The Golden Age (50 page)

A dozen guests were seated in the drawing room, listening to President Dewey’s secretary of state, a dour, hard-faced Wall Street lawyer. He was, everyone agreed, born to be secretary of state; he was a nephew of Robert Lansing, Wilson’s secretary of state, who had himself married Eleanor Foster, daughter of Benjamin Harrison’s secretary of state. Foster had been born “in the purple,” as Peter wrote when Aeneas, although a lover of exotic words and concepts, had forbade him to call Dulles a porphyrogenite, the word for a Byzantine emperor’s son born in a special red marble chamber, signifying his divine right to succeed to the throne. Nevertheless, to annoy Aeneas, Peter had begun work on an ever-lengthening piece entitled “Porphyrogenitism,” his word to describe those political dynasties that had decorated or degraded the American republic from the splendid Adams family down to the merry Roosevelts.

Blaise encouraged Dulles to “speak freely,” something not in that lawyer’s nature. The other guests, among them the British ambassador, were all keen to know what was in store for the world during the next four years. Dewey himself had not bothered to confide in the voters. In three days, on Tuesday, November 2, 1948, the nation would vote but, thus far, the deep-voiced Dewey—“the ideal radio voice” he’d been acclaimed—had no message for the people other than that “unity” would be needed in the days ahead. He did echo the House Un-American Activities Committee by deploring the Administration’s “coddling
of communists.” But to Peter’s surprise, Dewey did not endorse Truman’s plan to outlaw the Communist Party in the United States. “We’ll have no thought police,” intoned Dewey.

Meanwhile, Truman had covered some thirty-one thousand miles in his whistle-stop train; he had given over 350 speeches to ever larger crowds who plainly energized him by shouting, “Give ’em hell, Harry!” and he had obliged. Sometimes, overenergized—or was it bourbonized?—he went too far. “A vote for Dewey was a vote for fascism” did not play well. On the other hand, in a nation daily terrorized by press, television, films, communism was the greatest bogey of all, and with broad gleeful strokes he painted Henry Wallace and his Progressive Party bright red. “I do not want and I will not accept the political support of Henry Wallace and his communists. If joining them or permitting them to join me is the price of victory, I recommend defeat.” Since Henry Wallace had not proposed an alliance, this seemed excessive, but then it was necessary for Truman to destroy completely the political heir of Roosevelt in order that he alone, a conservative Southerner, could replace the great cosmopolite and all his works in the interest not of a new deal but of a somewhat mysterious “fair deal.” Despite Wallace’s appeal to liberal Democrats, Truman had managed to hold on to most of Roosevelt’s Jewish and Negro support. After the convention, he had integrated the armed services. In May he had recognized Israel, a few minutes after the state was created, in exchange, it was said, for Jewish money to finance his train. It was also said that his secretary of defense, Louis Johnson, had managed to tap the China lobby for whatever other money was needed. Mrs. Roosevelt, who had told Caroline that she could not possibly support such “a weak and vacillating person” whose cronyism reminded her of Harding, finally came around at the last moment in a broadcast: “There has never been a campaign where a man has shown more personal courage and confidence in the people of the United States.” Peter had found the last part of the endorsement singularly shrewd. Truman really was one of them in a way that Roosevelt never was nor would have wanted to be.

Harry was
us
the people against
them
. Yet he was going to lose. The final Gallup poll showed Dewey ahead at 49.5 percent to Truman’s 44.5.

Dulles held the floor. “I think where we might differ from current policy is in our recognition of the Soviets’ master plan to conquer the world. I think Dean has underestimated their tenacity. Whenever we stand up to them, they back down. But that doesn’t mean they give up. They simply regroup. As they did in order to seize Czechoslovakia. We should have stopped them.”

“How?” Blaise exerted his right as host to address the oracle straight on.

“There were several options that I’m not supposed to discuss.” Dulles was very smooth, Peter decided. “But I think there is a general hard-line approach which I find lacking in Dean, good man that he is. Dean is too wary of direct confrontation. I’m not. The Soviet empire in Eastern Europe is essentially fragile. At a signal from us, I don’t think it will take much for the Hungarians, the Poles, even the East Germans to simply overthrow primitive Russian masters.”

“
You
would signal them?” Blaise was politely inquisitive.

“At the right time, yes. My brother Allen is at the CIA, and according to his information, the Soviet itself is none too stable. Russia was—is—a devoutly Christian nation, and should there be sufficient pressure from outside—yes, from us—even Stalin himself might be overthrown in the name—I’m not ashamed to say it, and I’m not a bishop’s son like Dean—of our Lord.”

Peter had had enough. He slipped away. In his father’s study he put in a call to his sister, Enid. Instead he got Dr. Paulus, the head of the sanitarium. “She’s under sedation, Mr. Sanford. We’ve had a restless day, I fear.”

“When can I see her?”

“Sunday, as usual, if you like.”

Peter hung up. He had no faith in Dr. Paulus. More to the point, Enid, though admittedly alcoholic, was not in the least insane. She had simply had the bad luck to be inconvenient to those interested in Clay’s career. How to set her free?

Peter glanced at the advance copies of magazines and columnists’ proofs on Blaise’s desk. Henry Luce’s
Life
magazine ran an inspiring photograph of Dewey aboard a ferry crossing San Francisco Bay, not unlike George Washington crossing the Delaware. The Luce publications
oscillated between ecstasy and reverence as they hailed the president of earth’s most blessed Christian nation engaged in holy war with the Russian Antichrist. Drew Pearson praised the team of dedicated apostles that had made Dewey’s election possible, their heroic work cut out for them in the years of strife ahead with relentless communism. The Alsop brothers were simply impatient. Why wait ten dangerous weeks for the Dewey installation? Lame-duck Truman, resign! Go home!

Election Day, Peter and Aeneas stayed in the offices of
The American Idea
. They had now recruited a dozen young people who could report stories, write and rewrite, sell advertising space, and, otherwise, do everything that the two editors could do.

Most of them had voted for Wallace. But Peter had had a sudden change of heart, an illumination just short of a celestial vision in the Fairfax courthouse. He voted for the Socialist candidate, Norman M. Thomas. After all, Thomas had originated, in his lonely way, all the social programs of Roosevelt and Truman. So why not vote for the true author of change in order to—encourage him? Earlier in the summer, Peter had taken a Manhattan subway at Times Square. Opposite him, in a linen suit with no tie, was the lean bald sympathetic Thomas. No one but Peter had recognized the sixty-three-year-old Presbyterian pastor who had helped found the American Civil Liberties Union; been associate editor of
The Nation;
Socialist candidate for governor of New York; and then head of the Socialist Party in 1926 after the death of the noble Eugene V. Debs, imprisoned by Woodrow Wilson because he had opposed Wilson’s 1917 Espionage Act under which he himself was promptly tried and sentenced to ten years in prison. While a prisoner, he got nearly a million votes for president in 1920. Upon election, good President Harding had freed him. Thomas was now in his fifth race for president.

Fascinated, Peter watched him rehearse a speech. He made notes; put them aside; moved his lips silently, shaping the words that he would presently be speaking to some forlorn New York socialists, mostly idealist Jews and Italians. When Thomas got off at Columbus Circle, Peter
had a presentiment that he would vote for him in November, which he did, hoping that the members of the Ku Klux Klan, lingering on the courthouse steps, would not know the terrible un-American thing that had taken place upon their hallowed lynching ground.

Out of consideration for the youth of his staff, Peter served beer and wine. There was a long night ahead.

The first tally came from a New Hampshire village: Dewey had won it. Aeneas was the first to quote the old joke, “As New Hampshire goes, so goes Vermont.”

Peter bet Aeneas that New York State would go for Truman. Aeneas bet five dollars that Dewey would win the state. “The liberals—the Americans for Demonic Action—are so busy smearing Henry Wallace’s Progressives as communists that they are going to knock off Truman, too. Guilt by association.”

“Ironic” was the best that Peter could do. Dewey was an unacceptable candidate for those who thought that the future role of the United States would now be set for some time to come. Wallace, alone of the candidates, had accused Truman of committing the United States to a never-ending “cold war” against communism, which meant any regime that ignorant Congress and ignorant President could be persuaded to dislike.

In addition to smearing Roosevelt’s heir as a communist, Truman had ensured the Negro vote with a vigorous stand on civil rights, while his sponsorship of Israel cut deeply into another of Wallace’s natural constituencies. The South’s candidate, Governor Strom Thurmond, was simply undercut, as Truman knew he would be, by an ancient Southern voting pattern. Each generation since the Civil War had been “Yellow Dog Democrats,” meaning that they would cheerfully vote for a yellow dog if he was on the Democratic ticket. That night Truman’s various gambles paid off. Thurmond carried only four states of the old Confederacy. Wallace’s liberal enemies split New York’s vote, giving the state to Dewey.

At eight in the morning, only Peter and Aeneas were still listening to the radio. The others had gone home. All night, Truman had been at least a million votes ahead in the popular vote, but the wishfully thoughtful commentators and analysts maintained that Dewey would,
eventually, win in the number of states carried. At eight-thirty a.m. that dream ended when Ohio voted for Truman. Peter gave Aeneas five dollars. “I lose on New York but I win on the election. I knew Truman would win.”

“How?”

“The night he was nominated, I spent a few minutes with him and Barkley, who thought—like everyone else—that they were going to lose. He didn’t say so, of course. Politicians don’t. But Truman knew what he was thinking and so he said, very casually, ‘I know you don’t believe it but I’m going to win this election.’ I could tell by the way he said it that he meant it. I could also tell that he knew something no one else did.”

“What?”

“The people, I suppose. The voters, anyway.”

The telephones at
The American Idea
were now beginning to ring. With an American airlift supplying encircled Berlin and loyalty oaths being administered throughout the country in the hopes of trapping spies, Harry Truman would now be presiding, in his own right, over a highly fearful nation that was transforming itself, before Peter’s eyes, into something altogether different from what had gone before. Truman, the principal transformer, had dexterously appealed to those who were being reluctantly transformed. Uncanny instinct, thought Peter. Great mischief, too. Yet Peter was certain that Truman had not the slightest idea what he was doing and where the country was going. But then no one, placed in a given period of time, could ever know.

Peter came to New York and stayed not with Aeneas but at the Gotham in Fifty-fifth Street off Fifth Avenue. Upon arriving, he had lunch with Cornelia Claiborne, as droll as ever. He took her to Robert’s across from the hotel. Robert was an elegant Francophone—Swiss? Belgian? He always wore a morning coat and striped trousers and sternly encouraged Peter to practice his French.

Robert announced the arrival of fresh shad roe from the Hudson River and the season’s first asparagus. Both were ordered, since Peter’s latest vow to diet had been set aside as he entered a restaurant that he had known since childhood.

“Were you taken here for culture?” asked Cornelia; they sat side by side on a banquette, a hedge of yellow roses and feathery green fern separating them from the next booth.

“To Robert’s?”

“No. To New York.”

“Yes. Mrs. Mason Morton,” he said.

“
Miss
Mason Morton.” Both laughed. The lady had been a fixture in the Washington of their childhood. Conscientious but “busy” parents would call upon this lean, energetic Baltimore spinster to escort their children to New York City for initiation into high culture, something that Washington so proudly lacked. She would take her charges to museums, to theaters: usually Shakespeare, starring Maurice Evans, whose footlit spittle during long speeches glittered as it fell upon the audience like the girl in the fairy tale who extruded jewels and roses when she spoke, so unlike the wicked girl from whose lips fell only toads and scorpions. Opera was also a favorite of Miss Mason Morton. Peter still recalled the excitement of sitting in a box at the Metropolitan Opera House as it suddenly became still and the lights dimmed and the red plush and gilt all around him darkened and the overture began.

Cornelia’s experience had been the same. “Though I seemed to have got more than my share of
The Nutcracker
. What was your first opera?”

“
Madame Butterfly
with Licia Albanese, still going strong.”

Each confessed to an early passion for the Hayden Planetarium with its ever-changing starry dome and curious ice-cream-parlor smell.

Cornelia then discussed
The Hudson Review
, which she had helped to found. He had done no more than glance at this elegant academic literary quarterly (
Partisan Review
was his current reading), but Aeneas had found it serious if a bit too strong on what was currently being called the New Criticism, so very like the old except that all historical context—Peter’s only interest—was to be sternly stripped away to reveal the text in its shy nakedness, weakly etherized upon a table, prepared for critical autopsy.