Advise and Consent (42 page)

Chapter 6

It began right after the “morning hour,” that handy parliamentary catchall which in the Senate naturally runs longer than an hour and furnishes the forum for the introduction of bills, insertions of material in the Congressional Record, and five-minute speeches which in the Senate naturally are often extended by unanimous consent beyond five minutes. Today’s morning hour ran from noon to one thirty-six, and the minute it ended Fred Van Ackerman was on his feet demanding a quorum. The two bells rang commandingly through the two office buildings and the Senate side of the Capitol, and the minute Harley Hudson announced that sixty-five Senators had answered to their names, and a quorum was present, Senator Van Ackerman started talking. When the Majority Leader and the members of the subcommittee arrived in the chamber a few minutes later it was to find the Senate sitting in strained silence while Fred raved on against Carney Birch, who cowered like some small, malodorous wood animal in a seat beside George Hines. The whole thing presented a tableaux so out of keeping with the Senate that the Majority Leader, hurrying to take over his desk from Stanley Danta, stopped by Warren Strickland’s for a moment before crossing the aisle.

“What in the hell is going on?” he demanded in an urgent whisper, and Senator Strickland gave him a sober look.

“I don’t quite know,” he said. “It just began a couple of minutes ago when Fred took after Carney.”

“What in the Christ for?” Senator Munson demanded explosively, and Warren Strickland shrugged.

“Carney gave a prayer that Fred thought was anti-Leffingwell,” he said.

“My God, are we getting that tense about it?” Bob Munson asked.

“Fred seems to be,” the Minority Leader said.

“Now, Mr. President,” the junior Senator from Wyoming was crying in his repetitive fashion, his voice rising and falling and seeming always just on the verge of complete frenzy, “it is not enough that this great man, this great public servant, yes, this man who may be able to show us the way to lasting peace, to lasting peace, Mr. President, is attacked and smeared—yes, Mr. President, attacked and smeared!—in the press and elsewhere. Now it must come to the floor of the Senate and we find the Senate chaplain, the Senate chaplain, Mr. President, joining in this chorus against him. Have the attacks not been vicious enough, Mr. President? Must they now enlist the Senate chaplain, yes, the Senate chaplain, Mr. President, in their conspiracies? I demand to know, Mr. President, yes, I demand to know, Mr. President. I demand to know!”

“Mr. President,” Bob Munson said, moving to his own desk as Stanley Danta left it and moved over to his with a welcoming smile, “I hate to interrupt the Senator in mid-flight, but since he is in a demanding mood, I think it might be interesting for the benefit of all Senators, including those who came in after the quorum call and were not here for the opening, which I imagine is most of us, if we were to have the clerk read these fearfully offending remarks of the chaplain so that we may all judge them. It is not that I dispute,” he added with the driest hint of mockery, “no, it is not that I dispute, Mr. President, the vivid and no doubt accurate reportage of the junior Senator from Wyoming, but I do think that for myself at least I would like to have the words themselves read back. Will the Senator yield for that purpose?”

Fred Van Ackerman shot him a dark and suspicious look and then suddenly decided to comply.

“Read it, Mr. President,” he ordered. “Have him read it and we’ll see.”

While the official reporter riffled back through his shorthand notes, the Majority Leader leaned across the senior Senator from South Carolina, seated in placid inertness beside him, to Stanley and remarked with a grin, “I’ve always told Carney he’d put the Lord into politics just once too often. I guess this is it.”

“Watch out for Fred,” Senator Danta said seriously. “He’s about to blow his top.”

“You know, Bob,” Seab remarked softly, “if I were you, you know what I’d do with that young man?”

“What’s that, Seab?” the Majority Leader asked.

“I’d destroy him,” Senator Cooley said, and he meant it absolutely. “Yes, sir, I’d destroy him before he gets any bigger. He means trouble, Bob; I’ve seen his kind come to this Senate before, and they always mean trouble, Bob. Destroy him, Bob, while you still can.”

The Majority Leader knew he could, and the means flashed swiftly through his mind, keeping him off good committees, preventing his bills from ever coming to the floor for debate, floating rumors of contention and dislike in the press, attacking him obliquely in speeches around the country, using all the little cruelties of parliamentary technique to razor a man down to political nothingness inch by inch. It could be done, and not with any great difficulty, either, at this stage of the game; but he only shrugged and grinned.

“Of course, Seab,” he said amiably, “he’s on my side at this moment, you know. Maybe that’s why you want him destroyed.”

“Just take my advice, Bob,” Seab Cooley said gently. “Just take my advice, or you are going to be mighty sorry someday.”

“Yes,” the Majority Leader said, suddenly serious. “I think you’re entirely right, Seab, but I’ve got to handle him carefully on this one, because he is on my side.”

“Suit yourself, Bob,” Senator Cooley said indifferently, “but don’t say somebody didn’t tell you.” It was a conversation Bob Munson was to look back upon bitterly only five days later and reflect how shrewd the old fighter was still in his assessments of men.

“Is the reporter ready?” Harley asked, and the official reporter nodded and began while the Senate listened attentively and Carney, aware that he was in the process of gathering defenders, sat up straight beside Senator Hines and looked as though he were beginning to enjoy it.

“TheSenateconvenedatnoon,” the reporter read in a hasty monotone. “TheReverendCarneyBirchChaplainoftheSenategavethefollowing—”

“Mr. President,” Bob Munson interrupted patiently, “can the reporter go a little slower, please? And we don’t want the whole proceedings. Just go to the prayer.”

“
Lord,
” the reporter said carefully, unconsciously giving the word Carney’s proprietary emphasis, and there was a snicker from somewhere on the Minority side, probably Verne Cramer. “
Lord
, who hath brought us together in this great assemblage to decide the fates of men and our great nation, give us the grace and the strength to study with care the things we do, lest in the heat of haste and partisan passion we may make decisions that would later cause us regret and perhaps send to high places men whom we are not sure are worthy of our nation’s trust.
Lord
, give us the patience to study long and carefully such men, and if we satisfy ourselves truly of their merit, but only then, let us enable them to do our nation’s work.
Lord
, let us be humble and let us remember this. Amen.”

“There, you see?” Fred Van Ackerman cried triumphantly. “If that isn’t an attack on Robert A. Leffingwell, Mr. President, I ask you, what is it, Mr. President? I defy the Majority Leader, Mr. President, yes, I defy him, Mr. President, to deny that that is an attack on Robert A. Leffingwell. I defy him, Mr. President!”

“I get the idea, Mr. President,” Senator Munson said. “The Senator defies me. Well, I am not going to debate the chaplain’s prayer with the junior Senator from Wyoming, which I think would be a precedent unique in a body which is never one to hesitate when it comes to establishing unique precedents. Even for the Senate, Mr. President, I think debating the chaplain’s prayer would be unusual. If the Senator wishes to make an issue of it, he can move to discharge the chaplain and get another chaplain. Does he wish to do so, Mr. President?”

“Oh, my goodness,” Carney said feebly to George Hines, “he wouldn’t really, would he?”

“You’re safe, Carney,” Senator Hines assured him. “Only you’d better watch your manners after this.”

“Oh, I will,” the chaplain said fervently. “Believe me, George, I
will
.”

“Mr. President,” Senator Van Ackerman said, more mildly, “I think the distinguished Majority Leader is trying to make a joke out of this now, and I’m not going to oblige him. Of course I’m not going to move to discharge the chaplain, Mr. President, even though,” he added with deliberate cruelty, “I think we could find plenty who would be a whole lot better. I just say it’s symptomatic of the way in which this whole matter has been handled this week by the subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A great man has been crucified before that subcommittee, Mr. President. Members of the Senate have made a mockery of his sincere beliefs, they have attacked and vilified him, they have permitted a man of proven mental unbalance to smear him and attempt to assassinate his character and reputation, and they have lent him their forum and sat by idly while he did it. It’s been unfair, Mr. President, yes, I say it’s been damnably unfair.”

“Mr. President,” Brigham Anderson said, “will the Senator yield to me?”

“Yes, I’ll yield to the Senator from Utah, who has presided over this farce,” Fred Van Ackerman said viciously, and there was a sudden tensing through the Senate and the crowded galleries at his tone. The Senator from Utah, however, looked at him calmly and spoke in a level and unhurried voice.

“The Senator knows,” he said patiently, “that the nominee has been given every consideration before our subcommittee. The Senator is aware, because he was there, that the nominee, after the testimony of Herbert Gelman, was given the unusual opportunity to cross-examine him without let or hindrance by the subcommittee, and he also knows, for he was there, that the subcommittee extended to the nominee, had he cared to use it, its power of subpoena so that he might have brought other witnesses before us had he so desired. The Senator knows, for he was there, that the subcommittee interposed no barriers between the nominee and his right to say on the record whatever he wished to say concerning the proceedings, the charges against him, and the defense of his own character. These are the things the Senator knows, and I wonder, Mr. President, why he is attempting now to give the country, through the medium of the press which is busily transmitting his words at this moment, the impression that it has been otherwise. I would like to know,” Brigham Anderson concluded quietly, “why he is dealing fast and loose with the truth in this matter.”

“Mr. President,” Fred Van Ackerman cried, and his voice sailed up suddenly into its almost pathological whine, “personal privilege! Point of personal privilege, Mr. President! The Senator is violating the rules of the Senate, Mr. President! He is accusing me of lying, Mr. President! I demand that his remarks be taken down and that he be directed to proceed in order!”

Half a dozen Senators were on their feet at this, among them Orrin Knox, the Majority Leader, and Powell Hanson, but Harley Hudson spoke in a tone of surprising bluntness which made clear that he didn’t need anybody’s help.

“The Chair will state,” he said coldly, “that the Chair considers that the senior Senator from Utah has received ample provocation from the junior Senator from Wyoming for almost anything he cares to say about him. However, in conformity with the rules the Chair will suggest that the Senator from Utah moderate his language to some degree. And the Senate,” he added firmly, “will be in order.”

“Mr. President,” Fred Van Ackerman cried angrily, “the Chair is favoring the senior Senator from Utah. The Chair is a party to this, Mr. President. It is a conspiracy, Mr. President, a conspiracy. Point of personal privilege, Mr. President!”

“What is it, Senator?” the Vice President asked in the same cold tone. “That the Chair is being unfair to him? Does the Senator wish to appeal to the Chair against the Chair? Is it his wish that the Chair rule upon the actions of the Chair? Is that the sort of nonsense this Senate is supposed to listen to this afternoon?”

“God damn,” Senator Cramer whispered delightedly to John Winthrop. “What’s gotten into Harley?”

“I don’t know,” Senator Winthrop said, “but whatever it is, I’m all for it.”

To Stanley Danta, asking much the same question at the same moment, the Majority Leader gave only a quizzical look. He wasn’t sure, but he rather suspected the Vice President had begun to come to grips with the possibilities of the future. He decided he would have to check this interesting idea when the opportunity arose.

In any event, Harley’s unexpected bluntness had its effect on Senator Van Ackerman, who made one of his split-second switches and responded in a much milder tone.

“Mr. President,” he said, “of course the junior Senator from Wyoming has no intention of getting into an argument with the distinguished occupant of the Chair about this. However, I think the facts speak for themselves, Mr. President. I am only sorry other Senators were not able to be present and witness this shameful, degrading spectacle—”

“Mr. President,” Orrin Knox interrupted in a tone that brooked no denial, “the Senator knows that is absolute poppycock. He knows the nominee was given every opportunity to have his say and received the
fairest of treatment from the subcommittee. Why is he indulging in this kind of nonsense?”

“I am not surprised, Mr. President,” Fred Van Ackerman snapped, “no, I am not surprised, that the Senator from Illinois, who is one of the principal enemies of this great man who has been nominated to be Secretary of State should take that tack, Mr. President It is what I would expect from him. It is just what I would expect from him. I repeat, Mr. President, this shameful, vindictive, evil spectacle was a mockery of justice, a travesty of senatorial procedure. I submit, Mr. President, that it was deliberately intended to destroy the nominee.”

“Well, there’s a new lead,” AP whispered to UPI in the press gallery above, and UPI made a face. “I suppose so,” he said, “but I wish it came from somebody but this madman.” “Don’t lack the devil,” the
Washington Post
suggested, “when he’s on your side.” And they all got up, ran up the steep flight of stairs, through the swinging doors, and filed NEW LEAD LEFFINGWELL, with a few items of color on how Bob Munson looked and the expression on Fred Van Ackerman’s face and what the Vice President had said tossed in for the continuing story, LEFFINGWELL RUNNING, on the wire.