Preserve and Protect (9 page)

Of course it mattered to all of them who were calling Bob Leffingwell on the telephone. It might very well be the next President of the United States, and in a thousand ways subtle and not so subtle they would all be affected to the end of their days by who he was and what he did.

But for all that, Bob Leffingwell had no intention at the moment of answering the persistent ringing that came at regular intervals faintly from the house. Whether it be Governor Jason or Secretary Knox or the shrewd old Congressional veteran who now had the power, he just didn’t have much stomach for a long, exhausting conversation with any of them. He was aware of his own advantages at the moment, and the longer he kept himself secluded and aloof, the stronger they would become. There was no reason to get involved sooner than he had to.

In a sense there was no reason to get involved at all. Direct participation in politics had not been Robert A. Leffingwell’s habit. At least, he reflected with a cynicism to match theirs, that was the reputation carefully built up for him over two decades by all his powerful friends of the communications world who had done so much for his career up to three days ago, and now were turned against him so implacably. How savagely they were howling for his scalp! Or rather, how smoothly and suavely, not howling, not raising their voices, just turning the knife and using the nasty phrase, were they scientifically trying to destroy him.

Just today, for instance, he had seen
Newsweek’s
final convention issue. It had contained a boxed insert, “The Strange Case of Robert A. Leffingwell,” which was a classic of its kind. Puzzled, concerned, wistfully sad and determinedly damaging, it had said in part:

“Minor highlight (Minor? Bob Leffingwell thought dryly. When I was the one who started the real stampede to Harley?) of an already chaotic convention came when Leffingwell, up to that moment apparently an enthusiastic supporter of Ted Jason, abruptly abandoned him to lead nearly half the New York delegation into the Hudson camp. Explanation for the strange switch by Bob Leffingwell—who lost the Secretaryship of State a year ago because his veracity about a youthful Communist fling proved unequal to the task of testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—was perhaps best summed up by one disillusioned liberal delegate. (
‘Unidentified’
Bob Leffingwell remarked aloud. ‘Description supplied by me.’) This observer, who had watched the Leffingwell career with undisguised admiration for twenty years, was heard to remark glumly: ‘Apparently the White House can outpromise anybody.’ Best guess on the new Leffingwell job: director of foreign aid, not too far from the State Department he could have had if it hadn’t been for those little red lies.”

One week before, when he had been managing the campaign of Ted Jason, who represented an anti-war position harshly critical of the United States Government, the story had been different:

“One of the major elements in the Jason convention drive this week was the brilliant leadership provided by Robert A. Leffingwell, long an unimpeachable liberal of the finest type. Aided by a staff as dedicated and selfless as himself, Bob Leffingwell’s skill and integrity appeared to be pushing the Governor into a well-nigh insurmountable lead.…”

How transparent they all were in a certain segment of the media, he thought with a genuine contempt. How obvious to everyone but themselves, in their ideological enthusiasms, their switches, their twitches, their self-centered, self-interested hating and loving that colored everything they wrote and broadcast. How pathetic, really: for they were heirs of a great tradition who did not have the integrity to keep it pure.

Whether they were really hurting him, he could not assess accurately at the moment. He rather thought not, because aside from that small but powerful clique, a different tone was beginning to come into the press.

What he had done a year ago was at last being put into perspective. He was being, finally, forgiven.

Not that he could ever forgive himself, of course, for lying to the Foreign Relations Committee; and not that any perspective could ever erase from his mind and heart the wound he had given himself when he let desire for the office of Secretary of State override his natural decencies. But at least, he told himself, the public image was improving; and after all, in this age of mirrors, wasn’t that all that mattered?

After a moment he told himself with a little smile that this was too cynical. His desire to become Secretary of State, after all, had included a purpose. It was far more than ambition for office. He honestly did believe that he could negotiate with the Communists in such a way as to encourage peace—or whatever that uneasy state of non-fighting accommodation might be that the world could accept as peace in this unhappy century. He honestly did feel that he could help to save America from disasters he believed a more belligerent policy would bring about.

Like so many who meet head-on in the never-ending struggle to determine who will control the great republic’s destinies, he was as convinced of his righteousness and idealism as his opponents were of theirs.

And yet he had nominated Harley Hudson, the man who had met Communist imperialism as staunchly as a Truman by sending troops into Gorotoland and Panama the moment the Communists moved. He had flown in the face of the great agonized howl that had ascended and was still wailing up from campuses, churches, ad-takers in the
New York Times,
marchers, demonstrators, emergency committees, professional peace-lovers and the world of Walter Dobius, and had supported the man they so violently and viciously opposed. He had deliberately invited their violence and viciousness upon himself. Why?

Granting that motives were mixed and many, and in Washington triply so, he supposed that basically it must have been because he was grateful to Harley Hudson for saving him from the depths of his defeat by the Senate for Secretary of State. Harley had created the President’s Commission on Administrative Reform and put him at the head of it, and the process of recovery had begun. In return he had given good service in the past year, recommending many reforms in the Executive Branch and being fortunate enough to see one or two of them adopted by Congress. Cautiously he had begun to venture out again in the world of ideas, writing a few articles, accepting a few speaking engagements. Eagerly his friends in the news media had come to his support, rapidly they had begun to rebuild his shattered reputation. While deploring his judgment in lying to the Senate, they had nonetheless stoutly defended his basic good character and his long liberal record. And then, in their grossly slanted and bitterly unfair coverage of the wars in Gorotoland and Panama, they had set out to destroy the man who had saved him. This more than anything, he felt now, had probably inspired his backing of President Hudson.

That, and perhaps dislike of Governor Jason. He had accepted the chairmanship of Ted’s campaign with serious misgivings, and only because Harley up to the last moment had maintained that he would not run. In a series of moves, all shrewdly conceived and cleverly timed, Ted had laid claim upon the liberal position. It had been an easy game, the kind a man who has no responsibility and great ambition can always play with a busy and preoccupied President who has the world on his shoulders. He had flitted around a harassed and harried Executive like an angry wasp, stinging at will.

Did Harley take a position on some major issue? Ted could always make a speech taking one a little more extreme. Did Harley act honestly on the basis of the facts as he knew them? Ted could always rise with a high moral indignation to demand that he do something else. Did Harley have to balance every word and move against all his national and global responsibilities? Ted only had to go on “Meet the Press” and make fine, free-swinging generalizations that hinted ominous things about the President and glorious things about himself.

It was all very easy for a man unscrupulous enough and rich enough and irresponsible enough; and Ted had turned out to be all three. As a result, powerful publications and commentators had flocked to his side and dutifully given him the Big Build-up they always give any Presidential candidate they have decided to support. Bob Leffingwell had soon found what he had suspected all along, that behind the smiling candidate there lay a ruthless ego and a driving ambition that did not know when to put on the brakes. “The Shame of The Convention,” the
Wall Street Journal
had called the political violence that had broken out among the Jason forces; and Bob had seen Ted allow the violence to begin and then to grow to the point where it became a monster almost uncontrollable. At that point he had left. And so the deluge of vituperation pouring on Harley had inundated him.

On one point, however, he felt that he was unassailably consistent; he had not endorsed Orrin Knox for Vice President, and indeed had withheld his vote in the final, halfhearted ballot that had confirmed Orrin’s nomination. His loyalty had been to Harley only, and he had left San Francisco not knowing whether he would be able to actively support the ticket. No man had been more responsible than Orrin, then senior Senator from Illinois, in rallying the Senate to defeat the Leffingwell nomination. He had long ago conceded Orrin’s sincerity in the matter, but that did not make it any easier to forgive him. That, he suspected, he would probably never do.

So now, he told himself quizzically as he stood up with a restive air and walked to the edge of the pool, he had a problem. He took a deep breath and dived in; swam the length of the pool underwater; came up, took another deep breath, plunged under and swam back. He surfaced, puffing and blowing, and climbed out. Helen-Anne Carrew stared at him blandly from the
chaise longue.

“Oh, hi,” he said, drawing up another from under the trees. “I didn’t hear you arrive. How about a drink?”

“Gin and tonic will do,” she said, and looked pointedly at the house. “Nobody home?”

“Just us squirrels and cardinals,” he said pleasantly. “And don’t be so subtle. I’ll be right back.…Now,” he said, stretching out comfortably and giving her an appraising glance, “what’s on your mind?”

“Sweetie,” she said cheerfully, “an old harridan like me has nothing on her mind but news, news, news. I must say you do mix a good drink. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nobody can ruin gin and tonic,” he said comfortably; and then grinned at her expectant expression. “Which ‘it’ of the many one must do something about are you referring to?”

“Well,” she said, “there is, A, an empty house, and, B, a Presidential nomination—”

“Oh, those,” he said with an elaborate yawn. “I thought you meant something really important, such as your distinguished ex-husband’s column this morning.”

“Walter Dobius,” she said firmly, “is out of his mind. Ignore him.”

“How can we?” he asked, making a sweeping, ironic gesture with his glass toward shimmering Washington. “Everybody but
everybody
listens to Walter.”

“Trying to ease you back into the Jason camp, isn’t he?”

He shrugged.

“I’m here to find out if you’re going to go,” she said. “Three people I thought I’d check on today. One is Ceil and one is Lucille Hudson and the third is you. If I can pin you all down I’ll have a hell of a column for the dear old
Washington Star.”

He smiled.

“Any luck?”

“Ceil is charming and evasive. She did talk to me, because she said I was the only reporter with brains enough to figure out where she was, but that’s about all she said. I don’t know what the situation is in that household. Any more,” she added blandly, “than I know what it is in this one.”

“Louise is in New Hampshire at Lake Chocorua,” he said with an equal blandness. “I thought you knew.”

“Mmmm-hmmm.”

“And of course you can’t reach Lucille.”

She shook her head.

“Of course not. The White House is tighter than a drum, naturally.” A sad expression touched her face. “You know, this thing is really awful. Really
awful.
Poor Harley, and all those innocent people—”

He frowned.

“Were they? All?”

“I don’t know,” she said, frowning too. “Lots of rumors going around, of course.”

He nodded with some distaste.

“I can smell them clear across the river.”

“Me, too. There was something fishy. That plane has made ten thousand trips and never had any trouble. Why did it go down with Harley, and just at this particular time?”

“Unanswered questions,” he said, “to echo down the centuries along with the others. The Presidential Mysteries.…Well, if Ceil won’t talk and you can’t reach the First Lady, what are you going to do?”

“Lover,” she said with her ribald chuckle, “I’m going to hold you under water until you tell Helen-Anne everything. First of all, about your wife—”

“Louise is very doctrinaire,” he said calmly. “She always has been. She was an intense little girl when I married her and she’s intense still. You have to see that sort growing up, from campus to committee to cause, to know what I mean, but there is a certain absolutely humorless type. She’s it. It goes with rimless glasses, no make-up, and the hair in a very tight bun. She’s gone away because she was bitterly opposed to Harley Hudson and everything he stood for, and I nominated him. She called me Tuesday night in San Francisco and threatened to leave if I did. I did, and she has. That’s all there is to that, and I’ll trust you not to print a word of it, thank you very much.”

“No,” she said slowly, “I suppose I’d better not. Good luck with it. If that’s what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want,” he said. “At the moment, it doesn’t mean anything to me. I couldn’t care less. She’s gone, so what. That’s about the way I feel right now.”

“Will she file for divorce?”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know. I doubt it, at least not until the season’s over at Chocorua. She enjoys that cabin.”

“That’s a bitter thing to say,” Helen-Anne told him.

He shrugged again. “Absolutely dispassionate, I assure you. Now, about the Presidential nomination—”

“Yes,” she said, “do let’s get back to the Presidential nomination. First, let me mix you a drink, this time.”