The General's President (8 page)

"The violence is over now, at least for the present, but the country remains in serious, perhaps even critical, condition. We have a lot to do to get it running decently, and to reform certain institutions so that it doesn't go off the tracks again. The financial system is in collapse. The production and distribution of goods, including the orderly distribution of food and fuel, has been seriously disrupted, as most of you know all too well.

"Things have continued as well as they have, only because many people have been willing to keep working with no assurance that they'd see a paycheck. Those people are part of the solution. Some others have been part of the problem.

"Many businesses have closed, folded, due to the unwise practices of government, banks, corporations, speculators, and the businessmen themselves. Apparently few of these practices were criminal in a legal sense, but many were irresponsible. More commonly they were the actions of people following more or less established ways, which we now see were destructive."

Haugen paused to scan the audience in the chamber.

"Obviously we need to change some things," he went on. "And we will.

"It is appropriate to be critical, and to start criminal proceedings where called for. But almost all of us share responsibility for the catastrophe. We all saw the direction in which things were going, have been going for years. Yet political parties, candidates, office holders, weren't willing to bite the bullet and make the changes necessary. And why not? Because we the people of the United States of America didn't tell them to. We didn't insist on it. Many of us didn't even want them to.

"We
gimme'd
our way into this mess. Now we need to create and work our way out of it. And my job is skipper, captain, the person at the wheel."

It occurred to Morrows that the president didn't seem to be reading, only glancing down now and then as if at notes. He'd heard of people like that, who could look at a page, then look up and recite a paragraph or two verbatim. It made them seem to be delivering extemporaneously. And when Haugen looked up from his speech, it was at someone, apparently a different someone each time. Morrows wondered how much of that was deliberate and how much unconscious.

"To begin with," the president was saying, "I'll continue to take stopgap emergency steps, as President Donnelly did, while putting together a broad rebuilding program, using the best data I can get. Meanwhile I'll update you from time to time, telling you what we're doing, what we plan to do, and what we need you to do if we're going to salvage and rebuild this country.

"I'll talk about specifics later, as we work them out. I'll be discussing economics, health care, the legal system, the environment, and anything else that seems necessary."

He paused as if to emphasize what came next, scanning the audience again. "This isn't going to be your standard democratic process, you know. When a ship is in danger of foundering, of sinking with all hands, that's no time to sit around and play tug-of-war, or argue, or protect cherished prerogatives. The government, with me at the wheel, will continue to operate under emergency powers and martial law.

"Incidentally, President Donnelly first offered the vice presidency to General Cromwell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He felt that strongly that a firm hand was needed. But General Cromwell declined; he felt that the country might not accept a general as president, and that at any rate a civilian viewpoint was preferable."

He leaned forward now, forearms on the lectern, peering at the audience as if in confidence. "So now you have Arne Haugen as president," he continued. "Why me? Why was I asked to serve? I don't know all the thinking on that, but I can tell you a little about myself that may have influenced the decision.

"I'm an electrical engineer, which reflects enough personal discipline and enough organized intelligence to get through a tough, not much nonsense set of university courses. I'm also a highly successful inventor, which reflects a considerable ability to apply what I know to the solution of previously unsolved problems."

Haugen paused and straightened. "And to ignore standard ways of doing things, when they aren't working. That's been important in the way I work. It may prove important on this job too.

"I'm a self-made multi-millionaire who started out with very little. Which does
not
make me holier than thou. But I did it by manufacturing useful things that I, and people who work with me, invented or improved. And not by the greed-oriented financial gamesmanship that many others have gotten rich by.

"I also did it by living frugally, with minimal borrowing, and working lots of hours, in order to get started and establish a well-developed operation."

He paused again, then grinned unexpectedly. "Incidentally, I'm the first president in more than a century to have been born and raised in a log house. People can use that information someday in playing Trivial Pursuit. And I personally know something about poverty. Though in important respects, farm poverty during the 1920s and 30s was a much less demoralizing experience than urban poverty in the 80s and 90s. Perhaps nothing helps morale more than production does, and we did a lot of that. As a matter of fact, I didn't know we were poor, and I doubt that my parents thought of us that way. We just had very little money. And there was no television, no full-color commercials, to show or tell the Haugen family what it didn't have, what it wasn't able to buy. As far as that's concerned, there wasn't even electricity in our part of the country. And our neighbors were hardscrabble backwoods settlers just as we were.

"I'm also the first American president ever who grew up in a foreign language household—three foreign languages, actually. My mother knew almost no English when I was small; her native language was Finnish, but she could also speak, somewhat, a Swedish dialect. Which was close enough to my father's Norwegian that they could converse effectively. Also each of my grandmothers, one Finnish and one Norwegian, lived with us much of the time, neither speaking English. So I grew up speaking Finnish and a sort of Swedified Norwegian.

"Finnish, incidentally, is utterly different from Norwegian, and learning both at once, I developed a very flexible subconscious program for learning languages. Since then I've found languages both interesting, and easy to learn, and I speak and read a number of them. Which should prove useful in foreign relations."

The president looked up at the video cameras. "And as far as war is concerned," he went on, "I have firsthand experience. Incidentally, the information that found its way to the media was not entirely correct. I trained with the independent 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment and fought with it in New Guinea and on Noemfoor Island where I was wounded. After rehabilitation, I was
then
assigned to the Eleventh Airborne's 511th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and later wounded on Leyte. After that I fought in southern Luzon and took part in the Los Baños drop. I lost both my brothers to combat, one in Normandy and the other on Peliliu, not Okinawa as reported.

"I do not look on war as something desirable."

He scanned the chamber then, the congressmen. "And now for some things I am not: I am neither politician nor lawyer. There is nothing wrong with being a politician or a lawyer; Lincoln was both. But because I am neither of them, I look at government and many other things from a different viewpoint, a different tradition, than lawyers and politicians do.

"Also, I am not, and never have been, a military supplier. I say that not from any sense of superiority; I'm not putting down the arms industry. I'm simply saying that I nave no vested interests in weapons production. If it was not for the arms industry, however, we'd be in a lot worse trouble than we are."

He paused again, brows drawn down for a moment in a severe line, but when he spoke, it was casually.

"And I don't particularly care whether people like me or not. I'd prefer they do, but it isn't important to me. The compulsion to be liked is a trap. I'm going to do what seems to me most likely to salvage the situation and leave the United States of America stronger and more effective, and a better place to live, than ever before.

"Let me restate that, because it needs to be understood. I'm going to do—or try to do—what seems to me most likely to salvage the situation
and to leave the United States stronger, more effective, and a better place to live than ever before.
"

Once more he paused, and when he spoke again, his words were slow and measured. "And to do that—to leave it stronger and better—we'll need to change how we do some pretty basic things in this country. Which I'll talk about later when I've sorted them out more fully.

"And while it's now my responsibility to plot a course and see that the ship's officers steer that course
...the rest of you have responsibilities too.
This is not a luxury ship; it's not even a passenger ship. You're not passengers, you're the crew.

"But on the other hand, this is not a slave galley, and I will not make it one.

"There are others who'd like to run this government. Some would like to run it from outside, through puppets. To some of them, even the idea of democracy, of a people free to run their own lives and their government, is utterly unreal. And if those others ever take over, forget freedom for a long time. For lifetimes.

"On the other hand, I am committed to the principle that people should run their own lives. You'll see my dedication to that very soon. I also believe they should run their own government, and I intend to move us further in that direction than this country has been for a while.

"Not that I'm guaranteeing we'll make it. This nation has gone a long way down the road to hell, and it didn't happen in just the last few months or years. It took a long time to slide this far. Also, I can't promise you that I'm wise enough to plan a workable course back out.

"Nor—Nor that you've got the guts and self-discipline to travel such a course. I'm sure that some of you do—that many of you do. The question is, do enough of you?

"But—" He looked the audience over, his expression blunt, then he eased and smiled. "But it's the most interesting, and challenging, and potentially rewarding task that any nation, by which I mean any people, has taken on for a long time. Or any president. And if we pull it off, we'll be a greater nation than ever. I do not exaggerate. If we pull it off, we'll be the greatest nation in history. Young again. Energetic. And more able than ever. Because we'll have learned a lot, and had the experience of overcoming as a people. And we'll have gained a viewpoint that the founding fathers, with all their genuine wisdom, didn't have, couldn't have had back then."

Jesus!
thought Morrows.
This man can be inspirational! Now if he's only competent—competent enough.

The president seemed now to be ignoring his notes. For a moment he contemplated the center camera, his left forearm resting on his abdomen, right elbow propped on left hand, chin cupped thoughtfully for a moment between thumb and forefinger. Morrows watched, intrigued; the man was an even better, a more varied stage performer than Reagan had been.

"For now though," Haugen said, "I'm the boss. Someone has to be. The situation demands it, to reduce the time needed to make decisions and start actions.

"Not that I intend to try running everything. I intend to let people and cities and states solve their own specific problems
so far as they can.
Or to keep their problems if they want to, so long as those problems do not seriously impede national recovery. The main federal function, as I see it, is to create a situation where people
can
solve their own problems, with a little intelligence and guts. But creating such a situation is going to take some doing, take some time, take some changes. Because in recent decades, despite important progress in certain areas, government has, by and large, inhibited real solutions, imposing its own prescriptions and programs and creating a large array of new problems.

"Don't misunderstand me. This will not be a simplistic, hands-off government. Just now, things are in serious shape, and we'll do what is necessary to get them back on track again.

"Some of the things this government will do may prove not to work. When that happens, I will not keep failure alive by refusing to admit that government was wrong. Or that I've been wrong. If I establish some program or executive order and it clearly isn't working, isn't working in spite of having had reasonable time and resources to work, I'll change it or throw it out.

"But I do not intend a society and economy planned and controlled by government. We are not the Soviet Union. We will try not to repeat our own mistakes and we will certainly not repeat theirs. We will give private individuals as much freedom and opportunity as circumstances permit.

"And mentioning the Soviet Union brings up another matter: foreign affairs." The president paused and scanned around. "So what I have to say now, I am directing not only to you, but to other nations, other governments.

"As of now, it cannot be taken for granted that any of yesterday's foreign policies will necessarily be in force next month. Consistency in policy is a virtue only so far as that policy works. Our foreign relations with all countries will be reviewed, with the help of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. And of course with the policy level of the State Department and informed persons outside government.

"These informed persons outside government will include foreign ambassadors and, when it seems useful, the heads of foreign governments. I suspect that some of them will be interested in learning firsthand what this new, little-known American president is like."

The president stood for a moment with lips pursed, as if considering something, then looked the audience over. "And that, my friends, is all I have to say tonight," he finished. "I've got a lot of work waiting for me. Wish me luck with it, as I wish you luck with yours. Thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you again soon."