Capable of Honor (19 page)

“If it’s genuine conviction, why not?” she said, but, as always, he couldn’t find the real Ceil in it. The real Ceil was somewhere back inside where he would always pursue in vain. Which, he thought with an ironic little amusement that reached his eyes and was answered in hers, was why he would always keep on pursuing.

“It seems to be genuine conviction with a good many of those,” he said, gesturing again at the papers. She nodded.

“And also Walter Dobius and the other big boys say so, so it’s stylish. But, I repeat: you can stop it if you will. And very probably, as I say, no one else is in exactly the position you are of being able to stop it.…Excuse me, sweetie,” she said with a sudden briskness, “but the distinguished ladies of the P.T.A. are awaiting the arrival of one more distinguished lady in their midst. I must run.”

“First Lady of California,” Ted Jason remarked with an ironic but friendly smile as she came around the table, leaned down, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “First Lady of—”

“Don’t bedazzle a poor girl’s head with dreams. I repeat, I’m that necessary adjunct of politics, a wife. Lead on, McDuff, and whither thou et cetera. I’ll try not to mention Gorotoland.”

“Good,” he said with a smile. “Ceil,” he added as she reached the door. She turned back, tall and stunning and willowy but, as he knew better than anyone, shrewd as nails and tough as steel underneath.

“Yes?”

“I think you’re somewhat more than an adjunct.”

She gave him a dazzling smile and blew him a kiss.

“I hoped as much, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Oh, get out,” he said with a grin, turning back to the papers. “Go on, get out.”

She gave him another smile, this time filled with a genuine friendliness and amusement, and did so.

But that, of course, was little help in solving his problem. It was all right for Ceil to advise, as she surely had, that he say nothing to oppose the President and, if possible, support him; but much as he admired his wife’s brains and intuitive grasp of politics, the matter was not so simple.

If he spoke out now in support he probably could give the President the extra edge he needed to carry the country wholeheartedly with him; he probably could effectively slow down the world of Walter Wonderful. But what would that do to his own chances for the nomination and election—and what, also, would it do to his own convictions in the matter? He might not be as rabid as Walter—like many on this day who admired and followed Walter, he was a little taken aback at the extreme virulence of his column attacking the President—but he did have very grave personal doubts about the wisdom of what had been decided last night at the White House.

If he spoke in opposition, it would be considerably more than ambition that prompted it. And if he spoke in support, it would in fact require of him more of a conscious effort, more a deliberate forcing of himself into a not entirely comfortable position. Yet speaking in support of course had its imperatives and its appeal, depending upon how seriously one conceived the United States to be threatened by Communism and how actively one thought it should defend its rights and protect its citizens.

He was held by this dilemma for a while, wandering in the gray no-man’s-land between conviction and desire, ambition and duty. Which was which, and what was the true nature of any of them? Who ever knew, when the crises came and history said: decide—and you were one of those history had chosen to do the deciding?

He had been sitting thus, staring unseeing at the screaming headlines, the insistent columns, the harshly demanding editorials, for perhaps five minutes when his secretary buzzed and a light flashed on his telephone. Across three thousand miles of a troubled country he heard with a startled surprise and an immediate tension the quiet greeting of its Chief Executive, apparently not at all upset by the gale in which he found himself.

“Hello, Ted,” the President said. “I’m pleased to find you in. My luck.”

“My pleasure, Mr. President,” the Governor said, recovering rapidly and preparing to listen with extreme care to every nuance in the comfortable voice. But the President’s next remark made it clear he was not indulging in subtleties today.

“I wonder where you stand, Ted. Perhaps you can tell me.”

“Why—” the Governor began. Then he laughed. “You’re so direct you leave me momentarily speechless.”

“Only momentarily, I hope,” the President said in a friendly tone, but not allowing him time to really gather his thoughts. “Well?”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve been sitting here reading the newspapers and realizing that I really don’t know where I stand.”

The President chuckled.

“Oh, well, if you’ve been reading the newspapers you know where you stand. There’s only one position with them—or most of them, anyway, the most powerful. The position is that I’m history’s greatest scoundrel and World War III is here. Do you agree?”

“I find it difficult to agree with extremists of any kind,” Governor Jason said carefully; so carefully that the President chuckled again.

“I could take that personally, you know—at least if I adopted the line about me that Walter Dobius and his friends have adopted this morning. Well, then, if you aren’t ready to tell me at the moment, let me put it to you this way: what would you have done?”

“How can I say,” the Governor inquired smoothly, “since I couldn’t possibly place myself in your position with all the facts you had at hand when you made the decision?”

“They weren’t so very different from what has already been made public,” the President said dryly. “I’m not one of the fact-hiding Presidents, you know.”

“I do know,” Ted Jason agreed, “and I admire you for it. I didn’t mean to sound disrespectful, but, really—I don’t have the facts, at least as they came to you fresh from Africa last night, so how could I know what I would have done had I been where you are?”

“You might have to face that one of these days.”

The Governor laughed.

“That I doubt. Harley M. Hudson is going to be President of these United States for quite some time, I imagine.”

“Maybe you can beat Harley M. Hudson on this issue,” the President suggested calmly, “if you decide to make it an issue. Or Orrin Knox,” he added, so smoothly that it was a second before Governor Jason realized the slip he had made, “or whoever.”

“I doubt that,” the Governor said, giving no indication he had caught it. “I imagine anyone who wants to run a winning campaign will pretty well have to endorse Harley M. Hudson’s position, won’t he?”

“Perhaps,” the President said. “And perhaps not. That’s one reason I’m calling. Do you?”

“I haven’t made any statement yet,” Ted Jason said, “though of course I’ve had plenty of opportunity. I’m sticking to ‘no comment’ for the time being.”

“Probably sensible,” the President said. “I want you to know, however, that it would be a great help to me if you would endorse my action. Just as it will make us mortal political enemies,” he added calmly, “if you don’t.”

The Governor made an acknowledging sound.

“Suppose I don’t do either one, for the moment? What would your reaction be then?”

“I should be disappointed,” the President said, “but not actively annoyed. Assuming that in due course you saw your way clear to supporting your President and the leader of your party.”

“It’s complicated for me a little,” Governor Jason said thoughtfully, “because I am not sure what I would have done. I am not sure that this is the wisest course. I am not sure that we should be doing what you have committed us to. Why, for instance, make the issue here and now? Why not some other time, some other place?”

“All places and all times are the same in this onslaught against us,” the President said somberly. “It had a beginning, once, many years ago, but once it began it has never stopped, it has never even paused. It is a continuous thing, and it is up to us to decide where and at what time we shall try to stop it. One time is just as good as another, one place as good as another, one issue just as valid as another, for they are all on the same footing in the eyes of the Communists, they are all attacks upon us, and so we might as well look at them the same way. The attack is total. It may be a military skirmish, a cement wall, a diplomatic negotiating table, a cocktail party, a riot, a visit—anything and everything. I simply chose this time and place because I personally—and, I will say, most of my advisers agreed with me—felt that it was time for certain things to stop.”

“So you started others,” Governor Jason suggested. “Understand me,” he added quickly, “I am not being flippant. You will realize that I am trying to be as honest with you as you are being with me.”

“I do realize. I appreciate it. I don’t want to force you into something you honestly can’t accept. I’m not that kind of President, either. But of course if you oppose me I can’t ignore it. It’s going to have consequences. Inevitably.”

“Suppose I were to endorse what you’ve done,” Ted Jason said slowly, “so that Orrin and I were on exactly the same footing as far as support of you is concerned. What would your attitude be in the convention? Would you be neutral as between us? Or would you endorse Orrin? Or would you endorse me? Or,” he said, taking a gamble on the President’s good nature, “is it all academic because you plan to run yourself, anyway?”

“Will my answer help you make up your mind on a matter which you tell me is one of such fundamental conviction with you?” the President inquired dryly. “Are you for sale?”

“I am not,” Ted Jason said coldly, and prepared himself for the explosion his next remark would bring: “Though you seem to be bidding.”

But Harley Hudson was a surprising man in a lot of ways to his political contemporaries, and instead of flaring back in anger he simply responded with his comfortable, unperturbed laugh.

“I suppose I deserved that. And I suppose I am, yes. And you still haven’t told me. So what shall I do about you, Governor?”

“I don’t see that you have to do anything,” Ted Jason said, more calmly, feeling suddenly that he was emerging from this conversation the winner. “When I have made up my mind I shall speak out. It will be a matter of conviction, too. Believe me.”

“I am sure,” the President said, again so dryly that the Governor abruptly wasn’t sure that he had won, after all. “I shall look forward with interest. I assume your decision will come fairly soon.”

“The way events are moving, I would think so. Will we have the pleasure of your company Friday night at the banquet for Walter Dobius?”

The President laughed.

“Walter does me such honor that I should of course be eager to honor him. But I shall have to think about it. There are many implications in that affair, aren’t there, Ted?”

“Only the recognition of a great career of service to the country, as far as I know,” the Governor said blandly. The President laughed again.

“Well, we shall have to see. I assume you can fit me in somewhere, even if it is a late acceptance.”

“I think we can. In any event, I hope to see you when I am in Washington.”

“I, too,” the President said. “We must talk about this some more.”

“Gladly,” Ted Jason said. “Good luck, Mr. President.”

“And good luck to you. We shall all need it.”

But despite the friendly cordiality with which he offered this final thought before ending the connection with Sacramento, it was with a somber expression and a worried mood that the President turned back to a desk which, like Ted Jason’s, was covered with newspapers. He had managed to preserve a fair equanimity and simulate a comfortable unconcern, but he was as aware as he knew Ted was of how important the Governor’s position could be at this particular moment.

All the hysterical anger of Walter and his world, all the frantic dismay of the allied worlds of education and culture that were so influenced by it, were already in process of finding their focus in the carefully calculating mind that sat in Sacramento. Not yet had anyone spelled it out, though the President would be very much surprised if Walter did not do it Friday night, but there was just one logical man to lead the opposition to what was being done in Gorotoland. It was so logical, in fact, that the President did not see how the Governor of California could possibly avoid it; unless, of course, he possessed a patriotic devotion to the country’s welfare that the President was not ready to accord him.

Yet possibly this skepticism was too harsh and too dictated by his own convictions in the matter, his own need for support. It could be that Ted was honestly opposed. Certainly the President was willing to concede that even Walter and his world, harsh as they were, were moved by a genuine conviction. He was not sure they were willing to concede him an equal honesty of purpose, but fortunately he had a nature charitable and mature enough to be able to concede it to them.

He was struck, as he had often been before, by the strange nature of this America which is capable of arousing such absolutely divergent opinions, most of them quite sincere, as to what is best for her.

Certainly they were divergent today. The President was ready to admit that he had never seen such a universal and vitriolic tidal wave of condemnation as that which was descending upon him. The violent diatribes that had greeted the Johnson administration’s firm stand in Vietnam and Santo Domingo, the furious uproar that had greeted his own action in walking out on the Russians at Geneva a year ago—these were the two most violent outbreaks of press hysteria he could remember in recent decades, and neither was the match of this.

“We cannot remember a President more headstrong and impetuous in his abrupt decision to plunge the nation into a course that could mean open war among the great powers,” the New York
Times
said gravely.

He could not remember a press campaign more determined to thwart, hamper, and cripple a President in the performance of his duty as he saw it.

And of course those segments of the American commonalty that always know better than everyone else what ought to be done were also reporting in. Students were rioting against him at the University of California campus in Berkeley. The General Board of the National Council of Churches had just issued a statement strongly attacking his action. The head of the AFL-CIO, in his shrewd, sharp-eyed way, was about to do the same. The National Association of Manufacturers and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, afraid that profits from trade with Communist countries would suffer, were going to follow suit. Two lost souls in nearby Maryland had already purchased kerosene. Herbert Jason, uncle of Patsy and the Governor, brother of Selena Castleberry, Nobel Prize-winning nuclear scientist, was drafting a public letter, aided by the arrogant little professor who had once served as court historian to the most self-conscious Administration in American history and had never recovered from it.