Preserve and Protect (61 page)

And politically, of course, was where the bargain would prove itself. Hopefully his own supporters would still have enough faith in him to accept his decision that Ted’s nomination was necessary, and submerge or at least suspend their misgivings for the common good. Hopefully Ted’s supporters would do the same. Thus together they might be able to re-establish a reasonable unity on which further unity might grow.

This hope was the only basis on which he could justify to himself a decision which even in his own mind was a glaring and almost inexcusable break with a career and philosophy he had always tried, honestly and with a fair success, to keep consistent during his long contentious years in public office.

The hope of restoring unity—the hope of restoring domestic peace and tranquility—the hope of bringing back to the ever-earnest, ever-muddled Republic some general atmosphere of sanity, kindliness and good will—these were the things that justified in his mind the addition of Ted Jason to his ticket.

If these things came from it, he would have done a great and imperative service for his country. Given the present condition of America, anything else was secondary.

If these things did not come from it, he would have made the greatest mistake of his lifetime.

Too bad the decent and the well-meaning couldn’t exist in a vacuum to attempt their little miracles, he thought with an ironic smile in the silent study. Nowadays too many other people had an opportunity to get into the act. Sometimes their intervention proved to be literally fatal, not only to the miracles, but to the decent themselves.

But—one could only hope. One could only do what seemed best for America, challenged though it might be by the dismay of the partisan and the scorn of those who charged betrayal of principles in order to achieve ambition.

Of course he had ambition: no one climbed to the top without it. But he also had a vision, as Beth had said: he wanted to do things for his country. First and inescapable was the task of restoring unity. Without it, no one was going to do anything except preside, as he had told Ted at the White House, over the graveyard of the Republic.

So he guessed he could take a little pounding from the conservatives for a while: he had taken one long enough from the liberals. It would be an ironic and rather amusing switch to be getting it from the other side. When they realized they had a common target, and came to realize what he was attempting, that in itself might be a step toward unity.

Only one thing still bothered him as he prepared to turn out the lights shortly before three a.m. When he reached the upstairs hall, saw light still shining from under the childrens’ door and heard a low, argumentative murmur, he decided to tackle it head on.

He stepped along and rapped on the door. Dead silence ensued.

“I thought you’d be interested to know,” he said quietly, “that Ted called a few minutes ago. I told him at the White House I wouldn’t permit him to be nominated unless he made a complete public break with violence. He says he will. So that about wraps it up, I guess. Good night.”

“Did you get it in writing?” Hal asked.

“No. Under the circumstances, I believe him.”

“I hope you’re right,” Hal commented, not yielding much.

“I think I am,” his father said. “We’ll just have to wait and see. Good night.”

“Good night,” Hal said, still skeptical.…

“He’ll come around,” Beth predicted. “I gave Crystal a pep talk a while ago, and I’m sure she’s giving him one.”

“I hope so,” Orrin said. “I’m not a great deal more sanguine than he is, actually. It’s a gamble.”

“But you’ve decided it has to be,” she said.

“Hank,” he said, using the old tender nickname, “I’ve decided it has to be.”

2

Three times the sirens sounded; three times the sleek black limousines raced swiftly in armored convoy through the 5,000 troops at ready, down the somber ranks of NAWAC; three times the shout went up:

“There he comes!” for the President, sitting far back in his seat, looking neither right nor left: the cry today no longer angry, no longer hostile, curiously impersonal, curiously disinterested.

“There he comes!”
for Orrin Knox, equally invisible: the animal growl surly, uneasy, yet not violently antagonistic, though the potential was still there.

“THERE HE COMES!” for Ted Jason, leaning forward, arms outstretched, waving out both windows as he sped along: the great exuberant roar happy, excited, welcoming, echoing over the tensely quiet Center, the sleepy meandering river, the almost deserted city, the watching nation, the world.

“My friends,” the President said, rapping the gavel quietly once, “this emergency meeting”—he smiled—“hopefully, this final emergency meeting—of the National Committee is now in session. Will the distinguished National Committeeman from Washington once more give the invocation, please?”

After Luther Redfield had done so, with a brief and moving fervor that invoked the blessings of a patient Lord upon these his earnest, unhappy children, the President stood for a moment looking down upon the Committee, all, even Mary Baffleburg and Esmé Stryke, silent and expectant.

“The nominee for President,” he said gravely, “has asked that he be permitted to address you. I assume there will be no objections”—again he smiled, comfortable and solid and reassuring—“and so it is my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you the next President of the United States, the Honorable Orrin Knox of Illinois.”

From outside there came a surge of sound reflecting the many confusions of NAWAC, whose members did not know exactly how they felt on this confusing day. But from inside, in some instinctive impulse of solidarity, encouragement and hope, there came a genuine standing ovation from Committee, audience and media alike. This was the old, traditional American reaction of good sportsmanship, not yet entirely abandoned though it might be going fast.

Obviously inside the Playhouse they hoped it was not, were desperately determined that it should not: as though by shouting extra-loud and applauding extra-hard, they might help to recall it to the hearts and minds of their embittered countrymen, remind them of the great principle of tolerance and good will that held the country together, encourage them to recapture and re-establish it before it was too late.

For several minutes, while Orrin entered from the foyer and walked briskly down the aisle to the stage, NAWAC with its newer traditions was drowned out; though presently, of course, when the tumult inside died down, the grudging uneasiness outside once more became audible, a restless thunder that would not go away.

“Mr. President,” Orrin said quietly, and the thunder did at least diminish a little as a listening hush began to fall upon the world, “it is my hope that tomorrow, in front of the monument which symbolizes and pays tribute to the first President of the United States, the nominee for Vice President and I may present ourselves to our countrymen for formal acceptance of the great honor and responsibility placed upon us.

“Suffice it to say at this moment that I accept your nomination”—warm applause inside, the uncertain thunder rising again outside—“and I do so humbly and yet unafraid, for I know that the heart of America is sound and valiant still, and that from it my running mate and I will draw the strength to do what must be done to restore unity and peace to our country and the world.

“We meet in strange times after strange decades in which the law and order vital to the maintenance of a stable democracy and a stable world have been persistently and consistently reduced—persistently by those whose deliberate aim is the destruction of America—consistently by those in authority who, laboring under some strange contortion of thought, have been afraid to preserve law and order because, in their tortured reasoning, to do so might be to ‘destroy America’s image,’ as they have put it—or to ‘cause charges of police brutality’—or to ‘alienate world opinion’—or to ‘jeopardize good relations between the races.’

“So the protections of a stable society have been allowed to collapse, sometimes slowly and sometimes not so slowly, until today no area vital to our national security—no city—no store—no home—
no American anywhere in this land or in this world
is really safe—because if he is attacked, his Government will not protect him.

“The American Government has voluntarily abdicated the first responsibility of government, the preservation of its own security and the protection of its citizens.

“The American Government, in effect, has given up, both domestically and overseas.

“Until, that is, these last few months, when there has been some attempt, both at home and abroad, to reassert and restore the dignity and the strength of the American Government.

“I propose to continue that attempt, and I am inclined to think that whoever leads our friends in the other party as their candidate for President will do the same: so that either way, I think we are reaching a long-needed and long-overdue turning point.

“Pray God,” he said soberly, “it may not be too late to reverse the trend toward weakness which has been launched by our enemies and assisted by those we thought we could trust to preserve and protect us.

“As for me,” he said, and his voice took on an emphatic edge as his words brought a rising murmur from outside, “if I am elected, I shall have two purposes: to restore order and to restore unity. I do not know which should come first, because to my mind they are indivisible. If you have real unity, order follows more or less automatically. If you have order, unity also follows more or less automatically.

“And lest,” he said, his voice rising sharply as the murmur outside swelled again toward its angry humming “—lest any man, any editor, any reporter, any commentator, any writer, any foreigner, any partisan of mine, any opponent of mine, any member of any mob—lest
anyone
try to misinterpret or cynically twist what I say, let me state it very clearly.

“When I say ‘order,’ I do not mean ‘police brutality’ or international bullying. I do not mean repressive or harsh or unfair measures. I mean the even-handed administration of justice and the even-handed, impartial
and firm
application of the law, falling equally upon all transgressors, be they rich or poor, liberal or conservative, white or black, big nation or small.

“And that is all I mean.

“There have been disturbances in this city in the past in which the forces of law and order were deliberately held back because someone in authority had convinced himself that it was better to let the mob run amuck than it was to make sure that the law was respected and obeyed. To apply the law might hurt somebody—a few somebodies who deserved it—and so the law was not applied, and everyone had to suffer, because those in authority did not have the courage or the integrity to apply the law fairly and squarely across the board.

“And so the law died some more, and after the event, everyone in America was just a little less safe than he had been before: because somebody didn’t have the guts. Somebody didn’t have faith in the
rightness
of democracy. Somebody didn’t have the courage or the integrity to gamble on the power of law and order, without which there can be no democracy, no society, no nation, no life.

“Government was a coward and afraid. And so government grew less. And anarchy grew great.

“And the same thing happened all over the world wherever America was afraid to do, or allowed herself to be browbeaten out of doing, what she knew to be right.

“That did not happen yesterday, Mr. President,” he said quietly, “thanks to your courage and integrity. It will not happen in my Administration, should I be elected, either in this capital or anywhere else in America where the writ of federal authority may run. Or anywhere else in the world, if I can help it.”

There was a fervent and heartfelt burst of applause from the Committee and the audience; an uneasy stirring from the media, where clever minds, as always, could see ten thousand qualifications and reasons why it should not be done; and from outside, an angry, sullen mumbling.

“That is what I propose to do about order. Now as to what I propose to do about unity.”

He paused deliberately, took a sip of water from the glass Anna Bigelow had placed on the lectern as he began, looked thoughtfully at his few longhand notes. The world began to generate the expectant tension he intended it should.

“I propose,” he resumed, “to urge for your consideration as my running mate a man who will be a willing and effective partner in restoring unity and order to America; a man who believes in the law, and in upholding the law; a man who believes in protest within the law and dissent within the bounds both of law and of common decency; a man who repudiates lawlessness as an answer to the domestic and foreign problems of the country; a man who rejects violence, its organizers, its practitioners, its adherents, its sympathizers, and everything about it; a man who believes that lawlessness and violence have no place in America, because if they are given an established place and become a daily part of America, everything that is America will die.

“Such a man,” he said, “can surely be found”—there was a great sound of released breath, a long sigh over the world, as they realized suddenly that he was not going to name him—“in the ranks of our party.

“Such a man
must
be found.

“I think, to aid us in our search, it might be well at this time (outside in the foyer, Governor Jason’s face was a study in conflicting emotions, so turbulently were they whirling through his mind as he, too, realized that his great antagonist was, in effect, about to put him on trial and force him to make good on his telephoned word) for us to hear from the other major contender for the Presidential nomination, the other leader of our party to whom we look for strength and reassurance in these very tense and difficult times.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Committee, with your permission, and the permission of the Chair, I should like to introduce to you the Honorable Edward M. Jason, Governor of California, to give us his thoughts on these issues.”

“Mr. President!” Roger Croy cried indignantly, jumping to his feet as many angry voices began to rise, in the Playhouse and outside. “Mr. President, that is quite irreg—”