Advise and Consent (6 page)

After that, it was just a matter of continuing to lay out the food and the drinks and you could keep going indefinitely; especially if, like Dolly, you wanted to make it something a little deeper and more important, and so in time began to refine your guest lists to the point where they included not only the most important but also the most interesting people in Washington. Sometimes these were the same, but quite frequently they were not, and an astute realization of which was which and how often to mix them did much to give your hard-bought social standing a foundation as permanent as anything in the capital with its shifting official population could be permanent.

So it had been with Dolly, who along with her sister millionairesses was now one of the fixtures of the Washington scene. And, she told herself with considerable justification, quite possibly the best of them. Certainly her parties had a purpose—or at least they had since she had met Bob Munson. It was an event that had occurred last summer at Gossett Cook’s place in Leesburg, and it had been an event that had changed her life a good deal already. She was determined that it should change it a great deal more before she was through.

Later in the morning she would have to call Bob and talk about the party and find out what she could do to help with the nomination. Because she was quite sure that once again, as on several occasions before, she and Vagaries were going to be a big help to Bob. This thought with all its ramifications and frustrations annoyed her as it always did, and with a sudden, “Oh, poof!” she hopped out of bed, rang for the maid, and prepared to go downstairs and begin checking over the preparations for the party.

At the White House the press secretary went through the first batch of wires for the day and found them running about two to one against Bob Leffingwell. An impatient expression crossed his face. The Old Man wouldn’t like it, and it would just make him more stubborn than ever. The press secretary sighed.

The trouble with the president of General Motors, in the opinion of Roy B. Mulholland, was that he thought he owned the Senators from Michigan, or at least the junior Senator from Michigan, namely Roy B. Mulholland. He didn’t try to pressure Bob Munson very often, except indirectly through Roy, but he was always after Roy about something.

“Now, God damn it,” he was saying vigorously over the line from Detroit, “we don’t want a radical like that for Secretary of State. Now do we? Do we?”

“Bill,” Senator Mulholland said with a trace of asperity, “I tell you I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Well, make it up, man,” the president of General Motors said impatiently. “Make it up. Time waits for no man, you know. And you can tell Bob from me that we’re going to be watching his actions on this very closely. Very closely indeed.”

“Don’t you always watch Bob’s actions very closely, Bill?” Roy Mulholland asked. “I can’t see as it makes much difference to him.”

“Someday it will, by God,” said the president of General Motors. “Someday it will. The day will come, even for Bob, you wait and see. And for anybody else who doesn’t make the right decision for America.”

“You like that phrase don’t you, Bill?” Roy Mulholland said. “I’ve read it in at least three of your recent speeches.”

“Now don’t be smart-alecky like Bob, Roy,” the president of General Motors ordered sternly. “Just make the right decision for America, and we’ll be for you.”

“I’ll have to talk to Bob,” Senator Mulholland said.

“He’s more important to you than the voice of the people, eh?” said the president of General Motors tartly.

“In this instance,” Roy Mulholland replied with equal tartness, “he is.”

“Well, you tell him what I said,” the president of General Motors reminded him. “You tell him we’re watching him. And you too.”

“I’ll tell him, Bill,” Senator Mulholland said, “and I’ll be conscious of your piercing gaze. Give my love to Helen, and take care of yourself.”

“Sometimes I wonder about you, Roy,” the president of General Motors said in a disappointed tone. “Sometimes I do.”

On the East River a couple of mournful tugs were arguing with uneasy persistence with the fog. Senator Fry looked out upon them through the vast glass expanses of the United Nations Delegates’ dining room in a mood that nearly matched the weather. Already he was getting repercussions from the Leffingwell nomination. He had run into one of the members of the Saudi Arabian delegation in the hall just now, a billowing white vision of dark-eyed concern.

“Meestair Leffeen-gwell—” the Saudi had said abruptly. “Meestair Lefeen-gwell—Does eet mean you are shaingeeng your poe-leecy een the Mheedle Heast?”

Hal Fry had suppressed an irreverent impulse to snap, “No, eet does hnot!” but had restrained himself. He had decided, rather, to give as good as he usually got from that sector.

“In the mysterious ways of Allah and the President of the United States, my friend,” he had said calmly, “the inscrutable becomes the indubitable and the indubitable becomes the inscrutable.”

“Yayess?” said the Saudi in polite puzzlement. “Yayesss?”

“Yes,” said Hal Fry firmly, and walked on.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t all quips and quiddities, by any means. It was going to raise hell in the Arab world, he could see that, to say nothing of a good many other places. And as for the Indians—well, he might ask K.K., but he knew that all he would get would be one of those typical Indian answers which go winding and winding off through the interstices of the English language until they finally go shimmering away altogether and there is nothing left but utter confusion and a polite smile. Still and all, he supposed he should find out if he could; and there was K.K. now, off on the other side of the room, and there was no time like the present. He picked up his coffee and made his way purposefully over. The Indian Ambassador looked up and flashed his gleaming smile.

“Senator Fry,” he said in his rapid Brit’sh-In’ja way, “how good of you to grace my humble table with your honored presence.”

“Good morning, K.K.,” Hal Fry said amicably, “you can refrain from the flowers.”

“How, please?” said Krishna Khaleel. “You are always joking me, Hal.”

“Nothing,” Senator Fry said gravely, “could be further from my mind. I meant we could dispense with the frills and get down to business. What position are you folks going to take on Bob Leffingwell?”

“Ahhh,” said K.K. softly. “Bob Leffingwell.”

“The same.”

“He is an interesting man,” the Indian Ambassador observed.

“Fascinating,” Senator Fry agreed.

“Controversial, however,” the Ambassador added.

“Most,” conceded Senator Fry.

“But able,” Krishna Khaleel hastened to remark.

“Among the best,” Hal Fry admitted.

“It is a problem,” K.K. said with a sigh.

“It
is
a problem,” Senator Fry agreed cheerfully.

“Well,” K.K. said abruptly. “You want to know what we think. We think this appointment could be one of great importance for the world, one which could do great good for the world. But we also think it could cause trouble in the world, and could precipitate difficulties in the world. Now then. It is a question, is it not, of whether it would cause good for the world, or whether it would cause bad for the world, and if the first, and indeed the second also, you understand, whether it would be the position of my government that the good it might cause would be sufficient to counterbalance the bad it might cause. It might, you see, cause both things in one man, you see. Such is the diversity of human nature. And one should not take too firm a position on the basis of human nature, for human nature, our friends in the West to the contrary, is always changing, is it not? And therefore sometimes it is better to ignore human nature and look at the long view of things. Although of course one cannot leave human nature out of account, for it too is important for the world. This is what we think of the nomination, since you ask me, Hal.”

Senator Fry conceded defeat with a laugh.

“You damned Indians,” he said genially, “are always using syntax as a weapon. Why don’t you ever say what you mean, right out?”

“Half the troubles in this world, my friend,” said Krishna Khaleel with sibilant explicitness, “are caused by people saying what they mean right out. You Americans always want to bring things to a head; you always want to make things come to an issue. But heads and issues are not good for the world, my friend. They make people take positions. Positions can be dangerous. Possibly positions are not good for the world. Or possibly they are, of course. Is it not so?”

“You lost me on the last curve, K.K.,” Senator Fry said dryly. “I fell right out of the bus and I’m going to have to walk home. I’ll tell Washington what you think.”

“I shall tell Washington myself,” Krishna Khaleel said firmly. “Is there not the party at Dolly’s tonight? I shall be there.”

“So shall I,” said Hal Fry.

“A lovely woman, Dolly Harrison,” the Indian Ambassador said thoughtfully. “A little too obvious about her feelings for the good Bob Munson, but very kind of heart, I think.”

“She’ll catch him yet,” Senator Fry said with a chuckle.

“A consummation devoutly to be hoped,” K.K. remarked; and added with a twinkle, “There, I have said something right out. Dolly and Bob—I am for it, I approve. The Indian Republic is for it, it approves. The world is for it, it approves. Is it not so?”

“It is so, O Akbar,” said Hal Fry with a grin.

“In about another hour,” Bob Munson said, “we’re going to begin to get the reaction on Leffingwell from the country.”

“You want to dictate a form letter?” Mary Hastings asked.

“How did you know?” Senator Munson said.

“I anticipate,” Mary said. “Isn’t that what you pay me for?”

“I pay you,” said Bob Munson, surveying the dark-eyed, dark-haired, quick-witted forty-six-year-old intelligence that ran his office staff, “to be the best damned administrative assistant on the Hill. And so you are. Take a letter to whom it may concern—Joe Doaks, Susie Soaks, and all the folks—

“Dear So-and-So, With reference to your letter of present date, I want you to know how much I value your opinion on the President’s nomination of Mr. Leffingwell to be Secretary of State. It is obviously an office of the greatest importance to all of us, and it is only through voluntary expressions of opinion from back home, such as yours, that we in the Senate can make up our minds about it.’ Paragraph. ‘As you know, in my position as Majority Leader, I am to some extent bound to follow the Administration view on most matters, but I consider this so vital that I am, for the time being, reserving final judgment on what I shall ultimately do. Your letter is one which will weigh heavily in my decision. It was most kind of you to write, and I appreciate it deeply. With warm regards,’ etc. That isn’t too evasive, is it?”

“No more than usual,” Mary said.

“Well, damn it,” Bob Munson said. “You know our problem. We can’t commit ourselves too much in advance on something like this, there are too many factors involved. We’ve got to allow a little leeway, in case Seab turns up the fact that he was convicted for dope or white slavery or something. You know that.”

“Yes,” Mary said comfortably, “I know that, Senator. It’s a good letter and about all you can say at the present moment, I should judge.”

“Then don’t give me back talk,” Senator Munson said. “I can’t take it, in my delicate condition of being pregnant with the hottest nomination in the present presidential term. Now let’s get rid of whatever else there is. I’ve got to get on my horse and get out around the building.”

Little warning bells rang on all the news-tickers in all the offices all over town that had them. “This is to advise,” the teletype machine said impersonally, “that Robert A. Leffingwell will not repeat not hold his previously announced press conference at 10:30 a.m. today.”

“This building,” one of the Capitol guides was telling the day’s first batch of tourists, listening attentively in the great rotunda, “stands on Capitol Hill 88 feet above the level of the Potomac River, on a site once occupied by a subtribe of the Algonquin Indians known as the Powhatans, whose council house was located at the foot of the hill. The building covers an area of 153,112 square feet, or approximately 3½ acres. Its length from north to south is 751 feet, four inches; its width, including approaches, is 350 feet. It has a floor area of 14 acres, and 435 rooms are devoted to offices, committees, and storage. There are 679 windows and 554 doorways. The cornerstone of the Capitol was laid on September 18, 1793. The northern wing was completed in 1800, and in that small building the legislative and judicial branches of the government, as well as the courts of the District of Columbia, were housed in that year when the government moved here from Philadelphia. The southern section of the Capitol was finished in 1811, the House of Representatives then occupying what is now known as Statuary Hall. At that time a wooden passageway connected the two wings. This was the situation when the Capitol was burned by the British on August 24, 1814, entering up the narrow, winding steps known as the British Stairway which you will see later in your tour.

“Restoration of the two wings was completed in 1817, and construction of the central portion was begun in 1818 and completed in 1829. Congress, which met in a special building erected on part of what is now the present Supreme Court grounds across Capitol Plaza, moved back into the Capitol in 1819.

“The building of the present Senate and House wings was begun on July 4, 1851. The House moved into its present chamber on December 16, 1857, and the Senate occupied its present chamber on January 4, 1859. The original low dome, which had been constructed of wood covered with copper, was replaced by the present dome of cast iron in 1865. There are two Senate Office Buildings and three House Office Buildings included in the Capitol grounds, which now cover an area of 131.1 acres. The statue on top of the Capitol which you saw as you approached the building is the Statue of Freedom, which stands with its back on downtown Washington. This is no reflection on our government, but is so turned because the East Front is the official front of the Capitol, the original builders having thought the District of Columbia would grow toward the east instead of the west.