Authors: Irving Wallace
All of this pride and pleasure he owed to the patronage and friendship of T. C., whom he had revered as a friend and respected as a leader. Twenty-four hours ago their future had seemed glowing. There were years of their joint rule ahead of them—the remainder of this term, and the almost certain second term. Twenty-four hours ago Eaton’s resurrection as an individual, a very important person, had been secure. And then, shockingly, with the crumbling of that ancient Palace in Frankfurt, his high hopes and good prospects had crumbled, too. And so he knew that his mourning was not only for the loss of his friend, but for the loss of something of himself.
Throughout the endless tragic night in Georgetown, following the swearing in of Dilman as President, he had received and listened to or overheard the members of T. C.’s bereft team and the leaders of the Party. Most of the chatter had been about how to preserve the unity of the Party, now that a Negro was its head. There had been a little talk, he remembered, about preserving the unity of the nation as well. Too, there had been talk, mostly in Southern accents, about challenging the constitutionality of the 1947 Act of Succession, and there had been talk, in harder accents, about reviving some aspect of the old 1867 Tenure of Office Act, which had once enabled the Senate to try to restrict a President from removing officers appointed to his Cabinet. In short, Eaton remembered, the concern had not been about Dilman’s ability to handle the office, and how he must best be guided, but rather about how to balk him or, failing in that, to control him, pluck his powers, so that the nation would not be tainted black and so that those present might not lose their jobs to colored men and to bleeding-heart Negro-lovers.
Through the night, Arthur Eaton had not permitted himself to be drawn into these discussions. His foresight had suffered from emotional cataracts. He had thought only of the immediate consequences of the fateful night, of the condition of the country and himself now, in the present, without T. C. as mentor. When his living room bar and then his library had emptied, and he had sought sleep, he had still not fastened on the full realization that even though another, by default, had become President, this other must be made to understand that it was still T. C.’s country and T. C.’s government and that any successor was there merely as a custodian of T. C.’s ideas and ideals, which Eaton himself might continue to spell out and present.
Not until now, in the Fish Room of the White House—a room, like the Oval Office, restored by T. C. to the decor of the Kennedy administration—had Eaton, after listening to Talley on the telephone, after reviewing all that he had reviewed in his head, finally settled on the idea of what must be done. He had a role, after all, and perhaps now it was more important than it had been before. He must ignore every one of those harebrained schemes about blocking Dilman from the Oval Office, or obstructing the lamentable Negro. He must devote himself, Eaton decided, to keeping T. C. as alive as he had ever been. Only thus could their United States be saved, and, parenthetically, only thus could Arthur Eaton have a continuing, meaningful life.
He sat straight on the sofa, saw that Wayne Talley was standing at the desk near the door, making notes on a sheet that lay beside the quaint early typewriter once used by Woodrow Wilson.
“What are you up to, Wayne?” he inquired.
“Dilman’s on his way in. He’s an absolute amateur. I’m not saying he’s stupid—hell, he’s been around the Hill long enough. But he’s ignorant of what really goes on, and of things that have to be done. It kills me when I think of it. The Majority Party senators caucus every time there’s a new Congress in the Conference Room of the Senate Office Building to select a temporary presiding officer to sit up there with the gavel and pound it. The idea is to select one of their own as a substitute or alternate for the Vice-President when he’s out of town. Nine times out of ten, they cast their caucus vote for the member among them who has seniority. There’s no rule about it, but it’s a kind of gesture of courtesy, a custom, to select the senator who’s had the most years of service. That’s why Rydberg had the spot so long. ‘Papa Methuselah’ they called him. Then his doctors make him quit, so the Senate needs a replacement, what with Porter traveling all the time. They’ve got to caucus again. So what happens this time? All those riots, the bloodshed, in Detroit, Chicago, Memphis, Dallas, all of it from Negroes, with those protest marches and boycotts worsening—so a couple of smart guys get the big political brainstorm, let’s give the honorary presiding post to a Negro, a democratic gesture, and shut up those demonstrators, prove to them we mean well. So Senator Selander, the senior member, who normally would have become President pro tempore, seconds the suggestion. That makes it okay. So Selander steps out of the caucus, phones me, and tells me to pass it on to T. C. to find out if he approves. Well, T. C. was so damn busy that day he didn’t give a hoot who held that unimportant President pro tempore of the Senate job, so he said okay, maybe it’ll look good for the Party, let them do what they think best. So the Party caucus elects Douglass Dilman, and puts the resolution naming him to the whole Senate. Then, a routine thing, the opposition offers an amendment putting forth their own candidate, Senator Riggins, and a roll call is held and the opposition amendment voted down. Then the original resolution on behalf of Dilman is put to a voice vote, and the ayes have it, and Dilman has that idiotic do-nothing post. Who in the hell would know that the Vice-President would drop dead soon after that? Who in the hell would imagine that the fourth in line of succession could ever become President of the United States? In fact, who in the hell, on that day they routinely caucused and voted, even knew that the President pro tempore of the Senate was the fourth in line? I always thought it was the Secretary of State. I thought it was you, Arthur, not that it mattered a damn at the time. So for political and publicity reasons we put that poor Party hack in there, and we had our showcase colored man up there for all to see, a man with no qualifications for leadership whatsoever—”
“How do you know that?” asked Eaton quietly.
“Douglass Dilman’s been in the House four terms, in the Senate two terms, and what has he ever done or instigated?” said Talley heatedly. “He was sent to Washington because of the temper of the times, and given an honorary gavel in the Senate because of the times, and then a once-in-a-thousand accident happens, and blooey, we’re stuck with a tenth-rater whose presence means potential trouble, and plenty of it.” He lifted his hands to the ceiling. “The fourth in line becoming President—I repeat, Arthur, who could’ve imagined it?”
“It was always a possibility,” said Eaton. “I was reading this morning that what happened now might very well have happened during the last six weeks of 1961. At that time Speaker Rayburn was dead, and not replaced, and had President Kennedy been assassinated then, and Vice-President Johnson with him, we would have had the fourth in line, President pro tempore of the Senate Hayden, as President of the United States.”
“But this Dilman, anyone would have been better than Dilman.”
“Well, if he doesn’t work out,” said Eaton, “you and your senator friends have only yourselves to blame. As an expediency, you played politics instead of exercising judgment, and you did it once too often.”
“Arthur, don’t lecture me from hindsight. We always play politics. That’s our business. Politics—why, that’s not necessarily a dirty word. It implies bargaining, giving and taking, it means tuning in on the times, doing things people want even when you’re not sure it’s best for them. More often than not, politics produces good results. And usually, when we play politics, we guess right, and what happens is right not only for us here but for most of the people out there. This time, this once, though—” He shook his head sadly. “Well, like I said, we were dealing with a minor decision, and we dusted it off to placate a pressure group. Who in the hell knew that it would lead to this?”
“Yet it has led to this,” said Eaton. “I suggest that we forget the past, and consider what is to be done in the present. This is the time to be realistic, to make the best of a—a difficult situation.” He paused and considered Talley. “I believe T. C. would have wanted that.”
Talley’s cross-eye jumped, and he swallowed, as ever cowed by the mention of T. C.’s name. “Yes, I guess you’re right,” he said. He came away from the desk, rattling the sheet of paper in his hand. “Well, you can see that I, personally, am trying to make the best of it. I’m trying to get up a reasonable list of the first duties Dilman must discharge. God knows how well he’ll be able to manage them.”
“Wayne, certainly he will expect expert counsel and guidance,” said Eaton softly. “Long ago the office became too big for one man. After all, what are the demands on the President today? He is Chief Executive, overseeing the execution of our laws, exercising important powers of appointment and removal. He is chief of state, national host to an endless stream of native and foreign visitors. He is Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy and Marines and Air Force, with the Pentagon dangling from his civilian lapel. He is arbiter of both Houses on Capitol Hill, able to influence Congressional activity, able to nullify its accomplishments by veto. He is Ambassador to the world, making deals with international leaders, ironing out treaties, selecting foreign diplomat puppets, using my own Department of State as little more than a computer. And that, Wayne, is but the start of it, for any President. Consider his lesser jobs—he runs his political party, he molds public opinion, he sees that his voice is heard in the United Nations, he acts as a superpoliceman in areas ranging from strikes to race riots to big-business monopoly.”
Arthur Eaton saw that Talley was becoming impatient, and he smiled. “Forgive a résumé of what you are already too well acquainted with, but this is a morning in which to remember the facts of a President’s life. What lone man, in our complex age, can perform as so many men at one and the same time? There’s enough here to give Hercules a nervous breakdown. Every modern President knows that. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson knew that, and delegated power to specialists. The only one who tried to go it alone was The Judge, and that lasted about one year, and his cranky ego put him in such a hole that it took several hundred experts to dig him out. Why, T. C. once told me our method of electing and depending on one President was as outmoded as the horse-and-buggy, that what this country needed today was the election of a board of Presidents, at least five serving at once. Since he could not have that, T. C. did the next-best thing. He took on you, Wayne, after you lost your election, and myself, and a half-dozen others of the Party as assistant Presidents, and it worked nicely, very nicely.”
Talley sniffed. “Great, Arthur, I know that. You know that. Maybe every schoolboy knows that. But does our new Mr. President know that?”
“He may. If he does not understand delegation of power, I think he will come to understand it within a week.”
“I wish I could be as sure of that as you, Arthur. We’re not dealing with an ordinary man. We’re dealing with a colored man, the product of a race that’s been pushed around for a century or more, and is used to being told what to do, and resents it. You give someone like that power, the power to do the pushing, and he may not want to let go of one inch of it. He can ruin us.”
Eaton was briefly preoccupied. At last he looked up. “You may be right. On the other hand, it is quite possible that his color, the history of his racial background, can work to our benefit. Based on what I know of his performance on Capitol Hill, he is a timid and uncertain man, a good listener, orthodox and agreeable in every way. Last night I asked Senator Selander to read me Dilman’s voting record for this last session. He went along with T. C. and the Party on every piece of major legislation. I think that augurs well for all of us.”
“Arthur, he wasn’t President of the United States then.”
“No, but now that he is, he may be more frightened and eager for our help than ever before. At least, I choose to think so. I cannot fire up enthusiasm for those extremist challenges and measures being proposed to void Dilman’s Presidency or to hamper him if he legally remains our President. I see no reason to antagonize him, where there is no shred of evidence that he will be uncooperative. I believe we must make him see matters as T. C. saw them and would have acted upon them in the future. If we succeed, it’ll be a certainty that we will survive the rest of the term unscathed. And I think the time to begin our guidance is right now, from this moment onward.” He pointed to the sheet of paper in Talley’s hand. “Tell me what is on Dilman’s agenda.”
Still troubled, Talley sat on the edge of the sofa, and consulted the scribblings on the sheet of paper he held before him. “Let me see—umm—he signed the proclamation for T. C.’s funeral and the period of national mourning last night, didn’t he? Yes, I remember. Well, now, he’ll have to go over and meet the funeral plane tomorrow.”
“I wish Grover Illingsworth would take care of that,” said Eaton. Then he added, “Anyway, let him make arrangements for the procession, the services in the White House, and the funeral itself. He’s the best Chief of Protocol we’ve ever had, but he’s even better at—at delicate affairs like this. I’ve already packed him off in T. C.’s jet to bring Hesper back from Arizona.”
Talley brought his head up sharply. “What about Hesper? Should Dilman see her?”
Eaton did not reply at once. He thought of Hesper, T. C.’s gracious wife, now a widow, with one fatherless son, isolated in the summer home in Phoenix. He had already spoken to her. She was taking it courageously, as might be expected of a woman of her background. Like his own Kay, she was Social Register and independently wealthy, but unlike his own Kay, she was well-balanced and friendly. Passionately devoted to her child, her numerous charities, she would survive her loss well. “I don’t know, Wayne,” Eaton said. “Perhaps Dilman should pay his respects to the First Lady, but I think it would be uncomfortable for both of them. We have a day or two. Let me think about it.” He waved his hand at Talley’s notes. “Let’s go on.”