Advise and Consent (41 page)

“I had the impression it was your doing alone,” the witness said more calmly. “I thought my boss in Commerce got in touch with me because you asked him to.”

“Well, Mr. Gelman,” Bob Leffingwell said in a kindly tone, “haven’t we pretty well established here that your mind has occasionally gotten impressions that the facts just don’t support? It’s been a rather erratic mind in the past, apparently, in fact as recently as two years ago, and it seems a pretty fair presumption that it’s erratic still. No, nobody got in touch with you at my suggestion. I believe a Civil Service bulletin did mention a couple of vacancies over in Commerce, I happened to see it when it came across my desk, I thought of you, or somebody in my office thought of you, and we passed the word along. But that’s the extent of it. And please don’t tell me I’m lying, Mr. Gelman. I don’t think many people would believe you, any more.”

For the last time the witness gave him that strange, intent, stubbornly dogged look.

“Just the same,” he said, as though nothing at all had happened in the past hour and a half, “I’m telling the truth about those meetings. You’ve managed to cover up everything pretty well and confuse it all, but I still say you and I and James Morton and the boy who died held those meeting.”

“I think you’re lying, Mr. Gelman,” Bob Leffingwell said calmly.

“I know you are,” Herbert Gelman said defiantly, and the nominee shrugged.

“That’s for the subcommittee and our countrymen to judge, Mr. Gelman,” he said. “I forgive you for what you tried to do to me because you obviously aren’t in a fit condition mentally to be responsible for your actions. I feel very sorry for you, because apparently neither in college nor government have you been able to come to terms with reality in a world that is obviously too difficult for you
....
Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions of the witness. I appreciate your courtesy.”

There was a stirring and a relaxation in the room as the nominee turned his chair away from the witness and toward the subcommittee, as another relay of reporters ran downstairs to file new bulletins, as the audience stretched and began talking, as the television cameras wandered from face to face along the committee table and the still photographers scrambled to record such inevitable shots as Bob Leffingwell rubbing his ear, Herbert Gelman blowing his nose, Arly Richardson cleaning his glasses, Bob Munson talking to Lafe Smith, Tom August looking worried, Orrin Knox pushing back his chair to turn and greet Dolly and her guests, Fred Van Ackerman glowering thoughtfully into space, Seab Cooley looking impassively out at the audience. For several minutes there was a general informality in the room during which some of the aching tension of the verbal duel just concluded was dissipated and blown away. When it seemed to him that this purpose had been sufficiently accomplished, Brig-ham Anderson rapped for order and the room quieted down again.

“Thank you, Mr. Leffingwell,” he said, “Thank you, Mr. Gelman. Does anyone on the subcommittee have any further questions of either of these witnesses?” And when several of his colleagues responded, “No questions,” he leaned forward to look down the table to the senior Senator from South Carolina.

“How about you, Seab?” he asked, and Senator Cooley gave his sleepy smile and little wave of the hand.

“No, thank you, Mr. Chairman,” he said slowly. “I do wonder, however, whether it might be possible to get a complete copy of the transcript, including today’s session, by later on this afternoon? I’d rather like to study it over, before you all decide what to do in this matter.”

“So would I, Mr. Chairman,” Orrin Knox said. “I trust you don’t intend to vote on this today?”

“I should object to that too, Mr. Chairman,” Arly Richardson said quickly. “I think we should take a little time on this, and in line with the suggestion of Senator Cooley, I think we should all be furnished with a complete transcript by this afternoon.”

“That will be arranged, Senators,” Brigham Anderson said. “And the Chair of course has no more desire to take precipitate action than anyone else here. Two stories, diametrically opposed, have been given us, together with other information bearing on the veracity of the witness—or,” he added as Bob Leffingwell started to smile and then stopped—“witnesses. Perhaps a meeting to vote on the nomination tomorrow would be in order. Unless anyone has some further business to offer here today, we can probably consider these hearings concluded. Is that agreeable?”

“Mr. Chairman,” Bob Leffingwell said, and there was something in his tone that brought the instant attention of the subcommittee and the room. “Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a concluding statement, if I may.”

“You may,” Senator Anderson told him, and the tension was suddenly back as taut as ever. Bob Leffingwell leaned forward slowly, folding his hands one upon the other, and when he began to speak it was in a grave and deliberate voice.

“So, Mr. Chairman,” he said, “we come to the end of this extraordinary proceeding in which a witness of medically proven irresponsibility was allowed, without ever being examined or investigated or checked beforehand, to be brought before this subcommittee to be used in the most viciously unprincipled and underhanded way to smear and attack me. In thirteen years of government service, Mr. Chairman, I cannot recall an
episode such as this, so evil, so inexcusable, so ill-befitting the dignity and the integrity of the Senate of the United States.”

“Mr. Chairman,” Orrin Knox said sharply, “it is not the business of this witness to be concerned with the dignity of this Senate, or to make such a spectacle as this.”

“He has a right to have his say, Senator,” Brigham Anderson said calmly. “Let him talk.”

“That’s right, Mr. Chairman,” Seab Cooley said coldly from down the table. “Just let him talk. He’s mighty good at talking. He’s so good at talking he’s maybe going to talk himself right out of the vote he was about to get here. Let him talk.”

“That will do, Senator,” Brigham Anderson said flatly. “Go on, Mr. Leffingwell. Tell us what else we’ve done. The whole world’s listening.”

“I repeat, Mr. Chairman,” Bob Leffingwell said in the same measured tones, “an evil, inexcusable, underhanded, vicious, shabby attempt to smear me, destroy my personal character and destroy my usefulness to the President and to my country, so that I could not be confirmed for Secretary of State. I expected this sort of thing from the senior Senator from South Carolina, whose ability to damage good citizens and injure his own country has increased in direct geometric ratio to his lengthening years in this body, but I did not expect it of some other members of this subcommittee. I did not expect that they would give support, some directly and some indirectly, to his tactics. It has shocked and disappointed me, Mr. Chairman.”

“By God, Bob, you tell em!” the
Washington Post
whispered exultantly, and the
Herald Trib
, scribbling too fast to do more than grin, grinned.

“Nor,” the nominee went on, a certain acid iron coming into his tone, “did I ever expect to see such goings-on permitted by an instrumentality of the great Committee on Foreign Relations, particularly in the matter of a Secretary of State, a man who must go before the nations of the world to defend the interests of the United States. What is the position you have put me in here, Mr. Chairman? What will they say now, when I meet them in conference? Oh, yes, they will say, this is the man the Senate smeared. This is the man the highest legislative body in his country, yes, in many ways the greatest legislative body in the world, has attacked and slandered and attempted to destroy. That is what they will say, and how many years do you think it will be before I can meet them as an equal after this shameful, shabby episode? I ask you, Mr. Chairman, I ask you!”

Then while Orrin Knox flushed angrily and Johnny DeWilton seemed on the verge of blurting out some angry rejoinder, but Brigham Anderson, Arly Richardson, John Winthrop, and Seab Cooley all watched him with a certain coldly analytical attention and no other expression, his tone changed abruptly and he went on to his conclusion with his earlier quiet gravity.

“However, Mr. Chairman,” he said, “there have been some courtesies here and I appreciate them. I also, of course, absolve members of the subcommittee of engaging in any premeditated conspiracy with the Senator from South Carolina. I am not even sure that I should blame him too severely, for as he said yesterday, he did not seek this man out, and apparently had no means of knowing that he was to be so miserably duped. And, of course, Mr. Chairman, win, lose, or draw my position with regard to my country remains what it was on Monday when this hearing began: I love her, I believe in her, I shall serve her to the very best of my ability in every way I can until the breath is no longer in me, and I swear you that as God is my witness.”

And he sat back with an air as Brigham Anderson gave the gavel an admonitory rap and spoke in an impersonal tone.

“Are you through, Mr. Leffingwell?” he asked.

“I am,” Bob Leffingwell said.

“Very well,” Senator Anderson said impassively, “these hearings on the nomination of Robert A. Leffingwell to be Secretary of State are now concluded.”

At once he was aware that Fred Van Ackerman was on his feet behind him vigorously leading the applause that broke and rolled and rolled again across the room while Bob Leffingwell bowed and smiled and waved a deprecatory hand, while the press crowded up and the television cameras swung back and forth across the mining audience. Under the protective roar of sound the junior Senator from Wyoming leaned forward and addressed his colleagues. “I’ll see you bastards on the floor,” he said with a tense and strangled violence in his voice. “We’ll see about this. We’ll just see!” And before they could answer he had forced his way around the committee table, elbowed Herbert Gelman harshly aside, and was out front being photographed with the nominee while the crowd continued to applaud and its excited babble filled the room.

“He’s a really nice guy, that boy,” John Winthrop commented, and Orrin Knox snorted, “He’s a peach.” “I have a good notion,” Lafe Smith said thoughtfully, “to give him a punch in the nose.” Tom August looked genuinely alarmed and Brigham Anderson grinned. “Go right ahead, buddy,” he said. “Nothing would please the press more.”

“Brig!” AP called, and Lafe smiled as a dozen reporters started toward the chairman.

“Here they come, pal,” he said. “Your little problems. Tom, let’s go have lunch.”

“All right,” Senator August said. “I do hope we can get through the afternoon without a bitter debate on this.”

“We can’t,” Lafe said cheerfully, “so we’d better eat hearty. Come on, Seab. I’m not mad at you yet, today.”

“I’ll be over, I’ll say to the Senator from Ioway,” Seab said genially. “First, though, I want to hear what the chairman has to say to the press.”

“So do I,” the Majority Leader said. “Lafe, ask Stanley to sit in for me at the opening, will you? I’ll be over just as soon as I get a bite, tell him.”

“Right,” Lafe said. “Tom and I will take the girls to lunch for you.”

“Please do,” Dolly said, and they walked out chatting animatedly together.

“Well, Brig,” AP said, “what’s the next step? When will the subcommittee vote?”

“I’ll have to check with the members and see what their pleasure is,” the chairman said, “but I would imagine tomorrow or Friday, probably.”

“Why didn’t you vote today, Brig?” the
Times
asked, and the chairman frowned thoughtfully.

“You heard Seab request some time to study the transcript,” he said, “and several members of the subcommittee felt the same way about it. I know I did. It won’t hurt if we go over for a day or two.”

“What’s left to be considered?” the
Detroit
News
inquired. “It looks to me as though this whole Gelman business is pretty well exploded, isn’t it? Obviously he’s a mental case.”

“Yes,” Senator Anderson said thoughtfully. “Except that like a lot of mental cases, there are one or two points on which he seems awfully determined and positive. They may all be part of his general psychological pattern, or they may not. That’s why I think we’d like to take a little time.”

“You’re going to have trouble with Fred Van Ackerman on that, you know,” the
Herald Trib
observed. “He went out of here raving something about demanding immediate action when he gets over to the floor.”

“The things Fred demands and the things Fred accomplishes are two different things,” Orrin Knox broke in tartly. “I agree entirely with the chairman that there’s no rush on this. We can decide tomorrow and nothing will be lost. I think we all want to go over that transcript.”

“What do you think it all adds up to, Senator?” AP asked, and Orrin Knox looked skeptical.

“Nothing much, I expect,” he said. “I wasn’t convinced by Gelman, if that’s what you mean, and Leffingwell didn’t perform any differently than I thought he would. He’s still too tricky for me, but he always has been and he’s still done a pretty good job of it, and I expect he will here, too.”

“How about you, Brig?” the
Washington Star
asked. “Are you satisfied too?”

The chairman gave him a direct look and his expression became more earnest and a little puzzled.

“Not entirely,” he said. “But maybe after I read the transcript I will be. It helps to go over a thing and review it quietly out of the circus atmosphere you fellows create.”

“
We
create,” the
Chicago Tribune
demanded with a smile. “You can blame our friends the photographers and TV boys for that.”

“You do your bit,” Brigham Anderson said with an answering smile.

“The hearings are definitely closed for good, then, and we can expect a subcommittee vote sometime tomorrow or Friday,” the
Dallas News
recapitulated. The chairman nodded. “And how about the full committee?” the
News
added.

“Of course that’s up to Tom,” Senator Anderson said, “but I wouldn’t expect it to be very long delayed.”

“Probably floor action by Friday, Brig?” AP asked, and the chairman smiled.

“Could be,” he said.