Capable of Honor (72 page)

“But how extraordinary!” exclaimed Frankly Unctuous, and for once his face showed genuine emotion, in this case a guarded dismay. “Such a step has never been taken in a national convention to my knowledge, Walter. Has it, to yours?”

“It has not,” Walter said. “But,” he added, managing in spite of his surprise to preserve his omniscience with a little smile, “our knowledge does not, after all, encompass all the national conventions that have ever been held. I cannot remember a precedent for it offhand, but there may be one. Certainly there is nothing to prevent a convention from working its will in any way it pleases, if it has the votes.”

“Will it have, do you think?” Frankly asked, still obviously concerned. “I had thought the Jason forces were counting on one more test of strength on this issue to show their candidate’s commanding position before going into the presidential balloting.”

“They may have been earlier,” Walter said, thinking with distaste that he must tell Frankly not to be so gauche in the display of his feelings, “but obviously the strategy has changed. Mrs. Stryke surely would not be speaking for the California delegation if it had not.”

“But if Governor Jason has the votes—” Frankly suggested.

“We must assume he and his advisers know what they are doing,” Walter said sternly, thinking, For God’s sake, man, shut up. Apparently they
aren’t
sure, apparently they don’t want to risk losing any votes by a premature test. Shut
up.
“I think,” he added, turning firmly away from the camera and looking down pointedly at the floor, “that we had best see what develops next.”

“Indeed we must,” Frankly said, recovering his professional poise though still looking somewhat puzzled. “Today promises to be lively, too.”

For a little while, however, as the Speaker sternly gaveled down the noises of protest that continued to rise from the Jason rank-and-file who obviously hadn’t been informed by their second level of the change of plans (because the second level hadn’t been informed, either), things remained relatively calm. The Speaker put the question in a level, commanding tone that said, Woe betide any who challenges. None did.

Baffled but perforce compliant, the Jason forces went along; Lafe’s motion passed on a roaring voice vote and the Speaker said gravely,

“We come now to the high and important matter of the nomination of a candidate for President. I do hope the delegates will be in order and pay attention. This is serious business now. Please let us handle it seriously.”

And so he would, the man who sat unnoticed far back along the podium said grimly to himself; so he would. But it was a tired grimness, rather than a defiant one, for now all the assumptions of a lifetime were being called into question, and as surely as though he could see himself picked up by a giant hand from the road he was traveling, to be set down upon another, he knew his life’s course was about to change forever.

Now all the friends and sycophants who had fawned upon him so lovingly over the years; the staunch supporters in Walter’s world who had stood with him throughout his career in a solid phalanx of adoration and approval that had formed a shield against public criticism even in his darkest moments; the thousands in the academic world, the professors who had so often cited him with warm approval as an example of the perfect public servant, the students who had secretly or openly made him their ideal; all that heterogeneous mass of uneasy and sometimes startling bedfellows who huddled together under the term “liberal,” some truly so and some among the most rigid and reactionary, in their complete intolerance, that he had ever known; all those overseas in many lands who admired him as a symbol of what they considered best in the American system—now they all would turn upon him, he knew, with the frantic, hysterical savagery of the tyrannical betrayed.

In their despotic kingdom there was no place for the genuinely humble doubt, the sincerely troubled uncertainty, the honestly changing mind. Everything, with them, was absolute, dogmatic, unchanging, and eternal. Any who were honest enough to question their gods were automatically and ruthlessly damned. And when one of their gods himself betrayed their desperately guarded shibboleths—well, he knew well enough what the result would be.

Within ten minutes after he began to speak—on the air, in print, everywhere—the tone would instantly change. He could hear them right now, he knew what they would say, Walter Dobius and Frankly Unctuous and all the rest.

He had roughly fifteen minutes left of being their hero, and he knew it as surely as he knew his own name. Thereafter and forever he would be one of their most bitterly despised examples of apostate, one of their prime hates and principal targets.

But—so be it. He had done a great deal of thinking in the past twenty-four hours, and at some point, he could not say exactly what late hour or early moment, he had come to terms with himself and with what he must do. He knew that in what he was committed to now he was being more of a witness for the truth and more a man of principle and honor than he had ever been in all the years when he was so unanimously hailed as such by those whose concept of principle and honor came down in the last analysis to: “You close your mind and agree with us and we will call you Hero: dare to have an independent skepticism of your own and we will scream you Villain.”

He took a deep breath to try to still the uneasy trembling in his chest and stomach, rifled once more hastily through the pages of his brief speech to see that they were in order; heard somewhere in some far-off place the voice of the Speaker saying, “The Secretary will call the roll of the states for the nomination of candidates for President”; heard Anna Hooper Bigelow’s strident voice cry, “A—la—bama!”; heard Alabama’s hog-jowl and molasses accents say, “Mistuh Chehmun, Ahlahbahmah yiel’s to
New
Yo-uk”; heard the excited burst of sound begin from floor and galleries, heard it rise to a frenzy of astonishment and anticipation as he rose and walked forward along the long ramp to the podium; found himself at last at the lectern as a sudden deep hush fell upon the hall; and heard himself, in a last split second of wonderment, begin the destruction of a lifetime’s easy riding on the adulation of the automatic thinkers who would now, automatically, turn and rend him.

“Walter,” Frankly Unctuous was saying in the booth above in a voice his training could not keep steady, so great was his pleased excitement, “this would seem to indicate that it really is all in the bag for Governor Jason, wouldn’t you say? With New York taking the lead, and his own man making the nomination, it would seem that it is now all over but the—”

But Walter Dobius, with the inner instinct and intuition that had served him well in covering many a story over the years, snapped, “Be quiet and let us listen!” in so harsh and disturbed a tone that Frankly gave him a startled look and, astounded, obeyed.

For several moments after the Speaker introduced him, Robert A. Leffingwell looked out expressionless upon the shifting, squirming, restless mass before him. Its newly refurbished flags and standards waved proudly, it’s balloons and festoons danced with a gay and confident air, its bunting and confetti were bright; but it was, he knew, an army uncertain upon a battleground unclear. It was in a mood to be stampeded and he knew now without any hesitation that he genuinely desired it to be stampeded in the direction he wished to send it.

He also thought he knew how to do it. He took one more deep breath and abruptly his trembling ceased. A calm, cold certainty took possession of him.

He took his prepared text from the top of the lectern, placed it carefully on the shelf beneath, leaned forward, and began to speak extemporaneously in a level, emphatic voice.

“Mr. Chairman,” he said, and his amplified voice rang out heavily in the listening silence, “on behalf of forty-three members of the New York delegation, and on my own behalf, I am here to place in nomination for
re
-election to the office of President of the United States—”

“My
God!”
cried Frankly Unctuous.

“Keep
quiet!”
snapped Walter Dobius. “Keep
quiet!”

“—the name of the Honorable Harley M. Hudson of the State of Michigan.”

And the world exploded.

“One of the most intriguing things about this, of course,” Frankly said to Walter fifteen minutes later as they watched the demonstration that banged and blared and roared around the hall and showed no signs of abating despite the Speaker’s halfhearted attempts to gavel it to order, “is the strange apostasy of Robert A. Leffingwell, who only yesterday was campaign manager for Governor Jason and was known throughout the world as one of the great leaders of American liberal thought. It seems incredible that he should now be found supporting the candidate who represents policies that the world has long believed to be absolutely counter to Mr. Leffingwell’s own. But apparently.” and his voice became grave, his face saddened, “even Robert A. Leffingwell has his price—and someone, apparently, has paid it. Of course”—and his tone turned harsher, his face was stern——“it is perhaps not surprising, considering the way in which he lied to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about his youthful Communist associations, a year ago when he was under consideration for the office of Secretary of State.

“Possibly that was the tip-off, would you say, Walter, to some fateful flaw of character which now is being shown to the public again? Some inner weakness which raises serious question as to just how valid and honorable his liberalism has really been all these years?”

“I would not know,” Walter said coldly, “what compulsions drive an individual of Robert Leffingwell’s type. All I know is that for one who has supped long at liberalism’s table to turn now upon liberalism’s candidate is to furnish the country with an example of ingratitude and lack of integrity that are surprising, to say the least.

“As to the price, I suppose it was very simple: the President picked him out of the discard after the Senate refused to confirm him as Secretary of State, and gave him a soft, high-paying government job. Now the President has cashed his I.O.U. and demanded Mr. Leffingwell’s support. It is that simple.”

“And Mr. Leffingwell obviously has been too weak to refuse so crass a proposition,” Frankly suggested.

“Like perhaps has called to like,” said Walter in the voice of judgment.

“Although one must admit,” Frankly said, and there was now some inkling of genuine uncertainty in his calm, plum-pudding tones, “that the support Mr. Leffingwell carries with him from the New York delegation is quite impressive. Forty-three members of that giant group going for President Hudson, it must be admitted, is a disturbing factor for Governor Jason to consider.”

Walter gave him a blank look as if to say, You must be mad.

“I still see no real indication that he need be seriously concerned.”

But this was not the way the convention saw it, nor the way it appeared in the minds of the watching millions in the nation and around the world. For the first time in three days there was a subtle but definite pause in the onrushing Jason bandwagon, and along with it some sudden doubt as to just how accurately the famous analyzers of column, headline, airwave, and little screen had really understood what was going on in San Francisco. Charitably, as always, many good-hearted souls assumed that the error had been one of perception, not one of a suddenly faltering attempt to create and manage events; but others, more sophisticated, could not restrain a savage satisfaction at this first crack in the hitherto implacable and unchallengeable front of Walter and his world. With it went a redoubled urgency in their efforts for Harley Hudson, an answering anxiety in the drive for Edward Jason.

In his own person, and in one fateful sentence, Bob Leffingwell had changed not only his own life but the convention. He obviously did not intend to lose his advantage as the demonstration finally ended with a few last shouts and banner-wavings and blurts from the band. He resumed in a level, hammering voice:

“What I have to say in support of this nomination I can, and will, say in a few sentences. All the arguments for and against this candidacy have been amply aired in the past two days.

“Harley M. Hudson is President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States at a time of active warfare and grave peril for the nation and the freedom of the world.

“He has conducted his office honorably, fearlessly, and well from the day he was called, with tragic suddenness, to assume it.

“At Geneva he defied the Communist ultimatum and saved the world from conquest and destruction.

“In Gorotoland and Panama he took the only action consistent with safety and honor.

“His personal decency and integrity cannot be denied by anyone. His official courage and steady wisdom are known to the world. He has not been belligerent: he has simply been firm. He has, I believe, saved civilization so far, and will continue to save it when he is returned to office, as I believe he will be in November.

“To repudiate him now would be to repudiate the entire foreign policy and course of the United States of America. It would put this convention on record before the world as saying that it does not support a strong foreign policy, but a weak one; that it does not support an honest man, but a devious one.

“Yes!” he said, and his voice rose sharply to meet the angry Jason outcry from floor and galleries that greeted that remark. “A devious one, who has condoned violence, played fast and loose with principle, and whose advocacy of a so-called ‘flexible’ foreign policy is, in my estimation, the advocacy of a delayed but inevitable defeat, for this country, for her allies, and for everything that good and decent men hold dear.

“I grant you,” he said, when the indignant shouts died down, “that he may not consciously know this. But I think it would be the result of his policies nonetheless.

“Some men find honor less difficult to abandon than others. From my observation of him, I believe that he is such a one.

“So I give you an honorable man—a consistent man—a straightforward man—a fearless man—a decent man.