The Golden Age: A Novel

by Gore Vidal

  Prewar, Aeneas had been a lecturer at something called the New School for Social Research in New York. He wrote on philosophy in scholarly journals. He was also fascinated by American political history, a bond with Peter. Recently divorced from his wife, Aeneas was now seeing a child psychologist with a practice in Manhattan. Since she was pregnant, he intended to marry her once he was free of the Army.

  Meanwhile, he wrote, as did Peter, for The American Idea. Since members of the armed services were under tight censorship, they published, somewhat nervously, under pseudonyms.

  A serial smoker, Aeneas had fore and center fingers stained dark yellow. Comfortably, he coughed on his own smoke. “The first study I’m going to write once we’ve been liberated from the Pentagon is on the absolute failure of airpower. What we’ve been selling the public is just a variation on the Lindbergh syndrome. The Lone Eagle. High in the sky. Remote from earth. Prey only to gravity as he drops his bombs, usually on the wrong targets, while the real victories are being fought, as always, by infantry, by Marines on land. They take back—along with sea power—Pacific islands. They reconquer France, occupy Italy, all on the land, where the dying’s done. Basically, we do fireworks. Frighten off demons. Like Chinese New Year. And, of course, kill civilians.”

  Peter and Aeneas worked in an office for four. Since the omnipotent bureaucratic table of organization had never got around to providing them with two missing helpers, they were able to assemble stories that would then be passed up the line to an energetic colonel who pretended that their work was his work, which he, in turn, submitted to a conclave of intelligence cardinals whose imprimatur transformed the art of Peter and Aeneas into world news and the primary stuff of history.

  Aeneas seldom strayed far from their office while Peter liked nothing better than to explore the miles of antiseptic Pentagon corridors where, it was said, if you walked far enough and long enough you were bound to meet yourself coming from the opposite direction, a nice metaphysical exercise in quantum physics, a subject that they had recently, mysteriously, been ordered to read up on. Aeneas had thought that this probably had something to do with the much-whispered-about secret bomb that had been in the works since the start of the war. “Hitler’s got that last-minute buzz bomb of his so now we must come up with something even more exciting.” Aeneas was skeptical about doomsday weapons. “It’s all a bit late in the game.”

  “Late in the game or not, Hitler’s bomb is doing an awful lot of damage. And it’s airpower, too.”

  “But it’s not our sort of airpower. How can we glorify a bomb without a pilot? Without a hero? Forget it.” Aeneas opened his desk drawer and removed the latest issue of The American Idea. “Some good stuff on the postwar world, if there is one.”

  Peter was edgy. “Keep it in the drawer. We could be court-martialed.”

  “Why? We divulge no secrets …”

  “But we question what our own office divulges.” For over a year the review, printed on ugly wartime pulp paper, had been slowly gaining an audience. Irene Bloch had financed them in exchange for an introduction to Frederika, while Billy Thorne openly acted as editor even though he was a civilian employee of the War Department. For reasons obscure to Peter, Billy was being unofficially encouraged by intelligence to edit The American Idea. Aeneas suspected that elements within the government were deliberately, secretly, supporting a publication highly critical of government policies in Europe.

  Aeneas tended to take a Jesuitical line. “If they are giving Billy money and they really understand what the paper is doing, then some uncharacteristically intelligent people have infiltrated intelligence.” The telephone on Aeneas’s desk rang. He was all attention. “Yes, Colonel. The B-29? Yes, sir. I’ve seen one. Never seen a plane so large, like … like a skyscraper lying on its side.” Thriftily, Aeneas made a note of his own phrase. The colonel’s voice kept talking and Aeneas responded with numerous “Yes, sirs.” Then he hung up. “They want a big B-29 story. The superplane story for … what?”

  “The superweapon?”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.” For two years there had been wild rumors of an astonishing new bomb that was guaranteed to sink, one by one, Japan’s imperial islands but, thus far, the bomb was myth.

  The rest of the day was spent assembling the first of a series of stories on the B-29 bomber and its legendary range, capable of abolishing the Pacific’s vast distances in order to avenge Pearl Harbor—at last.

  Peter and Aeneas joined Diana and Billy Thorne at the Flying Tiger, a Chinese restaurant that was a favorite of military men more at home in offices than foxholes or cockpits. As always in wartime, women outnumbered men three to one, much as men had outnumbered women during the last century when mostly single men had swept from east to west in pursuit of California gold. Now, during the war years, a reverse tide of adventurous young women had abandoned village or country life for whatever work they could find in the capital. Failing that, there were a million jobs available in the factories of less glamorous cities.

  The heavy perfume from aromatic joss sticks set in brass candleholders mingled with the smell of beer and sealike soy sauce. Clouds of blue cigarette smoke gave an indistinct infernal look to the diners in their booths.

  Just back of Peter’s table, a radio had been set on the bar. Although the presidential election was underway, hardly anyone in the Flying Tiger paid the slightest attention to the predictable results. Everyone knew that the haggard old wizard could not lose. Had he not always been president? That was simply the order of things.

  Peter ordered dinner.

  “FDR wins larger than last time.” Billy’s voice was gravelly, authoritative. “That’s the word from our office.”

  “What is your office?” Aeneas was mild. “Other than totally secret. And where is it?”

  “We’re all over the place. Nothing very exciting. We’re information mostly. Nonmilitary. My end, anyway. Economic reporting. Very useful for The American Idea.”

  “They don’t even mind that Billy was once a communist,” said Diana sweetly, delighting Peter, who never ceased to look for proofs of Diana’s serene nonlove for the husband that she had so thoughtlessly married.

  “The fact I’d once been a communist got me the job. Fact, our office is a sort of comintern of ex-Reds. The chief’s also been very good about the review. Of course, I’m only a civilian employee. I’m not under the military code.”

  “Will we ever know who your chief is?” Peter suspected that it was someone high up in the Office of Strategic Services, the invention of one Wild Bill Donovan, a New York lawyer, politician, adventurer, who had created an international spy service for the President. As far as Peter could tell, General Donovan spent most of his time in Europe while the core of his staff was hidden away, according to fantasists, back of the aquarium in the basement of the Commerce Building. But whether or not Billy’s supervisor was in or out of the aquarium, he seemed to be both patient and civilized from the hints, many of them broad, that Billy let fall from time to time. “You’d be surprised if you knew who he was.” One of Billy’s eyes was a sincere brown; the other a bright liar’s blue. He blinked the brown one at Peter, who wondered, as always, if either of Billy’s eyes could ever be believed.

  “I would be surprised,” said Peter, “I’d ever heard of him. After all, we’re not supposed to know who’s a spy and who isn’t.”

  “Actually, he isn’t a spy. He’s an intelligence analyst.”

  “What’s being analyzed at the moment?” Aeneas poured Chinese beer into a glass.

  “Can’t say.”

  “Why not?” murmured Diana. “Sooner or later you always do.”

  “Cover stories.” But Billy was plainly stung by Diana’s offhandedness. This was not, Peter decided happily, going to be a long marriage. “I’ll tell you what’s on the Chief’s mind. And should be on ours, too. A year ago November, our military production peaked. Last month it started to fall off. During the last German offensive we were
so short of ammunition that Hitler nearly sent us back across the Rhine.” Billy narrowed both eyes. “Something’s gone wrong. We aren’t making enough war matériel. And we aren’t making enough refrigerators either.”

  This caught Aeneas’s attention. “We still haven’t started to convert to peacetime?”

  “No,” said Billy.

  Opposite them, a group of Nationalist Chinese soldiers were singing, in off-key falsetto, the German army’s favorite song, “Lili Marlene.”

  “For some reason, the Pentagon’s doing its best to keep us permanently on a wartime footing while …”

  “At war with whom?”

  Billy shrugged. “It’s hardly a secret. A lot of the military brass want an all-out war with Russia just as soon as Hitler’s got rid of.”

  Peter and Aeneas exchanged a glance. Hardly a day passed that someone at the Pentagon didn’t say what a shame it was that we weren’t on Hitler’s side against the true enemy, Stalin. Whenever one of these geopoliticians was encouraged to explore the matter more deeply, he would invariably say that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were a pair of communists who had got us into a world war on the wrong side. Peter was constantly amazed at the boldness with which certain officers expressed themselves. Although Aeneas took none of them seriously, Peter was sufficiently alarmed to suggest that perhaps the best way to avert a possible military coup would be to muster everyone out the instant the war was won. Simply send them all home.

  “I don’t think,” said Diana mildly, “that the American people are ready for another world war.”

  “But they may not be ready for peace either.” Billy opened a fortune cookie; read the fortune; tore it up with a frown. “Fourteen million men are in the military. We have full employment for the first time ever. But if we just stop. Send everyone home. Will the Depression come back? That’s what terrifies the Administration.”

  “You really think things are going so fast?” Aeneas seemed unconvinced. “I have a hunch there are a lot of surprises up ahead.”

  Diana promptly provided them with one. “It seems—according to Father—that Governor Dewey knows all about what really happened at Pearl Harbor.”

  “Why hasn’t he used it?” Aeneas had not yet grown accustomed to the Byzantine way that Washington went about the careful planting, nurturing, and gathering of rumors in every season.

  “Because General Marshall got to Dewey.” With time’s passage, Peter had become more and more pro-Roosevelt despite—because of?—the President’s inspired and inspiring lies, while Diana—out of love for her father—grew more and more impatient with FDR’s high-handed imperial ways.

  Peter addressed Aeneas, the only innocent at the table. “I know how hard it is to believe that so righteous a good soldier as Marshall would insist that Dewey lie about what only a few of us know really happened and—worse—didn’t happen that Sunday December morning, still living on contentedly in infamy, but just as there is a time to live in infamy there is a time to cover ass …”

  “Father says Marshall went to Dewey entirely on his own and warned him how this story would tear the country apart and, if it did, Dewey, not FDR, would be the villain.”

  “For telling the truth?” Aeneas’s surprise was genuine. “And Dewey backed down?”

  “Of course.” Diana was matter-of-fact. “In the middle of a terrible war that we are winning the President’s opponent is not about to blame him for all those hundreds of thousands of men lost through a … deadly provocation.”

  “No one tears down Old Glory by dawn’s early light.” Peter had now grasped Marshall’s actual motive. “Marshall is the one man everyone trusts. If Dewey were to reveal that Marshall had an active role in the Japanese attack—how he knew that the attack was on its way but refused to alert Pearl Harbor—then General Marshall could take his place in our history alongside Benedict Arnold.”

  “FDR too,” said Billy, who had not, Peter was pleased to note, entirely grasped the subtlety of the play.

  “No.” Peter was firm. “The Artful Dodger always gets out of scrapes like this. Dewey and the truth are no match for such extrahuman skills. Had Dewey dared attack, it would have been the noble Marshall who would have fallen upon his sword.” Peter turned to Diana. “And so, as a patriot, Marshall talked patriot Dewey out of doing his patriotic duty.”

  Diana nodded. “That’s what Father thinks. But how can we ever be sure?”

  “FDR’s being elected for a fourth term tonight, isn’t he? And tomorrow Dewey will be returning to his lucrative New York practice. What more proof is required?”

  The Chinese Nationalists were now singing in atonal mode—still in varying degrees of falsetto—“Besame Mucho,” complete with authentic Mexican accent. On a hearty round of applause for their Chinese allies, Peter and Diana left, followed by Billy and Aeneas. The radio on the bar still continued to report election returns but no one was listening. Soon, Peter thought, with a great leap of his imagination, we will be in the post-Roosevelt world. Meanwhile, the old man was good for at least another four years.

  3

  On Saturday, January 20, 1945, Caroline was shown into the White House. Unescorted, she made her way up the stairs to the study where the inaugural guests were gathering. For the first time since the early days of the republic there was to be no parade and no celebration of any kind, while a mere five thousand members of the public fulfilled their choric duty by standing in the freezing slush of the South Lawn, eyes raised to the South Portico, where the President would take his oath of office.

  Caroline knew very few of the guests personally; but she knew almost every face. These were the now historic figures of the New Deal: members of the Cabinet, heads of bureaus, justices of the Supreme Court, as well as congressional figures, among whom the Republican Vandenberg took up his usual considerable space. Plainly, Roosevelt was not about to make Wilson’s mistake of ignoring the opposition party when it came to creating a world peace organization.

  There were also a great many children on hand as well as a number of unlikely-looking figures that could only be eccentric Roosevelt relatives—Delano, too. Laura’s blue head was held high as she sailed toward Caroline; as always, Laura was talking. “… and now it’s war at last. Did you see the papers?”

  “Which war at last?”

  “Mrs. Nesbitt and Franklin. He solemnly vowed that this time, if he won reelection, he was finally going to fire Mrs. Nesbitt. Well, look!”

  Laura showed Caroline a copy of Cissy’s newspaper. In bold headlines, Mrs. Nesbitt Rejects President’s Ultimatum of Chicken à la King for Inaugural. “ ‘You can’t serve two thousand people a hot dish like that in January,’ says Mrs. Nesbitt. ‘He’s getting chicken salad.’ ”

  Caroline sympathized. “Will he ever be able to get rid of her?”

  “Only if he divorces Eleanor first. Anyway, those White House guests who really matter know enough to get something to eat before coming to a meal here. Have you seen Franklin lately?”

  Caroline shook her head. “He’s been somewhat busy. And I’ve been busy, too. Winding up things.”

  Laura found a glass of sweet California sauterne, the Roosevelt staple wine. To Caroline’s horror, she dropped two tablets of saccharine into the wine and waited for them to dissolve. “I can’t say I care for the way he’s looking.” Laura sipped her enhanced wine. “He’s too thin. Cadaverous, really. Between him and Harry Hopkins it’s like a hospital ward.” Laura moved on to a group of relatives clustered by the fire.

  Caroline sat beside Hopkins on the sofa nearest the door. “Where’s your wife?”

  “Mingling with Roosevelts. This is family day.”

  Hopkins’ face was so white that his eyes looked black. “We’re traveling soon.”

  “Tomorrow, they say. Together?”

  Hopkins did not answer. “He’s still insisting on unconditional surrender.”

  “Doesn’t that prolong the war?”

  Hopkins shrugged. “There are always speci
al conditions for an unconditional surrender. Anyway, it has a nice sound of finality. And, of course, it’s what Lincoln and General Grant insisted on, back in the Civil War. Why do we never see you?”

  “You are a couple. A family. In Georgetown. I am only a widow. And not so merry.”

  “When I come back, try to stop in …”

  “In Georgetown?” Since Caroline and Harry’s wife, Louise, had nothing at all in common except Harry and as he proved to be far too much for just one or the other, Caroline had properly left the field to the wife.

  “Of course not in Georgetown.” Harry’s smile was sardonic. “I meant here. The White House. I’ve never seen the Boss so lonely. Eleanor has taken to the open road. Missy’s dead. And I’m hardly here anymore.”

  “Health?”

  Hopkins waved to friends across the room. Presently, Caroline would lose him to the great world. “Partly health. Partly fatigue. I’m viewed with suspicion. Too many people think I’m pro-British. Pro-Russian. Pro-communist …”

  “Does that make the President nervous?”

  “Hard to tell with him. He must deal so often with the appearances of things that you never know what actually matters to him as opposed to what looks to matter.”

  “Surely they are the same thing. You must seem to get along with Stalin for the President’s sake, which means you must actually get along with him, I should think.”

  The gnomelike sharp-tongued secretary of the interior, Harold Ickes, joined them. He gave Caroline a perfunctory greeting; then, “What sort of speech did you write him?”

  Hopkins shook his head. “I wasn’t asked. Sam’s on the case. It’ll be short. That’s all I know. Short because he wants to stand the whole time.”

  “Oh, God!” Ickes looked concerned. “I thought he couldn’t get up on those braces anymore.”

  Ickes looked suspiciously at Caroline, who said, “I’m a fellow conspirator, too.”

  Across the room, Eleanor was standing with a group of lady friends; she beamed and waved when she saw Caroline, who joined her.