Capable of Honor (35 page)
Authors: Allen Drury
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Political, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Thrillers
“There are the analyses and commentaries which conveniently refrain from telling you
why
your government has taken certain actions—but always tell you how awful these actions are and how dreadfully critical the rest of the world is of them.
“There is the convenient—and, my friends, since these are highly intelligent people, I can only conclude, the deliberate—forgetting of where the blame truly lies, and the incessant and implacable attempt to pin it always on the United States.
“And there is, finally, the indirect and vicious attack upon those who support a policy of firmness—an attack which concentrates upon their financial practices, or their personal hives, or their private morals, but never honestly comes into the open to tell you that the real argument is with their political philosophy.
“All of these,” he said calmly, “are the patterns of the councils of defeat, which you have read and heard from Korea to Vietnam to Santo Domingo to Gorotoland—and who knows where beyond?
“This is the one-sided, unfair, unobjective, biased, twisted, irresponsible, deliberately slanted way in which the world is described to you by a few powerful people who have been given the high privilege of being your eyes and ears upon events.
“This is what has become, in this partisan century, of the once inviolate integrity of a once inviolate profession.
(“Wow
ee,”
Walter’s host said softly, but his guest only turned upon him a scowl so black that he hastily subsided.)
“I reject such councils of defeat,” the President said, “as I know the great majority of you do.
“I urge you not to let them confuse you about the situation we actually face—and did face—in Gorotoland.
“We were attacked: we did not attack—until we had to.
“We were injured: we did not injure—until we had to.
“Do not let the councils of defeat tell you the opposite. Do not let them turn the facts upside down.
“You and I know better.”
He paused, and when he resumed it was with what seemed an almost abrupt distaste.
“But enough of that. Let us turn, unafraid and united, to the course that honor dictates. There has just been voted, by the Congress of the United States, a resolution of support and approval (“Not too much approval,” Walter’s hostess ventured, and was rewarded with a tight little smile) of your Government’s policies in Gorotoland. Let us go forward in that spirit voted by your Senators and Representatives in the Congress.
“And let us do honor to those who, by their example and their deeds and the sacrifice of their lives, have done, and are doing, honor to us.
“There arrived this day in the city of New York,” he said gravely, “the bodies of fifty-eight Americans slain to this date in Gorotoland. Forty-nine are missionaries and business personnel (“Why don’t you say Standard Oil?” Walter demanded angrily, and again there was a nervous moment in the room, though the two Ambassadors nodded vigorously.) killed prior to our intervention. It is because of their deaths that we did intervene. Nine are Marines and airmen who have died since.
“These were brave Americans, and it seems to me only proper and fitting that America should do them honor.
“Therefore I shall go tomorrow to New York City and escort these American dead to Washington. (“My God,” Walter said in a disbelieving tone, “how can you beat that kind of cruel corn?”)
“I have made arrangements with the appropriate authorities of the House and Senate that here in this city these brave men and women may lie in state on Friday and Saturday in the Rotunda of the Capitol (“That’s going to hurt your speech, isn’t it?” Walter’s host suggested, but his guest did not reply); and that there on Saturday afternoon, in their presence, there shall be conducted a National Service of Tribute and Dedication to them and to the cause of international decency and brotherhood for which they gave their lives.
“This service,” the President said, “I also designate a service of Dedication and Support to all those brave men who now carry the American flag in Gorotoland and anywhere around the globe where the honor of the United States and the security of mankind is threatened by wanton aggression.
“To this service on Saturday I shall ask to accompany me the Supreme Court of the United States; the Congress of the United States; the Governors of the several states (“Oh, oh!” Walter’s host couldn’t resist. “There goes Ted Jason!”) and all those foreign governments that have diplomatic representatives in this country. (“But—” the Ambassador of Guinea protested in a shocked voice. “But,” said the Ambassador of Pakistan grimly.)
“Following this national tribute and dedication,” the President said quietly, “the bodies of these American dead will be taken to their respective homes and there interred according to the wishes of their next of kin.”
He paused, and when he resumed speaking it was in an even more somber, emphatic tone.
“Respect for our dead—indeed, respect for our living—has not been overly prevalent in the world in recent decades. I intend to see that it is, from now on.
“And I also intend to see, my countrymen, that you are kept advised of the progress of this action your Administration has taken in Gorotoland—that you are constantly reminded of the reasons for it—and that you are not allowed to forget, despite the councils of defeat, why we are there and the reasons why we intend to stay there until this situation is corrected.
“Let me review them once more briefly for you:
“A Communist-backed and Communist-inspired rebellion broke out in Gorotoland.
(“That’s the first time he’s claimed that,” Walter’s hostess remarked. “He must be hard-pressed,” the Ambassador of Guinea replied spitefully.)
“Communist-backed and Communist-inspired rebel troops threatened to overrun the American missionary hospital in the capital of Molobangwe, and actually abducted two American nurses whose fate is still unknown, but they must be presumed dead.
“Communist-backed and Communist-inspired rebel troops also threatened a Standard Oil installation in the highlands which had been granted the right to operate by the legitimate government of Gorotoland headed by Prince Terry.
“Your Government thereupon issued the firmest and most emphatic warning to the rebel leaders.
“Within a week this warning was disregarded. Molobangwe was overrun. The missionary hospital was burned. The Standard Oil installation was destroyed. Forty-nine Americans were wantonly murdered and mutilated.
“These, my friends, are the facts as they happened. They are not”—and, for Harley, the tone became bitingly acrid—“the topsy-turvy, upside-down-cake misrepresentations that are being given you by the councils of defeat. They are what really happened, and if I have to go on the air every hour on the hour to set the record straight in the face of these misrepresentations, I am prepared to do it.…I would hope, however, that the common sense, good judgment, and innate fairness of the American people will make this unnecessary.
“We live in difficult times, and I can understand if some Americans let their emotions cloud their judgment and dictate their actions. But I believe the great majority of you agree with me that in the circumstances we face in the world, there can be no other course than the course of honor, unafraid and willing to stand up for what it believes in.
“Any other direction spells suicide, in my estimation, and as long as I am in this office, I shall proceed accordingly. Councils of defeat,” he added dryly, “or no councils of defeat.
“I ask you to join me in paying tribute to our brave dead and in reaffirming our determination and dedication to the principles of this Republic and to the survival of the free world. And I ask you to believe that your Government has no other purpose and no other aim than this.”
H.H. SETS NATIONAL MOURNING FOR U.S. GOROTO DEAD, the headlines blared; HITS “COUNCILS OF DEFEAT”; BODIES TO LIE IN STATE; CRITICS CHARGE “CALLOUS USE OF DEAD”; PRESIDENT ADAMANT ON INTERVENTION POLICIES AS MILITARY ACTION BOGS DOWN.
“In an extraordinary move,” the typical broadcast had it, “President Hudson tonight used the return of American dead from Gorotoland to launch a scathing attack upon the domestic critics of his policies in that distant African land. Shocked observers in Washington could not recall anything to match what one of them called ‘a callous political use of the dead.’ Typical of the dismayed reaction of many was that of Senator Fred Van Ackerman of Wyoming, who told our Washington reporter, Carole Cooney, ‘I can’t remember a similar callous political use of the dead. It’s a cheap stunt by a mis-leader who claims he’s inspired by honor. Does the President actually think he can get away with this?’ Other early comments, while less personal in nature, were equally condemnatory of the President’s latest move in the domestic war he is fighting with critics of his Gorotoland policy. In the harshest public address of his entire Administration, the Chief Executive attacked unnamed ‘councils of defeat,’ who, he alleged, were misrepresenting …”
In Dumbarton Oaks, where Ted and Ceil and Patsy had watched the speech in silence (save for Ted’s quizzical exclamation when the President announced his invitation to the governors)—in Spring Valley, where Orrin and Beth listened attentively to the words Orrin had helped to write the night before—at the Shoreham, where Lafe paused in his latest conquest to listen—at the party on Loughborough Road, where Helen-Anne vehemently approved—at Cullee’s handsome home off 16th Street, where he and Maudie watched—and everywhere else in the politics-conscious city where men were accustomed to appraise events in terms of initiatives seized and advantages won, there was a deeper and shrewder appreciation of the President’s speech.
“Seems to me like he got ’em shortcutted,” Maudie remarked thoughtfully to Cullee as the flag and the anthem and the Presidential Great Seal faded from the screen. “I think that old President got ’em shortcutted.” And this, indeed, was the general impression throughout the lovely capital, across much of the land, and in many a distant city in a world held together by the chains of man’s communication if not the bindings of his love.
But though temporarily shortcutted, few of his opponents were under any inhibition that they need abandon what to many of them seemed a genuine and worthy cause. The deliberately malcontent and malicious in their ranks were far outnumbered by the genuinely idealistic and sincere, however much the latter may have been led and misled by the former. One of the most idealistic and sincere of all, in his curious, pompous, egotistical, lonely fashion, was Walter Dobius, leader and led, driven on by a conviction made ever deeper by his outrage at what he could only consider the President’s rawly inexcusable use of American corpses to advance his own political cause.
Whole new paragraphs for his speech flooded his mind as Roosevelt drove him back through sleeping Virginia shortly after 11 P.M.
“We shall all be looking forward to your address tomorrow night,” the Ambassador of Guinea said when they parted, pressing Walter’s hand moistly between his own. “Someone must stop this—this—monstrosity.”
“It is very hard,” Walter said with a wintry smile, “to combat the man in the White House if he really makes up his mind to fight. But I shall do my best.”
“The world expects no less of you, dear friend,” the Ambassador said fervently. “You are our only hope.”
Walter Dobius shrugged.
“Governor Jason is our only hope. Pray that I may persuade him to do his duty for all mankind.”
***
Chapter 10
And so once again they came, as they always have and always will on such portentous occasions, down from Chevy Chase and Bethesda, over from Alexandria and Arlington, in from the hunt country, up from the fashionable reaches of the Potomac, down from Georgetown to converge upon the Statler in their white ties and formal dresses, their Cadillacs and taxis, their bright, all-knowing archness about the political currents and undercurrents of the world. GLITTERING CROWD EXPECTED TO HONOR DOBIUS, the
Evening Star
reported; PRESIDENT MAY NOT ATTEND … WHAT’S WITH H.H.? the
News
inquired, more jauntily; CAN IT BE HE’S MAD AT WALTER?(!) The possibility lent an extra spice to an event that was already heavy with Gorotoland, the vetoes, the coming election, and all the clashing and dramatic personalities involved.
Of these, the one belonging to the Governor of the State of California was perhaps the least at ease as the evening drew on to the hour of seven-thirty when, with the honor guest and other notables, he must join the pre-banquet reception and then the shambling little parade to the head table that always distinguishes such occasions in Washington. He was very much aware that Walter intended to make his persuasions as inescapable as possible, and to his own introductory remarks he and Ceil had given intensive thought in the hours that had elapsed since the disastrous lunch at “Salubria” and the President’s talk. He knew, if the
News
and
Star
did not, that the President would not attend, for the President had called early in the afternoon and told him so. He was not bothering to inform Walter, the President said with an ironic little laugh, because he thought Walter probably suspected; but he did want Ted to know that it was nothing personal as far as he was concerned.
“Of course,” he had added, “it does relieve me of appearing to take sides between you and Orrin, which is all to the good, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Governor Jason said. “I had hoped you’d join in the wild enthusiasm and help nominate me by acclamation.”
“I doubt if it will be quite that.”
“I don’t have any doubts what it will be, as I said the other day. It will be Harley M. Hudson, all the way. I thought your talk last night was very effective. You’ve made it difficult to disagree.”
“Though some no doubt may try,” the President remarked. “For instance— ... I wish I could be there to hear you. It’s my one regret in not attending.”
“I don’t think you need worry very much,” Governor Jason said. “And I will be at the Capitol Saturday.”
The President made a wry little sound.
“I doubt very much that there will be any refusals.”
Nor, of course, would there be, the Governor thought with an equal wryness as he got into white tie and tails in the suite he and Ceil had engaged for the evening, helped her with a few last tuckings and zippings, and then stood back to admire the statuesque blond beauty which was always saved from arrogance by her quick wit and genuine friendliness. She was quite an asset, his wife, because she always overwhelmed people on first meeting but had them eating out of her hand two minutes later. Plus, of course, the good looks and the style and, although she professed to despise the word, the glamor.
“I hate to be written about as though I were a movie star,” she often remarked, but laughed when he replied that in California, having a Governor’s wife who looked like a movie star seemed to rouse some deep atavistic response in the sun-tanned lemmings as they ambled toward the sea.
“I'll bet,” he said now, “that you’re worth two million votes to me, just as you stand, on the hoof, f.o.b. Sacramento.”
“Darling,” she said with an ironic smile as she selected a pair of gloves, “you’re going to need every one of them this year, and don’t think you aren’t.”
He frowned.
“Yes, I imagine. And I still don’t know that I want them.”
“I still don’t know that you’re going to get them,” she replied, the smile deepening. “I doubt if your introduction of Walter is going to set the Mall on fire—though it may leave Walter sufficiently baffled to keep him on his toes.”
“Leave everyone sufficiently baffled to keep them on their toes,” he suggested. “It’s a good thing Walter’s on my side or he’d be writing columns about what a damned equivocal shilly-shallyer I am.” He smiled. “May yet.”
“What an extraordinary character that little man is,” she said, pausing in her last-minute hair primpings to really think about him. “I honestly believe he thinks the country rises or falls on what he tells it in his columns.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Governor Jason asked. “The country tells him it’s true.”
“His own profession tells him it’s true. I don’t know whether twenty-five years of studying your own navel in the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial is really the way to understand the country or not.”
“He is one of the great men of our time,” Ted said solemnly. “I am about to say so myself. Surely you’ll believe me.”
“I find him curiously pathetic,” she said. “Necessary, I guess, but pathetic. As any ego that large is pathetic, when you come right down to it. How does anyone ever convince himself that he’s that important?”
“You have to,” her husband said with an amiable smile. “
I
had to. So have we all, in this town. It’s the only way to stand the gaff and beat the competition.”
“Hmm,” she said thoughtfully. “Watch out for Washington. It can give you the world with one hand, but keep your eye on the other. There’s usually a price tag in it.”
“And for me the price will be?”—he asked quizzically. She shrugged.
“Maybe nothing. Maybe nothing at all. Or maybe”—she gave him a thoughtful stare. “Integrity. Decency. Harley’s pet word, honor.” She shrugged again. “Who knows?”
“I’ll count on you to keep me from paying too high a price,” he said softly.
She laughed.
“That’s noble enough, all right. But, darling, I discovered many years ago that what little Teddy wants little Teddy goes after, and it doesn’t really matter very much what little Ceil thinks about it. Right?”
“You don’t do yourself justice,” he said, but she only laughed again.
“Oh, it’s quite all right. I love you just the same, you understand. If you want to march out of that hall tonight leading a charge on the White House, I’ll be right at your side. I’m sure the President will give us soda pop and an ice-cream cone before sending us quietly off to bed.”
He grinned.
“You’re so good for me. You have no idea.”
“Oh, sure I have,” she said with a smile. “It’s what keeps me going between appointments to have my hair done.…Toss me my shoes, will you? In fact, help me put them on.…Cullee Hamilton called, incidentally, I forgot to tell you. He said he’d come by and walk us down to the reception.”
“Did he?” the Governor said with an expression of exaggerated surprise as he knelt to oblige with the shoes. “What’s that about, I wonder?”
“Maybe he’s afraid Patsy’s really going to run for Senator in California and he wants to beg you to keep her away.”
"Patsy isn’t going to run for Senator from anywhere,” he said with a surprising impatience. “I wish she’d get over the idea that it’s fun to get someone like Cullee stirred up. He’s too important, at this point.”
“Even though he cast a veto and is proud of it?”
He gave an ironic grunt.
“That won’t hurt him very much. Some of the teach-in crowd will squeal, but nature has them in a nice box for him. After all, he’s black. They may hate him for supporting the Administration in Gorotoland but they’ve simply got to love him for being a Negro. There’s no way they can get around it. God!” he said with a sudden bitter honesty that quite startled her. “How I hate all those damned intolerant little self-righteous, self-centered boors. Somebody ought to wash their mouths out with soap, give them a good licking, and send them to bed. Along with all the pompous little twerps egging them on, that some abortion of justice has put on the faculties.”
“My goodness!” she said with a hearty laugh. “Are you ever violent! What have they done to you, except urge you to run, from every stately campus and ivory-covered tower?”
“Oh, I know,” he said, relaxing into a grin as they heard a knock on the door. “They’re major roots in my grassroots support. Don’t worry. I won’t tell them what I think.”
She nodded.
“I know. That’s part of the price tag, isn’t it?”
He gave her a long stare, and his eyes did not drop until he was ready for them to.
“Here’s Cullee,” he said finally, as the knock came again, a little more insistent. “Be nice.”
“I always am,” she said with a sunny smile. “It’s my most wonderful characteristic.”
And as they sat and chatted for a few moments before going down to the pre-banquet reception, she was: friendly and frank with Cullee, who, an imposing and magnificent ebony giant in his white tie and tails, was very much at ease with them. He asked after Patsy with the ironic designation “Senator Labaiya,” and a grin that dismissed her, and the Governor responded with just enough of a grin in reply so that Cullee knew there was no point in worrying about that. There was also a fleeting reference to the incumbent junior Senator from California, Raymond Robert Smith, and again there was something in the tones of both the Governor and the Congressman that seemed to take care of
that.
Ceil realized that in ten minutes’ time they were disposing of the political future of California in the fall elections; providing, of course, that the price tag was honored. She was not entirely sure what it would be until they left the room and started toward the elevator. Then Cullee, who was the man in a position to present it, inquired casually,
“I expect you’re really going to bawl the President out tonight, hm?”
The Governor smiled.
“Do you think I should?”
“No,
I
don’t think you should,” the Congressman said, “but a lot of important people who want you to be President think you should. So you will, I guess.”
“What would you do if I did?”
Cullee gave him an impassive stare.
“Issue a statement repudiating you at once,” he said calmly. “What would you expect?”
“Knowing you,” the Governor said, “I’d expect it.”
Cullee shrugged.
“Well.”
“But,” Ted said with a smile as they reached the elevator and Cullee touched the button, “I may not be so easy to categorize as all that.”
“Then you certainly won’t satisfy Walter and his crew,” the Congressman said, adjusting his tie in the mirror beside the door.
“Must I?” Ted asked, seeking Cullee’s eyes in the mirror and holding them until the Congressman turned around.
“It’s up to you. I thought you wanted to be President.”
“Maybe it needn’t be quite as drastic a commitment as that,” Ted said. Cullee studied him thoughtfully.
“It’s got to be. The country’s getting so divided that you won’t be able to equivocate much longer. If, that is,” he added with a little smile, “you are equivocating. Myself, I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt. I’ve been telling myself that you were genuinely trying to make up your mind.”
“I’m genuine,” Ted Jason said with a smile. “You’ve just seen me in one or two ungenuine moments, that’s all.”
“Such as when old Terry was over here romping through South Carolina last fall,” Cullee remarked. “Yes, I know.”
“It seemed advisable to support him then,” the Governor said. “It may now. I’m not sure.”
“I can believe that,” Cullee said as the elevator arrived. “There’s a lot at stake in Gorotoland.”
“Indeed, yes,” Ted said as they stepped on and started to descend.
“I hope you will both wind up eventually seeing it the same way,” Ceil remarked. Cullee smiled with a certain skepticism.
“We start from rather far apart.”
“But Washington brings so many divergent points of view together,” she said gently.
His smile broadened.
“Marvelous, isn’t it?”
She gave him an amused glance and nodded. “Marvelous. Tell me,” she added abruptly, “did you get what you came to get tonight? About the Senatorship, I mean?”
For a second he looked startled. Then he grinned.
“I think so.” The grin broadened. “Haven’t had to pay anything for it, either, have I?”
The Governor laughed, apparently without rancor.
“Not yet,” he said amicably. “Maybe never.”
“That would be the best solution,” Ceil said, and before Ted could answer, as the elevator came to a stop and through its yet unopened doors they could hear the babble of famous voices halfway through the second drink, she cried, “And here we are!” Linking arms with both of them she drew them forward into the reception. The sound immediately rose in excitement, and somewhere over by the bar someone began applause that surged across the room as photographers hurried forward to take their pictures and record their triumphal entry.
“Is Walter here?” the Governor called out, and someone shouted back, “No, he’s going to jump out of a cake at the banquet!” The thought provoked a wave of laughter, and on it they were washed pleasantly along for the next half-hour, shaking innumerable eagerly grasping hands, smiling innumerable automatic smiles, engulfed in the loud “Hi,
there’s!”
and “Haarh y’alls?” that always launch a Washington reception. Suitably greeted and made much of, they were then ready for the parade to the head table. Still accompanied by Cullee, who promised that he would break away at the door and “seek my own level” at Table 16, they moved to the little room just off the ballroom where they were to form in procession.
There they found Walter Dobius, who greeted them with a solemn handshake. A slight paleness gave the only indication that he was still remembering the luncheon at “Salubria” and anticipating the speech to come.
“This is an important evening for you,” Ceil remarked, more to be saying something than for any other reason. He bowed gravely.
“It is an important night for the country. I expect many things will be changed after tonight.”
“You frighten me,” Governor Jason said with a smile. Walter was not amused.
“Don’t frighten us,” he said coldly. “Too much depends upon you now.”
