“Why not? They’re being trampled.”
“I’ll tell you why not. Because a President has no rights when he becomes a defendant in a case of impeachment, Counselor. You’d better get yourself used to that idea.”
Before Olmedo could reply, Albert Tyler came in with a rattling trolley and started to set up a buffet of canapés and drinks.
Attenborough said, “Hungry?”
Olmedo shook his head impatiently. “I’m intrigued,” he said. “Go on.”
“Glad to; I’m in the mood for it,” Attenborough said. “Read your history. A President is accused, tried, and judged according to rules that the House and Senate make up as they go along, and they can make any rule they want. They can say anything they want: it says right in the Constitution that they can’t be held accountable anywhere else for what they say in Congress. The President can’t talk back; nobody can, including his lawyers. So if you show up tonight before the Committee of Managers in loco presidentis, you’ll have to sit there and take it with a smile like any other witness.”
With a final clatter of crockery, Albert withdrew. Attenborough selected a finger sandwich from the buffet. “Sure you’re not hungry?”
Again Olmedo shook his head. He said, “Is this revelation about Ibn Awad likely to become a cause of impeachment?”
“Could be,” Attenborough said. “Anything can be. When the Nixon case was going on, Jerry Ford said that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history. That’s the best definition we have. The alpha and omega of it is, as a committee chairman, Bob Laval can do just about anything he wants to do.”
Olmedo smiled fleetingly. “Then I guess it’s lucky for everybody he’s an honest man.”
“Not necessarily,” Attenborough said.
Olmedo looked down at this wise, ugly little man whom he found so outrageous, so strange, so pathetic, so intelligent, so symbolic. “Mr. Speaker,” he said. “Am I right to suspect that you’re telling me that there is no hope?”
Attenborough, who was not really hungry, who hadn’t been truly hungry in years, put the sandwich dented by his fingertips back onto the tray with the others. “Damn little, Mr. Olmedo,” he replied.
7
Laval kept the hearing simple: closed doors, one material witness, minimum audience. No copy of the Ibn Awad tape was introduced into evidence; the committee didn’t even ask for it. As Attenborough had foreseen, Macalaster’s copy, the only one known to exist, was sacrosanct because custom protected him as a journalist from revealing his sources, even to a committee operating under the direct authority of the Constitution. Jack Philindros, the single witness called, was not asked if either the Foreign Intelligence Service or he personally possessed the original or knew who, if anyone, did possess it or where it was.
The first hours of the hearing, which lasted from seven o’clock in the evening until two the following morning, were devoted to statements by each of the seven members of the Committee of Managers. Olmedo and Norman Carlisle Blackstone were asked by Laval if they wished to make a statement on the President’s behalf.
“Not at this time, Mr. Chairman,” answered Blackstone.
“Does that mean you may have something to say later on?”
“We would reserve that privilege, Mr. Chairman.”
“Fine,” said Laval. “Swear the witness.”
To Philindros, seated alone at the witness table, Laval said, “Mr. Director, I just want the record to show that you are here voluntarily in your capacity as Director of Foreign Intelligence, that you have neither sought nor received permission from the President of the United States to appear before this committee, and that you are testifying without restriction or reservation of any kind. Am I right about all that?”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman,” said Philindros in his habitual half-whisper, half-murmur. The members of the committee exchanged knowing glances; the audience stirred. He was barely audible.
“Jack,” Laval said, “we’ve turned up the microphones as loud as they’ll go for you, but you’re going to have to holler at us. Lots of folks on this committee are getting a little hard of hearing, like me. All right?”
Philindros raised his voice to a louder, but still faint, volume. “I’ll do my best, Mr. Chairman.”
“Good. I also want to state for the record that this Committee of Managers, in fact the entire Congress, as established by the precedents of earlier presidential impeachment proceedings, is operating under the unlimited—I say unlimited—authority of the Constitution, which is the supreme authority in American law, and therefore may demand the production of any information whatsoever in the possession or custody of any officer of the United States government, and that it may also compel the testimony of any witness. Other precedents in law and procedure do not apply to this process.”
Olmedo rose to his feet. “Mr. Chairman, if that is so, may I inquire why Mr. Julian Hubbard, who was present at the alleged conversation between Director Philindros and President Lockwood, and Mr. Ross Macalaster, whose writings are the issue here, have not been called as witnesses?”
Laval looked over his glasses at Blackstone, not at Olmedo. “Mr. Blackstone, I thought you just got through saying you and your colleague here had nothing to say right now.”
“I was referring to a formal statement, Mr. Chairman,” Blackstone said. “At the moment Mr. Olmedo seems to be addressing a point of information.”
“Well, he can’t do that, Mr. Blackstone. This is not a courtroom. Counsel can’t stand up and make objections that delay this committee’s urgent search for the truth. The clock of history is ticking, Mr. Blackstone.”
Olmedo looked from one grim face to another in the frieze of judges who gazed down at him from the committee table and sat down.
“Now I guess we can go ahead and examine the witness,” said Laval. “Mr. Philindros, once again I remind you and all others who enter here: There are no secrets before the Constitution. This process defines the national security. No other definition thereof applies here. No other oath, no other duty or obligation, limits the oath you have just freely taken. It is your constitutional duty, overriding all others, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to this committee. Do you understand and accept that?”
“I do, Mr. Chairman.”
“Thank you, Mr. Director.” Laval, usually so unceremonial, took on an air of solemn formality. “Now let me say just one more thing. The committee, meeting this afternoon in executive session, voted to grant you immunity from prosecution in respect of any matter about which you may testify before it in your capacity as Director of Foreign Intelligence. Let the record show that Director Philindros neither requested such immunity nor was such immunity ever discussed with him or his counsel. The committee took this action spontaneously and unilaterally in consideration of the director’s long and sometimes extremely hazardous service to the United States. Because time is so short, the committee has graciously and unanimously agreed that the chairman will conduct the entire examination.”
Laval asked Philindros a few pro forma questions to establish that he had, in fact, flown to Lockwood’s farm in Kentucky on the night in question nearly’ four years before. “What was your purpose in going down to Live Oaks that particular night, Mr. Director?”
“To brief the President on a report that Ibn Awad had financed the construction of two ten-kiloton fission bombs and was on the point of delivering them to the terrorist organization known as the Eye of Gaza.”
“And did you brief the President to that effect?”
“I briefed him on all the facts at our disposal.”
“What did you tell him about Ibn Awad?”
“That he was an unbalanced individual whose psychosis took the form of religious mania. Ibn Awad believed that an angel had appeared to him while he was praying in the desert and told him to destroy Israel by fire.”
“And what did Ibn Awad do in resp
onse to that vision?”
“He hired nuclear experts from Iraq to construct the two devices in question, using plutonium, detonators, and other materials smuggled out of Russia.”
“To what purpose?”
“The devices were easily transportable; they fit into a large suitcase. It was his hope that suicide squads from the Eye of Gaza would detonate the nuclear devices inside Israel, or failing that, in an American city with a large Jewish population, specifically, New York or Miami.”
“Was the Eye of Gaza capable of such an act?”
“Based on all the information and expertise available to us, our judgment was that the Eye of Gaza was capable of anything. We knew that their leader, Hassan Abdallah, had visited Ibn Awad in the desert and had agreed to explode the bombs as planned.”
“You regarded your information as reliable?”
“Absolutely.”
“Why?”
“We had a reliable source in place in close proximity to Ibn Awad, and every room in his palace, as well as the tent in which he prayed when in the desert, was under continual electronic surveillance.”
“In other words, you had him bugged and you heard every word he said.”
“That is correct, sir.”
“And on the night in question you told President Lockwood everything that you’ve just told this committee?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Director. Now I am going to read aloud from a column by Mr. Ross Macalaster in today’s newspapers. The passage is quite short.” Laval cleared his throat and began reading:
PHILINDROS: I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think I understand whether you’ve just given me an instruction.
LOCKWOOD: I think you understand, Jack.
PHILINDROS: NO, Mr. President, I do not. Do you, as we have just discussed at your request, desire the FIS to take measures to assassinate Ibn Awad and make it appear to be suicide?
Laval interrupted himself: “ ‘Here,’ Mr. Macalaster writes, ‘there is a nine-second silence on the tape, during which the sounds of nature—wind, bird calls, etc.—can be heard, together with the crackle of what seem to be Secret Service radios in the distance. Lockwood does not reply. Then Philindros speaks again ’Quote:
PHILINDROS: I must have a clear, spoken order. Do you instruct me, Mr. President, to use the assets of the Foreign Intelligence Service to bring about the violent death of Ibn Awad, and to gain possession of the two nuclear devices now in his possession?
LOCKWOOD (after another five-second pause, and after taking two clearly audible breaths): Yes.
“Close quote.” Laval took a drink of water. “Now, Mr. Director,” he said, “I will ask you if the passage I have just read aloud coincides with your memory of your conversation with President Lockwood.”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman,” Philindros replied. “It does.”
“Is it a verbatim account of what was actually said?”
“Yes.”
“Word for word? No doubt in your mind about that?”
“None.”
“You were insistent, on that night, that the President give ‘a clear, spoken order’ to carry out the proposed operation against Ibn Awad. Why was that?”
“Because only the President has the authority to give such an order.”
“You have no such authority as director of the Foreign Intelligence Service?”
“The Director of Foreign Intelligence is denied such authority by statute. The President must find that an action is warranted and then authorize the action.”
“In writing?”
“Not under current procedures. It may be verbal if a witness is present. Mr. Julian Hubbard was also present.”
“So assassinating Ibn Awad was not your idea?”
“Ideas are not the business of an intelligence service.”
“No? What was it, then?”
“It was an option presented for the President’s consideration.”
Laval paused and looked through his papers; the mouselike rustle they made could be heard over his microphone. “And did you cause the President’s order to assassinate Ibn Awad and gain possession of the two nuclear devices to be carried out?”
“Yes.”
“Was Ibn Awad in fact assassinated by an agent of the Foreign Intelligence Service?”
“Using the term ‘agent’ in the sense of one person acting on behalf of another person or entity, the answer is yes. The assassin was not under discipline.”
Laval said, “You’re fading out on us, Mr. Director. Please explain that term.”
“Sorry.” Philindros raised his voice from a whisper to a murmur. “He was not in our pay or under our orders or control.”
“Then what was your role?”
“We made it possible for him to do something that he already wanted to do.”
“That’s an interesting way to put it. Can you elaborate?”
“He did not carry out the operation in the interests of the United States but in what he conceived to be the interests of his own country,” Philindros said. “His interests and ours coincided. That is the basis of covert action. As a general rule, you cannot coerce or compel human beings to carry out actions of this kind. In extreme circumstances people do only what they want to do.”
“Could he have done this thing he wanted to do—kill his own father— without us?”
“That’s impossible to say.”
“You pushed him into it?”
“That would be an overstatement. It would be more accurate to say that we did not discourage him or point out flaws in his reasoning.”
“In other words, you made sure he didn’t change his mind? You made it happen.”
“We intended to make it happen, sir. We encouraged it to happen. It happened. We thought that what happened was a case of cause and effect.”
“And did you report the result to President Lockwood in those terms?”
Every neck craned to capture the Director’s whispered answer. “In those exact words, Mr. Chairman,” Philindros said.
The room, in which there was no audience apart from Olmedo, Blackstone, and seven staff lawyers, one for each member of the committee, was perfectly silent. The soft incandescent light falling from the ceiling was adequate for the human eye, but no more; in the absence of the media’s kliegs and strobes, the faces of the politicians were softened by natural shadows, so that they looked sadder and less actorish than usual, as if in this unaccustomed isolation from the media they were alone with their thoughts for the first time in ages.
“Thank you, Mr. Director.” Laval put down the yellow tablet on which he had written his questions and Philindros’s answers. “Members of the committee,” he said. “I have no further questions.”
Olmedo and Blackstone rose to their feet and left the hearing room. As Attenborough had foretold, there was nothing for them to do there.
8
It happened to be one of those rare moments in history when there were no Shelleyans in the House of Representatives, but this was no inconvenience to Archimedes Hammett, who had his own friends inside the House. As luck would have it, his contact within the Judiciary Committee, a young woman named Lois Graf, was beautifully placed because she was the deputy minority counsel—meaning that she worked for the other side and therefore had access to secrets within secrets. She was, of course, a former student of Hammett’s, and he had advised her to take this job against her political instincts; it was offered, irony of ironies, because her father and the ranking minority member of the committee had been fraternity brothers. Hammett’s reasoning was simple: The job, he argued, provided a matchless opportunity to study the mind and methods of the enemy. Graf’s motivation, however, went beyond dedication to the Cause: soon after coming to work, she had been fondled in an elevator by Attenborough. It was a famous incident in Capitol Hill folklore. Standing behind her in the crowded lift in the Rayburn Building, the Speaker had sneaked a hand under her arm and grasped her left breast. Graf had seized
his wrist, lifted it high in the air, and cried out in a loud voice, “And whose naughty little hand is this?” Even Attenborough had joined in the ribald laughter that filled the cabin: good old Tucker, copping another feel! His victim’s good-natured reaction, however, was a front for darker feelings: if her position had not been so valuable to the Cause, she would have dragged the little lecher before the Ethics Committee for sexual harassment. But Graf knew she could not do that and stay where she was, in the very bosom of the Establishment, so she had behaved on the elevator like what she was supposed to be, a sensible conservative “girl,” instead of the politically aware, goals-oriented person she really was.
The first thing Graf did after the Judiciary Committee hearings ended was to call up Hammett with a succinct but detailed report on Philindros’s testimony.
Hammett, so difficult to surprise, was thunderstruck by what she told him. “Philindros confirmed the story? Lockwood lied to everybody? He actually lied?”
“That was the testimony.”
“Lockwood ordered this homicide? Made it happen from day one?”
“That’s what the man said. They covered it up for, quote-unquote, national security reasons.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“The committee believed it. It’s sad when you think what this means for Lockwood.”
“Lockwood is history,” Hammett said grimly.
“Maybe not. The committee’s session was secret. The testimony won’t be released.”
“Won’t be released? It will be leaked.”
“I don’t think so. Bob Laval doesn’t want to do Lockwood any more harm than necessary, and the conservatives don’t want to be accused of playing politics with a terrorist threat involving a nuclear bomb.”
“You must be joking,” Hammett said. “This changes everything. We put Lockwood where he is and he betrayed us.”
“Maybe it isn’t as simple as that. There were those bombs. And he hasn’t testified. Shouldn’t we at least hear his side of the story?”
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