-Willkie piece on the editorial page and a prediction that he would be the nominee.
Mrs. Reid, the principal force behind the New York Herald Tribune, did not, obviously, believe in understatement. Peter read aloud: “ ‘Extraordinary times call for extraordinary abilities. By great good fortune Mr. Willkie comes before the convention uniquely suited for the hour and for the responsibility.’ ” Peter put down the paper. “A very balanced assessment,” he said.
“I like the part where the Trib calls him ‘heaven’s gift to the nation in its time of crisis.’ I detect Irita’s hand in that phrase. Certainly he’s been heaven’s gift to her.”
“If everyone knows he has a mistress is that as good as no one knowing?”
“A metaphysical point to which there is no answer but wait and see. As a rule this sort of thing doesn’t get into the papers because everyone is vulnerable, with the possible exception of solemn Senator Taft, whose day is done. Read our friend Joe Alsop.”
As promised, Joe had penetrated the Gallup Poll. Although Dr. Gallup had said that he would not publish his latest findings until after the candidate had been chosen, Joe had published the “latest” Gallup poll: Willkie led the poll with forty-four percent of Republican voters, followed by Dewey with twenty-nine percent and Taft with thirteen percent.
“Beautiful timing,” said Cuneo. “Just beautiful. Every delegate will see this. Willkie’s going to stampede the convention. Could you give me the funny papers? I’ve got to see ‘Joe Palooka.’ ”
Mystified, Peter gave him the comics section from a Hearst newspaper. Cuneo immediately found “Joe Palooka,” skimmed the dialogue in the balloons; and laughed out loud. “Good old Ham!”
“Ham who?”
“Ham Fisher. He draws Joe Palooka. I got to him a few months ago and told him that he’d been drawing a lot of stuffy Englishmen with monocles and as they are now our allies maybe he should start showing them as regular fellows. So he’s got an RAF fighter pilot in this strip. Top hole! Though Ham doesn’t have him talk like Bertie Wooster. You see, the comics are how we get to the lower orders, the average Joe, who will never read the Trib, or Joe Alsop.”
“You do all this?” Peter never ceased to be amazed at the number of bases Cuneo managed to touch.
“All in the day’s work.”
“And what is the day’s work?”
“Making sure that the light of freedom never ceases to shine from the torch of the iron lady in New York Harbor to the distant towers of Ulan Bator, if they have towers there, which I doubt.”
It was after four-thirty p.m. when the convention was called to order. Peter had waved to Sam Pryor at Gate 23, where a large crowd had gathered to receive the “standing room only” passes. It was a pity that what was really happening—and had happened, perhaps, to poor Ralph E. Williams—could never be written about, at least in a newspaper.
Peter took his place with the press at the back of the stage. Of the famous journalists only Mencken was in place. Lippmann and Alsop, as befitted statesmen, were elsewhere influencing and instructing the candidates while Pearson and Winchell, as radio stars, pulsated the airwaves, heard always but seen seldom by that vast public to whom they were giving guidance.
On the first ballot Dewey led, with 360 votes, a long way from victory. Then Taft with 189 votes and Willkie with 105 votes. But this was the moment—when Willkie’s name was mentioned—that the “standing room only” in the galleries boomed in unison, “We want Willkie!” The sound was deafening as it swept down from above upon the delegates and the stage. Peter saw them, all blurred in the powerful lights. He glanced at Mencken, who had dropped his cigar as his protuberant red-rimmed eyes were turned upward, as if in prayer, to the phenomenon that Sam Pryor had created. For the first time in history a convention was to be stampeded by the gallery, the audience, the extras.
Martin banged his gavel for order, which was slowly restored so that he could read out the numbers. The second roll call began. Dewey dropped to 338, which, according to an old hand in the chair next to Peter, meant “it’s all over for him. No winner ever got less on the second ballot than on the first.” Taft had picked up some Dewey votes: he now had 203 votes while Willkie had risen to 171. Again, at the mention of his name, the thunderous chant began, “We want Willkie!” In frustration, Martin adjourned for dinner.
Peter found his father with Russell Davenport in the lobby of the Benjamin Franklin. Peter was invited to observe history on the sixteenth floor.
The candidate sat in an armchair beside the radio, eating a steak and a baked potato. A half-dozen reporters kept him company, among them Joe Alsop. In the bedroom Peter could see the Cowles brothers, manning two telephones. On the radio, Drew Pearson was predicting that Dewey would settle for second place on the ticket with Taft.
“Not very likely,” said Willkie, shaking Peter’s hand with a hand that held the latest of a long series of Camel cigarettes that he had been smoking, according to the overfilled ashtray, since the balloting had begun.
Peter congratulated Alsop on his Gallup story. Joe’s smile was razor-thin. “Things do fall in place, don’t they.”
Blaise was now talking into Willkie’s ear. Peter indicated the bedroom. “What’s going on in there?”
“Sam Pryor’s installed a special line to the convention floor. The brothers are keeping track of our floor managers. My guess is the fifth ballot is the one when we go over the top.”
But it was during the fifth ballot that Taft began to surge ahead of Willkie, who was now in second place. The Cowles were looking alarmed as they listened to their informants in the hall. Willkie was now on his feet; tie undone; waistcoat unbuttoned. He began to prowl the suite. The friends and reporters had stopped all conversation. They had also, as if obeying an unseen signal, ceased to look at the edgy candidate as he made his marches back and forth between bedroom and living room, stopping occasionally to whisper something to the brothers, who
, in turn, whispered news to him. From the radio the chant “We want Willkie!” never ceased.
Joe Alsop was uneasy. “Wendell’s said no to Pew. Tempting, of course. Satisfying, certainly. But if Pew gives Taft Pennsylvania he’s almost certain to make it.”
On the radio, the familiar flat voice of Alfred M. Landon declared that Kansas’s eighteen votes were all for Willkie.
In the bedroom doorway, Willkie swung around, sweat streaming down his face. “Well, it’s going to be one or the other of us.” The living room applauded.
Willkie was now talking into the special line to the convention floor. “Sam, to hell with the judges. Tell him he can have them. Just get me those votes.”
“This, dear boy,” said Joe, again smiling, “is known as compromise.”
“I felt, somehow, dirty,” said Peter, in comic mood.
“So does the new earth when the first spring rain falls and the snowdrops lift their shy pale heads.”
Blaise was now seated on Willkie’s bed beside Davenport. Willkie was on the telephone. “Tell them no way. No adjournment now. The sixth ballot’s been announced. Get to Arthur Vandenberg. Tell him … you know what, Sam.” Willkie slammed down the receiver; his face was as pale as the cigarette ash on his suit. From the radio: “We want Willkie!”
When the roll call got to Michigan, a voice declaimed, “Senator Arthur A. Vandenberg now releases all of his delegates …” The rest of this sentence was drowned out by cheering.
“Here we go,” muttered Willkie.
“Michigan’s votes have been polled as follows. For Hoover, one. Taft, two. Willkie, thirty-five.”
More cheering in the bedroom until John Cowles said, “We’re still two votes short.”
As if he had been heard through the radio, a voice suddenly thundered, “Pennsylvania casts seventy-two votes for Wendell Willkie.”
