by Allen Drury
“Certainly,” Brigham Anderson said. “Fred?” Senator Van Ackerman stood up behind him and rested one hand on the chairman’s shoulder in a friendly way as he spoke.
“Just the same thing I told you yesterday, Brig,” he said easily, “only you didn’t want it in the record at that particular point. There is no 2731 Carpenter Street. I called the city hall in Chicago yesterday morning and checked. It’s a vacant lot. There’s nothing there. There’s no record of anything ever having been there. That’s what I wanted you to make public yesterday, Brig, only you wouldn’t.”
“Is that all, Fred?” Senator Anderson asked impassively.
“That’s all, Brig,” Senator Van Ackerman said.
“Very well, Mr. Leffingwell,” the chairman said. “Proceed.”
“Well, by God,” the Washington Post whispered excitedly as Fred Van Ackerman sat down again, “what’s Brig up to, anyway?” “Maybe we’d better try to find out,” the Herald Tribune suggested. “I think so,” the Providence Journal agreed. But at the committee table, where experience had taught the lesson that it is always best to wait and watch and not jump too soon to conclusions, the chairman’s colleagues were as impassive as he, as the nominee turned back to Herbert Gelman.
“I appreciate the concern of the Senator from Wyoming about the timing of this,” Bob Leffingwell said smoothly, “and I am grateful for it, but I can also appreciate the decision of the Chair that these matters should be developed in their proper course in the record. The delay has done me no damage, I can assure the Senator from Wyoming, as long as we now have the truth made public, thanks to him. So, Mr. Gelman, no seminar, no meeting place. But you say there were meetings.”
“There were meetings on Carpenter Street,” Herbert Gelman said stubbornly. “It may have been 2733 or 2729, but it was on Carpenter Street.”
“Well, Mr. Gelman,” Bob Leffingwell said in a pitying voice, “if the facts cannot convince you, obviously nothing will. But suppose just for a moment, on a strictly hypothetical basis, we explore these alleged meetings a little bit further. According to your tale, there were actually only four people engaged in this great plot to overthrow the government—”
“I didn’t say we were plotting to overthrow the government,” Herbert Gelman interrupted.
“I stand corrected,” Bob Leffingwell conceded sarcastically. “You didn’t. There were four, at any rate, according to your story; yourself, myself, someone who is dead now, and someone named James Morton, who had a beard and you don’t know who he was or where he came from or where he is now and you probably couldn’t recognize him if you saw him again, correct?”
There was a little snicker from the audience, and Herbert Gelman if anything looked more stubborn.
“That’s right,” he said.
“And you have nothing to back this up except your own word, fortified by a record of mental breakdown and a series of exploded assertions,” Bob Leffingwell said dryly.
“You,” Herbert Gelman said slowly, “and me, and the one who died, as you know, and James Morton. That’s all.”
“And at these great sinister meetings, accepting for a moment the hypothetical—the very hypothetical—assumption that you could by the remotest chance be telling the truth,” the nominee said, “what did you do, Mr. Gelman? Suppose I read from yesterday’s transcript, page 975, Senator Richardson interrogating, and I quote:
SENATOR RICHARDSON: Why are you here, Mr. Gelman?
MR. GELMAN: For what I’ve done.
SENATOR RICHARDSON: And what was that? Did you start any riots? Did you touch off any bombs? Did you kill anybody for the cause?
MR. GELMAN: No, sir.
SENATOR RICHARDSON: How many of you were there in this so-called cell?
MR. GELMAN: Four. Mr. Leffingwell, myself, one other who is dead, and James Morton.
SENATOR RICHARDSON: That’s not a very big group to overturn the government.
MR. GELMAN: No, sir.
SENATOR RICHARDSON: And you didn’t plot anything?
MR. GELMAN: Not to my knowledge, no, sir.
SENATOR RICHARDSON: In short, you just talked, didn’t you?
MR. GELMAN: Yes, sir.
SENATOR RICHARDSON: And that’s all you did. A few ineffectual meetings fourteen years ago. Is that all?
MR. GELMAN: I’ve felt badly about it, Senator.”
Bob Leffingwell closed the transcript. “And so you should feel badly about it, Mr. Gelman,” he said softly, “coming here as you have to destroy a fellow being without facts, without proof, with nothing but the lurid imaginings of your own sick mind. You should indeed feel badly.”
But once again, instead of speaking, the witness only looked at him with the same stubborn, dogged expression, and after a moment the nominee went on.
“So even if we accept this fantastic story of meetings, nothing was done at them except talk,” he said. “So why were they held at all, Mr. Gelman, if we permit you for a moment to get away with the assertion that they were? What were they all about, anyway?”
“We believed,” Herbert Gelman said quietly, “as you know, that we could work out a philosophy that would retain what we believed to be the best of the communist theory and apply it to this country. We knew by then what communism had turned into in Russia, and we didn’t want that here. We thought we could develop a new communism. That was your phrase, you remember—‘the new communism.’”
“You’re a liar, Mr. Gelman,” the nominee said quietly, and the witness shook his head.
“Oh, no,” he said with equal quietness.
“But supposing all you say were true,” Bob Leffingwell said in a tone of baffled wonderment as though he could not conceive how he happened to be involved in this fairy tale, “suppose the meetings were held and they discussed the new communism, whatever that is, and everything you say—it was still just talk, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Herbert Gelman said.
“Then why was it so important?” the nominee demanded in an exasperated voice. “What would it matter now? Why would it be significant of anything, if it all happened so long ago and meant so little?”
“The only reason it would be important or significant now,” the witness said, and the room quieted down completely to hear him, “would be the way in which we react to it now. If we tell the truth about it, the way I am, that is one thing. If we lie about it, as—if we lie about it, then it casts a reflection on everything we have done and raises serious questions about what we may do in the future. That is why it is important, Bob.”
At this sudden and startling use of the nickname, at which the nominee first paled and then flushed angrily, there was a sharp gasp from over the room, and as the full import of what the witness had said sunk in, it was followed by a mounting murmur of exclamation and excitement. At the committee table Orrin Knox leaned comfortably against the chairman’s arm and murmured dryly behind his hand, “He should have quit when he was ahead.” Brigham Anderson gave a grim little smile. “Let him do it his own way,” he said. Then he rapped the gavel.
“The hearing will be in order,” he said. “The Chair appreciates the audience’s co-operation with his request earlier and hopes it will continue. Are you through, Mr. Leffingwell?”
The nominee, who had regained his composure without noticeable difficulty and was once more in command of the situation, smiled pleasantly.
“No, Mr. Chairman,” he said, “not quite. We haven’t established motive here, yet. We haven’t discussed the Federal Power Commission.”
“Yes, I think that would be interesting to the subcommittee,” Senator Anderson agreed. “Proceed.”
“Now, Mr. Gelman,” Bob Leffingwell said, “and by the way, my name is Mr. Leffingwell, and I don’t recall anything, nor have you been able to prove anything, that gives you the right to call me Bob—you said you worked at the FPC in an agency close to the chairman, as I recall. After all this testimony yesterday, I went back to my office and I checked with my own personnel pe
ople, and with the Civil Service Commission, and I find that, sure enough, you did work for two years for my commission. But isn’t it true that this was as a minor clerk, not in ‘an agency close to the chairman?’ Isn’t it true that you were never in my office, and that I never had any dealings with you at all until the unfortunate episode of your retirement from the Commission?”
“I was sure you knew I was there,” Herbert Gelman said.
“That isn’t responsive to what I asked you,” the nominee said calmly.
“Because I was sure you had gotten me the job,” Herbert Gelman added, as though he had not even heard the nominee’s rejoinder.
“Are you about to have another mental breakdown, Mr. Gelman?” Bob Leffingwell asked curiously. “That would be three, wouldn’t it? Maybe you ought to go to St. Elizabeth’s for a while.”
But again the witness gave him only that dogged, stubborn stare.
“In the two years since you left the Commission,” the nominee went on, “many matters of course had come before me, and your case had entirely slipped my mind, so that yesterday when your name was mentioned to me it did not immediately ring a bell; particularly since it was mentioned to me in connection with the university, where of course, having dealt with you only as one student among many hundreds, I quite naturally had no recollection of it at all. But during your own testimony, when you mentioned the Commission, I did remember something of it; and after checking yesterday afternoon I now have all the facts in hand. The most important fact is the medical report we have on you. Not to prolong it unnecessarily, you had a second breakdown, didn’t you, Mr. Gelman, and your resignation was requested as a result of that illness?”
“Good Christ,” UPI murmured, “this guy’s a mental basket-case.” “I told you Bob would take care of him,” AP responded.
“I did have another nervous breakdown,” Herbert Gelman said, “but it wasn’t a bad one. It was just overwork, the doctor said. I could have come back if you had let me.”
“If I had let you?” Bob Leffingwell said in a tone of surprise. “Would you like me to read what our own medical report said about you, Mr. Gelman?”
“Then why did you get me another job, if you didn’t know me and I was so crazy?” Herbert Gelman demanded with a sudden anger teetering on the edge of hysteria. “Why did you let me resign voluntarily and then get me lined up over in Commerce with the Bureau of International Economic Affairs? Why did you do that for me, if nothing I’ve said was true and I’m such a mess?”
Bob Leffingwell gave him a pitying look.
“Because I was sorry for you, Mr. Gelman,” he said calmly. “You probably can’t understand that, but it’s true. It was just ordinary charity. You had done reasonably good work while you were in good health, the doctor did think you would recover with rest, and when you did there was still a feeling in the Commission that we perhaps shouldn’t abandon you altogether.”
“I had the impression it was your doing alone,” the witness said more calmly. “I thought my boss in Commerce got in touch with me because you asked him to.”
“Well, Mr. Gelman,” Bob Leffingwell said in a kindly tone, “haven’t we pretty well established here that your mind has occasionally gotten impressions that the facts just don’t support? It’s been a rather erratic mind in the past, apparently, in fact as recently as two years ago, and it seems a pretty fair presumption that it’s erratic still. No, nobody got in touch with you at my suggestion. I believe a Civil Service bulletin did mention a couple of vacancies over in Commerce, I happened to see it when it came across my desk, I thought of you, or somebody in my office thought of you, and we passed the word along. But that’s the extent of it. And please don’t tell me I’m lying, Mr. Gelman. I don’t think many people would believe you, any more.”
For the last time the witness gave him that strange, intent, stubbornly dogged look.
“Just the same,” he said, as though nothing at all had happened in the past hour and a half, “I’m telling the truth about those meetings. You’ve managed to cover up everything pretty well and confuse it all, but I still say you and I and James Morton and the boy who died held those meeting.”
“I think you’re lying, Mr. Gelman,” Bob Leffingwell said calmly.
“I know you are,” Herbert Gelman said defiantly, and the nominee shrugged.
“That’s for the subcommittee and our countrymen to judge, Mr. Gelman,” he said. “I forgive you for what you tried to do to me because you obviously aren’t in a fit condition mentally to be responsible for your actions. I feel very sorry for you, because apparently neither in college nor government have you been able to come to terms with reality in a world that is obviously too difficult for you....Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions of the witness. I appreciate your courtesy.”
There was a stirring and a relaxation in the room as the nominee turned his chair away from the witness and toward the subcommittee, as another relay of reporters ran downstairs to file new bulletins, as the audience stretched and began talking, as the television cameras wandered from face to face along the committee table and the still photographers scrambled to record such inevitable shots as Bob Leffingwell rubbing his ear, Herbert Gelman blowing his nose, Arly Richardson cleaning his glasses, Bob Munson talking to Lafe Smith, Tom August looking worried, Orrin Knox pushing back his chair to turn and greet Dolly and her guests, Fred Van Ackerman glowering thoughtfully into space, Seab Cooley looking impassively out at the audience. For several minutes there was a general informality in the room during which some of the aching tension of the verbal duel just concluded was dissipated and blown away. When it seemed to him that this purpose had been sufficiently accomplished, Brig-ham Anderson rapped for order and the room quieted down again.
“Thank you, Mr. Leffingwell,” he said, “Thank you, Mr. Gelman. Does anyone on the subcommittee have any further questions of either of these witnesses?” And when several of his colleagues responded, “No questions,” he leaned forward to look down the table to the senior Senator from South Carolina.
“How about you, Seab?” he asked, and Senator Cooley gave his sleepy smile and little wave of the hand.
“No, thank you, Mr. Chairman,” he said slowly. “I do wonder, however, whether it might be possible to get a complete copy of the transcript, including today’s session, by later on this afternoon? I’d rather like to study it over, before you all decide what to do in this matter.”
“So would I, Mr. Chairman,” Orrin Knox said. “I trust you don’t intend to vote on this today?”
“I should object to that too, Mr. Chairman,” Arly Richardson said quickly. “I think we should take a little time on this, and in line with the suggestion of Senator Cooley, I think we should all be furnished with a complete transcript by this afternoon.”
“That will be arranged, Senators,” Brigham Anderson said. “And the Chair of course has no more desire to take precipitate action than anyone else here. Two stories, diametrically opposed, have been given us, together with other information bearing on the veracity of the witness—or,” he added as Bob Leffingwell started to smile and then stopped—“witnesses. Perhaps a meeting to vote on the nomination tomorrow would be in order. Unless anyone has some further business to offer here today, we can probably consider these hearings concluded. Is that agreeable?”
“Mr. Chairman,” Bob Leffingwell said, and there was something in his tone that brought the instant attention of the subcommittee and the room. “Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a concluding statement, if I may.”
“You may,” Senator Anderson told him, and the tension was suddenly back as taut as ever. Bob Leffingwell leaned forward slowly, folding his hands one upon the other, and when he began to speak it was in a grave and deliberate voice.
“So, Mr. Chairman,” he said, “we come to the end of this extraordinary proceeding in which a witness of medically proven irresponsibility was allowed, without ever being examined or investigated or checked beforehand, to be brought bef
ore this subcommittee to be used in the most viciously unprincipled and underhanded way to smear and attack me. In thirteen years of government service, Mr. Chairman, I cannot recall an episode such as this, so evil, so inexcusable, so ill-befitting the dignity and the integrity of the Senate of the United States.”
“Mr. Chairman,” Orrin Knox said sharply, “it is not the business of this witness to be concerned with the dignity of this Senate, or to make such a spectacle as this.”
“He has a right to have his say, Senator,” Brigham Anderson said calmly. “Let him talk.”
“That’s right, Mr. Chairman,” Seab Cooley said coldly from down the table. “Just let him talk. He’s mighty good at talking. He’s so good at talking he’s maybe going to talk himself right out of the vote he was about to get here. Let him talk.”
“That will do, Senator,” Brigham Anderson said flatly. “Go on, Mr. Leffingwell. Tell us what else we’ve done. The whole world’s listening.”
“I repeat, Mr. Chairman,” Bob Leffingwell said in the same measured tones, “an evil, inexcusable, underhanded, vicious, shabby attempt to smear me, destroy my personal character and destroy my usefulness to the President and to my country, so that I could not be confirmed for Secretary of State. I expected this sort of thing from the senior Senator from South Carolina, whose ability to damage good citizens and injure his own country has increased in direct geometric ratio to his lengthening years in this body, but I did not expect it of some other members of this subcommittee. I did not expect that they would give support, some directly and some indirectly, to his tactics. It has shocked and disappointed me, Mr. Chairman.”
“By God, Bob, you tell em!” the Washington Post whispered exultantly, and the Herald Trib, scribbling too fast to do more than grin, grinned.
“Nor,” the nominee went on, a certain acid iron coming into his tone, “did I ever expect to see such goings-on permitted by an instrumentality of the great Committee on Foreign Relations, particularly in the matter of a Secretary of State, a man who must go before the nations of the world to defend the interests of the United States. What is the position you have put me in here, Mr. Chairman? What will they say now, when I meet them in conference? Oh, yes, they will say, this is the man the Senate smeared. This is the man the highest legislative body in his country, yes, in many ways the greatest legislative body in the world, has attacked and slandered and attempted to destroy. That is what they will say, and how many years do you think it will be before I can meet them as an equal after this shameful, shabby episode? I ask you, Mr. Chairman, I ask you!”
