A Shade of Difference (16 page)

“It is my understanding that Gorotoland is not an independent nation,” the President said. “If I am wrong, you can correct me.”

“Then will you receive him, sir?” the
New York
Times
asked. The President smiled.

“I receive everyone who wishes to see me.”

“The question is, sir,” the
Times
persisted, “will you give him a formal White House dinner, as he says you will?”

“Well,” the President said, beginning to show a little irritation at last, “I can’t do it this weekend because I’m going away to Michigan. I can’t stay around and entertain for every little character that comes to town.”

“Oh, oh,” the
Christian Science Monitor
whispered to CBS. “That does it.”

“Mr. President,” the
Air Force Journal
said, leaping up a fraction of a second before twelve colleagues, “is it planned to launch another moon expedition before the end of the year?”

“I have no comment on that.”

“The families of the men who are there seem to be getting a little concerned, Mr. Presi—” the
Air Force Journal
said.

“The men will be maintained. That’s all.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ten reporters were on their feet. He chose the
El Paso
Times.

“Mr. President, sir,” she said, “why are you going fishing right at this time when world problems are so pressing?”

“Come along with me,” he said as they all laughed, “and you’ll find it will give you a much healthier outlook on all those pressing world problems. Seriously, I haven’t had a vacation since Geneva and I think it’s time I had one. Any objections?”

“No, Mr. President,” she said. “I don’t object. Some people do, though.”

“Let ’em,” he said cheerfully.

“My, my,” the
Denver Post
remarked
sotto voce
to the
Chicago
Tribune.
“Aren’t we getting big and important.”

“Just to go back for a minute to Terrible Terry, Mr. President,” the Louisville
Courier-Journal
said, “we are to understand, then, that you know of no official dinner for him, you don’t expect to stay here to see him, and there wouldn’t be a dinner for him even if you did?”

“That’s about it,” the President said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not unfriendly to him, but of course he won’t be here in a status in which I can entertain him formally.”

“Thank
you,
Mr. President!” the AP cried, and they tumbled headlong up the plushly carpeted steps out of the big orange-and-blue auditorium to the waiting telephones as the President watched them go with an amused shake of the head.

“Felix,” said the
New York
Times/UN
in the Delegates’ Lounge, “what do you think of this? The President says he won’t stay around to entertain Terry and wouldn’t entertain him even if he did stay around. He says he’s going fishing and he thinks Terry’s a little character. How about that?”

“I don’t think,” said the Ambassador of Panama, “that our African friends will like it one little bit.”

“Does it make your resolution on Gorotoland even more important?” the
Times
suggested.

Felix Labaiya-Sofra gave his characteristic thin-lipped smile and his dark eyes snapped.

“Its wisdom becomes more obvious every day.”

“Do you think the President should stay and entertain Terry?” the
Times
persisted.

“I think any President who wished to make friends for the United States would do so,” the Panamanian Ambassador said. “The United States,” he added coldly, “does not have so many friends she can afford to waste them.”

“Can I quote you?”

“Please do,” said Felix Labaiya.

“Of course,” said the delegate of Guinea to NBC with an air of deepest injury, “the President knows what he wishes to do. But it is a distinct shock to us. We are indignant and horrified.”

“If the President had deliberately set out to insult the entire Afro-Asian world,” the delegate of the United Arab Republic said sternly to
Paris Match, “I
do not see how he could have done a better job. I am surprised and disappointed.”

“We are disappointed,” said the delegate of Ghana. “We are not surprised.”

“I should hardly think it would be well received in Africa,” the French Ambassador said, “but that is the President’s problem.”

“It might perhaps have been better to do as His Highness desired,” said the Ambassador of the Argentine, “but we would not wish to enter into a matter that is between the United States and the African states.”

“It is typical Yankee imperialism!” said the delegate of Cuba.

“I am puzzled by his decision,” the Indian Ambassador observed cautiously to CBS, “but I would wish to study it further before saying anything about it.”

“A bit thick, under the circumstances, wasn’t it?” asked the Canadian delegate cheerfully.

“As Africans,” said the delegate of Mali to the
Daily Mail,
who nodded vigorous agreement, “we are personally affronted. I think we can promise you there will be the gravest consequences.”

“Oh, no,” said the British Ambassador with a bland expression that didn’t quite come off, “I wouldn’t want to make any comment at all.”

“Oh, no!” said the M’Bulu of Mbuele with a sunny smile.
“I
wouldn’t want to make
any
comment
at all!”

“It’s my fault,” the Secretary of State said. “I should have tried to reach you earlier, but I just assumed you were having your press conference at the usual time.”

“And of course I just assumed that everything was in order up there,” the President said with a trace of annoyance in his tone. The Secretary glanced across First Avenue at the green and silver shaft of the Secretariat Building, caught now by the slanting golden rays of the late-afternoon sun, and laughed rather grimly.

“Nothing is ever in order up here. Particularly with everybody in Africa big as life and twice as self-important. I don’t think that reference to ‘little character’ was especially fortunate.”

“It wasn’t. But I knew how I meant it, and the press knew how I meant it.”

“—but the world didn’t,” Orrin said. “Or, anyway, a good portion of the world is pretending it didn’t to suit its own devious purposes.”

“Why are they such chintzy souls all the time?” the President asked in mild wonderment. “They know perfectly well—”

“It’s like Alice in Wonderland. They do it ’cause it teases. For no other reason at all, except to embarrass us. That’s the great game in the world, you see. We’re out front, so we’re fair target. That’s for the jealous and spiteful ones. For those who really want to tear us down, of course, the game is less frivolous and lighthearted.”

“Do you know where the line is that separates the two?” the President inquired dryly. The Secretary snorted.

“It’s a little difficult to find, in some areas. I do think it would be wise to modify your plans somewhat. I ran into Raoul Barre just before I came across the street and he said he has already found great consternation and excitement among the former French colonies. Apparently they still come running to him with their troubles up here, and he thinks you would be well advised to think of some graceful excuse and change your plans.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” the President said in a tone of disgust. “How can I? Do you mean I have to be at the beck and call of every little two-bit international scalawag who wants to hold a gun at my head? It’s blackmail.”

“Sure,” Orrin Knox said cheerfully, “that’s exactly what it is. And everybody knows it. The most delightfully cynical double life goes on up here all the time about almost everything. Of a political nature, anyway.”

“Now, Orrin,” the President said. “God knows I don’t have much side to me, but I do have some concept of the dignity of my office, and I can’t let it appear that Terence Ajkaje is leading it around on a string. It’s beneath the office. It’s beneath the United States.”

“That,” said the Secretary of State, “is exactly the point Raoul was making, in an indirect way. He’s not so sure it is.”

“Have we fallen that low?” the President demanded. “I don’t believe it. And neither do you.”

“No. But—”

“And, furthermore, I must say all this hardly sounds like
you.
What’s become of the fearless fighting Senator from Illinois? I thought I was appointing a Secretary of State with some starch in his soul.”

“Now, Harley,” the Secretary said sharply, “you know that isn’t fair.”

“Well,” the President conceded, “you’re right; it isn’t. I apologize. But it does seem to me—”

“God knows
I’d
like to tell the little worm to go to hell,” Orrin said, “but, you see, he isn’t a little worm in the eyes of his fellow Africans, the press, and the New York cocktail circuit. Or if he is, they’re doing an awfully good job of keeping it quiet. He floats around this place on a wave of favorable publicity that hasn’t been matched since Castro spoke to the newspaper editors. He’s the world symbol of freedom and liberty at the moment. It doesn’t make any difference that he’s really the exact opposite. It’s the public image that counts, and I must say the public image is crowned with laurel and ten feet high.”

“Even so,” the President said with a stubborn note that his Cabinet had come to recognize, “I am afraid I can’t possibly change my plans for him.”

“Raoul suggested that perhaps you could say that last-minute legislation needed your attention, so you had decided to put off the fishing trip until next week—”

“There isn’t anything that can’t wait to be signed until I get back.”

“—and then you could arrange to have possibly just a small buffet at the White House,” Orrin went on calmly, “with perhaps the members of Foreign Relations and Foreign Affairs committees and a few of the top correspondents so he can get the publicity he wants—”

“
I
said I’m not changing my plans. Now, what else is on your mind?”

“I feel as Raoul does,” the Secretary said earnestly, “that perhaps under the circumstances it would be best to find a good excuse and do it. The world doesn’t deal in realities any more, you know; it deals in public fictions.”

“I know. And I am determined that the public fiction about the United States will be that it does not yield to every little passing wind of hysteria that blows. Haven’t I made that clear already, at Geneva and elsewhere?”

“You have done beautifully,” the Secretary of State said soberly, “and, like you, I think the public fiction will coincide most closely with reality if that is the picture of us you can educate the world to accept. But there is a genuine feeling up here that we must take into account. And in that context—”

“I know what it is,” the President said. “It’s a feeling of blown-up ego that has the whole world out of balance. Sometimes I think the end result of the United Nations has been to give unimportant little states nobody would ever have heard of a chance to inflate themselves out of all proportion to their actual weight in things. It’s ridiculous that we let the tail swing the cat the way we do.”

“But you understand why it is,” Orrin Knox suggested. The President sighed.

“Yes, I understand why it is. The more real power you have, the less you can afford to exercise it, and the less real power you have, the more you can throw it around. It’s a sign of how topsy-turvy our world is.”

“So you do think perhaps, then, that you can—” the Secretary began, and was conscious at once of a change of atmosphere at the other end of the line.

“No, indeed,” the President said crisply. “This is one of those times I feel it won’t do to give in.”

“I’d rather do it gracefully now than find we had to later,” Orrin observed.

“I can’t conceive of any situation in which we’d ‘have to later.’ Anyway, Ted Jason and his little luncheon in Charleston ought to give him all the headlines he wants.”

“LeGage Shelby won’t be happy, either,” the Secretary told him with an ironic amusement.

“LeGage Shelby is the least of my worries. Are you coming back down tonight?”

“Yes, I think so. I don’t feel I can be away from the department more than a couple of days without a lot of things getting out from under me. Not that they don’t when I’m there, of course; but I feel better about it when I’m on the spot. At least I can prevent some of it.”

“Now, surely,” the President said with a mocking irony that exactly mimicked some other voices of the past, “you don’t think that some obscure little clerk in some obscure little bureau lost China, do you?”

“Obscure little clerks in obscure little bureaus can do a hell of a lot of damage in a government like this, and it’s either naive or disingenuous to say they can’t. However, it’s more a matter of good administration that I’m concerned with. So, I’ll be back in town late tonight if you want to reach me before you go to Michigan.”

“I’m going to Michigan at six. Do you and Beth like trout?”

“Love ’em.”

“I’ll bring you a dozen. And, of course, you can always reach me through the White House switchboard if you need me.”

“Sure thing,” Orrin Knox said. “Have a good rest. You deserve it.”

“Thanks,” said the President. “I will.”

And that, the Secretary thought as he returned the direct phone to the White House to its receiver and swung back to the pile of papers that confronted him on his desk, was what could still happen with Harley. For the most part he had settled into the Presidency with a sure skill that had, in the case of Geneva, risen to an instinctive brilliance. But there was still a stubborn streak, certainly not decreased by the adulation that had followed his actions in the Swiss city, and a certain willful blindness about things, on occasion.

Of course Orrin could see his position that the United States must not be “on a string to Terence Ajkaje,” but, by the same token, the President’s press conference remark and his decision not to entertain the M’Bulu was already an issue and rapidly becoming more so at the UN. The episode was exactly the sort of thing that the neutralist states, encouraged by the Communists, loved to fret about and worry away at until it had grown to a size out of all proportion to its real worth. And in this recurring and oft-repeated process, of course, the lure of a good story and a major controversy always brought the eager co-operation of the news corps. It was already top news in the
New York
Post
and the
New York
World-Telegram and Sun,
whose late-afternoon editions were on the desk before him. “PRESIDENT SNUBS AFRICANS,” said the former. “HASSLE DEVELOPS ON WHITE HOUSE BID TO TERRY,” said the latter.