Preserve and Protect (24 page)

“No, I suppose not. Tell me about the party. Who, what, where—”

“Everybody,” she says triumphantly. “EVERYBODY. Six-to-whenever tomorrow night at the Washington Hilton. The entire Committee has accepted, and so have a lot of other people. I want the Committee to meet Washington, and Washington to meet the Committee. I think it should be done in style, don’t you?”

“Do you really think you can do a snow job on a bunch of hard-bitten old political characters like that? Surely you don’t think this will get you any votes.”

“Don’t underestimate Washington’s glamor, sweetie,” she says serenely. “It still has plenty. They’ll be impressed. You wait and see. It will help. I think,” she adds, her tone more pragmatic, “that you’d better join us while the joining’s good.”

He laughs.

“You sound very confident, Patsy.”

“I am,” she says airily. “This will be a real contest on the issues, this time. We’ve already received lots of pledges. Orrin had better be prepared for a shock. But, sweetie! We’re getting off the track. Won’t you join us? We need you, and frankly, if you were to come with us again, I’m sure Ted wouldn’t forget it when he takes office.”

He is silent for a moment and then decides with an ironic smile to give her a shock of her own.

“I would settle for nothing less than a written promise that I would be Secretary of State,” he remarks calmly, and he will say for Patsy that she hesitates not a moment.

“SWEETIE!” she cries. “WHAT could be more perfect? It’s exactly what Ted is planning, I’m sure.”

“But you don’t know,” he says, and then decides to stop playing a game. “Patsy,” he tells her in the same calm tone, “I have no intention whatsoever of assisting your brother to become President of the United States. I have left him finally and irrevocably. But I shall of course be interested to attend your party. I expect to have a good deal to do with the National Committee in the next few days.”

There is a silence from Dumbarton Oaks. Finally she utters a smooth little laugh which is quite a tribute to Jason will power and self-control.

“Well, well. Sweetie, you DO sound so determined. Of course you can come to the party. We’ll be looking forward to seeing you. Bring Orrin, if you like. Ted will be there, and it should be interesting for all of us.”

“I just might,” he says, and again she laughs.

“You do that, sweetie. I mean it. And—don’t issue any statements until you see Ted, all right? I’m sure he wants to talk to you before accepting your decision as final.”

“It is.”

“I’m sure,” she says, “but talk to Ted, okay? You will do at least that much?”

“Very well,” he says after a moment. “I will do at least that much.”

But when he is once again at poolside, thoughtfully sipping a beer which he has taken rather absent-mindedly from the refrigerator on his way out, he wonders why he should have made that gesture of decent gentility toward a family whose members dismiss the people they have no more use for with a boorishness as ruthless as any he knows. Ted wouldn’t do him the courtesy, were the positions reversed. Why did he bother, particularly when it will come to nothing?

He sits for a long time staring at the city over the river. It is almost one a.m. when he goes in. He does not get to sleep easily, and he turns and tosses often through the night in his empty house.

2

“Shall we go?” Beth asked, at the house in Spring Valley.

Orrin smiled.

“You know very well you want to go. As for me, you couldn’t keep me away.”

“Good,” she said; and added with a mock approval. “That’s how Jasons fight.”

“What’s good enough for Teddy,” he said, “is good enough for me.” He broke into an off-key singsong, accompanying it with a rickety buck and wing. “Oh—what’s good enough for Teddy—and his uncle and his aunts—What’s good enough for
Patsy—is good enough for me!”

“All right, George M. Cohan,” she said as he finished with a final enthusiastic kick that threatened to overturn a cocktail table, “that’s enough of that. Jasons aren’t funny.”

“It’s the only way to take them,” he said, puffing cheerfully. “Others worship: I sing.”

“Too many worship, for my peace of mind.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, collapsing into his favorite armchair. “Reports of dissension are leaking from the Committee. The press is getting concerned. I have a few friends.”

“Bully for you. Can you keep them after tonight?”

“One party? Don’t be ridiculous. It isn’t going to change anything.”

“Better act as though it is,” she advised. He nodded.

“They’ll know I’ve been there.”

And so they did, though at this particular moment, when members of the National Committee were busily dressing for their big introduction to Washington, and when all over the capital and its environs the really important and the self-designated important were preparing to descend in a whirl of glitter on Patsy’s party, nobody could have foreseen quite how the evening would develop. Next day Helen-Anne would vaguely recall that at one point she had shouted, “It’s a shambles!” to Bob Leffingwell across the room, and in retrospect that was what it appeared to be. But it took awhile to reach that point, and much had to happen in between.

First there were the arrivals, in themselves always a major event at any Washington political affair. The trio of National Committeewomen whom the press at the convention had dubbed “The Three Disgraces”—Mrs. Mary Buttner Baffleburg of Pennsylvania, Miss Lizzie Hanson McWharter of Kansas, Mrs. Anna Hooper Bigelow of New Hampshire—arrived, as expected, together: Mary Baffleburg plump and belligerent, Lizzie McWharter stringy and nervous, Anna Bigelow solid and acerbic. Mrs. Esmé Harbellow Stryke of California, her dark, pinched little face suspicious and uneasy (looking, as the
New York Times
murmured to the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
like a constipated ferret), followed with her co-worker in the Jason cause, the white-haired, dignified, piously shrewd old former Governor Roger P. Croy of Oregon. Bob and Dolly Munson, bearing the Knox banner, as CBS remarked to NBC, as clearly as though it had been painted across their chests, came next. They were followed by Senator Warren Strickland of Idaho, Senate Minority Leader and probable about-to-be Presidential candidate of the other party, obviously enjoying the disgruntlement of his friends in the majority.

A diplomatic contingent entered next, the Maudulaynes, the Barres, Vasily Tashikov and his dumpy little wife, Krishna Khaleel resplendent in white silk coat, trousers and turban with enormous ruby (“Not real, my dear friends,” he hastened to tell the Maudulaynes. “Gracious, not real!”). Mr. Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis and the Chief Justice came in together, the C.J. looking a trifle amused at the company he was keeping. Bob Leffingwell followed soon after with Lafe Smith and Cullee Hamilton (he had just happened to run into them in the lobby, but their entry together was taken as something of great significance by Administration-watchers). Walter Dobius entered with the general director of the
Post,
carefully staying six paces behind Helen-Anne Carrew who came in just ahead of them and looked the other way. Jawbone Swarthman, looking, as always, half-buttoned, though everything seemed to be in order, arrived with Miss Bitty-Bug, jes’ the cutest lil’ ol’ debutante you could ever imagine—at least she had been forty years ago, and still dressed like it to this very day.

With them came Senator Tom August of Minnesota, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, peering about with his usual shyly hesitant yet stubbornly determined air of a surprised groundhog; and after and before and amongst and along with him and all these other distinguished guests there came further members of Senate and House; more members of the diplomatic corps; the other members of the National Committee (only Tobin Janson of Alaska and Jane Smith of Iowa are absent); many members of the press; and several prominent hostesses, all of whom cooed and kissed and cussed Patsy, who once again had obviously pulled off the coup of the season.

Then, finally came the Knoxes, whose entry produced the first real sensation of the evening, for it was heralded by wild applause and shouts from many of the crowd and quite a few members of the National Committee. It was also heralded by Patsy with a widely noted and quoted, “DARLINGS! HOW
GRAND
THAT YOU COULD COME!”

And then came the Jasons, her brother walking in alone, his uncle Herbert and his aunts, Valuela Jason Randall and Selena Jason Castleberry, following quickly in a group a few feet behind; and again the wild applause and shouts, about equal in volume, the press thought, to those accorded the Knoxes.

Toward each of these arrivals, and toward many others who for one reason or another were considered to be indices to political opinion, reporters, photographers and cameramen surged as they entered. Microphones were waved beneath their noses, pencils raced with their frequently vapid comments, their pictures were taken in varying degrees of amiable inanity. The press found members of the National Committee extremely close-mouthed, but enough others were obliging to furnish the basis for a couple of side-bar stories in the
Post
and the
Washington Evening Star.
POLL OF GUESTS SHOWS JASON CARRIES HILTON, the
Post
said, tongue-in-cheek but making a point for the home team. JASON-KNOX STAND-OFF ON COCKTAIL CIRCUIT, said the
Star.

But it was not in such minor fun and games that the meat of the evening was to be found, of course; and before long it became apparent that the tug of war for the hearts of the National Committee was under way in deadly earnest. The first overt move was what Tommy Davis referred to as “that marvelous talk by Ted,” and Bob Munson described in an aside to Warren Strickland as, “the speech from the throne.”

It came at a shrewdly timed point when everyone was feeling happily relaxed under the weight of Jason drink and Jason food; when the big room was filled with the raucous hum of fifteen hundred voices, each seemingly trying to outdo all the others in the frantically hopeless competition for attention. The party had reached that stage, which comes so quickly and easily in Washington, at which no one can hear anyone else so everyone gives up listening and simply shouts in the general direction of the nearest competitor, a brightly fixed expression on the face, a glazed look in the eye, and an ever more rapidly disappearing sequence of glasses in the hand. Into the midst of this, on the dais that had been decorated with two enormous bronze eagles, two American flags and a
papier-mâché
arch bearing the words
E Pluribus Unum
(“Not exactly the Presidential Seal,” Lafe managed to shout to Cullee through the rising applause, “but a typically quiet Jason substitute”), Patsy stepped forth shortly before eight p.m. She was clad in one of her brightly-colored, garishly exaggerated gowns, a determined look, and a cold sobriety that automatically gave her a position of command over most of her guests.

“Darlings!” she cried, pounding the lectern with a large gavel. “DARLINGS! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS?” And she held it aloft and waved it, as a sudden murmurous silence fell upon the happy celebrants.

(“Now, how did she get
that?”
Helen-Anne demanded loudly of the Ambassador of the Cameroons. “Their money can do
anything!”
The Ambassador nodded and smiled, somewhat blearily.)

“It’s from the convention,” Patsy announced happily. “And if a certain event occurs that we hope is going to occur, we’re going to BURN it!”

There was a smattering of laughter and applause, a little uneasy. Too many bitter memories for the Jasons rode on that gavel, and they were sure she meant what she said. But burning carried a reminiscence of violence that made many uncomfortable. The mood of the room was suddenly very odd, for just a moment. As if she sensed that she had made a mistake (Though when did Patsy ever realize her mistakes, Bob Leffingwell murmured to the Chief Justice in the uneasy quiet) she rushed on to the introductions they all knew were coming, and for a while everything was restored to a familiar basis of understandable political competition.

“On behalf of Washington,” Patsy said, “this great capital which awaits—as the whole wide WORLD awaits—what our 106 distinguished guests are going to decide for our beloved country, I wish to welcome the members of the National Committee. We are GLAD to have you with us tonight!”

(“They should be,” the
Chicago Tribune
remarked to the
Wall Street Journal.
“It’s the greatest second chance anybody ever got.”)

“We know,” Patsy said gravely, “that you will do what you know to be the VERY BEST thing for us all.”

There was a burst of applause, quite genuine and heartfelt this time, as if in some curious way, at this curious gathering, official Washington did realize for the first time just how very important its 106 distinguished guests were. The members of the National Committee looked self-conscious and, despite the amount of alcohol most of them had consumed, quite grim: they knew already.

“And now,” Patsy said, “I may be prejudiced, but I should like to present to you one whom I believe deserves at LEAST a hearing—my brother.”

And from somewhere behind the dais, looking tanned and rested, stepped the Governor of California, coming forward so calmly and purposefully into the flashing strobes, the television lights and the sudden wild roar of greeting that very few paused to realize that his wife was not with him. But he knew, and for just a second his face looked quite ravaged, a sad expression that came and went so fast no one really noticed. All they were aware of as he placed one hand on the lectern and began calmly to speak was the handsome, confident, statesmanlike public servant whom so many of them wished so fervently to see in the White House.

“Members of the National Committee,” he said quietly, “distinguished guests, my friends: It is good to see good friends having such a good time together!”

Laughter, renewed applause, a sudden warm current of feeling in the room. “I think he’s going to carry it off,” Lafe said to Cullee, and Cullee shrugged. “Sure, right here. Wait until the cold winds blow at Kennedy Center.”