Advise and Consent (59 page)

“Not as well as I was before you started creating problems for me, Brig,” he said, but he said it with a jesting note in his voice, and Senator Anderson accepted it as such.

“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” he said pleasantly. “I just did what I felt I had to do, under the circumstances.”

“Of course you did,” the President said encouragingly. “Of course you did. I’m glad to know we still have men in the Senate who have the guts to do what they believe to be right. We’d be in quite a fix if we didn’t, wouldn’t we?”

“I think so,” Brig said simply. There was a little pause.

“Of course,” the President said, with a shade less warmth in his voice, “it has posed really quite a major problem for me, you know.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” Senator Anderson said, again in the same direct, simple way. This time the faintest note of irritation was evident in the response.

“What do you think we should do about it?” the President asked. The Senator from Utah laughed, rather shortly.

“What would you suggest?” he countered.

“I think we should talk it over,” the President suggested, not bothering with much cordiality now but sounding very businesslike. “I’m sure we can work out something that will be satisfactory to you.”

“That you wouldn’t know until we had talked it over, I think,” the Senator from Utah said, and there was another silence.

“Yes,” the President said. “Well. What
do
you want, Senator? Is there anything we can do for you in the Administration, anything you need out West that we could arrange for you? Something in the reclamation field, maybe, or—”

“See here,” Senator Anderson said sharply. “Mr. President. Is it your conception that I’m doing this just to place myself in a bargaining position with you? Do you really think that’s all I have in mind?”

“Certainly not, Brigham,” the President said quickly. “No, indeed. Bob tells me you’re a man of great character and integrity, and I know from our brief contacts up to now that you are. I just thought that sometimes—well, sometimes, if an understanding can be reached that will assist a man back home, it eases things a good deal, that’s all.”

“I don’t know who you’ve been dealing with lately,” Senator Anderson said in the same sharp tone, “but I don’t belong in the same group. I don’t need assistance back home, for one thing, and my integrity in this matter isn’t up for barter, for another. So suppose we discuss it on some other basis, if you don’t mind, Mr. President. This is a matter of conviction with me.”

“Surely,” the President said, sounding taken aback and a good deal more annoyed. “I apologize for any other implication. We’re not going to pretend with one another that there aren’t some who can be swayed by such considerations, but I’ll accept your word that you’re not one of them.”

“You don’t have to accept my word,” Brig told him shortly. “Ask anybody.”

“I wish I knew you better,” the President confessed with a sudden injection of charm in his voice. “I’d tell you to stop being huffy with me and relax. But I don’t know you that well, do I? So I must try to be very solemn with you.”

“That might be better, Mr. President,” Brig said in a voice that didn’t give an inch. The President replied more coldly after a moment.

“Very well,” he said. “Just tell me your problem, and we’ll see what we can do about it.”

“I’m not going to do it on the telephone,” Senator Anderson said.

“Is it really that earth-shaking?” the President asked with a trace of sarcasm. “Or perhaps I should say, is it really that important?”

“Yes, sir,” Brigham Anderson said, “it is.”

“What would you like to do, then?” the President inquired. “Come down and see me?”

“I assume you feel, as I do, that that would be the sensible and constructive thing to do under the circumstances,” the Senator said. “Or am I wrong in thinking you’ve had everybody up here working toward that end since early this morning?”

“I like the sound of you,” the President told him in a fatherly voice. “You have a lot of spirit.”

“So I’ve been told,” Senator Anderson said dryly. “Is it agreeable that I come down?”

“Well, let me see,” the President said thoughtfully. “Bob seemed to think it might be advisable for us to get together after the banquet tonight, but possibly—let me see
....
How about half an hour from now? Could you make it then?”

“Is that the time you have set aside for me?” Brig asked with an edge of sarcasm of his own. The President laughed, apparently free from care.

“Sure,” he said amiably. “Come on down here, you firebrand, and we’ll thrash it out.”

“I doubt if I can make it in half an hour,” Senator Anderson said. “I’ll have to round up Bob and Harley—”

“Who said anything about Bob and Harley?” the President demanded with a sudden real annoyance in his voice. “This is a private talk between you and me to settle this. What have Bob and Harley got to do with it?”

“I’m sorry,” Brigham Anderson said firmly. “I prefer to be accompanied by Bob and Harley.”

“And I prefer to see you alone,” the President snapped.

“Then we’ve reached an impasse already, haven’t we, Mr. President?” Brig said politely. “Thank you for calling. I think we’d better go back to the original plan.”

“I am asking you as President of the United States and the leader of your party to come down here alone and discuss this matter with me,” the President said coldly.

“And I,” Brigham Anderson said in a voice as cold as his, “am telling you as United States Senator from the state of Utah that I will not come down there unless I am accompanied by the Majority Leader and the Vice President of the United States. Who,” he added with deliberate slowness, “conceivably may presently be a direct party at interest in this matter.”

“Don’t you trust me?” the President demanded angrily; and since he had asked the question of one of the few men in American politics with sufficient courage and integrity to give him an absolutely honest answer, that was what he got.

“No, sir,” Senator Anderson said quietly. “Not entirely.”

There was another silence, a long one this time, and when the President spoke again it was with a complete lack of emotion in his voice.

“I think you’re entirely right in what you propose, Senator,” he said. “I shall expect you and your friends at the White House after the banquet.”

“My friends and I,” Senator Anderson said with equal dispassion, “will be there.”

“Very good,” the President said and hung up without further word.

And so, Brig thought, he had made him mad and probably made it more difficult to reach agreement. But God damn it, he had perfectly good reasons for acting as he had and he wasn’t anybody’s damned lackey. This angry mood sustained him for at least five minutes as he turned back to his mail and began to scan the exhortations from across the country to do this, that, or the other on the Leffingwell nomination. But presently, being a fair and decent man, his native calm and tolerance returned and he reflected that after all, the President had his problems too and was of course as fully concerned as he was, and so soon he came back to the assumption that they were both reasonable men who could talk it over quietly, once they were face to face, and work out a solution together.

He did not understand then that in the short space of ten minutes he had made solution of their disagreement forever impossible; and looking back later when he finally did understand and fully realized all the terrible consequences it had brought upon him, he knew, so well did he know his own character, his own integrity, and his own high concept of duty to the country, that even so he could have done no differently than he had.

Nor, indeed, could Mr. Justice Davis, approaching the Majority Leader’s office shortly before 4 p.m. with that combination of inner trepidation and defiant determination with which basically well-meaning men become involved in enterprises they know they shouldn’t really be engaged in, but nonetheless feel impelled to. Tommy Davis, for all ordinary purposes one of the kindliest of men, wouldn’t knowingly have hurt a fly; but he was walking forward down the long corridors of the Office Building now in the certain knowledge, which he tried his best not to think about, that he might well be about to hurt a fellow being, knowingly, a great deal. He told himself with a little shiver that it was only in obedience to the highest imperatives that he could even imagine such a thing—because so much depended upon Bob Leffingwell, because the crisis in the world was so acute, because speedy confirmation was so necessary if that crisis was to be helped toward a peaceful conclusion. These were the reasons, utterly genuine, utterly sincere, springing from the highest integrity and devotion to country, which were propelling the Justice, a citizen whose life and calling were dedicated to helping his fellow men, upon an errand that might well destroy a fellow man. The contemplation of so violent an affront to his own decency and kindly nature was causing a profound and desperately inward-arguing unhappiness as he walked along; and it was with a troubled expression he could not completely conceal that he came to Senator Munson’s door and found it, to his surprise, surrounded by the press.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” AP said. “Look who’s coming.”

“What’s he here for?” UPI wondered.

“Let’s ask him,” the
Newark
News
said practically.

“Mr. Justice,” the
Washington Star
inquired, “what brings you here, sir?”

“Why, boys,” Tommy Davis said, rather more rapidly than usual, some of them thought, “I felt like dropping over to see my old friend Bob Munson, so here I am.”

“Things rather quiet at the Court?” the
Washington Post
asked politely.

“We thought you were sitting this afternoon,” the
Baltimore Sun
observed.

“We were,” the Justice said, “Indeed we were. South Dakota rail case and a couple of appeals from the Third Circuit, as a matter of fact. But we quit shortly after three, so I came on over.”

“If it isn’t too inquisitive, Mr. Justice,” the
Times
said, “could you tell us the purpose of your call?”

“Well, it is, you know,” Justice Davis said with a quick and, they thought, rather nervous smile, “but I know you gentlemen of the press, that never deters you, in fact it’s your business to be too inquisitive. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t get the news, would you?”

“That’s right,” the
Times
agreed. “Well?”

“Well what?” Tommy Davis said blankly.

“Well, what’s the purpose,” the
Times
said. The Justice blinked.

“Oh, my dear boy,” he said. “I told you. I just wanted to chat with my old friend the Majority Leader—”

“About Bob Leffingwell?” the
Herald Tribune
suggested.

“Or Brigham Anderson?” the
Philadelphia Inquirer
proposed.

“About events,” the Justice said brightly. “Just events. There have been events today, you know.”

“Yes,” the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
agreed rather acidly. “What part are you playing in them?”

“Just a bystander,” the Justice said hurriedly. “Just an interested bystander.”

“Does your visit here,” AP asked with heavy patience, “have anything to do with developments in the Leffingwell nomination?”

“Well, now,” Tommy Davis said quickly. “Well, now, how could I tell you if it did? How could I discuss matters that might have a direct bearing—”

“In other words, it does,” AP said.

“Well, yes,” Justice Davis confessed. “But I can’t tell you about it. Oh, I definitely can’t tell you. And now if you’ll excuse me, I must go in and see Senator Munson—”

“Are you the President’s emissary?” the
Providence Journal
asked.

“Oh, good heavens, no,” the Justice exclaimed. “He doesn’t need any emissary to the Majority Leader. Let’s just say I’m an interested citizen, that’s all. Just an interested citizen who thinks he can help.”

“Have you got something on Brigham Anderson?” UPI asked, strictly as a shot in the dark; but it went home in a way that instantly intrigued them all. The Justice looked very upset for a moment and then spoke with hasty firmness.

“Now if you will please excuse me,” he said, “I really must go on in. I don’t want to keep Bob waiting.”

“Can we talk to you when you come out?” AP asked.

“Perhaps,” Tommy Davis said hurriedly. “Perhaps. I’ll have to discuss it with Bob.”

“Now what,” the
Chicago Tribune
wondered as he ducked quickly into the office, “is that all about? What’s he doing here if Bob is about to announce that it’s all settled?”

“I have a feeling,” the
Los Angeles Times
said thoughtfully, “that there are things moving on the surface of the waters that we don’t know about.”

“Not yet,” the Minneapolis
Star
observed rather grimly. “But we will.”

And they relaxed in little gossiping, chatting groups to wait it out while Justice Davis gave his name to the girls in the office and was told to go right on in to see a man who happened to be, as he soon perceived, in a state of upset approximately as great as his.

The Majority Leader, in fact, was feeling at the moment like the canary that got caught in the badminton game. He had been proceeding through the afternoon in the relaxed mood that had followed Lafe’s call, confident that things were finally beginning to jell, congratulating himself that his patient approach to the human tangle surrounding the nomination had started to pay off, when he had put in a call to the White House to be greeted by one of the severest tongue-lashings he had ever received. He had barely had time to say hello when the President launched into a scathing denunciation of Senator Anderson and the Majority Leader’s tender treatment of him. It was not entirely clear from the conversation exactly which of Brig’s many crimes had finally broken the camel’s back, but there was no doubt something had. Stubborn, recalcitrant, smart-alecky, disrespectful, disloyal to the President, and a traitor to the party were among the epithets; and as for Senator Munson’s own namby-pamby handling of one so willful, the adjectives were equally stringent. There had been a cold and bitter anger in that forceful voice, a determined vengefulness that had genuinely frightened the Majority Leader. He had never known the President to be so violent about anything, perhaps because in seven years there had been nothing comparable in its personal importance to him, nothing so directly associated with his own prestige, his own influence, his own concept of his position in history. He had said in so many words that he intended to destroy Brigham Anderson, and though the Majority Leader after several patient and agonizing moments had managed to calm him down to what seemed a more rational approach, he had left no doubt at all that he had passed the point of no return so far as the chairman of the subcommittee was concerned.