Waiting, he had puttered around the bungalow living room, then had taken out a copy of his speech and polished up a few phrases. In fifteen minutes, the phone had rung and it was Marion.
‘This is weird, Mr Collins,’ she said. ‘The FBI says it has no Special Agents named Parkhill or Naughton or Lindenmeyer in California. In fact, it has none by those names in the entire country.’
Like so much else, this had proved mind-boggling. No agents named Parkhill or Naughton or Lindenmeyer. Yet, Assemblyman Yurkovich had been interviewed by Parkhill and Naughton, and Tobias’ lady friend had been interviewed by Lindenmeyer. It could mean that both Yurkovich and Tobias had got the names wrong. Impossible. Or that they had both lied to Collins. Pointless.
Or it could mean one more thing - as improbable, but far more sinister.
It could mean that the FBI had a special corps of agents -a secret corps, names unlisted - deployed to intimidate the lawmakers of California.
Collins entertained that possibility. Normally, Collins was a factual and realistic person, rarely given to flights of fancy or contemplations of melodrama. Normally, he would have dismissed this possibility of a secret corps as too sinister to treat seriously - except for one fact.
His predecessor in office had saved his dying words to warn him of a terrible danger - a danger called The R Document. If one could accept as fact the existence of a piece of paper menacing the - the what? - the security of the country? - one could also accept the possibility of unknown FBI agents’ threatening California Assemblymen, as a known one had threatened Father Dubinski.
Collins didn’t like it. As he went into the bedroom to change into a suit, before leaving to tape the television show with Pierce and to deliver his speech to the ABA, he didn’t like the idea that he had been elevated to a position where
he was supposed to know everything about crime in this country. Yet activities were taking place around him, activities that resembled criminal acts and about which he knew next to nothing. All of this, one way or another, had been engendered by the atmosphere created by the 35th Amendment. God, he thought, what would it be like if the 35th actually became the law of the land?
He had just finished changing when the telephone in the living room began to ring. He hastened into the room and picked up the receiver on the fifth ring.
He heard the voice of Ed Schrader in Washington.
‘Chris, about the assignment you gave me last night.’
He had quite forgotten his call to Schrader last night. It had been about the facility at Tule Lake that his son had showed him, the construction of a new branch of the Navy’s Project Sanguine. He had wanted Schrader to confirm this Navy installation’s existence only to prove that his son, Josh, was wrong in his internment-camp paranoia and to bring the boy to his senses.
‘Yes, Ed. What did you find out?’
‘I have this from authoritative sources at the Pentagon. The Navy’s Sanguine Project - or ELF, as they call it - was completed three years ago. There are no new installations under construction or any even being repaired. None of their facilities is anywhere near Tule Lake.’
He couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Are you telling me the Navy has no project based at Tule Lake?’
“None whatsoever.’
‘But the construction foreman there told me - No, never mind. But goddammit, something is being built up there. It’s a Government project. They’re building something.’
‘Well, it’s certainly not what you heard.’
‘No - no, I guess it’s not,’ he had said slowly. “Thanks, Ed.’
For the first time, he had admitted to himself the possibility that his son, Josh, might be right.
And that Keefe, Yurkovich, and Tobias might be right, too.
All during the twenty-minute drive to the network studios, he had reviewed the mounting evidence of the
sinister. The R Document, which was a danger to be exposed. Doctored crime statistics in California. A secret internment camp at Tule Lake.
But finally, it had been the smallest event of all that had unsetded him the most.
His mind went to the photographer planted outside his bungalow last night, trying to catch him with the hooker who had been planted inside. That had not been hearsay. That had been experienced firsthand.
He was filled with suspicion and distrust toward those around him, the advocates of the 35th Amendment, as well as toward the Amendment itself. Above all, he was in no mood to defend the Amendment on national television. He was sickened by the role he had to play. He wanted to turn around and run.
But it was too late. They had reached Beverly Boulevard, and he could see the network studios up ahead.
*
Collins sat in the chair of the dressing room, a bib protecting his shirt, watching the reflections in the mirror as the makeup man applied a light brown pancake powder to his haggard features.
He could also see, in the mirror, the producer of Search for Truth, a tailored young woman named Monica Evans, when she reappeared in the doorway behind him.
‘How’s it going, Mr Attorney General?’ she asked.
‘I guess I’m almost ready,’ Collins said.
A few more minutes, Monica, and he’s all yours,’ the makeup man promised.
‘I hope you’re running on schedule,’ Collins added. ‘Right after this, I’m due at the Century Plaza for a speech to the Bar Association. It’s going to be close.’
‘You’ll be out of here in plenty of time,’ Monica Evans assured him. ‘Tony Pierce is already on the stage with our moderator, Brant Vanbrugh. They’ve been made up. They’re prepared to go as soon as you are.’
For Collins, this was a small relief. He had dreaded the idea of being cooped up in this makeup room with Tony
Pierce before the show and being forced to talk to him. A formal discussion with Pierce on camera was bad enough. But a private conversation would have been unendurable.
‘I’ll be waiting in the hall to take you to the studio,’ Monica Evans said, and then she disappeared.
Collins continued to observe himself in the mirror, and he was not happy with what he saw. Despite the cosmetics, the creams and powders that filled in every crease and crevice of his features, he appeared in his own eyes like a cadaver the mortician was trying to make presentable.
Why, he wondered, was he here to defend a bomb that would blow the Bill of Rights out of the Constitution? What, he wondered, had brought him to side with anti-libertarians like President Wadsworth and Vernon T. Tynan? How, he wondered, had he become a champion of the horrendous 35th Amendment?
In the stark lighting of the theatrically arranged bulbs surrounding the mirror, there was sudden clarity. Until now, he. had rationalized his position glibly and persistently. As a good among the bads, he could modify their course. Yet he had failed to do so, had not even really tried. As a Cabinet member, he had chosen to stay on because he had unfinished business, meaning his own solution to crime, which was a more human and decent one. Yet he had not acted upon this business. As Attorney General, he could get other things done that were of more importance than the 35th Amendment. But he knew that his other work was meaningless compared with the overriding importance of the new amendment.
In short, all his rationalizing had been pure bullshit.
He knew why he was here. He knew what had brought him here. He knew how it had come about.
It was naked now, seen in the clarity of the mirror, and he could identify it.
It was ambition. Yes, ambition was the motor that drove him in the wrong lane.
Ambition to get someplace, to show his father. To get somewhere on his own. Grammar-school Freud, but as simple as that. To be what he wasn’t, in order to make it. To show his father. To be somebody at any price. But it was
ridiculous, this moment. There was nothing to show his father. His father was dead. There was only he himself. And now there was little of himself left.
‘All right, Mr Collins,’ the makeu
p man said, removing the bib, ‘you’re ready to go.’
Go where? He got out of the chair. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
In the hall, he found Monica Evans, and he followed her quickly into the vast television studio.
They emerged from behind a row of scenic flats into a bright square of lights. There were three bulky cameras, two of them being moved. Technicians were bustling about. Attention was focused on a small platform that had been dressed as a private-library set, with three swivel chairs grouped around a massive table. Two men were conversing on the platform.
‘Let me introduce you to Brant Vanbrugh, the moderator, and Tony Pierce,’ said the producer.
Although Collins had never met Pierce face-to-face before, he recognized him at once from his newspaper pictures and previous television appearances. Seeing Pierce in person was a disappointment. Collins wanted a villain, and what he saw instead was a disarming and winning human being. Pierce had sandy hair and a freckled, open young-middle-aged face, one alive with enthusiasm. He was trim, springy, five feet ten, in a custom-tailored single-breasted suit.
Collins’ heart sank. He had hoped not only for a villain but for an enemy, and now the only enemy he could find was no one other than himself.
Monica Evans brought him forward and effected the introductions.
‘I’m glad to meet you at last, Mr Collins,’ Pierce said. ‘The little I know about you is from what I’ve read and from your son, Josh. He’s quite a boy.’
‘He speaks highly of you,’ said Collins, miserably certain that Pierce was eyeing him to discover how such a father could have produced such a son.
‘Gentlemen,’ the moderator interrupted, ‘I’m afraid we don’t have much time.’ He was a brisk young man, deceptively resembling a juvenile lead, but with the mind (Collins had seen the show before) of a steel trap. Ambitious, Collins
thought. Then he thought, Look who’s talking.
Vanbrugh led them to their respective chairs on either side of him. As someone fastened the small microphone around Collins’ neck, he heard Vanbrugh addressing them again.
‘We’ll be taping in two minutes. This edition of Search for Truth will air coast-to-coast on prime time tonight. What you do here goes on as is. No editing. There’ll be two commercial breaks. Here’s the format. I’ll open with the proposition to be discussed: “Should California ratify the 35th Amendment?” I’ll do the introductory material on the 35th. I’ll tell what it is, and where it stands today. The camera will be tight on me. Then the camera will pull back to reveal you, Mr Collins. I’ll introduce you to the audience as the United States Attorney General and give some of your credentials. Then the camera will cut to Mr Pierce and me, and I’ll introduce you, Mr Pierce, as a former FBI Special Agent, a practicing attorney, and head of the lobby opposing the 35th Amendment and backing the Bill of Rights. Then I’ll call on you, Mr Collins. You’ll have about two minutes to make an opening statement. I’d suggest you concentrate on why you are supporting the 35th Amendment. I imagine you’ll want to paint a strong picture of the criminal landscape in America today, and argue that drastic measures are required to preserve our society. Next, your turn, Mr Pierce. You can have your two-minute opener. Don’t debate Mr Collins yet. Just state your views on why you oppose the Amendment. After that we’ll play it by ear. You can start your debate. Interruptions are okay, but don’t step on each other’s lines.’ He looked off. ‘We’re about to start. When the red light goes on above the middle camera, we’re taping. Good luck, gentlemen, and let’s keep it lively.’
The red light above the middle camera began to shine.
Feeling ill and fuzzy-headed, Collins only half-listened to Vanbrugh’s opening remarks.
He heard his name and knew he was being introduced. He summoned up a sickly smile for the camera.
Next, he heard Tony Pierce’s name. He glanced past the moderator. Pierce’s open, freckled face was grave.
He heard his own name again, and the question.
From a distance, he heard himself speaking. ‘At no time since the Civil War have our democratic institutions been so seriously threatened as they are today. Violence has become commonplace. Back in 1975, ten out of every 100,000 Americans died by murder. Today, twenty-two out of ever 100,000 Americans die by murder. Some years ago, three mathematicians at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after making a study of the increasing crime rate, concluded, “An urban American boy born in 1974 is more likely to die by murder than an American soldier in World War II was to die in combat.” Today, this cruel possibility has doubled. It was out of a need to stop this upward spiral of violence, including murder, that the concept of the 35th Amendment was born.’
Laboriously, he continued until he saw the fifteen-second card, and with relief he concluded his opening statement.
Now he heard Tony Pierce speaking, every sentence a blow, and he winced inside and tried not to listen.
Two minutes more, and he knew the debate had begun. He heard Pierce speaking once more. ‘Human beings have struggled for freedom - for freedom from tyranny - for at least 2,500 years. Now, overnight, if the 35th Amendment is passed, that struggle will end in America. Overnight, at the whim of the Director of the FBI and his Committee on National Safety, the Bill of Rights could be suspended indefinitely -‘
‘Not indefinitely,’ Collins interrupted. ‘Only in an emergency, and only for a short time, perhaps a few months.’
That’s what they said in India in 1962,’ said Pierce. ‘They had an emergency and they suspended their Bill of Rights. It remained suspended for six years. Then they suspended it again in 1975. Who can guarantee that won’t happen here? And if it does happen, it means the end of our free way of life. We have proof of that. Such a thing has happened before in the United States, and it has always meant disaster.’
‘What are you saying, Mr Pierce?’ Vanbrugh interjected. ‘Are you saying the Bill of Rights has been suspended before in our history?’
‘Unofficially it has, yes. Our Bill of Rights has been unofficially suspended, or overlooked, or ignored, numerous times in our past, and when this has happened, we have suffered deeply.’
‘Can you cite any specific example?’ asked the moderator.
‘Certainly,’ said Pierce. ‘In 1798, after the French Revolution, the United States feared the infiltration of radical French conspirators who might want to overthrow our Government. In an atmosphere of hysteria, Congress ignored the Bill of Rights and passed the Alien and Sedition Laws. Hundreds of people were arrested. Editors who wrote against these laws were clapped into jail. Ordinary citizens who spoke out against President John Adams were also thrown into jail. Because Thomas Jefferson campaigned against this madness, this suspension of the Bill of Rights, people were brought to their senses and Jefferson was elected President.
‘Other examples abound. During the Qvil War, writs of habeas corpus were ignored, and civil trials gave way to military trials. After World War I, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer invoked the Red Menace and went on a witch-hunt that led to the arrest, without the use of warrants, of 3,500 people and the deportation of 700 aliens. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes characterized these arrests as one of “the worst practices of tyranny”. With the beginning of World War II, American citizens who happened to be of Japanese descent were deprived of their property and confined to detention camps. Not long after, in 1954 to be exact, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rashly accused 205 persons employed in the U.S. State Department of being members of the Communist party, thus instigating his own Red Scare. McCarthy, a reckless, publicity-hungry demagogue and hopeless drunkard, smeared and destroyed countless innocent Americans by labeling dissent and non-comformity as treason. In the end, through his excesses, he destroyed himself before the nation during the thirty-six days of the Army-McCarthy hearings.
‘More recently, the Organized Crime Control Act of 1969, the dream child of President Richard M. Nixon and Attorney General John N. Mitchell, effectively suspended
/>
the Bill of Rights by providing for preventive detention of accused criminals, no-knock entry of private homes, limits on the rights of the accused to see evidence illegally obtained against them, and electronic eavesdropping for forty-eight hours without warrants and for a longer period with warrants. Commenting on the Organized Crime Control Act, Senator Sam J. Ervin of North Carolina called it “a garbage pail of some of the most repressive, nearsighted, intolerant, unfair, and vindictive legislation that the Senate has ever been presented… . This bill might better be entitled “a bill to repeal the 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments to the Constitution.”’ ‘Yet democracy survived,’ said Collins. ‘Barely, barely, Mr Collins. And one day it may not survive such assaults on our liberty. As Charles Peguy once observed, tyranny is always better organized than freedom. If all those horrors I’ve mentioned were committed with a Bill of Rights in effect, imagine what will happen without a Bill of Rights, after the 35th Amendment is ratified. Mr Collins, our Constitution, with its Bill of Rights, has survived longer than any other written Constitution on earth. Let’s not destroy it with our own hands.’
‘Mr Pierce,’ said Collins, ‘you speak of our Constitution as if it had been chiseled in stone or handed down from heaven - as something inflexible, not subject to change. As a matter of fact, our Constitution today is merely a product of compromise. Before it was signed, there were many versions of it, it was many things, and it can still be many things -‘
‘That’s not the point, Mr Collins,’ Pierce interrupted. ‘The point -‘
Vanbrugh quickly came between them. ‘One second, gentlemen. I’d like Attorney General Collins to expand on what he was starting to say. You were saying, Mr Collins, there were many versions of the Constitution -‘ ‘And the Bill of Rights, also,’ added Collins. ‘ - before a final version was signed. I find that interesting. Many members of our audience may not realize that. Do you want to explain?’ ‘I’d be glad to. I’m only trying to prove that we aren’t
(1976) The R Document Page 14
