Capable of Honor (29 page)

“Now, Mr. Chairman,” Jawbone said sternly, “I will say to my good friend the Congressman from California, I will say, that I think we are dealing with a condition here, a condition in the country. I don’t think the country wants a war, Mr. Chairman, that’s what I mean! I think that’s what we’ve got to face here. I just don’t think it does, Mr. Chairman. I know my people in South Carolina don’t, leastways the way they’re writing and wiring and phoning to me. I bet I’m not alone in it, either, Mr. Chairman.” He swung around with a wide gesture to embrace the whole of the attentive House. “I bet most of you-all are getting the very same thing this very minute, now. Isn’t that a fact, now, Mr. Chairman? Sure it is, now!”

“If the gentleman will yield,” Cullee said patiently, “I will agree with him that many of us are receiving messages opposing the President’s course. My own state,” he observed dryly, “is always among the most vocal on most issues. It certainly is on this. But I wonder if that’s enough, Mr. Chairman, to decide an issue as grave as this one. We all know what inspires mail and telegrams and phone calls. Sometimes it is genuine and sometimes it is whipped up. I think we can assess it pretty well.”

“Oh!” Jawbone cried. “Now! Mr. Chairman! That’s strange talk from one who aspires to a seat in the other body. How does he hope to win a seat in the other body if he defies his own people, Mr. Chairman? How can he hope to do it, Mr. Chairman? People don’t get elected to the other body that way, Mr. Chairman!”

“How do they get elected?” Cullee demanded. “By giving in to every passing fancy of the people of South Carolina? I am not the only member of the House who might aspire some day to go to the other body. I don’t know when I might attempt it, but I can tell my friend from South Carolina, Mr. Chairman, that I won’t do it his way. I won’t do it by appeasing every passing hysteria that comes along. I’ll do it by standing for what I believe in and saying, take it or leave it. That’s my way, Mr. Chairman, and California knows it.”

“Well, now, Mr. Chairman,” Jawbone said, changing the subject with a brisk air that brought a chuckle from the House, “now we’re getting far afield. My point is the country doesn’t like this war, Mr. Chairman. It sympathizes with the slain folks, Mr. Chairman, and God knows nobody does more than I do—it deplores the damage to American property—but I think it doesn’t want a war. It wants to negotiate and settle things peacefully, Mr. Chairman. America doesn’t want a war.”

“Does America want honor, Mr. Chairman?” Cullee demanded, and a snicker of scornful laughter rippled through the galleries. He swung upon them angrily.

“I am not surprised, Mr. Chairman,” he said with a biting emphasis, “that many Americans and many of our distinguished guests in the diplomatic galleries find the word corny and laugh at it. There hasn’t been much of it around in recent decades. But again I ask my friend,” and he turned back to Jawbone, twitching and bouncing about beside him, “does America want honor? If so, Mr., Chairman, she may have to risk war to keep it. Make no mistake about that.”

“Well, now, Mr. Chairman,” Jawbone said, “I don’t mean to be impolite to my friend, now, I really don’t, but I wonder if we aren’t getting the basic issue confused with words, Mr. Chairman? Words like honor are fine, Mr. Chairman, and we all want honor, but it’s a little abstract and relative, now, isn’t it, Mr. Chairman? War, now, that’s concrete. That’s something everybody knows about, Mr. Chairman. Folks may have their doubts about honor once in a while, but there’s no mistaking war, Mr. Chairman. When you’ve got it, you know it. I’m afraid we’ve got it in Gorotoland, Mr. Chairman, and we all know what that means: on and on and on and on! No end to it! No stop! On and on! The country doesn’t want it, Mr. Chairman. It just doesn’t want it, now!”

“The gentleman,” Cullee said patiently, “overlooks entirely, as do some other very vocal citizens on this matter, the question of who began it. Was it the United States, Mr. Chairman, who attacked innocent missionaries and murdered them? Was it the United States who destroyed property acquired under honorable leasehold from a legitimate government? Who began this, anyway?”

“Mr. Chairman,” Jawbone said, “I know the gentleman’s feelings about this. God knows all Americans resent what was done. But America is a great power, Mr. Chairman. America can show restraint. America can show tolerance. America doesn’t need to start a war to prove her points, now, Mr. Chairman, we do not! That’s what I am saying to the gentleman. There are other ways. There may still be other ways, in spite of the vetoes the gentleman and the distinguished Senator from Iowa, from the other body, cast in the UN yesterday. It isn’t hopeless, Mr. President. There can be negotiations. We can talk, Mr. Chairman. The vetoes haven’t made it impossible. There’s still a chance, now.”

“Mr. Chairman,” Cullee said coldly, “I am not going to stand here and take the implication that the United States has ruined something by using the veto. Whatever was ruined—if anything—was ruined already. The vetoes were used at the direction of the President of the United States, I would remind my friend from South Carolina,
and”
—he added in a contemptuous tone to Jawbone, who looked up at him like a disheveled bantam rooster—“with the full advice and concurrence of the American delegation—to protect the best interests of the United States and, I firmly believe, the best interests of world peace.” At this there was a skeptical hoot from somewhere in the galleries, and the chairman patiently rapped the gavel.

“The vetoes were used in support of the principle that murder is not something to be hailed and condoned by the United States the United Nations, and the principle also that international conspiracy and lawlessness should be stopped by civilized powers, not encouraged by them. The vetoes made nothing impossible, Mr. Chairman. They were a matter of principle which could not be avoided and they will, if properly judged and analyzed by our opponents abroad, lead on to negotiations that can really mean something.”

“Principle?” Jawbone cried indignantly to the silent House, and,
“Principle?”
Arly Richardson shouted with an equal indignation to the attentive Senate on the other side of the Capitol. “Where, I ask you, Mr. President, is the principle in this brutal casting-aside of the United Nations? Where is the principle in this wanton and ruthless invasion of a helpless African state, committing us to war in the midst of a hostile continent eight thousand miles away?

“The distinguished Senator from Iowa talks of principle, Mr. President? I suggest that we would be in a much better position if we had adhered to the Richardson Principle, Mr. President. The Richardson Principle says that the United States should not resort to force under any circumstances until all other means of settling disputes have been exhausted. The Richardson Principle says that only when its national interests are most gravely and directly threatened should the United States adopt an independent, unilateral course. If we apply the Richardson Principle to the situation existing in Gorotoland immediately prior to the President’s decision of two nights ago, or even directly prior to the United States vetoes yesterday, it becomes clear that under no circumstances could the Richardson Principle be used to justify what has been done. I say to my President in the White House that he has abandoned the Richardson Principle, Mr. President! He must return to the Richardson Principle, Mr. President! The world demands the Richardson Principle, I say to my President in the White House!”

“If the Senator will yield,” Lafe said dryly, “we are all indebted to him for establishing the Richardson Principle, and for all the other principles of behavior both national and international upon which he has lectured this Senate on so many occasions for so many years. But I do think I must say to him in all candor and respect that I do not recall any great discussion of the Richardson Principle at the United Nations. I am not even sure, Mr. President,” he went on, as a laugh went across the Senate, “that members of the United Nations even know that the distinguished Senator from Arkansas has established his principle. In any event, I think the principle we must discuss right now is not the Richardson Principle, but the Hudson Principle.” (The laughter grew, and over on the minority side Johnny DeWilton of Vermont murmured behind his hand to Jack Baker of Kentucky,
“Now
listen to Arly start to rave.”)

“The Hudson Principle at the moment, Mr. President,” Lafe said with an amiable grin that he knew would infuriate Arly, standing with an air of rigid disapproval at his chair four desks away, “is in full control of the White House, and I don’t see any way of dislodging it. The Hudson Principle seems to be that when we get stepped on, we step back. It seems to be that when we are wantonly, viciously provoked, we retaliate. It seems to be that when we feel the time has come for us to say, ‘Enough’—we say, ‘Enough.’ That is the Hudson Principle, as I understand it.”

“The Senator from Iowa, Mr. President,” Arly Richardson said bitterly, “is, as always, full of wit and humor. But, Mr. President, I wonder how long the Hudson Principle—or perhaps we might call it the Hudson-Knox Principle—will remain in control of the White House if it produces such tragically misguided results. Does the Senator have any inside information on that one, with all his wit and humor?”

“If this is to become a discussion of the presidential election, Mr. President,” Lafe said (“How can it help but be?” Powell Hanson of North Dakota asked Tom August of Minnesota. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who had finally decided to introduce the resolution with a very brief, lukewarm speech, gave him a nervous little smile and nodded agreement.), “then I will say to the Senator and to this Senate, right now, that I for one am not afraid to face the implications. An issue has been created here, not by us but by our enemies, which may very well, I grant you, decide the presidential election. Very well. I know where I stand: with the President of the United States and the Secretary of State. I support the Hudson Principle, Mr. President, and the Hudson ticket, or the Knox ticket, or the Hudson-Knox ticket, if that’s what it comes to.” (“Oh, oh,” Bob Munson murmured to Stanley Danta of Connecticut, the Majority Whip, “there’s a slip.” Lafe obviously realized it too, for he attempted to hurry on.)

“Now, what is it we are confronted with in Gorotoland, Mr. President? It is my conviction that in Gorotoland we face a challenge so serious that—”

But Arly Richardson would have none of it.

“Just a minute, Mr. President,” he interrupted sharply. “Let the Senate understand this. Is the Senator telling us that he has inside information from the White House that it will be a Hudson-Knox ticket? Has the President told him that he intends to run again, and that when he does he will select the Secretary of State as his running mate? I ask the Senator, is that his information? That puts a whole new light on the Gorotoland situation, Mr. President. That makes it seem possible that—”

“Now, just a minute, Mr. President,” Lafe said with an equal sharpness, aware that all across the crowded chamber and in the galleries above the Senate, press and visitors were leaning forward with a suddenly increased alertness, “I have no inside information whatsoever on the President’s intentions. He has not talked to me about it, nor has anyone else in a position to know. In fact, I don’t think anyone does know. He told this Senate a year ago, upon his accession, that he would not run. That is all I know. If I said something in error, Mr. President, I apologize to the President and the Secretary of State. I apologize for distracting the Senate from this very important matter of our entry into Gorotoland, our vetoes in the United Nations, and the pending resolution. I think, Mr. President, that we should return to the very important matter before us now, and—”

But now Fred Van Ackerman was on his feet, and there was a stirring and a heightened tension over the chamber as the Senate perceived that it would probably be a while before Lafe had his wish.

The junior Senator from Wyoming, who had never forgiven Lafe, or indeed any of them, for censuring him for his part in the blackmail that had driven Brigham Anderson to his death, was obviously in a savage mood. This was nothing new, as Warren Strickland of Idaho, the Minority Leader, remarked to Bessie Adams of Kansas, but it did not promise a very edifying or pleasant debate.

“Mr. President,” Senator Van Ackerman said, “if the Senator will yield to me—”

“I don’t have the floor,” Lafe said, “but if the Senator from Arkansas will yield to me for the purpose”—Arly Richardson nodded—“I will accept the Senator’s question.”

“Very well,” Fred said, in his voice the acid note that they all knew so well, “the question is, wouldn’t it be a fair interpretation to say that the President and the Secretary of State have deliberately created this crisis in Africa so that they can go to the country as a team and seek re-election with the argument that you can’t change an Administration in the middle of a crisis? Isn’t that a reasonable assumption, I ask the Senator?”

Both the Majority and Minority Leaders were on their feet at once, but Lafe, for the moment, at least, did not need help.

“Mr. President,” he said coldly, “the Senator asked me two questions, as I understand them: is his interpretation fair, and is his assumption reasonable. Fair and reasonable are not words this Senate is accustomed to associate with the junior Senator from Wyoming, I will say to him, and my answer to his questions is no, they are neither fair nor reasonable.”

“Well, Mr. President,” Fred said, beginning to get the furious scowl that came so easily to his face in his colloquies with his colleagues, “that may be a clever debater’s trick but it isn’t responsive. I repeat to the Senator, is it not perfectly natural to assume that the great President and the great Secretary of State, whose greatness we in this body have known for so long, have put us at war in Africa to bolster their own ambitions for re-election? The Senator can evade all he pleases, but I think that is the impression that is going to reach the country.”

“I know it will if the Senator has anything to do with it,” Lafe snapped. “The Senator sounds just like the—just like some of the people the American delegation has to contend with at the UN. He, too, Mr. President, seems to forget we are in this situation because a total of forty-nine Americans were killed and American property was wantonly destroyed. The Senator is as adept as America’s enemies at forgetting what was done to us in his eager haste to tear us down by yelling about what we have done. Were the circumstances different I would ask the question, how he squares this with his conscience. But its absence makes the question academic.”