Advise and Consent (28 page)

“Unfortunately, however,” Senator Anderson went on, “in the case of a Cabinet officer, words and principles are not enough to take the place of deeds, even though, in your particular office, there have sometimes been men who tried to make the substitution. So we must regretfully move on to the more practical and, I am afraid, perhaps in some minds more pertinent, questions of what you think and what you have thought, and what you have done and what you will do. In short, we must now come to specifics. I say this not in deprecation of sentiments which you hold sincerely, and whose expression becomes you, and which of course we wish to have; but rather in recognition of the realities which confront us, here in the Senate of the United States
....
Senator Knox,” he said calmly, having thus smoothly rearranged the mood, sapped it of its emotionalism, and brought it back down from the mountaintop to practicalities, “would you care to interrogate?”

“I would, Mr. Chairman,” Orrin Knox said matter-of-factly in a tone which indicated he was about to do things to the mood himself. “Mr. Leffingwell, are you loyal to the United States?”

At this, as on Saturday when Warren Strickland had asked Howard Sheppard’s opinion on the same subject, there was an audible gasp from the audience, for the senior Senator from Illinois had deliberately used a tone as shocking as ice water. For just a second the nominee looked nonplussed and angry; then he smiled, spread his hands palms up in a candid gesture as they lay before him on the table, and smiled directly at his questioner.

“Senator,” he said quietly, the faintest hint of amusement in his voice in case Orrin Knox wished to find it amusing too, “if I were not, could it have escaped notice in all these long years of public service?”

Orrin, however, did not wish to find it amusing. He shook his gray head impatiently and cocked it at an argumentative angle.

“This is not a humorous matter, Mr. Leffingwell,” he said sharply, “nor is that a responsive answer to my question. I didn’t ask if anybody had discovered it if you weren’t, I asked if you were.”

Bob Leffingwell flushed slightly and then sat back with a time-gaining slowness, his shoulders relaxing against the chair.

“Senator,” he said, “on the oath I swore in this room half an hour ago, I am.”

Again there was applause, and this time Brigham Anderson banged the gavel in a way that showed he meant it.

“It is very obvious,” he remarked, “that nearly everyone here is emotionally involved in this matter one way or another. However, one more demonstration of any kind for whatever reason and I shall direct the police to clear the room, public hearing or no public hearing. Is that clear?”

There was a little silence which indicated that it was, and after he had let it run long enough to emphasize his point, he said quietly, “Very well. Proceed, Senator Knox.”

“The reason I ask, Mr. Chairman,” Orrin Knox explained in a less challenging tone, “is because there have been complaints made to me, and doubts expressed, about some of Mr. Leffingwell’s statements on our relations with the Soviet Union. Some complainants have gone so far as to indicate some doubt of his loyalty. I thought he should have an opportunity to answer these doubts directly. I do not share them myself.”

“Thank you, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said gratefully. “I didn’t think you did.”

“No,” Senator Knox said with a smile. “Of course we are not discussing the wisdom and judgment shown in some of the statements. That might be a different matter.”

Bob Leffingwell, encouraged by the smile, smiled back, and the tension in the room alleviated a little.

“That is your privilege, Senator,” he said. “I hope I’ve satisfied you at least part of the time, anyway.”

Orrin smiled again, a trifle less cordially.

“That’s as it may be,” he said. “For instance, I have here a speech you made in Cleveland three weeks ago in which you said, and I quote, ‘We must not bind ourselves arbitrarily to the outworn principles of the past when we find those principles standing in the way of affirmative action for peace.’ What does that mean? If it means anything?”

The nominee smiled.

“Of course I must believe it means something, Senator, or I wouldn’t have said it,” he replied calmly. “What I meant to convey there was just about what I said—that we must not let the dead hand of the past lie upon our present efforts as we search for lasting peace. Or the lasting peace may escape us.”

“Again, Mr. Leffingwell, you are not responsive,” Orrin Knox said bluntly. “You mention outworn principles of the past. What did you have in mind?”

The nominee hesitated for a second and then leaned forward in a between-us fashion.

“Let me see if I can state it for you this way, Senator,” he said slowly. “Under certain circumstances that may have existed in the past, the United States guided her actions by certain standards that had been proved to be valid for their time when those circumstances were found to exist. Now the circumstances may have changed and she may still be adhering to those standards although they no longer can be effectively or justifiably applied to the new circumstances which now confront us in which other standards may prove to be more beneficial than those of the past.”

“Got it?” the
Newark
News
whispered to the
Houston
Chronicle
. “Got it,” the
Houston
Chronicle
whispered dryly back.

“But I want to know about those principles,” Orrin Knox said. “What are they? Honesty is the best policy? A stitch in time saves nine? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? By their presents ye shall know them? What are they? Can’t give us any clarification at all?”

“What I meant to express, Senator Knox,” the nominee said patiently again, “was that there has been at times, it has seemed to me, too rigid an insistence by this government upon a quid pro quo with the Russians; perhaps too great an insistence that they should prove good faith before we would deal with them. If my choice of the word ‘principles’ was unfortunate, then I am sorry and I regret now that I used it. It was more a state of mind that I was driving at, perhaps, than an actual condition.”

“That’s what I’m driving at,” Senator Knox informed him tartly. “
Your
state of mind. I think it’s a very important state of mind if you’re to be the new Secretary of State. I think it is very important to know what principles it is you adhere to and which you would discard. Now when you say ‘principles—’” But at this moment there was a stir down the table and the Senator from South Carolina leaned forward.

“Mr. Chairman,” he said softly, “if the Senator from Illinois will yield to me—”

“Gladly. Mr. Chairman,” Senator Knox said promptly.

“—what I should like to know, Mr. Chairman,” Seab went on, “if it isn’t too much to ask our distinguished witness—”

“Not at all, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said crisply.

“—is how he came to be talking about that subject at all. I thought,” Seab said, “that he was director of the ODM, Mr. Chairman. Was there anything in that speech, if I may rather irregularly question the Senator from Illinois, who has read it and I have not, was there anything in it that dealt with the subject of mobilization?”

“No, Senator,” Orrin Knox said, “there was not. It was entirely devoted to foreign policy, and the entire tenor of it was summed up, I think the witness will agree with me, in the sentence I am asking him about.”

“Not, of course, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Cooley said with a slow grin, “that I think his ideas on mobilization are any good, either. But I do question just a little the propriety of the director of the ODM talking about general foreign policy. I do just a little. When did you say you knew you would be appointed Secretary of State, Mr. Witness?”

“The President called me about 8 p.m. last Thursday night and so informed me,” Bob Leffingwell said.

“And somehow it got into the Friday morning newspapers, which go to press Thursday night, even though it was not announced at the White House until 10 a.m. on Friday,” Seab observed gently. “How did that happen, Mr. Witness? Do you suppose the President called the newspapers himself and told them Thursday night? He’s a busy man, Mr. Witness. Do you suppose he did that?”

“The press has ways of finding things out, Senator,” the nominee said calmly.

“When men who desire to profit from publicity inform them, yes, sir,” Seab Cooley said softly. “Yes, indeed they do, when men who want publicity inform them. But when you spoke in Cleveland three weeks ago you weren’t Secretary of State, were you, Mr. Witness? Did you know then you would be Secretary of State?”

“No, sir,” Bob Leffingwell said firmly. “I did not.”

“But you wanted to be,” Senator Cooley said, “and you were making speeches right along that would call attention to your desire to be, were you not?”

“Mr. Chairman,” Bob Leffingwell said, speaking directly to Brigham Anderson, “in these times, what man among us is not called upon to speak on foreign policy and foreign events? How can one escape it? Am I to be attacked because I responded to an invitation made me by a reputable organization, the Chamber of Commerce of the state of Ohio? That was the topic they gave me, Mr. Chairman. I suppose I was to give them a discourse on stockpiling titanium?”

“I think,” Brigham Anderson said, “that the witness’s point is well taken, Senators. Suppose we return to the substance of what he said, if that is your interest, Senator Knox, and skip the whys and wherefores of how he came to say it.”

“Very well, Mr. Chairman,” Seab said politely, “if that is your desire. But in forty years’ time, Mr. Chairman—no, sir, in almost fifty years’ time—I have seen many men angling for high office, Mr. Chairman, and this is how they do it, Mr. Chairman. They make speeches. They participate. They mingle into matters that do not concern them. They flaunt themselves, Mr. Chairman. That is how they do it. Yes, sir.”

“Very well, Senator,” Senator Anderson said. “Proceed if you wish, Senator Knox.”

“This was, in truth, only one of a series of speeches you have been making in recent months, was it not, Mr. Witness?” Orrin said, deliberately adopting Seab’s form of address, and Bob Leffingwell, who had started to relax, braced himself again.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Christ,” the
Baltimore Sun
snapped angrily, “so he made speeches. So what?” “Well, it’s important,” the
Chicago Tribune
countered. “Oh, hell,” the
Sun
snapped back.

“I believe there have been some ten of them since the first of the year, have there not?” Senator Knox inquired.

“Yes, sir,” the nominee said.

“And all have concerned foreign policy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And none has concerned the functions of your office?”

“No, sir.”

“Well,” Orrin said, “I shall not draw the conclusion from this that our colleague does, but I will say that these addresses furnish fertile fields for interrogation.”

“Oh, that mine enemy would make a speech,” Bob Leffingwell said with a little smile.

“And write a book, too,” Orrin Knox said with an answering smile. “I understand they are being collected and published in book form.”

“Yes,” Bob Leffingwell said.

“For publication when?” Senator Knox inquired.

“A week from Wednesday,” the nominee said.

“Under what title?” Orrin asked.

“
Do We Really Want Peace?
” the nominee said. “With the subtitle,
A Program for America.
”

“Strangely challenging labels for a treatise on stockpiling,” the Senator from Illinois remarked dryly. “However, to return to those principles, Mr. Leffingwell. Tell us about your principles, if you will. Just go ahead and expound on them for a minute or two. I know the country is interested, and so are we.”

“Well, Mr. Chairman,” the nominee said, leaning forward and folding his hands again one upon the other in a grave and earnest manner, “how does a man define his principles? By what he says about them, and by what he does about them. He defines them also, I think, by the consistency of what he says about them, and the consistency of what he does about them. In all my public life I have attempted to define them both by word and by deed, and I have attempted within the limits of human frailty to be as consistent as I could about them. I do not maintain that I have been perfect, for no man is that; I do maintain that, in general, I have done my best both to express them as forcefully as I could, and to live up to them as fully as I could. Allowing for a certain number of lapses—and who is so superior and above the customary needs and weaknesses of ordinary men that he can tell me he has never lapsed, and criticize me for lapsing?—I have done my best to uphold them. They are these:

“I believe that the United States of America, while imperfect in many ways, yet comes closer to achieving what might pass for perfection in an imperfect world than most; certainly I believe she tries harder than most, and means better than most, and has a more conscientious and, in general, I believe, a more humane and friendly purpose toward the world than most.

“I believe that I am fortunate, as all Americans are fortunate, that I have been born here and have been able to grow up here and live here in relative peace and well-being, free to think as I please and speak as I please and live as I please within the bounds of a stable society and a decent world.

“I believe there is incumbent upon me as an American, the charge of so living and so speaking and so acting that I may bear my citizenship proudly and be worthy of my heritage and do what I can to maintain and preserve it and pass it on undamaged and if possible increased and strengthened to those who will come after me.

“I believe that there rests upon the individual citizen the responsibility for America. I believe that each of us is America, and that together we are America, and that what we do is always and forever and in every way important to America. I believe I must never forget this. I do not think I ever have. I do not think I ever will. Those are my principles, Mr. Chairman.”