Advise and Consent (52 page)

In the delicate region of who-asks-whom he had by now concluded that the man for him to talk to was Orrin Knox, who could be persuaded to talk to Lafe Smith, who in turn was young enough to meet Brig, as it were, on his own level, with the shared attitudes of a generation, memories of the war, sex, women, old friendship, reactions to their elders, and all the rest of it, to form a common meeting-ground. By this chain of personalities, the Majority Leader hoped, the subtle skein of events leading to a change in Senator Anderson’s position and a re-establishment of the status quo ante could be brought about in a smooth and painless way that would leave few scars.

For the Majority Leader was aware from the President’s tone that he was not, as he had said, about to abandon his commitment without a struggle; and it had been quite apparent from the iron in his voice the kind of struggle it would be. Occasionally in the past Bob Munson had seen the normally equable temper—equable as long as things were going his way—flare up; he had watched the force of that personality lash out at obstacles in its path, and he had known of actions taken with complete ruthlessness that had for all practical political and national purposes completely destroyed some of the men who had gotten in his way. Most Presidents who had an ounce of historical conception of the powers and responsibilities of their great office were bad business when crossed; and this one had considerably more than an ounce. He was not one to tangle with lightly; and the Majority Leader, still certain that the Senator from Utah had underestimated both the Chief Executive’s present intentions and his basic general character, was anxious to ease him out of the situation before it reached a showdown where neither man would retreat. If that occurred, he would not vouch for what might happen to Senator Anderson; and he cared enough for him, both as friend and as a valuable Senator whose serious bruising in a battle with the White House would be a real blow to the Senate and the country, to want to do everything possible to head off any such clash, which at the least would be unpleasant and at the most might be tragic.

So it was with a serious heart that he lifted the phone and put through a call to Senator Knox’s office, and after ascertaining that he was in, told his secretary to convey the information that he would be dropping by very shortly. He noticed that she sounded a little constrained, and a couple of minutes later as he turned the comer and started down the long corridor to Orrin’s door he understood why. The area around the doorway was bathed in floodlight, three or four television cameras were at the ready, a large crowd of reporters was standing about, a few tourists were watching in an awestruck way on the outer fringes. It was quite obvious that some quarry had gone to ground inside, and it was also quite obvious that the next step in the Leffingwell matter had been taken out of the Majority Leader’s hands without so much as a by-your-leave. Orrin in his blunt, pragmatic, impatient, and independent way, had obviously decided to move in.

There were some in the Senate toward whom the Majority Leader would have felt a considerable annoyance under such a circumstance, but Orrin was in a different category. Old friendship and complete personal trust, plus the fact that Orrin was Orrin and overlooked the subtler niceties not because he wanted to be nasty but just because he was too busy thinking about something else to pay any attention to them, prompted forgiveness. Whatever Orrin had decided to do, Bob Munson was quite ready to go along with it; and with complete calm and good nature he headed toward the inevitable onslaught of the press as he neared the door. “Here comes Bob,” he heard the
Washington Star
announce, and instantly he was confronted by a circle of questioning faces and raised pencils.

“You know,” he said comfortably, “you’ve no idea how happy it makes me to be greeted by all these bright morning faces. How do you manage to look so fresh and. eager all the time?”

“
I,
” said the
Baltimore Sun
dryly, “will have you know I was up half the night and then got up again at five to try to solve this little mystery.”

“Poor you,” Senator Munson said with a chuckle, “You should have gone into some other business.”

“Now he tells us,” AP said, and the Majority Leader laughed.

“Come on, now,” he said. “You wouldn’t be doing anything else and you know it.”

“What’s the purpose of this meeting, Senator?” the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch
inquired in a businesslike way, and Senator Munson shrugged.

“I assume Senator Knox has told you as much as he wants you to know,” he said blandly.

“He hasn’t told us anything,” the
Herald Tribune
remarked in a tone of some reproach. Bob Munson smiled.

“That’s what I mean,” he said.

“Well, can’t you tell us anything?” the
Washington Post
insisted. “There must be something we can be told.”

“Who’s arrived so far?” Senator Munson asked.

“Arly Richardson, John Winthrop, and Tom August are already in,” the
Star
reported. “Johnny DeWilton is on his way, and I guess you complete the list, right?”

“I guess so,” the Majority Leader said comfortably. “Won’t you have fun speculating out here for the next hour and a half.”

“Well, obviously you’re going to decide whether to take the matter out of Brig’s hands and go ahead with the nomination regardless,” the
Post-Dispatch
said. Senator Munson raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“Oh?” he said. “Is that what we’re going to do? Thanks for telling me, boys. I’ll pass the word along to the others when I get inside.”

“Well, what else would you be meeting for?” the
Providence Journal
demanded, and the Majority Leader adopted an air of mock gravity.

“Many important matters are now before the Senate,” he pointed out solemnly. “Just because you’re all excited about one little old bitty nomination doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty else. Appropriations; a fishing treaty with Canada; whether or not to have a tax bill this year; foreign aid; reciprocal trade—oh, the subjects are endless. Just endless.”

“Oh, now,” UPI said amicably, “stop being cute. There’s only one subject before this subcommittee, and that’s Bob Leffingwell. Why else would Orrin Knox have called a subcommittee meeting, and why else would he want you and Tom August to be in on it?”

“You fellows are
so sharp,
” Senator Munson said with equal amicability. “Just keep guessing, and the time out here will just fly by.”

“What do you think of Brig’s action, Senator?” the
New York
Daily News
asked in a more serious tone, and the Majority Leader dropped the banter and replied seriously.

“I’ve talked to him,” he said, “and I’m satisfied he has his reasons, and that they may be good ones. At least they seem sufficient to him to warrant the action he has taken. Therefore I for one am prepared to refrain from passing judgment until he makes his reasons clear.”

“Has he asked to see the President?” CBS inquired.

“I’d say it’s mutual,” Senator Munson said with a grin. “They want to see each other.”

“When?” the
Washington Post
demanded.

“I don’t know yet,” Senator Munson said.

“This morning?” the
Newark
News
suggested, and Bob Munson smiled.

“It isn’t definitely settled yet,” he said.

“Supposing the subcommittee does decide to take it out of his hands,” the
Washington Star
asked. “What then?”

“I can’t conceive of it,” Senator Munson said flatly. “It would be a most unusual demonstration of lack of faith in a member of the Senate.”

“How about faith in Bob Leffingwell?” the
Baltimore Sun
inquired, and the Majority Leader grinned.

“There,” he said, “you open up a whole new field of study. Now if you gentlemen will part your ranks like the Red Sea, little Moses will go on in.”

“Will you have a statement for us when the meeting is over, Senator?” the
Newark
News
asked.

“Orrin may,” he said. “Or I may. Or we all may. Somebody will, so don’t go away.”

“Senator,” the
Herald Trib
told him, “two thirds of our lives are spent waiting outside closed committee hearings. We won’t go away.”

“Well, make yourselves comfortable,” Bob Munson advised. “Maybe you can spend your time thinking up some more nasty things to say about us for delaying the nomination. There must,” he said with a grin that took some but not all the sting out of it, “be one or two left.”

But as Senator DeWilton came along the corridor and they went on into Orrin’s reception room together, he decided that there was little point in ragging the press. They were nice people, for the most part, very astute and very intelligent, and they were human like everybody else in Washington; so close to government, so much a part of politics, that it was almost impossible for them to refrain from developing strong opinions, and almost equally impossible for them to keep their opinions from showing. He was certain that none of them, confronted with the point-blank question, “Do you really want to hurt Brigham Anderson, or Bob Munson, or whoever?” would give an affirmative answer. It was just that their feelings got involved and they got swept along and one thing led to another and frequently, somehow, it all seemed to come out in a way that indirectly but forcefully promoted the causes and the people they believed in and did damage to those they did not. He knew this was a failing that afflicted everyone who got involved in Washington, and he was not going to set himself up to judge it. When they turned on you, as Brig had truly said, all you could do was ride it out. A week from now, with Bob Leffingwell confirmed and the bitter battle forgotten, they would be your friends again. It was just part of the game.

Inside the office with the door safely closed behind them, he smiled his greeting to the girls at the typewriters and piloted Johnny DeWilton by the arm on through the next office and into Orrin’s private office in the room beyond. The senior Senator from Illinois got up at once and extended his hand in the inevitable senatorial handshake, that symbol of the club that occurs automatically whether Senators are seeing one another again after six months, six days, or six hours.

“I’m glad you could come, Bob,” he said matter-of-factly. “I meant to call you about, but it slipped my mind until a minute ago and then Mary said you were on the way. Glad to see you, Johnny. Are there many reporters outside?”

“About thirty,’ Senator DeWilton said.

“Well,” Orrin said tartly, “Tom thinks we should give them quite a story, but I’m against it.”

The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee gave the Majority Leader a rather reproachful look and spoke in his wistfully worried way.

“This meeting was Orrin’s idea,” he said, “and I thought since we were having it, maybe it would be best to reach some firm decision on the matter. That’s all. I’m willing to be overruled if you feel it best, but we ought to do something, under the circumstances, it seems to me.”

“What circumstances?” John Winthrop asked with a smile. “A little fussing in the press? Don’t tell me that has you scared, Tom.”

“It isn’t only that,” Senator August said defensively. “The President’s all upset, too. He called me this morning.”

“He called me, too,” Arly Richardson said, “but I’m not scared.”

“He’s been a busy man,” Senator Munson observed dryly. “Is there anybody here he didn’t call?”

“He called us all, I expect,” Senator Knox said. He smiled in a rather wintry way. “Didn’t tell you he was going to, though, did he?”

“Nope,” Bob Munson said cheerfully.

“He’s a shifty man,” Orrin said in a tone that dismissed him from further consideration. “Anyway, here we are. It was my idea. I thought we ought to get together and talk it over. It
is
causing quite a rumpus, and it seemed advisable to present a united front on it, if we can get one.”

“I’m united,” Senator Winthrop offered calmly. “I’m for Brig. Whatever,” he added with a little chuckle, “Brig is for.”

“So am I,” Senator Knox said, “but I thought at least we should discuss it and maybe prepare a statement. If we agree. How about you, Arly?”

The senior Senator from Arkansas looked stubborn and Senator Munson could see he was about to be difficult.

“I’m not so sure,” Arly said slowly. “It seems to me that whatever the trouble is, it was certainly presented to us in a way that put us all on the spot. What’s the matter with Brig, anyway? Aren’t we all entitled to be consulted on something like this? Why didn’t he call us first?”

“Maybe there wasn’t time,” the Majority Leader suggested, and Senator Richardson looked skeptical.

“Hell,” he said, “there was time enough on something like this.”

“The first I knew about it,” Tom August said reproachfully, “was when the
New York
Times
called me at 1 a.m. and wanted to get my comment.”

“Yes,” Orrin Knox said, “I noticed you supported Brig.”

“What else could I do at the moment?” Senator August asked. “I didn’t know what he had in mind. It did seem to me, though, that as chairman of the full committee I might have been given the courtesy of an advance warning.”

“And suppose he had given you one?” Senator Knox demanded. “Would you have stopped him?”

“That would depend on what it was,” Tom August said. “I might have cautioned that he wait until this morning when we could all meet about it, rather than shoot from the hip right then.”

“He’d be in better shape now,” Senator Winthrop admitted.

“It looks to me almost like a shock reaction,” Johnny DeWilton said. “He heard something, or somebody came to him with something, and he was so upset by it he acted without thinking.”

Arly Richardson looked disbelieving.

“When did Brig ever act without thinking?” he asked.

“It happens,” Orrin Knox said. “He’s human.”

“Yes,” Senator Richardson said. “Well, I’d certainly like to hear from him right now before we announce anything. How about getting him on the phone, Orrin?”

“I’ve called him,” the Majority Leader said calmly. “He won’t tell us what it is until he’s had a chance to see the President. And we’ve pretty definitely set it up that we’ll see the President together at the White House tonight after the correspondents’ banquet.”