Promise of Joy

by Allen Drury

  “Instead, she is the highly partisan supporter of the man who trounced her husband for the Presidential nomination—and has aligned herself with him in opposition to all those sincere lovers of world peace who formed the principal basis of her husband’s overwhelming political support.

  “The true motivations for this must always remain a puzzle and a bafflement to all who worked for the cause of Edward M. Jason. His wife gave no real reasons for her decision not to run, other than her repudiation of what she chose to term ‘the violent’—thereby ignoring all the millions of perfectly decent, genuine, nonviolent citizens who simply cannot stomach the ill-fated military adventures in Panama and Gorotoland. Nor did she really pay any genuine tribute to her late husband. Her comments were strangely lukewarm, strangely qualified. Almost, her listeners might have believed, she had never really supported him, and was not too sorry he was gone.”

  Walter paused and reconsidered. That phraseology was a little harsh. Perhaps he was letting himself get carried away. He struck out the words “and was not too sorry he was gone,” and proceeded, with his customary emphatic touch on the keys, to the next paragraph.

  “Certainly she does not now support any of the things in which he believed. Since this unhappily seems to be the case, most observers believe it is just as well that she has voluntarily removed herself from the ticket. Her continued presence would have been an unfortunate distraction that would only have strengthened the pro-war policies of the Secretary of State should he become the President. Her presence as an independent campaigner for the Secretary, which is what she apparently intends to be, will be distraction enough. It is better for all concerned, most of political Washington feels, that she be relegated to the status of private citizen—where, it is to be presumed, she will simply be a pale and repetitious echo of the official Knox line.”

  You hope, he told himself with a certain savage impatience. You hope Ceil Jason, the lovely, the intelligent, the powerfully appealing both in her own right and as glamorous widow, will be a pale echo. Otherwise, Orrin still has a plus even if she isn’t on the ticket. He stared out gloomily for a moment into the velvet dusk. Believers in Right Causes such as he always had their difficulties. The Lord never made it easy.

  “Her withdrawal,” he wrote on presently, “of course reopens the great issue of the national convention, and of the National Committee meeting which finally, after intensely bitter controversy, gave the Presidential nomination to Orrin Knox and the Vice Presidential to Edward M. Jason. That question is: Will war or peace be the fate of America in the next four years?

  “And will a bellicose Presidential candidate shadowed by the mysterious death of his peace-loving running mate be able to impose his will and place beside himself another who thinks as rigidly as he along the old warmongering, imperialistic lines that have so disfigured the last two Administrations?

  “It is time, in the opinion of most observers here, for all who love peace to appeal to the National Committee as they have never appealed to it before.

  “By a tragic turn of fate—and by Mrs. Jason’s arbitrary refusal to lend herself to the peace-keeping cause—they have been given one more chance to control and, hopefully, nullify, the warlike tendencies of the man who may well be the next President.

  “It is to be hoped they will not allow the opportunity to pass.”

  Nor were they, he reflected with considerable satisfaction as he reviewed the events of the hours since Ceil had made her dramatic renunciation.

  The mobs of NAWAC were still in place, encamped in the parks and behind the barbed wire guarding both banks of the Potomac. Their banners were defiant, their mood unrelenting. From their principal spokesman, Senator Fred Van Ackerman of Wyoming, had come a statement opposing any compromise in what he termed “this great battle to save American democracy, and the world.”

  “It is unbelievable to all dedicated members of the National Anti-War Activities Congress,” he went on, “that Mrs. Ceil Jason should have removed herself in such an almost frivolous manner from the cause for which her husband labored and died. It is with a bitter regret that we hear her announced intention to join the pro-war forces represented by the candidacy of Orrin Knox.

  “The executive board of NAWAC, acting on behalf of the membership, endorsed that candidacy because its members firmly believed that Edward M. Jason as Vice President would be able to restrain the imperialist adventures of his running mate. It now must reassess that decision.

  “It is incumbent upon all members of NAWAC and all who believe in the right of democratic protest against the big-stick imperialist diplomacy of the present American government to examine most carefully any new name proposed to fill the vacancy on the Knox ticket. It is also incumbent upon them to make their opinions emphatically known, and, if necessary, to express most vigorously their opposition to any candidate who does not fully endorse and actively support the peace-loving policies of Edward M. Jason.”

  In similar vein, and at times in language almost as strong, Super-media weighed in. The Times, the Post, The Greatest Publication That Absolutely Ever Was, Time, Newsweek and all their think-alikes across the country joined in sharp unanimous criticism of Ceil for her decision and her support of Orrin, unanimous insistence that only one cast in the mold of her husband could possibly be chosen to fill the Vice Presidential vacancy. Without quite inciting to riot, Frankly Unctuous and his colleagues of tube and airwave did the same. From “activist” professors, clergymen, lawyers and movie stars of a certain headline-avid type came equally fervent pronouncements. Giving them assurance that they were doing the Right Thing for the Right Cause around the world, many leading journals, politicians and expounders-on-American-shortcomings joined the chorus.

  So efficiently and effectively did the one point of view blanket the nation and the globe that it seemed impossible that Orrin Knox could, or would, dare to do anything but exactly what his critics wanted.

  All this, of course, as his critics well knew, did not take into account Orrin Knox. Even as they attempted to bring pressure upon him, those who knew and had studied him most closely were aware that he would do exactly what seemed best to him. They were taking a calculated gamble that they could stampede him. But none of the knowledgeable believed it would do much good.

  Even so, he was not living, of course, in a vacuum; and though his first instinct after Ceil’s withdrawal was to cut his ties to the Jason wing of the party and begin working for someone aligned entirely with his own point of view, he knew it could not be done. His constituency, like that of any American President or Presidential candidate in the twentieth century, was far broader than that, encompassing as it did not only the diverse elements of his own party and his own country but those of the entire world as well.

  Somehow he must find a path between all the conflicting forces that had suddenly, with Ceil’s decision, returned to harass him again. He respected her decision and was delighted with her frank declaration of support, but he wished unhappily that she could have seen her way clear to accepting his offer. It would have simplified many things. Now they were all awry again.

  Thinking about this as his heavily guarded caravan moved out from Kennedy Center through the hooting throngs to return him, his family and his immediate advisers to Spring Valley—“war group seen dominant as Knox calls in president, Munson, Leffingwell to advise on vice presidential nomination”—he had concluded finally that he must win by political finesse what he could not win by direct assault. Accordingly he went through the motions as soon as they reached the house and were safely inside. Here, too, there were generally hostile mobs; here, too, a large cordon of troops and police held them back. He was jeered into his own house, and from time to time, as at the Center, distant murmurs of anger or resentment or scorn erupted in the distance. But at least here he was away from the insistent eyes of television and the press, and could deal with his problem in the private consultations which he now felt provided the only medium through which it could b
e solved.

  “Bill,” he said without preliminary when they were seated in the comfortable study where he had formulated so many ideas, written so many speeches, read so many books, prepared so much legislation, “how wedded are you to the idea of returning to the House?”

  The President blinked and gave him promptly the answer he had counted on.

  “Too wedded to accept the Vice Presidency, if that’s what you mean, Orrin. You need me as Speaker again. God help you if you get Jawbone Swarthman.”

  The mention of the voluble chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, hiding his Phi Beta Kappa intelligence behind his deliberately exaggerated corn-pone accent, brought a brief moment of amusement. Orrin nodded.

  “I suppose you’re right on that. However, I think I could deal with him and it might be that your presence on the ticket would give me just the extra strength I need to win the election and carry the House. Which at the moment,” he confessed with a sudden glumness, “I am not at all sure I can do.”

  “I’m not sure either,” William Abbott agreed, “but I think you’d damned well better try. I can be more help to you with that, I think, if I stay free of the ticket. Not that I mean any disrespect to you,” he added quickly, “or any disloyalty. I think for the sake of the country you’ve got to win. It’s just a question of where I can be of most assistance. Plus the fact,” he said with a wry little smile, “that I’ve had it with the White House. I haven’t minded being a ‘caretaker President,’ as the Times called me, but I’m one of the few men in American history who is genuinely and entirely ready to step down. The Hill’s been my whole life, after all. I don’t really enjoy it much at the other end of the Avenue, though I’ve tried to do my best.”

  “And have,” Orrin said, “and we are all grateful and indebted to you for it.”

  “All indebted, anyway,” Bill Abbott said. “Not all grateful, by any means.…No, I appreciate it very much, Orrin, and like Ceil, I’m deeply sensible of the honor. But I don’t think you’d better try to name me. It would throw the Committee into the screaming meemies, and we’ve had enough of that.”

  “Whoever I name will throw it into the screaming meemies,” the Secretary of State said with some of his old tartness. “I’ve got to expect that. I just want the effort to be worth the uproar.” He turned to the Senate Majority Leader, sitting back comfortably relaxed in his chair, but even before he spoke, Bob Munson interrupted with a lifted hand to give the second answer Orrin had counted upon.

  “Orrin,” he said, “thanks, but no, thanks. Like Bill, I belong on the Hill. You need me there, I can do you more good there, and anyway, the Jason faction would never accept me. There’d be a hell of a fight to no purpose, and the upshot would be that you’d just have to start all over again. Even if we did get my nomination through, Ted’s supporters would never give the ticket their wholehearted backing. It would cripple you all the way and might very well lose you Congress.”

  “They’ll never give the ticket their wholehearted support as long as I head it, anyway,” the Secretary said in the same tart way. “And I may lose Congress whatever I do. Why not be consistent, as I always have?”

  “Until you accepted Ted on the ticket,” Senator Munson pointed out with a smile. “You ain’t old All-the-Way Orrin anymore.” He leaned forward, abruptly serious. “No, Orrin, I can’t do it for you, much as I’d like to. It would cause too much resentment, too many problems. Let me stay where I am and run the Senate for you. It’s what I do best.”

  “Very well, then,” he said, turning to Bob Leffingwell, sitting quietly across from him near the fireplace. The man whose nomination for Secretary of State he had defeated a year and a half ago in the Senate, the man he had told at the convention he would name as his own Secretary of State, tensed and stared at him with a startled disbelief. “The biscuits are getting cold, Bob, but if you can understand the reasons why you’re last, and forgive me, I would like to offer it to you. In fact,” he added with the sudden amiable air that was one of his appealing characteristics, “I’d like to have all three of you. That can’t be done, so I’ve had to take you in order of rank. So how about it?”

  For a moment Robert A. Leffingwell did not reply. Then he said in a skeptical voice, “Surely you must be joking, Mr. Secretary. Surely you cannot be serious. I cannot imagine a choice less suited to the position, or one more likely to provoke a storm in the Committee, in the country and indeed just about everywhere. I just can’t believe you’re serious.”

  “I’m not being frivolous, if that’s what you mean,” Orrin said with some sharpness. “Of course I’m being serious. I have faith in your abilities, otherwise I wouldn’t be planning to make you Secretary of State.”

  “Your faith has changed,” Bob Leffingwell said quietly, one last reference to their bitter confrontation at the time of his original appearance before the Senate, “and I am still not sure it has changed for the better.”

  “You have changed,” Orrin said, “and that shows much to me.”

  “It shows weakness and wishy-washiness to many people, including the Jason camp,” Bob Leffingwell said. “First I oppose our foreign policy, then I support it, first I oppose you, then I support you—what does it add up to?”

  “The same as it adds up to with me, I like to think,” the Secretary said shortly. “Some ability to change and grow and accept the facts of a shifting world. Adaptability and character are what it shows to me. I always knew you had the brains, now I know you have the character. I don’t appeal to you frivolously.”

  “And I don’t reject you frivolously,” Robert A. Leffingwell said slowly, giving the third answer Orrin had counted upon, “but I feel I must reject you.” He turned to the others, men with whom he had once differed bitterly but whose views he had come finally to support. “What do you think, Mr. President?” he asked. “What do you think, Senator? Don’t I make more sense”—a touch of wry amusement robbed the question of its sting—“than he does?”

  “You do to me,” the President said bluntly. “It won’t wash, Orrin. Too many problems. And this, Bob, with no disrespect to you. Just the practicalities of it, as you say.”

  “With which I concur,” Senator Munson said. “Too many enemies, too much controversy, too many allegations of weakness and equivocation—some of them,” he reminded Orrin dryly, “by you—no, it’s going to be tough enough getting him through the Senate for Secretary of State. Vice President I can’t see at all, I’m sorry to say. I can see his personal merits but I can’t see his political viability.”

  “And political viability, Mr. Secretary,” Bob Leffingwell said calmly, “is what you must be concerned with now. So: thank you, but, like the Majority Leader—no, thanks.”

  “Well,” he said with enough asperity to make them think he was really being forced to consider alternatives other than the one he had been considering all along, “then you force me to fall back on my last line of defense. See what you think of it.”

  He was pleased that they thought it an idea both viable and exciting. A quick phone call produced the astounded but delighted agreement of the potential nominee. A pledge of secrecy sent them out of the house in Spring Valley to face, without response other than patient smiles, the barrage of questions from the waiting press; and he was alone in the study to contemplate what he would do tomorrow when the Committee met again.

  As he considered it, and as his three guests considered it after they left him, the logic of it seemed—as logic always does to those who think of it—impeccable.

  But this, of course, was planning without really considering the Committee, the media or the friends of Edward M. Jason, all of whom retained their considerable and continuing ability to make trouble.

  Again the Committee came, through mobs again unruly and armed forces again at ready, to Kennedy Center in August’s suffocating sun. Again he was introduced as “the next President of the United States,” again he surveyed them for his long, characteristic moment. Again he spoke,
and again controversy rose and raged and swirled about his words.

  “Mr. President,” he said quietly, looking, sounding and acting much stronger, “yesterday I nominated a great lady for the office of Vice President, and yesterday she declined. I was as astounded as any of you and as fully dismayed. But life affords us no luxury of prolonged regret in these hurrying days. We must move on.

  “I am deeply grateful for Mrs. Jason’s declaration of support and I know it will help me immeasurably, in the campaign and after. I expect to take full advantage of her generous offer of assistance, for America knows no more intelligent, lovely and capable woman. I am very lucky indeed to have her on my team.”

  Far came the distant booing, while in the room there was a mixed and uncertain sound as some applauded vociferously, some hesitated, some grumbled among themselves but grudgingly concurred. Ceil Jason as ardent partisan of Orrin Knox was still a difficult concept for many to assimilate: except that, as with so many things in politics, what happens happens, and the astute are well advised to be nimble and make the most of it.

  “I could not agree with her more,” Orrin said, “concerning the dangers of the violent in this country.” There was a sharply rising sound from the world outside: his only acknowledgment was to speak more firmly. “I shall do everything I can to stop them, and I shall do everything I can to drive what they represent out of American life.

  “This does not mean,” he said sharply over the angry roar that answered, “that honest dissent cannot have a place. Nor does it mean that I shall be arbitrary in my policies or harsh in the treatment of opposing views. It simply means that I shall do my utmost to see that political debate in America is no longer disfigured and besmirched by intolerance, hatred and what has already come very close to civil rebellion.” Again the roar rose, again he challenged it sharply. “In my campaign, and in my Administration if such there be, I will have none of it. On that I give you my absolute and unshakable pledge.”