Promise of Joy (22 page)

“Members of the House,” he said quietly, while a hush, attentive, respectful—and avid for his downfall—settled over floor and galleries.

“The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, my dear old friend the gentleman from South Carolina who aspires to unseat me this day”—there was a ripple of laughter, not quite as plentiful or encouraging as he had hoped—“stands up here waving a piece of paper and then proceeds to read us the slanted interpretation of the media as a valid and factual contribution to this debate. I don’t think it is, I will say to the House, and I’ll tell you why.

“When I became”—and he used the title simply, for he intended it to impress and knew it would many of them, though possibly not enough—“President of the United States, I found a situation facing me that required drastic action on my part if the peace of the world and the security of the United States were to be preserved.

“My predecessor, the late Harley M. Hudson, had determined to take strong steps, including armed intervention, in the countries of Gorotoland and Panama, because American missionaries and American interests had been attacked in Gorotoland, and because a rebel movement in Panama was threatening overthrow of the government there, and capture of the Canal.

“I continued those policies because I agreed entirely with his analysis of the two situations and with his methods of handling them. I didn’t apologize then and I don’t apologize now. And I don’t think”—his tone became flat and emphatic—“that President Knox has to apologize either.”

At this there was a sudden stirring, a clearly hostile rumble of protest across floor and galleries. His voice became, if anything, more emphatic.

“The Soviet Union and the Communist Chinese, planners, suppliers and day-by-day managers of these two attacks upon the United States and the peace of the world, have tried unsuccessfully in the United Nations to stop American moves to produce a reasonable status quo and a reasonable basis for negotiations in both afflicted countries. We have exercised our veto to stop them. Today we are exercising it again. I hope we will continue to do so whenever necessary.”

Again the rumble of protest, louder, more excited.

“Mr. Speaker,” he said, turning to the Minority Whip in the Chair, “may we have order in the House, please?”

“The House will be in order,” the Minority Whip said promptly, banging the gavel. “And the galleries, too. Otherwise the Sergeant-at-Arms will be asked to clear the galleries.” The rumble died, still protesting. “The gentleman will proceed.”

“Thank you,” William Abbott said. He looked somberly around the restless room. “Recently the Communist powers have become bolder. Two months ago they were on the verge of an all-out offensive to renew the fighting, which had sunk to a point of near stalemate, during which we have been working diligently through every available channel all over the world to begin genuine peace negotiations. In response to very full and complete intelligence information on this contemplated move, I ordered a worldwide alert of all American armed forces. I intended the alert as a signal to the Communist powers that they would be met by complete American opposition if they continued with their plans for an offensive.

“The signal sufficed. They abandoned the offensive—until the day when they thought the United States would be off balance, namely the inauguration day of a new President. Immediately after he offered them the olive branch and asked them to meet him in Geneva for a full-scale review, and hopefully a full-scale settlement, of the outstanding issues that divide the world, they struck. Now they are putting forward the phony topsy-turvy theory that their aggression was in answer to a nonexistent American aggression. So far they have had their usual success in persuading those many members of the United Nations who hate the United States anyway.

“I hope they will not have a similar success in this Congress.”

Again there was angry protest.

Into it the supporters of a strong American policy found themselves speaking with an ever-harsher, ever-blunter emphasis, regardless of what their own best political strategy might be.

“Yes!” Bob Munson said angrily, his tone so sharp that the sounds of protest momentarily died away. “Yes, I say to this Senate, I hope the Communists will not have a success in this Congress similar to the success they seem to be having in the United Nations this afternoon. They can always persuade enough haters of America to go along with them, up there. God help us if there are that many haters of their own country here!”

“Mr. President,” Arly Richardson said with equal sharpness, “will the Senator yield? What does the Senator think he gains by attacking those who disagree with him as ‘haters of their own country’? There are very many perfectly sincere and genuine doubts about the actions taken in the past twenty-four hours by the new President of the United States, and I for one do not intend to have my patriotism or my integrity impugned when I oppose those actions. I won’t have it, Mr. President!”

“Very well,” Bob Munson said promptly, “I withdraw any unintentional or inadvertent impugning of the patriotism and integrity of the Senator from Arkansas, or anyone else who agrees with him. But I do not withdraw my criticism of his general approach to these matters, because I think it to be absolutely vital to the future security of this country and the group of independent nations that we not flinch or falter in this new confrontation with the Communist powers. I think it is absolutely imperative that we support the President a hundred per cent without any breaking of ranks that would encourage the Communists to believe that we are weak, or wavering, or ready to surrender in the face of their new aggression.”

“‘Their ‘new aggression’!” Arly Richardson echoed scornfully. “What about ours? That is what we are responsible for, I suggest to the Senator, not somebody else’s. What do we do about
ours?
How do we extricate ourselves from this predicament into which the new President, in his characteristic fashion, known only all too well to this Senate where he served so many years, has plunged us with his usual impulsiveness and lack of forethought? That is what I think this Senate must decide. And, Mr. President,” he added, in an emphatic and pointed tone, “I do not think it can do it under an inflammatory, demagogic, subservient leadership which has already committed itself lock, stock and barrel to the President’s ill-advised, irresponsible course.”

“Now, Mr. President!” Bob Munson said, and it was obvious he was keeping his tone level with some difficulty. “How the Senator can so quickly and easily absolve the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China from any guilt or culpability—how he can talk blithely about ‘our’ aggression and totally ignore theirs, which began this latest confrontation—is literally beyond me. It sounds illogical to the point almost of unbalance, Mr. President. I just don’t get it, and I wish the Senator would explain.”

“Mr. President,” Tom August said in his hesitant, apologetic way, “I should like to try to answer the Majority Leader on that point, if I may, because here, of course, we part company.

“The news from the United Nations, Mr. President, indicates clearly what the situation in the world is at this hour. Other powers, observing the actions of the new Administration here in Washington, have reached the conclusion that there would have been no Communist moves in Gorotoland and Panama had the United States not already been in those two countries, and had we not, under the two previous Administrations, consistently defied UN attempts to get us out. Therefore, Mr. President, what appears to be an overwhelming majority of the United Nations—at least in the Security Council and, I suspect, when it goes to the General Assembly later today—has decided that it is the United States that is basically culpable for being there in the first place, not the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China for following the UN’s wishes and seeking to get us out.

“That is the fact of how they feel, Mr. President, and”—he looked with an apologetic stubbornness at Senator Munson, who was regarding him with an open disbelief—“I am afraid that is how many Americans feel, too.

“Therefore, it becomes difficult for many of us in the Senate, and I believe in the House as well, to support President Knox in this instance. And also, I believe”—and while the apologetic air deepened, so did the stubbornness—“to support a candidate for leadership who has chosen to identify himself intimately and beyond extrication with the policies of the President.”

“I have identified myself with the policies of the President ‘beyond extrication,’ as the Senator puts it,” Bob Munson snapped, “because I do not see how any sane man concerned for his country’s future can do otherwise. The Senator knows why we were in Gorotoland and Panama ‘in the first place.’ Every informed man and woman in sound of my voice, every informed man and woman in the country and in the world, knows why we were there ‘in the first place.’ We were there because we, and indirectly but quite effectively, the chances for world peace, were attacked. No amount of quibble or double-talk can change that fact of history. Furthermore, we are presently engaged in direct military action solely and entirely in reply to a new and completely unprovoked Soviet and Chinese aggression. No vote of the UN can change that fact.

“Why should I not support President Knox’s response to it ‘beyond extrication’? To do any other, it seems to me, would be to abandon both what I have believed in all my life, and the survival of this country. I am not afraid to seek re-election to the leadership on that basis.”

“If the Senator persists in that position,” Tom August said with a sort of wistful regret, while a few seats away Arly Richardson looked both grim and triumphant, “then I am afraid I, and many others, are going to have to vote against him.”

“If the gentleman from Colorado, our great ex-President, ex-Speaker here, persists in that position,” Jawbone Swarthman cried with an almost exuberant indignation, “of supportin’ this new President in all his wild-eyed adventures
no matter what,
then I say to this House I’m goin’ to have to vote against him, and I think a lot of others are too! Not only vote against him, but vote for somebody who’s a little better in tune with what’s goin’ on in this world. That’s all I can say!”

“Well,” William Abbott said bluntly, “you might as well nominate yourself, Jawbone. Or have you primed somebody else to do it?”

“I suspect there will be some who will,” Jawbone said with a serene dignity.
“Yes,
sir, I will say to the gentleman I suspect there will be some who will. But that doesn’t change the mistaken nature of the gentleman’s position, I will say to him. I know what he did as President, I know what he did here as Speaker before, we all know he’s a great public servant, we all know he’s one of the greatest that ever served this Republic. But lots of us here feel he’s all wrong, and we feel this new President down there is all wrong
this time.
I’ll remind the gentleman from Colorado, the ex-President, ex-Speaker here, it’s a
whole new Congress.
And it just doesn’t like all this foreign adventurin’, I’ll say to the gentleman, all this interferin’ and meddlin’ and usin’ American boys to fight other people’s wars all over this whole
globe.
No, sir,
it does not?”

“And so what do
you
offer as alternative?” Bill Abbott demanded, and in the galleries and over the floor there was an uneasy shifting and even a few muted boos and hisses at his tone. “Appeasement? Surrender? Turn-tail-and-run? Just suppose you were President of the United States, confronted with the sort of sudden offensive that confronted Orrin Knox twenty-four hours ago, what would you have done, I’ll ask the gentleman from South Carolina? Given in? Pretended it wasn’t happening? Retreated without a protest? Surrendered without a fight? Which of those policies would you approve and support if you were Speaker? Just exactly what do you offer, I ask the gentleman? You aspire to leadership: what kind of leadership? I think the House has a right to know, since the gentleman is so hostile to the policies of the President, and my own.”

“Well, sir!” Jawbone cried, and it was obvious that now he thought his once-powerful opponent had delivered himself up to him. “Well, sir! Let me tell you what I’d support, Mr. ex-President, Mr. ex-Speaker, sir! Let me tell the gentleman, and tell this House as well, since he challenges me!
This
is what I’d follow. Yes, sir!

“First of all, I’ll say to our dear friend from Colorado, our distinguished ex-President, ex-Speaker—”

“For God’s sake, Jawbone!” William Abbott snapped, abandoning parliamentary courtesy but provoked beyond endurance. “Knock it off!”

“—Mr. ex-Speaker, sir,” Jawbone repeated blandly, ignoring him,
“first
of all, I never would have put us into those two itty-bitty good-for-nothing spots in the first place. Not that I don’t have every respect for the great people of Gorotoland,” he added hastily, “and the great people of Panama, and not that I don’t respect their li’l ole right to determine their own destinies, but
for that very reason
I’d never have got us into those messes in the first place. And secondly,
if
I did, I’d sure not have handled it like Harley Hudson, God rest his soul, and you, Bill, and now ole Orrin there. I’d sure not have gone in there breathin’ fire and throwin’ bombs and sendin’ troops and generally messin’ up the whole peace of the world. No, sir, I would not!

“I’d have gone to the UN right off, that’s what I’d have done. I’d have said, ‘Now, looka-here, you-all, we got us a li’l ole problem here, and we want you fine gentlemen of the earth to
help us out.
We want you to help us handle it in a peace-lovin, peace-respectin’,
decent
way like you-all gentlemen want us to do!’

“I’d say, ‘Now, pass us a li’l ole resolution here declarin’ as how we want a
real
peace in Gorotoland, a
real
peace in Panama, and you help us get it. You order a cease-fire, you set up a peace-keepin’ force, you call a peace conference and we’ll attend and we’ll abide by it. We’ll abide by it, win, lose or draw,’ I’d say, ‘we’ll abide by it! Yes, sir! And if you-all say,
“Git!”
then we’ll
git,’
I’d say. ‘You won’t find us cheatin’ around tryin’ to hang in there and impose our armed will on those two itty-bitty ole countries! You won’t find the good ole U.S. of A. empirin’ and conquestin’ and generally raisin’ unmitigated hell tryin’ to get
our own way.
No, sir! We’ll take you-all’s way because we believe that’s the way of peace! We surely do, now! We believe that’s the way of peace!’”