(1964) The Man (122 page)

“Mr. Bollinger,” the Chief Clerk called out.

“Mr. Senator Bollinger, how say you? Is the respondent, Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor, as charged in this Article?”

“Guilty.”

Abrahams’ heart was hammering again, as if to make up for its loss in suspension, and he stared down at his hands worriedly. Four of the one hundred had voted, and three of the four had judged the President as guilty. It was not promising. Abrahams could hear Senator Campbell being questioned, and now he heard the reply.

“Guilty.”

About to return his full attention to the rising, announcing, and sitting of senator jurors, Nat Abrahams found himself mildly distracted by the sounds of whispering beside or behind him. He glanced at Tuttle, then down the table at Priest and Hart, to learn if they were the ones conferring, but they were silent, mesmerized by the drama of the vote.

Perplexed, as the whispering continued, Abrahams quietly turned in his chair, and then saw the source of the sound that had distracted him. A network television camera, which he had not noticed before, had been set up on the ground floor level, near the rostrum, to capture the historic countdown in its glass eye. Nearby two men crouched, one tallying the voting on a pad, as the other, an announcer, whispered the totaled figures, and their significance, into a perforated microphone in his hand.

Abrahams tilted backward, cocking an ear toward the whispering announcer, trying to close out the individual senators rising with their votes in order to catch, if he could, the latest tabulation. He listened hard, heard parts of several sentences, and then became attuned to the television announcer’s low-keyed commentary and was able to hear him distinctly.

“The vote is going swiftly, as you can see on your screens,” the announcer was purring into the microphone. “We have—let me see—yes—thirty—five out of the one hundred senators have already declared themselves. Of this first thirty-five, the vote summary this moment is twenty-six against President Dilman, nine favoring President Dilman, meaning that the vote to convict is running well ahead of the two-thirds required to remove the President from his office. It is too early to tell if this is a trend, and we are unable to learn if there have been any surprise switches against or for, but the President is trailing, he is behind, and if this count continues, he will be removed. For the first time in American history, a President of the United States will be removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors. We want to remind all of you it will require two-thirds of the one hundred present to vote guilty, if conviction is to be obtained. Two-thirds means sixty-seven Senate members must declare aloud that they believe President Dilman guilty—wait, one moment—what’s that, Kent?—yes, fine. Ladies and gentlemen, while I’ve been speaking to you, the voting has been going on, inexorably continuing, relentlessly driving to its climactic moment, and now my colleague with the tally sheet informs me—uniforms me that half of the votes are in—here, I have the halfway total in hand—the vote now stands, this minute it stands, thirty-four votes guilty, sixteen votes not guilty, out of fifty senators who have declared. It would appear—it appears that while the President is still running behind, his supporters have somewhat closed the gap, the voting has tightened considerably. If this ratio maintains, the prosecution will get its two-thirds by two votes to spare, at least, but since the earlier tabulation, it has narrowed down to a real life-and-death struggle—let’s see now, who’s that rising to vote?”

Abrahams sat up, tried to shut the smooth, glib, whispering voice from his hearing. It had begun to irritate him. Out on the floor before them, not only a human being’s future hung precariously in the balance, but the continuance of the checks and balances of America’s system of government as well as the integrity of the American public who prattled about equality and freedom. Yet an announcer, epitome of the best and worst, now the worst, in the brassy, competitive, public-relations American culture, was trying to report this critical historic event in the same manner he might a game, a sport, a horse race.

As if his mind refused to accept and suffer, hope living, hope dying, each excruciating vote being announced, Abrahams’ thoughts dwelt on the end result of what was occurring before his very eyes.

What would happen to this country if Douglass Dilman were convicted and ousted in these next minutes? What would be on the national conscience as the great country stirred awake tomorrow morning, sated by its Roman holiday, but knowing it had crucified a President not because he was an incompetent leader—the Dilman triumph in Baraza would be known to all by then—but because he was black and they were white? How would neighbor look upon neighbor, and how would they live as one people in their shame? And Doug, what would happen to Doug? Where would he go? What would he do? How could he live? Yet, on the other hand, if he were acquitted in the minutes to come, what would be the state of the Union then? And Doug’s future?

He heard the senators’ voices replying to the Chief Justice . . . “Guilty” . . . “Guilty”. . . . “Not guilty.” He heard the watch on his vest chain ticking, ticking, ticking. He sought it, peered down at its hands. Twenty-three minutes had passed since the roll call began. Then he felt fingers tugging at his sleeve.

He glanced up. It was Tuttle, and Tuttle was sliding a slip of notepaper in front of him. It was a scrawled message from Hart:

“They have 60, we have 26—14 votes left. They need 7, we need 8. I’m dying. What do you think, Nat?”

He took up a pencil and wrote across the note, “I think I’m dying, too, but we’re not dead. Stop using your fingers for writing and keep them crossed!”

He sent the note back down the table, turned in his chair, and now gave his full attention to the final fourteen voters. But to his surprise, in the time it had taken for Hart to write the note, pass it on, for him to read it, and reply, ten more votes had been announced, and the eleventh was just being announced, and this he knew because he could hear the damnable announcer whispering into the microphone behind him.

“—Stonehill just voted not guilty, as expected,” the tightening voice behind him announced to the nation. “It now stands ninety-seven senators out of one hundred have cast their votes. The tabulation shows sixty-five guilty, and thirty-two not guilty. The prosecution requires two of the remaining three votes to impeach and convict the President of high crimes. The defense requires two of the remaining three votes to acquit and save the President of the United States . . . There seems to be a lull . . . The Chief Justice is checking with the Clerk to see what is left to be done . . . We can tell him what is left. Three votes to be announced, and the impeachers need two, and it looks like they may get them. Only Senators Thomas, Van Horn, and Watson remain on the roll uncounted. Thomas, from a border state, has been outspoken in his criticism of the President. Van Horn was a supporter of President Dilman’s intervention in Baraza from the outset, and with the flash of our victory there, it is unlikely he will do anything but continue to support the President. The third and last voter, the redoubtable Senator Hoyt Watson, whose own daughter was involved in the charges against Dilman, is a Southerner—a progressive Southerner, but a dyed-in-the-wool Southerner nevertheless—and so it appears that two of the three remaining votes will be guilty, giving the enemies of the President their sixty-seven required votes, their two-thirds, and unfolding before our eyes one of the most memorable occasions in history, the driving from office of the highest public official—”

The Chief Justice’s gavel fell.

Nat Abrahams shut his ears to the announcer, gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and stared straight ahead. He knew that perspiration had gathered on his forehead and down his back. He knew his worn, worried heart was faltering again. He waited.

“Mr. Thomas.”

“Mr. Senator Thomas, how say you? Is the respondent, Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor, as charged in this Article?”

“Guilty!”

“Mr. Van Horn, how say you? Is the respondent, Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of—”

“Not guilty.”

Abrahams’ mind tabulated the count now: sixty-six guilty, thirty-three not guilty. One vote would convict Dilman; one vote would acquit Dilman. And there was but one vote and one voter left.

The one-hundredth Senate member in the room sat erect behind his mahogany desk, arms folded across the desk.

“Mr. Watson,” the Chief Clerk called out.

Abrahams watched him, throat and lungs near bursting, eyes strained wide, watched the old gentleman unfold from his seat, grip his birch cane, watched his white thatched head, wrinkled phlegmatic face, rise with his aged body.

Chief Justice Johnstone hesitated, perhaps himself slowed by the weight his question would place on the senior senator’s bent shoulders.

“Mr. Senator Watson, how say you? Is the respondent, Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor, as charged in this Article?”

Senator Hoyt Watson did not reply. It seemed an eternity as he stood there, cane in his knobby hand, gazing up silently at the bench.

Watson’s somber voice last night, in the privacy of the Oval Office, his words to Dilman last night, rang in Abrahams’ ears: “I cannot judge in your favor now, simply in knowing my daughter perjured herself and the House was misled . . . I must judge you tomorrow on your merits . . . if you acted as an American President or as a Negro President.” All of this Abrahams heard now. Then, he wondered, what did Senator Watson hear now? Did he hear the thousands jamming the streets of Baraza and every democratic city of Africa, cheering the American flag? Did he hear the ancient cacklings of beloved ancestors, good colonels with good slaves, and did he hear the chant of the million in his state, who had carried him on their cheers into the Senate for twenty-four years, made him the bright white shield of their purity and safety against the ignorant niggers trying to threaten their accommodations, education, prosperity?

What did Senator Hoyt Watson hear these fleeting, suspenseful seconds while the Senate, the House, the White House, the South, the United States, the wide world waited?

The Chief Justice, standing before his carved chair on high, bent forward, and as if to shake another old man from his reverie and have today’s history written and done with, he spoke.

“Mr. Senator Watson, how say you?” he repeated. “Is the President guilty or not guilty as charged in this Article?”

“Mr. Chief Justice, I vote the President
not guilty
of any high crimes or misdemeanors!”

Nat Abrahams fell back in his chair, limp with disbelief.

The galleries, the occupants of the floor, sat dumb, as if stunned into muteness by the fall of one giant mallet on their collective skulls.

A half dozen, then a dozen senators, foremost among them Hankins, were leaving their desks, surrounding Hoyt Watson, their irate heads bobbing, their angry arms waving, as Watson stood stonily in their midst, clutching his cane and listening.

From above, almost indistinctly now, Nat Abrahams could hear the Chief Justice intoning, “Upon this fourth Article, sixty-six senators vote ‘Guilty’ and thirty-four senators vote ‘Not Guilty.’ Two-thirds not having pronounced guilty, the President is, therefore, acquitted upon this Article! . . . Silence! Silence! . . . Mr. Senator Bruce Hankins, are you requesting the floor?”

“I am!” shouted Senator Hankins above the rising hubbub of excitement. He hobbled forward to the rostrum. “Mr. Chief Justice, I have conferred with the learned Senator Watson, and with the leadership among my honorable colleagues. It appears that all are adamant in their opinions, that no ‘Not Guilty’ votes will be changed during this day, and that continued voting on the remaining three lesser Articles will result in an even larger tally and judgment for acquittal. Therefore, setting aside my personal feelings, and out of respect for the judgment passed, concerned only with preserving what we can of the unity and well-being of our beloved country, I hereby move that the Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment, does now adjourn
sine die
—that is to say, permanently—permanently. I ask for yeas and nays on this motion.”

The Chief Justice gazed out over the churning Senate floor. “Who says yea?”

“Yea!” The concerted shout was thunderous and unanimous, and it went on and on, “Yea! . . . Yea! . . . Yea!”

The Chief Justice roared, “Unanimous! The Senate, sitting as a court of impeachment for the trial of Douglass Dilman, upon Articles of Impeachment presented by the House of Representatives, stands adjourned
sine die!
The President stands acquitted on all four Articles!”

Hardly anyone except Abrahams heard the Chief Justice, and not even Abrahams distinctly heard the last. For Tuttle, Hart, Priest, were climbing all over him, hugging him, choking him, pummeling him, and senators and press correspondents were all around, wringing his hand.

Beyond the circle of humanity pressing in on Abrahams, there was bedlam. The Senate had become a carnival of whooping, cheering, laughing revelers, whose celebrations drowned out the scattered boos and catcalls. Pandemonium engulfed the galleries and the floor, and spilled into the outer rooms.

Desperately, Abrahams tried to reach Senator Watson, to thank him, but it was impossible. Watson was caught in a crush of reporters and announcers. Abrahams heard someone yell, “Senator Watson, how could you repudiate your lifetime record to support Dilman? Why did you decide to vote not guilty?” And Watson, bewildered by the attention, replied firmly “Two reasons—two. First, like Edmund Ross who cast the decisive vote for Andy Johnson, I decided that the executive branch of the government was on trial, and if its occupant were drummed out in disgrace on such flimsy political evidence, our nation would no longer be a democracy but what Ross called ‘a partisan Congressional autocracy.’ And second, I decided even before President Dilman had proved his patriotism and intelligence by saving Baraza and Africa for us, that if I could cease judging him as a Negro person and judge him solely as a fellow human being, I could then judge his true merits as a President. I judged Douglass Dilman as a man, and found him worthy of the Presidency. Coming here, rising to announce my vote, I fully realized that he was guilty of nothing except the accident of his colored skin. So I voted not guilty, and I am proud to have done that, and I hope and pray each and every one of you is proud of yourself today. For President Dilman has shown us he is a man—and now, perhaps, the nation has shown him and the entire world that it, too, has reached maturity at last.”