Preserve and Protect (59 page)

“In this,” he said with a sad irony, “she was overly optimistic.…

“Everything since has evidently stemmed from that meeting, including the formation of NAWAC—”

“NAWAC was my idea,” Ted Jason said coldly. “I conceived of it as an effective means of providing an outlet for emotionalism and tension.”

“Are you proud of it?” Senator Munson asked.

“I am not ashamed of it. Properly led and properly used—”

“Has it been?” the President interrupted. His expression became sardonic: “KILL THE PRESIDENT! KILL THE COMMITTEE! KILL THE PRESIDENT! KILL THE COMMITTEE!”

“There are a few unfortunate elements,” Ted conceded calmly. “But they can be controlled.”

“Do you think you did it?” Bob Leffingwell asked.

“All I know,” Ted replied with a rising anger, “is that after I was begged to do so by the Secretary of State—”

Orrin snorted.

“I didn’t beg. I believe my exact words were, ‘God damn it, get going!’”

“After you sought my aid,” Ted said, “because you didn’t dare go yourself, and I agree you shouldn’t have, it could have been fatal for you at that moment, I went down there this afternoon and brought that mob under control.”

“Aided by the armed forces of the United States,” the President said.

“But there’s the difference! Your troops brought them under control physically, but I brought them under control in the only way that has any lasting effect—mentally and emotionally. Isn’t that right? They looked to
me.
And I calmed them. And for that,” he said with a sudden bitterness, “I am brought here and subjected to this grateful inquisition. What kind of men are you?”

“What kind of man are you?” the Secretary asked. “That’s my worry. What’s your reaction to these notes? Do you feel anything about them? Shock? Horror? Dismay? A sense of abhorrence? A sense of satisfaction? Anything at all?”

Once more there was a silence, as once more their glances locked and held. Then the Governor passed a hand over his eyes, squeezed them, and shook his head as though to clear it of some deep oppressive miasma.

“Of course I feel something. I feel as though I were in a madhouse. You take the hysterical notes of an over-imaginative and wildly irresponsible reporter, and from them you fabricate a bugaboo that is apparently supposed to scare me to death. Well: it doesn’t. I don’t know whether what she has there is true or not, but even if it were true, I am not such a coward or such a disbeliever in the strength of my own country as to think that a drunken conference at the Hilton, even if it were attended by Lenin himself, is going to bring down the Republic. And I must say it throws a strange light on the gullibility and courage of the nominee for President that he should let himself be persuaded that it could.”

For a while the Secretary did not reply. Then he leaned forward, eyes again intent upon the Governor.

“You just don’t understand what we’re talking about at all, do you, Ted? You just don’t want to believe that such things can be, and so you aren’t going to let yourself believe. You’re going to remain skeptical if it kills you. I pray God,” he said softly, “that it does not.…”

His voice became quiet and uncompromising as they all watched him intently.

“Now, you listen to me, Ted, because I’m going to give you, now, the terms and conditions under which I shall permit you to become the nominee for Vice President of the United States on my ticket. They are these:

“Much as I want to win this election—much as I feel that I can bring my country and the world back to some sort of reasonable sanity if I do win it—I am not going to win it at the price of taking on the ticket a man who either honestly or willfully refuses to recognize the desperate dangers in the violent elements that support him. You can deride Helen-Anne, who isn’t here to defend herself, but things like that have happened, and in this case, did. There is an element of conspiracy in the country; it isn’t all just innocent, democratic, happy-as-a-lark, spontaneous protest; there are enemies of America who are trying to use it to bring America down. Good God, man, they’d be fools if they didn’t! And one thing they definitely aren’t, is fools.…

“I don’t think they’re going to succeed, in the long run. But I think their chances are a lot better if people like you, and some of your friends like Walter Dobius and that crowd, simply refuse to permit yourselves to acknowledge that the possibility does exist. This would be doubly dangerous if something happened to me and you succeeded to the Presidency, with that attitude.

“Therefore if you come on this ticket, Ted, I want from you tomorrow before the National Committee and before the world, a flat-out repudiation, with no equivocations whatsoever, of NAWAC, DEFY, COMFORT, KEEP and any and all other elements of organized violence in the country. I want you to repudiate violence itself,
and I want you to say it and mean it.
Ever since Harley’s death you have had repeated opportunities to do this, and you haven’t done it. Each time there have been qualifications and a lot of tricky words, until this afternoon, apparently feeling secure again, you virtually endorsed everything the violent have done.

“I’m not going to have it, Ted,” he concluded quietly. “I’m simply not going to have it. I’ll take Bob Munson or the President, here, on the ticket and we’ll go down to defeat together before I run and win with you, if you’re still equivocating on this subject. Either you cut those connections altogether or you don’t come along with me.

“You decide.”

And he sat back and continued to stare at the Governor, who this time, his face shadowed with a sort of weary anger, did not return the look but gazed instead out the window upon the monument to noble George, who had passed through a certain amount of violence himself before arriving at canonization. When he spoke it was not in a tone of anger, however, but in one of sober thoughtfulness that brought at least the beginnings of reassurance to his listeners.

“Of course I am not happy with what has happened to the country. Of course I don’t want that element running loose, particularly in my name. Of course I am as concerned as you are about the safety and stability of the Republic. What kind of man do you think I am, that you can contemplate, even for a moment, that I am not?

“But by the same token,” he said, and some of the reassurance began to ebb, “I cannot in all good conscience place myself on the side of those who refuse to allow honest democratic dissent its place in the United States of America. There may be conspiracies. There may be subversives. I agree with you, they would be fools if they didn’t try it, and they aren’t fools. But I cannot agree that the great majority are anything other than perfectly genuine, sincere, loyal, decent Americans who are simply deeply disturbed about what seems to be a drive toward war, and more wars, as a means of settling the world’s problems. You can’t, it seems to me, discredit that element, which I believe—and you probably believe too”—he looked now at Orrin, who nodded—“to be the overwhelming majority.

“Now the question arises, then—how severely can you restrict what may be the few genuinely subversive elements without hurting and undemocratically restraining the genuinely loyal and the sincerely disturbed? At that point we seem to part company, because your way seems to be troops and helicopters, and mine seems to be tolerance and reason.”

“How much can you tolerate?” Bob Leffingwell asked in a musing tone. “Where does reason have to take up arms against unreason?”

“Granted, it isn’t simple,” Ted agreed, while they watched him with the same close attention they had accorded Orrin, “but when were democracy’s choices ever simple? I had rather come down, myself, on the side of too much tolerance and too much reason, than on the side of too little.”

“Even if it genuinely jeopardizes the stability of the nation,” Senator Munson said.

“Who knows where that point comes?” Governor Jason asked. “Who can honestly say—‘at this moment’—or ‘right here’—democracy is being jeopardized?”

“I said ‘stability,’” Bob Munson reminded. Ted smiled pleasantly.

“I prefer ‘democracy.’”

The President shifted in his chair.

“I don’t,” he said bluntly, “Because right now, our problem’s stability. You can have stability without democracy but you can’t have democracy without stability.”

“I don’t think we can have too much democracy,” Governor Jason said quietly. “We can have too much stability.”

“And we can also, of course, as we all know perfectly well, have too much democracy,” Bob Munson said with an equal bluntness. “We can take liberty to the point of license, which is where you seem to be taking it. And then the country falls apart because there are no sanctions to hold it together.” He shrugged and gestured for Ted to continue. “But this isn’t a debate. Go ahead.”

The Governor nodded gravely.

“In case of doubt, as I say, I prefer to come down on the side of too much tolerance—reason—democracy, rather than too little. So the question then arises—what about DEFY? COMFORT? KEEP? All the organizations affiliated, at my suggestion, in NAWAC? What about violence, which seems at first glance to be the principal unifying feature of this amalgamation that seems to be favorable to me?

“In the first place, how responsible is a man for some of the support he gets? I know in California, and you each know in your states, that there are always free-loaders who climb on a bandwagon and come along, whether you want them or not, or whether you have anything in common with them or not. You can’t keep them away. So some of this I’m not responsible for, and can’t help. Most of it”—he raised a restraining hand as Senator Munson started to offer some skeptical comment, “I am.

“I’ll admit that I have welcomed the support of the responsible elements in these organizations, because I believe the responsible elements predominate. If there are other elements,” he said solemnly, “I don’t know about them, and that is the truth.”

“I know it is,” Orrin said. “That’s why I’m trying to enlighten you.”

“If they exist, of course I shall repudiate them. If there is proof of their subversion, I shall denounce them as vigorously and relentlessly as you. If it is impossible to accept their support without jeopardizing the country, of course I shall cut them off.”

“At what point will you admit the danger?” the Secretary inquired softly. “What sort of proof do you have to have?”

“Orrin,” Ted said, and something in his tone indicated that he was concluding their discussion, “would you give me a couple of hours to decide that? Would you give me a little while to think about it? After all, you’ve presented me with some rather startling information. And you’ve followed it with an ultimatum that may seem reasonable to you, but seems to me to go to the heart of my integrity as an American, as a democrat, and as a public servant.

“That takes a little time to digest. May I have it?”

Once again they exchanged stare for stare.

“How much?”

“Not very long. I’ll call you in an hour or two.”

“Call me at home,” the Secretary said. He frowned.

“I hope you aren’t going to consult with them. This is a matter for your conscience and mine, now.”

“No,” the Governor agreed. “I’m just going to Pat’s, and think. All right?”

“All right,” Orrin said, and once again they were all on their feet, good nights were said, the elevator arrived. Ted turned as he stepped in and bowed pleasantly. The door closed, he was gone.

“What do you make of that?” Bob Leffingwell asked.

“I don’t know,” Orrin said. “I honestly do not know. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“I’ve called you ‘Aunt Beth’ for so many years that I really still find it difficult to say ‘Mother Knox,’” Crystal confessed from the doorway with a smile; but it was a troubled smile, her mother-in-law could see, and so she patted the bed and said,

“‘Beth’ will do. Why don’t you come here and tell me what the trouble is? Is Hal very upset?”

“Yes,” Crystal said in a sad little voice, sitting down beside her. “He hates what his father’s going to do.”

Beth gave her a shrewd glance, closed her book, plumped the pillows and sat up attentively.

“Do you?”

Crystal shook her head slowly.

“I don’t know … I just don’t know. I suppose I’ve expected it for quite a while … ever since the convention, really.”

“So have I,” Beth said. “But I don’t think Orrin knew until this afternoon.”

“What made him decide?”

“Basically Ted’s popularity, I suppose. The overriding need to restore national unity. And the possibility that the best way to control the mob—”

“—is to put the chief mobster on the ticket,” Crystal said with a sudden flash of bitterness.

Beth smiled.

“That sounds like my son talking. The Knoxes have a gift for the slashing phrase.… Yes, perhaps so, though I don’t really think in fairness to Ted one can quite call him that. He wants all the benefits of the mob without accepting any of the responsibility for it. It’s a type that began to come into our politics a few years ago: always wealthy, always willing, always reaching out for anything, no matter how potentially or actually dangerous, that will get them where they want to go. I’m sure he actually believes he can control the mob and the violence. This afternoon must have made him certain of it.”

“I think,” Crystal said, her eyes shadowed with the memory of her own tragedy at the convention, “that he is a very dangerous man. I hope Orrin knows what he is doing.”

“I think he does.”

“Why do you think so?”

“I guess,” Beth said thoughtfully, “because I believe in my husband.”

“I do, too,” Crystal agreed. “Yours and mine. But I’m wondering if maybe thinking he can control the man—who thinks he can control the mob—isn’t equally unwise.”

“It may be,” Beth conceded quietly. “It may be. These gambles sometimes have to be taken in politics.”

“It’s a terrible risk just for the sake of winning.”

“Well,” Beth said, “suppose he doesn’t win, Crys, what then? The country will go along all right, I suppose, although the mobs will continue, and they’ll grow, and the violence will flourish and increase. And regardless of who sits in the White House—probably Warren Strickland and the other party—things will become steadily more chaotic, until four years from now there won’t be anything to stand in the way of the mobs, and violence will take over completely. Ted will make it then, all right, and that will be the end of a free country. At least Orrin is strong enough to turn it back now while there’s still time, and at least there’s a pretty good hope that Ted will come around to seeing it that way, too, before it’s too late.