by Allen Drury
“Mr. President,” he began, “I appreciate your talking to me at this difficult juncture—”
“Always glad to talk to a friend of Harley’s,” the President interrupted. “What’s on your mind?”
“I am not concerned at present with the late President—” Walter began stiffly, but again the President cut him off.
“Perhaps if you’d shown a more decent concern when he was alive, he wouldn’t be so late. Now, I haven’t got all night, Walter—”
“Mr. Sp—Mr. President,” Walter said, stumbling over the titles in an agitation he suddenly made no attempt to hide, “please don’t take out your resentments on me. Some other time we can discuss that. I really did not call to bandy words, or annoy you, or complicate your problems. I called you because it seems to me I detect something in the country that you ought to be warned about.”
The President snorted.
“Glad you detect it,” he remarked with something of the scathing sarcasm that had always made Mr. Speaker such a frightening figure for fledgling Congressmen. “Nice to know it’s beginning to penetrate.”
“Fred Van Ackerman and LeGage Shelby and Rufus Kleinfert were out here this afternoon,” Walter said with a dogged determination not to be upset or deflected, “and I am very much afraid that they are planning a lot more violence in connection with the nomination and indeed in connection with many aspects of foreign policy. I think you should know about this. So I am calling to tell you.”
“Walter—” the President began, with a real annoyance; but then his voice dropped and, as if to himself, he asked, “Oh, what’s the use? What’s the use?” in a tired, disgusted tone.
“I thought you should know this,” Walter repeated in his heaviest, most pompous manner, and after a moment the President sighed and spoke in a more reasonable tone, which relieved Walter somewhat. He knew the President had problems, but this performance was really hard to understand.
“I appreciate your calling,” the President said, more quietly. “I’m sure it must have been unpleasant talking to those three. You can be sure my Administration”—how easy it was to slip into that locution—“will do everything it can to keep order. In fact, by God, Walter, we’ve got to keep order.”
“Yes, we have,” Walter agreed solemnly. “The question is whether those who are determined to make trouble can be persuaded to refrain from—”
“What will you do to persuade them?” the President inquired without letting him finish. “Write a column or two about it?”
“I will,” Walter said seriously. “I think if they can be made to understand that their efforts are unnecessary because the man they support is going to be nominated anyway—”
“Hey, now!” the President interrupted with an ominous gentleness the House knew well. “Is that a fact? Didn’t know it was that simple, myself.”
“I would say that everything points to it.”
“Is that a fact. Well, well.”
“Mr. President,” Walter said, “surely it is obvious to you that when you recall the convention it will vote overwhelmingly for the man it really wanted. Surely your many years in politics make the situation crystal clear to you.”
“Politics are never crystal clear,” the President said. “That’s what makes it all so fascinating. So you think the convention would do a thing like that, do you? Well, well.”
“I am sure of it,” Walter said stiffly, his worries about violence suddenly quite forgotten in the realization that he should be worrying about his candidate instead. What did this wily old man intend, anyway? “You see, many of us who favor his candidacy—many of us who responsibly favor his candidacy—are convinced that President Hudson’s unfortunate death provides an opportunity to clear the slate and start over.”
“What would you suggest, Walter?” the President asked, and although for a second the thought crossed Walter’s mind that he might be falling into a trap, he decided that it didn’t matter, the President certainly knew where he stood anyway.
“I would end the wars in Gorotoland and Panama at once,” he said bluntly. “Be brave enough to say it was a mistake, and get out.”
“That’s clear enough,” the President admitted. “That would be bravery, as you see it.”
“The bravery that only the strong can afford,” Walter Dobius said solemnly.
“And that’s what Governor Jason would do?” the President inquired in a musing tone. “Of course I know it is,” he answered himself briskly. “Well, Walter, I’m afraid I wouldn’t. And for the time being, at least, I’m the guy who decides, right?”
“Yes, Mr. President, you are,” Walter agreed. “But,” he added with the assurance that comes with a quarter-century of talking to Presidents, “I would hope that sober reflection would indicate that both the mood of the country and the necessities of world peace require at least some steps in that direction.”
“We’re ready to make peace anytime, Walter,” the President remarked mildly.
“On our terms.”
“Not entirely,” the President said. “Our terms as long as there’s no sign anybody is going to meet us halfway, yes. If they would, I don’t feel so extreme about it … right now.” He allowed a silence to lengthen and then added: “Might, though.”
“Mr. President—” Walter began with a sudden determination. And then he too sighed and asked, as if of himself, “What’s the use?”
“What’s that?” the President asked quickly. “What’s that, Walter? Don’t want to think I’m upsetting you, here. But of course you know I don’t have too many options. Particularly without word from them … I tell you what, Walter. How’d you like to write a few columns suggesting to the Communists that they negotiate with us? How’d you like to propose that they give up and get out? How’d you like to tell the world what bastards they are? Might be a real help to me, Walter, if you would. Might put the whole thing in perspective. Maybe I could even send you over to negotiate with them and tell them in person. Fred and LeGage and Rufus might like to go too. How would that be?”
For a moment Walter did not reply. When he did, it was in a tone of deeply affronted dignity.
“Mr. President,” he said with an immense gravity, “I consider this far too serious for simple humor.”
“Not simple at all,” the President said. “Not simple at all. I’ve always wondered why you folks who tell us what to do should be so afraid to go over and see for yourselves. I’ve often wondered why you back away from taking the slaps in the face that we have to take every time we make an offer to negotiate. Go on over and find out what you’re talking about, Walter. It would do you good.”
“I called,” Walter Dobius said with a frigid courtesy, “to do what I conceived to be my duty as a citizen—to warn you of threatened violence in the country. I did not call to indulge in games about two most serious world problems.”
“You misunderstand me, Walter,” the President said sorrowfully. “Plumb misunderstand me. No games at all. Just trying to get your help in a most difficult situation, that’s all. We leaders need to stand together, seems to me. Let me hear from you any time, Walter. Nice of you to call.”
“I think you would be flying in the face of manifest national demand,” Walter said in one last desperate, disapproving attempt to bring the conversation back to reality, “if you were to oppose Governor Jason’s nomination. I would not, myself, wish to be responsible for the risks you might be taking.”
“I’ll have to use my judgment on that,” the President said, “just as I will on everything else. I’ve inherited quite a basket of eels. Take me a bit to get ’em sorted out. Thanks for the warning about violence, though. I do appreciate your call. I’ll also appreciate anything you can write to help me calm things down. You’ve had quite a bit to do with stirring ’em up, Walter. Be nice if you could help quiet ’em down, now.”
“I am sorry I have intruded upon you at such a time,” Walter said coldly. “I did so in all sincerity.”
“I
understand that. Sincere men will be this country’s salvation, Walter. Or its death. Good night.”
And he hung up with a contemptuous little smile that might have worried Walter could he have seen it. As it was, Walter put down the receiver in a cold fury—with the President for being such an obdurate man, so hostile to everything Walter believed in, so blind to the dangers he might be plunging the country into if he opposed Ted Jason—with himself for having yielded to the impulse to call him. He had only done so in an attempt to help, and see what good it had done him. He went back to his typewriter and attacked it savagely. There was no question now of the column’s not moving swiftly.
“A Chief Executive apparently oblivious to the crisis of violence which gravely threatens the very fabric of the nation,” he wrote, “is apparently going to invite and inflame that crisis by an obdurate refusal to accept the fact that Governor Edward M. Jason is the overwhelming choice for President of all those Americans who believe sincerely in the welfare of their country and the future of world peace. President Abbott, possibly giddy with the new-found power that the death of President Hudson has conferred upon him, is evidently unaware of the enormous danger of rising violence—which seems to be prompted—however unwisely—by fears of Jason supporters that the Governor will once again be shunted aside by the conservative pro-war faction in the party. Confronted with this deep and obvious threat to the national safety, the President is apparently—”
For some moments after his caller’s portentous tones had faded from his ear, the President remained sitting in the worn old rocker that had accommodated his stocky frame so many times during his holidays at his sister’s cabin. He was not so much annoyed with Walter Dobius, and with all those elements whose opinions Walter epitomized, as he was simply and honestly depressed. Walter’s initial impulse had been one of genuine concern for his country; it had not taken many minutes for it to swing back to concern for his candidate. The way to avoid violence, obviously, was for everyone to give in obediently and accept Ted Jason for President. Otherwise, there would be violence, and God knows it wouldn’t be the fault of Ted Jason’s friends: they would certainly have given everyone fair warning.
He uttered a wry, disgusted, impatient sound, expressive of a mood which was not improved when the phone rang again and his secretary informed him that one of his dearest and most annoying problem children, the Hon. J. B. “Jawbone” Swarthman of North Carolina, was calling.
“God, what now?” he demanded in exasperation, and just then the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee came on the line and heard it.
“Now, Mr. Speaker—Mr. President, sir,” he said in his rapid, colloquial, dumb-like-a-fox manner. “Now, Mr. President, you shouldn’t feel that way about me, sir, now you really shouldn’t. Old Jawbone just wants to have a little old chat, Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, sir, and you hadn’t ought to get that tired old what-in-the-hell tone in your voice about your old friend, Jawbone, now—”
“Jawbone,” he said in a flat voice that he hoped would interrupt the flow, “what—is—it?”
“Why, I just thought, Mr. President, sir,” Jawbone said, his voice dropping confidentially, “that you-all might like to know how things are going back here at the home place while you-all are out there gallivanting around in that rich, rich resort out there, that’s all. I been hearing lots of things since I got back to town yestiddy and I thought you ought to know about ’em, that’s all. Of course, if you’d rather not—”
“No, no, Jawbone,” the President said, “go right ahead.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. President, sir—”
“And you don’t have to ‘sir’ me every minute,” the President told him with some testiness. “And you don’t have to talk corn-pone. You’re a Rhodes scholar and one of the smartest men I know, so just pretend I’m still Speaker and give it to me straight, okay?”
“Now, there!” Jawbone exclaimed. “There! You hear that now, you hear that?”
“Who hears what?” the President demanded sharply. “Is someone else on the line?”
“Oh, no, sir,” Jawbone said hastily. “No, sir, not at all, now. Just Miss Bitty-Bug, she sittin’ right here beside me, Mr. President, you know how she is—”
“Yes,” the President said, wincing as always at Jawbone’s pet name for his wife, “I know how Miss Bitty-Bug is. Why don’t you tell her to go nibble on some other tree and let us talk in peace? If you really have something to tell me, that is?”
“Now, Mr. President, sir—” Jawbone began in a shocked voice.
“Tell her,” the President ordered sternly. Jawbone clamped a hand over the receiver, there were muffled murmurs. Presently he came back on the line with a vigorous cheerfulness. “Well, Miss Bitty-Bug gone, Mr. President,” he announced happily. “You know lil’ ol’ Miss Bitty-Bug, she don’t like to get left out of anything, but she agreed maybe this time I better talk to you alone. Miss Bitty-Bug sends her love.”
“You give my love to Miss Bitty-Bug,” the President said dryly. If this weren’t the chairman of Foreign Affairs, whose support he needed, and if he weren’t President, whose support Jawbone was going to need in his campaign for the Senate seat of the late Seab Cooley, he would have been tempted to tell Jawbone and Miss Bitty-Bug to fly off home and leave him alone. But Jawbone was a good weather vane, among other things. “Now tell me what you hear.”
“Well, sir,” Jawbone said, “well, sir, Bill, I been talking to some of these National Committee people, now, and they say, Mr. President, they say, that they really want that old convention there called back into session. They really do say that, Mr. President. Because there’s a feelin’, Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, sir, just a wee lil’ ol’ teensy feelin’, that mebbe now things all been cleared away, here, it might, it jes’ might, be time to take another look at that mighty fine Governor of California out there, the Honorable Edward M. Jason. Yes, sir!”
“This wouldn’t be just a lil’ ol’ teensy mite of wishful thinking on your part, would it, Jawbone?” the President inquired, remembering vividly how the chairman had been one of the leaders in the fight against the Gorotoland resolution, and then had gone on to the convention to give active support to the Jason cause.
“No, sir!” Jawbone declared stoutly. “No, sir, not a-tall, now! Why, I just been on the phone with some of ’em, Bill, Mr. President, and—”
“Who?”
“Well, sir,” Jawbone said in a confidential tone, “I wouldn’t want it to get away, now, I surely wouldn’t want it to get away—”
“This is the President, Jawbone,” he said. “It isn’t going to get away. Who was it, Esmé Stryke and Roger Croy?”
“Well, sir,” Jawbone exclaimed in a tone of breathless admiration, “well, sir, if you just don’t say the damnedest, if you don’t now, Bill, Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, sir! It surely was Mrs. Esmé Harbellow Stryke, that great distinguished National Committeewoman from California, and it surely was that great distinguished National Committeeman from Oregon, Mr. Roger P. Croy, ex-governor of that great state of our great Northwest—”
“I’m not a meeting, Jawbone,” the President said. “So it was Esmé and Roger—and that’s all.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Jawbone confirmed hastily, “but they been in touch, now, oh, yes, sir, they been In Touch. Why, Esmé, she told me she’d heard from at least ten Committee members this a.m. already, Mr. President, and Roger P. Croy, he said he heard from about ten more, and they all, Mr. President, they all, are in favor of gettin’ together here in D.C. jes’ as soon as they can and then declarin’ the convention reconvened, and have a vote and put Ted Jason on top of that ticket, and go—to—town!”
“Mmmmhmm,” the President murmured, with a skepticism Jawbone knew from long experience in the House.
“Now, Bill, Mr. President, sir,” he said hastily, “you-all musn’t jes’ go ‘Mmmmhmm’ at ol’ Jawbone here. You-all musn’t jes’ Mmmhmmm me, Mr. President, sir! These people, now, Mrs. Esmé and Mr. Go
vernor Roger P. Croy, they know what the mood is, Mr. President, they know what the country wants, and they got pledges, Mr. President—”
“Oh, have they?” the President interrupted sharply. “How many?”
“Well, sir,” Jawbone said, and his tone became crafty and uncommunicative, “I couldn’t rightly say, now, I couldn’t rightly say, but quite a few, I dare say, quite a few. And they and their friends, now, they do want that ol’ convention called back, Mr. President. I have a feelin’, now, a distinct feelin’—and Miss Bitty-Bug,” he added triumphantly, “you know Miss Bitty-Bug, she got pretty good political instincts too, now, and she agrees with me—we got a feelin’ that gettin’ that ol’ convention back is what that National Committee’s goin’ to want to do when you call ’em into session next week.”
“Who said I was going to call them into session next week—” the President began in a deliberately indignant tone, and then dropped it because there was no point in fooling anybody, the realities were clear enough. “Of course you’re right, Jawbone, I’ve got to get them back, and fast. We can’t stall it. But I wouldn’t be so sure about pledges, if I were you. I don’t tell everybody, Jawbone, and I wouldn’t want you to, either, but I’ve been getting a few phone calls myself from the National Committee, and some of them don’t agree with Esmé and Roger—”
“Some of ’em don’t,” Jawbone interrupted triumphantly, “some of ’em don’t but some of ’em do, that right, Mr. President? Yes, sir, some of ’em do!”
“Yes,” the President conceded slowly, “some of them do. But I haven’t tried a head-count yet, Jawbone, and I don’t think you should, either. I haven’t really had time to get to it, but when I do …” He let his voice trail away significantly, and for a moment his ebullient caller was silent too. When he spoke, it was in a quiet, thoughtful tone.
“You fixin’ to give that nomination to ol’ Orrin, aren’t you?” he inquired softly. “Yes, sir, that’s what it is, you fixin’ to give that nomination to ol’ Orrin.”
“I’m not fixing to do anything, yet,” the President said calmly. “And I think you’d be making a great mistake to tell anyone I am. After all, Jawbone”—and he made his voice deliberately as forceful, blunt and menacing as he had always been able to make it when dealing with recalcitrant Representatives—“you and Esmé and ol’ Roger and your friends, now, you overlook one thing, don’t you? I’m in the White House, now. I’m the President of the United States, now. What makes you so sure, Jawbone,” he concluded softly, “that I might not just stay right here where I am?”
