Capable of Honor (9 page)

Again, it seemed to him that a sizable portion of the society he had to deal with should grow up. He could not afford to be patient much longer with children who played so irresponsibly with the heritage of freedom they had been given.

Well: soon, at any rate, he might be able to lay down this burden and let someone else worry about it. If, that is, he could be sure that the hands into which it passed were suitably strong and suitably equipped, by experience and belief, to carry it.

And right here, he realized with a wry little smile as he looked about the private office where he had already faced so many crises and which had already become so familiar to him in the short space of a year, he was entering the realm of the Rationale of Presidents.

“Let’s face it,” he said aloud with a humorous air to the silent room, “nobody can handle this job better than I. I don’t
want
anybody to handle this job better than I. I don’t want anybody to handle this job
but
me. Period. Exclamation point. And twenty-five little stars and asterisks.”

That was the truth of it when you came right down to it, just as the First Lady knew, with her feminine logic that was so disinterested in the rationalizations of mere men. If he permitted himself to entertain the thought just a little longer, just a very little longer, he would run again because he had convinced himself that no one else was capable and he simply had to run again. It was as simple as that.

But I can’t do it, part of his mind objected, because I gave my word. But, another part objected, your word to preserve and protect the country that you swore when you took office is more important than any word you gave anyone else. And anyway, it added, how could Orrin or Ted or anybody do the job as well as you can with all your experience?

One year’s experience, the first part said scornfully.

But more than any other living soul has, the other part rejoined.

Very well, then, the first part said, what do we have to face now? We have Felix Labaiya hurrying home to Panama, which he thinks we don’t know—but the White House has unexpected ways of knowing things, and we do. And what does that mean? Certainly nothing pleasant for the United States, if Felix’s past performances are any indication.…

And we have Gorotoland, where Terrible Terry’s cousin is raising hell aided by the Russian and Chinese Communists, and where American missionaries at the All-Faiths Hospital near the capital of Molobangwe, and the new Standard Oil installation up-country, may both be seriously threatened at any moment.

And we have our formal warning, issued by me a week ago to Terry’s cousin, His Royal Highness Obifumatta Ajkaje (“Prince Obi” in Walter’s fatherly columns and the world’s headlines), telling him that his trumped-up “People’s Free Republic of Gorotoland” had better stay clear of American nationals and American property—and we have, as a result of that, fifty wild speeches in the General Assembly, a thousand condemnatory blasts from Walter and his world, and tomorrow’s Security Council meeting to consider “American imperialist aggression.…”

And we have the problem of maintaining the American installation on the moon which was established a year ago in the midst of the turmoil over Bob Leffingwell’s nomination to be Secretary of State. And the question of whether Clete O’Donnell and his “One Big Union,” which controls much of the work at the Cape, are going to permit a needed refueling and crew-replacement ship to go, or whether they are going to strike and hold up the government for some political purpose, which is how Clete likes to use his power.…

And the latest screaming by Indonesia at Australia in their running feud, a feud increasingly serious now that Djakarta has renewed its alliance with Peking.…

And the strong likelihood of a British election soon, which could mean new problems there.…

And such intriguing domestic mysteries as who will line up with whom, what coalitions will be formed, what concentrations of power be created or disbanded, in the shifting, whirling, clashing fandango of the coming campaign.…

And so, forever and always, inevitably and inescapably until it is settled, back to the question of who will sit in this house.

For a patient man, he told himself with a wry little smile, he certainly seemed to be impatient about a lot of things. But then, there were a lot of things to be impatient about. The ubiquitous buzzer sounded again. Lifting the phone, he was informed that one of the principal ones was on the way up in the elevator. He frowned for a moment, but when the Secretary of State entered he found the President propped back in his chair with his hands folded comfortably upon his ample stomach, regarding him with a kindly, welcoming smile.

The Secretary’s reaction, as Scab Cooley had once described it in the midst of one of their many legislative battles in the Senate, was Orrinesque.

“I must say that’s a happy picture,” he remarked with a certain amicable asperity. “How do you manage it?”

“By having a clear conscience and always doing right,” the President responded. “Don’t you think I always do right? Some people don’t think so, but I do.”

“Mmmhmm,” Orrin Knox said, dropping with accustomed ease into one of the big leather armchairs, draping a leg over one arm, facing his superior with a quizzical air, “I don’t think Walter Dobius thinks so.”

“Oh, good heavens,” the President said. “Haven’t we got better things to worry about tonight than Walter?” He sighed in mock concern. “But no, obviously you haven’t. But don’t let him get you down, Orrin. He’s just a columnist.”

“Yes,” the Secretary of State said dryly. “He’s going to try to take your convention right away from you in that speech Friday night unless you stop him.”

The President shook his head.

“Oh, come. You build him up too much. That’s how he’s achieved the position he has—just by claiming it and persuading otherwise level-headed people to go along with it.”

“There’s more to him than that,” Orrin Knox said. “And they are persuaded. That’s the problem.”

The President turned away for a moment to stare again, as Presidents are wont to do, at the Washington Monument—tribute to unassailable, unknowable, indispensable George, long since passed into legend, having served his time with honor and gone to glory undiminished, freed from all those torments his successors have to face.

“Yes,” he agreed thoughtfully, turning back, “that is a problem. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Make your own position clear,” the Secretary said bluntly. “Either come in or get out.”

For just a second the President started to look offended and then, remembering who he was talking to, looked amused instead.

“If I want straight talk and firm advice I don’t have to read Walter, do I? I just have to have a chat with my Secretary of State.… What would be the advantage in that?”

Orrin gave him a shrewd look and let him have it.

“You could resolve the whole thing once and for all. If you’re going to run, I’ll stop fretting and settle for a plaque on the cornerstone of that latest annex-to-the-annex-to-the-annex-to-the-Annex that my busy planners at the State Department want us to build. If you aren’t, then I’ll get moving instead of sitting around half-paralyzed waiting for you. As it is, I’m respectful enough to sit still but my opponent isn’t. As witness this business with Walter.”

“You’re respectful, all right,” the President said with a chuckle, “but only because you’re not sure of what I would do if you barged ahead without my permission. Right?”

The Secretary of State gave him a cheerful grin.

“Oh, that’s part of it. But not all—not all. Really, Harl—Mr. President—why do you do this to us? Do you like to see us squirm?”

The President’s expression sobered.

“No, I don’t like to see you squirm. At this moment, I honestly do not know what to do.”

“Well, if you don’t know,” Orrin said, “then that means you’re going to run. You didn’t have any doubts a year ago. Now you have doubts. Having doubts, you will resolve them in your favor. Presidents usually do, when the Constitution gives them a chance. Good Lord, you’ve only served a year in this office. You’re permitted to stay another eight. Who would want to give it up?”

The President smiled.

“There speaks a man who has never had it. The imagination runs rampant when it comes to this job. The power—the glory”—he began in a grandiloquent tone which changed to one of wry irony as he went along—“the problems—the headaches—”

“The chance to do what
you
want to do for the country, in
your
way, with the outcome depending on how skillful
you
are at getting your countrymen to go along with it and with
you
having the satisfaction when it works out,” the Secretary finished for him. “Yes, it’s a burden, all right. And you all get to love it in spite of its problems. Let’s face it,” he suggested with a grin. “Power corrupts—and absolute power is absolutely delightful.”

The President laughed in spite of himself.

“Not so absolute. Our friends on the Hill don’t allow it to be absolute. The Supreme Court doesn’t allow it to be absolute. The country doesn’t allow it to be absolute. Walter,” he said with a wry expression, “doesn’t allow it to be absolute. A thousand and one things don’t allow it to be absolute.”

“Absolute enough to satisfy any sane ego for as long as life remains.”

“All right,” the President said, leaning forward and leaning his elbows on the desk, clasping his hands and resting his chin upon them, staring straight at the volatile, impatient, powerful old friend who sat across from him. “Let me tell you how absolute it is. You know how absolute you are in your own department, where any little clerk with the wrong slant on things can throw you off with a carefully phrased position paper. Let me tell you how it is here.

“You see this fancy phone and these fancy gadgets—that all add up to that ‘button’ everybody’s worried about for so many years? What do I have to go on, if I should decide to press it? Well, I have an estimate by you and the Secretary of Defense, let’s say, on what a given situation actually is. And on what do you base your assessment of its political realities, and he his assessment of its military aspects? In each case, on somebody lower down, who gives you what he receives —from somebody lower down. And underneath that, there’s—somebody lower down. And underneath that—and finally, there we are, back at your little clerk, who may or may not be loyal and reliable.”

He frowned.

“Who can possibly have all the facts in a world as complex as this? Our society believes that the President has, because for the sake of its own sanity it has to believe it. But I don’t know—no mortal man can know, of his own knowledge—all the facts on which a President acts. The thing is too big. I can’t tell you—
of my own knowledge
—that if I push that button, so many ICBM’s will blast off for Russia or China or Indonesia. All I know is that somebody below has told me so—and somebody in turn has told him—and he in turn has gotten it from somebody else. I haven’t gone to see for myself, I couldn’t possibly. I act in the faith that I have been given a true account. The country follows me because it believes I know. But I don’t know. What single individual could?”

For a long moment there was a silence in the historic room in the quiet old house that served as the focus for so many hopes and fears in so many strange and varied lands. The Secretary of State spoke very softly when he finally spoke.

“It’s terrifying, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” the President said grimly, “it is terrifying. Are you big enough to face it? That’s what I have to know, before I can do anything about this election.”

The Secretary of State made an impatient gesture.

“Is he?”

“Don’t talk about him,” the President said sternly. “I’ll get to him. Are you?”

Again there was a silence. The President was aware as he searched the strong and determined face before him that the last sounds of wind had gone, the storm was over. He and his Secretary of State seemed adrift in time without reference to anyone or anything, though of course in their companionate responsibilities they were in reference to everyone and everything that lived and existed on the globe. The President could see that the face before him was thoughtful, but he was not surprised that it was not afraid.

“I think I am big enough,” Orrin said slowly. He too stared with a distant contemplation at the Monument. “Of course—who can say for sure, until he’s tested? Could you have said so a year ago when you came down here from the Senate that afternoon to take the oath? Certainly”—and he smiled a little at the thought of that now far-off, frightening moment for them all—“certainly not too many of us on the Hill thought you could. Could you have said when you went to Geneva? Again, few of us were sure. But you did, didn’t you, Harley? You could. The time came, the demand was rendered—and you could. So, I think, could I.” He turned from the Monument and looked directly into the honest eyes across from him, eyes that held now a much greater wisdom, certitude, courage, and sadness than they had a year ago. “Do you doubt it?”

Again there was a silence as the President returned his look with a thoughtful stillness that came from many things he had learned and experienced about men and their characters and dreams in the past twelve months.

“I don’t doubt your courage, Orrin,” he said finally. “The public record is full of that for the past twenty years. It goes deeper than courage. It goes to—acceptance, I think you might call it—of what this job is, and what it does to you, and what it can do to the country and to all of humankind. You can talk about it. But can you do it?”

“How can anyone do it except you,” the Secretary demanded with a sudden exasperation, “if you won’t get out of the way and give anyone a chance? Ted and I can’t kick you out, you know. You’re here ’til you want to leave, that’s for sure.”

The President started to laugh and then stopped abruptly, with a curious note of unhappiness and questioning and, in some strange way, almost of self-distaste, in his voice.

“I don’t know whether I want to stay or leave, Orrin,” he said quietly, “and that’s the God’s truth.”