The Last President: A Novel of an Alternative America

by Michael Kurland

  Vandermeer turned to St. Yves. “My daughter almost went there, you know,” he said.

  “Kathy?”

  “That’s right. Then she got the appointment as a Senate aide. Now she’s all hot about government and politics.”

  “Berkeley has a good political science department,” Kit said.

  Vandermeer looked at him as though he had just taken his pants off in public. “Bullshit,” he said. “Marcuse, Marx, and moral turpitude—that’s what they teach at Berkeley!”

  “You sound like Artie Arnold,” St. Yves said, steering the conversation away from the shoals. “What’s Kathy doing now? It must be a year since I’ve seen her.”

  The plane lowered its flaps with a sudden roar.

  “Georgetown,” Vandermeer said. “In her spare time she’s on Senator Jensen’s public-relations staff. Quite a busy little girl.” Vandermeer smiled with paternal satisfaction.

  Kit was once again amazed by St. Yves’ ability to handle people. If he weren’t so fanatically dedicated to the concept of being completely dedicated, St. Yves would be one of the most awesome men Kit had ever known. As it was, he was probably the most dangerous.

  The communications sergeant ripped a sheet off the teletype and handed it to Vandermeer.

  “Getting worse,” Vandermeer said, quickly reading the communique. The satisfaction showed in his voice.

  “Any casualties yet?” St. Yves asked.

  “It doesn’t say.”

  “There must be a dozen news services there,” Kit said.

  “Right,” Vandermeer agreed. “Want to have complete coverage. Complete. Every thrown rock or smashed window is a thousand votes.”

  “Every bloody head is ten thousand,” St. Yves added.

  “Right,” Vandermeer said.

  An Air Force helicopter was waiting for them when they landed. Vandermeer sat up next to the pilot and watched critically as the chopper lifted off and headed west. “You do that well,” he told the pilot.

  “Thank you, sir,” the pilot said.

  “You know, I used to drive one of these things.”

  “Is that right, sir?”

  “I didn’t know that, Billy,” St. Yves said, his voice a controlled scream under the roar of the chopper blades.

  “That’s right,” Vandermeer called into the back seat. “I was a chopper pilot in Korea. Warrant officer. Closest thing to hell I’ve ever seen.”

  In a few minutes they came to a low range of hills and followed a freeway through it. On the other side San Francisco Bay came into view in the distance and, across the water, the skyline of San Francisco peeked dimly through the smog.

  “That’s the Golden Gate Bridge,” the pilot said, pointing into the haze. “That’s Alcatraz. Off to the right here”—he pointed down—“is Berkeley.”

  The air was haze-free on this side of the bay, and the streets below showed clearly, except for an occasional obscuring puff of smoke billowing along one street to their right. At first Kit thought it was an outbreak of arson, and then he realized that it must be tear-gas bombs going off. The drone of the copter obscured any possible sound that might be coming from below, but clearly the riot was still in progress.

  “There’s the field,” the pilot said, nodding toward a cleared area fronted by tennis courts between the campus and the Berkeley Hills. He dropped cleanly down, raising a cloud of dust that turned the sky brown around them for a few seconds until the sharp west wind carried it away.

  St. Yves slung his Bolex over his arm and trotted off to the tennis courts, where the Army had set up tents, to collect his extra film. Vandermeer and Kit went over to a police command car, where Vandermeer identified himself to an impressed inspector of police in a powder-blue uniform. “What’s happening?” he demanded.

  “We’ve managed to confine the rioting to the campus area and the streets around Telegraph Avenue up to Ashby,” the inspector said. “Of course, inside that area the whole thing is still out of control.”

  “Oh,” Vandermeer said. “Still pretty bad on campus, is it?”

  “Yes sir. Right now we’re just trying to keep them bottled up and prevent them from trashing the rest of Berkeley. But I sure wouldn’t want to own a store on Telegraph Avenue now.”

  “Is there any way to get close to the action without interfering with the police?” Kit asked. If he’d come all this way to see a riot, then he damn well wanted to see the thing.

  The police inspector looked at him curiously, and Kit realized he had no idea who he was. “Christopher Young,” he identified himself. “Intelligence liaison for the White House.”

  “Right,” the inspector said, clearly having no idea what an intelligence liaison was. “I don’t recommend your trying to get close. You’re bound to get a dose of tear gas at least, and somebody’s liable to take a shot at you, if they see you wandering around the cleared zone.”

  “The students have guns?”

  “No, but the officers do.”

  St. Yves came over, the Bolex under his arm. “Army copter’s going to drop me on campus, behind the lines,” he said. “Get some pictures from the inside. See you later.” He ran back to the little Army helicopter and climbed in. A few seconds later he was headed toward the campus.

  Vandermeer turned back to the police inspector. “I want to get a closer look at what’s happening,” he said. “The President is going to want a report.”

  “Okay,” the inspector said. “Let’s see what I can do.” He studied a map on the aluminum table in front of him. Then he looked over at a group of policemen standing a few yards away and yelled, “Dietz!”

  One of the group took a few last gulps from a paper cup, then crumpled it and tossed it into a waste can. “Yeah?”

  “This is Mr. Vandermeer and Mr. Young.” He turned to Vandermeer. “Sergeant Dietz will take you around to University Avenue. There should be enough action there to show you what’s going on, and the wind is blowing in the right direction to keep you comparatively clear of the tear gas.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sergeant Dietz said. “If you gentlemen will come with me.” They set off in a police car and circled the back of the Berkeley campus.

  Dietz parked the car on University Avenue, a couple of blocks from the campus. From somewhere ahead of them, they could hear the shrill bleating of a bullhorn as one of the student leaders exhorted his young masses to action.

  Vandermeer and Kit walked together up the street toward the line of police at the campus end. “Not much to see,” Vandermeer said sourly.

  “I expect the inspector sent us around to the safe end of things,” Kit said.

  A line of students appeared at the edge of campus and quickly became a crowd. More of the hard-helmeted policemen ran forward to join the line separating the students from the street.

  One of the bullhorn-equipped student leaders came to the front of the group. “All right, let’s hear it!” he screamed through his horn. The shrill words echoed off the buildings until they seemed to have been torn from some inhuman throat.

  “Baby butchers!” the crowd yelled. “Baby butchers! Baby butchers! BABY BUTCHERS! BABY BUTCHERS!”

  “It looks like we’ll get some action over here after all,” Vandermeer told Kit.

  “I’d say so,” Kit agreed. “You want to stay?”

  “Of course. Where the hell are those cameramen? They should be getting this. This is just what we need.”

  “Need?” Kit asked.

  “Sure,” Vandermeer said. “You can mold public opinion without tools. This rioting gives us a handle.”

  “BABY BOMBERS! BABY BOMBERS! BABY BOMBERS!” chanted the students.

  “What good does this do?” Kit asked, gesturing toward the screaming youths. “How do they fit into your plan?”

  “Middle America,” Vandermeer said, “that great silent majority, is not altogether sure that we did the right thing in bombing Hanoi.”

  “And this will convince them?” Kit asked.

  “Of cour
se. Middle America does not understand or like the young sex-crazed, drug-freak, rock-and-rollies that they brought into the world. If you want them to be for something, just tell them that the college students are against it. Particularly in Berkeley or New York.”

  Some people from the back of the student mass were throwing rocks and bottles at the police, and now the police responded by lobbing tear-gas cannisters into the crowd. The students scattered to avoid the tear gas. Some of them picked up the hot cannisters and tossed them back down the street.

  The police tried to keep the crowd confined, but the students broke free and raced down University Avenue, a disorganized mob, with police after them and among them dragging down who they could. Kit saw one slim blond boy clubbed down by two policemen, who then stood over him and kept hitting him in the chest and body with their batons. A girl stepped in to try to stop it and got clubbed across the side of the head by one of the cops. She collapsed on top of the boy and they were both dragged to the side of the street.

  A squad of police in powder-blue uniforms came trotting around a corner carrying shotguns and headed down the street.

  Four Secret Service men, who had followed them to the campus, came up to surround Vandermeer and Kit. “Come this way, please,” the agent in charge said, “It’s time for you to leave.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The President’s speech to the nation was scheduled for six p.m. Sunday. At five minutes before the hour Aaron B. Adams went into his study and turned on the small color television built into his bookcase. Settling into his brown-leather reclining chair, he flipped channels around to each of the three network stations. Each shared the same video pickup: a view of the leather chair behind the great oak desk in the Oval Office. Framing the scene on the left was the American flag, on the right the presidential flag, both carefully furled behind the desk. Then the President appeared on the screen left, and Adams settled back to watch the show.

  ANNOUNCER

  Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

  PRESIDENT

  (Smiling, giving characteristic salute, and easing himself into his seat)

  Good evening, my fellow Americans. I have much to talk to you about tonight. Some of my news is good and—I would not try to fool you—some is bad.

  But before I delve into matters of national and international interest, I have a brief announcement to make. One that gives me a great deal of personal pleasure.

  As you know, I have submitted the name of District Judge Cecil Peadman to fill the vacancy now existing in the Supreme Court. Well, word has just come to me that the Senate approved the appointment. As many of you know, Judge Peadman presided over the case of the United States versus Barry Coles and the Washington Post. He did a fine job on that prolonged and difficult case, and he will make a fine Supreme Court justice.

  Now to more substantive matters.

  I have not spoken to you, the people, since I, in my capacity of Commander-in-Chief, ordered our Air Force to bomb the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

  Now let me make one thing perfectly clear: I took this drastic step only after repeated and continuous violations of the peace accords by the leaders of North Vietnam, and after many diplomatic attempts to get them to honor those accords. But those enemies of the United States, both abroad and at home, must know as clearly, as our friends must know, that we will honor our commitments and that we will protect our friends.

  And let me say that the Hanoi government can stop these raids anytime they want to. They know our representative in Paris will talk to them at any time of the day or night. But until they make some effort to show good faith, we cannot abandon our allies in the South. I would not be able to sleep at nights if I knew that my name would be coupled to such an action.

  The President paused and stared into the camera, which slowly closed in on him.

  Which brings me to the final thing that I would like to talk to you about, and certainly the most serious.

  Although most of you out there, most citizens of this great country, support your government and your President in this important decision, there are those dissenters who do not. Individuals, many of them, unfortunately, young, and groups who have chosen to take the law into their own hands. Who have decided that the decisionmaking power in this country should rest not in the Executive Branch, but in the mob; not in the halls of Congress, but in the streets of Berkeley; not in the chamber of the Supreme Court, but in the barrel of a gun.

  And we cannot allow this.

  These groups, aided in many cases by money and training from abroad, are undermining the freedoms—the traditional freedoms—of this country. And they must be stopped.

  The scene cut away from the President and to a montage of shots of rioting on the Berkeley campus, of rioting and looting in downtown Chicago, of thousands of students milling around the White House in a peace demonstration. Then Adams was shown empty streets in the aftermath of the riots: burned-out and gutted buildings, looted stores, close-up shots of the wounded and the dead. Over all of this played an artistically created sound track of police sirens, explosions, gunshots, screams, moans, and an undercurrent of intense police radio chatter which blended into emergency-room professionalism. The film ran for two minutes and was designed to shock. Then it cut back to the President.

  PRESIDENT

  What you have just seen, my friends, is newsreel footage of what has been going on in America over the past few weeks. The very fabric of our society is threatened by these acts of vandalism, of mob violence, of moral outrage. This has gone beyond dissent, my fellow Americans. This mob action, directed by forces from outside these United States, tears at the very vitals of everything we hold sacred.

  What we see here has a name. A name that the framers of our Constitution were well aware of when they drew up that great document. As great a threat to this country as any external enemy is the threat of internal sedition.

  When I became the Chief Executive of this great land I swore a mighty oath—an oath to protect this country, and its constitution, from any enemies, both external and domestic. And I mean to do that. I will not be the first President to turn away from this great trust.

  Therefore, in my capacity as President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, I have ordered the following steps be taken:

  First: All those who have been actively disrupting the legal and legitimate activities of their fellow citizens, or who conduct such disruption in the future, are to be arrested and confined, subject to trial for sedition or—if their actions warrant—treason, under the authority of the Emergency Powers Act.

  Second: Six of the internal confinement camps set up around the country under executive order by previous administrations are to be activated, so that such persons as are confined will not put a sudden burden upon the jails or prisons of any locality, and so that the individual’s civil rights can be maintained until his trial.

  Third: Two hundred special federal marshals are going to be sworn in immediately to expedite the arrest and confinement of these individuals.

  Fourth: The foreign governments who have aided and abetted internal sedition in the United States either directly or indirectly are hereby put on notice that such activity will no longer be tolerated.

  Now some of you, who have not been near these centers of violence and disturbance during the past few weeks, may feel that these measures are excessive, that these dissenters can be handled by ordinary police measures. But it is my judgment that the time has come to take sterner measures to protect the decent, law-abiding majority of this country from fear, from crime, and from unreasoned acts of violence.

  I put all of those young people who think the way to dissent is to destroy, on notice; from now on, acts of internal sedition will not be tolerated.

  This country must be kept safe for its citizens to walk the public streets in safety and honor.

  I thank you.

  Adams got up and shook his head sad
ly. As the scene cut away from the President to the network anchorman, Adams turned off his set and poured himself a double shot of scotch. Raising the glass to the empty air, he muttered: “My friends, I give you Thomas Jefferson! He would have known what to do.” Then he sat down and slowly drank the scotch.

  The young man from the presidential Office of Emergency Preparedness stood quietly at the lectern and looked out at the assembled officers of Fort Ord. His face showed a studied vacancy behind the dark glasses as Brigadier General Ames, the post commandant, introduced him and then sat down. Cocky bastard, Ames thought, taking an instant dislike to the young man from his razor-cut hair to his alligator shoes. Probably thinks he’s got the world by the tail. And he probably did too, Ames was honest enough to admit. And that was certainly a good part of the instinctive dislike.

  “Good afternoon,” the young man said, taking off his dark wire-rims and placing them carefully on the lectern in front of him. “What I have to say to you this afternoon is top secret, and is to be treated as such.” He paused to clear his throat. “As General Ames told you, I speak directly for your Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States.”

  Bullshit, Ames thought, that wasn’t what I told them. But never mind. It was close enough to make no difference, except semantically.

  The young man looked around the room. “What I tell you now must not leave this room until the orders are implemented. I hold each and every one of you separately and individually responsible for seeing that complete secrecy is maintained.”

  He paused dramatically.

  “As of oh-one-hundred hours tomorrow morning, Operation Garden Plot will be brought into effect.…”

  Garden Plot? Ames racked his memory.

  “As you know,” the young man continued, “since the Presidents speech of June twenty-second, implementing the detention of terrorists and rioters, only about four hundred persons have been arrested and detained nationwide. This despite the continued, even the increased incidence, of destructive rioting and acts of terrorism throughout the country.