The Prodigal Daughter (44 page)

The Democratic
candidate committed his share of mistakes as well, but in the end, it seemed to
Richard that Carter’s image as an anti-Washington evangelical Christian, when
viewed against the problems Ford had inherited from his links with
Nixon,
would be enough to give Carter the election by a
small margin.

“Then why was I
returned with an increased majority?” Florentyna demanded.

“Because
many Republicans voted for you but not for Carter.”

“Were you among
them?”

I plead the
Fifth Amendment.”

R
ICHARD WORE A
SMART DARK SUIT but was sorry the President had insisted that no
o
ne wear a cutaway. The Kane family
watched the new President deliver a speech that lacked the charisma ol Kennedy
or the wisdom of Roosevelt, but its simple message of Christian honesty above
all else captured the mood of the moment. America wanted a decent, homespun man
in the White House and everyone was willing him to succeed. President Ford sat
on his immediate left and President Nixon was conspicuously absent. Florentyna
felt the tone for Carter’s Administration was set with the words:

“I have no dream
to set forth today, but rather urge a fresh faith in the old dream. We have
learned that ‘more’ is not necessarily ‘better’; that even our great nation has
recognized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all
problems.”

The Washington
crowds were delighted when the new President, the First Lady and their daughter
Amy walked down Pennsylvania Avenue hand in hand to the White House, and it was
obvious that the Secret Service was quite unprepared for such a break with
tradition.

“Dancet is on
the move,” said one of them over his twoway radio. “God help us if we are going
to have four years of spontaneous gestures.”

That evening the
Kanes attended one of the seven People’s Parties, as Carter had named them, to
commemorate the inauguration. Florentyna was dressed in a new Gianni di
Ferranti gown of white faintly threaded with gold, keeping the camera bulbs
flashing. During the evening she and Richard were both introduced to the
President, who seemed to Florentyna to be as shy in person as he was in public.

The Present:
1968-1982 271

When Florentyna
took her spat on the floor of the chamber for the start of the 95th Congress,
it felt like returning to school, with all the backslapping, handshaking,
hugging and noisy discussion about what the members had done during the recess.

“Glad to see you
won again.”

“Was it a hard
campaign?”

“Don’t imagine
you’ll be able to select your own committees now that Mayor Daley is dead.”

“What did you
think of Jimmy’s address?”

The new Speaker,
Tip O’Neill, took his place in the center of the podium, hanged his gavel,
called everyone to order and the whole process began again.

Florentyna had
moved up two places on the Appropriations Committee, foilowing one retirement
and one defeat since the last election. She now understood how the committee
system worked but still feared it would be many years and many elections before
she made any real headway for the causes she espoused. Richard had suggested
she concentrate on a field in which she could gain more public recognition and
she had wavered between abortion and tax reform. Richard counseled against too
close an association with abortion and reminded her of how her colleagues
referred to Elizabeth Holtzman as “Congressperson Holtzperson.” Florentyna
agreed in principle but was no nearer deciding what her special subject should
be when the subject chose itself.

A debate of the
Defense Appropriations bill was taking place on the floor of the House, and
Florentyna sat listening as the chamber casualty discussed the allocation of
billions of dollars on defense spending. She did not sit on the Defense
Subcommittee on which Robert C. L. Buchanan was the ranking Republican, but she
was deeply interested in his opinions. Buchanan was reminding the House that
Defense Secretary Brown had recently asserted that the Russians now had the
capability to destroy American satellites in space. Buchanan went on to demand
that the new President spend more money on defense and less in other areas.
Florentyna still considered Buchanan the worst sort of conservative foot and in
a moment of anger rose to challenge him. Everyone in the chamber remembered
their last confrontation and knew that Buchanan would have to allow her to put
her case.

“Would the
congressman yield for a question?”

“Of
course.”

I am grateful to
the distinguished gentleman and would like to ask him where he imagines the
extra money for his grandiose military schemes would come from?”

Buchanan rose
slowly to his feet. He wore a three-piece tweed suit, and his silver hair was parted
neatly to the right. He rocked from leg to leg Iike a cavalry officer on a cold
parade ground. “My grandiose schemes are no more and no less than those
requested by the committee on which I serve and, if I remember Lorrectly, that
committee still has a majority from the party which the distinguished member
from Illinois represents.” Loud laughter greeted Buchanan’s remarks. Florentyna
stood up a second time; Buchanan immediately gave way again.

“I am still
bound to inquire of the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee where he intends
to take the money from.
Education.
hospitals
,
welfare, perhaps?” The chamber was silent.

“I would not
take it from
anyone,
ma’am, but I would warn Mrs. Kane
that if there is not enough money for defense we may not need any money for
education, hospitals or welfare.”

Congressman
Buchanan picked up a document from his table and informed the House of the
exact figures spent in the previous year’s budget, in all the departments
Florentyna had mentioned. They showed that in real terms, defense spending had
dropped more than all the others. “
It’s
members like
the distinguished lady who come to the chamber without facts, equipped with
nothing more than a vague feeling that defense expenditure is too high, that
make the Kremlin leaders rub their hands with glee while the reputation of the
House is at the same time diminished. It is the type of ill-informed attitude
being expressed by the lady from Illinois that tied the hands of President
Roosevelt and left us so little time to come to terms with the menace of
Hitler.”

Florentyna
wished she had never entered the chamber that afternoon as members from both
sides echoed their agreement. As soon as Buchanan had finished his remarks, she
left the floor and returned quickly to her office.

“Janet, I want
all the committee reports from the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense for
the last ten years and ask my legislative researchers to join us immediately,”
she said even before she reached her desk.

“Yes, ma’am,”
said Janet, somewhat surprised, as Florentyna had never mentioned defense in
the three years she had known her. The staffers filed in and sank into
Florentyna’s old sofa.

“For the next
few months I plan to concentrate on defense matters. I need you to go over the
reports of the subcommittee during the last ten years and mark up any relevant
passages. I am trying to get a realistic appraisal of America’s military
strength if we were called upon to defend ourselves against an attack from the
Soviets.” The four staffers were writing furiously. “I want all the major works
on the subject including the CIA Team A and Team B evaluations and I want to be
briefed when lectures or seminars on defense or related matters take place in
Washington. I want all press comments from the Washington Post, The New York
Times, Newsweek and Time put in a file for me every Friday night.

No one must be
able to quote something I haven’t had a chance to consider.”

The staffers
were as surprised as Janet because they had been concentrating their efforts on
small business and tax reform for over two years. They were not going to have
many free weekends during the coming months. Once they had departed, Florentyna
picked up the phone and dialed five digits. When a secret
;uy
answered, she requested an appointment with the Majority Leader.

“Of
course, Mrs. Kane.
I will ask Mr. Chadwick to call you later today.”

Florentyna was
ushered into the Majority Leader’s office at ten o’clock the next morning.

“Mark, I want to
be put on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.”

“I wish it were
that easy, Florentyna.”

“I know. Mark,
this is the first favor I’ve asked for.”

“There is only
one slot open on that subcommittee and so many members are twisting my arm it’s
amazing I’m not permanently in splints.

Nevertheless,
I’ll give your request my serious consideration.” He made a note on the pad in
front of him. “By the way, Florentyna, the League of Women Voters is holding
its annual meeting in my district and they’ve invited me to make the keynote
speech on opening day. I know how popular you are with the League and I was
hoping you might find it possible to fly up and do the introduction speech.”

“I’ll give your
request my serious consideration,” said Florentyna, smiling.

She received a
note from the Speaker’s office two days later informing her of her appointment
as the junior member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Three weeks
later she flew to Massachusetts and told the League of Women Voters that as
long as there were men like Mark Chadwick in Congress, they need have no fears
for America’s well-being. The women applauded loudly while Florentyna turned to
find Mark with a pained expression on his face and one arrn behind his back.

During the
summer vacation, the whole family went to California. They spent the first ten
days in San Francisco with Bella and her family in their new home, high up on
the hill, now overlooking the bay.

Claude had
become a partner in the law firm, and Bella had been appointed assistant
headmistress. If anything, Richard decided, Claude was a little thinner and
Bella a little larger than when they had last seen them.

The holiday
would have been enjoyed by everyone if Annabel hadn’t frequently disappeared
off on her own. Bella’s gripping of a hockey stick firmly in her hand left
Florentyna in no doubt how she would have dealt with the girl.

Florentyna tried
to keep harmony between the two families, but a confrontation was unavoidable
when Bella found Annabel in the attic smoking pot.

“Mind vour own
business,” she told Bella as she inhaled once more When F-lorentyna lost her
temper with Annabel, Annabel informed her mother that if she took more interest
in her welfare and less in her precious career, perhaps she could have expected
a little criticism from her.

When Richard
heard the story he immediately accompanied Annabel back to the East Coast while
Florentyna and William traveled on to Los Angeles for the rest of their
holiday.

Florentyna spent
an unhappy time phoning Richard twice a day to find out how Annabel was. She
and William returned home a week early.

In September,
William entered his freshman year at Harvard, taking up residence in the Yard,
on the top floor of Grays Hall, making the fifth generation of Kanes that had
been educated at Cambridge. Annabel returned to the Madeira School, where she
seemed to be making little progress despite the fact that she spent most
weekends under her parents’ watchful eyes in Washington.

During the next
session, Florentyna allocated a considerable part of her time to reading the
defense papers and books her staffers recommended.

She became
engrossed in the problems the nation faced if it wished to remain strategically
safe. She
The
Present: 19M-1982 275 read papers by
experts, spoke to assistant secretaries at the Defense Department and studied the
major U.S. treaties with her NATO allies. She visited the Air Force SAC
headquarters, toured U.S. bases in Europe and the Far East, observed army
maneuvers in North Carolina and California, even spent a weekend submerged in a
nuclear submarine. She sought meetings with admirals and generals, as well as
having discussions with enlisted men and noncommissioned officers, but she
never once raised her voice in the House chamber and only asked questions in
committee hearings, where she was often struck by the fact that the most
expensive weapons were not always the most effective. She began to realize that
the military had a long way to go in improving its readiness if a national
security crisis was to be handled effectively. This had not been tested fully since
the Cuba confrontation. After a year of listening and study she came to the
conclusion that Representative Buchanan had been right and it was she who had
been the fool. She was surprised to find how much she enjoyed her new
discipline and realized how her views must have changed when a colleague openly
referred to her as a hawk. America had no choice but to increase defense
spending while Russia remained so openly aggressive.

She studied all
the papers on the MX missile system, which came under the jurisdiction of the
House Armed Services Committee. When the so-called Simon Amendment to hold up
the authorization of the system came on the calendar she asked Chairman
Galloway to be recognized during the debate.