Advise and Consent (32 page)

“The committee will be in order,” Brigham Anderson said. “Senator Richardson?”

The phone rang twice at Vagaries and a maid answered. Mrs. Harrison was upstairs, she said, and might be asleep; would the Senator care to leave a message? He was about to when Dolly came on the line.

“I don’t get it,” she said as the downstairs phone clicked off. “
You’re
calling
me
. How does that happen?”

“It happens sometimes,” Bob Munson said amiably. “I’m just checking. I saw your picture in the
Post
this morning and the caption said you were at the Brazilian Embassy party last night with some man. Is this rumor true?”

“Don’t tell me you care!” Dolly said, and the Senator chuckled.

“I’m passionately jealous,” he confided, “especially of that particular gentleman.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dolly said.

“So would he, I’ll bet,” Bob Munson observed. “Anyway, I just thought I’d call and find out how you were.”

“There’s some other reason,” Dolly suggested. “It can’t be as simple as just plain, ordinary, friendly interest.”

“It isn’t plain and it isn’t ordinary,” Senator Munson said, “but it sure is friendly. I was going to ask if you wanted to do me a favor.”

“Any time,” Dolly said. “Any old time at all.”

“I think you have a one-track mind,” Bob Munson said. “This is a matter of great and solemn importance, vital to the future of the nation.”

“I can’t think of anything more vital to the future of the nation,” Dolly said. “Where would we be a hundred years from now without it?”

“Woman,” Bob Munson said, “be quiet and pay attention. I was wondering if you would like to come up and sit in on the Leffingwell hearing for me tomorrow and the rest of the week. I can’t be there myself much and I need somebody who can give me a fill-in; also, I respect your judgment and I’d like to know what you think of it.”

“You really respect my judgment?” Dolly said in a pleased tone.

“I really do,” the Senator said.

“Well,” she said, sounding entirely different, “that puts a whole new light on things. Nothing would please me more than to sit in on the Leffingwell hearings for you, darling. I don’t care if it is all some elaborate political scheme of yours, as long as you genuinely want me to be a part of it.”

“I suspect this may become a habit,” Bob Munson said, “and I probably shouldn’t encourage it if I want to keep my freedom. However, you come ahead and I’ll arrange with Brig to have you seated along the back there, right behind the committee. Why don’t you call Kitty and Celestine and see if they’d like to attend with you? I imagine Claude and Raoul would like to have their own observers on the spot, too.”

“And I imagine,” Dolly said, “that you would like me to tell that to Kitty and Celestine so that they will tell Claude and Raoul, who in turn will be impressed with how thoughtful and considerate you are, and—well, darling, I think I’ll probably follow through on it, just as you want.”

“I hope I’m not that transparent to everybody,” Senator Munson said, and Dolly laughed in a proprietary way.

“I suspect you are,” she said, “but that’s one of the reasons we all love you so.”

“Hmph,” Bob Munson said. “What are you doing over the weekend?”

“A couple of parties, a couple of receptions—the gay, mad, Washington whirl,” she said. “You know how it is. What did you have in mind?”

“The same thing you do,” Senator Munson said. I was thinking about Thursday night, which is the annual White House Correspondents banquet for the President. I may go back to the White House with him for a little while afterwards, but I ought to be free after that.”

“We can always watch the late, late show,” Dolly suggested dryly.

“Watch it, hell,” Senator Munson said. “I want to be in it.”

Dolly laughed.

“If Michigan could hear you now,” she said.

“Michigan,” Bob Munson said, “is as interested as anybody, I’m quite sure. I can expect you here tomorrow, then?”

“I’ll be there,” Dolly said. “I’ll call the others right now.”

“Fine,” Senator Munson said. “You’re really being a big help to me, you know.”

“Any time, I said,” Dolly reminded him.

For a long moment Senator Richardson looked appraisingly at the nominee and the nominee looked back. Then the Senator smiled in a way that looked more cordial than it actually was.

“Well, Mr. Leffingwell,” he said, “there seems to be a feeling here that you aren’t giving us quite what we’re after. Maybe I won’t have cause to feel that way, after you talk to me.”

“I hope not, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said calmly. “I’ve always found you very fair in our dealings together.”

“And I have always found you very capable,” Arly responded. “So capable,” he added slowly, “that I, like my colleagues, am finding it a little difficult to understand why it is so hard for you to be candid with this subcommittee.”

“I’m doing my best, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said. “As clearly as the English language can convey it, I’m stating my position.”

“But you haven’t stated it in response to questions,” Senator Richardson said. “It’s been a somewhat more self-serving process. You’ve stated it as it has suited you, not as we have requested it. Like my colleagues, I wonder why. What sort of associations did you have, when you were in college, and when you were teaching at the University of Chicago, and later on. What sort do you have now?”

“That’s several questions in one, Senator,” the nominee said.

“Take them seriatim,” Arly Richardson suggested. Bob Leffingwell looked both thoughtful and puzzled.

“My associations in college,” he said. “Looking back to that distant time, I belonged to a fraternity; I went to class; I was on the tennis team; I helped edit the school paper; I went to a fair number of dances and social events; I was president of my senior class; I knew probably a thousand people on a more or less cordial basis, another thousand more casually. Associations? Approxi-mately the same you had, I imagine, Senator, when you went to college.”

“I have a telegram here,” Senator Richardson said and paused as if to search for it, glancing sharply at the nominee, who remained impassive, “from someone who claims to have known you at the University of Chicago when you were a teacher there.”

“I was a teacher there,” Bob Leffingwell said, “and I am quite sure a great many people knew me. Who is it from?”

“Don’t be impatient, Mr. Leffingwell,” Arly Richardson said. “Let me proceed with this in my own way.”

“I’m sorry,” Bob Leffingwell said with a smile. “I thought possibly I might know him.”

“His name isn’t important,” Senator Richardson said. “Gelb—Gelman—Gelman, that’s it, Herbert Gelman. A student of yours. He says you had the reputation of running with a pretty shady crowd.”

“Good God,” the
Baltimore Sun
whispered angrily, “is nothing sacred? This man is going to be handling our foreign policy and dealing with other governments and he’s tagged with ‘running with a shady crowd.’ Good God!” “This Hill can be a brutal place sometimes,” the
Times
agreed. “You never know, though; maybe it
was
a shady crowd.”

“Well, Senator,” the nominee said with a trace of annoyance, “anybody can smear anybody with anything, of course, and if he wants to he can take advantage of a Senate hearing to do it.”

“Are you accusing me of smearing you, Mr. Leffingwell?” Senator Richardson asked slowly, and the
Washington Post
hissed, “Say yes, God damn it!” But Bob Leffingwell chose not to.

“No, Senator,” he said, “but it seems to me you are transmitting the unfounded allegations of someone else without checking.”

“I’m checking them with you,” Arly Richardson said bluntly. “There’s nobody better to check with, is there?”

“All right, Senator,” the nominee said coldly. “I did not ‘run with a shady crowd.’ Period.”

“He goes on here,” Senator Richardson said in a deliberately unimpressed tone, “to say that this group was generally supposed on the campus to be strongly left-wing and probably Communist.”

“All that line of questioning is going to produce, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said in a tone equally unimpressed, “is a statement from the president and faculty of the University of Chicago testifying to my good character. I’ll be glad to have it in the record if you wish.”

“You sound pretty sure of that,” Arly Richardson observed with interest “Have you already arranged for it?”

“I’ve been told it’s coming,” the nominee replied, “and I can’t conceive that this type of questioning will do anything but hasten it along.”

“You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Senator Richardson asked, and Bob Leffingwell smiled.

“I feel,” he said, with a smile that didn’t quite remove all the arrogance, though he obviously thought it did, “that I am armored in the integrity of my own record.”

“Well, well,” Arly Richardson said. “Do you, now? Do you remember Herbert Gelman?”

“Frankly, I don’t,” Bob Leffingwell said. “I had, I imagine, some three hundred students, all told, during that year—”

“During what year, Mr. Leffingwell?” Senator Richardson asked. “I didn’t mention any year.”

Bob Leffingwell looked puzzled for a moment, then shook his head and smiled.

“I thought you did, Senator,” he said. “My course only ran three quarters, it was completed in one academic year, students only took it for one year, I taught roughly three hundred students each year, and I assumed you meant the year that this fellow Gelb or Gelman, or whatever it is, took it.”

“Gelman,” Senator Richardson said. “Herbert Gelman. I am beginning to think,” he said as the room became suddenly very quiet, “that we should all remember Herbert’s name. G-e-l-m-a-n, Gelman.”

“All right, Gelman,” the nominee said. “I remember no Gelman.”

“Well, he remembers you,” Arly Richardson said.

“Now, see here,” Bob Leffingwell said abruptly. “Just what are you getting at, Senator?”

“I haven’t any plan,” Arly said placidly. “Just whatever develops, Mr. Leffingwell. So you don’t remember Gelman.”

“No, sir,” the nominee said, more calmly.

“Would you if you saw him?” Senator Richardson asked.

“Is he here?” Bob Leffingwell asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” Arly said.

“Then how could I?” the nominee demanded.

“I just wondered,” Senator Richardson said.

“I don’t remember him,” Bob Leffingwell said again. “Presumably he was at the university when I was, took my course, and indulged in campus gossip about people who were more prominent, and possibly more secure and better-adjusted to life in general and college life in particular, than he was. What else do we know about him, Senator?”

“That’s all,” Arly said, “unless you can tell us more.”

“I don’t know any more, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said frankly.

“Sure?” Arly Richardson asked.

“Sure,” the nominee replied firmly. Arly shrugged.

“Very well,” he said, “let’s go back to your general philosophy. You’ve made it rather plain you don’t want war.”

“Who does?” Bob Leffingwell said shortly, and Senator Richardson smiled.

“That’s right, who does?” he said. “You mean, I take it, war under any circumstances, is that right?”

“I can’t conceive of a circumstance that would warrant it, Senator,” the nominee said, and Senator Richardson looked thoughtful.

“Suppose a conference were held and it was demanded that we yield certain strategic positions?” he asked.

“We should, I suppose, reject any such demand,” the nominee replied.

“But suppose we were confronted with the threat of immediate military retaliation if we did not,” Arly went on, “and this is not beyond the realm of possibility these days, you know, Mr. Leffingwell. What then?”

“In that case, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said, “I assume it would be far past the point where anything could be done about it.”

“Our only choice then would be what, Mr. Leffingwell?” Senator Richardson asked. “To give in, wouldn’t it? To yield? To surrender? Anything else would be preventive war, wouldn’t it?”

The nominee thought for a moment and then spread his hands wide before him again in that open, candid gesture.

“I suppose it would have to be considered so, Senator,” he said.

“And you don’t like preventive war,” Senator Richardson said.

“No, sir,” Bob Leffingwell said.

“And you wouldn’t recommend it, as Secretary of State, because not only you but many another American, including a recent President of the United States, have formally announced to the world and our enemies that they never need fear force from us, because we will never use it until after we have given them the advantage of striking first, isn’t that right?”

“I would never recommend it, no, sir,” the nominee said firmly.

“So how would you get your country out of this not-so-hypothetical box in which I have placed her, Mr. Leffingwell? Can you tell us?”

“I would try to find some solution that would save the world from war, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said simply.

“Which, if we really believed the Russians meant war if we didn’t yield, and if that was genuinely their intention, would be to surrender to their
demands, would it not?” Senator Richardson asked. Bob Leffingwell smiled a little.

“I think you have me in a box too, Senator,” he said. “I don’t believe that the alternatives you state are the only ones.” Senator Richardson leaned forward.

“Ah, then we’re getting somewhere,” he said, “because neither do I, nor does the Senator from Illinois, with whom you discussed something of this same point a few minutes ago. What alternative do you feel should be followed, then?”

“It might be necessary, under the conditions you state, Senator,” the nominee said gravely, “to concede in some degree to those demands, providing there were some concessions on the other side. I think that might permit us to live with the situation.”

“And keep our freedom?” Senator Richardson asked sharply.

“And keep our freedom,” Bob Leffingwell said.

The Senator looked at him curiously.

“But where do we stop yielding?” he asked. “At what point do we say, ‘No, it goes no further. This is where you stop and where we stand up for the things we believe in?’ Do you have such a point in your own mind?”