by Allen Drury
For a moment he paused and there was a nervous upspringing of wire-service correspondents, tensed to dash for the telephones. But he held up a quick, warning hand, and amid the laughter of their colleagues they also laughed and sat slowly down again.
“However,” he said, and something in the word and in his voice made the room very quiet again, “if I am to foreclose a contest for the nomination for President by asking the party and the convention to choose me again—which I think you fellows will agree,” he said with a sudden chuckle, “much as you hate the thought, is what will happen now that I do ask for it—if I am to foreclose a contest for President, then it seems only fair that I should throw the convention open to an uncontrolled contest for Vice President.
(“My God,” the New York Times said in an explosive whisper to the Christian Science Monitor, “what a fiendishly clever idea! If Orrin gets it, Harley can say the country’s for his policies, and if Ted gets it, the whole issue will be so fuzzed up that nobody will know what they’re voting for and Harley will get re-elected anyway. This guy’s one of the master politicians of all time!”
“I’ve always thought,” the Monitor said gently, “that some people underestimated Harley a little too much.”)
“Therefore,” the President said, “I think this is the way it should be, and I ask the managers of the convention to arrange things so it will be done. Or, to be candid,” he said with a grin that brought an answering amusement even in the midst of their furious scribbling and concentration, “I hereby tell the managers of the convention that they should run things the way they always do—only this time the President won’t intervene.…
“I may anticipate a question by saying that I have communicated these decisions to both the Secretary of State and the Governor of California today, and they are agreed that this is the fair thing to do and they are willing to have the convention proceed on that basis.” He smiled and his next words brought laughter. “I will say that their feelings when I told them were mixed. They had to weigh the advantage of being chosen by the President against the gamble of losing an open contest. But, on the other hand, if one were to be chosen the other would certainly lose, and if there’s an open contest, who knows who will win when the votes are finally counted?
“Of course,” he said amicably, and this time, in a releasing of tension and a readjusting to the situations created by his announcements, there was a genuine roar of laughter, “I don’t know that either of them intends to run, and maybe you'll want to ask them about that after this conference breaks up. But if they do, that’s the situation.
“And now,” he said, joining comfortably in their laughter, “I think that’s enough for one day.”
“Thank you, Mr. President!” the AP cried, and they were off on the pell-mell race for the telephones along the stately corridors of the White House.
***
Chapter 3
So simply the world changes, the Governor of California thought in Sacramento that night, listening to the calm and explicit voice of the President, studying the kindly face as he explained his decision to his countrymen. A man—if he is a certain man in a certain place—makes up his mind and says a few words at a press conference and over the air, and the lives of millions of people and hundreds of nations are changed in five minutes irrevocably and beyond recall. The power of it, he told himself with awe, the power of it!
The power he would like to have; but from the President’s first words on the telephone this morning he had known it would not be his—at least, not this year, and perhaps not ever—if he wished to remain in his present influential position in American politics. It was, as the President had made clear, fish or cut bait, cooperate or forget it. The tone had been amicable but the import had been clear.
“Ted,” he had said after the opening felicities (a little too fulsome and casual, the Governor thought, sensing it already), “I am announcing a decision to the press this afternoon, but I thought I would communicate it to you first, as one of the directly interested parties.”
He paused, as if inviting comment, and Ted said cheerfully, though a terrible sinking feeling was already gripping his heart, “I appreciate that, Mr. President, and whatever the decision is, you know I will support it wholeheartedly.”
The President laughed, in a friendly way.
“Well, that may or may not be—the ‘wholeheartedly,’ I mean—but I am sure you will support it.…You of course have been correct right along.”
“I knew I was,” Governor Jason said. “I didn’t see how you could avoid it, with the prospect of a dogfight between me and Orrin coming up, and with your policies and your Administration under such bitter fire. You’ve almost got to.”
“More than almost,” the President said. “I have got to. Not because of you and Orrin”—he had sounded amused again, and Ted had been alerted at once, “you and Orrin may still have your dogfight, if you want to—but because of exactly the point you make about being under fire. I can’t ask either of you to carry the burden of that. At least,” he interjected again, and again Ted’s curiosity grew, “alone. They’re my policies and by rights I should have to defend them. And I intend to. So, that’s what I’m announcing at my press conference. Confidentially to you, of course, until after it’s over. Except for that lovely Ceil of yours. She might be interested.”
“I’m just about to join her for lunch. I think I can assure you she will be … Well, Mr. President, I wish you luck, and of course I am yours to command in the campaign any way you like.”
“No,” the President said thoughtfully. “I don’t want to bind you that much, Ted.”
“But—” the Governor said, his mind immediately filled with a vision of himself being quietly left out of things, in effect dumped from the party’s top councils because of his attitude on Gorotoland and Panama. The man he was talking to was still the boss. He suddenly wished he hadn’t been so equivocal.
“In fact,” the President said, “I want you and Orrin to be engaged in the most vigorous possible way, and yet in the most independent and self-reliant one, too. He represents a very definite position, which of course is the same as mine. You represent, I think, a different position, though you have not yet expressed it very clearly.”
“I know,” Ted Jason said quickly. “You realize I have been under considerable pressure to be much more adamant than I have.” He gave a rueful little laugh. “I have some very ruthless friends. In a sense, Mr. President, silence from me has been the equivalent—for you—of active support from Orrin. At least I haven’t let them make me damage you.”
“I know, and I appreciate it. However, you do, as I say, represent a somewhat different position. I’m prepared to grant it’s a valid one in the minds of many people, and I think it should have representation in the convention ... if that’s what the convention wants.”
“What do you mean by that?” Ted asked cautiously.
“I think you should run for Vice President.”
“Do you mean,” Governor Jason demanded, “that you’re going to pick me for running mate?”
“Oh, no,” the President said calmly. “I’ll admit that would be a neat way to balance the ticket and win over at least some of your supporters. It’s been done before. No, I meant what I said: I think you should run for Vice President.”
“Nobody ‘runs’ for Vice President. You didn’t.”
“I was sort of created,” the President said with a chuckle. Then his tone became serious again.
“When I say run, I mean run. That’s happened too, once in a while.”
“An open convention for Vice President?” Ted asked incredulously.
“Why not? As I said, you represent one position, he another. Popular sentiment will have to give one of you the victory.”
“And either way,” Ted Jason said slowly, “you win.”
The President chuckled again.
“That may be, but at least there will be a fair fight in the convention and all sides will h
ave a chance to state their case. And nobody can say I rigged it, because I give you my word, having made the decision to stay out, I’m going to stay out. And if you get the nomination your friends can breathe easier, because that great statesman, Ted, is running with that warmonger, Harley—who may drop dead at any minute and give Ted a chance to change the whole picture....So you see,” the President concluded gently, “why I think it would be very smart of you to run, from both our standpoints.…However,” he added crisply, “I of course cannot and will not make any attempt to commit you to it … unless you want me to.” He paused for a moment, but the Governor said nothing, and he went on. “I will tell the press conference that it’s going to be an open convention. What you do after that is your own affair. Watched with great interest,” he concluded humorously, “by me.”
“Thank you Mr. President,” Ted said suavely. “I appreciate your confidence, I appreciate your alerting me in advance, I appreciate—everything. It will of course take a little time to decide what to do, as this is rather surprising and startling news with many ramifications. I assure you,” he said with a sudden amusement of his own, “that you are not the only person who will be watching me with great interest. I will be too!”
“Just so you don’t drop the mirror,” the President said pleasantly. “It means seven years’ bad luck.…Goodbye, Ted. Have fun.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Governor Jason said evenly. “You too.”
And now he was watching the rationale and the presentation as it came with a quiet dignity, a firmness of purpose, and an unassailable aura of integrity, to the country. The President was doing a good job, there was no doubt of that. He had, Ted was forced to admit to himself ruefully, done a good job on him.
When he had returned to the baroque old Governor s Mansion for lunch. Ceil had seen at once that he was much disturbed, and in her candid, friendly way had asked straight out what it was. He had managed to muster a rather wan smile.
“One of the things I love about you,” he said, “is that you know when to be tactful.”
She laughed.
“When you look like you just did, I know it’s time to be. I can be the most devious old bush-beater-arounder you ever saw with the ladies of the state party. But not with the head of the greatest state in the Union when he looks like that. So what is it?”
She frowned a little as he told her, while she went about the business of getting lunch, a task she always liked to reserve for herself without the aid of the servants, when he was able to come home for it.
“Hmmm,” she said thoughtfully when he finished. “He’s got you in kind of a neat box, hasn’t he?”
“He’s kind of a neat politician, when you come right down to it. It’s one of those things being President has brought out in him, I guess. Nobody ever knew it before.…Yes, he has, to answer your question. How am I going to get out of it?”
“Do you want to?”
“Don’t I have to?”
“Yes,” she agreed, serving the soup and salad, sitting down across from him with a cogitating air, “I suppose you do. You could always do exactly what he suggested, you know. That might be the simplest out of all. Since,” she gave him a cheerful smile, “you’re quite sure you’d win such a fight in the convention.”
“Hah! Don’t you start giving me a hard time. I’m not at all sure I could win in the convention.”
“Against Orrin?” she said with a surprise he could almost believe was genuine.
“Come on,” he said. “Yes, against Orrin. I have no doubt I could win against anyone else—well, do you?—but against Orrin—who knows?”
“I repeat, the simplest way to find out is to try,” she said. “Also, perhaps—the most honest.”
“There are situations in political life,” he said softly, “in which honesty isn’t always enough.”
“But a pretense of honesty,” she said with the encouraging smile he couldn’t always fathom. “At least a pretense of it.” This time he thought he could fathom it.
“When it comes,” he said shortly, “it won’t be pretense. They’ll know how I feel.”
“Well, I don’t know. You’ve managed to stand them off for a month under some pretty terrific pressures. You could probably do it longer.”
“I could,” he agreed calmly, “but would it be worth it to me to do so?”
“It might be worth more to the country if you didn’t. The country might like to have you speak right out, now that the President’s offering you the opportunity.”
“He’s offered me more than that. He dangled his own corpse in front of me.”
“My,” she said with a little laugh. “That sounds ghoulish.”
“Well, in effect. The old Secret Weapon of Vice Presidents, you know, that enables most of them to stand it—the thought that No. 1 may drop dead any minute and I could then, as he put it, ‘change the whole picture’ as quickly as I pleased. This of course, as he very well knows, is why it would be a great advantage for him to have me on the ticket—because that’s exactly the thought that would be in the minds of people like Walter Dobius, for instance, and therefore they would work and vote for him in the hope that the Lord or some little psychopath would answer their prayers and make me President.”
“It is ghoulish, isn’t it?”
“And practical. But I’m not so sure I want it on that basis. I’m not so sure I want to help him that much. I’m not so sure, either, that I want to be his pawn and let him move me around on the board like that.”
“But if you don’t run for Vice President,” she said gently, “you’re through, aren’t you? He’ll have given you the chance and you’ll have turned him down. And parties and conventions don’t like that kind of thing. They remember the people who were too proud to try. They don’t forget.”
“And if I do try, and lose, then I’m finished, too.” He smiled without humor. “Clever, our Harley. He’s quite a boy.”
“But if he really keeps hands off, what on earth have you got to fear from an honest try? You won’t be through if you lose, if you do it in that spirit, because you will have made a record and fought a good fight, and, I hope, done it with dignity and good heart and won a lot of respect from it. Parties and conventions don’t forget that kind of thing, either.”
“You want me to,” he said. She gave him a long, thoughtful look, and smiled.
“I want you to do whatever you think is best. I’m your most loyal camp-follower, you great big handsome man. Every day after the battle I’ll be there to wash your feet and scrub your back and fix you a dry martini. You know that.”
He smiled.
“And dispense subtly disapproving advice along with it.”
“Why,” she said blandly, “I don’t disapprove. I learned long ago that there’s no room for disapproval in the entourage of a man who’s really going places. Capitalize that,” she added with her silvery little laugh as she began to clear the table. “A Man Who’s Really Going Places.”
But there was always room for it where she was concerned, he thought without resentment as the President concluded his talk, the Presidential Seal came on the screen, and the national anthem began its crashing statements. He caught her studying his face with an intent, appraising glance as he reached to turn off the set. Always room for it with her, because it was almost always sound, even when he didn’t take it.
At the moment, how could he? Literally within seconds now, he expected the phone to begin the clamor he had successfully avoided after the President’s press conference by simply refusing all calls. Now they had a right to reach him, and they would. “Governor, what did you think of the President’s speech? Are you going to run, Governor? How soon can we expect a formal announcement, Governor?” And very soon, no doubt, pompous and heavy and filled with the weight of the nation’s burdens which its owner had carried so long: “Ted? This is Walter. How much longer are you going to keep the country waiting?”
Well: at this moment, he did not know. Orri
n, of course had left no doubt, but that was Orrin’s way. Slam-bam and into the middle of it, that was the Secretary of State. His own path was more delicate. Orrin could state his point of view, but his supporters wouldn’t own him: they never had. Ted’s supporters wanted to own him, with the great, devouring, all-consuming, all-obliterating love of the animal ovation at the banquet. There would be other such ovations, there already had been, wherever he went. They saw in him the embodiment of all their fears of present policy, their desperate hopes for a return to weakness. All they asked in payment for their love was the complete surrender of his mind, his independence, and his individuality.
At this point. Later, if he was nominated for Vice President—if the ticket won, as it almost certainly would with him on it—if Harley did drop dead—then they would own him no longer. Then he would be their master once again, as he had been in all his public life up to the day of strangely mixed blessings when he had suddenly become confused with an issue in too many highly intelligent and inflammatory minds.
But if he didn’t run—or if Harley didn’t drop dead—if he, Ted, went into political limbo for a term or two—
So what should he say, when the phone rang?
“I don’t know,” he said aloud, and Ceil smiled as though she understood what he meant, which, being Ceil, she no doubt did.
Insistent, inexorable, inescapable, the bell roared at his elbow.
“Ted?” said a heavy, pompous voice across three thousand miles. “This is Walter. How much longer are you going to keep on playing games with us—now?”
Through the closed door of the upstairs study he could hear the rise and fall of their contentious voices as he came slowly to the foot of the stairs from the library where he had gone to put through his call. He hesitated for a moment, then turned to stare out through the big window into the soft velvet night of Virginia. Slowly he went toward it, took a seat in the armchair left permanently facing the view, put his fingertips together, and leaned his chin upon them with a thoughtful frown. Two conversations today, and a third about to begin. He would dictate his careful memories of them later for the Archive. Right now he wondered where they were leading him.
