Balance of Power

by James W. Huston

“Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Speaker.”

  Stanbridge walked to the door of the Oval Office and stood there with his back to the President. His hand rested on the door handle for ten seconds. He didn’t say anything or look around at all. He pulled the door open quickly and walked out.

  The press and Washington insiders knew that the Speaker’s limo had gone to the White House immediately after the speech. Everyone knew that Stanbridge had stayed an hour, then gone back to the Capitol, not home. There was speculation that something was up: Conflict, Power Struggle, Political Combat. It was the kind of situation that made reporters at The Washington Post dream of glory. The press could sense it. They reported it as they gathered information, first of disagreement between the Speaker and the President, then of a looming crisis. They all wanted to talk to Congressman Stanbridge from California. But he wasn’t talking.

  11

  “ROBIN!” STANBRIDGE CALLED AS HE STRODE through the outer doorway to his office. “Who’s here so far?”

  “I think Mr. Dillon and Mr. Grazio are here, as well as a few others,” she said.

  “Get ’em all here.”

  “Sir.” She hesitated. “It’s almost midnight. Most of the staff has gone home.”

  He stopped in front of her desk and looked at her for the first time in a week. “Why haven’t you?”

  “Because you asked me not to,” she replied.

  Stanbridge hung up his coat and said to the wall, “I did?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sorry about that, but some things can’t be helped.” He looked at his watch, thought for a minute, then turned to her again. “All of ’em, Robin. I want everyone here in thirty minutes. If they’re home asleep, wake their asses up. Order pizza—enough for everyone.” He looked at his office without seeing it and spoke to Robin behind him without turning his head. “This one’s got hair all over it,” he said as he closed his door.

  Most did arrive within half an hour, none happy to be there. They milled around, looking for coffee that no one had made, angry at whoever hadn’t made it. Rhonda had assumed they would be up all night. She had gotten dressed in a dark suit. Her soaking-wet hair clung to her back, leaving a large dark spot on the back of her suit coat. Others had assumed it would be a short meeting and had gotten dressed quickly in jeans and sweatshirts. They slumped in their chairs in the seventh-grade posture that went with casual dress outside of business hours. The conversations were mostly muffled complaints about being called in. There wasn’t any news of a big development in the crisis, nothing that couldn’t have waited until morning.

  Stanbridge stood beside his desk and looked them over. “Sorry I had to ask you to come back in. I know what a pain that is. But I wanted to tell you about my conversation with the President.”

  They looked at each other. Great, they thought. Another chance to hear from the Speaker how witty and clever he is, how he can defeat anyone in an argument.

  “We all heard the President say he wasn’t going to do anything about the attack on the Pacific Flyer. Frankly, he caught me by surprise. I assumed we were going to have to make sure he complied with the War Powers Act. I didn’t think there would be any problem with that—we would have supported him—but I was going to make sure he complied….” The staff members looked at each other discreetly. Yeah, right.

  “But now, everything is different. He isn’t going to come to the defense of Americans who were attacked. It’s…I don’t know”—he rubbed his eyes—“unusual, it’s…spooky.”

  He looked at them. “I think the President is a pacifist. Not just a dove, politically, but a genuine pacifist.” He waited for his comment to sink in. The staffers looked at each other, then skeptically at him.

  “I asked him straight out if he was, and he wouldn’t give me an answer.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Rhonda said, “but what difference does that make?”

  “What difference does it make?” Stanbridge looked at her as if she had a growth on her forehead. “Rhonda, you ever hear that saying that there’s no such thing as a stupid question?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That is one of the stupidest questions I’ve ever heard. You don’t think it would matter if the President was a pacifist? The Commander in Chief of the largest armed forces in the world, unwilling ever to use them, to order them to do what they’re trained to do? You don’t see a problem there?”

  Rhonda nodded slowly, yearning for his attention to be directed somewhere else.

  “Well, I wanted you to be here,” he said in a low voice, “because I need ideas on what we can do about this. The President refuses to act. So is that it? End of story? Are all American ships now subject to attack and murder and sinking? Is that the message we’re going to send? We need an alternative. Fast. I don’t want this thing to get stale—”

  Dillon stood up suddenly and walked toward the Speaker. Dillon’s approach was so unexpected and inappropriate that the Speaker stopped talking and stared.

  “I think I have the answer, Mr. Speaker,” Dillon said quietly.

  “What?”

  “The alternative. What we can do.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When you went over to see the President, I started looking, like you asked me to. Since the President is always the one who acts, we all assume he’s the only one who can act. But if he isn’t going to do anything about it, the question is, can anyone else do anything about it?” Dillon put his hands in his pockets and turned to face the rest of the staff, who were looking at one another in amazement at Dillon’s nerve.

  “Well,” the Speaker said, folding his arms defensively. “Then by all means, share this insight with us.”

  “Since the President won’t act, then we should act without him.”

  The Speaker studied his face for humor, but saw none. “What are you talking about? Get to the point.”

  Dillon nodded understandingly. “Why not issue a Letter of Marque and Reprisal?”

  The Speaker frowned. The rest of the staff looked puzzled.

  Dillon continued, “Article one, Section eight of the Constitution, Mr. Speaker. It’s in the exclusive powers of Congress. The power to declare war, and grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal…It’s the power to issue a letter, a commission—to an armed merchant ship to attack an enemy’s ships. It’s legalized piracy.” His blue eyes burned. “It’s nothing less than the power of Congress to conduct private limited war.”

  The Speaker stared at Dillon uncomprehendingly, then with stunned appreciation. Stanbridge began in a low intense tone, “Did you do any research to find out if it’s still possible?”

  Dillon nodded slowly. “I didn’t finish, but nothing so far that says you couldn’t do it.”

  The Speaker put his hand on the top of his head, as if to hold it on. He paused, then spoke quickly. “I want you to do the best research job you can on this clause. Every case that’s cited it, every article that’s mentioned it, every history book that’s mentioned it, the Constitutional Convention’s discussion of it, everything. Rhonda,” he said, looking at her, “I want all the history you can find about Letters of Marque and Reprisal.” He was energized. He began pacing. “You need to become the expert in twelve hours. Split up the research—get everybody here working on it. Within twelve hours, I want to know everything there is to know about it.” He paused and looked at their faces. Some were eager and understood the implications; others were still stupid from sleep. “If things are as I suspect, I’m going to keep the House in session all night tomorrow night.” He looked at his watch. “Actually, tonight.” It was 1:00 A.M. “Let’s get going.”

  The staff started to stand. Grazio was frowning. “If I might ask the second stupid question of the night, Mr. Speaker, where the hell are we going to find an armed merchant ship to attack these terrorists?”

  The Speaker nodded, his countenance clouding slightly. “That’s one of the things we’ll need to solve. But I’ll tell you what, Mr. Grazio,
if Dillon is right, and it’s still in effect—dormant but in effect—then it’s our ticket.” He breathed deeply and looked at Grazio intensely. “And the President can’t stop us.” He looked back at Dillon. “Did you think of exactly who will receive the commission?”

  “Yes, I did. I thought about that a lot.” Dillon scratched his head. “At first I thought maybe a CIA armed merchant ship or something like that. But then, it hit me.” Dillon was suddenly transported back to the constitutional law seminar he had loved so much at UVA. He sat directly across from Molly and not only enjoyed her presence but disagreed with her on almost every point. She was always calling for a living Constitution, a document that changes with the times to accommodate a modern world. He found himself fighting for the traditional understanding of the Constitution and the way it was interpreted by those who wrote it. He feared that once the words in a document came to mean whatever the Supreme Court said they meant, then they could mean anything. He was about to turn the tables. “I realized there aren’t any armed merchant ships today like during the War of 1812. So the Constitution therefore must change to accommodate modern times, a living document. The only armed ships that exist anymore are Navy ships.”

  The Speaker’s eyes grew suddenly large; the rest of the staffers began to murmur as the implications became obvious.

  Dillon continued, “We’ll issue it to the USS Constitution Battle Group in the Java Sea. If the President won’t use them, we will.”

  The room was full of electricity. The implications were enormous and satisfying. Stanbridge was speechless for the first time in their memories.

  Rhonda spoke first. “Has such a commission ever been issued to a Navy ship before?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Dillon said.

  “There’s always a first time,” Stanbridge said excitedly.

  Dillon stared at his computer screen as the legal research graphics loaded. Before baring his idea to the Speaker and the others on the staff, he had been able to do some basic research. He had felt strongly about the power to grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal because it was in the Constitution. Nothing trumps the Constitution. Not a treaty, not a law, not a state, not custom—nothing does. Only a constitutional amendment can officially change the Constitution. Sometimes interpretation can gut a concept, but that was certainly not the case here. The number of times the Supreme Court had even dealt with it was minuscule. Still, he wanted to be sure.

  Dillon was confident that he had uncovered a strong durable weapon that Congress could use as it saw fit, both in ways in which it had been used in the past, and in newer, more creative ways, as a result of the rubber sides the Supreme Court had given to the Constitution, claiming it was a living document.

  But there might be something out there that could preclude using the power as he had envisioned. If there was, he had to find it.

  His fingers flew across the keyboard, accessing the cases, law review articles, and anything else that cited this provision in the Constitution. He hit more and more wrong keys as he pushed himself. Sweat was beading on his forehead in a way unusual for him. He was perceived as cool, cocky. But he felt a nervousness that ran to his core as he glanced at the clock. This night could mark one of the most dramatic changes in this century’s U.S. foreign policy. If he was right. Being wrong would not be simply a question of preparing a memorandum that proved to be embarrassing. This was the kind of thing that could end careers. Not only his, but the Speaker’s, and that of anybody else who signed on.

  Pinkie sat down in the dirty-shirt wardroom, the forward wardroom on the 03 level of the USS Constitution where the air wing ate, and took the food off his tray. He unzipped the leather flight jacket festooned with patches of the squadrons he had been in and ships he had been on as an intelligence officer. Still, he had never actually flown in a Navy plane other than the COD, the Carrier Onboard Delivery plane, the ugly bugsmasher that carried parts and people back and forth from shore. He had shown the requisite amount of ingenuity, though, by getting hold of a leather flight jacket he wasn’t entitled to.

  Lunch was the usual fare. Lasagna, corn, bread, milk; starch, carbohydrates, and fat. If they had sailed from a port less than ten days ago, there might have been some semblance of a salad or fresh vegetable or fruit, but not here. They were a month out of port with no likelihood of a port call anytime soon. At least not until the latest crisis was over, the latest call for the Great American Aircraft Carrier to steam around angrily and convert jet fuel into noise.

  As the air wing intelligence officer, he knew what many on the ship didn’t. They had located the terrorists on an island and were about to send SEALs ashore to determine their strength and composition. The sticky part was that they were going ashore on an island that was Indonesian territory, and they had received specific instructions from Indonesia not to overfly their land. He chuckled to himself as he cut into his lasagna. They didn’t say don’t walk over their country, they just said don’t fly over it.

  Since the first contact, the admiral had changed his plan. He realized he needed hard information, and the only way to get it was to do overhead reconnaissance. But even that wasn’t good enough. They needed to put some eyeballs on the problem, as the admiral said. The admiral had asked for permission from Washington, and much to his surprise, it had been granted.

  Pinkie had been as confused as everyone else on the admiral’s staff and others in the know when they had heard the President’s speech on CNN. Probably for public consumption, like Eisenhower after Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U-2, spying on the Soviet Union. Deny it. The USS Constitution hadn’t been ordered out of the area. The admiral was going to be ready, even if it meant fudging the rules a little.

  Caskey and Messer strolled over carrying their trays and sat down across from Pinkie.

  “They got you on that special TARPS mission?” Pinkie asked.

  “Yeah. I was going to do another challenging air intercept hop this afternoon, but some things take priority.” He looked at Pinkie. “What’d you think of the President’s speech?”

  “I don’t know,” Pinkie said, his freckles suddenly becoming more pronounced. “If he meant it, he’s more naive than I thought. If he didn’t mean it, and we’re about to go whack them, that’d be cool ’cause we’ll surprise them, but everyone will accuse him of being a plain old liar, which is uncool.”

  “Exactly what I thought. I don’t get it. Let them attack a U.S.-flagged vessel, murder the crew, scuttle the ship, kill a shipmate, and let Indonesia take criminal action against them? I’ll bet the Indonesians can’t even get them off that island. They have a military, but not much of one.” He tried to take a bite of food before finishing his thought, and spoke with a full cheek. “I’ll bet they’re still there a year from now if the President’s serious.”

  Pinkie leaned forward to MC. “We’re sending SEALs ashore tonight.”

  Caskey stopped eating and looked around. No one else was listening. “Are you kidding me? On whose authority?”

  “Admiral’s.”

  “Did he hear the President’s speech?”

  “Yep. Whole staff did.”

  “And he’s still sending the SEALs ashore? Didn’t they cancel the authorization to do that?”

  “Nope. At least not yet. And they sure haven’t given him orders to withdraw from the area. The admiral figures the speech is for public consumption only, and we’re going to spank ’em.”

  “What if he’s wrong?”

  “I guess we’ll find out. If the SEALs get caught ashore, it could be ugly,” Pinkie said, drinking the last of his coffee. “But if they don’t get caught, we may go finish the job tomorrow.”

  Dillon rubbed his tired eyes and looked at the pile of printed cases, law review articles, and books on his desk. He was nearly done with his research on the Letters of Marque and Reprisal. The adrenaline came again every time he thought about it. Every time he imagined himself telling the Speaker it was still intact, that he was clear t
o go ahead with it, clear to stand the entire country, or the world, on its head. This wasn’t politics, it was action. He had never felt so galvanized in his life.

  Congress could issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and no one could say they couldn’t. Unused for almost two centuries, but still there, enshrined in the Constitution, protected from attack by the difficult requirements of amending it. Congress could start its own little private war, and no one could stop it.

  Dillon looked at himself in the reflection of the photo on his desk. It was a picture of his study group from law school, the best friends he had ever had. It had all four of them with their arms around each other at their graduation on the Lawn of the University of Virginia. Dillon, Molly, Bobby, and Erin. Happiest day of his life. The world was theirs to conquer. They had all graded onto the Law Review, giving them the ticket to the most prestigious law jobs in the country. Any firm, any clerkship with any judge, any public interest job defending whales, trees, or criminals, any private firm. Whatever they wanted.

  Dillon thought of himself as being on top of the tallest hill. Capitol Hill, working for the Speaker of the House. He had just discovered a power in the Constitution that could change the entire way the government operated, that could give Congress a power it didn’t realize it had anymore. It was intoxicating and he loved it, but he had a gnawing feeling he was missing something.

  12

  ROBIN HATED THIS PART—WHEN HER BOSS DID SOMETHING controversial and it caused ten to twenty times the usual interest from the press. He had a press secretary and a private public relations consultant—not many people knew that—but she had to take the calls. And every newspaper reporter and television reporter had this number. There was no hope of answering all the calls. None. She had learned to deal with these crises, but she had never seen anything like this. Never. Her boss hadn’t been the Speaker that long, but this was ridiculous. She had stopped hanging up the phone. She just depressed the button and answered it again. There was always someone on it. And they all wanted to talk to the Speaker, to ask him why he was keeping the House in session on Friday night, knowing they would have to work all night. The press had gotten wind of it before most of the members of the House. And the Speaker wasn’t taking any calls. Not until his staff meeting was done; they were preparing for the press conference that was scheduled for…she looked at her clock…one hour from now. Ten-thirty East Coast time, just in time for the morning news shows on the West Coast to pick it up live as their lead-in.