Capable of Honor

by Allen Drury

  Behind his mood lay also the fact that Gorotoland was very rapidly turning into one more slow, desperate contest, greatly increasing his concern and that of the President for the men in the field. It was a concern that no honorable and compassionate man could escape, despite the violent allegations of his critics. (“Thousands and thousands of American boys will be in Gorotoland within a month,” Arly Richardson had shouted in the Senate, “and I say to the American people that thousands and thousands of them will be coming home in coffins!”)

  Underlying compassion, of course, were inevitable thoughts of politics, preferment, the nomination, and the problematic judgments of history. Lifelong politicians possess compartmentalized minds, and all compartments have the ability to function simultaneously; so that while he was deeply concerned about the crisis, emotionally moved by the plight of the fighting men, alertly ready to repel the attacks of his critics, he was also, inescapably, assessing in quite another shrewd and pragmatic place the effect it would all have upon his own political chances. This he could do without in any way sacrificing his integrity or his compassion: it was the Washington habit, ingrained by many years of judging events according to their impact upon the political world, however much they might be affecting one on an emotional level.

  Through that glass, Gorotoland at the moment seemed to him neither plus nor minus for his own cause. He had participated fully in the decisions that had led to the intervention and the vetoes, his voice had been second only to the President’s in urging the course of action agreed upon at the midnight meeting at the White House. He had sought and accepted full responsibility for present policies. Therefore he stood or fell by them. Despite the outcries of Walter’s world and the diligent way in which many of its members had set about propagandizing the country, he did not think he was on especially shaky ground at the moment. A good many of Walter’s older and less susceptible (“jealous,” Walter would have said) colleagues were reserving judgment; a good many of the smaller newspapers and a few of the larger ones were beginning to take a more approving line toward the Administration’s decisions; there was some sense, elusive but encouraging, that a basic common sense was beginning to reassert itself in the country.

  Common sense, that is, as Orrin saw it: which was, of course, diametrically opposed to common sense as Walter saw it.

  He did not feel entirely without friends as they went through Leesburg, turned right, and neared “Salubria.” At the moment friendly voices were overwhelmed by the roar from Walter’s world, but roars could not be sustained forever. Other sounds would break through; they always had, in his experience. The radicals and extremists on either side in America usually shouted themselves out, and a fundamental balance in the country reasserted itself in the long run. The run might be a little longer than usual this time, but he was counting on it.

  He had the ironic and rather satisfying thought that Ted Jason might be sizing it up the same way, in view of his determined silence so far under pressures Orrin knew must be intense.

  With this assumption on the Secretary’s part his potential opponent might well have agreed as he rode along with his wife, his sister, and Bob Leffingwell in Patsy’s Rolls-Royce.

  Patsy had greeted him at the airport with a “WELL?” and he had grinned and said, “Well?” right back, so that she had known at once that he was not about to spend the next two hours arguing about it. He had gracefully fielded a series of insistent questions from the more than thirty reporters who had been waiting for him, leaving them disappointed but still friendly. He could see that his attitude did not disturb Bob Leffingwell in the least; in fact, he thought Bob looked relieved. The glance they had exchanged indicated that there was probably much they should talk about before either of them could move forward wholeheartedly into the campaign, but this was obviously not the time to do it. Their group, too, chatted of personalities and innocuous gossip as they rolled along toward Leesburg.

  Behind the screen of their casually joking exchange the Governor was thinking, as he seemed to have done without letup since Monday night, about the situation in Gorotoland and the situation in his party. Like Orrin he was assessing it with a shrewd pragmatism. It was a constant companion, even in sleep: he had actually dreamed about it last night, and he was not given to dreams. The convention had been roaring with excitement, he had just received the nomination by 793 votes, and then with an ominous and commanding emphasis as he struggled to fight his way to the platform through newspapermen, delegates, and grasping well-wishers, a giant voice from somewhere in the hall had shouted, “JOHN J. McCAFFERTY!”

  By the time he had finally dragged himself, with the frantic slowness of dreams, to the rostrum, Arkansas’ eighty-seven-year-old junior Senator was already clasping two shaky old hands above his head and preparing to make his acceptance speech.

  Ted had awakened with a start, followed by an abrupt, ironic laugh that had also awakened Ceil. He was thankful she couldn’t see him, because he realized he was sweating and his heart was beating with a painful rapidity. It was not really so very funny, when all its implications were considered. It had taken him quite a while to get back to sleep.

  His days had been similarly occupied with the subject. Walter was not the only one who had taken occasion to pick up the telephone and call Sacramento in the last forty-eight hours. There had apparently been some sort of meeting in New York, of the same general nature that had occurred on many occasions in the past when certain powerful elements in Walter’s world were making up their minds whom to support for the Presidency. It was always denied furiously if anyone mentioned it, but a standard part of America’s political processes in the later decades of the twentieth century was the dutiful parade of candidates to the executive dining room of The Greatest Publication That Absolutely Ever Was—the editorial conferences in other influential places at which the hopeful were put through their paces—the general agreement that came about either in a formal meeting or in more informal talks, meetings, dinners, cocktail parties, and intimate discussions among the movers and shakers. The average voter down in the street might think he had a hand in choosing his candidates, but up above, in the executive suites, they knew. A few men reached consensus and with luck they put it over. Sometimes the luck failed and some independent interloper broke through the cordon to run off with the prize. Far more often, he who received anointment at the starting gate came home first at the finish line.

  Almost inadvertently—and certainly so with regard to Gorotoland—the Governor of California now found himself well on the way to this fortunate and favorable position. He congratulated himself that he had not really had to do very much open striving to get there, either. The family wealth had been a help, his own decisive and effective personality had been another, his overwhelming victory in his run for the governorship had put the cap on it—but mostly it had come about just because he was there. There in Sacramento; there at the helm of the nation’s largest state; there in the public eye, with his dignified good looks, his steel-trap mind, and his wry humor. Then had come the President’s move in Africa and, abruptly, he was there as the focus for all those elements domestic and foreign who opposed it so violently.

  The honor he regarded as dubious and the responsibility a matter so tricky and full of pitfalls that he would gladly have seen it go elsewhere. Ambitious as he was, and determined to be President, he still did not relish the difficulties inherent in being the leader of forces of discontent against his own Chief Executive. He was first and foremost a shrewd and practical politician, and shrewd and practical politicians do not openly challenge the man at the top if they can possibly avoid it. Sometimes subtler methods are adopted in an attempt to achieve the same end, but the political graveyard is strewn with the hopes of ambitious men who let it be known too openly that they disagreed with their leader’s policies.

  Now he was being thrust forward by a relentless and implacable pressure whose manipulators, he was convinced, did not really give two hoots about him. W
alter Dobius and all his like-thinkers didn’t really give a damn about Ted Jason personally, or about what he really stood for. They were out to get the two men who had defied their pet beliefs, and in pursuit of them they were simply seeking the best instrument.

  Governor Jason prided himself upon some good principles and policies, and a good record of achievement in Sacramento. He felt a strong annoyance with Walter and his world, whose support was given him for what he regarded as essentially a small, contemptible reason of their own to which his merits bore no relation. Their support was an insult, even as it was a most powerful boost in the direction in which he wanted to go.

  He was further annoyed by their egregious bullyragging in telephone call, telegram, and personal letter, to say nothing of their increasingly demanding insistence in programs, editorials, and news displays. (“We’re going to put you on next week’s cover,” the editor of the lesser picture-magazine had informed him brightly only an hour ago in a tone of triumph. “We’ll caption it, ‘Governor Jason: His Presidential Prospects Boom in the Midst of Crisis.’ How will that be?” “Great,” Ted Jason had said dryly. “Just great.”) He might be ambitious, but he was not a wrecker and he did have an abiding love for the country. So, he supposed, in their own twisted ways, did the interests that were seeking to use him now. But for him, who might conceivably be called upon to exercise the responsibilities of the office they wanted for him, it was not so simple. A term as Governor had given him an acute appreciation of the fact that men quite often were used by power rather more than they used it. He resented the relentless attempts of Walter’s world to force him into a position where he would no longer be an independent agent but would be swept headlong before the tide of emotion flowing across the world from Gorotoland.

  He had been seriously tempted at several points in the past two days to tell Walter that he would not come out today. What had begun as a pre-convention talk between a powerful columnist and a man he wished to see become President had been transformed by events into another gambit in Walter’s battle with the Administration. The Governor did not relish it, though he knew exactly what he would do if pressed: he would remain adamant on his promise to speak by Friday, and he would not be pushed an inch further. He had worked out a careful and ticklish strategy for himself after his talk with Ceil, and in it Walter played a significant part, if in a somewhat different fashion than Walter himself contemplated.

  Ted thought with a wry appreciation of his principal opponent. Now, as always, he admired Orrin’s guts, and at the moment he also admired the simplicity of his position. The Secretary had no problems, his commitment was complete. He had advocated a certain policy for years and now he had been instrumental in bringing it about, and that was all there was to it. No equivocations for Orrin, no necessity to duck and dodge and beat about in an attempt to avoid the pressures of friends who might as well be enemies. Like Orrin, Ted was quite sure that very soon, now, the reaction against the position of Walter and his world would begin to set in. He was not at all convinced that the Administration was in anywhere near the trouble that they were maintaining in their indignant headlines, caustic editorials, hostile programs, and vituperative columns. They were trying hard to convince the country that it was horrified by a policy of strength, but the Governor was at heart a skeptic and a shrewd, intuitive judge of public opinion. He was as certain as Orrin that there would soon be a swing back; possibly not as complete a swing as Orrin thought, but substantial enough so that he who would go surfing on that sea would need a steady eye and a sure foot. Ted Jason was no irrational gambler with his own career, and he was determined, despite the growing pressures upon him, that he would not permit Walter and his world to force him to be one.

  He was brought abruptly out of his reverie by Patsy’s exclamation as they turned off the winding lane beyond Leesburg, into the oak-lined carriageway that ran up a gentle incline to the pleasant eminence where the white-pillared red brick house had stood since 1765.

  “It is!” she cried. “It’s Orrin and Beth and Helen-Anne! I knew it! I just KNEW it.”

  “Shall we turn around and go home?” Bob Leffingwell inquired.

  Ted laughed, though he could not escape a sudden tension at the sight of his opponent and the thought of the confrontation to come.

  “Not on your life,” he said easily. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  “I always knew Walter had a sense of humor,” Ceil said gently, "But I see I underestimated it. The kid’s a riot.”

  In the other car, whose occupants were just getting out when they heard Patsy’s machine behind them, the reaction was about the same: a combination of surprise, disturbance, and the ironic, saving humor that enables so many in public life to pass through the tests that circumstance imposes upon them.

  “Well, well,” Orrin said as Roosevelt stepped forward to take his keys and park the car, “that’s the thing I love about the hunt country of Virginia: you never know what you’re going to find running around loose out here.”

  “It’s typical,” Helen-Anne declared. “Absolutely typical. He thinks he’s pulling some really profound stunt here. Walter Wonderful, Master of Men, my God!”

  “At least,” Beth suggested, “it won’t be dull.”

  Nor was it, as they gathered in a rather awkward group at the door while their host delayed his appearance, peeking through the drapes in the downstairs study and watching with a tolerant amusement their attempts to ease the situation. It was the sort of embarrassment that pleased him: he was so much above it all.

  Actually it went rather well. Ceil stepped forward at once and held out her hand to Beth.

  “Mrs. Knox, I have so long wanted to meet you and compare notes on campaigning. You seem to enjoy it so, while I”—she shrugged perfectly clad shoulders and tossed back her stunning blond hair—“I’m afraid for my part,” she admitted with a down-to-earth laugh, “I get tired awfully easily of sweaty palms and fervent breathing.”

  Beth responded with a quite genuine amusement.

  “I, too. But tied to these two”—and she gestured to her husband, standing beside her with a reasonably relaxed smile, and to Ted, waiting patiently beside Ceil with a wary but cordial expression, “what can we do?”

  “Ted,” Orrin said, stepping forward and shaking hands, “it’s good to see you looking so well.”

  “It is?” Governor Jason asked, but with a laugh that was friendly. “Well, you, too, Orrin.” His expression changed. “Seriously, I wish you well with your burdens.”

  “Thank you,” the Secretary said. He turned to Bob Leffingwell and extended his hand.

  “Bob, it’s been a long time.”

  I’m tempted to say too long,” Bob Leffingwell said, with a certain irony but a reasonable amount of friendliness, “except that you might not believe me. How goes it?”

  “Busy,” Orrin said, and though it was not a particularly funny remark they all found the tension considerably relieved after they had laughed at it.

  “Well, I do think this is EXCITING,” Patsy said as they turned toward the door. “Except where’s our host?”

  “He’s hiding out,” Helen-Anne said. “He’s about to appear dramatically in the doorway, hoping we will all have fallen on each other with knives and clubs. God, he is so tiresome! Walter!” she shouted, to her companions’ startled amusement. “Walter, come out this minute and stop acting like a two-bit melodrama!”

  “Drastic methods,” Ceil murmured to Beth as the stately door swung open to reveal America’s leading statesman-philosopher with his customary lord-of-the-manor smile, outwardly oblivious to Helen-Anne’s raucous hail. “But apparently effective.”

  “I wish I were brave enough to speak to Orrin that way,” Beth replied with a chuckle. “It would simplify so many things.”

  “I, too,” Ceil said. “I suppose you have to be an ex, and then all things are possible.”

  “Welcome to ‘Salubria,’” Walter Dobius said with a gravely cordial hosp
itality, every inch the country squire. “My house is honored.”

  For a time, as they chatted of innocuous matters with a reasonably relaxed air over Roosevelt’s cocktails, and then consumed one of Arbella’s famous luncheons, the tensions underlying their little group did not break through, though there were moments when the Secretary of State found it difficult to maintain society’s pretenses. His feelings at being thrown unexpectedly with Ted Jason and Bob Leffingwell were nothing to what he felt as he forced himself to be civil to Walter. “Yesterday, one could say, ‘God help the United States’ Today, one doubts that He would dare.” An enormous contempt and distaste for the man who could write such a thing, no matter what his emotional involvement, filled Orrin’s mind and heart. It was matched, and he realized it, by Walter’s equal contempt and distaste for him. But still the meal progressed with relative ease, as so many meals in Washington do progress, under the stem discipline of a political society whose stability often requires of its participants that they curb their deepest feelings, suppress their truest emotions, hide their honest convictions and smile, smile, smile.

  Occasionally in such gatherings, however, there does come a moment when reality insists upon breaking through, when truth, too long denied, will rise again in spite of everything to shatter all about it and lay waste the chummiest confabulations of old, dear friends. It arrived for Walter’s famous luncheon—as it very rapidly became, for by week’s end at least five different authentic versions had appeared in print—when the meal was done and the guests had retired for coffee and brandy to the comfortable book-lined study. There, before the enormous window (Walter’s one concession to modernity in his restoration of the house) which gave upon gentle meadows, Dogwood Creek, and the rolling Blue Ridge beyond, it was Bob Leffingwell, surprisingly enough, who broke through the smile barrier.