Capable of Honor (30 page)

(“Here goes Freddie through the ceiling,” Royce Briar of Oregon chuckled to Alexander Chabot of Louisiana. Alec Chabot smiled and shrugged, in his dapper way.)

“Mr. President,” Senator Van Ackerman said, and into his voice there came the high, spiraling whine his colleagues knew so well when Fred, as Irving Steinman of New York liked to put it, “takes off from the human race,”—“we all know how clever the junior Senator from Iowa is. Oh, Mr. President, we have had so many examples of his cleverness! But I say to him, Mr. President, and to the incompetents down the Avenue whose errands he is running, that he can’t fool the country or the world, Mr. President! He can’t fool the country or the world! There’s a re-election plot here, Mr. President, and the country and the world know it! It’s all right to be clever, Mr. President, but there’ll be a reckoning. Mark my words,” he repeated with an ugly, snarling emphasis, “there’ll be a reckoning!”

“Mr. President,” Bob Munson said, making his voice as calm and scathingly paternal as he could, “will the distinguished Senator from Arkansas, who I believe still has the floor, yield to me to put this thing back in perspective?”

“Oh, Mr. Chairman!” Jawbone Swarthman cried indignantly to the House. “Perspective! My good friend from California, Mr. Chairman, he keeps coming back to perspective, he keeps telling us about murdered Americans, and nobody feels more deeply for the sobbing widows and the sweet little orphans than I do, Mr. Chairman, nobody does, now, but after all, we have to look at perspectives ourselves, Mr. Chairman, we do, I say to my friend from California!

“I’ll tell you the perspective here, Mr. Chairman, the perspective is the great big old United States, here, ignoring the wish of the world for peace and zeroing in on little bitty old Gorotoland, Mr. Chairman. Now, most peoples on this earth, and I think that includes the American people as well, they think, now, that it’s best the world keep the peace, Mr. Chairman. They wonder—yes,” he cried, as Cullee moved restlessly at his side—“yes, they understand, they see these murdered people, and I will say to my friend from California, yes, I’m with him—but they see them and they see how it could all be settled with a nice little old talk in the United Nations, everybody talk, nobody go to war, nobody hurt, Mr. Chairman, just a nice little old United Nations chat about it, and they say, now, why you suppose that old United States is deciding to go to war, Mr. Chairman?

“They aren’t dumb, Mr. Chairman. Oh, Lordy, sweet Pete, they aren’t
dumb.
They see this President, now, getting ready to run for reelection, and they see his Secretary of State there, just kind of easin’ and oilin’ and scrunchin’ around, Mr. Chairman, getting himself all set to move in on it if that old President—and he’s my President, Mr. Chairman, I love him, I do love him, now, and don’t let anybody tell you old Jawbone hasn’t supported him sixty-five-million-one-hundred-percent, because I
have,
Mr. Chairman—but anyway, they see him, kind of oozin’ and oilin’ too, and they get to figurin’ and they think, Now, if
I
was a President or a Secretary of State and I wasn’t exactly sure how to go about getting elected this fall, I think I’d fix me up a crisis so’s I could run on it! Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, I do believe that’s what most people think when they look at this. They see that old election roundin’ the corner, there, and they see that old President and Secretary of State just a-screezin’ and a-scrunchin’ up toward it when nobody ain’t lookin’, and they figure: By dad gum, that’s it! That’s
it,
Mr. Chairman! That’s what they figure,” he ended solemnly, “and I do believe they’re right, Mr. Chairman. I do believe, now, that they’re right. Yes, sir!”

“Mr. Chairman,” Cullee asked in a tired tone, “what on earth prompts the gentleman to make a vicious charge like that, so out of character for him as the House knows his character? He knows perfectly well that’s what it is, a political charge and a vicious one, against his own Administration. Why does he make it? And incidentally,” he said, provoking the House to laughter as he went along, “if the gentleman has an answer I think he can give it in plain English. We all know he was a Rhodes scholar and we can all see the Phi Beta Kappa key hanging from his watch chain, so I think he can spare us the com pone and give it to us in ordinary English.”

“Corn pone?” Jawbone exclaimed, looking fit to burst as the wave of laughter grew and crested.
“Corn
pone? Now, Mr. Chairman, that’s a funny way to talk to a friend and colleague, I will say to my friend from California. Maybe, Mr. Chairman, they all speak perfect English out there on those sunny, windswept Western slopes, but as for me, Mr. Chairman, I come from South Carolina and—why, by diddle-dum-dam, Mr. Chairman!” he exclaimed. “The gentleman from California his-
self
comes from South Carolina originally, now I remember it, so what’s he talkin’ about? I swear, now,” he said with an amiable grin that brought the House to laughter again, “I think my friend’s the one who’s forgotten English, Mr. Chairman, not old Jawbone. Old Jawbone’s talkin’ like folks back home. Old Jawbone’s talkin’ like folks ought to talk. Shame on you, Congressman! Shame, now!”

“All right, Mr. Chairman,” Cullee said, laughing in spite of himself. “We all know the gentleman is one of the great Congressional comics of all time, and maybe this debate does need a little humor. But, Mr. Chairman,” he said, his smile fading and his face becoming stern, “that doesn’t excuse the gentleman from making a vicious and unworthy charge against his own President. I repeat, why does he do it?”

“I'll tell you why I make this charge, Mr. President,” Fred Van Ackerman cried to the Senate in his tense, nasal whine, off on the edge of his private hell, no laughter or good humor here to remind men they were still friends in their disagreement, while the Majority Leader stared at him with a stem and expectant face. “I’ll tell you why I make this charge against the two
mis
-leaders who have plunged the United States into this, that great President and great Secretary of State the Majority Leader is so anxious to defend. I do it because it’s the truth, Mr. President, and we all know it’s the truth. The President made us a promise he’d retire at the end of his term and let somebody worthy seek the office, but now he wants it, Mr. President, and so he’s contriving to get it any way he can, even if it means dragging the United States down with him. And as for the Secretary of State, Mr. President—as for that great, distinguished former Senator from Illinois who used to stand here and tell the Senate how to jump
and is still doing it, Mr. President
—as for him, does anybody have any doubts about the ambitions of Orrin Knox? Does anybody think there’s any limit to what
he’ll
do in the pursuit of them? That’s a laugh!” he said, uttering a harshly cruel one himself. “Orrin Knox, our old puppet-master here in the Senate! Here he is again, pulling his strings on us, forcing us to go along once more with his ambitions. Haven’t we had enough of it, Mr. President?
Haven’t we had enough of it?”

“Mr. President,” Senator Munson said, an expression of deep disgust on his face, “if the Senator from Wyoming is through blackguarding his betters—

(“My, my, Bobby’s mad,” Lloyd Cavanaugh of Rhode Island chuckled to Grady Lincoln of Massachusetts. “Damned little Wyoming varmint,” Grady snapped. “I hope Bob murders him.”)

“—if he is through,” Senator Munson said, “with his kind and decent and generous and honorable remarks, I should like to take up with the Senator from Arkansas, who still has the floor, his original point—the only pertinent point, I think—concerning the action of this government in bypassing the United Nations and in exercising its right of veto in the Security Council to fend off any hasty and ill-advised United Nations action until our own action for peace has been completed.”

(“That kind of smooth talk isn’t going to deflect those two,” Gossett Cook of Virginia predicted dryly to Ed Parrish of Nevada. “Me, either,” Ed replied. “I’m not happy.”)

Nor did it appear, as afternoon wore into evening, lights came on in Washington, and over the Capitol the great beam that indicates a night session sent its message to the city, that very many of them were.

In the House Jawbone concluded, Cullee gave a brief rebuttal, many others spoke, the debate centered more and more upon three things: U.S. defiance of the UN, the fear of general war, the constantly repeated theme of the alleged ambitions of the President and Secretary of State. A substitute resolution was offered by fifty-seven members, principally from New York and the Midwest, condemning the American action and calling on the President to withdraw United States forces from Gorotoland at once: it was defeated 231-163. An amendment was offered to declare the sense of the Congress that the United States should keep its forces in place but immediately cease all hostilities and resubmit the issue to the General Assembly: it was defeated 220-215.

Finally the Speaker came into the well of the House and read the riot act about supporting the President, upholding the United States, politics ending at the water’s edge and, in conclusion (using the tone of gentle menace that had long ago brought him the name, “Boss Bill”) the fact that in the House “memories are not short, and while loyalty is gladly rewarded, disloyalty deserves—and receives—no charity.” That did it, and at 7:48 P.M. the resolution endorsing the Administration’s position in Gorotoland passed the House.

Even so, it was only by a vote of 214-206. Disgruntled, embittered, uneasy, and upset, the House went home, most of its members not sure whether their country was right or wrong and not sure whether or not they had done the right thing—a mood in which the House often leaves the Capitol after a session, but one this time lent an extra bitterness and uncertainty by the steadily rising condemnations from around the world and from the voters back home to whom many members felt they owed their first and overriding obligation.

In the Senate, debate was still droning on. Arly Richardson had made his final appeal of the day for the Richardson Principle, Fred Van Ackerman had spewed out his last gobbet nof hate for the time being, the argument was settling into the duller regions occupied by such as Walter Calloway of Utah, Taylor Ryan of New York, and Hugh B. Root of New Mexico. Surveying the now half-empty chamber as the dinner hour arrived. Bob Munson consulted across the aisle with Warren Strickland and then announced that it was his present intention to hold the Senate in session until midnight if necessary to pass the resolution. Arly and Fred both protested, and Fred threatened to filibuster. Senator Munson shrugged and repeated that, as of that moment, it was his present intention to go on until midnight if necessary. He exchanged a casual glance with Warren Strickland, Warren returned a barely perceptible nod, and they went off to dinner, leaving Powell Hanson in the chair and Taylor Ryan droning on into the night in opposition to the President, knowing that the Senate might very well still be there talking at 8 A.M. tomorrow.

Outside in the great world the clamor continued to mount. HUDSON-KNOX GOROTOLAND RE-ELECTION PLOT CHARGED IN CONGRESS, the most frequently used headline had it … HOUSE NARROWLY PASSES GOROTO RESOLUTION. TOP LEADERS REVOLT. SENATE FACES POSSIBLE FILIBUSTER ... NATIONS STEP UP ATTACK ON U.S. POLICIES …
PRAVDA
URGES “SOCALIST UNITY” TO MEET U.S. THREAT … PEKING OFFERS NEW GOROTO VOLUNTEERS … BRITISH CABINET IN EMERGENCY SESSION … FRENCH SEEK “MIDDLE FORCE” TO HALT EAST-WEST CLASH IN AFRICA … POLITICOS WAIT WORD FROM GOVERNOR JASON.

And much smaller, down toward the bottom of page 1 or, in many cases, on page 3 or 4: BODIES OF SLAIN AMERICANS START FOR HOME.

The evening television programs were equally balanced and informative, filled with disapproving dissertations on the motives of the President and Secretary of State, heavy with analysis of the awful things being done by Washington to world peace and an innocent and dreadfully wronged UN. With a lifted eyebrow here, a skeptical smile there, a chuckle, a frown, a knowing tone of voice, a bland omission, a gracefully damaging turn of phrase, all the lesser Walters went at it with a will. Somberly they sketched a world in collapse as the result of the vetoes, smoothly they shifted the blame from America’s enemies to America’s President, suavely they telescoped the Administration’s arguments and gave extra time to the opposition’s. Then with a portentous sadness they bade the viewers good night, having spent a brisk thirty minutes blackguarding their country, encouraging its enemies, and doing all they could to undermine its citizens’ confidence.

Already it was becoming a little difficult for many people to remember just exactly what had started it all. There just seemed to have been something bad, some monstrous attack on the UN, humanity, and the peace of the world, for which Harley Hudson and Orrin Knox were irretrievably, awfully, unforgivably to blame. The voices that were to be heard defending them were rarely given a chance to be heard above a whisper, the editorials in the quite sizable number of newspapers around the country that were beginning to swing back to an understanding of the President’s reasoning after the initial shock, were mentioned with a heavy sarcasm if at all:

“During the day the Administration won support from such prominent publications as the Valdosta, Georgia
Bulletin.
Somehow it did not seem sufficient to stem the criticism sweeping in an almost unanimous tide across the nation’s major press.”

That was certainly true enough.

At the White House the President received a call from Senator Munson, checking in from the dinner party at the Stricklands’ to wonder wistfully again if perhaps the President shouldn’t go on the air right away. But he was told pleasantly and calmly that the President intended to hold to his original plan and wait until the resolution passed the Senate. Anyway, the President said, baffling the Majority Leader considerably, Lucille had an idea he wanted to explore before he spoke; he’d call about it tomorrow morning. Puzzled but perforce silenced, Bob Munson hung up.

At “Salubria” in Leesburg, Walter went over his speech once more, between phone calls, and did some further editing and rewriting. In Spring Valley the Knoxes discussed the situation, and in Dumbarton Oaks, Patsy, too, was on the telephone. But in Sacramento, still, the insistent were not satisfied and the impatient were not appeased.