Come Nineveh, Come Tyre: The Presidency of Edward M. Jason

by Allen Drury

  Now The Sound, exhausted at last by so much surprise, delight, exuberance, approval and expended energy, began to trail away; and into the murmurous quiet that succeeded it he continued on a graver note that soon hushed the world again.

  “Now, my countrymen,” he said—and the handsome head came up in the challenging, fighting gesture they had come to know so well during the campaign—“I should be a poor President indeed if I did not accompany these actions, which I think no honest man anywhere in the world can call less than generous, friendly and cooperative, with two provisos.

  “I would not only be a poor President, in fact: I would be a fool.

  “The first thing is that when I make these far-reaching and voluntary decisions, I assume—and I expect—that they will be honored in the spirit in which they are made; and that when American forces strike their colors and begin their immediate withdrawals, they will be allowed to depart without harassment, attack or any kind of action at all that will in any way endanger them.

  “The second thing is that I should be a poor President, and derelict in my duty, if I did not accompany these decisions with a most earnest and serious appeal to others to act in the same spirit for the sake of the peace of the world.

  “Specifically, in Gorotoland, I call upon the faction of Prince Terry and the faction of Prince Obifumatta, together with other interested powers such as the United States and the Soviet Union, to begin immediate good-faith negotiations looking toward the establishment of a unified and democratic government.

  “Specifically, in Panama, I call upon the faction of Señor Labaiya and the faction of his opponents, together with all maritime powers interested in unobstructed passage of the Canal, to begin immediate good-faith negotiations looking toward the establishment of a unified and democratic government and a responsible international consortium for control of the waterway.

  “In addition, and most importantly of all, I call upon the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to take immediate steps involving Soviet armed forces which will be comparable to mine.

  “And I call upon him, together with such of his colleagues as he may select, to meet with me and my colleagues at the earliest possible moment, at a mutually agreed-upon place, to begin the serious negotiations for peace to which my actions, and comparable actions by them, will have contributed so much in the way of trust, good faith, hope and practical reality.

  “I submit to reasonable men everywhere that my proposals and appeals are honest, decent and fair.

  “I assume—and I expect—that they will be accepted in the same spirit and with the same willingness to cooperate with which I have made them. I assume—and I expect—that they will be received with a comparable honor, decency and fairness by these to whom they are addressed.

  “I say to the Chairman, and indeed to all world leaders everywhere:

  “Together let us create the climate of peace.

  “Together let us create the inevitability of peace.

  “I have every reason to believe,” he said with a solemn confidence, “that this appeal will be answered affirmatively. My colleagues and I will await with you, my countrymen, the indication from Moscow that it will be. We hope, and we expect, that it will not be long delayed.

  “Then at last, I think, the world will know that America has truly turned to peace as a way of life; and men, women and children here and everywhere will be able to look ahead with confidence and certainty to a world in which wars and the threats of wars have at last been removed from the backs of mankind.

  “This has been my pledge to you in my campaign and this is my redemption of that pledge. God giving us strength, you and I will see it through together. And the new day will dawn and remain with us, unto the last generation.

  “Thank you very much.”

  And with a grave and solemn expression as The Sound once more outdid itself, he picked up the pages of his speech and put them in his pocket; shook hands with the Chief Justice, with William Abbott, with Beth Knox and Lucille Hudson; and nodding to his family, took Patsy’s arm and led them slowly up the steps, past the congratulatory outstretched hands and the fawning, excited smiles, through the bronze doors, and once more into the depths of the Capitol; from which he emerged an hour later, after the customary luncheon with leaders of the Congress, to enter his limousine and start the slow, triumphal progress back down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, the reviewing stand and the long hours of the parade—now joyous far beyond the dreams of all the hard-working souls who had labored for so many weeks to make it ready for Edward Montoya Jason’s Inaugural Day.

  Forty-five minutes after the address ended, having proceeded downtown on foot because there was no other way to get through the excited crowds and the sparkling snow, Walter Dobius was typing rapidly in the office kindly lent him by his friends of the Washington Post. His friends of the Post were also typing rapidly, and so were his friends of the Times, The Greatest Publication and most other editorial staffs across the country. Equally busy were Frankly Unctuous and his colleagues of NBC, ABC and CBS, their delighted and approving words pouring forth incessantly upon the populace from every channel and wavelength. Walter, as happened so frequently, could have served as spokesman for them all, so well did he synthesize their thoughts, hopes and emotions on this gloriously satisfying occasion.

  “Rarely,” he began, the machine seeming to leap under his hand with the speed and happiness of his thoughts, “has a President kept faith with his countrymen as has Edward Montoya Jason today. Rarely has a President redeemed his campaign pledges so quickly, so specifically, so dramatically and with such breathtaking sincerity and completeness.

  “Edward Jason pledged an end to all wars and threats of wars. In a reversal of American position so total that it will take the mind—and the world—a long while to grasp all its dizzying implications, he has done in fifteen overwhelming minutes everything an American Chief Executive could possibly do to achieve that end.

  “Decades of stupidity, a generation of error, have been wiped from the books in a quarter of an hour. It would be unbelievable—had not the nation and the world been witness. Edward Montoya Jason, not yet a day old in office, has placed himself already among the immortals.

  “And now he, and we, await the word from Moscow. It may be another day or two, perhaps even a week, before we hear, for our friends in the Soviet Union are slow and cautious to move. But there can be no doubt of the response. Such simple honesty and directness as the new President has shown can only be answered in kind.

  “Now the Communists have a President who speaks the language they understand: the language of honest negotiation—the language of fearless and sincere concession—the language of peace.

  “This is the opportunity they have been waiting for.

  “We need have no fears or doubts that within a very short time they will let us know in unmistakable terms that they have seized it.… ”

  And in this, of course, Walter was, as usual, right; although it would be another few hours before his countrymen would be able to realize once again how truly prophetic he was. Meanwhile Washington danced—or at least tried to dance, for the four inaugural balls were, as always, more push-and-shove than wiggle-and-hop.

  Ball No. 1—“the one he’s going to come to first, at 9:30 p.m., and where he’ll come back to conclude the evening”—was held at the Kennedy Center. Approximately six thousand would squirm their way to the bars and canapés there.

  Ball No. 2—“where he’s due at 10:30 if his schedule doesn’t get fouled up”—was held at the Museum of History and Technology at 14th Street and Constitution Avenue. Perhaps four thousand were expected there.

  Ball No. 3—“where he’ll be around 11:30 unless he gets delayed at the Museum”—was held at the Washington Hilton, on up Connecticut Avenue. Another three thousand to four thousand had tickets there.

  Ball No. 4—“where he’ll be right around midnight unless he gets delayed a
t the Hilton”—was held at the Sheraton-Park, still further up Connecticut at Woodley Road. Close to five thousand were expected to squeeze in there.

  There were statistics for these affairs, too, and dutifully the compilers of figures sent the story out on the wires and over the channels: so many bottles of liquor, so many tons of food. But the important thing, and the thing that pushed statistics far into the background, was the mood. The mood, as everyone who observed, reported upon, described or attended those historic galas would vividly and wistfully remember, was one of such excited happiness and uplift as Washington had rarely seen; and, after approximately 12:53 in the morning, would not, in all probability, see again.

  When the evening began, however, nothing could have been more ecstatic or more heart-warming than this first social contact between the new President and those of his countrymen who had been fortunate enough to beg, borrow, steal, or pay through the nose for, a ticket to one of the balls. From the moment his arrival was announced at Kennedy Center just before 9:30 p.m. until shortly after his return to the same cavernously beautiful surroundings at 12:45 a.m., it was one long euphoric ride for Edward M. Jason. Euphoric too were Patsy, who had changed to a shimmering scarlet dress which beautifully set off the great emerald “Star of Boonarapi,” most famous of the Jason jewels; Valuela, who wore several lesser emeralds, a clutch of rubies and her late mother’s diamonds; Selena, who had abandoned her humble thirty-thousand-dollar mink simplicity and now appeared almost literally drenched in a shower of diamond brooches, necklaces, rings and bracelets; and Herbert, who, though still determinedly homespun of manner and hair arrangement, did wear an obviously expensive tuxedo, a ruffled blue lace shirt and a set of diamond-and-ruby studs and cuff links that must have set him back a good thousand smackers at Tiffany’s.

  Euphoric also were Vice President and Mrs. Roger P. Croy, his distinguished gray head bobbing constantly as he acknowledged the cheers and applause, hers turning rapidly from side to side as she smiled with a careful graciousness upon all these new and overwhelming friends. Euphoric also were the George Harrison Wattersills, Secretary of Defense Ewan MacDonald MacDonald and his lady, and all the other Cabinet members who, in a burst of confidence in Ted Jason, had been speedily confirmed by the Senate in its brief one-hour session during the afternoon. All euphoric, that is, save one, and he too was able to muster sufficient will power to make his way for the most part smiling through the evening. Only when the Secretary of State happened to catch the eye of the ex-President and the Munsons as the Presidential party passed through the Hilton was there a change in his carefully set expression; and then his momentary look of recognition and worry was noticed only by a drunken few who swiftly forgot it as his determinedly pleasant expression returned and he moved on gracefully through the crowd.

  Neither the Knoxes nor Lucille Hudson appeared in the city on this glorious evening, feeling that they had contributed sufficiently by their appearance at the Capitol. Other members of “the government in exile” felt they must, for various reasons, attend. Lafe Smith and Mabel Anderson joined Cullee Hamilton and Sarah Johnson for dinner at the Jockey Club and then went to Kennedy Center. William Abbott, the Munsons, Stanley Danta and Bessie Adams dined together at “Vagaries,” the Munsons’ beautiful home in Rock Creek Park, and then went to the Hilton, planning to go later to the Center for the President’s final appearance.

  Some members of Congress who had either been defeated in the Jason sweep, or disagreed too violently with his dramatic peace moves, stayed deliberately away; and a few other diehards—four or five former Secretaries of State and Defense, a handful of retired columnists and commentators who had always believed that walking softly and carrying a big stick was not such a bad policy for America to follow—found themselves, somewhat to their surprise, too embittered to attend. But for the most part, everyone who was anyone or had ever been anyone in Washington political life was there. Doddering relics from as far back as the Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft administrations mingled with their successors clear down the years to the outgoing Abbott cabinet. Ancient bejeweled harridans who had vied savagely for the title of “Washington’s No. 1 hostess” generations before Dolly Munson and “Vagaries” came on the scene, mingled happily with grinning stalwarts of NAWAC and well-fed campaign contributors whose donations to this campaign, as to all others of whatever political persuasion, always guaranteed them a welcome at the seat of government. As the night wore on and the hilarity became increasingly unrestrained and amiable, a great ooze of fellowship, love and good will swept over the official city.

  And constantly, of course, in the way of Washington, there were comments on what was referred to simply as “The Speech,” varying in intensity and approval according to the ear of the beholder. “Great speech, hey, boy?” cried Ewan MacDonald MacDonald, ex-national committeeman from Wyoming, new Secretary of Defense, passing Blair Hannah, national committeeman from Illinois, in the lobby of the Shoreham-Park. Blair Hannah scowled and snapped, “Giving us away on a silver platter and then some, isn’t he?” But Esmé Harbellow Stryke, national committeewoman from California, spying George Harrison Wattersill in the crush at the Museum, screamed, “George! George! Congratulations! Marvelous! Simply marvelous!” And George, who had been as surprised and amazed as anyone at what had come out of the President’s mouth in place of his own carefully polished rhetorical suggestions, bowed and preened and cried back, “I guess we showed ’em, eh, Ez?”

  In general—indeed overwhelmingly, as it seemed to the many newsmen who worked their way through the crowds buttonholing as many famous names as they could find—official Washington was as thrilled and captivated by “the New Day” (“He has given us at once,” Frankly Unctuous had told his listeners two minutes after The Speech ended, “the name for his Administration: this is the New Day.”) as the rest of the country seemed to be. Hourly, indeed minute by minute, the conviction grew that Ewan MacDonald MacDonald, Esmé Harbellow Stryke and George Harrison Wattersill had the right of it: it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened, it was the greatest blow for peace ever struck, it did, as the Times announced in its lead editorial, “gloriously and without equivocation give Americans once more the right to stand unashamed and proud in the eyes of the world.” By the time the President and his family came back downtown from the Sheraton-Park to Kennedy Center at half after midnight, the overwhelming majority of his countrymen were ready to give him one great big universal lass and put him lovingly to bed.

  So, too, it seemed, was the rest of the world, where in almost every capital The Speech had been hailed with popular approval and official congratulations worthy, as Hal Knox remarked when some of them appeared on the home screens, of the Second Coming. And now, even as Washington danced, the world watched via Telstar, waiting, like his countrymen, for the final comments (“The ecumenical blessing,” Bob Munson labeled it dryly to Bill Abbott as they arrived at the Center just ahead of the Presidential party) he might wish to make before bidding them all good night.

  When he and his family entered the Center, Selena and Valuela somewhat the worse for wear but himself, his sister and his uncle amiably under control, The Sound was heard for the last time—a great, rolling, roaring shout that swept over them, growing and rising and rising and growing, until it seemed the universe must come asunder. When it finally began to die away he allowed yet another full, patient minute to accommodate the last drunken yells and the last happy screams. Presently even they were gone. A silence of complete absorption and intensity ensued. Into it he spoke in a pleasant, almost conversational way.

  “My friends,” he said, “my friends here in this lovely capital—all over America—all over the world—”

  There was a renewed burst of cheering.

  “—this has been a great day—and I think we have all enjoyed it—and I for one am exhausted—and I think we all ought to go home and go to bed!”

  Laughter, warm, approving, embracing, filled the cavernous hal
ls and found its echo in smiles and chuckles wherever men and women heard his voice and watched his dignified, handsome face.

  “Before we do, however”—and at his words they abruptly stilled—“I think I will let you in on a little secret. When I made my proposals today, nobody knew I was going to say them—nobody. They were my own idea. I consulted no one. I wrote them myself and I offered them because I thought that someone, somewhere must break through the deadly stultifying morass the world seemed to be in. It seemed to me I was the logical one to do it, and that this was the logical time. So I acted, hoping you, my countrymen, might approve.”

  A great cheer, wholehearted and loving, told him that Yes, yes, he had done the right thing and they adored him for it.

  “They tell me at the White House that they have already received so many wires and telephone calls that the circuits have broken down and they can take no more tonight. They tell me that almost without exception these are favorable. And from the State Department they tell me something else—they tell me that they are receiving a constant stream of cables from heads of state, and that these, too, are almost universally favorable. The world is so relieved,” he said into the applause and cheers that were beginning again, “to have an American President who not only talks peace but acts peace, that it is as happy as—” he chuckled with a contagious delight—“well, as you and I are!”

  It was at this moment, with laughter and applause rising joyfully around him, that Bob Munson happened to notice the Secretary of State, standing far to the side in one of the archways, and pointed him out to Bill Abbott; and so it was that they, first of anyone but the Secretary himself, became aware through some combination of experience, instinct and hunch that something was about to go wrong.