by Allen Drury
“Sure, sure, Rufe,” Fred broke in heartily. “Good to hear from you, buddy. What’s on your mind? Going to join me in this great fight against war and these power-mad bastards downtown? I need all the help I can get, Rufe, I’ll tell you that.”
“K-E-E-P,” Rufus Kleinfert said carefully, “believes it must speak out. It believes your gallant battle tonight is the battle of all of us who fear the entanglement of our beloved country in foreign wars and alliances. K-E-E-P believes that our entanglement in Gorotoland is a Communistic plot to drain our manpower and resources as they have been drained in so many places in recent decades. It believes that the President and Secretary of State, if not knowing Communist agents, are at best Communist dupes. K-E-E-P intends to oppose this course, not just at this moment, but, if need be, at the national convention of the President’s party in July, and in the national election later. K-E-E-P—”
“Say, Rufe,” Senator Van Ackerman broke in, “that sounds like great stuff. Why don’t we have a little talk next time you’re in D.C. or I’m in Dallas? I think maybe with this issue the way it is, with the national outcry in the press and all against this insane stupidity on the part of Half-Brain Harley and Odd-Ball Orrin, that we just might be able to swing the whole deal for a really great American.”
“Who’s that?” Rufus Kleinfert asked with an abrupt suspicion.
“Governor Jason, who else?” Fred said briskly. “Now, Rufe—”
“K-E-E-P,” its Knight Kommander said coldly, “is not convinced that Governor Jason is really With Us in our fight to preserve America’s traditional freedoms from foreign betrayal and entanglement. How do we know where he stands? Has he spoken out? Everything he has said on other issues up to now indicates that he is no better than a dangerous, radical, Communistically oriented liberal, of exactly the sort the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism was established to combat. K-E-E-P has opposed every such dangerously radical individual it could in recent years. K-E-E-P—”
“You’ve done a great job, boy, a great job,” Fred Van Ackerman said cordially. “I don’t know where the country would be without you.”
“K-E-E-P also has the feeling,” Rufus Kleinfert said, unimpressed, “that you yourself. Senator, have espoused many dangerously liberal causes in your Washington career. What reason does K-E-E-P have to believe that you are sincere and dedicated in this great battle to—”
“Now, just a minute, Rufus buddy,” Senator Van Ackerman said harshly. “Who made this phone call? It wasn’t me, was it? You must think I’m on your side or you wouldn’t be talking, would you? Now, cut the crap and let’s talk sense on this. We’ve all got to stand together on the side of keeping the peace and getting the hell out of Gorotoland—the side of upholding the UN instead of destroying it!—the side, Mr. President,” he shouted, as his colleagues watched him with something of the apprehension with which they would have watched a rabid ocelot, and the galleries leaned forward excitedly to enjoy the drama he was precipitating below, “of saying to the world that America does not go along with this insane drive of Harley M. Hudson and Orrin Knox to re-elect themselves to another term with the treasure of America’s coffers and the blood of America’s boys!
“That is the side on which I stand, Mr. President, the side of fighting this madness to the last breath that’s in me! That is the side on which the vast majority of Americans stand. And, Mr. President,” he said, his voice dropping to a menacing calmness, “I think our two distinguished and oh, so able, former colleagues will find it out in November. Yes, Mr. President, I say to them, let them run! They will learn in November what their countrymen think of their insane course! Isn’t that a fact?” he demanded abruptly of the Majority Leader, who had returned from the Stricklands shortly after eleven and had been sitting at his desk, still in tuxedo, impassive and expressionless, ever since. “Isn’t that a fact, I ask their defender, the distinguished Majority Leader?”
“Mr. President,” Bob Munson said, rising slowly to his feet, “I’m not defending—or denouncing—anybody. I’m just waiting for the Senator to get through so we can vote on this resolution.”
“Oh, we’ll vote on it, I will say to the amusing Majority Leader,” Fred Van Ackerman cried as a little scythe of laughter cut its way across the Senate, “we’ll vote on it, sometime tomorrow, as he wishes. But before we do, Mr. President—before we do—I intend for this Senate—and the country and the world—to understand exactly what is going on in this city of Washington. I intend for the world to understand how an ambitious pair of politicians, who may or may not be knowingly playing into the hands of the Communists, Mr. President—”
“Now, just a minute,” the Majority Leader said angrily. “Just a minute—”
“I say may or may not,” Senator Van Ackerman cried. “I said may or may not, I didn’t say they were, I will say to their friend the distinguished Majority Leader who is so anxious about them instead of about the American boys who are dying out there in that bleak African country, Mr. President. Why, Mr. President”—and he held up, for all to see, the early edition of tomorrow’s Post with its banner headlines, U.S. CASUALTIES JUMP AS GOROTO WAR STALLS; REDS RUSH VOLUNTEERS; ALLIES DOUBTFUL; H.H. ELECTION PLOT FEAR GROWS—“who do they think they’re fooling, down there in their precious White House? Their White House? Why, Mr. President, after the election they won’t even be able to get in the front gate! After the election we’ll have a man who really thinks of his own country in the White House, Mr. President! We’ll have a man who puts America’s interests first. We’ll have an American in the White House!”
“I would ask the Senator,” Senator Munson said in a tired voice, “what interests he thinks the President is defending right now. Except that it’s pointless to argue with him. But I would suggest he tell us the name of this paragon who is going to lead us all to the promised land. Would he care to divulge it?”
“Oh, no, you don’t, Mr. President!” Fred Van Ackerman cried, and above in the diplomatic gallery Patsy Labaiya, who had come in a little while ago with Bob Leffingwell, sat back with pursed lips as her companion gave her an ironic smile. “Let’s just concentrate on one presidential candidate at a time. I’m talking about Hapless Harley and his sidekick Artful Orrin, right now. I’m saying, Mr. President—”
“The Senator, as always, is saying too much,” Senator Munson snapped, “most of it impertinent and all of it immaterial. Mr. President, I move that the Senate now proceed to vote on this—”
“Mr. President!” Fred Van Ackerman shouted, his voice sailing up into its familiar snarling whine as three or four others, including Verne Cramer of South Dakota, jumped to their feet. “I have the floor, Mr. President. I’m not through yet, Mr. President. I’m not—”
“Then I suggest the Senator get through,” Bob Munson grated, “so this Senate can dispose of this matter and go home.”
“You can go home. Senator,” Fred Van Ackerman said with a fleering, sneering invitation. “I’m staying here for a while.”
And for once true to his word, he held the floor for ten more hours, during which Patsy and Bob Leffingwell and Helen-Anne and many another distinguished visitor, intrigued as Washington always is by news of a filibuster in the Senate, came and went.
After a quiet consultation with Warren Strickland at 2 A.M., the Majority Leader decided not to order cots for the cloakrooms or otherwise give any indication that they expected a full-scale filibuster to develop. By 3 A.M. most of the Senate was either snoozing at its desks or napping in its respective offices and committee rooms nearby. None could go home, because Fred persisted in demanding quorum calls at regular intervals: each time a red-eyed group had to gather itself together and straggle in to respond to the roll call. At 7 A.M., as dawn was beginning to touch the Capitol, the monuments, the great government buildings, the sweep of lazy river, and the broad avenues beginning to swirl with life. Senator Van Ackerman showed his first sign of tiredness. A dragging note came into his voice, his body began to sag a
gainst his desk, he looked as though his eyes were not focusing quite right. There would be for him, however, no such gallant last stand as had claimed Senator Cooley’s life six months ago. He had no intention of sacrificing his health or even a part of it to his purpose this night, for indeed by the time he got ready to stop he had pretty well achieved it. Some thirty-six of his colleagues, including such respected members as Lacey Pollard of Texas and Shelton Monroe of Virginia, had interrupted with questions or statements indicating support for his position, if not his person, which all of them despised. Many of their number had been interviewed, their words incorporated in news bulletins, analyses, commentaries, and news reports for the coming day. His own savage charges led all the rest.
Shortly after 11 A.M., about the time Governor Jason was being met at Dulles International Airport by his sister and Bob Leffingwell, and about the time the Secretary of State left his office, accompanied by Helen-Anne, to pick up Beth in Spring Valley and start the drive to Walter’s farm in Leesburg, Senator Van Ackerman uttered his last charge, repeated his last slur, made his last vicious attack, duly recorded and reported, and sat down. Immediately the Majority Leader, feeling more than a little groggy, rose to his feet and moved that the Senate vote on the pending resolution.
“Without objection,” said Powell Hanson in the chair, “it is so ordered, and the Clerk will call the roll.”
A weary Senate wandered in and twenty minutes later the President had his endorsement, 54-43. Five minutes later Senator Munson was on the phone to the White House. Two minutes after that he was saying in a startled voice, “Why, yes, if you want to—we could—if you think it would be fitting—”
“What more so?” the President asked sharply. “I think it’s time to put this back in perspective. Yes, I do think it would be fitting. I certainly do.”
"Little Walter’s going to hate you-ou,” the Majority Leader said with a wan attempt at a mocking, after-an-all-night-filibuster humor.
“I don’t give two cents about little Walter,” the President said shortly. “I want to shock the country into its senses. Plus the fact that it is, indeed, completely fitting and deserved. Will you tell the Speaker for me?”
“Yes, I will,” Senator Munson said. “Tell me: is this what you meant last night when you said Lucille had an idea?”
“I think it a very admirable and honorable one,” her husband said calmly. Senator Munson sighed.
“I do too, but there are some who won’t.”
“I doubt very much that the country will listen to them on this,” the President said with an obvious inflexibility in his tone.
“Very well,” Senator Munson said. “We’ll get things ready up here, then. What time will you be speaking?”
“Nine.”
“Good luck. I think you have the initiative now.”
“I intend to keep it if I can,” the President said, with a grimness he revealed to very few.
When their conversation ended the Majority Leader sat for a few moments, as he had on so many occasions in the midst of crisis, staring down the Mall, past the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and Arlington to the sweetly rolling hills of Virginia beyond. Presidents, as he had often discovered, were sometimes the most surprising people. And as for their wives—He thought of plump little, fluffy little Lucille. Would she be able to stage-manage it as carefully if—But he dismissed that thought with a shudder and a protest. It would not—it could not—happen, even in a situation so inflamed as the present.
Still he was overwhelmed by her astuteness and calculation. A sound of amazement, humor, and concern combined came from his lips. The Majority Leader had seen a lot, in his time in Washington, but this was going to be one of the classics.
***
Chapter 9
This was the type of occasion he loved, the owner of “Salubria” acknowledged to himself as he looked in on Arbella, preparing the meal and setting the massive refectory table for eight; checked with Roosevelt, getting ready to park cars, take coats, mix drinks, and serve the food; and thought of all the past occasions on which his house had served as focus and fulcrum for the great world. The last time important people had come to lunch, a month ago, it had been the President of France and the Foreign Minister of Greece, an odd conjunction which had nonetheless produced delightful conversation and, two weeks later, a new trade agreement between Paris and Athens. (“We should call it,” the President of France had written just yesterday in his shaky but still decisive hand, “the ‘Dobius Entente’ in honor of a delicious meal and a delightful host.” The letter had gone at once to Yale, where the Dobius Archive already filled a thirty-foot shelf.)
Nor, of course, had that been the only significant gathering in the rambling old Revolutionary home. Presidents, Prime Ministers, Foreign Secretaries, dictators—Senators, Congressmen, Cabinet Secretaries, administrators—artists, authors, dancers, composers, and a constant stream of his more powerful colleagues in the press—a long and glittering parade passed constantly through the lovely countryside to Leesburg, partaking of lunch or dinner, lingering long and talking late about the problems of a puzzling country and a difficult world. Out of their conversations many times had come some significant change in government policy, some otherwise inexplicable diplomatic démarche, some subtle but devastating shift in press opinion toward or away from some individual or cause.
Here at “Salubria,” Walter was fond of saying to his guests in his most self-satisfied and pompous voice, a good deal of the latter half of the twentieth century had been decided. Allowing for the exaggerations of a host justifiably proud of his cuisine and the caliber of his company, the comment was not too wide of the truth.
Today, he assured himself with an inner chuckle and something as close to excitement as he, with all his fame and honors, ever permitted himself to come, would be an occasion to rank with the most notable. His original impulse to invite Ted and Patsy had acquired an extra irony when it had occurred to him to add the Knoxes. Helen-Anne, he knew, would be jealous of his success in arranging such a party, and could be counted upon to do her usual profanity-filled, cow-in-a-china-shop act, which would certainly liven the conversation; and the final addition of Bob Leffingwell, a guest who had every reason to be embittered and antagonistic to Orrin Knox, made the explosive potentials perfect. This party had so many undercurrents, he told himself wryly, that he could hardly keep up with them. But one thing it meant, he was sure, was great fun.
A serious man who did not have too many pleasures or amusements, Walter did love to stir up human tensions. It was free, and it was fascinating. He had some difficulty keeping his anticipation under control.
And there was, of course, another reason for satisfaction. The savage mood in which he had written his columns had not diminished much. Even though events seemed to be moving his way, even though American casualties were already occurring and the United States was receiving a still-rising tide of condemnation—so that he could reflect that the world once again knew how right he was—his bitterness had not decreased. The rapidly growing troubles of his own country were making him look better and better, but he was still suffering from the emotions, literally approaching shock, which had overwhelmed him when he heard that the Administration, defying his advice and that of his friends, had plunged into direct action.
The invasion of Gorotoland had been a profound blow to Walter, as it had been to a majority of his world. Within twenty-four hours the shock had been compounded by the vetoes. It would be a long time before he, or any of them, would entirely recover. Betrayal most foul had been committed upon the world of Walter Wonderful by Harley Hudson and Orrin Knox. It gave him a visceral satisfaction now to think that in all probability he had set the stage for a most hurtful and uncomfortable couple of hours for one of this murderous duo—the one who actually, in his mind, was the real motivating force behind it all. He had really been surprised that Orrin would still come to “Salubria,” considering what Walter had written about him;
but since Beth had not called to cancel, they must be on their way. A tight little smile touched his lips as he surveyed the perfectly appointed table. Orrin Knox would eat henbane and nightshade this day, of that his host was sure.
Not entirely unsuspecting of this mood which awaited him in Leesburg, the Secretary of State was even then driving the family car carefully along the winding roads, their snow cover almost gone now as spring rushed on to claim the land. Beth and Helen-Anne were gossiping casually as they rode, pretending an unconcern they did not feel about the episode ahead, but while he appreciated their worry, he did not need it. He did not feel any particular apprehension. He did not, in fact, feel much of anything. Apparently Walter’s original intention had been to bring him out and put him through his paces, on the phony pretext that Walter did not already know whom he would back for the presidential nomination and still had an open mind about it. That mind, Orrin told himself tartly, had closed shortly after it came to Washington and it had never been opened since. It was some measure of Walter’s really colossal ego that he thought he could fool the world into thinking that he was fair, objective, and statesmanly in his judgment of men and events. It was some measure of the willingness of the world to be fooled that it accepted this self-promoted image lock, stock, and barrel, complete with hosannas and laurel wreaths.
Well, it didn’t make much difference to Orrin. He had written Walter off long ago, and his last two columns and his outburst on television after the riot at the UN had ended forever any possibility of friendly communication. Orrin was driving into Virginia today for just one purpose, and that was to tell Walter Dobius exactly how vicious, slanted, unfair, unworthy, and close to traitorous he really considered him. It was a task he looked forward to with pleasure, and he was not at all tense or excited about it. It would be a rendering of judgment long overdue, in his opinion. The great Washington habit of greeting with the most vociferous friendliness the people you despise, imposed by the necessities of fame and politics upon the most divergent personalities, had finally worn thin with Orrin Knox and Walter Dobius. The Secretary was polishing a few phrases that would match Walter’s best, as he drove along responding rather absently to the carefully innocuous chitchat of his two worried companions.
