The Goddess Of Fortune

by Andrew Blencowe

  Schneider very carefully laid out the map on the old desk from the President’s uncle, taking extreme pains not to notice the President’s wheel chair.

  “As you can see with the broad red line on the map, the goal of the German army is to cut off the oil to the Soviets. And we have been extremely successful in doing this, while at the same time protecting our own fields at Ploesti in Romania. This new line was put in place in the second week of September, and now it is achieving what it was designed to do.”

  “In addition to the German army’s new line, the British RAF has been largely neutralized.”

  Stimson, who had a week earlier briefed the President on the details of this denuding of the British air arm, simply asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we do not have all the details, but the Luftwaffe has destroyed many of the Britishers’ air fields and fuel supplies. And now there are no longer any bombing raids on the Reich. This has meant that our aircraft have been freed to fly sorties into Russia to destroy the Russian tanks with our new 45 millimeter cannons. These new cannons reportedly open a Russian tank as if it was a tin can.”

  “As a consequence, the Soviets have realized their position is now untenable. So our two sides are speaking about an accommodation in Geneva.”

  “What kind of accommodation?” Stimson asked.

  “We two are just diplomats, but it is the understanding of my ambassador as well as myself that the Soviets will grant German control of the Ukraine, and that Germany will hold the Baku fields and will supply the Russians with 100,000 tons of oil per month at no cost. In return, Germany will grant the Soviets autonomy in the Baltics. Finland will become a free, sovereign nation.”

  “You’re in that strong a position?” Stimson asked candidly.

  Schneider nodded, “Gentlemen, please do remember that all of the ill-conceived notions about how to attack Soviet Russia—‘you have merely to kick in the front door’ and all that gibberish—have been washed away with the sudden death of our Chancellor last September.”

  The reference to the dead Chancellor alerted both the President and Stimson that there was as much discord in the German ranks as there was in their own.

  Roosevelt asked, “So how does this affect your two allies in the agreement?”

  Schneider replied, “Well, sir, regarding the Tripartite Agreement, we have been in very close consultations with our Japanese allies and have completely ignored the Italians.”

  Schneider answered Roosevelt’s frown, “They are Italian.”

  For a second there was silence then Roosevelt erupted in laughter; Stimson joined him.

  While the ambassador was a little lost with the proceedings, seeing the two Americans roaring with laughter removed his concerns.

  Schneider winked at the old man.

  “And to be completely honest and forthright, gentlemen, the Japanese put in a surprising request, which in all propriety I am not sure I should disclose.”

  This stopped the laughter.

  “Our Japanese allies explicitly requested that the Reich not declare war on the United States, in spite of the Reich being legally bound to do so. It struck us as odd and unusual at the time, but perhaps it is the workings of the Japanese mind.”

  Ever the diplomat, Stimson said, “Is that a fact?”

  Schneider—his turn to play the fool—just nodded.

  “Well, Mr. President and Secretary Stimson, you are both very busy men. I think it is time the Ambassador and I stopped wasting your time. We bid you good day.”

  With this the two Germans stood, clicked their heels, and left.

  “Hmm,” was the President’s sole comment.

  Twenty minutes later, at precisely ten minutes past noon, Admiral King entered the Oval Office. Ten minutes later, Miss Tully buzzed the intercom to tell the President that Ambassador Nomura had arrived.

  Quietly the Japanese ambassador entered the room, bowed, as was his custom, and waited for the President of the United States to offer him a seat.

  The previous evening, Roosevelt had sent Stimson to the Hill to speak to two of the three most vociferous critics of Roosevelt’s apparent inactivity. Only last month, the Senator from California made mention on the floor of the Senate of a “Second Munich.”

  Oddly, Stimson found both Senators oddly quiet and curiously accommodating. As Stimson joked to Roosevelt on the telephone, “We should have the water checked up there on the Hill.”

  Under mysterious circumstances, the third Senator—the one from Oregon—had died in an automobile accident a week earlier when one night he tragically drove his car off a bridge into Bull Run Creek outside of Washington.

  The Senator from California always returned home to California by Pullman rather than airplane. It was not so much that he disliked flying, but rather that he had an addiction to the young Pullman porters. And—sadly—while relaxing after a tenuous month of law making and speechifying just two weeks earlier during a special session, he had the terrible misfortune to be walked in on by a Presbyterian minister and the minister’s two maiden aunts. All three were returning from an ecumenical conference in Chicago. The look of horror and disgust on their faces was seared into the Senator’s memory. And the minister looked as though he was straight out of Central Casting—white hair, tall, honest and open face, forthright, and with a slight stoop.

  Actually, he was straight out of Central Casting, as where the two “aunts,” and the young porter had been paid ten $100 bills—“more money than I will ever have,” was his comment to another porter, as the young man boasted of his plans to return to Mississippi. The three actors tsk’ed and quickly disappeared. The Senator’s mood was gray as he knew he would have to resign, so a visit from Stimson was actually a welcome diversion. The Senator was remembering the look on the minister’s face all the while as he spoke to Stimson.

  Only three years later, sitting in a hot and stinking movie house dive in south San Diego, did the now-disgraced former Senator start to see the truth. Sitting in the back row, while being serviced by a 50-cent-an-hour male escort and sipping lukewarm Thunderbird, he saw the self-same “minister” on the silver screen, paradoxically playing a man of the cloth who had failed the temptation of the flesh.

  The burning of the other two Senators was far more straight-forward. And both happened in the same house on K Street. The house was well known and highly regarded, both for the freshness of the young ladies and the absolute discretion of the proprietress.

  The proprietress herself was from the South—Richmond, as it turns out, the former capital of the Stars and Bars. She took very pretty girls from Richmond and “introduced” them to Washington. She would tell the parents all about her Lee Finishing School Of Deportment For Young Southern Ladies, and how a few young ladies were sometimes selected to attend diplomatic parties in Washington where they could be introduced to young European princes and other nobles of royal lines.

  Why, only two weeks ago the young crown prince of Sweden announced his intention to marry one of her girls. Gasps always resulted in the six years she has told this story. Occasionally, the parents would sense the possibility of a deflowering, and in these cases the proprietress would simply thank her hosts for the tea and, “Thank you for seeing me, I will see myself out.”

  The young girls themselves were all eager to escape the dull back water that Richmond had become after the surrender in Wilmer McLean’s parlor. Alone with the young ladies, the proprietress was more frank—the work was entertaining and relaxing the overworked public servants who labored so long and hard in the public good in the alphabet soup that was the New Deal. And with the huge legislative agenda of the Roosevelt administration there were new agencies to create almost every month. The proprietress explained to the girls—always with very limited success—how the Roosevelt administration had added over 10,000 pages of new laws for his New Deal, and how the complete Federal legal structure before the current president had consisted of less than 8,000 pages.

  �
��So you can see the lawmakers are working very, very hard,” she would intone.

  The girls all nodded, most just pretending to understand to be polite to the lady they saw as their salvation from the perpetual boredom of Richmond and from their dates on Saturday nights who were generally drunk and always inept in their groping.

  The proprietress explained that many of these older men were rich and were always interested in pretty, friendly young southern belles. The best outcome was the girl would find herself in the Washington papers’ wedding announcements; the worst outcome was the girl would make some very good money, have a good time for a year or two, make some very useful contacts, and have some very good times in bed—not all the politicians were titans, but quite a few of these men, especially the southerners, were experienced and surprisingly adept at satisfying a young lady’s more primitive desires.

  The proprietress elaborated how these most powerful men in the country’s capital had equally powerful appetites. At this she would produce a list of eligible senators, representatives and high officials. Generally, there was often much excited giggling by the young ladies as the proprietress explained the names in red had an “understanding” with their wives (divorce was politically unacceptable); the ones with the green mark by their names were unmarried and only looking for mistresses. Of course, the list was a pure fabrication, but it served its purpose.

  The proprietress was never short of willing girls and had more than sufficient clients. Nevertheless, when a man asked for a very special arrangement—he called it “burning”—the proprietress was open, so long as the rewards were worth the risk to her hard-earned reputation. When the man brought an old-fashioned brown leather Gladstone bag filled with one-hundred-dollar bills—“all used, none serial, and none traceable”—the proprietress was interested; actually, she was very interested. Afterwards, she personally counted (she could hardly trust the girls) well over one million dollars.

  For a large fortune like this, the proprietress would have burned herself. The technical detail of the burn was simplicity itself. Over the past three years, the proprietress had taught herself the rudiments of photography and simple developing. On the two nights in question, the proprietress closeted herself in the tiny, hot, stuffy nook behind the largest bedroom and happily clicked away for two hours taking photos of the Senator being burned through the large two-way mirror at the head of the bed. For the benefit of the annals of photographic history, she was happy that on each of the two nights the politicians were using more than the bland-and-boring one-girl missionary position; in one case, it was two girls and the very naughty Senator being spanked; the other Senator wanted it very rough with all three girls he had selected that night, and the second Senator was very rough after drinking so much bourbon.

  The proprietress’s benefactor collected the photographs and the negatives the next day and provided an extra small satchel—“just a token of thanks for a job well done.”

  The final step was to drop off a few sample snaps to each of the Senators’ offices with a note inside to meet at a dull and dirty bar seven blocks from the White House—seven blocks from the center of power, with sawdust on the floors and spittoons in abundance. The sharped-eyed man met each Senator on consecutive nights in February at the bar. At the start of the second meeting, the Senator, who, like his peers, was used to getting his way, actually started with threats; the man tersely replied with,

  “Shut the fuck up or I walk out now, and feel free to shoot me now, for if I do not return by 10 p.m., a fresh and pristine set of all the photos—not just the sample five you got—go to all the Washington papers and a set will be delivered by hand to your wife at your home in Portland.”

  The Senator from Portland sulked.

  “Now, Senator, I represent a very large employer who has interests in your state and who is very interested in expanding his business with his Japanese partners.”

  At the mention of Japan, the corrupt Senator was trying to revive his grumbling.

  “Shut up, you old fool! You will now take a benign line and say ‘I have reconsidered my position, and I now think we should work to expand our ties with the Japanese who, after all, are our Pacific neighbors.’ ”

  “I cannot and I will not say that; the Japs are sneaky yellow cunts who should be eliminated from the face of the fucking planet—every last one of them.”

  “Have it as you will,” said the man as he rose; he went to the bar, paid the tab, and left.

  Two hours later, all the Washington papers were calling the Senator’s Washington home and the apartment of the Senator’s chief aide. And there was a message for the Senator that said, “Call your wife immediately.”

  At 10:10 p.m., the Senator had realized his career and his life were over. He backed out his car and drove towards Virginia.

  Nomura had been insulated from the cloak-and-dagger melodrama regarding the three Senators, not out of concern for the moral turpitude it involved, but for the rather more simple point of queering the pitch—it would not profit Nomura to know any of the details, and it may have altered his performance in the Oval Office.

  When Nomura, politely as ever, quietly entered the Oval Office, he greeted his host with his formal bow. Roosevelt was seated in his hated wheelchair, discretely hidden from view by the recent additions to his uncle’s desk.

  “Mr. President, the government of my Emperor sends its greetings to you and to Mr. Stimson.”

  While Stimson may have had his differences with the Japanese in the past, particularly over China, if they had any more like Nomura, then he could easily change his position—politics, especially at this highest level, was a very personal business; liking a protagonist was half the battle, as Stimson had learned.

  “And my Emperor is very concerned about your country’s honor as the United States is the most important and powerful country in the world.”

  Both Roosevelt and Stimson compared this sentiment with the one that came from the too-often intoxicated British Prime Minister and his bankrupt country—never in a thousand years would Churchill have been so thoughtful and so courteous.

  “Your concern and that of your Emperor are very considerate and we in this country are very thankful for them and for your presence.”

  There was a very long pause that Nomura was happy to let continue.

  “Now, regarding your recent proposition, I think we may be able to reach an accord. Please have a seat.”

  Nomura sat on one of the now-familiar yellow damask sofas.

  For the next two hours, the three men knocked out a crude plan, whereby the Japanese would ask the Swiss to broker an Armistice and the Americans would agree, but only under certain strict conditions that the criminals responsible for the horrible acts of December would be tried and convicted.

  Roosevelt smiled,

  “I love how these political promulgations always start by assuming guilt and conviction.”

  Nomura concurred.

  “I understand from my staff that the two key Senators opposing this arrangement have moderated their tone and that the Senator from Oregon has been tragically killed in a traffic accident.”

  Roosevelt explained the details of the parochial politics and how time was the best remedy.

  After another hour, Roosevelt looked up and smiled, “That, gentlemen, looks like a decent plan.”

  “Drinks all round please, Henry.”

  Stimson obliged and then for Roosevelt the most interesting part of the day’s conversation started,

  “Gentlemen, my government sees the Pacific as the future of the world, and it also sees Japan and the United States of America as the two countries, in partnership, to manage and develop it. In simple terms, we see it with we Japanese as the administrators and controllers, while the United States develops the region by implementing the President’s brilliant NIRA in Asia. We Japanese are very good at governing and organizing, but we do not have the raw materials and we frankly lack the financial skills to build nations.
You have Mr. Ford and hundreds of like-minded leaders of industry.”

  Stimson in particular listened to this explanation, and for the first time understood the concepts of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Japan Manages, America Sells. And this suited Stimson down to the ground.

  Roosevelt—at Nomura’s urging—painted the developments as Japan’s contrite surrender, and as the Japanese desire to make amends. The use of the word “surrender” knocked the wind of out the sails of Roosevelt’s critics. And the photographs of the glum faces of Tojo and Yamamoto in the dark, dank cells of the Geneva police department made for exceptionally good press coverage in the United States. And so it should have—it had taken over an hour of careful lighting at Tokyo’s biggest movie lot and even more careful makeup to create these illusions. For both men, it was their first experience with actor’s makeup and both detested it, but for the greater good of the country and for the Emperor, well, this was a small price to pay.

  As with most political theater, like politics in general, the effect was powerful but very short-lived. By some quite legal maneuvers, the Japanese defendants were permitted to be replaced by proxies. The drafting of the court’s basic documents extended well beyond the three months originally allocated. The Swiss judge fell ill and was incapacitated for four months with a mysterious rash. The Japanese judge’s father died and he had to return to Japan. And then the American judge decided to take early retirement.

  Initially, the world press, and particularly the American press, took a rabid interest in the proceeding, but as the months dragged on, the observation that delay is the finest form of denial took hold. And even for the American press, the endless delays were no longer news—there was fresh news with the President extolling almost daily the benefits the country would gain with his new pan-Asian NIRA. And Roosevelt revved up the country with his vision for the new Asia, freed from the tyranny of colonialism. He even had mockups of his fleet of PANIRA airships created with Old Glory on one side and the Rising Sun on the other. Next to Roosevelt, it was his faithful Rex Tugwell who was most energized.