Advise and Consent (30 page)

“Mr. Chairman!” Seab said loudly. “That is most irregular, Mr. Chairman. That is never done to Senators. It would be the most gross insult to me personally, Mr. Chairman.”

“He can give the witness the grossest insult,”
Newsweek
whispered bitterly, “But you mustn’t insult him.” “I hate the old son of a bitch,”
Time
Magazine said simply.

Senator Anderson rapped his gavel sharply and spoke in a firm tone.

“That motion is out of order,” he said, “and the Chair will not entertain it. By the same token, neither will the Chair entertain further questioning of that nature from the Senator from South Carolina. The Chair if necessary will rule it out of order and put the ruling to a vote.”

“Do so, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Richardson said suddenly, with a certain ominous quietness. “Please do so.”

For a long moment Senator Anderson hesitated while the tension grew apace in the crowded, silent room: and even as he hesitated, he knew he had lost, and Seab had won. But under the circumstances there was nothing for it but to proceed.

“Very well,” he said, “I so rule and the committee may pass upon it. Senator Knox?”

“I’m not much of a one for curtailing Senators of the United States in the performance of their duty to get information,” Orrin Knox observed dryly. “I vote No.”

“Senator Winthrop?” Brig asked.

“Aye,” John Winthrop said.

“Senator Richardson?”

“Why, of course not, Mr. Chairman,” Arly said with a sardonic blandness. “You know that.”

“Senator DeWilton?”

“No, indeed,” John DeWilton said crisply.

“The Chair votes Aye,” the chairman said, “and the ruling is overruled. The Chair will say, however, that he does not think the type of questioning indulged in by the Senator from South Carolina does him any credit, or the witness any damage, in the eyes of the country. But if that is the Senator’s wish, he may continue in it. He has proved he has the votes.”

“In other words they’re going to let him slaughter Leffingwell,” the
Washington Post
whispered angrily. The
Chicago Tribune
shrugged, not without satisfaction. “It’s like Brig said, he’s got the votes.”

“Well, Mr. Chairman,” Seab said gently, “I think that concludes my questioning for the time being. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. I know neither he nor the Chair meant me any discourtesy. I thank all Senators.” And he settled back, looking sleepy and content. Brigham Anderson shrugged.

“Let’s get on,” he said. “Any further questions, Senator Winthrop?”

“Yes, sir,” John Winthrop said, and he smiled at the nominee. “You can see, Mr. Leffingwell,” he said, “the effect you have upon this Senate. You get some little inkling here of the differences your nomination has created.”

“I can only hope, Senator,” Bob Leffingwell said simply, “that if a majority confirms me I may so conduct myself as to justify its confidence and persuade those who were in the minority that they were mistaken.”

“Well,” Senator Winthrop said, “the proof of that puddin’ will be in the eatin’. I think,” he said, picking his words carefully, “that it might tend to alleviate some of the reaction exemplified by the Senator from South Carolina if you would tell us just a little, in a general way, of the lines along which you think an understanding with the Soviet Union might be worked out. I am not asking in either the manner or the tone of the Senator from South Carolina, nor am I making the imputations he has, which I have just demonstrated my distaste for; I’m asking as one who is disposed to be friendly toward your nomination, and one who would like to see you emerge from these hearings with all doubts set at rest. We want to know, I think, at least in general, what we can expect if you are confirmed.”

The nominee, who had been listening intently, gave the Senator from Massachusetts an earnest, level look as he concluded, and shook his head in an almost puzzled way.

“Senator,” he said, “again I can only say that I do not know exactly how to answer your query. So much depends on what the President wants; on what the Russians want; on what our allies want; on what the circumstances may be at the moment of meeting—is it so unreasonable that I am unable to tell you what my terms would be, as you put it?”

Senator Winthrop gave him a long and thoughtful look and when he spoke it was in a tone in which there was a genuine regret.

“It is only unreasonable, Mr. Leffingwell,” he said quietly, “when it is placed alongside the rest of your testimony. So far you have given us several fine statements of your personal belief; but you have refused to tell the Senator from Illinois the principles upon which you would expect to act, and you have refused to tell me the general terms that you would propose to seek from the Russians in the way of a decent settlement. You were, in a sense, unknown to us in this area when you took the stand, and you are unknown to us still, up to this point in your testimony. I regret that, Mr. Leffingwell, for I think instead of banishing doubts you have succeeded so far only in creating more. I hope you will be more candid with the subcommittee from now on, for I personally am not so sure now that I would want to vote for an unknown to be Secretary of State.”

The nominee flushed deeply, but his voice disclosed nothing but a calm self-possession and certainty.

“I regret that you feel that way, Senator,” he said. “I am attempting to be candid with the subcommittee and I shall continue to do so.”

“I have no further questions of this witness at this time, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Winthrop said and sat back with a grave expression on his face.

Down at the end of the table Senator Cooley leaned forward and spoke into the silence that followed.

“You see?” he said. “You cannot trust this man, Mr. Chairman. His purpose is to be evasive, and he is succeeding in it. Why is he being so evasive, Mr. Chairman? That is the question that should now be asked here. Why?”

Brigham Anderson sighed.

“All right, Senator,” he said. “Senator Richardson, your witness.”

And as Arly Richardson moved forward a little in his chair with a certain killer’s gleam in his eye, the wire-service reporters left the press tables and started their hurried run downstairs to the press room to send in their new leads on the early morning stories. The Senator from South Carolina, knowing from long experience that it was time for this to happen, watched them go with a satisfaction which he did not permit to show in his face; for he knew what they were thinking, he knew the shrewd, automatic way in which the hearing so far was being sorted over in their clever minds as they leaped down the stairs; he knew that in the desperate necessity of competing for the attention of editors all over the country their leads would not be on what UPI referred to as “all that philosophical crap” as he went clattering down. Seab knew the lead would simply be, “Senator Seabright B. Cooley charged today that Robert A. Leffingwell will betray the United States in negotiations with Russia if he becomes Secretary of State.” And knowing this, Seab was quite content.

Life has its own way of bringing about fantastic and illogical circumstances, and life in Washington sometimes brings about circumstances more fantastic and illogical than it does in most places. So it was that Mr. Justice Davis, thoughtfully reading over editorials and clippings on the Leffingwell nomination in his chambers at the Court; Fred Van Ackerman, junior Senator from Wyoming, testifying on the Taylor Grazing Act before Stanley Danta in the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee; and Ellabelle Proctor, the maid who came in three times a week at the Brigham Andersons’, were at about this moment in the subcommittee’s hearings linked together in one of those ironic little arrangements devised by fate far more often than logical human beings like to admit. It would be several days before any of the three would perceive this peculiar linkage—Ellabelle, it seems likely, never did realize it—but nonetheless events set in motion at that moment would tie them all one to the other; and in a way most ironic of all, this erratic, unexpected and casually inadvertent connection would turn out to have a most direct bearing on the career of a United States Senator, the future of the American Presidency, and the nomination of Robert A. Leffingwell.

None of this, of course, was apparent at this moment to Tommy Davis as he sat in a deep leather armchair before a window looking across the rainswept Capitol Plaza to the looming dome of the Capitol and read over the material his secretary, that alert young man from Princeton, had gathered together for him. Tommy, in fact, was far from any thoughts but the practical ones of how he might best advance the cause of Bob Leffingwell; and it was typical of the way things go in Washington that fate should even then, all unknown to him, be preparing him the way.

As of then, however, Mr. Justice Davis knew only that the editorial comment on his boy was, on balance, generally good. The
Washington Post
had indeed, as he had hoped, come out four-square for the nominee in its Saturday morning edition, and an editorial of fervent affirmation had been accompanied by a brilliantly clever and savage cartoon. This combination of power was now spread before the Justice, and along with it were the following editorials of Sunday and today, each stressing, in a sort of dying fall, the worth of Bob Leffingwell and the imperative necessity for his confirmation. Almost every day from now on, Tommy felt confident, he could count on something, either editorial or cartoon or both, from the
Post
; and knowing the impact this journal had upon the breakfast tables of the nation’s capital, he was well pleased with his evangelistic efforts in that sector in the nominee’s behalf.

Also before him lay the
Washington
Evening
Star
and the
Washington
Daily
News
, and as he had expected, the
Star
was cautious but friendly while the
News
was friendly but cautious. In sum, the
Star
was for the nominee—“providing he can show, as we know he can, that he is fully devoted to the interests of his country abroad and has some specific solutions for the problems in that area which now confront her.” The
News
(in an editorial entitled, “It’s Up To You, Bob”) was on the fence but leaning—“We’re for him as head of the FPC and the ODM; we think we’re probably going to be for him for Secretary of State. We’ll be watching those hearings, as will all citizens, with an attentive ear and a watchful eye.” Mr. Justice Davis, sure that both papers would come around and that the
Star
would then, with all the solidity of its traditional influence in the community, nicely complement the more high-flying
Post
, put the local papers aside and turned thoughtfully to those of a more national scope.

Of these, he noted that the
New York
Times
had decided to endorse the nominee in a leader entitled, with all the simple yet dramatic effectiveness of the editorial page of that great institution, “A Nomination.” The
Times
’ thesis seemed to be that Mr. Leffingwell was a good public servant and the
Times
approved of good public servants.
The New York
Herald Tribune,
slightly more informal, offered an endorsement entitled firmly, “What We Need”; Bob Leffingwell seemed to be it. The
Chicago Tribune
, taking a darker view of the matter, asked, “Can We Afford Another Do-Gooder?” while the
Christian Science Monitor
wondered soberly, “A Hope For The West?” and went on to discuss, not Bob Leffingwell, but a speech by the Secretary General of the United Nations calling for a more religious spirit in international dealings.

Of the periodicals before him, Mr. Justice Davis was pleased to note, the tenor was almost unanimously favorable to the nominee.
Time
had an account describing the general enthusiasm with which his appointment had been greeted in the capital; in 105 lines of laudation only one sentence—“Opposition, it seemed likely, would be confined to Spoilsman Cooley and one or two others”—indicated any possibility of conflict.
Newsweek
, while seeing a shade more cause for alarm, also concluded that generally clear sailing lay ahead. The nomination had come too late for deadline on
U. S. News and World Report,
which carried emblazoned on its cover the legend, WE CAN LICK THE TRAFFIC PROBLEM, backed up by one article, thirty-seven interviews with city managers and the sixty-three page text of a report by the President’s special advisory committee on transportation. The
Saturday Evening Post,
with its usual luck, just happened to print an article, set in type three months ago, on “The Man Who Keeps An Eye on Metals.” The
Saturday Review,
which had gone to press early but also seemed blessed with an equally remarkable luck, just happened to hit the target right on the nose with an editorial entitled, “Bob Leffingwell for State; A Proposal.”

Recalling the weekend television programs, Mr. Justice Davis was equally comforted. Stanley Danta, appearing on
Face The Nation
, had been reserved but friendly toward the nominee. Tom August on
Meet The Press
had been his usual elliptical, wandering self, but the sum total of it had been an endorsement. Powell Hanson had gone on
Youth Wants to Know
to tell youth what it wanted to know, which was that Bob Leffingwell was the greatest.
Person to Person
, never an outfit to miss a bet, had violated tradition to devote its full half hour to a tour of the Leffingwell home in Alexandria; the nominee, showing no trace at all of the virus that had prevented his appearance before Foreign Relations earlier in the day, had been gracious and relaxed, his wife had been dignified and charming, and under the careful questionings of their host they had made a most effective impression upon their countrymen.
Omnibus
had also switched signals hurriedly and put on a twenty-minute review of “America’s Foreign Policy,” which included a good ten minutes of filmed excerpts from the nominee’s recent speeches over the nation; and on
Today
,
Tonight
, and
High Noon
there had been flattering references, friendly quips, and staunch encouragement. All the vast publicity machine that always goes into concerted action for a liberal cause had gone to work for Bob Leffingwell; an operation so honed and smoothed and refined over the years that none of its proprietors even had to consult with one another. The instinct had been alerted, the bell had rung, the national salivations had come forth on schedule. Mr. Justice Davis was well pleased, and it was with a gay and defiant air that he looked across at the great dome looming against the gray sky and said half aloud, “So there. So
there
.”