Advise and Consent (18 page)

“You’re always welcome,” Senator Munson said calmly. “Any time. I believe you know Senator Knox—Senator Danta—Senator August—Senator Fry. Mr. Khaleel, Mr. Barre, and Lord Maudulayne I am certain you know.”

“Ah, yes,” the Soviet Ambassador said, shaking hands with each with a quick downward motion and a tight little smile, “ah, yes. So distinguished a gathering must have some purpose in mind. Presumably it concerns my country. Yes?”

“Yes,” Bob Munson said. “It also concerns the President’s nomination of Mr. Leffingwell to be Secretary of State. You have heard of it, I assume, Mr. Ambassador.”

“The world intrudes, even on Sixteenth Street,” Tashikov said with a sudden sarcasm and a frigid little smile, and Hal Fry couldn’t resist murmuring, “Good, we weren’t sure.” The Ambassador took him up on it at once.

“Oh, but it does, Mr. Senator,” he said. “We hear many things there, of Cabinet appointments, of cultural triumphs, of economic achievements ... of missile failures and troubles with allies. Is it not so?” And he looked with insolent directness at Lord Maudulayne and Raoul Barre.

“How quickly, Mr. Ambassador,” the French Ambassador remarked, “you manage to make men hate you. It is a positive genius in your great country. Do they teach it you in school?”

“Possibly,” the Indian Ambassador interjected in a nervous tone, “possibly we should all sit down and have a drink. Would you wish one, Mr. Ambassador?”

“I seem to be the official mixer,” Hal Fry said calmly. “What will you have, Tashikov?”

“I think,” the Soviet Ambassador said, finally breaking off the stare in which neither he nor the French Ambassador had yielded, “that I would like that favorite of our good friends the British, a whisky and soda.”

“Done,” Senator Fry said, moving toward the bar, and Brigham Anderson leaned forward in his frankest and most engaging manner.

“We were wondering, Mr. Ambassador,” he said, “what your government thinks of Mr. Leffingwell and his appointment. It has created, as you are aware, some discussion in the Senate, and it seemed to us that possibly you might wish to express an opinion that would be helpful to us in our consideration of it.”

An ironic expression came over the Soviet Ambassador’s face, and he gave a quick, unamused laugh.

“Does it matter to you what the U.S.S.R. thinks?” he asked. “We were not aware it did, especially on a matter of such great import as a new Secretary of State. This is something on which I am sure the opinions of my distinguished colleagues are of much greater weight with you than mine.”

“Yes, they are,” Bob Munson agreed in a tone as cold as Tashikov’s, “but the Indian Ambassador seemed to think we should listen to you. I was against it, myself, but he insisted.”

“I only thought,” K.K. said quickly, “I only thought that it would be courteous and a matter of international comity if the Ambassador’s views should be sought out, that is all. After all, we cannot arrive at world peace if his great country is ignored in everything, is that not correct, Mr. Ambassador?”

“It has been tried,” the Soviet Ambassador observed with a certain smugness, “but it has failed.”

Senator Knox leaned forward with an impatient movement.

“Very well, Mr. Ambassador,” he said, biting off his words in a way his Senate colleagues knew, “it is not ignored now. You have your chance. We are asking. Does your government feel it can work with Mr. Leffingwell or does it not? That is a simple question.”

“Is it?” Tashikov asked, looking again at Raoul Barre. “Are these distinguished North Atlantic allies in agreement with you about it? They do not look it.”

“What do you think, Mr. Ambassador?” Orrin Knox repeated in a flat insistent tone, and Vasily Tashikov turned and looked him full in the face for a moment. Then he shrugged.

“I really do not believe it matters,” he said. “I truly do not. You are opposed to us—he will oppose us. That too is a simple equation, Mr. Senator.”

“Oh, I do think,” Tom August ventured in his soft, hesitant way, “that we all perhaps are taking too stringent a view of it, Mr. Ambassador and my colleagues. I think we should try to find some common ground and try to discuss it calmly—”

“Common ground!” the Soviet Ambassador said sharply. “Common ground! America always talks about common ground and does everything she can to destroy it. What hypocrisy, this common ground. Yes, you will have common ground, on the day you all die. Then you will have common ground.”

Into the little silence that followed Lord Maudulayne spoke deliberately in his driest, most arrogant, most patronizing, most slap-in-the-face manner.

“Oh, my dear chap,” he said slowly, “are you threatening the West again? Don’t you ever get tired of that little game? Frankly, I find it terrifically boring. We have heard it all so many, many, wearisome times. Hitler wished to give us common ground, too. We gave it to him. Now do be a good chap and try to keep this on a sensible basis, what? My government has some doubts about Mr. Leffingwell. M. Barre’s government has some doubts about Mr. Leffingwell; even Mr. Khaleel’s government confesses to some doubts about Mr. Leffingwell. Does your government have no thoughts about Mr. Leffingwell?”

“Yes, you are so clever, you British,” the Soviet Ambassador said slowly, “but you are committing suicide like the rest. We tell you and you do not wish to listen. So be it.”

“Do you favor Mr. Leffingwell or do you not favor him, Mr. Ambassador?” Raoul Barre asked softly. “That truly is the only matter we are interested in here.”

“And you too,” Tashikov said in the same slow tone. “And you, too.”

“It is the position of my government,” Krishna Khaleel announced firmly, “that nothing is to be gained, nothing whatever is to be gained, by these exchanges of threats and recriminations. It is our policy that there must always, you see, be a frank and friendly exchange of opinions, that it is imperative for all our peoples that we consult together in harmony, that only thus, you see, can we possibly hope to save the world from a most terrible—”

“K.K.,” Bob Munson broke in as though he were talking to a little child, “can’t you understand that they
don’t want
to be friendly? They
don’t want
harmony; they
don’t want
things to be worked out in a peaceful way; they
don’t want
all this maundering crap you’re giving us. It’s their terms or nothing, and it always has been, and not all the idealistic empty-minded fools in the world can change it.”

“Oh, now,” Senator August said hurriedly, “oh, now, Senator, I do believe that is a little unfair to Mr. Tashikov and his country.”

“So do I,” the Indian Ambassador said indignantly. “My government has seen no evidence that they do not want peace and are not working toward it.”

“
What?
” Senator Fry said explosively. “What did you say?”

“We do not believe,” K.K. said with a sort of serene and otherworldly assurance, “that anything is to be gained by mistrust of the Soviet Union. We do not see all these things you say about them. We regard them as our friends. So do we regard you as our friends. We wish our friends to be friendly. That is the position of my government.”

“We are grateful,” the Soviet Ambassador said formally, “for the friendship of the Republic of India and for its understanding of our work for world peace.”

“You see?” Krishna Khaleel asked gently, “There is no hatred here. There is nothing but kindness for all peoples.”

“He has just been threatening us with extinction,” Raoul Barre said dryly. “That is all.”

“Words, words, words,” the Indian Ambassador said airily. “It is realities that count.”

“More than four decades of dishonor,” Lord Maudulayne said softly, “are reality enough for me.”

“Dishonor, dishonor, dishonor!” Vasily Tashikov said angrily. “You think of nothing else, you British. Does honor build submarines and make missiles fly? Does honor launch a sputnik? No, it does not. What is honor and dishonor? Words, as he says; nothing but words. You will choke on words, you weaklings of the West. We offer you friendship and you despise us. We try for accommodations and you reject us. Will it be any different,” he asked, suddenly dropping to a conversational tone, “when Mr. Leffingwell replaces Mr. Sheppard? We cannot see that it will.”

“Supposing it should,” Bob Munson said, knowing that he must suppress his feelings and concentrate on the main issue no matter how much he would like to tell the Ambassador off. “Supposing my government did wish to try another attempt at accommodation. What then?”

At once the Soviet Ambassador’s face got its usual closed-off expression and he reverted to type, the Communist automaton hiding his motives behind his automation.

“That would have to be discussed on a higher level,” he said in an emotionless tone. “I could not say what would happen.”

“It would dispose you toward Mr. Leffingwell, however?” Orrin Knox suggested with a certain irony.

“That would have to be considered,” Tashikov said, in a much milder voice.

“There, you see?” Krishna Khaleel cried triumphantly to Claude Maudulayne. “You see, Mr. Ambassador? It is as my government says. It is a matter of understanding and trust, it is a matter of seeing the other person’s point of view, it is a matter of compromise and agreement. Where are all these bugaboos we were talking about? Where is this hatred? Already we have started to make a new move for peace!”

“Let’s go down and have another drink, K.K.,” Hal Fry suggested. “I think we’ve been serious enough for one evening. Right, Tashikov?”

“By all means,” the Soviet Ambassador said, rising with a certain rigid expansiveness as though somebody had pushed the geniality-button. “It is a shame to spoil Mrs. Harrison’s lovely party with such sober sentiments. I believe it will work out, Senators and gentlemen. I believe we have had a very profitable talk. I believe we understand one another. Thank you for inviting me, Mr. Senator.”

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Ambassador,” Bob Munson said, and they formally shook hands. “Just for the looks of it, suppose you and K.K. go along, Hal, and then you and the Ambassador, Brig. The rest of us can scatter casually. No point in getting everyone interested.”

“No one, I am sure, is interested,” Tashikov said with a slight smile as he and Senator Anderson started for the door. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Now, you see?” Krishna Khaleel said happily after they had gone. “It was not so bad, was it, Bob? I shall tell my government of this. I shall tell them we have made a great new step toward peace, here at Dolly’s, in this beautiful house at this wonderful party. What an event!”

“Let’s go, Akbar,” Senator Fry said, steering him out. “Peace, it’s wonderful.”

“Oh, yes,” K.K. said with the flash of a shining smile, “oh, yes.”

“I think there is only one thing to say in this triumphant hour,” Raoul Barre suggested then, “and that is, how about another drink?”

“Yes,” Bob Munson said, “and it won’t be ginger ale this time, either.”

“Good,” Claude Maudulayne said cheerfully. “That’s the ticket.”

It was, as it turned out, one of the very best Spring Parties ever given at Vagaries. There had been three before it, and there were many after, but those who attended that night looked back upon it fondly as one of Dolly’s greatest triumphs. It is true, of course, that a number of people, including two Cabinet officers, three four-star generals, half a dozen distinguished members of the press, and a whole clutch of prominent civil servants proved beyond all doubt that they could get just as drunk and just as mean and just as sloppy as, say, the president of the bank and the head of Rotary and the editor of the local paper at the country club dance back home; but on the whole it was a good crowd that enjoyed itself in a good way, liquid but happy. It was a party at which you could see, among other things, the tubby little Dean of the Washington Cathedral buttonholing the Vice President of the United States to give him an earful on how vital it was that the Senate confirm Bob Leffingwell; and the Chief Justice arguing vehemently with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the same subject; and the counselor of the Embassy of Bolivia discussing it earnestly with the counselor of the Embassy of Ghana; and the wives of a hundred different officials, as interested and astute as their husbands, tossing it back and forth to one another in little gracefully catty and perceptive exchanges. It was a party at which the caterer’s representative informed the hostess shortly after midnight that as of that hour her guests had consumed one hundred quarts of bourbon, fifty-seven quarts of scotch, two hundred cases of ginger ale and soda, five hundred pounds of ice, and approximately $5,000 worth of hors d’oeuvres, turkey, ham, chicken, celery, olives, salads, and
marrons glacés
.

It was a party, also, at which Lord Maudulayne, meeting Raoul Barre later during a pause in the dancing in the ballroom, remarked abruptly, “I did not like that,” and the French Ambassador agreed soberly, “The change was too quick.”

And at which Senator August, talking worriedly to Senator Danta, said, “You don’t suppose he was really offended with us, do you?”

And Senator Fry, running into Senator Anderson soon after midnight, said, “By God, I’m not sure I like the way this is going,” and Senator Anderson replied quietly, “I’m worried, Hal.”

And Senator Knox, threading his way through the seated, eating couples on the great staircase, passed Senator Cooley and murmured, “Something to tell you tomorrow that may have some bearing.”

And Krishna Khaleel, driving grandly off in his chauffeured limousine at 1 a.m. and heading straight for his Embassy, routed his secretary out of bed, and dictated an immediate cable to New Delhi hailing the start of a new rapprochement between Russia and the West.

And Vasily Tashikov, leaving with his lady a few moments after, went to his Embassy and told his government to prepare another
démarche
because the United States was softening again.

And Bob Munson, thinking of the implications of that talk in the study and all its ramifications and what they meant for his country and the world, suddenly said, “Oh, God damn it to hell!” in a loud voice that startled two admirals, a general, and the head of the National Science Foundation, all of whom had thought he was paying close attention to their rambling explanation of the latest missile failure.