(1964) The Man (26 page)

George Murdock came to his feet and so did she, and she was pleased that she was no taller than he, even if it was, as she suspected, because he wore lifts in his heels. He started for the corridor door. “Think twice, Edna, before you quit. You can help him. It might be better for both of us, you being busy right now. See you tonight.”

Alone with her letter of resignation, she reread it, then, with a pen, supplied a missing comma. George, she knew, was wiser than she, and she was attentive always to his counsel. But this time he was wrong because he could not see the turmoil inside her, and there had been no time to talk it out. Yet George had perceived what was at the bottom of her discomfort. He had doubted that she wanted to resign because of her loss of T. C. He had forced her to confess that she thought a colored secretary could serve a Negro President better.

She wondered now what her admission had meant. Why did she think Dilman should have a colored secretary? She had never possessed strong feelings for or against Negroes. In fact, throughout her career she had had no close contact with them. To her they were not people, but a controversial issue that had swirled about T. C.’s Oval Office these last two years and that had gone in and out of her typewriter as a civil rights problem. Like T. C., she had been for them. Like Lincoln, she did not believe in slavery or discrimination or prejudice. She had always considered herself open-minded and progressive, and wanting the right thing.

She had never been faced with the problem of knowing a Negro really well, or working for one really closely. Last night the problem had come to her, and all through the hectic and emotional day she had tried to evaluate it. Without precisely defining why, she had come to the conclusion that she must resign. She had drafted several versions of her letter, when she could find the time, and at last it was typed. She had called George in from the West Wing lobby, where the members of the press were crowded about for every news flash, but the two of them had had only five minutes together.

She wondered if she would see President Dilman at all today. He had arrived at the West Wing entrance late in the morning, had been hurried past the television and radio microphones outside, stopping just long enough to speak, brokenly, no more than thirty words of his grief over the nation’s loss, and to promise that the continuity of orderly government would not be impaired and that a formal statement would be forthcoming.

After that, he had spent the entire afternoon in the Cabinet Room, flanked by Secretary of State Eaton and Governor Talley, seeing Congressional leaders and several ambassadors, approving funeral arrangements, signing a more elaborate proclamation of a period of mourning, preparing a statement to the nation. There had been, as far as Edna had been able to make out, only one change in plans. She had scheduled the members of the Cabinet to see him, one after the other, separately. Apparently Dilman had insisted upon seeing them as a group for five minutes. Talley had emerged to tell her, and Edna had made the arrangements. The first Cabinet meeting had lasted seven minutes, and, according to Tim Flannery, President Dilman had requested one minute of silent prayer for T. C. and MacPherson, and then he had made a little impromptu speech promising that he would try to serve the country, try to carry out T. C.’s programs with their help, and he had concluded by pleading with all of them to stay on in their posts.

She heard muffled voices in the corridor, and then the tramp of footsteps toward the Oval Office, followed by lighter footsteps. Her intuition told her that President Dilman was on his way to his desk for the first time in his first day in office, followed, no doubt, by his Secret Service bodyguards.

She wanted to make certain.

She went quietly to the thick door that separated her room from the Oval Office. In the middle of the heavy door, at eye level, was a minute peephole with a magnifying glass inside it. Very few visitors, even members of the government, were aware that this peephole existed. Occasionally, with glee, T. C. had pointed it out to distinguished foreign guests. He had liked to say, to Edna’s embarrassment, “My wife Hesper had the hole drilled, so that Miss Foster can keep an eye on me. We have a lot of pretty secretaries here, you know.” Actually, as Edna knew from the first day, the peephole was there so that a President’s personal secretary could unobtrusively peer inside, to make sure that the Chief Executive was not occupied with visitors, before she entered or dared to disturb him.

Edna Foster stood on tiptoe and placed her right eye to the peephole.

The magnifying glass enlarged T. C.’s elaborate desk, made up of the oak timbers of the
H.M.S. Resolute
, a ship turned over to Queen Victoria by American Minister to Great Britain James Buchanan in an effort to aid the British search for a lost Arctic expedition. Years later Queen Victoria had returned a portion of the rescue vessel to President Hayes in the shape of this White House desk. And forever after it had been known as the Buchanan desk.

Clearly visible to Edna’s eye now, as she studied the venerable desk, were the numerous knickknacks and gadgets surrounding the green blotter, all favors that emissaries from Japan and Ecuador, Italy and Baraza, had brought to the President. Almost visible, too, were the silver-framed portraits of T. C.’s wife and adolescent son.

Dropping her gaze, Edna could make out the center of the room, even to the Presidential seal woven into the green carpet. Shifting her eyes to the right, Edna could see T. C.’s cushioned antique captain’s chair, set between the two curved sofas.

Beyond the furnishings, the Oval Office was empty.

Suddenly the open doorway to the corridor was filled by a Secret Service agent, the one named Beggs, who was unfastening the chain. A moment later President Douglass Dilman came into the room. No one followed him.

Knowing that this was his first visit, as Chief Executive of the land, to what was now his office and had been the office of every President since 1909, Edna Foster watched with fascination.

Douglass Dilman had come to the middle of the room hesitantly. He simply stood there as if uncertain where to turn, what to do, like one who was not sure that he had found the right address. Edna examined him. Although the peephole brought him closer, made him larger, he appeared smaller than she remembered him to have been last night. His broad black face reflected confusion. He rubbed one side of his flaring nostrils and slowly pirouetted, staring at the three windows behind the desk, at the two standing flags, the American flag and the Presidential flag. Then he stared down at the desk itself.

He was full in the peephole once more. Edna’s heart ached, not from the fact that T. C. was not there, not from the fact that a stranger was there instead, but for Dilman’s forlornness. His charcoal suit looked too new, too uncomfortable, and long at the sleeves. He might have been a proprietor of a shoeshine-stand concession in his Sunday best, waiting for an interview on the new lease.

She must go to him, at once, before he came to her.

Withdrawing from the peephole, Edna Foster folded her letter of resignation, located the memorandum of urgent calls and messages that she had prepared for the President. Holding the letter, the memorandum and her shorthand pad in her left hand, she nervously opened the door to his office and went inside.

“Good—good day, Mr. President.”

“Miss Foster, how do you do. I—I was about to find out where you were.”

“There’ve been endless phone calls and messages. Some may be important. I didn’t want to break in on your meetings, the—the first day—but—” She removed the memorandum from her left fist and handed it to him. “I’ve typed it out for you, in detail. If you want to dictate—”

She had started for her familiar chair next to T. C.’s desk, but Dilman did not move. She halted, and waited.

His eyes were on the desk. Then they swung toward the sofas across the room. He indicated one sofa. “I think it’ll be more comfortable over there.”

She nodded, then remembered a procedure. She went quickly to the open French door leading to the Rose Garden, waved to a Secret Service agent, then closed it. She started toward the other open door leading to the corridor.

Dilman, having reached the captain’s chair, said, “What are you doing?”

Puzzled, Edna replied, “I’m closing the doors for privacy.”

Dilman did not hide his concern. “No. Leave that one open.”

“I—I’ve always been told to do it, to shut them. What you may be dictating—it might be personal, I mean privileged—”

“Leave that door open,” Dilman said.

She was surprised at his severity. “Well, I—” She shrugged. “Very well, Mr. President.”

Before she could move to the sofa, he intercepted her. His distress was obvious. “Let me—I think I’d better explain,” he said quickly. “I think I can be honest with you. After all, you were T. C.’s confidential secretary.”

“Yes,” she said, bewildered.

Dilman hesitated. His eyes were cast downward at his shoes. “Once, President Eisenhower appointed a Negro, E. Frederic Morrow, to his staff in the White House, in an executive capacity. Morrow required a secretary from the White House pool. They were all specially trained white girls. Everyone refused the job. According to Morrow, ‘None wants the onus of working for a colored boss.’ So Morrow sat alone in his White House office, without a secretary, not knowing what to do. Then, late in the day, a white girl timidly appeared. She was from Massachusetts. She was religious. She knew Morrow was having trouble. She felt that she could not be true to her faith unless she volunteered for the job. When the white girl appeared, Morrow said, ‘She kept the door open behind her, as if for protection, and refused to come in and sit down.’ ” Dilman paused. “I could never forget that. In the Senate I always kept one door open when I had a white secretary or female visitor in. I—I guess I’ve brought the same feeling with me into the White House. Forgive my sensitivity, Miss Foster. Now, at least, you understand it.”

Shaken, Edna wanted to burst into tears. When Dilman raised his eyes to look at her, she tried to control her voice, but it quavered. “I think the President’s door should be closed.”

She went to the corridor door, shut it firmly, and without meeting his eyes she went to the curved sofa and sat down.

Dilman was behind the captain’s chair, still standing. He ignored the memorandum that he held. “Governor Talley tells me that I should announce to the White House staff that I am keeping all members on. Is that right?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“I’ll begin with you, Miss Foster. Will you stay?”

As he spoke, she had separated her shorthand pad from her folded letter of resignation. Now she stuffed the letter of resignation deep into her skirt pocket. “Yes, Mr. President,” she found herself saying. “I’d be honored to stay. Thank you.”

“I thank you,” he said with a wan smile. “Then you’re my first appointment as President of the United States. I’ll take care of the others later.”

Efficiently, she had opened her shorthand pad and held a pencil poised, waiting.

He had not yet consulted the memorandum. His eyes were directed toward the three naval paintings over the mantel of the fireplace. “Miss Foster, do you remember what Harry Truman said after F. D. R. died and after he himself had become President? He said, ‘I felt like the moon, the stars, and the planets had fallen on me.’ He said to reporters, ‘I’ve got the most awful responsibility a man ever had. If you fellows ever pray, pray for me.’ And Lyndon Johnson. Will we ever forget his leaving the plane at Andrews Airfield with President Kennedy’s coffin, and his going to the microphones? Do you remember, Miss Foster? He said, ‘I will do my best. That is all I can do. I ask for your help—and God’s.’ Well, Miss Foster, that’s how I feel, like Harry Truman did and like Lyndon Johnson did.”

Edna tried to find her voice. “I think everyone understands that, Mr. President.”

“Do they?” He looked at her absently. “I wonder.”

“They’ll pray for you and—and they’ll help you. I know they will, the way they helped Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. It’s no different now.”

His eyes were fixed upon her. “It is different now. . . . They weren’t black.” Then, suddenly, he smiled. “Of course, if there’s no one’s help, there is always God’s. After all, we don’t know if He is white or black.”

And he sat down in the captain’s chair, and was ready to begin.

R
eclining low in the rear seat of the bulletproof White House limousine, Douglass Dilman felt, this early morning, as he had felt every morning of the past week, like a prisoner being transferred from his home to his cellblock.

Up ahead, through the distortion of the bent windshield, he could make out the motorcycle escort, red lights flashing. On either side of him were more roaring motorcycles. Behind him he could hear the higher pitch of the protective sedan, which contained the remainder of his complement of bodyguards.

Within the luxurious limousine there was little freedom. In the front seat, the driver and the man next to him were Secret Service agents of the White House Detail. In the back, an arm’s length from Dilman, sitting sideways on one jump seat, was agent Beggs. True, none of them had their eyes upon him. The chauffeur’s gaze was directed straight ahead, the other agent in front examined the passing panorama of Sixteenth Street to their right, and Beggs examined the passing pedestrians and buildings to the left.

Douglass Dilman pressed his brown fedora more tightly to his skull as the wind whipped in through the opening of the electric window beside the driver. Wistfully, Dilman took in the landmarks that he had passed so often in the years when he had belonged to himself, and almost no one had cared if he were living or dead. He recognized the Hebrew Academy, the Methodist Church, the blue Woodner Hotel, the all-female Meridian Hill Hotel, the Hotel 2400, the Bulgarian Embassy, the white-pillared, red-brick, bogus English houses with their porches and stoops, which so many affluent Negroes had purchased from whites. In minutes the limousine would take him away from all this, around Lafayette Square, and to Executive Avenue and the south entrance of the stately Executive Mansion.