The General's President (51 page)

Haugen was hopeful but not awfully optimistic that this would work, though he concealed his doubts from Gurenko. He'd read voraciously and omnivorously most of his life, sometimes two books an evening. History and nations had been favorite subjects of his, and he had a huge volume of information available to his remarkable recall. He knew that at the end of the Second World War, the Stalin government had hauled to Siberian labor camps approximately 1.5 million of the five million Balts and Estonians who'd survived the war—thirty percent. These had been replaced with Russian colonists. Government was put almost totally in the hands of Russians, who'd favored the Russian colonists over the native people in every way.

That had been a half century earlier. The iron Russian grip was said to have lightened in recent decades, and since the Russian conquest, two new generations had been born to both the native people and the Russians who'd been forced on them. And there must have been intermarriages. But ethnic hatreds often die slowly, and it seemed likely to Haugen that, given the opportunity, many Balts and Estonians might in their turn discriminate against the Russians among them and against the Russian language.

He hoped they wouldn't. If they did, the Russian fist might clench on them again.

And of course, the new and independent Communist parties might change so much so fast, they'd spook the Russians.

Time would tell.

At least the cold war seemed definitely over for the time being, Russian imperialism had cooled, and the new ruler was neither paranoid nor xenophobic. And as important as any other trait, Gurenko, more than any of his predecessors, was more a rationalist than an ideolog.

So Arne Eino Haugen felt pleased with the world and himself when he got an Air Force One and took off for home.

FORTY-NINE

The president knew a couple of things as soon as Martinelli told him who was on the line. One: Something was bothering Cromwell, who, since becoming vice president, had seldom phoned him from outside. And two: whatever he was calling about probably wasn't officially urgent, because he'd called through the White House switchboard instead of directly by security phone.

The general, he decided, was calling to make a point, and he was prepared for Cromwell's response to his usual "What can I do for you, Jumper?"

"Mr. President, I'd like to make a suggestion."

"All right."

"I've been keeping a close eye on Valenzuela ever since you appointed him secretary. He'd make a hell of a good vice president."

Haugen laughed. "I think so too. You still want to weasel out, do you?"

The answer came a little stiffly. "No sir. I want to see more suitable presidential material as vice president."

"Jumper..." The president paused. "Excuse my honest-to-god lousy choice of words. I know you're not trying to weasel, and I know how you feel about being next in line. I've been watching Val with that in mind. From the start. I'll take it up with him when we get together this afternoon. He's coming over here to watch Weisner's talk to the UN with me.

"But if I died this minute, you could appoint a vice president and resign tomorrow. You know that."

Cromwell shook his head. "It would look to the people as if there was something wrong with the job. As if it was too much for anyone but you."

The president nodded. "I see your point. I'll tell you though, Jumper, if someone shot me today, you'd make a helluva good president. Better than most have, I guarantee it.

"Meanwhile I can't give the job to just anyone, and I don't know how Val will feel about it. I wouldn't be surprised if he told me he's never even imagined the possibility. But if he's willing, I'll let you know. Then you can send me your resignation, to be effective on the date of his approval as vice president. Okay?"

There was a perceptible lag before Cromwell replied. "Yes sir; thank you sir. I'll look forward to hearing."

The president knew what caused the lag, too. "1 know I could approve Valenzuela myself," he added, "and I would in an emergency. But I'm not going over Congress's head when it's not necessary."

"Of course, sir. I agree entirely."

You do indeed
, the president thought.
And there we have the difference between the mind and the emotions.
"Anything else, Jumper?"

"That was it, sir. Thank you."

They disconnected. Arne Haugen looked at the clock on his desk: In an hour and a half or so, they'd be bringing Lois home from the hospital, with a live-in nurse for a while. Gate security was to notify him when the limo arrived.

He picked up the intelligence summary he'd been reading when Cromwell had phoned. There was a lot to do, as always. He'd finish this, handle his IN basket, touch up his educational reform speech for Friday, go to his twelve o'clock press conference across the street, then come back and listen to Weisner's speech on television.

***

Marianne Weisner, the chief United States envoy to the United Nations, sat in the General Assembly, waiting to be recognized by the chair.

The resolution before the assembly had been authored by the representatives of the United Kingdom. The Security Council could have taken action on its own, but it had decided to wait for a request by the General Assembly, to allow the African nations in particular to address the matter.

The African nations hadn't been as hostile as widely expected.
And some of the hostility expressed was more form than substance
, she told herself. North of the Kuvuma, the resolution even had some support, expressed confidentially.

The secretary general called on her, and she stepped to the rostrum, switching on the microphone in front of her there.

"Almost everything there is to say on the subject has been said," she began, "so I will simply resume, stressing some considerations I regard as central to our decision.

"The white South African has been forced back into a small portion of the large territory he so recently held. But he defends that small portion with great tenacity. To drive him into the ocean would be terribly costly in human lives, both black and white.

"Of course he can be beaten now, and killed. Much of his motorized equipment is already stalled, out of fuel, and we can be sure his ammunition supply is not endless."

She looked them over, the assembled faces, the mixture of national costumes among western business suits. They were different in inner ways, too, but all in all they were far more alike than they, were different, brought to a considerable common ground by education. And so she knew them rather well.

"Really," she went on, "what we are looking at is a choice, a choice between vengeance and justice. Civilized people recognize the difference between the two, and in this assembly we are civilized people. So where does justice lie?

"Since the evacuation of those who wished to flee, almost all the remaining whites in South Africa are Afrikaners. South Africa is the homeland of the Afrikaner, as it is of the black people there. The Afrikaner was born there, as were his parents, and their parents, and theirs, in most cases for more than three hundred years, a dozen or more generations. He has no other home."

Her glance, which could be fierce when it suited her need, swept the assemblage mildly.

"His crimes against his fellow humans are not the issue. We know what they have been, and we have seen them bring ruin upon him. What we are considering is not what the Afrikaner has done, but what are our future actions will be. Not the momentary satisfactions of revenge, but the long-term benefits of justice.

"While genocide is a term often misused to stir emotions, genocide also happens in reality. And those who, in their understandable bitterness, would wipe out the Afrikaner, lineage and language, push him back against the sea and kill him, driving any survivors into scattered exile—those people are advocating genocide.

"That genocide has occurred many times throughout history does not make it right. And I believe we have outgrown such barbarous behavior.

"And consider the alternative, the resolution before us. Granting the Afrikaner the territory between the Great Kei River on the east and the Sunday and Zeekoe Rivers on the west, from the Ocean northward to the Orange, would allow him a territory of 32 thousand square miles, scarcely seven percent of what he once called his. It is sufficient to support his numbers, probably not much more than two million now, for he uses land skillfully and has a good command of technology. And the world, and his neighbors, will never let him dominate and enslave or abuse black people again."

She paused to look around once more, her glance stopping here and there on African representatives, most of whom she knew, most of whom knew her.

"I hope," she said, "that all of us here will vote for the resolution presented by the United Kingdom, as a unanimous statement of principle and justice, and as a step toward a better future for all of us on this planet."

***

On his television screen, the president watched her sit down to courteous and general applause. Ambassador Weisner was a handsome woman of forty-eight, with a master's degree in biochemistry, a doctorate in law, and remarkable energy. Haugen, not having paid much attention to the UN, had paid little attention to her until Coulter had complained to him about "that Weisner woman" who "sometimes seems to think she represents Israel instead of the United States."

The president had already decided Coulter would have to go, but he'd looked into her performance anyway. And been impressed. Coulter's complaints had no substance. They'd grown out of the same strange mental program that controlled most of what he'd done.

Now he turned the sound down and looked at Valenzuela. "What do you think of her?" he asked.

"She is both wise and skilled. It was entirely her speech, you know; I merely read it and concurred. She picked a theme, civilized behavior, and left out things that might have offended the black South African, like the Afrikaner as a source of jobs and technology. She scarcely mentioned him as a fighter, cornered and dangerous."

He shook his head. "There's no doubt at all that the General Assembly will give the necessary two-thirds majority, and the Security Council is prepared to act regardless. Now if young van Louw can hold his position against the die-hards... But I'm certain he will. Their families are with them there, and it will even allow them their blessed apartheid within their own small land. Though life without a subject race to exploit may require considerable adjustment.

"But still the Afrikaner probably will prosper."

The president nodded. "It'll be the white South African who lives on a reservation, not the black, but in this case the land will be truly his. And you're right; he has the technology, the skills, the discipline; I expect he will prosper. Maybe after a bit he'll even be a good neighbor. Or am I being sentimental?"

Absently he sipped tepid coffee. "What would you think of the lady as vice president?"

"Marianne? What that really means is, what kind of president would she be, if it came to that." He looked at the question, then at Haugen. "I believe she would be quite effective. I take it General Cromwell still wants out and you're considering her."

"No, I'm considering someone else. But the someone else might want to consider her." He put down his cup. "I'm not going to stay on past this year. I'm not indispensable, and I'd like to take Lois out of here."

His eyes captured Valenzuela's, and at that moment, Valenzuela knew what was coming.

"How'd you like to be vice president, Val? For a little while. And after that, president. The Jones Act made Puerto Ricans eligible way back in 1917; Cavanaugh assures me there's no question about your constitutional eligibility.

"It's a kind of spooky feeling, I know, to become president this way. Or it was for me. But why did it feel that way? Because culturally, something feels missing: I didn't run for office! Any office! I didn't go through the standard procedure. Background? Hell, Hoover was an engineer, Grant and Eisenhower career military men ... Reagan was an actor and Wheeler an ex-professional football player, for chrissake! You have as good a background, your credentials are as good, as almost any president this side of George Washington."

The president grinned at his dark secretary then. "Or maybe you're rarin' to have a go at it. Maybe I'm wasting my sales pitch. Whatever. I've watched you enough to feel sure you can handle the job, handle it well, and I'm sure that Congress will approve you."

"Hmh!" Valenzuela smiled slightly. "You'd be a hard act to follow, Mr. President. But yes, I would accept the vice presidency. There may be times I'll regret saying it, but I'm willing." He laughed then. "You realize of course that you're talking about a black Hispanic Catholic president and a female Jewish vice president."

"Why not?" Haugen laughed too. "What the hell, we're up to it now. It's not that much wilder than a president who didn't speak English till after he started school."

"You know," he added grinning, "Abe Lincoln would be proud of us."

He reached for the phone. "I told Jumper I'd let him know what you said. He's probably got his resignation typed up and ready. Then I'll call Milstead and he'll get your nomination drafted. We'll get this underway right now."

***

At Lois's suggestion, Arne had invited Flynn to supper. Flynn had spent time with her every day in the hospital. She'd gotten him to talk about his life: his childhood, so different from Arne's, his growing interest in becoming a priest, a teaching priest ... even two of the spiritual crises in his life. She thought of him now as a close personal friend.

She wasn't able to eat much yet—soup prepared in the White House kitchen under the direction of her nurse, a gentle salad, custard. Therapy had been hard on her body's systems, though much harder on the lymphomas that threatened them with extinction. But for the men in her life she'd ordered stroganoff sent up from the kitchen, "in honor of our newfound affinity with things Russian," she told them.

It felt so good to be out of the hospital, done at least for a time with the therapy. And the White House staff were always good to her; there was real affection here. Now, she thought, it would be pleasant to go for a drive along Lake Superior, in passing to look out through cliffy, fir and birch-framed vistas across steel-blue water... But this winter even Gitchee Gumee's storm-tossed winter seas would be bound, restrained, roofed over now with ice, and the roadside picnic tables buried under snow.