Saving the Queen (37 page)
Authors: William F. Buckley
The police, check lists in hand, had politely tabulated the guests, admitting fifty-odd persons before resuming their casual posture as human substitutes for the old portcullis. The very last to approach them, invitation in hand, was Blackford Oakes, and before the gates closed between him and his companion, a man named Callaway, he was heard to say to him:
“So long, Singer. Do please let me hear from you if there is anything at all I can do to help you out in the future. You have my number.”
Epilogue
Blackford Oakes was alone. It was never suggested that witnesses should have a lawyer sitting alongside, or even that they should be accompanied by another member of the Agency. The hearings were to be utterly confidential, and in a way
â
that was how Rockefeller had described them
â“
informal
Ӊ
a meeting between a few of the most prominent men of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the presidential panel instructed to interrogate them, to discover just exactly what the CIA did, what limits it observed, and what mechanisms, if any, were needed to perfect the dominion of it by a self-governing public
.
So that Blackford was quite literally unaccompanied when the clerk, and the recorder, rose, as the august panel filed in. Blackford rose too, and the chairman, settled in his seat, looked down over the elevated desk-table to the clerk, and said matter-of-factly, “Proceed to swear in the witness.
”
The clerk turned to Blackford and said, “Please stand, and raise your right hand.” Blackford did so
.
The clerk, his glasses lazing over the bridge of his nose during the formality, uttered the workaday incantation in the humdrum cadences of the professional waterboy at court. The procedure is everywhere the same. The speed must be routinized and accelerated, like liturgical responses, the phrases agglutinated, yet somehow aud ble. The inflection at the very end requires a note touching gravity
.
“
Do-you-Blackford-Oakes-solemnly-swear-to-tell-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth
so help you God?”
“
No, sir,” Blackford said
.
The clerk stared at him dumbly. He was frozen by the irregularity. Eighty per cent of the people he had sworn in to tell the truth during the thirty years he had served as clerk had proceeded quite regularly to lie, and this upset the clerk not at all, that being someone else's problem. But he had always assumed that the imperious demands of his summons to the oath-taking were undeniable and had never experienced
â
or even heard about
â
someone who had reacted the way this
â¦
kook
â¦
this blond, trim, blue-eyed movie-star type in his young middle age, showing no sign at all of nervousness or panic or neurosis
â
who had gone to the deceptive length of actually
raising
his right hand, only to
â¦
The clerk looked helplessly to the chairman
.
Mr. Rockefeller's composure, though temporarily adrift, quickly kedged up in that splendid self-assurance of investigating panel chairmen
.
“
Please sit down, Mr. Oakes.
”
Blackford did as he was told
.
“
Why do you decline to swear to tell the truth
?”
“
Because, Mr. Vice-president, I am involved in a conflict of interest.
”
“
Will you elaborate on this, Mr. Oakes
?”
“
To the extent I can, sir. If I swear to tell the truth, I am bound to answer truthfully questions you might put to me which, if I answered them truthfully, would jeopardize those interests of the United States which I have been trained to concern myself with as primary.
”
“
I appreciate very much your devotion to duty, Mr. Oakes. But the fact of the matter is that this panel was appointed by the President of the United States, precisely to inquire into questions raised publicly about the Central Intelligence Agency, for instance, is it always engaged in matters that enhance the national interest, and, if so, by the use of methods that are compatible with American ethics? Now, it ought to be clear to you that the authority of the President of the United States exceeds the authority of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, let alone any of his subordinates. So that by telling us the truth, you are in fact upholding the integrity of the democratic chain of command.
”
“
Mr. Vice-president, I understand your theoretical arguments. I reach different conclusions on concrete questions. I would most willingly give you the reasons why I reach these conclusions if you desire me to do so. But if you feel that merely to listen to me give my reasoning is somehow a waste of your valuable time, and that of your distinguished colleagues, then it would save time
â
all the way around
â
for me to say nothing at all beyond what I have already said. I am of course aware of the penalties you are in a position to impose on me for failing to co-operate by your definition of co-operation.
”
Rockefeller looked hard at Blackford Oakes, and the political reflexes that had taken him where he was itched with apprehension. He paused a moment, and then moved
.
“
Will the clerk please escort the witness out of the room? The panel will caucus in privacy.
”
Oakes was led out to an anteroom. He tried to concentrate on the
Congressional Record
for the day before, but found he could not even remember, in his current distractions, whether Earl Butz, the subject of the longest speech delivered the previous afternoon at the House of Representatives, was the American, or the Soviet, Agricultural Minister, and he was not able to infer from his actions, as reported, which of the two posts he served
.
Next door the talk was animated. One member said, as the chairman expected at least one member to say:
“
I say lets get Van Johnson back in here and tell that prick to take that oath or
â”
“
Or what?” the Vice-president said
â
a question he was, really, asking himself
.
“
Or
Ӊ
the senator looked, as if for help from a legal aide, first to his right, then to his left; but lacking help, said, a little less resonantly
â“
send him to jail for contempt
.â¦
At least we can get him fired.⦠Can't we order the director to order him to take the oath
?”
“
I actually don't know,” the chairman mused. “I
really
don't. Sure, we can get him fired
â
we can get anybody fired. If we can't do that
Ӊ
he grinned jovially at his colleagues
â“
we ought to quit.⦠And
Ӊ
he was thinking it through
â“
we could theoretically get him jailed for failure to co-operate. But contempt citations, as you gentlemen know from many recent experiences with the, ah, dissident American elements, are not easy to get through Congress and the courts.â¦
”
The panel discussed the matter for forty minutes, coming finally, grudgingly, to a conclusion. Decorum required that it should not be humiliatingly announced in the presence of the witness. So the clerk was called in
.
The chairman addressed him;
“
Inform the witness, Oakes, that he is excused.
”
The clerk, palpably disappointed, slurred his way into the antechamber. He used the indirect address
.
“
Mr. Oakes is excused.
”
Blackford put down his reading matter, rose, thanked the clerk, and picked up his briefcase. He left the room for the corridor and waited there for the elevator, a grin almost forcing its way through the facial anonymity he cultivated in all public situations, though he could not refrain, as he went down the eighteen floors to the lobby, from whistling, softly, “God Save the Queen.
”
Acknowledgments
I don't yet know whether Iâlet alone the world of lettersâam indebted to Mr. Samuel Vaughan of Doubleday for his mischievous suggestion that I write a novel in the first place; but I am certainly indebted to him, and to his associates, Betty Prashker and Hugh O'Neill, for their acute criticisms and fine suggestions. My thanks also to my friend and aide Frances Bronson for her help with the manuscript; to Robin Wu for his research; and to someone who prefers to remain anonymous for critical help in the research. And, finally, my thanks yet again to Joseph Isola for reading the galleys with his incomparable eye.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1976 by William F. Buckley, Jr.
Cover design by Barbara Brown
Cover illustration by Karl Kotas
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1849-4
This 2015 edition published by
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