Capable of Honor (74 page)
Authors: Allen Drury
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Political, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Thrillers
“AYE!” roar the Jason delegates.
“All those opposed—”
“NO!” roar the Hudson delegates.
“The Ayes have it and the convention stands in recess until 12:01 A.M.,” the Speaker shouts, gives the gavel a mighty bang, turns on his heel, and stalks off the platform as the Hudson delegates utter a sudden delighted shout and from the Jasonites comes an angry roar of outrage and confusion.
***
Chapter 6
“You asked to see me,” the President said with no cordiality whatsoever. “What did you want?”
“May I sit down?” the Governor inquired mildly, “or am I a schoolchild in front of teacher?”
“How do you think you deserve to be categorized?” the President asked. “Go ahead,” he directed, turning away to stare out the window. “Chairs are free. But,” he said with a sudden sharpness, “nothing else is. What do you want of me, Governor?”
“The vice presidential nomination,” Ted said in a tone to match his own. “What else would I want, as things stand?”
“What makes you think you deserve it?” the President asked, turning around to give him a sharp and, for Harley, quite hostile look.
“Six hundred thirty-five votes,” the Governor said crisply.
“Of which, at this moment, you retain perhaps 400.” Ted smiled.
“May be. Or may not be. We still have to vote on the foreign policy plan. That will give some indication.”
“That’s bluff,” the President said shortly. “They’ll vote with me on the foreign policy plank, and you know it.”
“I do not know it,” the Governor said. “Nor do you. Furthermore, how can—” he paused deliberately and then went on “—any other candidate expect to win the vice presidential nomination against me? After all, the convention can’t ignore my vote. If they have any fairness at all, enough of them are going to recognize my claim to put me over. And I expect,” he concluded calmly, “that you are aware of this.”
“Fairness!” the President said, staring at him with a look in which disbelief and contempt contended. “What a fine one to talk of fairness! I would ask you how you do it, except that I begin to realize that this is a mind that can justify almost anything it wants to do.…Well!” he said, as Ted, with a great effort, remained impassive, “I succeeded a man like that, and I can tell you
I’m
not going to be succeeded by one like that.”
“I assume,” Governor Jason said softly, “that you will he succeeded by whomever the convention tells you that you will be succeeded by. And in this case,” he said, still softly, “I don’t think it’s quite such a simple matter as it’s sometimes been for the presidential nominee to tell the convention what to tell him, in that regard.”
“So you came to make a deal,” the President said, seeming, suddenly, tired and dispirited. “You help me carry the foreign policy plank and I accept you as Vice President.”
The Governor looked thoughtful.
“No, that isn’t it specifically. I assume my delegates will go along more willingly on a foreign policy endorsement if they know you’re going to put me on the ticket. But I’m not saying flatly, Mr. President, that you can’t have your endorsement without me. Some of my delegates, of course”—he gave a wry little smile—“are fair, too, you know, and they may very well be feeling, now, that you have a right to have any kind of plank you want in the platform. I don’t deny, myself, that you do. It would get a bigger vote, I think—perhaps even a unanimous vote, which would look better to the country and the world—if they know I’m to be Vice President.”
“How can they rationalize your joining me, after what you and your people have said about my policies?”
“Let’s see how they’ll rationalize it,” the Governor said. “May I?” And he got up and walked to the television set and turned it on.
Frankly Unctuous appeared smoothly in midsentence:
“—nor Jason’s truly astounding vote in the balloting tonight. Every argument of justice and national unity, therefore, would seem to indicate, would it not. Walter, that the President really has only one choice in the selection of his running mate?”
“Certainly the best way to heal the party’s wounds after this bruising battle for the presidential nomination would be to choose the Governor,” Walter agreed. “It must be remembered that to many millions of Americans, and to countless millions abroad. Governor Jason is America’s symbol of peace. Nothing would be more just and right—nor, indeed, more practical from a political standpoint—than for the President to accept him gracefully and gladly on the ticket—It would greatly strengthen the President’s hand in the election; it would greatly strengthen his hand in international affairs after the election; and, finally, It would bring again to America the unity of attitude and purpose which the violent and tragic events of recent days have so sadly destroyed.”
“And perhaps insofar as the President and his Secretary of State may have been responsible for that unhappy turn of affairs,” Frankly suggested suavely, and in the room the President made some inarticulate sound of deep disgust, “it would be a form of needed expiation—of reassurance to the nation and the world that such
truly
un-American activities”—and he smiled a little smile at his own clever use of words—“will not again besmirch and bedraggle our national political life.…Yes, it would seem that political logic, simple justice, and the cause of world peace all point inexorably to the selection of Governor Jason as the candidate for Vice President of the United States.”
“And there is, of course,” Walter said thoughtfully, “another reason for such a decision on the President’s part.”
“Yes?”
“Should Governor Jason be denied this reward which his vote in the convention, as well as the needs of peace and national unity, all seem to make imperative, there would then, I think, be some serious question as to how loyally his supporters might favor the ticket on which some other name was found alongside the President’s.”
“You mean,” Frankly Unctuous said thoughtfully, “that there would be a major, and perhaps decisive, defection—a deliberate staying—away from the polls—or perhaps even a nationwide swing to the other party?”
“There might be even more than that,” Walter said gravely. “There could even be some organized attempt to put another ticket in the field, with the Governor at its head.”
“I see,” Frankly said with equal gravity. “That would indeed raise implications and possibilities that the President might be well advised to consider. So for all these reasons, ladies and gentlemen”—and he turned to smile with a candid honesty straight into the lens—“it would appear that we can expect still further dramatic developments this night; and we can probably assume that they will, in all likelihood, conclude with the selection of Governor Jason as the vice presidential nominee.”
“May I?” the President asked dryly, and snapped off the set. The shrewd, determined faces disappeared into a tiny dot of writhing light, then blackness.
“Did you put them up to this?”
Ted Jason shook his head with a wry little smile.
“Walter and his crowd you don’t have to ‘put up’ to things. They react on schedule. They have a whole set of alternative battle plans and they no sooner find themselves blocked in one area then they start fighting in another. They’ve got a great organization going there, and the wonderful thing about it is that they never have to consult one another or exchange instructions. Once trained, they’re trained for life.”
“If you stand tall in Georgetown,’” the President quoted softly, “’you’re all
right.’”
“You know, it’s a funny thing,” Ted said in an ironic, musing voice. “Every convention I can remember in my adult life, in either party, they’ve managed to sell to the public as a desperate, last-ditch battle by a tiny little band of vastly outnumbered liberals, fighting tooth and nail against an enormous, overwhelming conspiracy of conservatives—whereas actually, nine times out of ten, the situation has been exactly the reverse. The liberals have had nearly all the press, all the television, all the radio, all the academic, scientific, publishing, theatrical, communications worlds—every possible means of publicity and favorable presentation to the American people. Time after time, the end result has been inevitable from the moment it began. Yet time after time Walter and his crowd have managed to portray it to the public as a great dramatic contest against almost insuperable odds—by their liberal friends, to whom they have given everything—against their conservative enemies, to whom they have given, relatively speaking, hardly even the time of day.…” He smiled with a sardonic amazement. “Life has its little ironies, doesn’t it?”
The President nodded gravely.
“And rather frightening ones, too, when you think through all their implications.…The thing that amazes me about you, Ted, is that a man as intelligent and perceptive as you are, who can see that and understand it, should so willingly have put himself in bondage to them. You’ve heard how they’ve turned on Bob Leffingwell in the last hour or two. If I don’t give you that nomination and they decide that you’re going to head a third party—then by Christopher, my friend,
you’d better head it.
Or else.”
“Wouldn’t the simpler thing, then, for all of us,” Governor Jason suggested gently, “be to give me the nomination? It really would strengthen you, I think, and certainly”—and again he smiled wryly—“it would, if your belief is correct, save me a great many personal headaches.…To say nothing.” he added quietly, “of doing away with the possibility of a three-way election that you would almost certainly lose.”
“But I have a funny concept,” the President said, and something in his tone indicated to the Governor that this was going to be his final word on the matter. “It isn’t very popular nowadays and many people in my country make fun of it. But I still consider it valid, nonetheless. Some people call it a joke, but I call it honor. And in pursuit of that, my friend,” and his voice became soft and introspective and quite, quite firm, “I intend to do what I deem best for my country and my people in the disposition of the powers and favors at my command—in the way I conduct the affairs of the United States of America—and in the provisions I make for their future care should anything happen to me. I refer you,” he said with a sudden smile, “to my address to the convention, which will occur”—he glanced at his watch—“at approximately 1 A.M. Can I give you a ride to the Cow Palace?” His smile faded and he gave the Governor a long, intent look. “Who knows? The speculation this will arouse could be quite correct.”
“Or quite incorrect.”
The President shrugged.
“Doesn’t it tickle your sense of the ironic, either way?”
The Governor in his turn studied him for several moments. Then finally he grinned, for despite all of Harley’s theatrics there must be, there could be under the existing circumstances, only one outcome to their little duel on which so much depended.
“It does. Let’s go.”
“Our arrival,” the President remarked as he opened the door and invited the Governor to precede him into the shouting crowd of reporters and photographers in the hall outside, “will be the biggest public progress since Cleopatra floated down the Nile with Mark Anthony.”
“Which one of us,” Ted tossed back over his shoulder, “has the asp?”
But the President only laughed, and after a second the Governor did the same, and so in good humor and apparent cordiality they walked briskly out behind the flying wedge of Secret Service men descended to the waiting limousine with its presidential flags and its phalanx of motorcycles, and swung away in a roar of motors and screaming sirens to the Cow Palace and destiny.
***
Chapter 7
And so once again, for the last time, the delegates heard a prayer (now it was a Mormon’s turn, from snug, smug, delightful Salt Lake City) again they enjoyed their mixture of fond, exasperated thoughts as the band played “The Star-Spangled Banner”—again the Speaker gaveled them to order—again silence settled and tension rose.
“We come now,” the Speaker said at 12:13 A.M., “under terms of the previous motion of the Senator from Iowa, to a vote on the foreign policy plank. If there is no debate, the Chair will—”
But even as he spoke, even as cries of protest began to come from various delegations across the floor, even as Roger P. Croy and Esmé Stryke and Fred Van Ackerman all began to shout for recognition at their respective microphones, a sudden excited murmur began to rush through the great room.
It started in the press section, spread with the fantastic speed of such things onto the podium, across the floor, and up into the galleries. In something less than five minutes the same words had been repeated approximately thirty-six thousand times by eighteen thousand people: “He’s here!” There was no need to identify the “he,” for at this particular stage of a convention there is only one great all-important HE in the universe. But what made it even more unbearably exciting was the word that rushed over the hall immediately after, received in astonishment, anguish, jubilation, or dismay depending upon the political sympathies of the listener: “The Governor’s with him!”
That, indeed, put the globe to whirling and, at least for the moment, stopped the convention dead in its tracks before it even got started. Fred Van Ackerman, caught in mid-yell, paused and said, “Oh, yeah?” in a disbelieving voice to the fellow Wyoming delegate who clawed frantically at his sleeve. Esmé Stryke’s voice rose suddenly into a screech as she started to shout, “Mr. Chairman, my delegation feels there should be a full debate on this
whaaaaat?
” Roger P. Croy fortunately had his mouth closed when the news reached him, and being a man of great experience and presence of mind, immediately opened it again to start calling, “Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!” with an urgent, insistent rhythm.
It was several minutes before the Speaker could get the convention quieted. When he did Governor Croy was still calling, with a patient, persistent doggedness, “Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!”
“For what purpose does the distinguished delegate from Oregon seek recognition?” the Speaker inquired, thinking with a heated annoyance, I wish I knew what purpose Harley has in mind, but I don’t, so we’ll all just have to play it by ear until he tells us.
“Mr. Chairman,” Roger P. Croy said with a dignified and portentous calmness, “I move, on behalf of a great candidate for Vice President”—and there was a roar of excited approval from the Jason delegates at this articulation of what they all knew now must be the actual situation—“that this convention adopt as its foreign policy plank the following language, and I quote:
“‘Believing that the interests of world peace can best be served by opposing Communist aggression and infiltration, armed or otherwise, wherever they may exist, we applaud the action of the President in opposing—’”
There was a great shout as the convention recognized the Administration language, a great tribute to a great candidate for Vice President whose spokesman was now, with the true sportsmanship that characterized his candidate, doing the right, the courteous, the honorable, the decent, the
noble
thing. Roger P. Croy went on, imperturbable:
“‘—such Communist aggression and infiltration in the nations of Gorotoland and Panama. We wholeheartedly support his determination to bring peace and stability to those troubled nations through the medium of peaceful and honest negotiations as soon as the Communist threat has been removed.”
Again there was a great shout of excitement and approval, and into it the Speaker, who at least was in no doubt about what to do with an opportunity like this, cried,
“Is there a second?”
“Second!” Cullee Hamilton and Lafe Smith, Esmé Stryke, and Fred Van Ackerman, Joe Smitters, Bob Smutters, John Smotters, Mary Baffleburg, Lizzie McWharter, and half a hundred others all shouted at once from their respective microphones.
“All those in favor!” roared the Speaker.
“AYE!” roared the convention.
“All those opposed!” roared the Speaker, and waited a long, deliberate moment.
Silence, quivering, ecstatic, exultant.
“The Ayes have it and the language of the foreign policy plank is hereby adopted!” the Speaker cried, giving his gavel a violent bang! that shook the podium. Instantly another great shout went up, and across the floor Cullee and Lafe exchanged a glance, grabbed their state standards, shouted to their fellow delegates, and began to snake dance along the aisles. At once others fell into line, in a moment the entire convention was in the aisles, and a wild demonstration was under way, led by laughing Jason delegates holding high JASON FOR PRESIDENT placards on which the word “Vice” had been hastily scrawled in above the word PRESIDENT.
“And so,” said Frankly Unctuous with a warm benignity in the booth above, “this great convention, perhaps one of the most historic in American history, roars to its climax in this joyous demonstration of unity that should, very shortly now, produce what everyone here happily expects and eagerly awaits, the nomination of Governor Edward M. Jason of California to the great office of Vice President of the United States. Thus do we see, Walter, that the American system still works, in its mysterious, wonderful way, and somehow, out of the violent contentions of sincere and dedicated men, there emerges what can truly be called the people’s choice.…This is a thrilling moment, indeed, and you will forgive me a personal note, ladies and gentlemen”—and he smiled, frankly, into the camera—“if I say that it is particularly thrilling for those of us who have been here through all these long and sometimes heated days. It is a real satisfaction to us to witness this great, democratic conclusion to a battle so earnestly yet so honestly fought by all concerned. Don’t you agree, Walter?”
“Yes, I do,” Walter said. Yet there was in his tone a certain indefinable reserve that might have indicated, to one less enthralled than Frankly by the happy harmony of the moment, that something important was working in his shrewd, experienced brain. What it was actually saying to him was: It’s too pat—it’s too perfect—
watch out
. But all he had the heart to say aloud to his relaxed and delighted brother-in-arms, and to the many millions who were, he knew, hanging dutifully upon their wise and illuminating words, was, “Perhaps we should see, now, what the President has to say.”
“If the convention will permit us,” Frankly said with a happy laugh. “Just look at them, Walter! Just look at them!”
And indeed they were a sight for sore-pressed pundits to see, as they danced and frolicked and whooped and hollered around the Cow Palace in a scream of sound that showed no signs of abating. Whenever it did the Speaker gave a little nod to Cullee or Lafe or Bob Munson or whoever happened to be passing below the podium at the moment, and it started up again. “I want them exhausted,” the calm voice had directed over the red phone a couple of minutes ago from the closely guarded room behind the platform where the candidate waited with Governor Jason. And the Speaker, who, like Walter Dobius, was beginning to get the picture—though in his case with the start of a great inner amusement rather than with Walter’s frantically growing worry and bitter alarm—obliged.
Eventually, however, even the greatest moments end, and so, eventually, did this. They were close to the limits of endurance by now, they had been in session since 3 P.M. the previous afternoon, had gone through the excitement of the nominations, the demonstrations, the presidential vote, the constant tensions and pressures that a recess filled with a jabbering inability to relax—for who knew what was coming next?—had done little to relieve. Ten hours of it, topped by this last demonstration continuing for almost half an hour, and they were beginning to feel more than a little groggy. The red phone rang and the calm voice said, “Any time you’re ready.”
“The convention will be in order!” the Speaker shouted, pounding his gavel with a steady thock! thock! thock! of wood-on-wood. “The convention will be in order! Will the delegates please take their seats! Will the delegates please take their seats!…I will say to the delegates,” he roared with a sudden show of anger, “that they are holding up a most important address by someone they’d like to hear, so will they
please
settle down!”
That did it. Another five minutes of gradual quieting and settling, and they were ready.
“It is my great pleasure and high privilege,” the Speaker said solemnly into the restless silence, “to present to you our candidate, the President of the United States.”
The band swung triumphantly into “Hail to the Chief,” and again there was demonstration, hysterical, delirious, overjoyed, for following closely behind him as he came to the lectern was the Governor of California, smiling and waving, and this was sign enough that God was in his heaven and all right with the world. It could be seen that the President solicitously urged the Governor forward to take a seat to his right, toward the front of the podium, in full view of them all—“I want them to be sure and see you,” he shouted into Ted’s ear over the cascade of sound pouring upon them, and Ted, obviously pleased, nodded and stepped obediently forward—and it could also be seen that from time to time the President looked toward him with a fatherly, satisfied smile, each glance producing a new roar of gratified, ecstatic applause. In the diplomatic section Raoul Barre did take occasion to lean forward and call to Lord Maudulayne, “But where is Orrin? This doesn’t seem to ring quite true, does it?”—and Lord Maudulayne first shrugged, then paused with a thoughtful frown, then looked quizzical and nodded. But this was only the most minor of episodes in the joyous occasion in which all those who saw in Edward M. Jason the harbinger and salvation of their hopes reveled in their moment of triumph at last.
Fifteen minutes later the Speaker began to pound insistently for order, and five minutes after that he had it. Without further introduction or formality the President began to speak in a clear and solemn voice.
“My fellow countrymen, delegates to this great convention: I accept with pride and determination your decision that I be your candidate for President of the United States.”
They greeted this with the customary roar, touched by his forgiveness, unified and at one now that the battle was over and they could go forward together again; pleased and delighted by his good-sportsmanship, the necessity for which a near-majority of them had forced upon him most ruthlessly; relieved and happy, in some curiously childlike and irresponsible way, that Daddy wasn’t mad at them after all, in spite of what they’d done.
“At another time,” he said, “and at another place—probably on Labor Day in Lansing where I first entered politics—I shall make a formal speech of acceptance. But I wanted to talk to you this morning at once, for there are matters of urgency which concern us.
“I shall conduct this campaign as vigorously and forcefully as I know how.
“I shall continue—and,” he added with a quiet firmness that began to give a few of them pause even as they yelled approval—“I shall strengthen the policies which I have followed and which I believe best for the security of the United States and the peace of the world.
“We have now, I think, a platform which adequately and honestly expresses those policies, and adequately and honestly expresses the honorable duty and unflinching determination of this nation and its people.
“I pledge it my full support, and I expect those who help me in this battle for a strong and fearless America to give it their full support.”
Again there were shouts of approval, and it could be seen that Governor Jason, half-smiling yet grave and judicious, was nodding and applauding vigorously with the rest.
“The crisis we face—the long-continuing crisis we have faced ever since the resumption of aggressive Communist imperialism after the end of World War II—does not permit a place for the half-hearted, the half-doers, the half-committed. It does not permit a place for those who do not wholeheartedly, with every fiber of their hearts and beings, support and advance the policy of unyielding, unbelligerent, and
unafraid
firmness which is, I believe, the only salvation for this country and the free world.
“There is no place for the half-committed in the ranks,” he said, and suddenly his voice rang with a sternness that brought a sudden hush and the first stirrings of a general doubt across the floor, “and there is no place for them at the head of the ranks.
“This army throughout must be an army of the convinced and the committed. Otherwise it will fail.”
He paused, and it was quite obvious that a good many in his audience were uneasy now. Could Daddy be mad after all? It was against all the rules, no matter what had been done to him. How dare he be mad? It just wasn’t right.
But perhaps he wasn’t, really. Now he was going on, for a moment humor was back in his voice, he sounded more relaxed and fatherly, the way they liked to think of him—
good old Harley!
“Certainly no one can say that you have reached your decisions here under compulsion from anyone.”—and there was an appreciative laugh from all around the hall. “No one can say that there has not been a free, indeed a very vigorous, exchange of ideas and arguments. No one can honestly claim that we have not washed all our linen in public this time!”—and now the laughter was warm and unrestrained, for it was apparent that he was not resentful, he was a marvelous sport, they loved him so and it was going to be all right.
“But—”
and the way he said it brought a sudden cessation of laughter—
“but
—the time for that has passed. The decision has been reached. We face now, as our friends up there in the booths have been telling us in the last couple of hours”—and he gave them a friendly little wave—or was it friendly? Nobody knew and the laughter which greeted it was uncertain, uneasy, and perhaps a little guilty—“the task of binding up the party’s wounds and going forward in unity.
