Saul’s wife Emily was tall and thin, in her early thirties, blonde, and rather pretty. She also was a teacher. The couple had no children.
After initial pleasantries Oscar took an aggressive stance in his conversation with his new associate: “What did your parents have against you when they gave you the name ‘Saul’?” he queried with a mischievous smile.
Saul leaned as far back in his chair as he could and stretched his legs straight out, while he contemplated the ceiling for a moment. “Well, Oscar, they were what you would call ‘thumpers’: very devout Fundamentalists. All of the kids in the family were stuck with names from the Old Testament. Don’t feel sorry for me; grieve for my brother Abinadab. Actually, the Jewish names were the least of our burdens; it was the endless readings from the Bible which nearly killed all of us. Not just on Sundays, but every damned day. There was no way to get away from it.”
Suddenly Saul leaped to his feet as if electrified, his huge frame erect and rigid, making him seem to loom even taller than his six and a half feet. With his arms raised over his head and his eyes blazing, with his head tilted back and his beard thrust out at an angle from his chest, he looked the very image of all of those Sunday school classroom pictures of an Old Testament prophet in a state of incipient frenzy, about to let loose with a revelation from on high. He flung his right arm toward Oscar, his index finger pointing accusingly, and roared, “Behold, I shall smite the unbeliever. Yea, I shall lay waste to him; I shall destroy him utterly, and I shall make his household a desolation; I shall wipe out the memory of his seed from under heaven. I shall make his name an abomination among all the tribes of Israel, for he hath forsaken the Holy One.”
The thunder of his first words seemed to his listeners still to be rolling and crashing around the room when he lowered his voice and finished in a tone somewhat gentler, but carrying no less authority, “Thus saith the Lord.”
Foam flecked Saul’s lips. The fire in his eyes died as he slowly relaxed and brought his arms down to his sides. The room remained silent.
Oscar was the first to find his voice: “Jesus, Emily, what’s he been drinking?” Although Oscar’s question was meant as a jest, the awe in his voice was unmistakable.
Emily forced a nervous laugh. “He’s cold sober. Just be thankful. Sometimes when he’s had a couple of drinks, he’ll keep up the fire and brimstone for half an hour. It’s amazing what comes out of the man’s mouth.”
“Really?” Oscar was interested now. “Hey, Saul, give us another demonstration.”
“Oscar, please don’t get him started!” Emily begged.
“But he’s really good! I’ve never seen anything like it. Where did you learn to do that, Saul?”
Saul laughed to hide his reaction to Oscar’s flattery. “Actually, when I was a kid that was my way of coping with the forced doses of Bible reading we had to listen to from my father. I would go out into the garage when no one was around and do my Isaiah imitation. Or Jesus. Or God. I would improvise and spout out everything which had been pumped into me, but with a few new twists of my own. It became sort of a game, in which I would make up the most outlandish things to say as I pretended to be a Biblical figure calling down the lightning onto the idolators. But I think it was really a sort of therapy for me too. Anyway, I got to be fairly good at it. I’ve always been a frustrated actor, you know.”
“Would you mind performing just a little more now? I’d like to see what you can do when you set your mind to it. You’ve given me an idea.”
“Shall I give you my version of the Sermon on the Mount?” Saul asked, not really convinced that Oscar’s request was serious.
“Whatever. Just spew out some more and wave your arms a bit.”
Saul stood up again, slowly this time, and hesitated. Then, with a serene, distant look on his face, he raised his arm in a gesture of blessing and began, his voice calm and quiet, but powerful: “Verily, my children, I say unto you, he that suffereth for my sake shall be a horse’s ass, for I am not the way, the truth, or the life. He that hungereth after righteousness shall starve, for my father in heaven hath….”
As Saul spoke, the fact that he was babbling nonsense seemed almost not to matter. The richly resonant tones of his voice and the expressiveness of his face, his gestures, and his stance carried such utter conviction that Oscar and the others easily could imagine him wearing a flowing, white robe instead of a business suit, standing on an outcropping of rock in the desert before a multitude of flea-bitten Israelites instead of on the carpet in the Kellers’ recreation room. Not much more imagination was required to see a golden halo of light about six inches above his head. Saul’s voice went on and on, as melodious and soothing now as it had been harsh and commanding before. He was never at a loss for words, and all of his words sounded like something his listeners thought they could vaguely remember reading in the King James Bible in childhood, although Saul was making most of it up as he went along. There was an overwhelming intensity about the man as he spoke, together with a powerful sense of presence.
Oscar finally broke the spell by standing up. “Saul,” he said, hardly able to suppress the excitement he felt, “we have a job for you!”
“You’re going to have him stand on the sidewalk in front of the Capitol and preach a crusade against the reprobates inside,” Emily laughed.
“He’ll preach a crusade, all right, but it will be to more than the tourists outside the Capitol. I believe that we have the answer to Billy Gresham, Jerry Caldwell, Jimmy Braggart, Pat Robinson, Moral Richards, and the rest of that sleazy crew of Jew worshippers. Saul, do you know anything about the Christian Identity doctrine?”
“Oh, yeah, a little. I read a piece in the Sunday New York Times a few weeks ago about the people who follow that line. And I’d heard about them a couple of times before that. They’ve taken the basic Fundamentalist doctrine and turned it around. They teach that we are the ‘chosen’ people, and the Jews are impostors. The people of the Old Testament were really Aryans instead of Semites. And the Jews’ god — they call him ‘Yahweh’ — made his special covenant with our ancestors, not the Hebrews, or something like that. The people at the New York Times really hate their guts — call them neo-Nazis and everything else.”
“Okay, good. I read the same article you did, but I’ve done a little research since then. I read everything about them I could find in the library, which wasn’t much, and I even wrote to one of their churches and got some of their literature. The really important thing about them is that they are having pretty good success in recruiting conventional Christians. They are strongest in rural areas. A lot of farmers in the Midwest have bought their line. They’ve grown a lot in the last few years, despite the fact that they have no mass medium for their message. I’m convinced that the only thing holding them back is that all of their leaders and spokesmen are working-class people who aren’t sophisticated enough to compete with the big-time Christian hucksters like Caldwell. On a one-to-one basis, though, they seem to be doing all right, and I’m sure it’s because their doctrine has a powerful appeal to Fundamentalists.”
“The reason they can’t recruit anyone but uneducated hicks is that their doctrine is crazy,” Harry chimed in. “I’ve actually met and talked to one of them. He drove a truck for the company I was with before I went to the Pentagon. They have this completely nutty version of history, which no one who’s paid attention in his high school history class can believe.”
“Crazier than the doctrine of Transubstantiation or the Immaculate Conception?” Oscar quickly came back. “Do you think that people who believe Jesus walked on water and rose from the dead can’t accept a nutty version of history? Not all of those people are uneducated hicks, although being uneducated must help. The point is that there are somewhere around a hundred million White folks in this country who already believe things no more bizarre than the Identity doctrine. With Saul as a spokesman and network television as a medium, the Identity movement could bowl Caldwell and the rest r
ight over.”
“It won’t work,” Harry rejoined. “One thing I do know something about is network television. The only reason Caldwell and the others are able to use it so effectively is that they work hand in glove with the Jews. If one of those TV evangelists had even the faintest whiff of Identity about him, he’d never be allowed near a TV camera.”
“Hey, I’m not a simpleton,” Oscar replied, a trace of exasperation showing in his voice. “I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the fact that the TV evangelists have forty million Americans convinced that whatever the Jews want the Jews should have — that it’s the worst sort of wickedness to oppose the Jews’ slightest wish. It’s these forty million Fundamentalist morons, even more than the Jews themselves, who are responsible for America’s suicidal policy in the Middle East, for example. They are willing to bring a nuclear holocaust down on our heads in order to insure Israel’s continued territorial expansion; in fact, they even hope for a nuclear holocaust. They’ve been convinced it will be the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. They also believe that they’ll personally escape the holocaust by being gently wafted up to the pearly gates at the last moment: ‘the rapture,’ they call it.
“Now, I know that one can’t simply start preaching against the Jews on television. And I didn’t mean to imply that Saul should preach the Identity doctrine, now or ever. But there is a phenomenon out there which I believe we can use. Forty million people literally believe whatever Caldwell and the other evangelists tell them; believe it so strongly that they not only give enormous sums of money to the hucksters, but they vote in accord with their beliefs and are willing to commit mass murder in furtherance of them.
“Sure, if the hucksters start leading their flock in a direction the Jews don’t like, they’ll have their water turned off in a hurry. But there are ways around that. The problem that I didn’t see a way around was that of competing effectively with the hucksters for the attention of the sheep. 1 mean, Caldwell and the others are no dummies; they know their business, and they’re damned good at it. I’ve spent hours watching them. But now, by God, we’ve got somebody who’s better!”
Colleen had been listening quietly, but now she spoke up: “Oscar, it’s not that easy. I’ve spent all of my adult life in television broadcasting. The Jews control every aspect of it, and they pay close attention to it. They are fully aware of the power it gives them, and they are also aware of the danger it could be to them if an enemy were able to use it against them. They are always on the lookout.
Nobody, but nobody, gets a network audience before the Jews have checked him out thoroughly and are completely convinced that he’s tame. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. They have a huge secret-police network, the B’nai B’rith, which keeps computerized files of every ‘anti-Semitic’ incident in the country. If Joe Blow tells a Jewish joke at a Rotary Club meeting, and a Jewish member hears about it, the B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League soon will have a dossier on Joe Blow. If Joe ever tries to become a talk-show host, first thing a Jewish station owner will do is check him out with the ADL. And he won’t get the job. If the station owner is a Gentile, and he hires Joe, the network his station is affiliated with will check with the ADL. And the word will come back to the owner: get rid Joe — or else.
Besides, even if Joe Blow is completely clean, breaking into television will be no easy matter for him. There’s big money in TV, and a whole lot of people besides Joe would like to get their hands on it. You don’t get in on the basis of talent, although that undoubtedly helps a little. It’s who you know; it’s who’ll do you a favor. An outsider really doesn’t have a chance.”
“Colleen, I appreciate your concern. I’m sure that you know the business. We’ll need a lot of advice from you. But I’ve got a couple of tricks up my sleeve, and I’m convinced we have a good chance to get Saul on the air. I’m also convinced that Saul is so damned good that once he’s on, the Jews will have a hard time getting him off, because he’ll get a real hook into the sheep in a hurry. We’ll have to be very careful, of course, and play our cards just right. But I’m certain we have to try this. A gift like Saul hasn’t been dropped into our laps for nothing.”
Harry snorted, “Hell, Oscar, you’re beginning to sound like one of the sheep yourself. What do you mean when you say Saul is a ‘gift’? A gift from Yahweh, maybe?”
Oscar blushed, then glanced at his watch. “I know it’s getting late, folks, but I need to check a couple of things with Colleen before we give up for the evening. You may not be convinced yet, but this project is going to be a big thing for us, and I intend to get started on it now.”
XXIII
Oscar’s excitement continued to run high during the next few days. Although his initial consultation with Colleen had revealed more unforeseen obstacles than opportunities, he was nevertheless able to formulate a tentative plan of action which both Harry and Colleen grudgingly admitted just might succeed in getting Saul on the air. And his further meetings and discussions with Saul reinforced his initial impression of the latter’s unique talent.
Oscar’s scheme, in basic outline, was to attach Saul to the coattails of an established television evangelist by letting one of them see just enough of Saul’s preaching ability to be convinced Saul would be useful, but not enough for him to realize that Saul could overshadow him. After being launched into the public consciousness with the evangelist’s facilities, Saul would be cut loose from the coattails and allowed to develop his own following. Then — and only then — would he begin leading his flock along a new path.
The biggest initial problem was convincing Saul. It wasn’t so much that he doubted his own ability as that going along with Oscar’s plan would mean crossing a personal Rubicon for which he hadn’t prepared. He could hardly count on ever going back to teaching again, after being in the public spotlight and causing the sort of furor Oscar had in mind. Emily was distraught when Saul began seriously turning over Oscar’s proposal in his mind. She threatened to leave him if he went through with it. But for Saul the plan had a certain fatal fascination, because it depended in a crucial way on his peculiar talent and appealed at the same time to his long-suppressed urge to perform before an audience.
The break came when Jerry Caldwell, the number-two man among the television evangelists, agreed to give Saul an audition. Harry had instigated that offer. The company for which he moonlighted sold television-studio lighting equipment, among other things, and Caldwell was a customer. He dropped by Caldwell’s studio during a taping session of his “New Time Gospel Hour,” which boasted a weekly television audience of eight million, ostensibly to see how his company’s equipment was working. Caldwell’s customary program format required the participation of several auxiliary preachers — sometimes as many as five — in addition to himself, and there was a fairly rapid turnover among these auxiliaries.
After the session was over, Harry told Caldwell about Saul, saying that he had seen the latter preaching on a local station in another state and had been very impressed by his ability. Saul was now looking for a larger audience, Harry said, and certainly would jump at the chance to work with a real professional like Caldwell. The flattery worked, and Caldwell told Harry to send Saul to see him.
After Saul was hired as an auxiliary by Caldwell, he had to tread a thin line. He needed to put on a good enough show to keep Caldwell convinced of his value, but he dared not let his light shine at anywhere near its full brilliance. To do so would focus the attention of the television audience on himself instead of Caldwell, and then he would be canned in an instant. Nor was there ordinarily an opportunity to catch Caldwell off guard with a fait accompli, because the sermons nearly always were taped in advance. It was not at all uncommon for Caldwell to demand extensive editing or even an entire retake, if he was not satisfied when he viewed the tape.
Even with Saul carefully restraining himself and maintaining a mien of humility the going was a bit sticky sometimes. He was a good nine inches taller than
Caldwell and had a much more commanding appearance. Because of this, he and Caldwell could not appear on the screen at the same time, except by employing camera trickery of one sort or another, so that the difference in height was not apparent to the viewers.
It was clear to Saul that his employer had mixed feelings about him. On the one hand Caldwell recognized his assistant’s audience appeal — Saul already had attracted favorable remarks from several Fundamentalist commentators — and he was not one to pass up any opportunity to increase his share of the Fundamentalist television audience. But he was a careful, calculating man, and the last thing he wanted to do was help a rival — or a potential rival. Saul wondered how long the relationship would last.
He shared his worry with Oscar, and they decided that their best chance for success in launching Saul on an independent career was to act as soon as possible — which meant the next time Caldwell gave a live broadcast. Actually, these occurred four or five times a year, generally on special occasions, such as Easter or Christmas or a political event, and Saul already had participated in one, just three weeks after he began working for Caldwell. An Easter sunrise service was coming up in a little more than a month.
“Well, what shall I do to get the rubes’ attention?” Saul wanted to know. “The service will be outdoors. Perhaps I can call down a lightning bolt from heaven onto Jerry’s head and then take over his
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