Advise and Consent (66 page)
Read Advise and Consent Online
Authors: Allen Drury
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary, #Genre Fiction, #Political, #Contemporary Fiction
The Majority Leader felt for one wild second that he should turn and run, that he was so close to the absolute essence of the American Presidency, in the presence of a dedication so severe, so lonely, and so terrible, so utterly removed from the normal morality that holds society together, that he should flee from it before the revelation proved too shattering and some great and dreadful damage was done to Brig, to him, to the President, the country, and the world. But men do not often act on such impulses, which are immediately thwarted by reminders that this is the workaday world, after all, and here they are, after all, and such gestures would be completely irrational, after all, and what in the hell are they thinking about, after all; and so they do not do them. Instead with a bitter expression on his face he extracted the envelope from his pocket and tossed it on the President’s desk with much the same desperate unhappiness that Mr. Justice Davis had initially felt when giving it to him.
There was a long silence while the President studied it, and somewhere down the hall outside a Seth Thomas clock went, “Bong!” once for one o’clock. The Majority Leader jumped, but his host gave no sign. At last he put the picture quietly back in its envelope, placed it neatly to one side on the blotter, and stood up.
“It’s late, Bob,” he said, “and tomorrow is another day. I’m quite tired, really; it’s been a very long day for me and I’m stretched out to my limit, which seems to be getting more restricted all the time. Thank you for coming by, and thanks for all your help on the nomination. I’ll be in touch with you. I’ve got to get to bed and get some sleep now or I won’t be worth much in the morning.”
“What will you do with it?” the Majority Leader asked in a low voice, and the President looked at him gravely.
“Who can say?” he said. “Certainly not I, at one o’clock in the morning.”
“You never did intend to change your position on the nomination in the slightest, did you?” Bob Munson asked bitterly. His host held out his hands side by side, palms down, and looked at them for a moment, well-manicured, competent, strong, and not really trembling so very much more than was normal for his age.
“Never,” he said quietly. “Good night, Bob. I appreciate your coming by.”
“You try to keep the world the same by being polite,” the Majority Leader said, “but you can’t do it, it isn’t the same. It won’t ever be the same again.”
“Get some sleep, Bob,” the President said in a kindly voice, taking his arm and escorting him to the door. “Take the elevator down and I’ll call a car and have them run you home.”
“I don’t want to go home,” Senator Munson said as if to himself. “I want to go to Dolly’s.”
“Very well,” the President said without surprise. “Tell the chauffeur and he’ll take you.”
“Thank you,” the Majority Leader said elaborately. “Thank you for nothing, nothing at all.”
“Give my best to Dolly, Bob,” the President said impassively. “Good night.”
And so the senior Senator from Utah felt very happy and very secure and as though all the cares of the world had rolled away, and off his shoulders, and would not come back. The Vice President, too, seemed much relieved by the outcome, explaining again on the brief run to the Statler that he could see the President’s point of view but that he really felt at heart that it was best under the circumstances to withdraw Bob Leffingwell’s name and get someone else. He was a little surprised, he said, that the President had yielded so easily, for it was his own impression that he possessed a much more tenacious character than that; but he agreed with Brig that the surrender apparently was genuine, that it was evidently based upon a real perception of what was best for the country in the wake of James Morton’s appearance, and that the solution Brig had suggested seemed much the best. They agreed as they arrived at the hotel that this instant ability to change course and move forward along new lines dictated by patriotism and integrity was an example of what made the Chief Executive the great President he was, and Brig said again with a perfectly genuine sincerity as he bade the Vice President thanks and good night that he was proud to have him in the White House and leader of his party. When he reached home he tiptoed in and kissed Pidge, who turned over, mumbled something and went right back to sleep, and then went into the bedroom to find Mabel still awake. He looked so handsome and so relieved and so happy about the way the evening had gone that she too felt suddenly an equal happiness and relief, and they turned to one another eagerly without any complicating worries and then drifted off to sleep with a sense of peace they had not known together for some time.
And at Vagaries a White House limousine deposited the Majority Leader at the door and his hostess started to greet him with a jest about the lateness of the late, late show, only to have it die on her lips as she saw how very unhappy and tortured he looked. So without further word she drew him in and said no more about it until much later in the small hours of the morning when he finally told her what had happened and his fears concerning it, and she too felt afraid for him and for Brig and aware suddenly that no matter how complacent one might become about a man in the White House, no one ever really knew his full capabilities until the chips were down and then it was often too late.
And in his study the President, following through on the groundwork he had laid in a telephone call earlier in the day, pulled up the battered old portable typewriter on which he pecked out many of his speeches and taking a plain envelope, typed a name on it and started to insert the picture Senator Munson had given him. Then the thought striking him that while the addressee was shrewd, he should perhaps leave an implication that would amount to an order, he tore up the plain envelope with quick, decisive movements, took another bearing the simple legend, “The White House, Washington” in the upper left-hand corner, typed the name once again, once more inserted the picture and this time sealed the envelope. After that he walked all alone through the empty hallways of the great silent house to the servants’ quarters, scared his valet out of seven years’ growth by waking him from a sound sleep in the middle of the night, and told him to get dressed and deliver the message at once.
Back upstairs he took his usual good-night look across the Ellipse to the Monument rising dim and stately to the stars, made his usual last
check of the late news dispatches to see where the unhappy world was hurting this night, and went along to bed; aware as he did so that he had stayed up much too late and done much too much and that his heart was pounding painfully much too hard as a consequence.
***
Chapter 6
“You certainly sound chipper,” a familiar voice said behind him as he came whistling along the corridor in the Old Office Building, and he turned to find Orrin Knox bearing down upon him under a full head of steam, briefcase bulging, coat flapping, a look of purposeful determination on his face. For some reason on this particular morning—probably just because the world was back in place and all was well and everything was set to rights again—this spectacle, which he had seen so often, struck him as very amusing and he held out his hand with a welcoming grin.
“I am,” he said happily. “Yes, I am.”
“Why?” Senator Knox demanded bluntly. “Soft soap at the White House? You must have won, you look too smug to have lost. What did he tell you he was going to do?”
“I’m not in a position to tell you,” Brig said amicably. “He’s going to announce it as soon as the arrangements can be worked out.”
“Certainly not withdraw the nomination,” Orrin said positively. “If he told you that, I wouldn’t believe him. Don’t you believe him, either.”
“Just between us, I think he was telling the truth,” Senator Anderson said, and his companion made a scornful sound as they swung along the hall together.
“That two-bit liar?” he said. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“Well,” Brig said mildly, “you have a more special reason than most of us to distrust him, of course.”
“Oh, hell,” Orrin said shortly. “If you mean the convention, that has nothing to do with it. I knew his quality long before that, when I first met him at the Governors’ Conference, and seven years in the White House haven’t changed it. Did you get anything in writing?”
“No, I didn’t,” Brig said, sounding amused. “Should I have?”
“Yes,” Orrin said tersely. “Are you going to the Capitol?”
“Yes, Appropriations,” Brig said. “I have to testify on a project we’re interested in out home. Where are you heading?”
“Foreign Relations,” Senator Knox said. “I think Howie is going to be up again testifying on the foreign-aid bill. Tom can’t be there, and I’m afraid hardly anybody else will be, either. I happen to be free and I don’t want poor Howie to feel entirely neglected.”
“That’s kind of you,” Brig said with a grin. “My sentiments exactly. I’ll drop in too, after I get through at Appropriations.”
“Good,” Orrin said as they emerged into the sunlight and started across Constitution Avenue to the Capitol. “I want to say one thing to you, Brigham,” he added, suddenly serious. “I know this man far better than you do. If anything goes wrong and he backs out on you, I want you to let me know about it and we’ll fight it together. Okay?”
“He won’t back out,” Brig said comfortably. “I think he’s more honorable than you think he is.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with honor,” Orrin said shortly, “though I don’t think he has any. It involves being President, and that goes deeper.”
“I’m not worried,” Brig said. “He promised in front of Bob and Harley.”
“I wouldn’t trust him,” Senator Knox said stubbornly.
“You have to trust him sometimes,” Brig said, in a mood rather far from yesterday morning’s talk with Lafe.
“Well,” Orrin Knox said shortly. “You remember what I say. If something goes wrong, you come to me. Hear?”
“Hear?’” Brigham Anderson mimicked. “You’ve gotten to sound just like a Southerner. ‘Hear?’”
“Well, I mean it,” Orrin said firmly. “I have to be out in the state over the weekend on a speaking trip, but I’ll be back on Monday, and I want you to let me know.”
“Yes, Pa,” Brig said with a smile. “I hear.”
“All right,” Orrin said. “My God, look at the tourists.”
“They have a nice day for it,” Brig said, and so they did. The sky was blue, the air was crisp, the sun was bright, a high-school band was playing in the distance on the House steps in the warm, searching wind, and at the foot of the Hill the Taft Carillon was observing the hour of 10 a.m. Near at hand in the ancient oaks of the Plaza and high on the Capitol dome a flock of crows bickered back and forth.
“Caw, caw!” said one on the dome in a disapproving tone.
“
Caw!
” replied another scornfully from the oaks.
Orrin smiled.
“And in the streets,” he said in bum Shakespeare, “’tis said the crows do talk upon the Capitol. Isn’t that a bad omen?”
His young colleague laughed in a completely relaxed and happy way.
“Not today,” he said. “There aren’t any bad omens today.”
But as they went on into the great building and parted to go to their respective committees, he ran into one, and it was not so pleasant. Fred Van Ackerman was coming out of the restaurant just as he went by, and when he saw the Senator from Utah he stopped and a peculiar expression of amusement, spite, triumph, and elaborate pity crossed his face.
“You poor bastard,” he murmured, just loud enough so Brig could hear him.
“What in the hell is the matter with you, Fred?” Senator Anderson demanded in exasperation. “Aren’t you ever pleasant? What’s wrong now?”
“You’re upsetting the tourists, Senator,” Fred said sarcastically as he brushed by. “Let’s be nice.”
“Oh, run along,” Brig said disgustedly.
“Sure thing, Brig,” Senator Van Ackerman said with exaggerated politeness. “Anything you say.”
Now
what the hell
, Brig thought as he turned away; what bug was biting Freddy this time? There was no way of telling, however, and after a moment he shook his head in a baffled way and pushed on through the tourists who parted in some awe to let him through. It was true that the Senator from Wyoming had looked pleased in some indefinable, secret, sneaking sort of way; but the reasons for that could be as numerous as his own twisted thoughts, and the Senator from Utah decided there was no point in trying to figure it out. He shrugged and tried to forget it, though it was hard to shake off entirely the unpleasant blight it had cast abruptly upon the auspicious day.
In Appropriations, he was pleased to note, the mood was much more friendly. Seab was presiding, flanked by Raymond Robert Smith of California, tall and dapper, and Alec Chabot of Louisiana, sleek and well-groomed and looking as though he knew where the bodies were buried, which he usually did. The hearing was being held in the small committee room just off the hallway by the back elevator, and this inevitably lent a certain enforced intimacy that made for a relaxed and casual atmosphere. There weren’t many spectators, but there was a sizeable delegation from the press, attracted by word that he would be there. Arriving as he did a little late, with the hearing already under way and the direct interview barred by circumstances, he was immediately bombarded with notes when he took his seat at one end of the press table and prepared to wait his turn to testify. “Can you tell us anyg abt W.H. mtg?” AP wanted to know. “Need soonest comment on report you and Prez agreed on new SecState,” UPI advised him tersely. “Welcome back,” the
Times
wrote. “Undstand Leff out. Anytg to it?”
Up on the rim where the committee sat there was a little stir and the chairman leaned forward and spoke with a gentle sarcasm.
“If you would like to take the stand right now, Senator,” he said softly, “maybe we could release you to your friends in the press early enough for them to make the afternoon papers with their stories.”
“I’m not going to tell them anything, Mr. Chairman,” Brig said with a grin, “so it’s immaterial to me.”
“Well, then,” Seab said with a sleepy smile, “I suppose we might suggest to them that they abandon this fruitless quest and let us perform our duties in peace and quietude. I can’t really believe—I just can’t really believe—that they are interested in an irrigation project in northern Utah. Am I wrong, gentlemen?”
“We’re interested in anything Brig is interested in, Mr. Chairman,” AP said amicably, and Senator Cooley smiled again.
“Well,” he said, “you heard the Senator. It’s no use. But of course you all are welcome to inform yourselves on irrigation, if you like.” And he subsided with a bland smile while the witness, an assistant director of the Bureau of Reclamation, completed his testimony. Then with elaborate courtesy he leaned forward again.
“Now, Senator,” he said with a little twinkle, “if you will be so kind as to tell our good friends here what you think they ought to know about your project, the committee will be glad to hear it too.”
“Thanks, Mr. Chairman,” Brig said with a smile. “I won’t be long.”
And he wasn’t, finishing in about ten minutes with a brief statement on why the project was necessary, what it would do for Utah, what it would contribute to the national welfare, and why it was imperative that it be done this year and not be delayed like some other less urgent, less deserving items in the Interior Department appropriation. Seab, who had promised him a week ago that he could have it, was suitably thoughtful and searching in his questions, Alec Chabot and Ray Smith went along with the routine, and in half an hour he was ready to leave after mutual expressions of gratitude, generosity, and esteem.
“I think, if it is agreeable to the committee,” Seab said as Brig stood up and gathered together his papers, “that we can recess the hearings for the day.”
“Fine with me, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Chabot said promptly. “I’m supposed to be in three other places right this minute.”
“
I
have to meet some constituents,” Raymond Robert Smith said in his rather elaborate way that just skirted the edge of the overexclamatory. Senator Cooley smiled gently.
“If there is one thing I have learned in fairly long acquaintance with the United States Senate, Senator,” he said, “it’s to be kind to con-stit-u-ents. Yes, sir. Be very kind to con-stit-u-ents. Senator,” he added to Brig, “if you would wait a minute, I’ll walk along with you for a little bit, wherever you’re going.”
“Just down the hall to Foreign Relations,” Brig said.
“That will be fine,” Seab said, coming down from the dais and taking him by the arm. “Now, gentlemen,” he remarked blandly to the reporters who were crowding around and obviously about to join the party, “you may follow but you may not eavesdrop. No, sir. You may follow, but you may not eavesdrop
....
You seem very relaxed this morning, Brigham, sir,” he observed as they passed a group of tourists listening to a guide tell them all about Brumidi’s paintings of wildlife in the hall. “I trust you had a very nice talk with our great man in the White House?”
“I can’t tell you much about it, Seab,” Senator Anderson said cheerfully, “except that I am quite content with the way things are going.”
The senior Senator from South Carolina gave him a slow, shrewd, appraising look as they neared Foreign Relations and the press crowded close in an attempt to hear.
“Are you?” he asked challengingly. The senior Senator from Utah returned the look confidently.
“I am,” he said.
“Well, then,” Senator Cooley said with a little smile, “if you are content, I expect I should be content too.”
“I think you’d be safe,” Brig said, and Seab glanced at him quickly with an expression that looked curiously relieved.
“That’s good, Brigham,” he said. “I think we’re both safe, and I think that’s mighty fine, now. I really do. It eases me a lot. It surely does.”
“Thanks, Seab,” Senator Anderson said, starting into Foreign Relations. “Don’t say a word,” he said, gesturing with a grin toward the press.
“Oh no,” Senator Cooley said with a sudden abrupt laugh, pushing his way through the reporters and shaking his head in response to all their questions. “Oh no. Oh no.”
In Foreign Relations’ inconvenient committee room, cramped and inadequate but full of tradition, Howie Sheppard and his phalanx—dressed today in a small, neat, discreet brown tartan plaid—were testifying before Orrin Knox, Lafe Smith, John DeWilton, George Hines, three wire-service reporters, six spectators, and five members of the committee staff. Senator Hines was giving him a rather hard time, at the moment, asking questions obviously inimical to foreign aid and interspersing them with hearty references to “Howie,” in his usual phony good-natured way. The Secretary of State was repelling this not unexpected attack with dignity as the senior Senator from Utah slid into a seat beside Lafe and gave Howie a smile of greeting across the big green-baize table. He thought the Secretary looked rather peculiar for just a second, but Lafe slumped comfortably against his arm and murmured, “Hail the conquering hero comes,” behind his hand, and he forgot it.
“No comment,” he whispered with a grin, and Lafe nodded knowingly and smiled.
“Well, then, Howie—Mr. Secretary,” George Hines was saying unctuously, “if this program is to be continued indefinitely, shouldn’t we have some general policy to make better use of it than we have in advancing the interests of the United States?”
“I assume that will be Mr. Leffingwell’s problem, not mine,” the Secretary replied, a trifle snappishly, and Senator Hines gave an elaborately surprised look at Senator Anderson and asked smoothly, “Mr. Leffingwell? Is it your impression the President is going to leave Mr. Leffingwell’s name before the Senate?”
There was a sudden tensing among the reporters, and the little room became quite still. Howie Sheppard looked across the table at his questioner with a face virtually devoid of expression.
“That is my impression,” he said.
“But I thought, Howie—” Senator Hines began in rather exaggerated amazement. The Secretary cut him off in midsentence.
That is my impression,” he said again flatly.
“When did you see the President last?” George Hines asked, and Orrin, who was presiding, moved restively in his seat.
“Shortly before I came up here this morning,” the Secretary said.
“Did you discuss the matter?” George Hines inquired in a voice that suddenly was quite serious and intent.
“I am not privileged to discuss my private conversations with the President,” the Secretary snapped.
“You did, then,” George Hines told him. “And he gave you the impression he was contemplating no change.”
The Secretary shrugged and, because he was on his way out, permitted himself a sudden candor that startled his audience.