Marco Polo, If You Can

by William F. Buckley

  The Director liked to leap in directly—so to speak, without warning. He turned from discussing his brother’s funeral and the distinctive roses, cardless, he had spotted at the church, to yesterday’s meeting with the President, which he described in detail.

  Rufus could not suppress a smile. The Director, God knows, was a man of this world, but neither he nor his brother, who had resigned his post as Secretary of State as recently as April—waiting until he was far gone in cancer before putting aside his work; waiting until the last minute to advise even close members of his family that he would soon die—neither of the brothers was at home with profanity. They never quite got used to it, notwithstanding the great doses of it to which they were subjected—never (heaven forbid!) by their subordinates, but by a succession of men who happened to serve as commanders-in-chief. The Director did not reproduce the President’s exact language, but his command over the conjugation of pauses was such as to permit Rufus to infer exactly which of the usual inventory of expletives the President had used as an intensifier in each situation.

  Rufus, sitting by the window, turning his head slightly to avoid the sun’s rays, looked up at the Director.

  “Allen, you’re not asking me to find the leak, are you?”

  “No, Rufus. If we can’t find who, in the little circle of people who have access to the minutes of the National Security Council, is slipping the stuff to a Soviet agent, we’d better just all fly to Moscow, give Kroo-cheff (as our commander-in-chief persists in calling him) our swords, and hang it all up.”

  “You have a suspect?”

  “No. But we’ll find him. Or her. Yesterday was spent going over a) records of NSC members; b) the clerical staff of the NSC; studying c) the distribution of the minutes; and d) who actually handles the copies. I’m here to get your help in looking ahead; I want you to know what I’ve been thinking.” Rufus seldom contributed any conversational momentum, like “Go ahead.” He would say nothing, and his guest would proceed.

  “Okay, let’s begin. Either Khrushchev intended to let on that he was seeing the minutes, or he didn’t intend to let on. It’s pretty hard to figure out a motive for the former. We’ll keep it open as a hypothetical possibility, even if we can’t come up with an explanation.

  “But we’ll go with the hypothesis that it was a slip. This is consistent with what we know about Khrushchev, the man. He’s often babbling and getting drunk, usually at the same time. For instance, the first we ever knew he was going to dump Zhukov was when he drunkenly whispered it to the wife of the Indian ambassador at a reception in Trieste, would you believe. Another thing: he loves to tease people, and loves to show off. What he said to Ike must have given him more pleasure than Disneyland. You read that the Secret Service wouldn’t let him visit Disneyland? He was sore as hell. So that much fits.

  “Next: Only Troyanovsky, serving as interpreter, was in the room. Troyanovsky’s a plenty sharp guy. But he was brought in from the foreign service specially for the U.S. visit, and there’s no reason at all to suppose that he knew that Khrushchev was making a fatal slip by teasing Ike about that ‘full-expression-to-presidential-displeasure’ phrase. For all Troyanovsky knew, Khrushchev was referring to some article he had seen or some book he had read. In other words, it’s unlikely that Troyanovsky, back in Moscow, has told Khrushchev what he did, sounding an alarm.

  “Next logical question: the next morning, did Khrushchev know what he had done? I was able to go back to Ike yesterday afternoon and ask him, straight-out, whether when he said goodbye to Khrushchev he had managed to be civil, and ask him also whether he had done anything the next morning that might make Khrushchev suspicious.

  “He did a lot of thinking, and then said that after the conversation he had told us about, Khrushchev had poured himself another drink, and started to ramble, at which point Troyanovsky briefly disappeared and came back in with Khrushchev’s personal aide, who said something in Russian probably about how long a schedule they had the next day. Khrushchev then toasted Ike, the United States, peace, the revolution, and a few other things, and went out to his lodge a little unsteady, with Troyanovsky and the colonel walking close to him at either side.”

  “The next morning?” Rufus spoke for the first time.

  “The President said he had decided, after figuring out in the middle of the night the gravity of the affair, that he had to keep cool. He fears that if anything, he overdid it. Talked to him in the chopper about their next meeting, about how he was looking forward to going to Russia. Nothing, in other words, that would make Khrushchev wonder what it was he had said the night before that might have … upset the President.”

  “So”—Dulles stood up, turning his back to Rufus, and looking out over the farm, and noticing the little fauvist signs of approaching autumn—“so the easiest thing to do, presumably, is find the leak and lock up a few people. I have something else in mind.”

  “So do I.”

  When Dulles wheeled around, Rufus was smiling.

  “Tous les beaux esprits se rencontrent,” Dulles said, returning the smile broadly.

  “Yes,” said Rufus. “But let’s hope that either there aren’t any beautiful souls in the Kremlin, or that if there are, just this one time they won’t find our company.”

  The Director and Rufus talked another two hours.

  CHAPTER 8

  It wasn’t until the Kentucky Derby party that Blackford’s exposure to Amanda Gaither was more than perfunctory. He had met her once or twice at one of the fancy affairs given by Mr. and Mrs. Roland Gaither in their neoclassic home in Chevy Chase, of which Roland Gaither was of course the architect. These functions inevitably had the requisite number of congressmen or senators or diplomats and, the last time around, even a Supreme Court Justice, who was seated opposite Blackford at dinner, whose name Blackford hadn’t caught, let alone his station, and with whom Blackford had got into an argument about the Nelson decision in which the Supreme Court had ruled that state anti-subversive laws were presumptively preempted by federal laws touching on the same subject. Blackford, to whom the question had been originally tossed, gave the reason why he thought the decision nonsensical. The man opposite him undertook a spunky exposition of the Supreme Court’s sophistry, to which Blackford amiably responded that he “sounded like a Warren Court,” to which he had answered, “Maybe that’s because I’m a member of the Warren Court.” The senator’s wife had changed the subject; Amanda, seated next to the Justice, threw back her head in laughter, and Blackford’s mind photographed the pose, and he found himself thinking from time to time about the dark voluptuous beauty, begot by Roland Gaither with his slight, shy, Italian-born wife; and he went home that night thinking something pleasant, he forgot exactly what, about the melting pot.

  But although Roland Gaither, just a few days after signing on Blackford, had decided that here was the perfect bachelor to end the protracted spinsterhood of Amanda (she was thirty-one), he very soon discovered that Blackford was, so to speak, spoken for; by a girl—he got this information from Benni, who had it from his son Michael—called Sally Partridge, whom Blackford had known more or less forever, i.e., since they were at Yale together. She, Michael had explained to his father, was actually a little younger than Blackford, but since he had matriculated late, having been delayed three years by the war, Blackford was an undergraduate while she was in the graduate school. Were they engaged? Gaither asked Benni.

  “A kinda engaged … Roland.” It took ten years for Roland Gaither to suggest to Benni Bolgiano that he call his employer by his first name, and it had taken another two years before Benni found it possible to do so. No such formality, of course, extended to his dealings with Amanda. She and Benni had met within days after his arrival in Washington in 1944, when he was reunited with Maria and “Michael,” as even his father had now come to refer to him. Michael and Amanda were the same age and met at an office party to which all the employees and their families had been invited. Maria had begun, in 1941, working as a
cleaning woman for Ambrose & Gaither. But the shortage of skilled help induced by the war brought quick advancement to those of natural talent and Maria, having mastered English with little difficulty, became, progressively, telephone operator, file clerk, chief file clerk, junior draftsman, and finally office manager. She had retired early in the 1950s after her heart attack, at the insistence of Benni, who had been given a job on his arrival in Washington as a handyman of sorts but who, like his wife, quickly proved his abilities and had now been bookkeeper for ten years.

  Amanda and Michael, during their early teens, had been inseparable. What might have been Roland Gaither’s instinctive resistance to a close social relationship between his only daughter and the only son of an immigrant Italian, by trade a professional union organizer or something of the sort, who had been in a fascist concentration camp, was diluted by his own history: as a young American studying architecture in Rome, he had fallen in love, courted, and brought to Washington as his wife a delicate Italian girl of considerable beauty.

  Anita Gaither loved to talk in Italian to Michael, back when Michael was more comfortable in his native language. She encouraged his visits to the house, where he would play games with Amanda. Often they would go to the movies, mostly to matinees. There was great sadness when she went off to boarding school, but for a season or two she wrote to him, and always he replied. Valentine’s Day had become something of a contest, and Michael, determined to outdo Amanda, would send, year after year, fancier and fancier Valentine presents, documenting the theory of incremental escalation because she would reply with like determination, and he finally gave up when, in 1948 during her senior year at the Ethel Walker School, she sent Michael by registered mail a human bone. Amanda’s Italian uncle was a priest at the Church of St. Valentine in Terni, and he was never able to resist his sister’s entreaties. Anita Gaither knew that all the bones of St. Valentine were collected in a single reliquary there, and that a single, small missing bone could not offend anyone as large-hearted as St. Valentine reputedly was, and so when Amanda said that she wanted one of St. Valentine’s bones more than anything else in the whole world, more even than she wanted the election of Henry Wallace as President (this political infatuation was not advertised by Roland Gaither among his Washington friends), her mother relented, sending such a letter to her brother as he could not resist. So that Michael, now a freshman at Georgetown, sent a telegram to AMANDA GAITHER ETHEL WALKER SCHOOL SIMSBURY CONNECTICUT. I SURRENDER. A GOOGOL OF KISSES. MICHAEL. Amanda had had to look up “googol,” and when she discovered that it was a digit followed by one thousand zeroes, she was mildly irritated at a victory in the Great St. Valentine’s Contest that was less than total, since probably not even St. Valentine himself had thought of sending anyone that many kisses on his birthday.

  But, as with Sally and Blackford, distractions ruled the day. It was a coincidence that both Amanda and Michael went into the Agency. But her job was in Washington, while his took him to various parts of the world. On his returns to Washington, inevitably Amanda would have taken up with another friend. Besides, they had never been engaged; the relationship was primarily fraternal, though not entirely, since their attraction to each other was comprehensive. Sally, on the other hand, while not pressing the point, would not contradict occasional references to Blackford as her fiancé. For several years she had given as her reason for not marrying him his affiliation with the Agency, of which she disapproved in terms exasperatingly chic, so much so that the subject of the Agency seldom came up between them. After he left the Agency to join Ambrose & Gaither, her friends more or less supposed that the wedding would now be scheduled, but the whole of 1958 and now much of 1959 had gone by, and occasionally she was seen out with other men, even as he was seen with other women; though mostly they were together, arresting in their appearance: she as lithe as when Blackford had first met her at college, her hair as always glistening, her gray eyes alight with intelligence; he only just beginning to show a line or two crowfooting from his blue eyes. When they danced, or merely sat together at a table, many people would inevitably let their eyes rest on them a grateful moment or two, as if to pay obeisance to biological triumph.

  The party was Amanda’s idea because she dearly loved the track, and beginning in January would avidly speculate on the probable winner of the Kentucky Derby. She asked Michael to bring “your beautiful suite-mate” and his girl friend, and she, Amanda, would mix the mint juleps and serve them steak, corn, and watermelon “and anything else I can think of that’s terribly American, maybe peanut butter?” on her little terrace. They must arrive before five, because that was when the commentary on the Derby would begin, and she didn’t want to miss a word of it, although actually she didn’t see much point in even watching the race, because Silver Spoon was obviously going to win it, never mind that First Landing was the favorite.

  The afternoon was warm, but by no means uncomfortable, and though invited to do so, neither Blackford nor Michael bothered to take off their jackets, Michael’s a canary yellow, Blackford’s his customary khaki. Amanda was wearing slacks and a sleeveless blouse (“I need lots of freedom to mix my perfect mint juleps”). Sally arrived carrying a satchelful of books; she had spent the afternoon at the Library of Congress, was slightly distracted, and just a little bit irritable—Blackford knew the signs. She wore a blue-and-white gingham dress, and, as always, her single strand of pearls. She came in, was directed by Amanda to the bedroom, and emerged a few minutes later visibly freshened and with that perfume (she never divulged its name or the mixture to Blackford, and in her bathroom he always found it in an unlabeled bottle) that Blackford always associated with her, which even now, after eight years, quickened the circulation.

  With considerable fanfare the mint juleps were brought out, the parasol tilted so that the image on the television screen could be seen. They would be permitted to talk, said Amanda, only during commercials. After the race, they could talk all they wanted. It was 4:55, and Blackford looked at his watch.

  “Guess what,” Michael said, sipping his drink.

  “What?” Amanda was willing to play.

  “Mickey Rooney just got divorced.”

  The groans were general.

  “Guess what,” Blackford countered.

  Sally looked up at him. “Okay, what?—make it good.”

  “Elizabeth Taylor just got married.”

  There was a little chuckling, both events having taken place the previous day, followed by oohs and aahs about the mint julep, how strong it was, how bracing it was, how original the silver mugs. Amanda was visibly pleased.

  “Guess what,” Michael persisted.

  “You can guess what for exactly forty-five seconds,” Amanda said, fine-tuning the picture dial on the set.

  “Khrushchev said No.”

  “Said No to what?” Amanda suddenly looked up.

  “Just said No. I forget to what.”

  “Funny.”

  “Never said I was Bob Hope.”

  “Nobody ever suspected you were.”

  “Hey,” Blackford said. “I thought you two were childhood friends.”

  “Michael was funny when he was a child; that means, right up to last week.”

  Blackford looked up at her. Something, he thought, wasn’t quite right. Maybe she was tense about her horse, whatever his name was.

  By the time the horses had got to the gate Amanda was quite simply agitated, her eyes riveted to the screen so intently that she managed to pour a part of Sally’s fresh drink on Sally’s wrist. “Oh, I’m so terribly sorry!”

  “Forget it,” said Sally, drying herself with the paper napkin.

  “Quiet! Everybody quiet!”

  They were off. Tomy Lee won. Sword Dancer was second. First Landing was third. Royal Orbit was fourth. Silver Spoon was fifth. Amanda was stricken. She turned to Michael: “Why did they put York, that burned-out case, on Silver Spoon?” Michael said he hadn’t the least idea; perhaps she could ask her employer to find
out the surreptitious motivation of the trainer.

  Sally sensed an opportunity to make a grand slam. “That’s a good idea. If we can get the CIA to focus exclusively on the Kentucky Derby, maybe we can make a few peaceful advances on the international front. Or would that hurt Mr. Dulles’s feelings, Blacky?”

  “Me Tonto,” said Blackford. “Me no understandum forked tongue.”

  They were on their third drink, with Sally trailing by one, and the charcoal had been lit. Michael came in with what Blackford recognized as his Very Serious Tone.

  “Aw come on, Sally,” he said, his expression one of passionate concern. “Look what Khrushchev’s just finished doing in Geneva. He’s got Gromyko putting us in an intolerable situation. Unless we agree that when the Soviets make a treaty with Berlin we lose our rights in Berlin, he’ll—”

  “He’ll what?” Blacky interposed.

  “Well, you know what he says he’ll do—he’ll close the corridor, and this time around deny us the airspace.”

  “And the cow will jump over the moon.”

  “Okay, Black, so maybe he’s bluffing. But there’s got to be some reason for all the concern.”

  “Oh?” said Sally. “Are the lights burning day and night at the Agency? Ooohhh,” she shivered, as if a great cold had taken her. “My goodness, but I’m surrounded! Amanda—CIA. Michael-CIA. My Blacky—ex-CIA: because he did something naughty, and he never has told me what. Did you kill the wrong person, darling?”

  Blackford looked at her, and his failure to reply was, by his standards, massive retaliation. Instead he took his drink and walked over to the grill to chat with Amanda, who was fiddling with the steaks. He left Sally and Michael talking heatedly.