Windmills of the Gods (11 page)

Aloud, he said, “The full Hearing Committee meets at nine o’clock Wednesday morning.”

The night before the hearing, Mary was in a panic.
Darling, when they question me about my experience, what am I going to tell them? That in Junction City I was homecoming queen, and that I won the ice-skating contest three years in a row? I’m panicky. Oh, how I wish you were here with me.

But once again the irony struck her. If Edward were alive,
she
would not be here.
I’d be safe and warm at home with my husband and children, where I belong.

She lay awake all night.

The hearing was held in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee room, with the full fifteen members of the committee present, seated at a dais in front of a wall that held four large world maps. Along the left side of the room was the press table, filled with reporters, and in the center, seats for two hundred spectators. The corners were brightly lighted for television cameras. The room was filled to overflowing. Pete Connors sat in a back row. There was a sudden hush as Mary entered with Beth and Tim.

Mary was wearing a dark tailored suit and a white blouse. The children had been forced out of their jeans and sweaters and were in their Sunday best.

Ben Cohn, seated at the press table, watched as they came in.
Jesus,
he thought,
they look like a Norman Rockwell cover.

An attendant seated the children in a front row, and Mary
was escorted to the witness chair facing the committee. She sat under the glare of the hot lights, trying to conceal her nervousness.

The hearing began. Charlie Campbell smiled down at Mary. “Good morning, Mrs. Ashley. We thank you for appearing before this committee. We will proceed to the questions.”

They started innocently enough.

“Name…?”

“Widow…?”

“Children…?”

The questions were gentle and supportive.

“According to the biography we’ve been furnished, Mrs. Ashley, for the last several years you’ve taught political science at Kansas State University. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re a native of Kansas?”

“Yes, Senator.”

“Your grandparents were Romanian?”

“My grandfather. Yes, sir.”

“You’ve written a book and articles on rapprochement between the United States and Soviet-bloc countries?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The latest article was printed in
Foreign Affairs
magazine and came to the attention of the President?”

“That’s my understanding.”

“Mrs. Ashley, would you kindly tell this committee what the basic premise of your article is?”

Her nervousness was rapidly disappearing. She was on sure ground now, discussing a subject on which she was an authority. She felt as though she were conducting a seminar at school.

“Several regional economic pacts currently exist in the world, and because they are mutually exclusive, they serve to divide the world into antagonistic and competitive blocs, instead of uniting it. Europe has the Common Market, the
Eastern Bloc has COMECON, and then there is the OECD, consisting of the free market countries, and the nonaligned movement of Third World states. My premise is very simple: I would like to see all the various and discrete organizations linked together by economic ties. Individuals who are engaged in a profitable partnership don’t kill one another. I believe that the same principle applies to countries. I would like to see our country spearhead a movement to form a common market that includes allies and adversaries alike. Today, as an example, we’re paying billions of dollars to store surplus grain in grain elevators while people in dozens of countries are starving. The one-world common market could solve that. It could cure inequities of distribution, at fair market prices for everyone. I would like to try to help make that happen.”

Senator Harold Turkel, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee and a member of the Opposition party, spoke up. “I’d like to ask the nominee a few questions.”

Ben Cohn leaned forward in his seat.
Here we go.

Senator Turkel was in his seventies, tough and abrasive, a noted curmudgeon. “Is this your first time in Washington, Mrs. Ashley?”

“Yes, sir. I think it’s one of the most—”

“I suppose you’ve done a good deal of traveling?”

“Well, no. My husband and I had planned to travel, but—”

“Have you ever been to New York?”

“No, sir.”

“California?”

“No, sir.”

“Been to Europe?”

“No. As I said, we planned to—”

“Have you, in fact, ever been outside the state of Kansas, Mrs. Ashley?”

“Yes. I gave a lecture at the University of Chicago and a series of talks in Denver and Atlanta.”

Turkel said dryly, “That must have been very exciting for you, Mrs. Ashley. I can’t recall when this committee has been asked to approve a less-qualified candidate for an ambassadorial post. You expect to represent the United States of America in a sensitive iron curtain country, and you’re telling us that your entire knowledge of the world comes from living in Junction City, Kansas, and spending a few days in Chicago, Denver, and Atlanta. Is that true?”

Mary was aware of the television cameras focused on her, and she held back her temper. “No, sir. My knowledge of the world comes from studying it. I have a Ph.D. in political science and I’ve been teaching at Kansas State University for five years, with an emphasis on the iron curtain countries. I’m familiar with the current problems of the Romanian people and what their government thinks of the United States, and why.” Her voice was stronger now. “All they know about this country is what their propaganda machines tell them. I would like to go over there and try to convince them that the United States is not a greedy, war-hungry country. I would like to show them what a typical American family is like. I—”

She broke off, afraid she had gone too far in her anger. And then, to her surprise, the members of the committee started to applaud. All except Turkel.

The questioning went on. One hour later, Charlie Campbell asked, “Are there any more questions?”

“I think the nominee has expressed herself very clearly,” one of the senators commented.

“I agree. Thank you, Mrs. Ashley. This session is adjourned.”

Pete Connors studied Mary thoughtfully a moment, then quietly left as the members of the press swarmed around her.

“Was the President’s appointment a surprise to you?”

“Do you think they’re going to approve your appointment, Mrs. Ashley?”

“Do you really believe that teaching about a country qualifies you to—?”

“Turn this way, Mrs. Ashley. Smile, please. One more.”

“Mrs. Ashley—”

Ben Cohn stood apart from the others, watching and listening.
She’s good,
he thought.
She has all the right answers. I wish to hell I knew the right questions.

When Mary arrived back at the hotel, emotionally drained, Stanton Rogers was on the telephone.

“Hello, Madam Ambassador.”

She felt giddy with relief. “You mean I
made
it? Oh, Stan. Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how excited I am.”

“So am I, Mary.” His voice was filled with pride. “So am I.”

When Mary told the children, they hugged her.

“I knew you’d make it!” Tim screamed. Beth asked quietly, “Do you think Daddy knows?”

“I’m sure he does, darling.” Mary smiled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave the committee a little nudge…”

Mary telephoned Florence, and when she heard the news she began to cry. “Fantastic! Wait until I spread this around town!”

Mary laughed. “I’ll have a room at the embassy ready for you and Douglas.”

“When do you leave for Romania?”

“Well, first the full Senate has to vote, but Stan says it’s just a formality.”

“What happens next?”

“I have to go through a few weeks of briefing sessions in Washington, and then the children and I are on our way to Romania.”

“I can’t wait to call
The Daily Union
!” Florence exclaimed.
“The town will probably put up a statue to you. I’ve got to go now. I’m too excited to talk. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Ben Cohn heard the results of the confirmation hearing when he returned to his office. He was still bothered. And he did not know why.

As Stanton Rogers predicted, the full Senate vote was a formality. Mary was voted in by a comfortable majority. When President Ellison heard the news, he said to Stanton Rogers, “Our plan is under way, Stan. Nothing can stop us now.”

Stanton Rogers nodded. “Nothing,” he agreed.

Pete Connors was in his office when he received the news. He immediately wrote out a message and encoded it. One of his men was on duty in the CIA cable room.

“I want to use the Roger Channel,” Connors said. “Wait outside.”

The Roger Channel is the CIA’s ultraprivate cable system, available only for use by top-level executives. Messages are sent by a laser transmitter on an ultrahigh frequency in a fraction of a second. When Connors was alone, he dispatched the cable. It was addressed to Sigmund.

During the next week, Mary called on the deputy secretary for political affairs, the head of the CIA, the secretary of commerce, the directors of the New York Chase Manhattan Bank, and several important Jewish organizations. Each of them had admonitions, advice, and requests.

Ned Tillingast at the CIA was enthusiastic. “It will be great to get our people back into action there, Madam Ambassador. Romania’s been a blind spot for us since we became personae non gratae. I’ll assign a man to your embassy as one of your attachés.” He gave her a meaningful look. “I’m sure you’ll give him your full cooperation.”

Mary wondered exactly what that meant.
Don’t ask
, she decided.

The swearing-in ceremony of the new ambassadors is customarily presided over by the secretary of state, and there are usually twenty-five to thirty candidates sworn in at the same time. The morning the ceremony was to take place, Stanton Rogers telephoned Mary.

“Mary, President Ellison has asked that you be at the White House at noon. The President himself is going to swear you in. Bring Tim and Beth.”

The Oval Office was filled with members of the press. When President Ellison walked in with Mary and her children, television cameras began to turn and still cameras began to flash. Mary had spent the previous half hour with the President, and he had been warm and reassuring.

“You’re perfect for this assignment,” he had told her, “or I would never have chosen you. You and I are going to make this dream come true.”

And it does seem like a dream
, Mary thought as she faced the battery of cameras.

“Raise your right hand, please.”

Mary repeated after the President: “I, Mary Elizabeth
Ashley, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely and without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.”

And it was done. She was the ambassador to the Socialist Republic of Romania.

The treadmill began. Mary was ordered to report to the European and Yugoslavian Affairs section at the State Department. There she was assigned a small, boxlike temporary office next to the Romanian desk.

James Stickley, the Romanian desk officer, was a career diplomat with twenty-five years in the service. He was in his late fifties, of medium height, with a vulpine face and small, thin lips. His eyes were a pale, cold brown. He looked with disdain on the political appointees who were invading his world. He was considered the foremost expert on the Romanian desk, and when President Ellison had announced his plan to appoint an ambassador to Romania, Stickley was ecstatic, fully expecting that the post would be given to him. The news about Mary Ashley was a bitter blow. It was bad enough to have been passed over, but to have lost out to a political appointee—a nobody from Kansas—was galling.

“Can you believe it?” he asked Bruce, his closest friend. “Half of our ambassadors are fucking appointees. That could never happen in England or France, chum.
They
use professional career officers. Would the army ask an amateur to be a general? Well, overseas our fucking amateur ambassadors are generals.”

“You’re drunk, Jimbo.”

“I’m gonna get drunker.”

He studied Mary Ashley now, as she sat across from his desk.

Mary was also studying Stickley. There was something mean-looking about him.
I wouldn’t want to have him as an enemy
, Mary thought.

“You’re aware that you’re being sent to an extremely sensitive post, Mrs. Ashley?”

“Yes, of course, I—”

“Our last ambassador to Romania put one wrong foot forward and the whole relationship exploded in our faces. It’s taken us three years to get back in the door. The President would be damned mad if we blew it again.”

If I blew it
, he means.

“We’re going to have to make an instant expert out of you. We don’t have a lot of time.” He handed her an armful of files. “You can start by reading these reports.”

“I’ll dedicate my morning to it.”

“No. In thirty minutes you’re scheduled to begin a language course in Romanian. The course usually takes months, but I have orders to push you through the mill.”

Time became a blur, a whirlwind of activity that left Mary exhausted. Every morning she and Stickley went through the daily files of the Romanian desk together.

“I’ll be reading the cables you send in,” Stickley informed her. “They will be yellow copies for action, or white copies for information. Duplicates of your cables will go to Defense, the CIA, the USIA, the Treasury Department, and a dozen other departments. One of the first issues you’ll be expected to resolve is Americans being held in Romanian prisons. We want their release.”

“What are they charged with?”

“Espionage, drugs, theft—anything the Romanians want to charge them with.”

Mary wondered how on earth one went about getting a charge of espionage dismissed.
I’ll find a way.

“Right,” she said briskly.

“Remember—Romania is one of the more independent iron curtain countries. We have to encourage that attitude.”

“Exactly.”

Stickley said, “I’m going to give you a package. Don’t let it out of your hands. It’s for your eyes only. When you’ve read it and digested it, I want you to return it to me personally tomorrow morning. Any questions?”

“No, sir.”

He handed Mary a thick manila envelope sealed with red tape. “Sign for it, please.”

She signed.

During the ride on the way back to the hotel, Mary clutched it to her lap, feeling like a character in a James Bond movie.

The children were dressed up and waiting for her.

Oh, dear
, Mary remembered.
I promised to take them out to a Chinese dinner and a movie.

“Fellas,” she said, “there’s been a change of plans. We’ll have to make our excursion another evening. Tonight we’re going to stay in and have room service. I have some urgent work to do.”

“Sure, Mom.”

“Okay.”

And Mary thought:
Before Edward died, they would have screamed like banshees. But they’ve had to grow up. We’ve all had to grow up.

She took them both in her arms. “I’ll make it up to you,” she promised.

The material James Stickley had given her was incredible.
No wonder he wants this right back
, Mary thought. There were detailed reports on every important Romanian official, from the President to the minister of commerce. There was a dossier on their sex habits, financial dealings, friendships, personal traits, and prejudices. Some of the reading was lurid.
The minister of commerce, for example, was sleeping with his mistress and his chauffeur, while his wife was having an affair with her maid.

Mary was up half the night memorizing the names and peccadillos of the people with whom she would be dealing.
I wonder if I’ll be able to keep a straight face when I meet them?

In the morning, she returned the secret documents.

Stickley said, “All right, now you know everything you should know about the Romanian leaders.”

“And then some,” Mary murmured.

“There’s something you should bear in mind: By now the Romanians know everything there is to know about
you.
”

“That won’t get them far,” Mary said.

“No?” Stickley leaned back in his chair. “You’re a woman, and you’re alone. You can be sure they’ve already marked you as an easy target. They’ll play on your loneliness. Every move you make will be watched and recorded. The embassy and the residence will be bugged. In Communist countries, we’re forced to use local staffs, so every servant in the residence will be a member of the Romanian security police.”

He’s trying to frighten me
, Mary thought.
Well, it won’t work.

Every hour of Mary’s day seemed to be accounted for, and most of the evenings. Besides Romanian language lessons, her schedule included a course at the Foreign Service Institute in Rosslyn, briefings at the Defense Intelligence Agency, meetings with the secretary of the ISA—International Security Affairs—and with Senate committees. They all had demands, advice, questions.

Mary felt guilty about Beth and Tim. With Stanton Rogers’s help, she had found a tutor for the children. In addition, Beth and Tim had met some other children living in the hotel,
so at least they had playmates; still, she hated leaving them on their own so much.

Mary made it a point to have breakfast with them every morning before she went off to her eight
A.M.
language course at the Institute. The language was impossible.
I’m surprised even Romanians can speak it.
She studied the phrases aloud:

And none of the words was pronounced the way it was spelled.

Beth and Tim sat watching her struggle over her homework, and Beth grinned, “This is our revenge for your making us learn the multiplication tables.”

James Stickley said, “I want you to meet your military attaché, Madam Ambassador, Colonel William McKinney.”

Bill McKinney wore mufti, but his military bearing was like a uniform. He was a tall middle-aged man with a seamed, weathered face.

“Madam Ambassador.” His voice was rough and gravelly, as though his throat had suffered an injury.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Mary said.

Colonel McKinney was her first staff member, and meeting him gave her a sense of excitement. It seemed to bring her new position much closer.

“I look forward to working with you in Romania,” Colonel McKinney said.

“Have you been to Romania before?”

The colonel and James Stickley exchanged a look.

“He’s been there before,” Stickley replied.

Every Monday afternoon diplomatic sessions for new ambassadors were held in a conference room on the eighth floor of the State Department.

“In the Foreign Service, we have a strict chain of command,” the class was told. “At the top is the ambassador. Under him (
under her
, Mary automatically thought) is the DCM—the deputy chief of mission. Under him (
under her
) are the political consular, economic consular, administrative consular, and public affairs consular. Then you have agriculture, commerce, and the military attaché.”
That’s Colonel McKinney
, Mary thought. “When you are at your new posts, you will have diplomatic immunity. You cannot be arrested for speeding, drunk driving, burning down a house, or even for murder. When you die, no one can touch your body or examine any note you may have left. You don’t have to pay your bills—the stores can’t sue you.”

Someone in the class called out, “Don’t let my wife hear that!”

“Always remember that the ambassador is the personal representative of the President and to the government of the country to which he is accredited. You will be expected to behave accordingly.” The instructor glanced at his watch. “Before our next session, I suggest you study the
Foreign Affairs Manual
, volume two, section three hundred, which talks about social relationships. Thank you.”

Mary and Stanton Rogers were having lunch at the Watergate Hotel.

“President Ellison would like you to do some public relations for him,” Rogers said.

“What kind of public relations?”

“We’ll set up some national things. Press interviews, radio, television—”

“I’ve never—well, if it’s important. I’ll try.”

“Good. We’ll have to get you a new wardrobe. You can’t pose in the same dress twice.”

“Stan, that would cost a fortune! Besides, I don’t have time to shop. I’m busy from early morning until late at night. If—”

“No problem. Helen Moody.”

“What?”

“She’s one of Washington’s top professional shoppers. Just leave everything to her.”

Helen Moody was an attractive, outgoing black woman who had been a successful model before she started her own personal shopping service. She appeared at Mary’s hotel room early one morning and spent an hour going through her wardrobe.

“Very nice, for Junction City,” she said frankly, “but we have to wow Washington, D.C. Right?”

“I don’t have much money to—”

Helen Moody grinned. “I know where the bargains are. And we’ll do it fast. You’re going to need a floor-length evening gown, a dress for cocktail parties and evening receptions, an afternoon dress for tea parties and lunch parties, a suit for street or office wear, a black dress, and an appropriate head covering for official mournings or funerals.”

The shopping took three days. When it was finished, Helen Moody studied Mary Ashley. “You’re a pretty lady, but I think we can do even better for you. I want you to see Susan at Rainbow for makeup and then I’ll send you to Billy at Sunshine for your hair.”

A few evenings later Mary ran into Stanton Rogers at a formal dinner given at the Corcoran Gallery. He looked at Mary and smiled. “You look absolutely ravishing.”