by Allen Drury
“Stanley Danta came out early on his way over to the airport to meet Brig’s brother,” AP said, “but he wouldn’t talk, either. He only said one thing—‘You will find that nothing discussed in this office this morning will ever be divulged to the press’—which was strong language, for Stanley.”
“And apparently,” said UPI, “they mean it.”
“Well, did they all seem to be in agreement on what they were going to do?” the Commercial-Appeal asked.
“That they did,” the Herald Tribune said. “That they really did.”
“So Knox, Cooley, Smith, Danta, Strickland, Tom August, and Harley are all agreed,” the Times summed up. “And since we already knew how Knox and Smith and Cooley felt, that means bad news for somebody.”
“I think we’ve got enough for a new lead,” UPI said.
“Indubitably,” said AP.
Calming down Walter Calloway of Utah, the Majority Leader decided, had been good for him. The habits of thought of many years began to function again, he found he was automatically studying, considering, weighing alternatives, making plans, even as his emotions tried to adjust to last night and its consequences. Minding the store was something he did instinctively, it was something outside emotions and he was very glad to be called upon to do it, for it was holding him steady to the course he had decided upon and giving him things to think about in the meantime. Brig’s pedantic, fussy little colleague, showing a forcefulness no one could have imagined he possessed, wanted to introduce a resolution to censure Fred Van Ackerman.
“I want to get that little monsster,” he had insisted angrily, his teeth whistling even more than usual in his anger and indignation. “He deservess it. He’s committed murder just as ssurely as though he fired that sshot himsself. I want to get him, Bob, and I think the Senate will go along with me.”
This estimate of truths and likelihoods had been difficult to refute, and before their talk was over Senator Munson had come to the conclusion that possibly Walter had the right idea—except, as he told him, he thought that the objective could be accomplished by indirection rather than directly. Senator Calloway had been doubtful—“Sseab thinks I should go right ahead with it,” he said, and the Majority Leader said, “I’m sure”—but he came around before long.
“Suppose you call the Legislative Drafting Service and have them put it in shape for you right now,” the Majority Leader suggested, “and then bring it over and let me handle it from there for a while. I think maybe we can achieve what you want without an open fight that might put a lot of unhappy things in the Record. I’d rather do it that way, if you agree.”
Walter Calloway, who obviously had no inkling whatever that the Majority Leader had played a part in recent events and, pray God, never would know, said, “Well—” slowly. “If you agree,” Bob Munson repeated firmly; and after a moment’s hesitation Senator Calloway said he would do whatever Bob thought best.
“Good, Walter,” the Majority Leader said quickly, “I appreciate your visit and your co-operation.” And he meant it sincerely, for it opened the way to a solution for the problem of what to do about Fred Van Ackerman, and that was all to the good. One minor piece of house-cleaning would be taken care of; and not so minor, either, considering the possibilities inherent in an unchecked demagogue in the Senate. One piece of good fortune had come out of all this tragic muddle: one little demagogue had gone too far too fast and was going to be squashed once and for all; and for that the country, even though it might never hear about it, could be grateful.
Pondering the strangely confused and unexpected ways in which the destinies of America sometimes work themselves out, he found that his talk with the junior Senator from Utah—who was now, in fact, the senior Senator from Utah—had served in some measure to restore his energies for the day. They would be needed a little later on, he thought with a sigh, for the clock was moving toward noon and the toughest thing he had ever had to do as Majority Leader was steadily coming closer as the session neared. He was not entirely ungrateful or unhappy, difficult though he knew their talk would be, when Mary buzzed and told him that the minutes remaining before the session would be filled by a visit from the senior Senator from Illinois. At least it would pass the time, he thought wryly, and it was with the wry expression still in his eyes that he looked up to greet his visitor as he came quickly into the room.
“What’s the matter?” Senator Knox asked shortly. “Do you find something funny in the world today?”
Senator Munson’s face sobered abruptly, he started to protest but then dropped it.
“Sit down, Orrin,” he said in a tired voice. “There isn’t anything funny in the world today.”
“I don’t think so,” Senator Knox said coldly. “You look like the devil,” he added abruptly.
“I have things on my mind,” Bob Munson said. Senator Knox nodded curtly.
“You should have,” he said; and suddenly, having forced them tightly down inside him so that he could come and see Bob with reasonable calm, he found that all his anger and sorrow and resentment were abruptly boiling up again.
“God damn it,” he said bitterly, “that was a hell of a thing you did. How can you stand yourself this morning?”
The Majority Leader looked at him with a weary thoughtfulness.
“You know,” he said, “I wonder that too. However, here I am because I have to be. Who told you?”
“He did,” Senator Knox said. “He wrote me a letter before he—before. It was under my door.”
“Was it complete?” Senator Munson asked and then answered his own question. “But of course it would be,” he said. “It wouldn’t be characteristic of his honesty if it weren’t.”
“That’s right,” Orrin said, without mercy. “That was a fine young man you killed.” He was pleased to see an expression of sudden pain come over the Majority Leader’s face.
“Oh, please,” Bob Munson said in the same weary way. “Orrin, please. How do you think I feel about it, for Christ’s sake?” He turned away and stared out the window a moment before turning back. “Who else knows?” he asked.
“We had a meeting in my office,” Senator Knox said. “Seab and Tom and Lafe and Warren and Stanley and Harley. I read it to them before I burned it. I thought they had a right to know it all before I asked them to help defeat the nomination.”
“Did anybody back out?” Senator Munson asked. Senator Knox gave him a scornful look.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. Bob Munson shrugged and let his hands drop on the desk before him.
“So you’ve got a gallant little band together and you’re out to beat him,” he said.
“Yes,” Senator Knox said coldly, “and if there were some way of getting back at you, too, I think I’d do it.” Again he was satisfied to see the Majority Leader wince. “But I suppose I’ll just have to be happy with making you take a licking on the vote. Which,” he added positively, “I am going to do.”
“Would it come as a great surprise to you,” Senator Munson inquired, “if I said I no longer give a damn?” Orrin laughed without amusement.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” he said, “but it would sure as hell surprise me if you had the guts to do something about it.”
“What would you recommend?” Senator Munson asked with a certain irony.
“I’ll tell you what I’d recommend,” the Senator from Illinois said bluntly, and he did so with a succinct directness. When he finished the Majority Leader gave him the first thing approaching a smile that he had managed in eighteen hours.
“Well, Orrin,” he said softly, “Orrin, don’t give me up as a lost cause forever, because I’m way ahead of you. That’s exactly what I intend to do.”
“Very well,” Senator Knox said practically. “If you do you can count on me to see that things get straightened out later. It’s the best way out for you, it seems to me.”
“I think so,” Senator Munson said. “It seems the least I can do for him. And,” he added qui
etly, “you don’t have to see to anything for me, Orrin. Let it ride, if you want to. It would serve me right.”
“Well,” Orrin Knox said, and he found that he was feeling much better suddenly, for the future now was beginning to open up in a way that led straight to defeat for Mr. Robert A. Leffingwell, “we'll see about that.”
“Don’t promise anything,” Bob Munson said with the faintest touch of humor, “that might tie you down.” And for the first time, as he had hoped it might, the remark brought an answering glimmer of humor from Senator Knox.
“I won’t, Bob,” he said. “Don’t worry.” He got up abruptly. “I’ll run along. I have things to do.”
“You might like to talk to Walter Calloway,” the Majority Leader suggested. “He wants to put in a censure resolution against Van Ackerman, and I told him I’d prefer it if he got it ready and then left it with me. Maybe you’d rather handle it. Since,” he said wryly, “you’re going to be running the Senate this week.”
Senator Knox nodded matter-of-factly.
“I would,” he said. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Talk to Lafe, too,” the Majority Leader said. “He hates me.”
“He’ll get over it,” Orrin said shortly.
“Will you?” Senator Munson asked. Senator Knox looked at him out of twenty years of friendship and close alliance and all the things that don’t change overnight no matter what happens.
“I don’t hate you,” he said. “These things happen. It may be a while before I forgive you, but I don’t hate you.”
“I was on such a spot all around,” the Majority Leader said, and he said it not as a plea for sympathy but as a statement of simple fact. “I never thought it would—would come to—to—” And he stopped because he was unable to continue.
“Of course you didn’t,” Orrin agreed in a tone that passed no judgment one way or the other. “I’ll see you on the floor, Bob. I think everything will work out all right.”
“I hope so,” Senator Munson said.
But after the Senator from Illinois had gone swiftly out the door and on his way, he remained seated at his desk, staring before him without really seeing anything, knowing he would have the courage to do what he wanted to do but wondering what its consequences would be. Far-reaching and profound, he knew, for it was not something that happened often and it meant a political upheaval akin to a genuine constitutional crisis when it did.
While he was still wondering about it Mary buzzed again and he picked up the phone.
“The President is on the line again,” she said. “Do you want to talk to him?”
The Majority Leader paused for a second, thought many things, and reached his decision.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said quietly. “I don’t think so. But don’t tell him I’m out. Tell him just what I said.”
Just as the warning bell rang at eleven forty-five the senior Senator from Illinois got on the subway car with Dick Mclntyre of Idaho, Victor Ennis of California, Marshall Seymour of Nebraska, and a dozen tourists and rode over to the Capitol. Marshall as usual was full of sharp comments that he liked to think were funny but weren’t, particularly today, and Orrin found it hard not to take his head off. However, by a series of grunts and “Unh-hunhs” and a pretense of leafing through the papers in his briefcase he managed to complete the trip without an open breach with the insufferable old joker. And after all, he told himself ironically, he needed his vote. Inspired by this thought, he changed his attitude abruptly as they got off the car, linked his arm through Marshall’s, and chatted away with him vigorously as they made their way to the Senators’ elevator and up to the floor. “How to win friends and influence people,” Victor Ennis murmured in some surprise. “I don’t care what a fool you are, I need your lousy vote,” Dick Mclntyre murmured in return. “Well,” Vic said with sudden seriousness, “he’s got mine. How about you?” “I’m watching my mail,” Senator Mclntyre said candidly. “It’s beginning to run two-and three-to-one against Leffingwell. He’ll probably have mine, too.” “He’ll probably have a good many,” Senator Ennis said. “Enough?” inquired Dick Mclntyre. “We shall see,” said Vic Ennis.
As for Orrin during this little exchange, he was telling himself dryly that it was talking to people like Marsh Seymour that fortified the soul and strengthened the character. He gave the old buffoon a final slap on the back and they parted the best of buddies.
And so far, he thought, as he came on the floor and observed that there was close to a full Senate already gathered, waiting to pay tribute to the Senator from Utah, everything was going very well from his standpoint. He had exacted a pledge of absolute secrecy from his colleagues at the meeting in his office, and even if they had not given it willingly to begin with, as they did, he could see it was no problem as soon as they heard Brig’s letter. Their reactions had been exactly as his own, saddened and sobered and filled with a heightened anger against those responsible for the tragedy; plus, as he had been sure would be the case, a heightened respect for their unhappy young colleague whose integrity was affirmed for the last time in the straightforward honesty of his letter. After Orrin finished the reading he had burned it carefully in an ash tray and then sat back and surveyed them all.
“Now,” he said. “Are you with me?” “I am,” Harley said promptly, and for all but Tom August, that did it. In his heart the chairman of Foreign Relations reacted just as Senator Knox had expected; but his position, his love of feeling important in matters of high policy, coupled with his rare opportunities to do so, produced an uncertainty that was rather painful to see. He wanted to be with Orrin; but should he? He was not, however, reluctant to co-operate in Orrin’s plans to speed a decision in the matter. When Orrin said that he would call a subcommittee meeting right after the session today, Senator August agreed promptly; and when Orrin suggested a full committee meeting tomorrow, he immediately proposed setting it for 9 a.m. “Two o’clock,” Senator Knox said. “It might be better to wait until after the service at the Cathedral.” “More strategic, too,” Stanley Danta had remarked with the slightest trace of irony, and Orrin had made an impatient gesture. “I intend to use the materials at hand,” he said bluntly, and Stanley had nodded. “I’m not criticizing,” he said. “I think he would want you to.”
As for Bob, that too was working out more smoothly than he had dared to hope; there also his luck was with him. Knowing his old friend, he had suspected that the course of action he proposed might already have occurred to the Majority Leader; but if it hadn’t, he had been quite prepared to argue for it as passionately and forcefully as he knew how, not sparing in any way the feelings of the Senator from Michigan or holding back any of the emotion he felt about Bob’s part in the tragedy. Fortunately Senator Munson’s own decision had removed the necessity for much of this, so that it had been possible for them to discuss it on a reasonably calm basis, and to part with enough of their old closeness intact so that there had not had to be any irreparable breach. Orrin would not have wanted this to happen, but he was ready for it if it turned out to be necessary. That it hadn’t was one small dividend for which he was grateful. So was Walter Calloway’s censure resolution. He would get that resolution and then he and Bob would sit down in some quiet place with Fred Van Ackerman and have a little talk. And after that in logical progression would come the personal isolation, the political and legislative deep-freeze, the terrifying implacable ostracism that the Senate can impose upon a member when it so desires. It couldn’t happen, Orrin thought with savage satisfaction, to a nicer guy.
Prompted by this to look about the chamber, he noted that for once the insufferable gall of the junior Senator from Wyoming had apparently failed him. He was not on the floor, and Senator Knox didn’t think he would dare to come onto the floor. That meant that he was on the run already. He decided he must see Senator Calloway as soon as possible and get that resolution. Then he and Bob could have their conference with Fred this afternoon, another of the things that could be accom
plished on the tide of emotion running in the wake of Senator Anderson’s death.
At five minutes to twelve, he noted, the galleries were full, the space along the walls at the back of the chamber was jammed with clerks and secretaries, nearly every seat on the floor was filled. Many Senators were in black, voices were hushed, people moved about quietly with subdued and sober greetings. The press gallery was crowded, too, and there as everywhere in the room there was an atmosphere of somber expectation, as though people felt instinctively that today there was much more at stake, and much more to be expected, than on the usual day of eulogies for a dead Senator. Well, he thought grimly, they were going to get then-money’s worth. They didn’t know it yet, but they were going to get their money’s worth.
At one minute to the hour Bob Munson and the Vice President came onto the floor together and went to their respective chairs, followed by the chaplain of the senate, wearing the grave and preoccupied look he wore on such occasions. “Carney’s buryin’ face,” Jack McLaughlin of Georgia called it; “Old Carney’s got on his buryin’ face.” But this time, as with all the Senate, there was something deeper and more genuine about it; and when the opening bell rang at noon and the gavel fell and the galleries and the Senate stood with bowed heads, it was a more moved and genuine prayer than usual that he gave. When he finished Harley looked up quietly and said, “The Senator from Utah,” as Walter Calloway arose to make the traditional announcement to the Senate of a colleague’s passing.
“It iss my sad duty, Mr. President,” he said in a voice that wasn’t very steady, “to announce to the Senate the death of my dear colleague and beloved friend, the senior Ssenator from the Sstate of Utah, Brigham Anderson.” He paused and slowly looked about the chamber. “I do not observe,” he remarked quietly, “the junior Ssenator from Wyoming, who I should think would like to be here to see what he has accomplished.” Good for you, Walter, Orrin told him silently; oh, by God, good for you. And on a sudden inspiration he looked quickly at the Majority Leader and they understood one another instantly. Bob returned a rather alarmed glance that said, “Not now,” and Orrin said, “Why not?” as clearly as though he had said it aloud. The Majority Leader turned away, looking disturbed, but the mind of the Senator from Illinois was made up. Yes, why not now, now that Walter had opened the way?
