Advise and Consent

by Allen Drury

  “Are they afraid the President is going to die?” he said bluntly. The Secretary started to look shocked and then thought better of it.

  “That is always a human possibility,” he said.

  “My God, this town!” Harley Hudson said in a wondering tone. “The way an idea can travel, particularly if it’s something somebody thinks is bad news for somebody! What on earth do they have to base that on?”

  “No more than you do,” the Secretary said.

  “I haven’t got anything,” the Vice President said firmly.

  “Not even a hunch?” the Secretary inquired dryly.

  “Vice Presidents always have that hunch,” Harley Hudson said, deciding that intimacy had gone far enough; an old friend like Tom August was one thing, Howie Sheppard on his way out was another. “I wouldn’t be true to type if I didn’t. The last time I saw him he looked fine.”

  “How long ago was that?” the Secretary asked.

  “Last Wednesday,” the Vice President answered promptly, and it was the truth, for there had been a National Girl Scouts’ ceremony in the Rose Garden at the White House, and the girls had invited him to attend. A quick mental photograph nicked through his mind, the erratic day shifting between cold rain and weak sun, the President’s thin hair whipping in the icy breeze, his look of genuine, fatherly pleasure, and just the faintest impression of—what? He could realize now why he had been vaguely worried ever since. It was nothing you could put your finger on; he just looked a little tireder than a President, even a busy President, ought to look. But that might be nothing at all that a vacation on the Keys couldn’t cure, and he decided he had better do his best to counteract this racing rumor before it got entirely out of hand.

  “He looked tired,” he said, “and I imagine when you saw him last he looked tired too. He probably is tired. But he’s been tired before and snapped back in no time, and I’m sure he will again. I think what he needs to do is get to Key West again, and I’m going to suggest it to him. Why don’t you do the same, Howie, and maybe if we all do he’ll listen and take our advice. Because I think he needs it, don’t you?”

  “I’ve told myself that was it,” the Secretary agreed, “and I will suggest it when I see him again. In the meantime, what about Tashikov and K.K.?”

  “Next week sometime,” Harley Hudson said. “If we set it up too fast they’ll think there’s something in it, and after all, Howie, we don’t really want them to, do we?”

  The Secretary looked suddenly sober.

  “No,” he said, “we don’t.”

  “You fix it up,” the Vice President said. “Toward the end of the week sometime.”

  “Very well. How is the nomination going?”

  “Hearings in the subcommittee this morning,” Harley said. “Well know better by the end of the week.”

  “I did my duty,” Howie remarked in a cold tone, “so I’m out of it, thank God.”

  “The Administration appreciates that, Howie,” the Vice President assured him. “We’ll remember it.”

  “Hmph,” the Secretary said, with no other comment, and rose to go.

  “Don’t say much to those two,” he advised, and Harley Hudson smiled reassuringly as they shook hands.

  “I’ll be as discreet as you are, Howie,” he said. The Secretary gave him a sharp look as he left which only increased the warmth of the Vice President’s smile.

  But after Howie was gone and the door had closed and he was alone in the room, a stricken look came suddenly upon his face.

  “Oh, my God,” he said in a helpless voice to nobody in particular. “Oh, my God.”

  Standing to take the oath in the glare of the television lights, his back straight, his right hand held up with no more than a normal quiver to it, his eyes looking candidly into those of the chairman, the focus of all their troubles appeared outwardly to be his usual calm, unhurried, businesslike, self-possessed self. Seab had managed to draw first blood, it was true, but the director of the ODM had a very fast recovery time, and when he took the stand he had already regained any composure he might have lost in the Senator’s unexpected and pointedly challenging greeting. This lean-faced, dignified, graying, perceptive man exposed to his countrymen in the fateful moment when he moved to the ofttimes terrifying isolation of the congressional witness stand looked ready for anything. He also looked like what he was, a highly trained and highly competent public servant. It was easy in that moment to see why he held both the loyalty and the antagonism of so many, why so many were so passionately involved in his nomination, and why, among other reasons, the President of the United States had chosen him to be Secretary of State. He looked the part.

  “Do you solemnly swear,” Senator Anderson inquired formally, “that the statements you give to this subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do,” Bob Leffingwell said firmly.

  “Please be seated,” the chairman said, adding dryly, “If the photographers will kindly remove themselves to the sidelines now and leave the witness a clear channel, so he can see the subcommittee and vice versa, we will begin....The nominee’s record and background are in the record of the full committee on Saturday, which will be incorporated with this record, so there is no need to have them again here. If the witness has any preliminary statement he wishes to make, we will be glad to hear it, and then we can go into the regular alternating order of interrogation—with other Senators, I think, free to interject any inquiries that may occur to them as we go along.”

  “Oh, oh,” the Chicago Tribune murmured. “A free-for-all, eh?” “I don’t quite get Brig’s game yet,” the Newark News responded. “Distraction through diversity?” the Washington Post suggested. “Harmony through hullabaloo,” the Washington Star proposed.

  “Mr. Leffingwell,” Brig said politely, “is there anything you wish to say before cross-examination begins?”

  The nominee leaned forward and with a slow, thoughtful gaze looked from face to face, including that of the senior Senator from South Carolina, while the room became quiet. It was a gaze returned with equal interest by the six men before him, and when it was finished he folded one hand upon the other and began to speak in a grave, well-modulated voice.

  “Mr. Chairman,” he said. “Senators: Senator Cooley: I have been thinking, since the word came to me last Thursday night of the President’s decision to nominate me for the great office of Secretary of State, how I might best express to you my awareness both of the honor and the profound responsibility which it entails. And the words that have come to me are poor indeed. I might say that I am honored, yet this one might say if he were nominated for any job; I might say that I am humbled, yet that too is standard talk. I have concluded that the words available in the English language are at once too mundane and too sense-worn to do the office justice. As for honor, it honors me, but far more must I honor it. On that, the way is clear: I shall honor it by what I do, or I shall honor it not at all.”

  “Speaking of the English language—” The Times whispered. “He helped to write it,” the Birmingham News whispered back.

  “The responsibility?” Bob Leffingwell went smoothly on. “Greater, I think, than one man can adequately bear; which is why, Mr. Chairman, I shall make it my first duty to consult with your committee, and with its great sister committee in the House, on all broad aspects of policy and decision which may come before me. The constant aim of my predecessor, as it has been the constant aim of every farsighted Secretary of State, has been to work in the closest possible co-operation with the Congress; this will be my aim too. I shall not fail you in that, Mr. Chairman; on that you have my word.

  “For the rest,” he said, “the times will guide me. We are embarked, it seems to me, upon an era of great and far-reaching change throughout the world. To come to safe harbor in such an age requires all that mortal man can give, and beyond it, the guidance of Almighty God. That He will aid me in my labors I can only pray, and pray I will.�
� He paused and then resumed in a deeper, more earnest tone, while the press took hurried notes, the subcommittee listened attentively, and only the busy whirr of the television cameras broke the silence in the big marble room.

  “No man charged, as I will be charged to some substantial degree, with the guidance of this dear land and her protection amid the dark controversies and fateful conflicts which flare all across the globe in these desperate days, could do otherwise. God my solace and my strength, I will do my best to help her safely home.”

  And he leaned back slowly while the audience burst suddenly into loud and prolonged applause. Brigham Anderson let it run for a minute or two and then rapped sharply for order. When he got it he bowed slightly to the nominee and spoke in a tone of equal gravity.

  “Those are sentiments which do you credit,” he said, “and we are pleased to have them. Were nominations a matter of principles enunciated and hopes expressed, were the word sufficient and the deed of lesser import, many and many a hearing such as this could end at just this point with some such sentiment as you have just expressed.”

  “Brig knows English too,” AP noted. “Many people on this Hill do, when they’re pressed for it,” UPI replied.

  “Unfortunately, however,” Senator Anderson went on, “in the case of a Cabinet officer, words and principles are not enough to take the place of deeds, even though, in your particular office, there have sometimes been men who tried to make the substitution. So we must regretfully move on to the more practical and, I am afraid, perhaps in some minds more pertinent, questions of what you think and what you have thought, and what you have done and what you will do. In short, we must now come to specifics. I say this not in deprecation of sentiments which you hold sincerely, and whose expression becomes you, and which of course we wish to have; but rather in recognition of the realities which confront us, here in the Senate of the United States....Senator Knox,” he said calmly, having thus smoothly rearranged the mood, sapped it of its emotionalism, and brought it back down from the mountaintop to practicalities, “would you care to interrogate?”

  “I would, Mr. Chairman,” Orrin Knox said matter-of-factly in a tone which indicated he was about to do things to the mood himself. “Mr. Leffingwell, are you loyal to the United States?”

  At this, as on Saturday when Warren Strickland had asked Howard Sheppard’s opinion on the same subject, there was an audible gasp from the audience, for the senior Senator from Illinois had deliberately used a tone as shocking as ice water. For just a second the nominee looked nonplussed and angry; then he smiled, spread his hands palms up in a candid gesture as they lay before him on the table, and smiled directly at his questioner.

  “Senator,” he said quietly, the faintest hint of amusement in his voice in case Orrin Knox wished to find it amusing too, “if I were not, could it have escaped notice in all these long years of public service?”

  Orrin, however, did not wish to find it amusing. He shook his gray head impatiently and cocked it at an argumentative angle.

  “This is not a humorous matter, Mr. Leffingwell,” he said sharply, “nor is that a responsive answer to my question. I didn’t ask if anybody had discovered it if you weren’t, I asked if you were.”

  Bob Leffingwell flushed slightly and then sat back with a time-gaining slowness, his shoulders relaxing against the chair.

  “Senator,” he said, “on the oath I swore in this room half an hour ago, I am.”

  Again there was applause, and this time Brigham Anderson banged the gavel in a way that showed he meant it.

  “It is very obvious,” he remarked, “that nearly everyone here is emotionally involved in this matter one way or another. However, one more demonstration of any kind for whatever reason and I shall direct the police to clear the room, public hearing or no public hearing. Is that clear?”

  There was a little silence which indicated that it was, and after he had let it run long enough to emphasize his point, he said quietly, “Very well. Proceed, Senator Knox.”

  “The reason I ask, Mr. Chairman,” Orrin Knox explained in a less challenging tone, “is because there have been complaints made to me, and doubts expressed, about some of Mr. Leffingwell’s statements on our relations with the Soviet Union. Some complainants have gone so far as to indicate some doubt of his loyalty. I thought he should have an opportunity to answer these doubts directly. I do not share them myself.”

  “Thank you, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said gratefully. “I didn’t think you did.”

  “No,” Senator Knox said with a smile. “Of course we are not discussing the wisdom and judgment shown in some of the statements. That might be a different matter.”

  Bob Leffingwell, encouraged by the smile, smiled back, and the tension in the room alleviated a little.

  “That is your privilege, Senator,” he said. “I hope I’ve satisfied you at least part of the time, anyway.”

  Orrin smiled again, a trifle less cordially.

  “That’s as it may be,” he said. “For instance, I have here a speech you made in Cleveland three weeks ago in which you said, and I quote, ‘We must not bind ourselves arbitrarily to the outworn principles of the past when we find those principles standing in the way of affirmative action for peace.’ What does that mean? If it means anything?”

  The nominee smiled.

  “Of course I must believe it means something, Senator, or I wouldn’t have said it,” he replied calmly. “What I meant to convey there was just about what I said—that we must not let the dead hand of the past lie upon our present efforts as we search for lasting peace. Or the lasting peace may escape us.”

  “Again, Mr. Leffingwell, you are not responsive,” Orrin Knox said bluntly. “You mention outworn principles of the past. What did you have in mind?”

  The nominee hesitated for a second and then leaned forward in a between-us fashion.

  “Let me see if I can state it for you this way, Senator,” he said slowly. “Under certain circumstances that may have existed in the past, the United States guided her actions by certain standards that had been proved to be valid for their time when those circumstances were found to exist. Now the circumstances may have changed and she may still be adhering to those standards although they no longer can be effectively or justifiably applied to the new circumstances which now confront us in which other standards may prove to be more beneficial than those of the past.”

  “Got it?” the Newark News whispered to the Houston Chronicle. “Got it,” the Houston Chronicle whispered dryly back.

  “But I want to know about those principles,” Orrin Knox said. “What are they? Honesty is the best policy? A stitch in time saves nine? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? By their presents ye shall know them? What are they? Can’t give us any clarification at all?”

  “What I meant to express, Senator Knox,” the nominee said patiently again, “was that there has been at times, it has seemed to me, too rigid an insistence by this government upon a quid pro quo with the Russians; perhaps too great an insistence that they should prove good faith before we would deal with them. If my choice of the word ‘principles’ was unfortunate, then I am sorry and I regret now that I used it. It was more a state of mind that I was driving at, perhaps, than an actual condition.”

  “That’s what I’m driving at,” Senator Knox informed him tartly. “Your state of mind. I think it’s a very important state of mind if you’re to be the new Secretary of State. I think it is very important to know what principles it is you adhere to and which you would discard. Now when you say ‘principles—’” But at this moment there was a stir down the table and the Senator from South Carolina leaned forward.

  “Mr. Chairman,” he said softly, “if the Senator from Illinois will yield to me—”

  “Gladly. Mr. Chairman,” Senator Knox said promptly.

  “—what I should like to know, Mr. Chairman,” Seab went on, “if it isn’t too much
to ask our distinguished witness—”

  “Not at all, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said crisply.

  “—is how he came to be talking about that subject at all. I thought,” Seab said, “that he was director of the ODM, Mr. Chairman. Was there anything in that speech, if I may rather irregularly question the Senator from Illinois, who has read it and I have not, was there anything in it that dealt with the subject of mobilization?”

  “No, Senator,” Orrin Knox said, “there was not. It was entirely devoted to foreign policy, and the entire tenor of it was summed up, I think the witness will agree with me, in the sentence I am asking him about.”

  “Not, of course, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Cooley said with a slow grin, “that I think his ideas on mobilization are any good, either. But I do question just a little the propriety of the director of the ODM talking about general foreign policy. I do just a little. When did you say you knew you would be appointed Secretary of State, Mr. Witness?”

  “The President called me about 8 p.m. last Thursday night and so informed me,” Bob Leffingwell said.

  “And somehow it got into the Friday morning newspapers, which go to press Thursday night, even though it was not announced at the White House until 10 a.m. on Friday,” Seab observed gently. “How did that happen, Mr. Witness? Do you suppose the President called the newspapers himself and told them Thursday night? He’s a busy man, Mr. Witness. Do you suppose he did that?”

  “The press has ways of finding things out, Senator,” the nominee said calmly.

  “When men who desire to profit from publicity inform them, yes, sir,” Seab Cooley said softly. “Yes, indeed they do, when men who want publicity inform them. But when you spoke in Cleveland three weeks ago you weren’t Secretary of State, were you, Mr. Witness? Did you know then you would be Secretary of State?”

  “No, sir,” Bob Leffingwell said firmly. “I did not.”

  “But you wanted to be,” Senator Cooley said, “and you were making speeches right along that would call attention to your desire to be, were you not?”