Advise and Consent

by Allen Drury

  “Maybe,” the President said grimly. “Nobody knows. It isn’t a situation that has precedents.”

  “What is going to happen to us?” the Senator asked, and from anyone else it might have sounded despairing. From Orrin it just sounded intensely annoyed, and it brought an answering smile from the President.

  “I expect we’re going to get along all right,” he said, “if it makes the country as mad as it does you and me.”

  “Do you think the country is capable of getting mad about anything anymore?” Senator Knox asked angrily. “They’ll give another shrug and roll over and go back to sleep again.”

  “That makes it all the more imperative that those of us who have the responsibility and the imagination to get excited about it should stand together as much as we can,” the President said; and again he raised a hand that betrayed him and moved it jerkily across his eyes. “It is against that background,” he said quietly, “that I must ask you to permit Bob Leffingwell to be confirmed.”

  Senator Knox stared at him thoughtfully.

  “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” he asked calmly, and the President looked at him in some disbelief.

  “Do you think I would fabricate something as lurid as that?” he inquired dryly.

  “You might,” Orrin said. “But,” he added quickly, “I don’t think you are. I fail to see, however, why it should change my attitude about your nominee. If anything, I should think it would make me even more determined that he not be confirmed.”

  “I feel he is what we need in this situation,” the President said with a quiet insistence. “It is inconceivable to me that you would stand in his way under the circumstances. I am asking you as a patriotic American to permit him to assume the office.”

  “Well, by God,” Senator Knox said sharply, “so now it’s patriotism, is it? Well, let me tell you, Mr. President. To me it’s patriotic to do what I deem best in my own judgment for the country; it isn’t to give in to you and let you ride roughshod over everything decent just because you claim it’s patriotic and imply that those who oppose you are unpatriotic. What kind of a damned slippery argument is that?”

  “Senator,” the President said, “do you have any conception of what I have just been telling you?”

  “I have a conception,” Senator Knox said shortly. “I also have a conception of what is decent and honorable and best for the country which I think is just as good on the moon as it is on earth or Venus or Mars or any other place we’re going to go to. And my conception has no room for Bob Leffingwell and his wishy-washy attitudes toward the mortal enemies of the United States. Why, good Lord. You know as well as I do exactly what they’re going to start doing tomorrow. They’re going to start pressuring us as they never have before. And you want an obliging stooge like Bob Leffingwell to deal with that? What kind of a concept do you have, for Christ’s sake?”

  At this language, which only a most senior and most powerful United States Senator would dare to use to the President of the United States, and then only because he was carried along on a tide of anger and indignation, the President did not, as Orrin half expected, flare up. Instead his whole aspect said: this is too grave to quarrel. And his answer was couched in the same serious mood.

  “I cannot abandon him,” he said. “I have gone too far. I have presented him to our allies as the next Secretary of State, they like him, they have accepted him. Furthermore, other things have gone too far. There has been a death because of this, not my desire and not my conscious doing, but it too has helped to commit me further. I have gone so far that it is impossible for me to turn and go back. The nation’s prestige, my own prestige, are at stake. I will defend them both”—he paused and concluded quietly—“as long as I live.” And when the Senator from Illinois smiled in a cold and wintry way he did not flinch.

  “How long,” asked Orrin Knox, “do you think that will be?”

  This the President did not answer, but turned again to the Rose Garden and sat for several minutes staring out. His face had grown more drawn and more haggard as they talked, and if he had not been under the whip of so furious a current of dislike and distaste the Senator from Illinois might have been genuinely alarmed when he turned his white face back. As it was Orrin just thought impatiently that it served him right, he deserved no charity.

  “What must I do to persuade you?” the President asked. The Senator made an impatient movement.

  “There is nothing,” he said. “This talk was pointless from the first. I knew it would be, I told Bob so and I told you so. But he wanted me to come, and you asked me to, so I agreed. It was useless.” He started to rise. “I might as well go,” he said. The President raised again a hand that shook off his control in a way that was painful to see.

  “Please sit down, Orrin,” he said quietly. “There is one more thing. We said we would discuss it on the basis of this office. Will you listen to what I have to say on that?”

  “What are you going to do,” Senator Knox asked scornfully, “offer to make me President?”

  “Yes,” the President said quietly, “I am.”

  Senator Knox snorted right out loud.

  “That’s ridiculous,” he said flatly.

  “Is it?” the President asked slowly. “Do you really think it is?” And he noted that his impatient visitor, a second before on his way out the door, was sitting slowly back down in his chair. But the stubborn, skeptical expression remained, and it was obvious he was in no way convinced. The President spoke in complete earnest.

  “It isn’t ridiculous at all,” he said, “and you know it. There are lame-duck Presidents and lame-duck Presidents; the two-term amendment is what you make of it, and I don’t think you’ll deny I’ve made a great deal. You may not like me, but a hell of a lot of other people still do. Right at this minute there isn’t a stronger man in the party or the country. Isn’t that true?”

  He paused challengingly and the Senator nodded, though with some reluctance.

  “You’re still very dominant,” he admitted.

  “All right,” the President said. “I am. And there isn’t anybody else who is going to have more to say about who the next nominee will be, either. Isn’t that right?”

  “I expect you will be listened to,” Orrin said grudgingly.

  “You’re damned right I’ll be listened to,” the President said. “Nobody more so. So I think you will have to concede that my support is not something to be tossed off with a sniff and a snort and a go-to-hell. Correct?”

  “I’m not so sure you could make the convention take your choice,” Senator Knox said slowly, “but I think you could make it rather difficult for anyone you opposed.”

  “Well,” the President said, “that fits in with your way of thinking about me, but it doesn’t fit the facts. Why, do you know how many members of the National Committee have already asked me who I favored? And asked because they don’t dare make their own choices known until I make mine? You’d be surprised.”

  “Where’s the National Committee been, by the way?” Orrin asked. “It seems to me they’ve been lying awfully low on Leffingwell.”

  “It’s a very controversial issue,” the President said. “I haven’t asked too many of them to help, although I have asked some. I didn’t feel they should take a formal stand as a group and they didn’t either. Maybe they will when they meet here next week, if it isn’t settled by then.”

  “It will be,” Senator Knox promised grimly.

  “Yes,” the President said. “So we have established that I am still very strong and that for all practical purposes I will hand-pick my successor, which I fully intend to do.”

  “And I’m it,” Senator Knox said ironically.

  “You can be,” the President said.

  “You think it’s an office to bargain with,” Orrin said. “That’s your idea of it.” The President smiled.

  “Men have,” he said blandly. Then he looked more serious. “Actually, I would like to co-operate with th
e inevitable.”

  “Me?” Orrin asked. “Me, inevitable? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Inevitable if I support you, yes,” the President said, “And possibly, since we’re being completely honest with each other—”

  “For once,” Orrin interjected tartly.

  “—for once,” the President agreed calmly, “inevitable anyway. After all,” he said seriously, “who else is there? Bob doesn’t want it, Stanley knows he couldn’t make it, Harley’s headed for pasture as soon as I go, and we have, to be candid about it, a rather undistinguished lot of governors at the moment. So who else is there? I could pick somebody out of the governors and he could be transformed into a great leader by publicity; but why should I, when a real President is available?”

  Senator Knox smiled skeptically.

  “Mr. President,” he said, “you’ve no idea how touched and flattered I am by all this, but who are you kidding? Not me, certainly.”

  “I’m not trying to kid anyone,” the President said. “I repeat, who is there? You go over the list and tell me.”

  “Oh, well,” Orrin said sardonically, “when I go over the list, of course, there’s only one answer. But that doesn’t mean there’s only one answer for the convention or the country. After all, I’ve made many enemies, I’m not smooth, I’m not tricky, I’m not much of an operator—”

  This time it was the President’s turn to interject.

  “Not much,” he said dryly.

  “Well, I’m not,” Senator Knox said. “I’m a bull in a china shop. Everybody says so. I do everything wrong. I stumble and blunder and make mistakes. I’d probably have us in a war in ten minutes. Furthermore,” and this time a little of the real bitterness he felt about the egregious slogan that had dogged him for so long crept into his voice in spite of himself, “you know Orrin Knox. He can’t be elected.”

  “I think he can be,” the President said quietly, “for he has three great qualifications. He is strong and he is honest and he is able to learn. And that to me seems sufficient.”

  “It would be like Vulcan succeeding Zeus,” Orrin said with a smile. “The supple breezes would be followed by a great wind.”

  “Well,” the President said, “don’t talk yourself down too much. The country needs variation in the office. Maybe it’s time for the supple to be succeeded by the direct. Maybe we can stand that for a while. Maybe the Commies need a dose of it, too. Maybe you can accomplish by a head-on approach some of the things I haven’t been able to accomplish by a more subtle one. Maybe,” he said, and the remark above all others convinced the Senator from Illinois suddenly that he was absolutely sincere, “maybe I’ve been too clever for my own good sometimes....At any rate,” he said with a chuckle of genuine amusement, “I’d like to sit back in my rocking chair and watch you try.”

  At this Senator Knox had to laugh, quite genuinely too, and for a rare and tenuous moment a feeling of real friendship linked them together. Then he shook his head.

  “It won’t work,” he said. “It probably wouldn’t work under any conditions, and it certainly won’t if you make it subject to my support for Bob Leffingwell, because that I won’t give.”

  “Let me ask you,” the President said, “were you intending, before you came in here today, to run next year?”

  “I was,” Orrin said without hesitation.

  “And do you still intend to, now that we have talked?” the President asked.

  “I do,” Orrin said with equal emphasis.

  “Do you think you can win over my opposition?” the President asked, and this time the answer came more slowly.

  “I don’t know,” the Senator said honestly.

  “But you know you can win with my support,” the President said.

  “Yes,” Orrin said. “I know that.”

  “Then why make it difficult for yourself?” the President said. “Why not accept a certainty when you have it given you on a silver platter?”

  “Because the price is Bob Leffingwell, that’s why,” Orrin said tartly.

  “There’s a price for everything, in this world,” the President said rather bleakly. “You’re no less immune to paying it than any other ambitious man. Are you?”

  “Perhaps,” Senator Knox said, “and perhaps not.”

  “Don’t make the gamble again, Orrin,” the President said. “You’ve lost twice already. It won’t be easy at best to win the third time. But with me on your side you can and you know it.”

  “Yes,” the Senator from Illinois agreed, “I know it.” And suddenly he thought he saw the way out of this conversation in which the great wind was finding itself met at every turn by the supple breeze. He would make a suggestion so extremely absurd that it would end the fantastic discussion at once and bring everything back down to earth once and for all.

  “Will you give me that in writing?” he asked, and for a second he thought he had the President on the run. But like many another, he had underestimated his man.

  “I will,” his host said without hesitation. And calmly and matter-of-factly,. taking a ball-point pen from his vest pocket and a sheet of White House stationery from his desk drawer, he leaned forward and proceeded to write slowly and carefully and almost as though he had expected this. Which, Orrin thought with a respect he had never quite felt before, he probably had. When he was done he put the pen back in his pocket and tossed over the sheet of paper.

  “Will that do it?” he asked quietly. Senator Knox read it through slowly twice and then stared at him. He stared at him for quite a long time. Finally he spoke.

  “Yes,” he said, “that will do it.”

  “Fine,” the President said. “I can count on you, then?”

  “I didn’t mean that will do it as far as Leffingwell is concerned,” Senator Knox said sharply. “I meant that will do it as far as my wanting the offer in writing is concerned. I don’t know what I will decide. I’ll have to think it over.”

  “Surely,” the President said with a wave of his hand, and suddenly he appeared to be reinvigorated, refreshed, not so haggard, not so tired, once more in control of himself and the situation. “I know you’ll want to discuss it with Beth.”

  “Beth and several others,” Senator Knox said.

  “Of course,” the President said, and as he leaned back with an approving air the telephone rang.

  “Yes?” he said and listened. “Yes,” he said again. “I think that would be fine. Yes. Yes, I will. Thank you....That was Pete,” he said. “He says somebody saw you come in and the lobby is full of reporters and photographers who want to catch us together. I told him to send them right on in.

  Senator Knox looked alarmed and displeased and started to rise angrily, but the President went smoothly on.

  “While we’re waiting,” he said, “there is one thing I would like you to do for me and the country, completely aside from this business, and that’s make a speech tomorrow afternoon after the Russian broadcast to reassure the Senate and the Congress. I’m going on the air myself at 8 p.m. to talk to the country, but it will mean a lot more if you have already spoken up there to rally the Congress behind me. Will you do that?”

  And in spite of his annoyance at being euchred into an appearance of cordiality on the Leffingwell issue that the facts did not support, the Senator from Illinois on this other matter nodded without hesitation.

  “Of course,” he said. “Of course I will. I don’t suppose you want me to mention our own expedition, do you?”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” the President said. “I was thinking that would be a little more suitable coming from me, don’t you agree?”

  “Of course,” Orrin said again. “Of course.”

  “You know what to say,” the President said. “Don’t try to pretend it’s a phony, because it isn’t. Give them something to stiffen their backbones. That’s what you’re good at. Here we are in the jaws of hell, so let’s get a move on—that sort of thing.” He smiled. “Okay?”

  The Senator from
Illinois nodded in a way that had to display, despite his personal feelings, a grudging admiration.

  “Okay,” he said.

  And then the press was upon them, reporters were crowding up close around the desk, television cameras were being wheeled in, the still photographers were suddenly everywhere shouting urgent requests that they smile and shake hands.

  “Might as well,” the President said with a show of long-suffering compliance, and Senator Knox, who knew his host was secretly delighted at thus being forced into a show of apparent good-fellowship, complied with an expression that he tried to make not too disapproving.

  “Have you reached an agreement on Mr. Leffingwell, Mr. President?” someone asked eagerly and the President looked at the Senator with a little bow.

  “I expect Orrin should answer that,” he said. Senator Knox smiled with as much blandness as he could muster.

  “We have had a most interesting discussion of the subject,” he said. He paused. “I think that’s about as far as I intend to go,” he said.

  “Was it an agreeable discussion, Senator?” a voice called, and there was laughter in the room.

  “Oh,” he said, “my talks with the President—such as they are—are always agreeable. He’s an agreeable man.”

  “Was the conclusion agreeable?” someone else inquired and again they laughed.

  “The talk was agreeable,” Senator Knox said, and a slight note of irritation came into his voice. “That really is as far as I’m going to go.”

  “You mean we’ll have to report the news as it happens, Senator?” the AP spoke up, and once again they laughed, Orrin and the President this time with them.

  “I’m afraid so,” he said, and after insisting on a few more smiles and handshakes they let him go. But he noted as he finally shook hands in farewell that they were, as usual, after the President for still more of their countless thousands of shots of him sitting at his desk.

  So it was that the last thing he saw of him as he left the room—the last thing, although he did not know it then, that he was ever to see of him—was an upright figure and a confident face, no longer looking drawn and white but somehow in the stimulation of the moment miraculously restored to its customary vigor, appearing calm and confident, glowing and strong amid the glare of the lights and the hectic confusions of the room.