Advise and Consent (93 page)

“Yes?” he said and listened. “Yes,” he said again. “I think that would be fine. Yes. Yes, I will. Thank you
....
That was Pete,” he said. “He says somebody saw you come in and the lobby is full of reporters and photographers who want to catch us together. I told him to send them right on in.

Senator Knox looked alarmed and displeased and started to rise angrily, but the President went smoothly on.

“While we’re waiting,” he said, “there is one thing I would like you to do for me and the country, completely aside from this business, and that’s make a speech tomorrow afternoon after the Russian broadcast to reassure the Senate and the Congress. I’m going on the air myself at 8 p.m. to talk to the country, but it will mean a lot more if you have already spoken up there to rally the Congress behind me. Will you do that?”

And in spite of his annoyance at being euchred into an appearance of cordiality on the Leffingwell issue that the facts did not support, the Senator from Illinois on this other matter nodded without hesitation.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course I will. I don’t suppose you want me to mention our own expedition, do you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” the President said. “I was thinking that would be a little more suitable coming from me, don’t you agree?”

“Of course,” Orrin said again. “Of course.”

“You know what to say,” the President said. “Don’t try to pretend it’s a phony, because it isn’t. Give them something to stiffen their backbones. That’s what you’re good at. Here we are in the jaws of hell, so let’s get a move on—that sort of thing.” He smiled. “Okay?”

The Senator from Illinois nodded in a way that had to display, despite his personal feelings, a grudging admiration.

“Okay,” he said.

And then the press was upon them, reporters were crowding up close around the desk, television cameras were being wheeled in, the still photographers were suddenly everywhere shouting urgent requests that they smile and shake hands.

“Might as well,” the President said with a show of long-suffering compliance, and Senator Knox, who knew his host was secretly delighted at thus being forced into a show of apparent good-fellowship, complied with an expression that he tried to make not too disapproving.

“Have you reached an agreement on Mr. Leffingwell, Mr. President?” someone asked eagerly and the President looked at the Senator with a little bow.

“I expect Orrin should answer that,” he said. Senator Knox smiled with as much blandness as he could muster.

“We have had a most interesting discussion of the subject,” he said. He paused. “I think that’s about as far as I intend to go,” he said.

“Was it an
agree
able discussion, Senator?” a voice called, and there was laughter in the room.

“Oh,” he said, “my talks with the President—such as they are—are always agreeable. He’s an agreeable man.”

“Was the conclusion
agree
able?” someone else inquired and again they laughed.

“The talk was agreeable,” Senator Knox said, and a slight note of irritation came into his voice. “That really is as far as I’m going to go.”

“You mean we’ll have to report the news as it happens, Senator?” the AP spoke up, and once again they laughed, Orrin and the President this time with them.

“I’m afraid so,” he said, and after insisting on a few more smiles and handshakes they let him go. But he noted as he finally shook hands in farewell that they were, as usual, after the President for still more of their countless thousands of shots of him sitting at his desk.

So it was that the last thing he saw of him as he left the room—the last thing, although he did not know it then, that he was ever to see of him—was an upright figure and a confident face, no longer looking drawn and white but somehow in the stimulation of the moment miraculously restored to its customary vigor, appearing calm and confident, glowing and strong amid the glare of the lights and the hectic confusions of the room.

With a final wondering shake of his head for one of the phenomena of the age, the senior Senator from Illinois turned and walked all alone back down the long corridor past the Rose Garden to the East Gate, a conveniently passing cab and a very thoughtful ride to Capitol Hill.

“There comes Orrin,” the
Washington Post
said in the gallery above.

“Looks awfully sober,” UPI observed.

“Yes,” the
Herald Tribune
said. “I guess we’d better try to get him off the floor and talk to him.”

“He wouldn’t say anything at the White House,” AP said. “And he won’t say anything here,” predicted the
Times
. Accurately.

At three fifty-nine the senior Senator from South Carolina concluded an address which, they all agreed, had been one of his most dramatic, and sat down, looking scarcely a whit more tousled and rumpled than he had when he stood up; though he had banged his desk twenty-six times, upset two glasses of water, startled Courtney Robinson of New Hampshire out of a sound sleep on three different occasions, and caused exactly thirty-nine notations of [Laughter] to be made in the Congressional Record. In between the [Laughter] there had been a most damaging speech against Robert A. Leffingwell, and it was in full awareness that he had his work cut out for him that the senior Senator from Arkansas thoughtfully sought recognition from the Chair. He was not experienced in the ways of politics for nothing, however, and without a moment’s hesitation he went straight to the question that was exciting them all, on the floor and in the galleries.

“Mr. President,” he said, “the distinguished senior Senator from Illinois has just come from a conference with the President on this matter now before us. I wonder if the Senator cares to tell us what word the President had for him to convey to the Senate at this time?”

For a moment the Senator from Illinois, who appeared to be in a deep dark study, seemed not to have heard; but just as Rob Cunningham of Arizona leaned over to jog his arm and catch his attention he stood up with a sudden impatience.

“I will say to the Senator, Mr. President,” he said, “that my conversation with the President was a private affair. It did not involve any ‘word for the Senate,’ as he so cleverly puts it.”

“Perhaps the Senator can tell us then, Mr. President,” Arly said smoothly, “since there is great interest in this body about it, what word did he have for the Senator?”

“I don’t think it’s any of the Senator’s business, Mr. President,” Orrin said, “but since he asks so politely I will tell him that the President’s word for the Senator from Illinois was just exactly what it is for all Senators: Confirm Bob Leffingwell.”

“And how did the Senator respond to that, Mr. President?” Arly pursued blandly. “With his customary violent indignation? Is there a roof still on the White House? Are the grounds intact? Does brick still stand on brick? More importantly, is the President still alive after broaching so naughty a suggestion?”

“The President is still alive,” Orrin said shortly. “And again I have to commend the Senator on his cleverness. He positively scintillates this afternoon. I wonder if it will do his cause any good?”

“Let me ask the Senator, Mr. President,” Senator Richardson said calmly, “following his talk with the President is he still one hundred per cent, absolutely, irrevocably, and forever opposed to this nominee?”

And at this, dismaying his friends and sending a sudden stir of interest through the Senate, the senior Senator from Illinois hesitated. It was not a very long hesitation, perhaps three seconds, but it was long enough to give Arly Richardson his advantage.

“I see the Senator pause, Mr. President,” he said softly. “Are we to take it, then, that the Senator is modifying his views in the wake of his talk with the President?”

“I didn’t say that,” Orrin objected rather lamely.

“No, Mr. President,” Senator Richardson said. “The Senator did not have to say it. His hesitation said it for him. And now, Mr. President,” he said, dropping it abruptly with bland skill and going smoothly on, “let us examine this famous episode of the witness Gelman, the cell in Chicago, and the duplicity of the nominee. What does this interesting tale really mean, and how much weight should we attach to it? It seems to me, Mr. President—” And he was off, while Senator Knox sat slowly back in his seat and Lafe and Seab exchanged a puzzled glance and across the room a little buzz of whispers and talk began to drift.

And that was what you got, he thought bitterly, for agreeing to talk to that seducer in the White House. You couldn’t come near him without being corrupted by his cleverness, without having your own will and determination sapped in some subtle degree, without yielding at least a little to what he wanted. Now they all thought, he knew, that he was beginning to give in. He could see Paul Hendershot of Indiana buzzing like an old woman with Walter Turnbull of Louisiana; Ed Parrish of Nevada, Porter Owens of Montana, and Shelton Monroe of Virginia were in an excited huddle casting glances his way, and above in the press gallery he could see the hurried little conferrings, the brisk scurrying up the steps to send stories, the rumors, and the speculation flowing like a visible tide. Damn him, damn him, he thought just before honesty reasserted itself, for doing this to me.

But then honesty returned and he told himself with a wry anger that of course it was his own damned fault for even hesitating when Arly challenged him. That was where the fault lay, not with the President who in his customary fashion had simply dangled temptation and left it to the tempted to make the decision whether or not to accept it. He should have fired back something tart and pointed and firm to his friend from Arkansas, and the seeping doubt about his intentions that now pervaded the atmosphere of the chamber would not have developed. And yet if he had done that—not that he intended in the slightest to yield to the President’s persuasions, but supposing he did—if he had done that, it might have foreclosed too abruptly and finally the possibility that he might—that he might—

That he might what? Give in to him? Take his evil offer? Did he really intend to do that? And if he was so sure he did not then why had he hesitated? Why had he not made the quick reply that would have been characteristic? Why had he not acted like Orrin Knox? Why had he betrayed himself?

Well, he knew why; because he wanted to be President, and this was the surest way to do it, as sure as anything in life and politics could be. The President had been entirely correct in his analysis of his own position; he was still the strongest man in the party and the country, he was indeed in a position to dictate the next candidate; and the party was in good shape, the candidacy would be no futile project or empty honor, they were good for another four to eight years before the tide turned again.

Accepting this bargain, the handwritten voucher he held in his pocket, a piece of paper before which even his most determined enemies would bow, would put him in the White House; of that he was as sure as the President was. And that was why Orrin Knox had not acted like Orrin Knox, if truth were known; because there came a point, even with him, at which the imperatives of ambition gained triumph over the dictates of conscience, no matter how strong that conscience might be.

Or did they? Did they really? He looked again about the room where many people were looking at him, and he thought for a moment of what Orrin Knox had been and what Orrin Knox was supposed to be; and there came to him with a fearful clarity the question: Is it really worth it? Is it worth it to give up the image of Orrin Knox, ambitious but no trimmer, for the image of Orrin Knox, ambitious and a trimmer? Is even the White House worth that kind of bargain?

For several more minutes he thought about this, staring down at the papers on his desk, no longer listening to Arly, no longer conscious of the staring eyes, the whispering tongues, the speculation flickering over the surface of the Senate. He was still thinking about it when a page placed under his eyes a card bearing the name of the National Chairman and the scrawled message, “Orrin: Can I see you? Urgent.”

He realized then that this time the President wasn’t going to let temptation do its own work but was going to help it along as much as he could; and since this made his own decision even harder, for it indicated that this was not an empty gesture but something his opponent sincerely intended to go through with, he sighed heavily and nodded at the boy.

“I’ll be out,” he said.

In the big reception room off the back lobby near the Vice President’s office he worked his way through the crowd of constituents, government officials, and other visitors who wait for Senators each day and walked toward the National Chairman, who had thoughtfully appropriated two isolated chairs in a corner by the window.

“Jim,” he said directly, “what’s on your mind?” The National Chairman smiled with an expansive joviality.

“I just had an invitation to convey to you, Orrin,” he said, “and I thought I’d be formal about it and deliver it in person.”

“Well, that’s nice,” Senator Knox said, “I appreciate that. I hope it lives up to its build-up.”

The National Chairman laughed heartily.

“Old prickly Orrin,” he said affectionately. Then he sobered a little and added thoughtfully, as though he were seeing it on a campaign poster in mind’s eye, “Honest Orrin.”

“Okay,” Senator Knox said with an impatience he managed to keep good-natured, “stop being coy and let’s have it.”

The National Chairman grinned and slapped him familiarly on the knee, a gesture he managed to sustain without flinching. A long past of knee slaps, back claps, easy jokes, and loud-mouthed, facile laughter stretched back down the years for the National Chairman. He had never, you might say, known anything else.

“Well, Orrin,” he said, “the situation is this. We’re having a two-day meeting here next week, as you know, and we were all set to have the President give us a speech at our final banquet and wind it up with a bang. But he just called me a little while ago and said he didn’t think he’d be able to make it. He’s going to Key West on Sunday, he said, and so he suggested we get a substitute. In fact,” the National Chairman said in a rather puzzled voice, “he suggested you.”