Capable of Honor

by Allen Drury

  “Well, yes: the vetoes.”

  “Do you approve of them?”

  “Oh, yes,” the Speaker said calmly as Elbridge swung the limousine left into Independence Avenue to start the ten-minute run from the Hill to the White House. “I approve. Some don’t.”

  “We have the same problem in the Senate,” Bob Munson admitted. “Arly Richardson and Freddie Van Ackerman seem to be leading the parade.”

  “I noticed in the papers that Fred and COMFORT seem to be right in there. Arly’s a little surprising.”

  “Anything to be in the opposition,” Senator Munson said in an annoyed tone, “Arly’s been in the Senate for twenty years and every single day has been devoted to making himself stand out from the crowd. It’s a congenital necessity that he be a loner. No matter what it is, there’s Arly, alone against the universe. It’s a psychological compulsion.”

  The Speaker smiled.

  “So, will they tie it up?”

  “They may for a while,” the Majority Leader acknowledged.

  “Filibuster?”

  “Lord, I hope not,” Bob Munson said. “I am so tired of these grandstand plays. But they can delay it enough to weaken a lot of the impact, even if they just debate it for a day or two—or three or four. Or more. You don’t know how lucky you are, Bill. In the House you have galley slaves, not prima donnas.”

  “Ho!” the Speaker said with a skeptical snort. “Have I not? Brother, you get so busy in the Senate you don’t notice my troubles. My biggest prima donna right now is the Honorable J. B. ‘Jawbone’ Swarthman, distinguished chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Jawbone is wrestling with his conscience, and when Jawbone does that you can hear the groans from Richmond to Philadelphia. He’s refused to introduce the resolution in the House, you know. He refused to come to this luncheon.”

  “I know.”

  “How about Tom August? Is he coming down?”

  “To tell you the truth,” Senator Munson confessed, thinking of the will-o’-the-wisp mind from Minnesota that presided as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “I don’t know about Tom, either.”

  “Good Lord!” the Speaker exclaimed. “What is this, a revolt of the masses?”

  “Revolt of the asses, more likely,” Bob Munson said dourly. “I’ve already spent two hours arguing with Tom, but he still may not do it.”

  “And I with Jawbone. I think Walter Dobius and his kind have them buffaloed.”

  “Not only that,” the Majority Leader admitted. “Honest doubts have them buffaloed, too.…I’m not entirely happy myself, to tell you the truth.”

  The Speaker nodded.

  “Nor I. But you know what we always do, Bob: you know what you and I have done for twenty years and more. We have our doubts and we have our worries, but when all’s said and done we resolve them in favor of the man in the White House.” He chuckled. “If we didn’t, two other distinguished and able gentlemen would be riding down Pennsylvania Avenue to lunch with the President as Speaker and Majority Leader. It surely wouldn’t be you and I.”

  “I know,” Senator Munson said with a sigh. “I wonder how much we’ve lost, you and I, in actual basic integrity, by going along with the White House.”

  “You haven’t always gone along,” the Speaker pointed out. “You jumped the traces over Bob Leffingwell when Brigham Anderson died.”

  “Finally,” Senator Munson said, his eyes suddenly shadowed with the pain of all that unhappy tangle that had cost so much and in which he had, at one point, played a role he could never forget and would give anything to erase. “Finally …”

  “Of course you did,” the Speaker said comfortably, not entirely positive what the problem had been on that sad occasion, though pretty sure he could guess, in the light of subsequent events. “Anyway, I don’t feel I’ve sacrificed much integrity, over the years. Look at it this way: the country elects a man President to do certain things. If you help him to do them on the Hill, then you’re helping the country get what it wants. Maybe we have lost the right to eternal challenge that your friend Arly is so fond of, but there’s a substitute integrity, you might call it, which is just as valid: the integrity of seeing things through, of getting things done, of having your colleagues know they can trust your word and count on you to deliver the things you promise in return for their support of the man you serve.…No, I don’t feel regrets about it. The country elects him—we help him do what the country wants. Nothing dishonorable about that.”

  “No,” Senator Munson agreed as the car swung left into Constitution Avenue at the Federal Triangle. “Except that this time—did the country elect him to do what he’s doing in Gorotoland? It did not, in fact, elect him at all. He succeeded to the job. Which makes him—and we who support him—that much more vulnerable to attack from Walter and the rest.”

  “That is true,” the Speaker acknowledged gravely. “I confess I’d feel better about it if he were an elected President. Seems to me that’s why he’s got to run again, doesn’t it you? Give folks a chance to say whether they approve or not.”

  “You think so? What will that do to Orrin and Ted?”

  “I’m for Orrin,” the Speaker said calmly, “over both of them. Told him so and I’m telling you so. I’ll tell Harley, too, if he asks. But everything’s changed now. Especially if Ted decides he’s going to come out in opposition to what’s going on.”

  The Majority Leader gave a dry little grunt.

  “If I know Ted, he’s going to wait a while. He’s not the impulsive type, much as Walter would like to have him be.”

  “They’re going to make it mighty tough for him to keep still. I imagine the President’d kind of like to have him speak up, too, don’t you think?”

  “I expect he would,” Bob Munson said as Elbridge piloted the limousine swiftly through the noon rush on Constitution, past the Justice and Commerce departments, Labor, and the rest. “Maybe that’s why he’s asked us down,” he suggested wryly. “Good news from the political front.”

  But when they reached the White House they found little good news there of any land. The President and Orrin were grave-faced and worried. The first contingent of Marines had reached Molobangwe. Contrary to advance predictions from their confident commanders, the task was not proving easy. There had been a pitched battle in the center of the town, around Barclay’s Bank. Quite a few rebels had apparently been killed, but so had seventeen Marines. The first air skirmish had occurred, near the remains of the Standard Oil installation in the highlands. Three Soviet MIG’s, piloted by Chinese, had been knocked down, but so had two United States fighter planes. It was an old story, in a repetitious age. They could feel it in their bones: it wasn’t going to be easy.

  “It’s dragging already,” the President conceded grimly. “How soon can you get that resolution through?”

  “We’ll have it passed by midnight tonight,” the Speaker said.

  “The Senate has problems, as you know,” Bob Munson said. “If there’s a filibuster we’ll break it by tomorrow night. Not, I imagine, before. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” the President said. He smiled, more relaxed. “The Senate wouldn’t be the Senate if everything went smoothly. As soon as you get near passage, let me know. I’m going to broadcast again.”

  “Good,” the Majority Leader said. “You don’t think you might before?”

  The President considered with a frown.

  “No, I don’t think so. That would make it look frantic. I think it’s better to let the Congress operate as it will in its own way. That won’t put me in a false position of either begging, or trying to get the country to bring pressure to bear.”

  “Especially,” the Secretary of State observed, “since we’re not entirely sure at the moment that the country would respond.”

  “That’s right,” the President agreed with a return of his normal good humor. “Trust Orrin to spell it out. I think it will be much better for me to go on tomorrow night, if that’
s when it is. Just give me an hour or so advance warning so we can notify the networks. We’ll have them standing by.”

  “There are still a few weapons left in this house,” Orrin noted with satisfaction. Senator Munson nodded.

  “The Senate vote won’t be any later than tomorrow night. Arly can always be bought off once he’s made it clear to the country that he and he alone is standing between it and eternal hellfire. Once that’s accomplished, something for Arkansas can always choke off the rhetoric. Freddie Van Ackerman’s a different problem. Him,” the Majority Leader said with a grim assurance in his voice, “we’ll break.”

  “I hope so,” the President said. “I’ve been trying to build up John Morgan over in the House, as you know, Bill, to run against him in Wyoming this fall. I think John’s in pretty good shape.”

  “He was, Mr. President,” the Speaker agreed thoughtfully. “Until the last forty-eight hours.”

  “Is it really that bad? Surely not.”

  “Bob and I were saying on the way down,” the Speaker replied in the same musing way, “that for once we’re not sure. There’s a very funny mood on the Hill right now; a very funny mood in the country. I think in their hearts and their guts most Americans are with you. But the press has ’em confused. Walter Dobius and Company are making some headway. They may make more.”

  “Well,” the President said flatly, and for a moment he did not look at all like the kindly, comfortable, rather bumbling Harley Hudson they had known so long: he looked like what he was, a President of the United States. “I am not about to turn tail and run from Walter Dobius and all his imitative little pals. And I shall tell them so. In fact, I shall tell the country so, tomorrow night.”

  “If you think you should, Mr. President,” the Speaker said calmly. The President stared at him for a moment. Then he smiled and relaxed.

  “Don’t worry, Bill. I won’t dwell on it. But I want everybody to get the message.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “I’m sorry it’s going to be a little difficult up there, but I know you can do it. Keep me advised.”

  “We will,” Bob Munson promised as they started for the door. He paused. “I suppose the news of our reverses out there will be released soon?”

  The President nodded.

  “Surely. The Pentagon wants to hold them back, and”—he glanced with a humorous air at his Secretary of State—“so, I think, does Orrin, but—”

  “No, I don’t,” Orrin said. “It can’t be done anyway, there are too many correspondents swarming into Gorotoland. Better let it out and take what we have to take and get it over. Things will get better,” he added confidently. “None of us doubts that, I hope.”

  But though they assured him that of course they didn’t, it was in a much more worried mood that the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House returned, shortly after 1:30, to the Hill. Their ride was silent as Elbridge performed again his practiced maneuvers through the midday traffic. It was only when the limousine stopped to deposit Senator Munson under the arch of the Senate steps that the Speaker finally broke his reverie.

  “I wish I were surer of things. I’d feel better.”

  Bob Munson nodded.

  “Yes,” he agreed, staring thoughtfully at the crowds of tourists who were already, this early in the season, beginning to jostle and push their way through the Capitol corridors, many of them scarcely apprehending that a good portion of their fate and that of the world was actually being decided right here in these old stone halls even as they passed. “Yes, there have been simpler times and clearer issues. But I suppose,” he said with a rather grim little smile, “that’s what makes it fun. Let me know how things are going over there.”

  The Speaker nodded.

  “It won’t be so bad. Cullee’s going to lead off, and you know Cullee. He doesn’t fool around.”

  Nor did he when, a few minutes later, he arose at the microphone at the committee table in the center of the majority side of the House and began the four hours of debate on the resolution that the Rules Committee had allowed. Briefly he sketched the background of recent events, described the provocations that had brought the Administration response in Gorotoland, defended the vetoes, emphasized the importance of the pending resolution in presenting a united American front to the world; paid his respects to Jawbone Swarthman’s right not to introduce it if he didn’t want to, introduced it himself, strongly urged its passage; sat down. A scattering of applause came from the galleries. The temporary presiding officer, chairman of the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union which provides the House’s mechanism for opening work on a legislative measure, rapped the gavel in an admonishing way. Jawbone surged to his feet from his chair beside Cullee with his usual combination of hesitancy and belligerence.

  “Now, Mr. Chairman,” he began, “I want the House to understand what is involved in this little bitty old resolution presented by my distinguished—and yes, he is distinguished, I will say to the House, as we all know—my distinguished friend, whom I am proud to call my friend, the distinguished Congressman from California. I want the House to understand, too, Mr. Chairman, the grave, the very grave situation our beloved country is involved in, Mr. Chairman. It’s a mess, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir, it is surely a mess.”

  There was a titter of laughter and, again, some applause. The chairman used the gavel, the titter subsided. Representative Swarthman swung around to stare down at the ebony giant at his side. Cullee looked back with an impassive interest.

  “Mr. Chairman,” Jawbone said, “my dear friend here says I had a right not to introduce the pending resolution of support for the President in his latest actions, even though I am chairman of the great House Foreign Affairs Committee. Now, I do appreciate—I do, Mr. Chairman—this charity and understanding. I wish I could show it, Mr. Chairman, to the course of action my friend is defending here. I do, Mr. Chairman! But, Mr. Chairman”—and he shook his head sadly and waggled his forefinger suddenly in Cullee’s face—“I just can’t, Mr. Chairman! I just can’t!”

  “Mr. Chairman,” Cullee said, rising so abruptly that Jawbone had to jump back to escape being toppled. “If the gentleman will yield, what alternate course would the gentleman propose? Didn’t the United States have to do something when its people were killed and American property was destroyed? What would the gentleman have done?”

  “I would have gone to the United Nations, Mr. Chairman—”

  “The gentleman knows that would have been a meaningless thing,” Cullee said flatly.

  “Well, now,” Jawbone said. “Well, now, Mr. Chairman, I’m not so sure, Mr. Chairman, I’m not at all, now. Many intelligent and well-informed people, Mr. Chairman, many people we all know and admire and respect, Mr. Chairman, would have gone to the United Nations, now—”

  “If you mean Wal—” Cullee began ominously.

  “Whom many of us respect and admire,” Jawbone amended hastily. “Yes, sir, they would, and I would. I would, now. I would have gone to the United Nations and I would have said, ‘Lookahere, now, you fellows, you know we’ve suffered a right inexcusable attack there, now, and it’s up to you to help us.’ And I think they would, Mr. Chairman! I think they would!”

  “Mr. Chairman,” Cullee Hamilton said in a tired voice, “the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee has served on the U.S. delegation to the UN in previous years. He knows the situation wasn’t good when he was there and he knows it’s worse now. Who’s he trying to kid, Mr. Chairman? Surely not this House.”

  “Now, Mr. Chairman,” Jawbone said sternly, “I will say to my good friend the Congressman from California, I will say, that I think we are dealing with a condition here, a condition in the country. I don’t think the country wants a war, Mr. Chairman, that’s what I mean! I think that’s what we’ve got to face here. I just don’t think it does, Mr. Chairman. I know my people in South Carolina don’t, leastways the way they’re writing and wiring and phoning to me. I bet I’m not alone in it, eit
her, Mr. Chairman.” He swung around with a wide gesture to embrace the whole of the attentive House. “I bet most of you-all are getting the very same thing this very minute, now. Isn’t that a fact, now, Mr. Chairman? Sure it is, now!”

  “If the gentleman will yield,” Cullee said patiently, “I will agree with him that many of us are receiving messages opposing the President’s course. My own state,” he observed dryly, “is always among the most vocal on most issues. It certainly is on this. But I wonder if that’s enough, Mr. Chairman, to decide an issue as grave as this one. We all know what inspires mail and telegrams and phone calls. Sometimes it is genuine and sometimes it is whipped up. I think we can assess it pretty well.”

  “Oh!” Jawbone cried. “Now! Mr. Chairman! That’s strange talk from one who aspires to a seat in the other body. How does he hope to win a seat in the other body if he defies his own people, Mr. Chairman? How can he hope to do it, Mr. Chairman? People don’t get elected to the other body that way, Mr. Chairman!”

  “How do they get elected?” Cullee demanded. “By giving in to every passing fancy of the people of South Carolina? I am not the only member of the House who might aspire some day to go to the other body. I don’t know when I might attempt it, but I can tell my friend from South Carolina, Mr. Chairman, that I won’t do it his way. I won’t do it by appeasing every passing hysteria that comes along. I’ll do it by standing for what I believe in and saying, take it or leave it. That’s my way, Mr. Chairman, and California knows it.”

  “Well, now, Mr. Chairman,” Jawbone said, changing the subject with a brisk air that brought a chuckle from the House, “now we’re getting far afield. My point is the country doesn’t like this war, Mr. Chairman. It sympathizes with the slain folks, Mr. Chairman, and God knows nobody does more than I do—it deplores the damage to American property—but I think it doesn’t want a war. It wants to negotiate and settle things peacefully, Mr. Chairman. America doesn’t want a war.”

  “Does America want honor, Mr. Chairman?” Cullee demanded, and a snicker of scornful laughter rippled through the galleries. He swung upon them angrily.