by Allen Drury
“Why isn’t it enough?” he demanded. “Why are you so smug about it, Senator? What makes you think, just because you got elected this afternoon, that you have all the answers?”
“Because I did get elected this afternoon,” Arly said with some asperity, “and the issue was clearly drawn between the war policies of this President and the peace policies that a majority of his countrymen, and obviously of the whole world, want him to follow.”
“Not the whole world,” Ceil said quietly. “Peace has nothing to do with it, up there in the UN. It’s Get-America Day every day, and peace is only the excuse.”
“You seem to know a lot about it for one who has only been there one day,” Senator Richardson snapped. She gave him a cold little smile.
“One day at the UN goes a long way,” she observed. “Take my word for it, Senator.” The smile turned colder. “Thank you, incidentally, for your gallant support of my nomination.”
“The issue is clear-cut,” Arly said, flushing but standing his ground. “It goes right down the line.”
“So it does,” she agreed, her look dismissing him, “which is why I hope the President is going to make it very clear to the country tomorrow.”
“It won’t matter,” Arly said stubbornly. “You can’t conceal the facts with words.”
“Oh, yes, you can,” Robert A. Leffingwell said quietly. “You manage, Senator.”
“A fine comment,” Arly Richardson said angrily, “for one who must depend upon the Senate’s indulgence to win confirmation to the Cabinet.”
“I had your indulgence two years ago when I could excuse and justify the Communist rationale,” Bob Leffingwell replied with an equal anger. “Now I don’t accept it anymore and so I haven’t got your indulgence. I’ve changed and you’ve changed, Senator. Again, as you say, the issue cuts all down the line.”
“And are Mr. Leffingwell and I,” Blair Hannah spoke for the first time, with a dangerous quiet, “to infer from your remark that we cannot expect the indulgence of the Senate for our confirmations?”
The Majority Leader studied him thoughtfully for a moment.
“‘There may be some—protracted argument,” he said finally. “How long may depend upon how long the President persists in policies with which the Congress does not agree.”
The President leaned forward and did some thoughtful studying himself, staring straight at the sharp-featured old colleague who had given him so much trouble during all the years of their joint Senate careers.
“So you’re going to try to blackmail me, are you, Arly?” he inquired softly. “Won’t give me my Cabinet unless I come to heel. They’ll be delighted with that in Moscow and Peking.”
“They’ll be delighted in Washington, too,” Arly snapped, and got up abruptly. “I’m going to get a drink.”
“Bring me one, too,” Orrin suggested acidly to his departing back. “Scotch. Strong. I’ve got to wash a lot of bad taste out of my mouth.”
“Well, now!” the Speaker said hastily. “Well, now, you-all, you-all, now! That’s no way to talk, now, that’s no way at all. We got us a problem, here, and what we got to do is solve it, not go off bein’ hostile to one another. We got to work together, now, we just got to!”
“Sure,” the President said. “On your terms.”
“Isn’t that what anybody wants, Mr. President, sir?” Jawbone demanded. “Isn’t that what anybody wants?”
“I need the support of Congress,” Orrin said levelly, “or the United States of America is going to have to surrender.”
“Oh, now!” Jawbone cried. “Oh, fudge, now! Those are very dramatic words, Mr. President, sir, but I don’t believe ’em. I just don’t believe ’em, now! It isn’t all that bad!”
“Of course it isn’t,” Senator Richardson agreed, returning with his drink and—creating a brief moment of amusement in the midst of tension—one for the President, which he placed on the desk in front of him before returning to his seat. “Of course it isn’t. We may take some humiliation in the world if we withdraw under pressure, we may look a little foolish, I’ll grant you. But”—his expression turned adamant—“we have invited the humiliation, and we deserve to look foolish.”
“And what happens to us,” Warren Strickland inquired quietly, “if we are humiliated, and if we do look foolish? What happens to the world’s respect, what happens to its willingness to believe in our credibility or rely upon our actions, what happens to our allies who see us turn tail and run in the face of the most blatant and open confrontation? Who will ever rely upon us again?”
“Old arguments,” Tom August said in his hesitant, regretful way. “Old, tired arguments that went out with Vietnam and other ill-fated adventures, and whose discrediting should have pointed the way toward a different course in Panama and Gorotoland. Except, of course”—and the regretfulness deepened—“that they did not.”
“But, Tom,” Bob Munson said, “for God’s sake, man! How you people can so blithely ignore the fact that their aggression came first—”
“That does not excuse my country,” Senator August said with a certain prim and unshakable disapproval, “when it does the wrong thing.”
“Tom,” Senator Strickland said, his tone showing the strain of many years of arguing with the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on this same general subject, “how can you possibly, as a rational man, accept the Soviet-Chinese claims as to how this thing began?”
“He doesn’t accept them as a rational man,” Lafe said shortly. “He accepts them as a frightened man.”
“And why shouldn’t I be frightened,” Senator August demanded with an almost quivering impatience, “when I see my President plunging us into new wars and bringing on a direct confrontation with the Communists? Why shouldn’t any sane man be frightened?”
“Any sane man should be frightened,” Lafe agreed shortly, “but only cowardly sane men should run away.”
“‘Cowardly, cowardly’!” Tom August mimicked in a bitter voice. “What does your bravery add up to? I suppose it’s brave to want to blow up the world!”
“Tom,” the President said with a sudden sharp annoyance, “will you stop sniveling? Nobody wants to blow up the world. All I want to do is—”
“Whatever you want to do,” Senator August interrupted, looking, as always, mouselike but doggedly determined, “the end result is going to be just what I said unless we can deflect you from this crazy course.”
At this a silence fell, while the President studied him thoughtfully for several moments. Then he leaned forward and observed softly:
“And I suppose ‘deflecting’ me, as you put it, involves holding up my Cabinet and refusing to give me the military strength I need to see this thing through.”
“You will have your Cabinet in due course,” Arly Richardson said, “but I doubt if either house will approve your budget for military expansion.”
“Then apparently,” the President said, bleakly but with no signs whatsoever of any intention to yield, “I am on my own.”
But since he was still, after all, the President, and since some instinct for national survival restrained even the most adamant of his responsible older opponents from going the ultimate distance in trying to break him, his remote and unreachable tone brought a hurried response from the Speaker.
“Oh, now, Mr. President, sir,” he said hastily, “now, come, now! We got us a way out of this tangle, now, you know we have! It’s right there waitin’ for you. All you got to do is jes’ follow that Yewnited Nations resolution! It’s as simple as that, Mr. President. All you got to do is agree to a cease-fire and mebbe withdraw jes’ a few li’l ole troops, now, jes’ a token I’m sure would do it, and then ev’thang would be quieted down and you could go and meet with our friends in Moscow and Peking, there, and say to ’em, ‘Looka-here, now, you-all, we want peace! We want to get together with you-all! We want to settle this here whole mess that’s tyin’ up the world, and get on with the business of peace! That’s w
hat we want, now, so let’s you and me get at it!’ That’s what you could do, Mr. President, sir. That’s what we’re all prayin’, us good friends of yours in charge of Congress now, that’s what we’re all prayin’ you’ll do.”
For another long moment Orrin Knox studied him thoughtfully. Then he spoke in a tone perfectly calm, completely unmoved.
“Let me make it clear to you that this is one President who will never negotiate with the Communist powers under duress. I invited them to talk: they preferred war. So be it. When they prefer peace, we will talk—not before. They have chosen the path we go down. I will follow as long as they wish. When they are ready to talk peace and mean it—when their actions on the battlefield prove it—when they show honesty and good faith and really end hostilities and aggression—then I will talk. Not before.”
“The day may come,” Senator Richardson said into the silence that followed, his voice filled with a bleakness to match Orrin’s own, “when you will have no choice.”
“Not if you give me the support and the weapons I need,” the President replied.
“And that,” Arly said, “many of us in good conscience cannot do.”
“Then,” the President repeated, “I am on my own.”
And this time there fell a silence that no one bridged, as he stared at them and they stared at him, and in the room tension and uncertainty and dismay and fears of the unknowable future filled their hearts. Presently, with hurried, awkward goodbyes from his opponents, heartfelt handshakes and worried, hesitant encouragements from his friends, the meeting broke up and they went out into the driving storm and the bitter night.
As their limousine chugged heavily away, the ex-President and the former Majority Leader looked back for a moment at the great house, now shadowy, mysterious, remote and somehow terribly lonely, in the heavy gusts of snow.
“I wonder,” Bob Munson said gloomily, “if we’re doing the right thing to encourage him, Bill? I wonder if maybe he’s terribly wrong, and we’re just encouraging him to take us down a dreadful path that can only end in—…”
“I don’t know,” William Abbott said. “All I know is that you can’t have doubts, in that house. You have to be sure. You can’t afford to look back, once a decision has been made.”
“I’d like to have just two more opinions put before him tonight,” Senator Munson said. “If you agree, let’s call them from the car right now.”
But after they had called, and after the British and French ambassadors had agreed out of old friendship and deep concern to make their own calls to the President, nothing had changed, in the desolate night. Lord Maudulayne and Raoul Barre assured him of their understanding, respectfully but firmly deplored his course, respectfully but firmly urged that he bow to world opinion, hinted sadly, reluctantly but pointedly that their governments might have to attempt to run the blockade of Panama if he persisted, concluded with further assurances of friendship and sympathy, and hung up knowing they had not persuaded or deflected him in the slightest. For them, too, the night turned colder and the winds of the world howled louder down the corridors of history.
After checking the reports from the battlefields—finding the initial American setbacks at least temporarily halted, the fighting momentarily stabilized—he saw only two more people before he went to bed. He was in the Lincoln Bedroom getting ready when there came a quiet but emphatic knock on the door.
“Yes?” he said, taking his bathrobe from the closet, tying it quickly around him as he went forward. “Who is it?”
“It’s us,” Hal said. “May we come in for a minute?”
“Sure. Want something to eat?”
“I don’t,” Hal said as they took the two armchairs facing the bed, “but Crystal’s ravenous.”
“Oh,” he said with a sudden pleased expression. “I trust this has the usual conventional significance.”
“It does,” she said, blushing a little, with a charming smile. “There just hasn’t been time to tell you.”
“I’m very pleased,” he said soberly, giving her a kiss which she returned with genuine affection. “Take care of yourself.”
“Will you take care of her?” Hal asked quietly. “Of them?” And suddenly the world’s cold winds were inside blowing about them all.
“Children,” he said soberly, “I will if God gives me strength. And if He wants me to.”
“You must be sure He does,” Hal observed, “because you certainly didn’t yield any ground over there in the office tonight.”
“Did you want me to? You didn’t say.”
“No,” Hal said slowly, “I didn’t want you to … I think.”
“Aren’t you sure?” the President demanded. “Because if my own family isn’t sure, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” His voice grew somber. “I can’t afford to know.”
“I believe in what you’re doing,” Crystal said earnestly. “I don’t see any other way.”
“I don’t either,” Hal said, still slowly. “I guess what I want—” He paused, his eyes widened in thought just as they had ever since he had been a little boy. “I guess what I want is to be sure that you’re sure.”
“Didn’t I sound it, in the office?” his father asked.
“Oh, sure,” Hal said. “You had to sound that way, in front of them. I mean inside.”
“I thought the inside showed through. I intended for it to.”
“Well, yes,” Hal agreed thoughtfully. “I guess you could say it did.”
“So?”
“I guess,” his son said in a troubled voice, “that I wanted to get it again, straight, from you. I guess I’m scared as hell, frankly. I guess I want you to reassure me.” He stared at his wife for a moment, her eyes intently fixed on the President, then back at his father. “Can you?”
For a moment Orrin paused, staring down at the worn rug that covered the floor. Then he looked up directly at these two who now, in Beth’s absence, held his heart.
“Children,” he said, beginning to walk slowly up and down as he talked, “children and friends, because I like to feel that’s what you are. A long time ago, Hal’s mother and I decided that whatever I had to face in public life, I would do my best to meet with honesty, with courage and with integrity. We agreed that I would do this even if it meant my political career, even if it meant the end of all our dreams and hopes. I like to think that I have remained generally true to that, over all these years. I am proud and satisfied that this has been the case.
“But until thirty-six hours ago in front of the Capitol, that philosophy and that way of doing things basically only concerned the four of us, Hal—your mother, yourself, Crystal and me. If I blew it, the people of Illinois might conceivably suffer on some issue I was fighting for, but not too much—not in any way that some other Senator couldn’t recover for them, if they threw me out. Basically I was gambling only with the fortunes of Orrin Knox, and the Knox family.
“Now,” he said, and his tone became even more thoughtful and somber, while outside the snow slapped savagely against the panes and the cold wind snarled, “much, much more is involved. Now I literally hold the fate of the country in my hands. Now I gamble not with my own ambitions and the Knox family, but—in a sense that sounds maudlin because it is so terribly true—I gamble with the fate of all mankind, and with the whole wide world.…
“Still and all”—and he stopped his pacing and his voice grew stronger as they listened with absolute attention—“I think the basic principle still holds. I think I must still try to do what I believe right, as honestly, courageously and with as much integrity, as I can. I hope that when all is said and done, this will be seen to have been the right and only course to follow.…
“I can’t promise you, I can’t promise anyone, that my course will succeed. About all I can give you, and about all I can give the country when I speak tomorrow, is the modest hope that maybe if we do right and are unafraid, right will prevail and humanity will prevail. That is all I can offer. Whether it wil
l be enough to persuade the Congress, convince the Communists and swing the country behind me, I have no way of knowing. But I will try.…
“Does that answer your question?”
“It answers mine,” Ceil said softly, but it took a moment more for his son to answer.
“As near as it can be, I guess,” Hal said finally, his eyes, too, far away in contemplation of terrible alternatives.
“‘As near as it can be,’” his father echoed. “Which, I guess, is about as near as I can come.”
A few minutes later they left him, Crystal having deliberately lightened the mood by suggesting to Hal, “Come on, let’s go down and raid the kitchens. I’m famished!”
By midnight all the lights in the family quarters of the White House were out. Of the three Knoxes remaining, only the President, after a brief colloquy with Beth, who seemed to approve of what he was doing, went immediately and deeply to sleep.
Whatever the coming day might bring, he was at peace in his own mind that he was doing the best he knew, as honestly as he knew. He hoped this would be sufficient—had no way of knowing—but absolved himself from worry, feeling his cause to be just, his purposes to be honorable and his determination unflinching.
At 11 a.m. Eastern time, 10 a.m. Central, 9 Mountain, 8 Pacific, he appeared on television, radio and worldwide satellite network in an attempt to impart this conviction to his countrymen and the world. He did not know how he would be received. But no uncertainty appeared in his calm manner, his steady look or his slow, emphatic words.
He knew his critics would be frothing at the end but he hoped his enemies would be confounded and his supporters of good heart. Only time could tell. Words could do a great deal, and he certainly intended that his should. But only the unfolding of events could provide the final key.
“My countrymen,” he said gravely, “I had not thought to address you so soon again. Only vicious, unprovoked and completely unjustified sneak attack by the enemies of this country and of independent nations everywhere has made it necessary that I ask your attention now.”
