The Hellfire Club

by Jake Tapper

  “I see you’ve met the conscience of the Republican Party,” Kefauver said playfully, tilting his head in Smith’s direction. It had been four years since Joe McCarthy saw Margaret Smith on the Senate subway and told her she looked very serious. “Are you going to make a speech?” he asked. “Yes,” she responded, “and you will not like it.” Smith’s “Declaration of Conscience,” delivered on the Senate floor, derided McCarthy’s “Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.” She and Kefauver were thus allies against McCarthy, whose demagogic mud-slinging campaign against anyone to the left of Generalissimo Francisco Franco had been roiling the republic for too long. McCarthy’s opponents were beginning to gain ground, but Tail Gunner Joe, as he’d been nicknamed by someone, perhaps McCarthy himself, was winning the war of attrition; his adversaries were exhausted. He remained popular with a strong segment of the public, whose support of him seemed impervious to obvious moments of indecency and prevarication. Those who feared McCarthy might never actually go away and that the fever of McCarthyism might never break were growing despondent.

  Kefauver handed Charlie a folded-over New York Times and tapped a finger on a page 9 story: “Rival for Senate Assails Kefauver: Sutton, House Member, Runs in the Tennessee Primary, as ‘Ultra-Conservative.’”

  Charlie had read the story about Congressman Pat Sutton, one of his new poker buddies. Sutton was quoted saying he liked Kefauver personally, that they had visited each other’s homes, but he didn’t like the senior senator’s record, that he “has consistently voted as a left winger against the loyalty oath in the Government, and he has voted against wire-tapping to catch the Reds.”

  “Do you know this jackanapes, Charlie?” Kefauver asked. “It’s not enough that the Republicans in Knoxville have all but issued a hit on me this year, not enough that the newspapers are all controlled by Boss Crump’s corrupt machine—now this little blunderbuss with whom I’ve broken bread is accusing me of being a Commie symp.”

  Charlie shifted in his seat. Sutton was a former navy lieutenant whose many medals included the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star with oak leaf clusters. A demolitions expert, he was a bona fide war hero and a fair poker player whose tell was boasting about his hand; that meant his cards were garbage. Charlie liked him.

  “I don’t know him well, sir,” Charlie said. “He’s in my poker group, along with all the other veterans.” He held his tongue and stole a look at Smith, whose lips were pursed and whose eyes were distant; she seemed to be used to other senators talking as if she weren’t there.

  “They’ll come at me as a Negro lover, for one, same way Russell did in Florida back in ’52,” Kefauver said. “Sutton is already pursuing the Dixiecrats. And goddamn Earl Warren’s Supreme Court is going to vote to desegregate schools any minute, which the good people of Tennessee are decidedly not prepared for. And as if that weren’t enough, a guy with a chestful of medals is coming into the Democratic primary and is damn sure going to ask why I didn’t fight in the war. Though a businessman I know told me that a guy with that many medals is either reckless or foolish.”

  “Do you want me to say something to him about tempering his rhetoric, sir?” Charlie asked. “And if I may, I don’t know that I would repeat that ‘reckless or foolish’ line on the stump.”

  “No, no, of course not,” Kefauver said. He looked at his young protégé. “Say, Charlie, what are you doing tomorrow night? I have an extra ticket to the Alfalfa Club dinner.” Charlie hesitated—Margaret was due home tomorrow, and he was longing to see her. Kefauver pressed him: “It will be a roomful of people you need to know better, Charlie.”

  Charlie knew this would be an opportunity to lobby against Goodstone, and he also had to admit that he’d long been curious about the club. “I’d be glad to join you, sir. Thank you.”

  “Get some rest,” the senator said. “It can be a wild night. Wives—and girlfriends—are not invited.”

  As Kefauver walked away, Charlie glanced sympathetically at the fourteen-year congressional veteran in the pearls and cashmere sweater across the table who had sat silently, with a bemused smile, throughout the exchange.

  “Don’t you worry about it any, Congressman,” Smith said, dipping her spoon into a bowl of New England clam chowder. “I’m used to it.”

  The next night, as Charlie entered the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel to attend the dinner, he felt as dashing as the main character in the spy novel he’d read on summer vacation, an agent who played high-stakes baccarat in northern France, posing as a rich Jamaican playboy. Ushered into the Grand Ballroom, where multiple bartenders were stationed like sentries, Charlie immediately ran into Kefauver as he was delivering what appeared to be a successful punch line to Robert Hendrickson, the Republican from New Jersey with whom Kefauver was working on the comic-book hearings.

  Charlie waited politely for their laughter to fade. Kefauver turned to him with a jovial grin. “Charlie, great to see you,” he said, switching his scotch rocks into his left hand and extending his right.

  “Thank you so much for having me,” Charlie said. “I must confess, I know nothing about the Alfalfas except why you call yourselves that.”

  “Not much to tell,” Kefauver assured him. “Just another one of these ridiculous clubs. DC is full of them, and some are more nefarious than others. This dinner is pretty much the club’s raison d’être. It all started as a way to honor the birthday of Robert E. Lee.”

  “We Yankees always find it curious how much love is continually bestowed upon the losers of that conflict,” said Hendrickson, whom Kefauver then proceeded to jokingly elbow.

  “Washington seems to have a lot of these clubs,” Charlie added. “Alfalfa, Gridiron…”

  “Oh, these aren’t the ones that matter,” Kefauver said. “These are just excuses for frivolity. The clubs to keep an eye on are the ones whose memberships are secret. The ones we only hear whispers about. The John Birch Society. The Southern Heritage Alliance. The Sons of Gettysburg. Something called Hellfire.”

  Charlie looked at Kefauver curiously. “There was a Hellfire Club in England in the 1700s.”

  “Is that right?” the senator responded flatly, seemingly uninterested.

  “Oh, Estes, those are just Beltway rumors,” Hendrickson said. “Just like the Loch Ness Monster or the Jersey Devil. We hear about them, but no one has ever really seen them.”

  An athletic older man with a strong jaw and a full head of gray hair walked by.

  “Is that—” Charlie asked.

  “Yes, that’s Gene Tunney,” Kefauver said. “Gene!” the senator called to the former heavyweight champion, who turned his head, smiled, and held up his fists as if posing for a promotional boxing photo.

  “Pavlovian,” observed Charlie.

  “Gene’s one of our inductees this evening,” Hendrickson said. He pointed out others in the crowd as he named them. “In addition to Gene, we’re honoring Arthur Krock from the Times, the House majority leader, plus General Bradley, and…who is it? Oh, yes, General Doolittle.”

  “Not necessarily in that order, I hope,” Charlie joked. He was a great admirer of Bradley, who’d commanded U.S. forces in Europe during World War II. And of course the entire nation was proud of Medal of Honor recipient Jimmy Doolittle, who had personally led a dangerous mission into Japan.

  Kefauver suddenly looked serious. He glanced at Hendrickson, who took the hint and announced that he needed to go find a refill. “Charlie,” he said, “I got an earful from Chairman Carlin at the members’ meeting earlier tonight. He’s heard that you’re organizing your fellow veterans against this Goodstone appropriation, and he is not happy.”

  “Not really organizing, per se,” Charlie said. “Just some conversations over poker. This is getting blown out of proportion.”

  “Welcome to Washington,” Kefauver said. “Listen: You need to fix this. You’re about to get gelded, son.”

  Charlie was briefly spared by a baritone shout. “Estes!”
Barreling toward them was an older man smoking a cigar and holding a martini glass. He looked like an editorial cartoon of a robber baron: deeply tanned bald pate, V-shaped scowl, enormous belly.

  “Good to see you, Connie!” Kefauver said. “Charlie, you know Conrad Hilton.”

  “I know of him, of course,” said Charlie. “Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  “And this is Davis LaMontagne,” Hilton said, introducing the younger man to his right. “He’s my guest—a rising star at Janus Electronics. Do you know of them? Very exciting young company specializing in electronics and technology for the Cold War era.”

  “Oh, I just handle legal and lobbying in a little office here,” LaMontagne said, shrugging off the compliment with the assurance of someone accustomed to being reminded of his own accomplishments. “How do you do?” LaMontagne was movie-star handsome, maybe forty, with slicked-back dark hair; he held a scotch on the rocks and was wearing a smoky cologne. Charlie thought he recognized the scent: Cuir de Russie, the same pricey cologne worn by one of his more annoying trust-fund students at Columbia, a boy who’d asked a Russian history professor if the scent truly captured the rich aromas of Russian leather.

  LaMontagne extended a hand toward Charlie without waiting for an introduction.

  “Congressman Charlie Marder from New York,” he said. “You’re my congressman, in fact. Manhattan is my official residence.”

  “Mine too,” said Hilton. Hilton had a type of handshake favored by a particular sort of domineering male: he clasped Charlie’s hand in a viselike grip and tried to jerk him forward. There had been a guy in basic training who’d pulled this same “America’s number-one he-man” nonsense, so Charlie knew to immediately freeze his arm and hold his ground. Hilton gave him a brief, appraising glance in return.

  “Nice to meet you,” Charlie said, feeling a bit like a teenager being introduced to his father’s friends, Hilton so full of wealthy bluster and LaMontagne so polished and smooth.

  “Gentlemen, I’m going to need your help with something,” Hilton said. “Especially yours, Senator.”

  “Of course,” said Kefauver. “What is it?”

  There was a pause, during which Charlie realized that, again like a teenager, his company was not required. He tilted an imaginary glass toward his mouth, to the evident relief of his companions, and started wandering through the crowd, searching for a destination.

  Fat men in tuxedos stood in a circle. Black waiters hustled out of the kitchen holding trays of Swedish meatballs, shrimp boats, anchovies soaked in wine. Charlie caught snatches of conversations:

  So why is it exactly that McCarthy isn’t married?

  Thank God we have Nasser. He just locked up three hundred of those fanatics.

  Wife is fine. Mistress better.

  A Frenchman. Cousteau, I think. Exploring a sunken ship off Marseille. Great television.

  Still talking about the goddamn war. It was almost a decade ago.

  Well, she’s a nuclear sub, so she can stay out there forever.

  Is he smart? Smart enough to be dangerous.

  Yeah, yeah, we’re the problem. Us and Wall Street. Everyone’s to blame but the voters.

  Standing with Lyndon Johnson against a wall, Bob Kennedy swiped his hair off his forehead and looked around the room, seemingly searching for an escape. Chairman Carlin was horsing around with Gene Tunney, pretending to box with him while a photographer captured the moment for posterity.

  “Choose your poison,” said a bartender after Charlie finally settled on a bar, the one farthest from the masses.

  “Have any hemlock?” Charlie asked.

  The bartender smiled and shook his head.

  “Two vodkas, one glass, then,” Charlie said.

  “Rough day?” Congressman Chris MacLachlan appeared at his side.

  “Just thirsty.” Charlie held up his glass. “Good to see you, Mac, even if you did clean my clock at poker.”

  MacLachlan smiled and raised his glass. “May ye be in heaven half an hour afore the devil knows you’re dead.” He took a healthy swallow from a gin and tonic.

  “Did you see Carlin?” Charlie asked.

  “The old ham can’t resist a chance to pose for the cameras.”

  “Well, that old ham knows about my suggestion that the veterans stick together and kill the Goodstone earmark,” Charlie said. “Kefauver told me he’s furious.”

  MacLachlan sipped his drink, then exhaled. “Sweet baby Moses, we didn’t even decide to carry out that play.”

  “People in this town can’t keep their mouths shut.”

  “Keep fighting the good fight,” MacLachlan said. “You’re following the trail Van Waganan blazed.”

  “If I’m doing that, it’s not on purpose,” Charlie said. “I don’t know much about him. Just that he was an aide on the Truman Committee and helped him take on Wright Aeronautical.”

  “Yeah, the bastards. Shit engines, faked inspections, dead American pilots.” He paused and motioned to the bartender for a refill. “That’s what started him on his mission.”

  “Yeah, I remember headlines about Van Waganan challenging various corporations. Malfeasance and such.”

  “When he got going, he was like a dog with a goddamn bone,” MacLachlan said.

  The din of the all-male crowd—deep, baritone, crescendos of laughter and shouts—highlighted the silence between Charlie and MacLachlan.

  “He made a lot of enemies,” MacLachlan noted.

  MacLachlan turned to get a better view of the crowd and those around him, then leaned closer to Charlie. “This postwar economic boom, the Long Boom, they’re calling it…it’s wonderful for our standing in the world and for our constituents’ standard of living, but there’s an accompanying madness. A recklessness. So much money being made—like nothing this country has ever seen before. And here in Washington, there are a lot of people working to stop anyone even asking questions about what is sometimes a clear…disregard…for our own people. Van Waganan may have been a victim—”

  MacLachlan stopped himself as Chairman Carlin suddenly stepped into his line of sight, perhaps thirty feet away. “Oh, boy,” Charlie said as the chairman started walking toward him with the determination of a crocodile moving in on an oblivious gazelle.

  “Don’t forget your oath,” MacLachlan said under his breath. “Protecting America from enemies foreign and domestic. Goodstone counts.” He patted Charlie’s shoulder and vanished into the crowd.

  Charlie steeled himself, remembering that he had been through tougher stuff than the ire of a powerful congressman. He leaned into the encounter, throwing his handshake at the chairman like a Robin Roberts fastball and deploying every available ounce of charisma he had as aggressively as he could.

  “Chairman Carlin, I owe you an apology,” Charlie said, looking into Carlin’s rheumy eyes, his irises the color of swamp algae. “I should never have spoken up at the committee markup, nor should I have engaged in any small talk about Goodstone with my fellow veterans. Of the former, I can only tell you that I am young and inexperienced—in other words, dumb. Of the latter, well, sir, you served in the Great War, and I’m certain you know what it’s like when veterans get around drink.”

  Charlie had read that morning that Carlin had served as a U.S. Army officer from 1917 to 1919, though he had never left the continental United States, having worked in the Department of War procurement office. Still, service was service.

  “Why, Charlie,” said Carlin, clearly taken aback after arriving loaded for bear. “That’s mighty white of you.”

  “With your permission, sir, I would beg a moment of your time to try to explain myself.”

  Carlin smiled. Charlie’s military deference seemed familiar to him, perhaps a nostalgic echo from his service at the Department of War. “Permission granted.”

  So Charlie told a short version of the recapture of the town of Le Meaune: the French family, the stash of poison gas hidden in the barn, the errant mortar, the shoddy Goodstone
gas masks, the deaths of Private First Class Rodriguez and the French father and his two small children.

  Carlin listened impassively.

  “So I got emotional, I suppose,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry about how I handled this and the last thing I want to do is be disrespectful. I have great admiration for you.”

  Carlin paused, then said, “Well, thank you, Charlie. We will figure this out.” He put a paternal arm around Charlie’s shoulders; he reeked of Aqua Velva and anchovies. “A lot of things can happen in this town when people work together. I’m glad we had this talk.”

  Relieved to see Carlin walk away but also slightly disgusted by his own obsequiousness, even though it was in the service of a larger goal, Charlie took a deep breath.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen, please take your seats!” shouted Senator Harry Byrd, Democrat of Virginia, into the microphone.

  Across the room, Kefauver was waving him toward their long table, and soon Charlie found himself seated between the senator and LaMontagne and across from Conrad Hilton.

  “What are we to expect tonight?” LaMontagne asked Charlie. “I’m a virgin here.”

  “I am too,” Charlie said. “I believe it’s a mock political convention. They nominate a faux presidential candidate, and he gives a silly speech.”

  From the right side of the stage, the Marine Corps band began playing “Hail to the Chief,” and the five hundred or so attendees—Alfalfa Club members and guests—stood and applauded as President Eisenhower appeared onstage, beaming and waving. Some of the generals and admirals, wearing their dress uniforms, saluted as he approached the microphone.

  “At ease, dogfaces,” he said, prompting laughter from the crowd, along with the clinking of glass and ice cubes. Eisenhower took his seat at one of the long tables, and Byrd resumed speaking, working through a number of self-congratulatory references to the club and the attendees. Charlie was lost in thoughts of his conversations with MacLachlan and Carlin. Was the Goodstone money going to be killed? He wasn’t sure what Carlin had meant when he said they would figure it all out.