September Song

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “That, I thought, is pretty tough stuff. LBJ doesn’t like it one bit. This is not going to be a pleasant afternoon.

  “Abe Fortas, who was the President’s man within the group objected that Mac’s summary had not accurately reflected the sense of the discussion. Dean Acheson responded that the summary did indeed accurately summarize the consensus. The President argued that the men who had briefed us were not the same ones who had briefed him. Clark Clifford replied that they were indeed the same men and they had given the same briefing. He had told me privately later that Walt Rostow, Bundy’s successor at the National Security Council and an ardent supporter of the war, had doubtless followed the usual bureaucratic practice of underlining the parts of the briefing that suited his policy.

  “The President announced that he wanted to hear what each of us thought. As he went around the room it became clear to him that his trusted advisers had, with few exceptions, turned against the war. Only Bob Murphy argued that the President ought not to permit a civilian group to intervene between himself and his military advisers during wartime. General Ridgeway replied that we were still a society in which the military must be subservient to civilians.

  “Finally, he came to me.

  “‘I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind in the last three years, Chuck?’

  “‘No sir, Mr. President.’

  “‘At least you’ve been consistent … Do you want to add anything else now?’

  “The consistency line was a jab at those in the room who had changed their minds on him.

  “‘Yes, sir. I said at the meeting and I must repeat that I am convinced that you should not only decline the request for more troops. You should announce plans for a phased withdrawal. That is the only policy which will protect the country from being torn apart and the only policy which will keep Richard Nixon out of this building.’

  “He nodded and went on to the next man.

  “We left the West Wing in gloomy silence after a tough afternoon’s discussion. We had done our part to tell the President the truth. He did not want to hear the truth. He was angry at most of us because it was a different version of the truth than he had heard before from them. He is a stubborn, bitter, and weary man. His future behavior is unpredictable. I am terrified that he might make matters worse instead of better.

  “However, let it be recorded that on the Ides of March in 1968, the Senior Advisers told him that the war could not be won. Any continuation of it over a substantial period of time for whatever reason is absolute folly.”

  As we all know now the war went on for seven more years. More men died in those years than had already died. They died for a cause that the leadership knew was lost. Terrible harm was done to the whole country.

  It is very hard to understand why this could be so. The “best and the brightest” got us into the war. They tried on that lovely March Saturday to get us out. Who were the men who kept us in Vietnam? Their names are well-known.

  I weep when I read Chuck’s memo. He was thirty-nine years old when he wrote it. He was absolutely correct in his prediction. If Lyndon Baines Johnson had listened to him, our family would have been spared terrible tragedy.

  “What happens next?” I asked my downcast husband when he had returned from the West Wing of the White House.

  “Lyndon will give a major address to the nation on March thirtyfirst.”

  “What will he say?”

  “Clifford will have to fight with Rusk for control of the text. Lyndon will make the final decision himself. My guess is that he’ll fuck up the fuck-up.”

  As our Vickers Viscount heaved itself into the sky just before it plunged into the Potomac (or so it always seemed) I glanced out the window at the fleeting picture of the Capitol, at one of the Mall. Under the somber gray sky, it looked lifeless, barren, dull. All the excitement had gone out of being American.

  19

  We sat around the small color television in the elder O’Malleys’ apartment in Naples, Florida, to listen to Johnson’s “historic” address, as the media cliché mongers had insisted on calling it all day.

  The apartment was a haven that Vangie and the good April used to escape from Chicago winters and to spend time with their children free from the demands and the noise of the swarms of adored grandchildren. With all that we had on our minds, Chuck and I hesitated about flying to Florida. We would, against all sense, be deeply involved in the Robert Kennedy campaign. Yet they were my real parents and I would not, could not disappoint them.

  They were both in their early sixties now, handsome, attractive people for whom the Great Depression had been an unpleasant but forgotten interlude and not the formative experience it had been for my poor dear husband. He was once again a wealthy architect, she a gifted music teacher. She was a slender, elegant woman who, my husband had said, was secretly a Russian archduchess, though contact lenses had deprived her of her faintly perplexed expression.

  She was also the original Dr. Panglossa, especially when the subject was her grandchildren. “I’m sure that poor dear April Rosemary will come back from that Harvard place just the same sweet little girl she is now.”

  Or, “I think it’s cute that dear little Kevin is interested in jazz. On our first date, Vangie took me to hear Mr. Armstrong.”

  Dear Little Kevin was now as tall as her husband and five inches taller than his father.

  She is a perennially beautiful woman. I’m not as good-looking as she is and I’m a quarter century younger.

  “Did you ever notice that when your mother drifts into a restaurant, men turn to look at her, and not only older men.”

  “The good April,” my husband replied, “is one very sexy broad. It took me a long time to come to terms with that. She has shared her grace with Peg and of course with this foster daughter that tends to sleep in my bed.”

  “Nonsense,” I protested.

  “I won’t argue … Do you think she knows men are admiring her.”

  “The good April is oblivious, but not that oblivious.”

  “They certainly don’t do silly teenage things together, do they?”

  I snorted in derision. The guest bedroom was at the opposite end of the apartment, so that both couples could have all the privacy they wanted. Chuck and I took full advantage of it … Though I felt guilty about being way from my kids.

  Vangie—John the Evangelist O’Malley—is a big, bald man with a dangerous red beard. He looks like a pirate and is the least dangerous of humans. He lives in a world where colors and shapes blend in a harmony that obscures, if it does not hide completely, ugliness. So much of what my poor dear husband is was shaped by this somewhat ethereal couple. Surely the mixture of endless patience and often berserk passion with which he copes with his flaky wife was learned from his parents’ marriage.

  Thanks be to God.

  So we were sitting in front of the small television—“no need, darling, for a big one in this tiny apartment”—waiting for the President. Chuck’s information from Washington left very much in doubt which turn the talk would take.

  We were in our swimsuits, drinking iced tea and eating cheese and crackers after a delightful day in the Gulf Coast warmth.

  “I’m sure the poor dear man will end the war,” the good April said, picking up her knitting.

  “It doesn’t make sense not to,” Vangie agreed.

  “You don’t know Lyndon,” my husband cautioned. “He’s just a little crazy.”

  The picture of Lyndon in the Oval Office filled the screen. I was shocked at how old and how tired he seemed.

  “Good evening, my fellow Americans. Tonight I want to talk to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.” He reviewed his administration’s efforts “to find a basis for peace talks,” and said that there was “no need to delay the talks that could bring an end to this long and bloody war … So, tonight … I am taking the first step to de-escalate the conflict. We are reducing—substantially reducing—the present level of hostilities … unilatera
lly and at once. Tonight, I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels to make no attacks on North Vietnam, except in the area north of the Demilitarized Zone, where the continuing enemy buildup directly threatens allied forward positions. I call upon President Ho Chi Minh to respond positively, and favorably, to this new step toward peace.”

  He settled the question of the request for a quarter of million more troops as though it had never existed “We should prepare to send—during the next five months—support troops totaling approximately 13,500 men.” President Thieu he told us had, in the previous week, ordered the mobilization of 135,000 additional South Vietnamese, which would bring the total strength of ARVN to more than 800,000, and he pledged an effort to “accelerate the reequipment of South Vietnam’s armed forces which will enable them progressively to undertake a larger share of combat operations against the Communist invaders.” The tentative estimate of these additional US and ARVN costs was, he said, $2.5 billion in 1968 and $2.6 billion the following year. He then made a strong pitch for a 10 percent surtax, saying “The passage of a tax bill now, together with expenditure control that the Congress may desire and dictate, is absolutely necessary to protect this nation’s security, to continue our prosperity, and to meet the needs of our people.”

  He went on,

  “As Hanoi considers its course, it should be in no doubt of our intentions … . We have no intention of widening this war. But the United States will never accept a fake solution to this long and arduous struggle and call it peace … Peace will come because Asians were willing to work for it, and to sacrifice for it, and to die by the thousands for it. But let it never be forgotten: Peace will come also because America lent her sons to help secure it.”

  Finally, and as an anticlimax, came the big surprise. “There is division in the American house now. There is divisiveness among us all tonight. And holding the trust that is mine, as President of all the people, I cannot disregard the peril to the progress of the American people and the hope and prospect of peace for all people … . With America’s sons in the fields faraway, with America’s future under challenge right here at home … I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes … . Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”

  The good April and I applauded. Vangie shouted. Chuck sat in his chair, his face in his hands, and peered through his fingers at the screen.

  “It’s good news, isn’t it, Chuck?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” he said softly. “Maybe.”

  “Bobby will be nominated and win and end the war,” I said jubilantly.

  “Lyndon will do all in his power to stop Bobby. He’ll throw his weight behind Hubert Humphrey, who won’t dare denounce the war before he’s elected … It’s all more confused than ever … He’s still lying. I don’t care how large the Vietnamese Army is it can’t fight worth a darn.”

  We would not let his pessimism ruin our happiness. Peg called and then Jane and then Father Ed. Finally, April Rosemary who shouted to me, “Daddy did it, didn’t he? He ended the war!”

  Chuck shook his head.

  “Lyndon,” he said, “is still a mean, nasty, son of a bitch. He didn’t announce a withdrawal and that’s what really matters. We have to get the hell out of that quagmire.”

  Four days later, we came in from golf at suppertime. I had won, much to the dismay of my husband and father-in-law and to the delight of my mother-in-law.

  “Poor little Rosie was always a wonderful athlete,” the good April insisted.

  “She cheats,” my husband protested.

  “Now, Chucky dear, you should always be a good sport.”

  The phone was ringing as we entered the apartment. Always in charge, I picked it up.

  “Peg, Rosie. They shot Martin Luther King today. The city is burning already.”

  I burst into tears.

  “Martin is dead,” I shouted at Chuck. “Chicago is on fire. We should fly home right away.”

  “I don’t think we can put out the fires. Is Vince there?” he asked Peg, as he took the phone away from me. “Okay, would you have him call us down here when he gets a chance?”

  Vince had agreed to work in the Mayor’s office for a year.

  I grabbed the phone away from him.

  “Is it all right out there, Peg?”

  “Sure. You wouldn’t know there’s a riot if it wasn’t for television. Stokeley Carmichael told the kids to go home and get their guns.”

  We turned on the television. There were riots all over the country. Washington was in flames, Chicago was in flames, the country was in flames.

  “If you look carefully,” Chuck said, “all the violence is in black neighborhoods. They’re burning down the stores and the buildings and looting everything they can get their hands on. Funny kind of mourning for a man who preached nonviolence.”

  “We should kneel and say the rosary for the repose of his soul,” April informed us.

  That was the first sensible thing anyone had said.

  Vince interrupted it.

  “It’s pretty bad out on the West Side,” he told us. “Relatively quiet on the South Side. Out in Garfield Park we’ve lost control. Molotov cocktails all over the place. The National Guard is coming. The mayor has asked Lyndon for federal troops.”

  “Burning and looting?” I asked.

  “Stores especially, the black radicals are telling them to go after the Sheeny storekeepers. You won’t hear that on television. They don’t seem to care that a lot of black storekeepers are losing their stock and their stores. It’s all crazy. They’re destroying their own neighborhoods.”

  “Are they attacking whites?”

  “A few incidents, nothing serious.”

  “I hope God doesn’t let Martin know what his people are doing,” I said to Chuck.

  He just shook his head.

  “Damn media are stoking the fires. They love it.”

  That night the evening news reported that America was burning down. In fact blacks were burning down their own neighborhoods in a burst of anti-Semitism. They were undoubtedly angry about the poverty and discrimination and saddened by Martin’s death. Yet their frustration and rage turned on themselves. The report of the Kerner Commission on the riots, which had just come out, blamed the riots on white racism, true enough in some fashion, but not one likely to win much support as whites watched blacks destroy their own neighborhoods in memory of a man of peace.

  “Should we go to the funeral?” I asked my husband in bed that night.

  “I don’t think we’d be welcome.”

  I didn’t argue. He was probably right.

  The next morning, Saturday, I called home.

  Kevin answered.

  “What’s going on, Kev?”

  “What do you mean, Mom?” he asked, confused by my question.

  “The riots!”

  “Oh, that,” he said calmly. “It was bad again last night, I guess. Troops are coming in today. Uncle Vince says that the Mayor is incoherent. Can’t blame him. Bad way to honor a great man, isn’t it?”

  “Any trouble there?”

  “In Oak Park! Mom, you gotta be kidding! This is a great center of urban rest.”

  “You guys stay away from the West Side, you hear!”

  “When was the last time we went down there?”

  “April Rosemary?”

  “She’s frightened. Thinks the country is pulling itself apart. But you know how she is, Mom.”

  “She hasn’t gone to the West Side, has she?”

  “Nah, she’s up in her room weeping, poor kid.”

  “I think we should go home,” I told my husband.

  He thought about it.

  “It won’t do any good,” he said.

  “I want to go home.”

  “Okay, I’ll see if I can change our reservations from tomorrow to today.”

  He couldn’t. I didn’t enjoy
that lovely Saturday much. Too many worries. Things can’t get any worse I told myself. I was wrong. They would get much worse before the summer was over.

  We left on Palm Sunday just before noon. Flying into Chicago late in the afternoon we saw columns of smoke rising from the West Side of Chicago, along Madison Street. Ugly and sad.

  “Tragic,” I murmured.

  “Tragic,” Chuck agreed somberly, “but not exactly a city burning down, much less a revolution. In a real revolution they would have burned white neighborhoods and looted stores in those neighborhoods.”

  “Will they ever do that?”

  “I don’t think so. Older black folks might not like whites, but they don’t hate us that much. The kids know they could be killed. Too much at stake for everyone.”

  “Not a prerevolutionary situation?”

  “Despite the media efforts to make it one, no. Not likely to be either.”

  Peg, looking harassed, met us at O‘Hare. (The O’Malley clan always assumed that no one should drive their own cars to the airport.)

  “I haven’t seen my husband since it started,” she said. “It’s all so sad and so crazy. What do those Black Power guys hope to accomplish?”

  “Stick it to whitey, then negotiate with them,” my increasingly mordant husband observed.

  “The Mayor is already talking about grants to rebuild the neighborhoods,” Peg told us. “There won’t be any storekeepers anymore.”

  “Did the Jews really overcharge them?” I asked.

  “No more than their own black shopkeepers. The costs of doing business on places like Madison Street are higher than elsewhere—bars and alarms and insurance. It’s not a good way to earn a living. They’ll collect their insurance and never go back.”