Capable of Honor (23 page)
Authors: Allen Drury
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Political, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Thrillers
That he should be undertaking it, finally, after so many years of preparation, of planning, of dissembling, and making do with half-best at the hands of the hated creators of his country, was, he believed, a tribute to his own ingenuity and skill in profiting from
Yanqui
mistakes. He had watched, with a semblance of tolerance but an inward contempt, while the blundering homeland of his wife and brother-in-law had staggered from one defeat to another down the slippery slopes of the later twentieth century. Six months ago the tempo had appeared to accelerate, when he had successfully steered through the United Nations and brought close to final victory the motion to censure the United States in the wake of Terence Ajkaje’s visit to South Carolina and all its consequences in focusing world disapproval upon America’s racial practices. Briefly the Americans had seemed to recover, there had been a lull. Then had come the rebellion in Gorotoland, the American intervention on the old-fashioned, no-longer-valid theory that missionaries should be protected, that a country’s nationals should be safe on good behavior, that commercial rights granted by a legal government should be protected—and the Achilles’ heel of America’s persistent naïveté concerning the cold-blooded realities of a coldblooded age was once again revealed.
It had seemed the opportune time to advance certain plans that first began at “Suerte” fifty years and more ago, in the time of his grandfather, Don Jorge.
He had sent word that he was coming home, and obediently, some from the professions, some from the university, some from the slums but quite a few, also, from the opulent homes where they suavely entertained the rulers of the Canal Zone, his friends had slipped away and come to him in the night.
Whether this was indeed the time, he did not know for sure, even though many of them told him so. He was close enough to America, both by marriage and from all the years he had spent there, so that he was not one to underestimate the United States, for all its fumblings and its often wide-eyed incompetence in world affairs. Its action in Gorotoland might furnish the ideal opportunity, but it also demonstrated that the Colossus was quite capable of moving, and moving fast, when it thought it had to. Therefore Felix hesitated, though in his final conversation before leaving the UN yesterday he had been assured that all was in readiness; had been reminded of the distance between Panama and Gorotoland; and had been urged to take the step that would, in his colleague’s opinion, irrevocably commit the United States to a course it could not possibly pursue without disaster.
Felix was not so sure, nor was he so sure that he should move before his brother-in-law made his position known. Governor Jason was one of the few men Felix feared, both because of the economic pressures his companies could exert upon Panama, and because of something more personal, a brain as shrewd and cold as his, a personality as self-assured and forceful, the suspicion that in both these respects there might be more than equality. Felix was never sure how completely Ted Jason saw through him, nor was he certain what Ted Jason could do to thwart him if he really set his mind to it. And while he thought the Governor would oppose the move in Gorotoland and so, consistently, oppose any other move that might follow, he could not be sure. Ted wanted the White House in the worst way, and when men want that, consistency does not always apply. Ted had never granted Felix much consideration in his own right, and now that he and Patsy were in the midst of an uneasy separation teetering on the edge of divorce, Ted no longer need give him even minimal consideration as a brother-in-law.
Felix, too, belonged to the many who wished on this hectic morning that the Governor of California would declare himself. He might know then more certainly what he would do.
For the moment he expected to continue as he was, talking to friends, conferring with supporters, quietly making arrangements that he might, before long, decide to implement. There was no immediate hurry. Whatever happened would not happen for several days, and the necessity for concealing his activities imposed a certain slowness on him in any event. It was best that the owners of the Canal not be aware of the traffic to “Suerte.” He was sure they did not even know he was home, and he intended to keep it so. His friends drifted in and out of Panama City casually, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups of two or three. There could be no open indication of where they were going, no alerting the hostile ones that Felix was home. He was certain he had concealed it from his friends in the North, and he was certain his presence was unknown to his enemies in the Canal Zone, who in any event were nervously involved in listening to radio and television, wondering what they would be called upon to do as a result of the President’s action in Gorotoland and the consequences that might flow from it in the Security Council meeting this afternoon. They were too busy right now, he thought with a grim little smile, to worry about him.
So brooded Felix Labaiya, oligarch of Panama of the new style, generator of plans, focus of discontents, on the terrace at “Suerte,” while along the valleys between the mountains his friends continued their furtive pilgrimages and in cities of power far away men who had the responsibility of being aware of such things noted that he was home, read secret reports on his visitors, and wondered, as they liked or feared him, how soon they would be called upon to come to his support, or root him out.
***
Chapter 6
Around the familiar green baize table of the Security Council where so many hopes have been born and so many hopes have died, in the room where the world’s eyes watch the inheritors and assassins of the dream, they were gathering this afternoon at 3 P.M., as they had so many times before, to go through the charade of promise without redemption, potential without fulfillment. One thing only made it different from all the other times they had staged the same weary, foredoomed performance: the United States was involved today, and the United States could be counted upon to abide by the charade. Where others condemned the game and made it pointless by their intransigence, where others balked and refused to play, the United States went through the motions each time as though it really believed in what was going on. The United States could be relied upon to do the Right Thing, even if nobody else, any longer, felt impelled to do so, or even to pretend it. The United States was True Blue.
It gave them all a comfortable feeling of certainty as they came down the aisles and took their seats, gossiping and chattering and greeting one another with the accustomed cordiality of players who have joined together in the same foredoomed enterprise on many another furious but futile occasion. This was one of the rare times when it might not be futile, since the United States, bless it, would behave.
In the press section, where he was surrounded by the respectful attentions of his younger American colleagues, the flattering deference of his foreign colleagues, the obsequious greetings of the many delegates who turned to stare and smile and bow, Walter could see that his own country’s representatives were already in their seats. So too were the British and French Ambassadors, the Ambassador of the Soviet Union, and the Secretary-General. The S.-G., he noted, looked even older and more frail than he had the last time Walter visited the UN, during the first Gorotoland crisis—Terry’s crisis—six months ago. Obifumatta’s crisis must be imposing a greater strain, and one the old man was less equipped to carry. There would be a strain on many before this was over, Walter thought grimly. Pray God it was not a strain from which the world would not recover.
Yet he was quite sure, so certain was he of what his country would do, that this meeting of the Security Council would mark the turning point. With some grumbling, but bowing to what it had known right along to be the correct procedure, the Administration would halt its invasion of Gorotoland and withdraw. The problem would then revert, as he had told Tashikov, to these halls where it could be discussed in a calmer and more sensible mood. Nothing would come of the discussion, of course, nothing would be achieved to prevent a recurrence somewhere else of the type of thing which had brought U.S. intervention, nothing would be done to stop the steady erosions of the world by Communism, and the world’s fabric would go right on unraveling. But at least there would be no war.
That was all that mattered, in his mind and the minds of a majority of his world: not honor, not dignity, not decency, not integrity, not real stability, not real peace.
Just—no war.
And wasn’t that enough? he demanded of his mind impatiently. Walter had no truck with those who argued that the condition of no-war was not automatically and by definition a condition of peace. He had only scorn for those who said that peace without honor, without justice, without firm and enforced agreements, without the real stability that could come only with integrity and honesty on both sides, was a butterfly that lasted no longer than the morning of the day the UN brought it forth from chrysalis. Walter brushed aside such negative arguments angrily, and so did Walter’s world. They did not believe in pushing mankind’s luck. It was all very well to insist that peace without safeguards and good faith on both sides was no peace at all. If everybody got blown up while people were insisting on safeguards and good faith, what good would that do them?
Walter had covered test shots at Bikini and White Sands, he had walked the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he knew what the consequences could be if his stubborn nation insisted too much that international affairs should proceed on a basis of just principle and honored agreements. Perhaps the Communists were engaged in a campaign to conquer the world if they could, perhaps they really were dedicated to the death of the free world, including above all his own country, perhaps they never did do anything but inflame crisis and encourage chaos. If the alternative was threatening them with the bomb and perhaps using it—then, so what? In the first place, he could not conceive that the sensible peoples of the world would stand for it (even though quite a sizable number of them had disappeared into the Communist maw while they were busy telling each other it simply couldn’t happen); and in the second place, even if worst came to worst and the Communists eventually did take the world—wouldn’t that be better than having a war?
Walter thought so, and never had he thought so more firmly than he did at this moment, encouraged as he was by the deferential congratulations of colleagues who obviously agreed with him, lifted up by the respectful greetings of nations who clearly felt that his policies were infinitely more sensible than those of his government.
It was easy at such a moment for a man to feel that he was bigger than his government. He was quite sure now, as he watched the last straggling delegates enter and Chile, this month’s President of the Council, prepare to gavel the meeting into being, that events this afternoon would prove that, yes, he was.
“Mr. President,” the Soviet Ambassador began quietly in his native tongue, while the translator gave his words a dutifully heavy emphasis through the earphones, “we are seized here today of a situation known to all the world. At an early hour this morning, using as a flimsy pretext an action by troops of the legitimate government of Gorotoland momentarily exceeding their orders (‘Oh, that’s what it was,’ Lafe remarked to the British Ambassador beside him. ‘Quite inadvertent,’ Lord Maudulayne agreed), the Government of the United States has launched an unprovoked imperialist attack upon the legitimate government of Gorotoland led by His Royal Highness Prince Obifumatta. American planes, naval units, and land forces are now on their way to, or may even in some cases have actually entered, Gorotoland.
“The world is confronted, Mr. President, with a condition of war.
“A condition of war, Mr. President!” he repeated, his voice rising, his delivery beginning to get into the grand old ranting swing of it that had echoed through this room so many times from the lips of Soviet delegates. “Mr. President, I call your attention to this: a condition of war! War upon the freedom-loving, liberty-seeking peoples of an innocent nation, Mr. President! A war of neo-colonialist, imperialist aggression! War upon us all!
“Mr. President,” he said, and his tone changed abruptly to one of heavy sarcasm, dutifully mimicked by the translator, “is there another pretext beside the one I have mentioned, for this attack? Why, yes, Mr. President, there is. The President of the United States tells us that he was ‘invited’ to send assistance, Mr. President. And by whom? By someone named Terry, Mr. President! By a worthless colonialist lackey named Terry, who cannot even command his own capital, Mr. President! By an international jackanapes who is even now lolling about in New York instead of heading his own troops in the field, Mr. President! An invitation from
this
is worth a war?”
A little titter of agreement ran through the room, and abruptly he halted and turned toward the American delegation with an elaborate irony.
“There will be some, Mr. President, who will say that this is a charitable venture, perhaps. Or perhaps scientific. Possibly they will say they meant to go to the moon and found themselves in Gorotoland instead.” He nodded at the quick burst of laughter that came from the press section, the delegates, and the members of the staff and general public who had managed to squeeze into the overflowing chamber. “Well, Mr. President, we say to them this, that they will wish they were in the moon instead of Gorotoland once the world has passed its judgment upon them!”
There was a burst of applause and the President of the Council rapped his gavel impatiently for order. Tashikov concluded in a somber and portentous fashion.
“Mr. President, the resolution condemning the neo-colonialist imperialist aggression of the United States and ordering withdrawal of United States troops from Gorotoland is clear and simple. The conscience of the world demands it. The facts demand it. The conscience, I would estimate, of 90 percent of the American people themselves, demand it. (There was loud applause, but this time he ignored it and hurried on.)
“I urge the Council to adopt this resolution, so that the world may know that American imperialistic invasion of the continent of Africa is at an end. Otherwise, Mr. President—” and his voice sank to an ominous note and his little eyes behind their gold pince-nez snapped and sparkled with anger as he looked again at the American delegation—“no one can say what may happen to the world. My Government cannot be responsible. It will have to take appropriate measures, regardless of the consequences. Regardless, Mr. President!”
Again there was applause, interrupted by the President’s gavel. Tashikov sat back, looking about him with a satisfied air, as across the circle Raoul Barre leaned forward and raised his hand for recognition. He too looked thoughtfully around the table for a moment before he began to speak.
“Mr. President,” he said gravely, “the Government of France has associated itself with the Government of the U.S.S.R. in sponsoring this resolution for one reason and one only: because we believe that only by re-establishing a condition of peace (‘Was that what was there before we came?’ Cullee inquired, not too quietly, of Lafe. There were a few hisses and the President of the Council gave him an annoyed look and rapped sharply with his gavel.) will it be possible to negotiate a reasonable settlement of the difficulties in Gorotoland.
“My Government does not, of course, attribute to the United States the motivations implicit in the language of my colleague from the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, Mr. President, I have to tell you that France is seriously shocked and saddened by what appears to be a most irrational and irresponsible act. If I may quote America’s most distinguished journalist, Mr. Walter Dobius”—there was applause, and several of Walter’s colleagues pointed him out to the audience. The applause became filled with an extra respect, an added warmth—“in his brilliant column this morning, the action of the Administration in Washington is ‘the triumph of idiocy over reason.’ (‘It must be nice,’ Lafe remarked to Claude Maudulayne, ‘to hear yourself quoted attacking your own country.’ The British Ambassador smiled but made no comment.) Mr. Dobius also refers to it as, ‘a purpose no decent man can defend … a hopeless war far away at a time when the nation’s domestic needs are crying for solution.’ He also says that the President ‘has committed his country to what amounts to a state of war in the middle of Africa.’ With these strictures, Mr. President, my Government agrees.”
He paused and took a swallow from a glass of water at his elbow.
“It is imperative, Mr. President,” he resumed soberly, “that peace be restored in Gorotoland. Only if peace is restored can lasting stability follow. My Government, all during the early hours of this morning, attempted to persuade the President of the United States to rescind his decision and order the withdrawal of American troops. The President of the United States, Mr. President, refused to accept the sage wisdom of the President of France. Therefore my Government had no choice but to associate itself in this public condemnation and to judge the United Nations, representing the massed conscience of the world, to order the withdrawal which amicable persuasion has been unable to secure.
“France urges the Council to approve this resolution, Mr. President. After its passage, which now seems certain”—vigorous applause—“we hope the issue of Gorotoland can be debated calmly and intelligently so that a lasting solution for its problems may be found.”
He sat back with a polite smile at his American colleagues, both of whom bowed ironically. A little sound of amusement, turning quickly to annoyance, swept the audience. In the press section Walter could not refrain from shaking his head with a frown that was dutifully noted by all.
Lord Maudulayne raised his hand and leaned forward to his microphone.
“Mr. President, speaking as the delegate of one of the governments—one of the few governments, apparently—which will not support this resolution, the United Kingdom cannot agree with the premise put forward by the delegate of France nor the harsh condemnation uttered by the delegate of the Soviet Union. The United Kingdom may possibly regret some aspects of the American action, yet it cannot deny that the basis for that action was perfectly valid as the United States see it.”
There was ripple of laughter, and his next words came sharply.
“This does not mean, Mr. President, that my Government does not see it the same way. We do. Our methods of dealing with it might have been different in some respects, but we would have dealt with it, Mr. President. Make no mistake of that. We would have dealt with it.
“The Government of the United States, and by association the Government of the United Kingdom, made amply clear to the rebel forces in Gorotoland that indiscriminate and irresponsible attacks upon innocent and defenseless people would be met with the severest reaction. Apparently this was not believed. The world now has the proof.
“My Government regrets, Mr. President, that things have come to this pass. But the solution is simple. The President of the United States has clearly stated that the American mission is pacification and stabilization, not retribution, and that once pacification and stabilization have been achieved, the United States will gladly withdraw. It was on that condition that the President accepted the invitation of the legitimate government headed by His Royal Highness Prince Terry (skeptical laughter, raucous, rude, welled up) to go in.
