Preserve and Protect (53 page)

Not even with armed escort did members of the Committee venture out of Fort Myer that night, and in Washington and in the riot-torn major cities, no one who did not have imperative business went upon the streets. In America, as all over the world, the feeling grew that tomorrow would be the day; and what it would bring, not even the desecraters of the night could know for sure, although they were fools enough to think they did, and to congratulate each other that they were somehow helping to bring it about with their insane idiot violence.

8

Next morning, with TWENTY-THREE DEAD IN NATIONWIDE POLITICAL RIOTING, with heat and humidity rapidly climbing toward record levels for the summer, the Committee returned to Kennedy Center under a leaden, rain-swollen sky to keep its appointment with history.

It was not an easy passage.

Fifty demonstrators wearing skeleton costumes flung themselves into the road as the President’s entourage approached: they were dragged out of it, but their howling hatred accompanied him as he rode swiftly by.

Moments earlier, Lathia Talbott Jennings of North Dakota and Henrietta McEwan of Nevada, arriving in an Army car together, found themselves the recipients of rotten eggs, putrefying tomatoes and a very dead cat which landed on the hood and exploded all over the windshield so that their driver could hardly see: the car lurched and tottered for several seconds before he righted it and drove on, Lathia and Henrietta crying out in horror and disgust meanwhile.

Helen Rupert and Henry Godwin of Alabama, riding together despite their political differences, narrowly missed being pelted by balloons filled with ox blood as they left their car to hurry into the Center: the balloons burst just behind them and left a great red slick dripping slowly down the marble steps.

Jessie L. Williams and Blair Hannah of Illinois, their car slowing to a near-halt behind that of Roger Croy and Esmé Stryke, found themselves being rocked from side to side and almost overturned: soldiers using rifles as clubs finally drove off their screaming attackers.

Cullee Hamilton, arriving with the Munsons and Lafe Smith, was struck by a large rock in the left shoulder: his left arm suddenly hung limp and useless as he clutched it and ran up the steps after his friends while a triumphant snarl echoed after him.

Seconds later William Everett and Ruth Thompson Jones of Nebraska, impelled by a sudden shout, turned back at the door to see a Molotov cocktail hit the roof of the car they had just left, bounce onto the steps and explode, leaving a huge dirty gouge near the still-dripping smear of blood.

Though none but Cullee suffered actual physical hurt—and his soon proved to be only a temporary paralysis and not a serious wound—the gauntlet they all had to run was wild and foreboding enough so that many arrived inside the comparative safety of the Playhouse in a condition needing only a little more to tip it into hysteria.

“That scum has been smelling blood all over the country all night,” Pete Boissevain remarked to Malcolm B. Sherman of Ohio as they found themselves the last to arrive and turned back for a moment to stare at NAWAC’s vast sea of ostentatiously silent black-uniformed figures, intermingled with tatterdemalion whites and blacks screaming their hatred and derision. “I hope to hell the President brings in the whole damned Army.”

He did not do quite that, but it was apparent the moment he declared the session open that he was going to do something.

“Good morning,” he said gravely. “Please be seated. I wish to apologize to the Committee and to the country for the vicious disturbances that have accompanied our arrival here this morning. I wish to state that I called the Secretary of Defense from my car before I entered the Center, and gave him certain orders. These orders will be carried out automatically if there are any further outbreaks. I warn those responsible that is not an idle gesture. The orders have been given and they will be carried out, in strength sufficient to assure their success.”

From outside there came a wild booing and screaming, and for the first time he responded to it directly. Looking straight into the cameras he said coldly, “If you don’t believe me, just try something.”

Outside the animal cacophony increased until its angry humming seemed to fill the world, coming from nowhere and everywhere. But in the room it was met and drowned out by a fervent and relieved applause in which the friends of Edward Jason and the friends of Orrin Knox joined equally.

“Mr. President,” Roger P. Croy said with a gracious air, “I wish to say to you in the presence of these witnesses that I regret the motion I offered yesterday to reduce security arrangements, and I wish to applaud the Commander-in-Chief for his precautions in defense of this Committee.”

There was vigorous if surprised applause inside, a rather puzzled and uncertain booing from without.

“His judgment,” Roger Croy acknowledged, “has proved more astute and foresighted than mine—even though,” he added in a regretful tone that brought a wry, sardonic turn to the President’s lips as he continued, “there still remains, I think, some reasonable question as to whether, if there had been a less openly provocative show of military force to begin with, there might have been a less hostile response today—”

“Mr. President,” Pete Boissevain snapped, “when is the Committeeman going to stop this business of playing all sides? What about the ‘hostile response,’ as he calls it, across the country last night? Did that have anything to do with the necessary forces stationed here? No, it did not. It was prompted purely and simply by a political motivation and a desire to intimidate the country and the Committee. Your gangs didn’t get their way about the convention here yesterday, Governor, so they got mad and rioted, tore up a dozen cities and killed 23 people. Now don’t give me that—stuff—again about provocation, and too many troops, and the poor sensitive rioters, and how they’re offended by it, and how this makes them twice as irresponsible and twice as bad as they are naturally. Because that, Governor, is—well, you know what it is. And I think this Committee has a right to ask that you spare us any further examples of it.”

“Mr. President,” Roger Croy said patiently, “the Committeeman from Vermont, like some others on his side of the issue, is not only characteristically offensive but characteristically obtuse. I have just apologized to the President for my motion yesterday, and have just commended him for his thoughtfulness in protecting these deliberations. Now, I think I have a right, in all fairness to myself and to the many sincerely disturbed and worried citizens who have come to make their patriotic protest here”—there was a faint sound of cheering outside—“to point out what seems to me the ill-advised and provocative nature yesterday of the massive military power displayed around the Center. And to say that if it had not been here, in such large and provocative numbers, there might very likely not have been such hostile response to it as we have seen this morning.”

“Mr.
President,”
Asa Attwood began in a tone of indignant disgust, but the President banged his gavel sharply and interrupted in the blunt, implacable tone with which Mr. Speaker had so often made the House sit up and think twice.

“The Chair will say to the Committee that there is no point in discussing this matter further. The Chair is not going to debate rights and wrongs when the barn is burning down: that is a matter for the Committee and the country to judge according to each man’s conscience and common sense. The Chair will say simply that he regards earlier precautions as necessary; he regards his orders this morning as necessary.

“Those orders
have
been given,” he said quietly, “and if necessary they
will
be carried out. Everyone within sound of my voice is on fair notice. I am not fooling. I am not equivocating. I am ready to act. Now, just remember that …”

Again there was the angry hum of many boos and shouts, but he ignored it and presently it trailed off, a little uncertainly. He looked slowly and challengingly around the room but this time not even Roger P. Croy ventured to respond.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” the President said quietly, “we have a job to do and I suggest we get on with it. The business before us, and the only business that logically should occupy our time this morning, is the nomination of candidates for President, followed by the selection of one of them. It would now seem time to accomplish this.”

There was a rustle and stir among the Committee, most of whom had been up most of the night arguing, conferring, discussing, debating, in groups that ranged from small to large, all over their quarters at Fort Myer. Milton S. Oppenheimer of New York raised his hand.

“Mr. President, I move that we proceed in regular order.”

“Thank you!” the President said with an exaggerated relief that brought some amusement and relaxed the tension a little. “If there is no objection, I shall ask the Secretary to call the roll of states for the purpose of nominating candidates for the office of President of the United States.” He waited for a moment, smiled comfortably, and said, “Anna: once more unto the breach, dear friend.”

There was genuine laughter as Anna Hooper Bigelow came forward to take her place beside him at the lectern. Abruptly the room, the nation, the world, quieted down.

“Alabama!”

“Mr. President,” Henry C. Godwin said, “Alabama agrees at last: Alabama passes.” There was good-natured applause.

“Alaska!”

“Alaska,” said Mary V. Aluta, “yields to Colorado.”

(“What the—?” the
Seattle Times
began. The
Denver Post
nudged him excitedly. “So that’s his game!” he exclaimed. “No wonder Jessie Clark wouldn’t talk to me when I phoned her last night. So that’s it!”)

But, as the President’s oldest and closest friends could have told the
Denver Post,
it wasn’t.

“Mr. President,” Jessica Edmonds Clark of Colorado said in a voice that trembled with excitement, “Colorado has a nomination.”

“It won’t get you anywhere,” the President said with a smile that no one in the press believed, “but come to the lectern, if you like. Or stay there, whichever you please.”

“This floor is good enough for me,” Jessie Clark said. “This is an historic floor. I don’t have a great deal to say. I will say it from right here.”

“Spoken with the true simplicity and directness of our native state,” the President said.

(“How
cute,”
the Post said in a tired voice to the
New Republic.
“It’s sickening,” the
New Republic
agreed.)

“Proceed, Mrs. Clark.”

“Mr. President,” she said, her tall, handsome figure, dressed in a silver-gray suit that matched the silver-gray of her hair, turning slowly as her keen blue eyes looked thoughtfully around the room, “Colorado will not take long to make this nomination.

“Colorado has a son who has proved in forty years in public office in this city that he is honest, courageous, steadfast; devoted beyond all else to the public good; diligent and tireless in his service to his people; eternally and always dedicated, mind, heart and body, to the United States of America, and to her safety and her best interests.

“This we have always known in Colorado, as it has been known here in Washington, and as it is known to all the nation, and to all the world. In these recent days we know something more: that, called as he has been, unexpectedly, with tragic suddenness, to an even higher office, he has measured up completely to the heavy responsibilities thrust upon him. He has earned the permanent gratitude of his country, and he has earned the right to continue to do the magnificent job he has done, and is doing, for us.

“He has already put a successful end to a difficult war. He has offered the proposal of a world statesman to settle another. His integrity, his courage, his honor, are above challenge by decent people”—faintly came the fetid Boooo!—“and in his hands the future will be safe. Mr. President, it is with a deep pride that on behalf of Colorado—”

The President held up his hand.

“Mrs. Clark,” he interrupted gently: “dear Jessie, at whose side I have fought so many political battles over these long, difficult years. If the distinguished Committeewoman will ever forgive me for intervening at this particular moment, I think I have some inkling of the name which was about to come forth.”

(“I think,” the
Seattle Times
observed to the
Denver Post
, “that you were wrong.” “Yes,” the
Denver Post
agreed. “I underestimated him.”)

“I cannot find words,” the President said quietly, and his voice, too, betrayed a real emotion, “to express my gratitude for the great honor you were about to give me. I would like to think that if I were agreeable, Colorado might not stand alone in supporting me.”

(“The old HYPOCRITE!” Patsy whispered to her aunt Valuela Randall. “He knows perfectly well he could get it if he said so!”)

There was real applause, and cries of approval, for suddenly it seemed to them that it would be such a simple way out of their troubles, such a good way to dispose of the bitter clash between Orrin Knox and Ted Jason. At that moment, Patsy could have been right. Yet even Roger Croy could join in the applause, for it was clear that it was quite safe.

“But,” the President said, “I made up my mind at about—oh, I’d say about one a.m. on the night when I became President of the United States—that I would do my job until a successor was elected and sworn in, and then I would return to my true and only home on Capitol Hill.

“The only office for which I am or will be a candidate is member of the House of Representatives for the Fourth District of Colorado. It is presently empty, I understand. I have some hopes,” he remarked with a sudden smile that again brought laughter and applause, “that I may be able to fill it.

“I suppose,” he said with a distant, quizzical expression, “that when I leave the White House, I will probably have some sort of profound valedictory to give the country: history shows that a good many of us have, when we have left this office. But for now I don’t want to take up the time or the Committee or delay its work, except to say this: