Overdrive (29 page)

Norma Cox Woodley, who as I have said runs the Friends of Firing Line, is trying to raise the money from the Chase Bank to pay for the big upcoming Harvard debate on Reaganomics, but there is a problem here. The Chase people insist that Milton Friedman must be one of the actors. No Friedman, no grant.

I think it's probably true to say that no one in the world knows
both
Ken Galbraith and Milton Friedman better than I do (read carefully:
both)
, and I should therefore be ideally situated to bring them together. But Galbraith says no: "Milton is a better debater than I am and I'm a better writer than he is." Well, that's a good answer.

Would Milton have agreed? Well, no. Because
he's
mad at Ken, because he says Ken
deliberately
misrepresents him —e.g., by continuing references to Milton's antagonism to the poor, such characterizations as make Milton really
quite angry
, because Ken knows
goddamn well
Milton's not unfriendly to the poor and Milton knows
goddamn well
that Ken Galbraith doesn't really think he's unfriendly to the poor. ... I try to explain that that's just the way Ken is— I mean, he's perfectly capable of saying on network TV that Buckley is in favor of plague, poverty, and atomic war; and what if / adopted Milton's sensitivity, how then would
I
get along with Galbraith? That, Milton tells me, is
my
problem.

I know when things just aren't going to happen, and I'm not going to get Galbraith and Friedman on the same program up at Harvard, and I'm not going to ask them to do it as a personal favor to me, which maybe would, maybe wouldn't, move them. So I write to Norma: Couldn't she possibly talk the Chase people out of their insistence on Milton? I rattle off other names she might hold out: Laffer, Bleiberg, Baker, Dole—right down the list. (The answer would be: No.)

Mr. W. M. Woods of Oak Ridge is a man given above all other things to precision of thought, language, and calculation, and he is greatly upset by a letter writer to
National Review
who has defended the Post Office's insistence that it needs a nine-digit code. Because that gentleman miscalculated the number of discrete zip codes that this would permit, Bill Woods undertakes to set us all straight. . . .

"Mr. Fifield is guilty of applying a perfectly good formula for permutations to the wrong problem. His formula gives the number of permutations of ten things taken nine at a time where none of the things is repeated. In the context of nine-digit zips, it is of course permissible to repeat any of the decimal digits as many times as desired, up to nine.

"In that context, P
_r
ⁿ
= n
¹
' precisely.

"There is a way of calculating the number of distinct nine-digit zips that a child can understand. (I tried the problem on a bright third-grader. He had the correct answer in a few minutes.) In any sequence of consecutive integers, the number of terms is equal to the largest term minus the smallest term, plus one:

"999,999,999 — 000,000,000 + 1 = 1,000,000,000 (that's 1 billion).

"To put this in perspective, there are about
222
million people in the U.S. With a nine-digit zip, each person could have his own unique number, and so could each cat, dog, and pet canary. Mr. Fifield, what are those lines by Pope? The ones about that Pierian spring?"

You can bet your bottom dollar that Mr. W. M. Woods knows what are those lines by Pope. (The ones about that Pierian spring.) I thank Bill Woods, as I have so often over the years, for one thing for teaching me how to use "exponentially" exactly right, and also "parameters."

Happily, we are in New York. Jerry knows exactly what approach to take, depending on the hour. It is only just after midnight, and five minutes later we pull up. I tell Jerry 9:30 tomorrow morning, and thank him.

Pat is still up, working at her desk. Come, she says, and have a look at the dining room. I follow her, and she walks in and turns on the lights.

It is really quite beautiful. Everything is set for the Vice-President and the twenty diners. The flowers, the china, the wineglasses, place settings. The picture lights give the tables a wonderful radiance. I reproach myself that men tend not to focus on the amount of time these things take. A cliché, mostly because it's used in sly discharge of an obligation never taken up, which would be to remind oneself of the amount of time these things all take.

We go up, wearily, to bed.

I must write my column early, because National Review's editorial conference is at 9:45. Ordinarily it would be on Tuesday, but this being Thanksgiving week it is, in the idiom of the shop, a "short week," because the printers take Thursday off. Pat is already awake when the alarm rings, so my breakfast is brought in, and she yields me the Times. Already I have decided on the subject matter for the column. I can use the notes on the sermon yesterday at church, so I read the paper without that search-and-destroy feeling that so often propels me. I leave for my little study just when the telephone rings for Pat's first morning call. I am privately convinced that Pat is a kind of social electronic ganglion, through whom half the people in New York transmit to the other half. Maybe she is a human microchip? I must dilate on that.

I discuss the bishop, and sermons in general. Sermons are really more a Protestant than a Catholic cultural staple. "It was not until Vatican II that a general scolding was given on the subject, the homily being prescribed as integral to the Mass (I wrote). Daily Masses habitually omitted it altogether, and many churches suspended the sermon entirely during the summer. It was thought rather an accretion, and it does not really surprise that the greatest homilist of the nineteenth century, Newman, came in from the Anglican Church; and of the twentieth century, Sheen, Sheed, the first achieved his reputation speaking not in church but over the radio, the second as a street-corner evangelist."

I am halfway through my column when the office phone rings and Helen (our switchboard operator) tells me it's the Vice-President.

"
Let me tell it to you fast, Bill, I can't come.
"

I try to absorb the shock as he speaks. But, come to think of it, he is actually telling me what I just finished reading in the huge headlines this morning, for some reason without thinking that it hazarded in any way the movements of the Vice-President of the United States. It was the President himself who gave the order: No travel. What is happening is a shoot-out between Congress and the Executive over money. Technically, as of 12:01 a.m. on November 21, 1981, it became illegal for the federal government to spend
any
money, so that travel, when government funds are involved, is—proscribed.

George is telling me how
awful
he feels, what
stratagems
he has considered in order to be able to get here, how one after another he had to
discard
, them. George's voice is always relaxed, but there is no doubting the authenticity of his concern. He asks, How would it be if he got Jeane Kirkpatrick to take his place? He had no idea whether the UN ambassador could disengage from whatever she was undoubtedly up to, but he'd certainly give it a try.

Yes yes, I said; and then he eased over to the subject of my son.

We had never spoken about Christopher before, and what he said, which left me purring with pride and gratitude, easily made up for the crisis. George told me he would be in New York two and a half weeks from today, on December 11, and had reserved the entire afternoon, from lunch on, during which, in expiation of our convulsion at today's lunch, he would do anything we asked of him. I told him that was swell of him, but that such a thing as we had got together for today takes a couple of months to arrange, and could not be put together again in a fortnight. He would keep the afternoon
anyway
, he said, just in case; and would ring me back as soon as he reached Kirkpatrick.

So I called Bill Rusher, and Helen located Rob Sennott, our advertising director, and we patched together a summit. There are three alternatives, I said. One is to cancel the lunch altogether. A second is to call all the guests and tell them George Bush isn't going to be there, but they're welcome anyway. The third is to call nobody, to hope for Jeane Kirkpatrick, and to put on a show of our own if she doesn't come—and rely on the presumed good nature of busy people who understand that such things do happen. Even though the New York
Times
says such things (the United States government running out of money)
don't
as a matter of fact routinely happen. (This, the reasons apart, is the first time in history. Never mind.)

Rob tells us that several of the guests (they are all presidents, or board chairmen) are flying in from out of town and it was already too late to reach them. Bill injects that if half of them pulled out and Mrs. Kirkpatrick
did
come, the thing would be rather embarrassing, and I agree. So, I say, let's just go with it. They agree; and I can tell that Rob, who has done all the work, is pretty disappointed.

I complete the column . . . "The bishops have been very active of late. The Ordinary of Charleston having outlawed capital punishment, perhaps he will proceed to outlaw murder. But the bishops are stirring, and their involvement in public policy saddens. One recalls the late Willi Schlamm, who defined scientists as men who first build the Brooklyn Bridge, then buy it."

I start to leave, but Pat puts down the telephone to tell me I must look again at the seating. I tell her merely to substitute "X" for Bush, and leave all the others where they were. Jerry is waiting and I tell him I wish the Vice-President had relied on him, rather than
Air Force Two
. By the time I have got to the office, word has come in. Mrs. Kirkpatrick, with great gallantry, will cancel her lunch and attend ours. I am to brief her on what is expected of her, via her Number Two, because she has gone to the floor of the General Assembly, no doubt to give one of those brilliant speeches nobody ever listens to. I tell Number Two that she is expected, at our functions, to speak for ten minutes after lunch, and then to answer questions for fifteen, and that we guarantee the lunch will be over at 2:30.

But now we have an issue of
National Review
to put out.

We sit around the long black table, which has been here forever. We are in the library-conference room, about twelve of us. Everyone concerned with the editorial end of
NR
's operations. Each of us has in front of him a copy of last week's issue, and we turn its pages one by one, and anyone who has any comments makes them: about an editorial, cartoon, story, criticism; about the typography, the makeup. We laugh a lot at these sessions. Sometimes the laughter is—exponential!, as Mr. Woods would in this case permit me to say. I think. Jeff will make an amusing comment about somebody or something, more often than not a Democrat, Bill Rusher will see him and raise, and Joe Sobran will double the pot.

We go through the issue, and then Bill Rusher lists, with great panache, his fortnightly suggestions, complaints, whatever—distributing his document file between me and Priscilla. He speaks first because, traditionally, he then leaves the room, to attend to his own affairs.

Priscilla is next (now that Jim Burnham is no longer here), and she goes down the list of subjects that need editorial or polemical attention. I write these down, composing the master list, while others scratch Priscilla's items from theirs, where there are coincidences. Inevitably she adduces topics others had also listed to bring up, but no longer need to do so.

So it goes, with a little cross-table discussion, though not much; because, generally, the subjects are familiar, the orientation steady. The counterclockwise referendum completed, those who are not writing editorials rise and leave, I make the assignments to the writers, and we disperse to our typewriters.

Not, today, to my own typewriter, to begin the editorial work. Frances has accumulated what she calls date requests, dating back to noon Friday, since which time we have not spoken. Henry Kissinger is having a dinner for the French ambassador on January n. We look at the calendar—the day is or is not clear, depending on what time I need to leave for Dallas. She will explain to Chris Vick, Henry's Frances. The Chilean National TV wants an interview (nix). The Council on Foreign Relations asks if I will preside at a meeting at which my friend Lewis Lehrman, a candidate for governor of New York State, will talk about the gold standard (yes). Dan Shockett of something called
Cigar
asks if I will serve as a member of a cigar-tasting panel. All that's involved is that they will send three cigars which I can smoke at my leisure, returning comments (certainly). A Mr. Ed Cullen wants to discuss movie and TV rights for my novels. That's been going on for five years, but I refer them now to Richmond Crinkley, sometime Washington editor of
National Review
, now executive director of the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, who is interested in getting a movie made out of
Saving the Queen
. Timothy Leary called, but didn't leave a return number (that often happens). CBS Cable TV wants an interview for their program "Signature." Frances's note says: "I said you would appear to talk about your new book, out in January, since you did not like being interviewed on the 'what do you like for breakfast basis'" (exactly). Swiss Broadcasting wants to ask me questions about Reagan's speech Wednesday (nix). Lecture requests (the usual). Betty Prashker of Doubleday says the Book-of-the-Month Club needs a date for a luncheon (we find one). The BOM has selected
Marco Polo
as a
Dual
Main Selection. (I have persuaded Doubleday, in its promotional literature, simply to refer to
Marco Polo
as "A Dual Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club," which is accurate, with emphasis on the indefinite article. I have always been convinced that there are people out there who believe that a "Dual" Main Selection means that the book is only half as good as a just plain "Main" Selection.) My hosts at Vail in April say if I want to arrive a day earlier than my lecture, I can ski, as their guest. Frances points out I'll be traveling away from a Tulane engagement Friday night, so I might as well accept, unless I want to go New Orleans-New York-Denver in thirty-six hours (OK). But now we
do
have to leave.