Murder in the White House

by Margaret Truman

  Johnson drew a deep breath. “’E believed we were right,” he said more weakly.

  “And?”

  Johnson let out his deep breath. “And we paid him. So you see”—he rushed—“it would have done us no good to kill him. ’E was on our side. ’E was against the damn treaties.”

  “You paid him what, Johnson?”

  Johnson shrugged. “Money. What more?”

  “You’re saying you bribed the Secretary of State…”

  “Bribe…” He rolled the word around on his tongue. “Bribe… well, that there presupposes a quid pro quo, does it not? I’m not sure we ever got our money’s worth—but, yas, goddammit, we paid him. We paid your precious Secretary of State to push our side of the argument with the President. We knew his relationship was a whole lot more than just Secretary. He was a personal friend of Webster, of long standing… he could argue our side of the thing the way no other man could, and we paid him to do it. We paid him a lot of money. We promised him more if he won the case. Yas, we did. But we didn’t kill him, he was workin’ on our side of the case, on our payroll, as you might say.”

  “How did you pay—?”

  “Girls, wine, food, but all that was a pittance. Cash, like I told you… your Secretary of State sold his influence for cash. You mean to tell me you didn’t know that? We paid him cash money a hundred thousand dollars. We were ready to pay a lot more. You still think we killed him? He was worth at least the hundred thou’ to us, alive… why would we want to kill him? We owned a share of him and we paid a good price for our share. Kill him? Whoever did it, a piece of what they killed was bought and paid for by us…”

  Special Investigation Office, The West Wing, Friday, June 15, 2:00 PM

  Lieutenant General Robert Hurd was Director of the CIA. He sat on the couch in Ron’s office with an open briefcase in front of him—he had unlocked the briefcase with a large key—and lifted out several thick files. He was thin, long-jawed, gray, with the crisp yet faintly seedy appearance of a career military officer. His brown suit fit him ill. His shoes were scuffed. He spoke in short sentences, with an economy of words.

  “These files are the ones you requested. They’re classified top secret. I hope you can review them and let me take them back this afternoon.”

  Ron was surprised that Hurd himself had come. He had asked the CIA what it had on three people: Jeremy Johnson, Inoguchi Osanaga, and Philippe Grand. He’d not anticipated that the director would come to the White House with the files.

  “Osanaga is no journalist,” General Hurd said, looking into the file he had opened, then peering up at Ron over his half-glasses. “He represents certain Japanese manufacturing companies as a lobbyist.”

  “Automobile manufacturers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Johnson, the same?”

  “Essentially. Also, he’s a sort of playboy.”

  “Philippe Grand?”

  “We’ve nothing on him, never heard of him.”

  “I’m going to ask you to check three more people for me,” Ron said. “Judith Pringle, Marya Kalisch, and Martha Kingsley.”

  Hurd nodded.

  “You know who they are?”

  The general nodded again.

  “Do you see the drift of the investigation?” Ron asked.

  “It’s out of my sphere—”

  “Off the record, of course,” Ron said.

  “Everything’s off the record,” the general said dryly.

  “Off the record, the investigation produces some reason to believe Blaine was taking bribes from foreign businesses—”

  “The Agency, of course, hasn’t conducted an investigation of the Secretary of State. To do so would violate the definition of the Agency’s function—”

  “But you have investigated Johnson and Osanaga,” Ron said. “Does Blaine—”

  “His name does not come up in their files.”

  “What do you have to suggest that foreign businesses standing to lose from the signing and ratification of the multilateral trade agreements are illegally spending money to defeat the agreements?”

  “They’re doing it in other countries. Japanese businessmen may force the Japanese government out of office. They’ve formed an alliance with labor unions. Conservatives and socialists find themselves on the same side… it’s bread and butter. They want their stuff to get into the U.S….”

  “Does the President know what they’re doing?”

  The general nodded. “We’ve reported to him.”

  “Do you have any reason to think one of the young women I mentioned—Pringle, Kalisch, Kingsley—is in any way involved in the effort to defeat the agreements in the United States?”

  “I’ve no information that suggests it.”

  “Do you have anything on them at all?”

  “I’ll have to check, as you asked me to. I’d never heard of Pringle until yesterday. I know Marya Kalisch. She works for Alfred Eiseman and I’ve had occasion to read translations she’s done. As for Martha Kingsley, her name has come up in several connections. She is known.”

  “I’ll give you a receipt for these files,” Ron said. “I’ll keep them securely locked up and you can have them back in a day or so… after I’ve had a chance to look through them.”

  The Director of the CIA didn’t like it one damn bit, having to back off to a damned lawyer half his age. But back off was the drill at the moment, and the general was a survivor. He wasn’t altogether sorry, though, to see Fairbanks up a tree, obviously fishing… and to hell with the mixed metaphor… “Whatever you say, Mr. Fairbanks. And good luck…”

  British Embassy, Office of the Ambassador, Friday, June 15, 4:45 PM

  “It was short notice,” Ron said as he sat down.

  “Under the circumstances…” Sir John Bedilion smiled engagingly.

  Christopher McLeod had arranged the appointment on a telephone call from Ron. He took a chair to one side, eyeing the Ambassador. Sir John Bedilion, a man of sixty with a liver-spotted bald head, seated himself in the tall leather chair behind his writing table.

  “Whatever we say will be confidential,” Ron said.

  The Ambassador momentarily closed his small hazel eyes, nodded.

  “I regret I have to ask you some questions I know will be embarrassing,” Ron went on. “I might even say, Sir John, that I ask them of you personally, not officially. I feel I can trust you. I am also conscious that I’m imposing on you.”

  His acquaintance with Sir John Bedilion predated his joining the White House staff. As a young lawyer he had been assigned by his firm to resolve for Lady Sarah Bedilion a contretemps over the price of a watch she had bought in a New York jewelry store.

  “Let’s not worry about that,” the Ambassador said. He took a cigarette from a silver box on his table, lit it with the tiny flame that appeared on top of a massive silver lighter. “You don’t smoke, as I recall.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I watched a part of the funeral on the television.”

  “We’re grateful to the Queen for sending the Earl,” Ron said.

  “Frankly, so am I. As much as I respected Secretary of State Blaine, I’m pleased to have been relieved from going to his funeral… well, you have yourself quite a job, don’t you?”

  “I’m afraid I do.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I’ve begun to suspect it was near-common knowledge, among insiders, at least, that Blaine was susceptible to improper influences… I’ve reason to think he took bribes.”

  “Indeed? And what makes you think I might know if he did or not?”

  “I’m not suggesting you have any exclusive knowledge,” Ron said. “I’m asking you because I’m frankly reluctant to ask people who might be in a more obvious position to know.”

  “It would be most undiplomatic”—he allowed himself a smile—“of me to discuss the subject with you at all.”

  “I know that.”

  “Suppose I say I think possibly he did ta
ke bribes. What then?”

  “Then I’ll know from someone I trust,” Ron said. “I’ll have to find the evidence for it somewhere else.”

  “And this is important to your investigation into his murder?”

  “Very.”

  Sir John Bedilion glanced at Christopher McLeod. He frowned over his cigarette and took a shallow, thoughtful puff. “Very well,” he said. “I think your suspicion is well-founded. Lansard Blaine was a bold, clever man. He mostly covered his tracks quite shrewdly, and he managed to do what he did all but under the noses of the Washington press corps, which would have eaten him alive with great relish if they had found him out. Indeed, I have myself marveled at their naiveté—as much as, to be blunt, I marvel at yours and at the President’s if he remains ignorant. But then, one does tend to give the professionals in the art of propriety the benefit of the doubt. To be discreet is presumably our stock-in-trade… which, of course, is a useful cover for indiscretion.”

  Ron enjoyed the man’s style. “Sir, could you please be a bit less diplomatic?”

  The Ambassador drew again on his cigarette. “I’ve no direct personal knowledge, of course, but I have understood, shall we say, for quite some time, that Secretary of State Blaine put out subtle, and some not-so-subtle, hints to certain people from time to time suggesting that he might accept inducements… I’m certain that certain governments responded to his hints… others he may have received from individuals—”

  “Such as Jeremy Johnson,” Christopher McLeod put in.

  Sir John frowned. “Yes. Such as Jeremy Johnson.”

  “And what did he do in return for these inducements?” Ron went on.

  “Well, there’s a good deal of mystery about that. In a democracy the secretary of state or foreign minister doesn’t normally make many significant decisions. He influences the making of policy more than making it himself. And he shades policy in the execution. But he rarely has occasion, or the power, directly to make a major decision. That’s one reason, perhaps, why so many missed what Blaine was doing—plus that it was rather subtle.”

  Ron shook his head. “Unbelievable…”

  “Remember,” the Ambassador said, “that Blaine was a lifetime student of diplomatic history. He would have known very well what most people have forgotten: that there was a day when diplomacy was carried out on this very basis, day-to-day, year after year. The clever Talleyrand was a prime example. History tells us he took millions in bribes—some of those millions for services he never performed and never intended to. He was not alone. Bismarck kept what he called his ‘reptile fund’—money he used to bribe newspapers.”

  “And Asian governments…” Ron said.

  “Yes. To this day. Americans tend to be a bit naive about things like this. Lansard Blaine was not a typical American. He was also anything but naive.”

  “He was a professor most of his life,” McLeod said. “Academics can be damned righteous sometimes about their noble calling and about how little society respects and rewards it. That may have provided him a basis for rationalization—”

  “Do you know of a specific instance of his taking a bribe?” Ron asked.

  “I’m afraid I do,” the Ambassador said. “I won’t tell you who offered it to him and how I found out. I’d have to breach a confidence to do that. I will tell you, though, that a man I know, the representative of a certain government, offered Secretary of State Blaine ten thousand dollars to obtain an American visa for one of his nationals. The visa, which had been held up five years, was issued immediately, and Blaine took the money.” Sir John paused. “The man who got the visa paid a hundred thousand dollars for it. Blame only got ten, although the man presumed he got it all.”

  “The diplomat pocketed the rest, I suppose,” Ron said.

  “No, not all. Some of it had to be spent to cover the transaction, money paid here and there.”

  “But what a risk—”

  “I’ve another story that I can’t vouch for… Blaine was paid money, I don’t know how much, to delay the negotiation of the international agreement on construction standards for ships to carry liquefied natural gas. He accepted the money and didn’t delay the negotiations at all… at least there’s no evidence that he did anything to delay them. The story is that he did not even promise he would try, he simply took the money, promised nothing and, indeed, did nothing. He may have been Talleyrand reincarnated.”

  Ron shook his head. “The man we thought might win a Nobel Prize…”

  Sir John shrugged. “Why not? He was an effective diplomat. He probably was responsible, more than any other man in the world, for averting war between India and Pakistan—which could have been an extremely destructive war. He was bold and shrewd, as I said before. He was intelligent and knowledgeable and…”—Sir John smiled—“he had considerable style, no question. He took his inducements with panache. He was, in fact, a great man in many ways—”

  “And the ways in which he was not may well have gotten him murdered,” Ron said grimly.

  Sir John looked at him, his expression altogether diplomatic. “Perhaps…”

  The Oval Office, Friday, June 15, 7:05 PM

  The retiring president of the Inter-American Development Bank had kept his six-thirty appointment and had met with the President immediately after the President’s return from Michigan and the funeral of Lansard Blaine. It was a courtesy call, which had ended short of the thirty minutes allotted to it, and the President had summoned Fritz Gimbel to the Oval Office at six forty-five. Ron Fairbanks had the seven o’clock appointment, and Gimbel was still with the President when Ron was admitted to the office. Ron would have preferred not to report to the President with Gimbel there, but after a few minutes it became apparent that the President meant to hear his report without dismissing Gimbel. Ron had no choice.

  The President had left a stack of files on his desk—apparently what he and Gimbel had been discussing—and had sat on one of the couches near the fireplace. He had ordered drinks, and their conversation remained casual until the butler brought the tray. Gimbel smoked. He was one of the few people who would smoke a cigarette in the presence of the President, who had made it plain to the White House staff that he did not like it.

  “I’m pleased you haven’t generated any more flak than you have,” President Webster said to Ron. “You’ll have to talk to the media people, though… sooner or later.”

  “I’ve nothing much to tell them—”

  “Then make up something,” Gimbel said.

  Gimbel’s tone brought no reaction from the President. He’d said of Gimbel many months ago, in Ron’s hearing, that though Gimbel was an exceptionally able man in many areas he had absolutely no sense of public relations. The man was blunt, all edges.

  “Maybe a press conference…” the President said. “Maybe tomorrow—”

  “I’ve no idea who killed Blaine,” Ron said, blunt as Gimbel.

  “Well, do you feel you’re making any progress?” Webster asked.

  “I’ve learned a lot about Blaine…”

  The President drew a deep breath. “Such as?”

  Ron glanced at Gimbel, then spoke directly to the President. “The way he lived… the way he spent money. The stories about the women he slept with are true. He—”

  “Does any of this have anything to do with his death?” the President broke in.

  “Probably. He spent more than he earned. Much more. It’s obvious, and anyone who does any accounting on it is going to figure that out. The problem is, I don’t know precisely where the money came from. But it’s pretty clear that he took bribes—”

  Gimbel grunted in disgust. “Fairbanks, you—”

  “Do you think that has anything to do with his death?” the President interrupted Gimbel.

  Ron nodded. “I think it’s likely. And whether it did or not, the investigation—either our investigation or one by some reporter—is going to bring it out. I think we have to be prepared to deal with it.”

 
Ron noticed that the President and Gimbel exchanged glances. “I have to ask you something, sir. Blaine was opposed to the trade agreements, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  The President frowned and once again glanced at Gimbel. “The classic liberal… free trade. All that. The usual arguments.”

  “Suppose I told you,” Ron said carefully, “that Blaine received a hundred thousand dollars from an overseas industrial corporation to exert his influence with you to abandon the multilateral trade negotiations, or at the very least to exempt what this corporation makes. Suppose also I told you he was to receive a great deal more if he succeeded in so influencing you.”

  “‘Suppose,’” snapped Gimbel. “Dammit, Fairbanks, let’s not suppose. Did Blaine get a hundred thousand or didn’t he?”

  “I’ve some evidence of it—not enough to prove it, but enough to make it seem very likely.”

  Gimbel shook his head.

  “I’m not entirely surprised,” the President said. He stood and walked across the room to the windows behind his desk. He parted the curtains between the gold drapes and looked out on the cloudless, golden June evening. “I’d begun to suspect something like that.”

  “I wonder how widespread the suspicion is,” Ron said.

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly.

  “How did you come to suspect?”

  The President let the curtains fall together and sat behind his desk. “He knew my policy about international trade… that I was committed to a departure. He knew my mind was made up. Still, he continued to argue, and toward the end of the arguments became more and more vehement, until they weren’t arguments at all, close to just angry harangues. He stopped being rational on the subject—Lansard Blaine, who had always been the most rational of men…”

  “Some people stand to make and some people stand to lose millions through the trade agreements,” Ron said.

  The President nodded. “It balances out equitably among nations but not necessarily among industries and certainly not among individual corporations. German and British and Japanese automobile manufacturers… but our automobile industry will be strengthened and will survive, and it’s essential to our economy.”