The Shadow Cabinet

by W. T. Tyler

“Maybe you could explain it, then.”

  “What I meant to say was that we can’t have it both ways. By ‘we’ I mean the United States,” he added hastily, suppressing the innuendo.

  “Both ways? I don’t follow you.”

  You wouldn’t, Foster thought stupidly, gazing at the repellent heterosexual face. “What I mean is that we can’t continue to claim that our system, our way of life, offers the best hope for others in the world while we continue to support stability over justice and oppression over reform.” He was reading again, his face still flushed, but his voice stronger.

  “That’s what you said in your statement,” the congressman interrupted wearily, lifting a copy of Foster’s prepared statement from the notes in front of him. “You already said that, but what I want to know is how we do it. How do we handle all of this Communist subversion in Latin America if we don’t give them military help?”

  “By not aligning ourselves with their oppressors,” Foster replied, but the words seemed so trite that he blushed again.

  “Give the Russians an inch and they’ll take a mile,” his interlocutor rumbled on. “We’ve gotta deal with that. So far you haven’t told us how. If you wanna know what the Russians are doing down there in Latin America, you ought to come around to some of our classified briefings, see what we see.”

  The congressman’s reference to details not available to the general public, like any references by a high priesthood to their occult mysteries, whether in the Masonic order, Skull and Bones, or the Vatican’s bank accounts, carried a note of moral superiority. Dr. Foster hesitated a moment, unable to think of any reply except the obvious one: Show me. “I’m not really sure what the Russians are up to,” he began evasively, but then, conscious of his own voice, added hastily, “Behavior often gets terribly muddled. Confused, I mean.” But that too wasn’t quite right. “Perceptions, I meant to say, not so much behavior.”

  “You’ll have to explain that one to me, Doctor,” the congressman declared, grinning as he watched Dr. Foster mop his brow. “I’m just a plain ole country boy.”

  “I meant to say that we often flaunt an idealistic view of our own actions,” Foster answered, aware that he was straying from his script, “but take a much more cynical view of Soviet behavior.”

  “Can’t trust ’em, that’s why,” the congressman said, recognizing his opening. “You mean to sit there and tell me you don’t know that?” He smiled for the benefit of those spectators who’d sighed audibly at the doctor’s naiveté.

  “I think you’ve described the very problem I’m trying to get at,” Foster said guiltily, departing even further from his text. “That very bias—”

  “Bias?” The congressman leaned forward. “Bias? What kind of bias?”

  “Our own biases, I’m afraid,” Foster offered without conviction. This was the section of his presentation that Haven Wilson had deleted at the Center, convinced that the committee would make short work of it. “I mean by that that we use one set of ideals or attitudes to defend our own actions and another set entirely to judge the Russians or for that matter any regime we find objectionable. I’m talking about the double standard.”

  The hearing room was silent. Troubled that the subcommittee was being led into a cul-de-sac, the chairman leaned back to confer with the counsel. The congressman was still bent forward intently, glowering at Foster.

  “I sure wish I knew what you meant by that,” he said.

  “I mean that we take an idealistic or anthropomorphic view of our own motives,” Foster replied, licking his dry lips, “and a much more cynical or ratomorphic view of the Russians. It’s almost as if their cerebral cortexes were totally different.”

  The congressman continued to study Dr. Foster’s flushed face as he silently digested this strange scrap of scientific information. Then he seemed to understand. “You saying the Russians act like rats?” he asked with that histrionic acuteness that was the despair of his opponents and the delight of the Oklahoma prairie towns. A murmur of laughter lifted from behind Foster. “He said it, I didn’t,” the congressman drawled as he leaned back, lifting his huge hands from the dais in helpless innocence. “He said the Russians are ratomorphic, they act like rats.” The laughter came again and he leaned forward over his folded arms to exploit his advantage. “Is that what you study over at that research center of yours, running rats around all day to see how they act like Russians?” He lifted Dr. Foster’s prepared statement to read aloud the Center’s full name. “The Center for Contemporary Studies—is that what you call it?” he asked, having given the title the full benefit of his Oklahoma drawl, the same kind of heavy sarcasm used by Foster’s high school history teacher back in Iowa—but first and foremost, the football and basketball coach—to announce to a snickering class the latest title of one of young Foster’s history essays.

  “I’m afraid you misunderstood me,” Foster said weakly.

  “Well, maybe you ought to explain it to me, explain it to all of us.” Foster cleared his throat and brought the microphone nearer, opened his mouth to begin, but then realized that he hadn’t the slightest idea of how to commence. They waited. “Take your time, son,” the congressman chided, with a tolerant smile, winking at the audience. “That’s a whole lot of learning you’re carrying around in your head and it’s not all gonna come jumping out on the table at the same time, like a bushel of bullfrogs, if that’s what you’re scared of.” The audience laughed. “We’re ready when you are.”

  “Thank you, Congressman.” Foster spoke very slowly, the words found only with great effort. “What I meant to say was that while we credit ourselves with very complex human attributes—love, loyalty, generosity, intelligence, empathy, compassion, and so on—we do less for others. We assign the Soviet Union or the Soviet leadership, for example, a far cruder or primitive character, that of rats or pigeons. Less mammalian than reptilian. As if they didn’t have sons or daughters, homes or birthdays, and so forth—” Birthdays? he thought too late, lulled asleep by his own sonority. Where in God’s name had that come from? He cleared his throat again. “That is the behaviorist view—the ‘ratomorphic’ view I spoke of. What it means is that in our foreign policy choices, we treat the Russians the same way behaviorist psychologists treat the rats and pigeons in their laboratories. By that, I mean that they are thought to respond to only the most primitive stimuli—”

  The laughter had come again. Shy Wooster, seated two rows behind Dr. Foster, immediately took out his pocket notebook.

  “Come again?” said the congressman. “You got me a little confused, Doctor. Sounds like you’ve got a lot of folks confused.”

  Very loudly, as if to dispel any misunderstanding that might have been caused by his soft, quavering voice, Foster said: “We claim that we act only out of idealistic and humanitarian motives, but not the Russians. We claim we act logically and reasonably at all times, but not the Russians. We believe, in short, that we are guided by lofty principles, but the Russians, base ones, and that as a result they must be disciplined as one disciplines rats and pigeons in a behaviorist laboratory. Pain or pleasure, you see, penalties or rewards.” Dr. Foster paused, aware for the first time of the stunning effect his amplified voice had had on the committee members. “This is what I call the ‘ratomorphic’ view of Soviet character,” he said in conclusion, his voice sliding away like a frightened boy’s.

  In his notebook, Shy Wooster was writing: There is a scientific basis to Russian cunning and deceit. It has been proven in the scientific laboratory in experiments with rats.

  “That’s very interesting,” the congressman declared, making a few notes himself, “very interesting. And what are you saying, that it’s scientific or not scientific?”

  “Pseudoscientific, of course,” Foster replied weakly. “It’s a very primitive tool for trying to cope with quite complex events, like Afghanistan or Poland. We believe we can control Soviet behavior by quantitative techniques, the way we condition the reflexes of rats and pigeons. It
doesn’t take mind or idealism, if you will, into account. But it’s a primitive, mechanistic view, behaviorism is—a nineteenth-century view, which is now being applied to foreign policy. That’s what Dr. Kissinger’s version of détente was. And that’s why it didn’t work.” His hand reached for the water glass. His mouth was growing dry again.

  “Hold on a minute, Doctor,” the congressman broke in. “You’re getting me all mixed up. You say détente didn’t work or couldn’t work? I don’t understand what you’re saying. Are you for it or agin it?”

  “What I’m saying is that Dr. Kissinger and others interpreted détente in a very limited way,” Foster said. “They saw it as a kind of behaviorist box within which they could confine the Soviet policy animal and then manipulate him the way the behaviorist manipulates his laboratory creatures.”

  The dais was silent, like the room behind him. Foster was reluctant to continue, but then the committee chairman nodded to him impatiently. “The underlying assumption behind all this,” Foster resumed, “is that Soviet policymakers have an intelligence quotient similar to rats and pigeons and can only be trained like such creatures, conditioned by their own brute, primitive reflex. Appetite, you see; aggression. Unless so contained, the Soviet Union will continue to be aggressors. You can’t change them any more than you can teach rats or pigeons to think or tie their shoes; therefore they must be conditioned by the application of penalties and rewards, a kernel of corn or an electric shock. That was our old version of détente—”

  “And it won’t work?” the congressman asked.

  “It’s inadequate,” Foster offered. “It’s too primitive to explain Soviet policy choices. In any case, the U.S. is incapable of playing the role of an omniscient, omnipresent global laboratory scientist, able to keep the world in his behaviorist box. That’s quite impossible.”

  “But we did it,” a congressman intruded loudly from the far end of the bench, “we did it. We’ve done it since ’45—kept the Russians right at home, kept them from overrunning Europe, Korea, the Middle East. We did it because we had the military power, because we had the bomb, and that’s what it’ll take to keep them there. That’s what this new defense budget is all about.”

  “What he’s saying,” the chairman amplified, “is that we had a policy that worked in Europe. We had the bomb, we got NATO together, and we contained Soviet military power. Using your terminology, you might say we ‘conditioned’ Moscow to our way of thinking. That’s how come Europe is still Europe. You can’t tell me the Soviet Union doesn’t understand force. Let’s just say we helped along in the conditioning process. But we’re talking about Latin America and how to handle that subversion down there—”

  “I’m afraid I disagree,” Dr. Foster called out.

  “How’s that? Disagree? How can you disagree with that? It was our nuclear superiority that held back the Russians all that time, just as it’s holding them back now. How can you say they haven’t been conditioned by that?”

  “I’m afraid that’s the tragedy,” Foster replied sorrowfully, “that’s the terrible tragedy about all this. We’ve conditioned ourselves, that’s all.”

  The television lights, which had mercifully dimmed five minutes earlier, came back on. The hush had returned to the restless audience behind him. The chairman called upon Foster to explain.

  “No one knows what the map of Europe might have looked like today without NATO or the hydrogen and atomic bomb,” Foster said. “Granted. But we did have those bombs, just as today we have these massive nuclear arsenals on both sides. And because we possessed these weapons first and have continued to increase our stockpiles, we’ve become the prisoners of the assumption that the Soviet Union has been restrained only by our nuclear superiority. We’ve become the prisoners of the assumption that without our nuclear superiority, the Soviet Union would have been true to its ratomorphic or aggressive nature. But in that way, you see, our own nuclear armaments have become living proof of an unrelenting Soviet hostility. Our own military establishment is day-to-day evidence of the Soviet Union’s brutal intent, just like the bars in the lions’ cages out at the Washington Zoo. No, I disagree with you, I’m sorry to say, and this is the greatest tragedy of all. All of this shows that we’ve only conditioned ourselves by these massive nuclear armaments, just as the Russians have conditioned themselves. We’ve become the pathological prisoners of these stockpiles. We’ve finally succeeded as a nation in conditioning ourselves to that same primitive, unreflective, ratomorphic psychology we once assigned the Russian leadership. There’s no better evidence of it, I regret to say, than those who sit in the White House and the Pentagon …”

  The chairman had begun to gently tap his gavel, the crowd had begun to stir, but Dr. Foster, a few bare breaths left in his weary lungs, was determined to continue:

  “… at this very minute. Their presence should remind us of the sort of obsessive, primitive, fear-ridden leadership we’ve created for ourselves after thirty-five years. No, Mr. Chairman, I’m sorry to say we’ve only conditioned ourselves.…”

  The banging of the gavel had grown louder, terminating what the chairman now identified as a partisan assault on the present administration and inadmissible under the rules of bipartisanship.

  There were no further questions. “Thank you, Dr. Foster,” the chairman concluded briskly. “We’d like to thank you for sharing your views with us.”

  “That was a right interesting presentation you made, Doctor,” said an unfamiliar voice as Foster bent at the corridor water fountain to rinse the disagreeable metallic taste from his dry mouth. He felt enervated, weak-kneed, damp, hot, and humiliated, so drained by his inquisition that he had absolutely no recollection of the words he’d uttered during those final minutes. But he also felt relieved and elated, free of a burden that had been haunting him for weeks. The world looked brighter, cleaner, simpler, and less hostile, as it might to a man who had just escaped execution. “Real scientific,” the voice continued. “How do you spell that, that ‘ratomorphic’?”

  Foster told him, still leaking water to his vest and tie. He’d expected his roommate to be waiting for him, but he had vanished. Instead a handful of reporters followed him into the corridor to ask a few questions.

  “I expect you must be a student of eugenics too,” Shyrock Wooster said, taking a card from his pocket as he returned the small notebook, “you an’ that Center over there. Must be doing some right interesting work. We need more scientific studies on what the Russians are up to, a whole lot more. Maybe it’s something in the genes that will tell the answer. You do any government work?”

  “A few endocrine studies, biopathology,” Foster muttered.

  “Well, I’ll be. Haven’t heard much about that.” He passed Foster his card and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Doctor. Maybe sometime we can get together, swap a few ideas. You ought to get some of these scientific studies of yours published—some magazine where they’ll get national attention.”

  And with that, Shy Wooster turned and went back down the hall to the hearing room. He paused outside the door to make another entry in his notebook and then stepped inside to hear the testimony of the Assistant Secretary for Latin American Affairs.

  “No, I’m sorry, Congressman,” the Secretary was intoning in his rich, fruity voice. “I’m afraid that’s not an expression I’m familiar with.”

  “‘Ratomorphic,’” repeated the congressman in his Oklahoma twang. “You never heard of that? Well, maybe you oughta look it up. Shows you striped-pants diplomats don’t know everything.”

  Dr. Foster found his roommate on the steps outside, pale and anxious, standing to one side, avoiding the few departing spectators. “I was so mortified,” he confided, “I just couldn’t stand it any longer, not what you were going through.”

  “It wasn’t easy,” Foster confessed, annoyed that his nervousness might have been that visible. “But I think I got myself under control.” On the whole, he felt quite pleased, pleased enough so that
as he went down the steps, his gait grew bolder. A departing reporter recognized him and waved. Foster waved back. As he reached the pavement and turned, waiting for his companion, a young college girl behind him on the steps nodded and smiled. “I liked what you said,” she told him. “Really neat.”

  “Well, thank you,” Foster said, pleased.

  “Me too,” volunteered her companion as they passed. “You really had them shook.”

  “What’d they say?” his roommate asked as he joined Foster, watching the two girls go up the street.

  “Do you have to know everything?” Foster said, looking at the pale, shrinking recluse at his side. He looked so absurd Foster gave a vulgar laugh.

  Oh, dear, he thought instantly, hearing that loud, lewd sound. What have I done?

  11.

  The yellow caution lights blinked off and on at the intersections, but the lonely boulevard was as deserted as the nearby freightyards. Only an occasional automobile sped by, trailing the sound of its engine long after it had passed. It was a poor place to have a flat tire, find a cab, or meet someone with a dubious reputation. Cronin’s call had come at the telephone booth a little after ten o’clock. Ten minutes later, Wilson parked his car in front of the closed diesel fuel depot. The bar with the yellow neon beer sign in the window was dark, the heavy metal grille locked. No lights showed in the solitary house where the little girl had been pulling the rusty wagon. He crossed the broken asphalt street, head bent against the wind. The chain-link gate was closed but unlocked, the heavy padlock hanging open in its hasp. He entered and closed the gate behind him. The windows of the office were dark. A night-light burned dimly in the reception room beyond the glass door. As he moved, the moon drifted from behind the high broken clouds, its cold pallor touching the windshields of the rental cars. Steam boiled up from the pumping shed of a depot across the railroad tracks.

  As he moved into the shadows at the rear of the lot, he identified the silhouette of a car backed up against the door of the maintenance garage. Its rear end was elevated, as if on racing slicks. Approaching, he saw the interior light blink on momentarily, to reveal a figure leaning forward over the wheel. As Wilson bent to look in the passenger window, the light went out and the door was pushed open. He heard the sound of a radio playing softly, a woman singing in a low, strident voice.