Advise and Consent (7 page)

“The Capitol dominates the city of Washington and is generally accepted throughout the world as the most familiar symbol of the Government of the United States, this great country of ours which is the world’s greatest democracy and are we glad of it. Now if you will follow me—”

The Secretary of Agriculture, on his way out of the White House after seeing the President, met the Secretary of Defense on his way in. “Say,” he began, “what do you think of—” The Secretary of Defense held up a cautionary hand. “Not me, boy,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’.”

When Brigham Anderson came past the press table shortly before ten, everybody was still there drinking coffee. Committees hadn’t started yet, the day was still young, the daily budget of gossip not yet exhausted. Nobody was in much of a hurry to get to work, and the appearance of the senior Senator from Utah just went to prove that work, as often happened, might come to you if you sat at the proper crossroads and waited for it. So everybody said, “Hi, Brig,” and invited him to sit down.

“If I dare, at this august table,” Brigham Anderson said. “What’s the topic before the house this morning?”

“As if you don’t know,” AP told him.

“What?” he said innocently. “The nomination?”

“Is there any other topic this morning, Senator?” the
Times
asked humorously.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” Brig said. “We’re going to have a battle royal before we’re through with this one.”

“What are you going to do, Senator?” the
Baltimore Sun
asked bluntly.

“Yes, give us a lead for the afternoon papers,” UPI suggested. “Senator Anderson condemns Leffingwell nomination. Says it’s unpatriotic, un-American—”

“Attitude believed influenced by earlier fight with nominee on Power Commission,” AP added.

“Now, wait a minute,” Brigham Anderson said. “Curb these high-priced imaginations and slow down. Senator Anderson isn’t condemning anything, yet.”

“But he will?” AP asked quickly.

“Look,” Brig said, “stop trying to get me in dutch, will you? I’ve got to sit on that committee and judge the nomination. I’m not ready to say anything at all about it yet. There are many aspects of it that I want to explore before I’ll be ready to sound off on it.”

“Can we quote you on that much?” asked the
Times
; Brigham Anderson hesitated.

“I guess so,” he said slowly; “make it ‘many aspects I want to explore before I am ready to take a position on it,’ though. ‘Sound off’ is much too informal for a Senator, you know.”

“And you’re such a formal Senator,” the
Times
noted with a smile.

“Hush,” said Brigham Anderson. “Don’t tell people. I’m always afraid they’re going to bounce me out of the club any day for being so casual about it all. Why, I even fraternize with newspapermen, and you know what that does to a fellow’s character and standing in the community
....
Actually, I’m much more interested right now in what kind of roses to plant this spring than I am in Bob Leffingwell.”

“Assuming we can accept that persiflage at face value,” AP said, “what kind of roses are you going to plant?”

“That’s what I want you to tell me,” Senator Anderson said. “I have room for about five alongside the house, and I can’t decide what they should be. All white; all red; white, red, and yellow, red, white, and blue—you can see what a problem it is
....
But I’ve got to run. You let me know if you decide what I should do, will you?”

“You let
us
know when you decide what to do about Bob Leffingwell,” the
Times
told him. The Senator flashed his engaging, boyish, grin as he started toward the door, then came back and leaned confidentially over the table.

“As a matter of fact,” he said in a half whisper, “I’m damned if I know,” and left on their laughter.

“He’s certainly a hell of a nice guy,” UPI observed.

“Yes,” AP agreed, “and he’s going to play a hell of a big part in this one, too.”

“Maybe,” said the
Times
in a remark he was to remember and ponder over many times later, “a lot bigger part than he or any of us knows.”

Across Capitol Plaza in the beautiful marble edifice that prompted Justice Sutherland to say that he felt as though he and his brethren were nine black beetles in the Temple of Karnak, Thomas Buckmaster Davis, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was busy on the telephone. The telephone was made for Washington, and Mr. Justice Davis was possibly its most devout disciple. Day in, day out, night in, night out, Tommy was on the phone, arguing, commenting, urging, suggesting, criticizing, lecturing, injecting his lively personality into the workings of government on every conceivable issue under the sun, regardless of whether anyone asked for, desired, or even listened to his opinion.

One of a long line of political Justices running from Jay to Frankfurter (with whose judicial opinions Tommy didn’t always agree), Mr. Justice Davis was a born participant in practically everything. The Chief Justice had mildly reproved him about this once, noting that the ideal of American political theory was that the Court should be above politics. “When was the Court ever above politics?” Tommy had snapped, and the C.J. hadn’t tried to argue very hard. “Well, people should
think
it is, anyway,” he had said, rather lamely. “You make it so obvious it isn’t.” “It’s a free country,” said Mr. Justice Davis firmly.

There was illuminated in this brief exchange much about the relationship between the Court and the country, and more particularly, between Tommy and his colleagues. Tommy, it was true, had put his finger on something, and the C.J. with equal perspicacity, had done the same. Whatever the Court’s awareness of the current political climate might be, and it was usually very good, there was a sort of agreed understanding among its members that they wouldn’t admit it, publicly at any rate. Mr. Justice Davis gave a sort of tentative lip service to this, when he remembered about it, but most of the time he made no bones about his own avid involvement in any phase of politics that happened to interest him. This was all phases, and inevitably this brought considerable public criticism and a certain frigidity into his relations with his eight fellows. It was obvious every day when the clerk cried, “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” and the Justices emerged in their stately massed ballet from behind the red-velvet curtain that Mr. Justice Davis and his brethren were not entirely happy with one another.

Today, however, the Court was not meeting, nor were any conferences scheduled, and there was nothing to interfere with Tommy’s favorite pastime. The Leffingwell nomination, he was aware, provided perhaps his greatest recent challenge, and he was rising to it with all the vigor at his command. At the moment he was arguing with the general director of the
Post
, who was giving him a bad time.

“But what other position is there for a liberal to take?” Tommy was demanding. “My dear boy, my dear boy; oh, my dear boy!”

“I’m still not sure we’re ready to go all out,” the general director of the
Post
remarked doggedly.

“But my dear boy,” Tommy said, “suppose the Senate doesn’t confirm him. Think what a black eye it will be for the liberal cause.”

“Suppose the Senate confirms him and he does the wrong thing in foreign policy,” the general director of the
Post
shot back. “Think what a black eye it will be for all of us.”

“Surely you don’t mistrust Bob Leffingwell!” Justice Davis said in a tone of shocked surprise. “After all he has done for the country, all these long, valiant years. Surely there couldn’t possibly be a better choice.”

“W-e-l-l,” the director of the
Post
said slowly. “In many ways, you’re right, of course. But so much more is involved in this—”

“Then why hesitate?” Tommy demanded triumphantly. “Isn’t that all the more reason for being for him? Has he ever failed us? Hasn’t he always been on the right side? Why, I can remember clear back under Roosevelt, he was one of America’s greatest fighting liberals. And he’s never changed one bit since; even when”—and the Justice’s tone grew a little pointed—“even when
some others
wavered now and then, endorsing Eisenhower, and so on, Bob Leffingwell never did. Doesn’t that entitle him to the support of all true liberals now?”

“Oh, I expect we’ll be for him, all right,” the director of the
Post
said hastily, “but it may be more gradual and not so immediate.”

“It’s got to be immediate,” Tommy Davis said firmly. “It’s got to be, my dear boy. Otherwise,
they
will get the jump on us. All the reactionary forces in the country are mobilizing right this minute to defeat this nomination. We’ve got to mobilize, too. We’ve got to act fast. This is the latest battle in the unending war we liberals always have to fight. Will you fail us when the trumpets sound, my dear boy? Will your banner be trailing in the dust when ours goes gallantly ahead?”

“Very dramatic, I’m sure,” the director of the
Post
responded. “But you do have a point. I’ll have to talk it over down here and see what we decide. I will say yours isn’t the only telephone call I’ve received along the same lines. It could be we’ll come out strong for him tomorrow morning.”

“I hope so, my dear boy, I hope so with all my heart,” Justice Davis said. “Nothing would make me happier than to have you call back this afternoon and say it’s all settled.”

“W-e-l-l,” the director of the
Post
said hesitantly. “Perhaps.”

“Just to make an old liberal happy?” Tommy said wistfully. “Just so he will know that all the good company is together again and marching forward—”

“When the trumpets sound,” the director of the
Post
finished for him. “All right, Mr. Justice. I’ll call.”

“Thanks so much, dear boy,” Tommy said. “I know you won’t fail us. It’s so
important
.”

“Indeed it is,” said the director of the
Post
thoughtfully.

The
Star
and the
News
were thoughtful, too. Their early editions, reaching the Capitol shortly after ten-thirty, sounded a note of cautious reserve on Robert Leffingwell. “We assume,” the
Star
said, “that the President has excellent reasons for nominating Mr. Leffingwell to this all-important post, and indeed there is much in his public record to warrant this sort of confidence. Still, we hope the Senate will take its time and satisfy itself completely as to the nominee’s qualifications. In this area, in this era, the country cannot afford a mistake.” “We’d like to see this one given plenty of thought,” the
News
said. “We’ve seen much to praise in Bob Leffingwell’s record, and also plenty to criticize. We’ve done both, as we deemed necessary. Now we say to the Senate: take it easy and make sure you’re right. Better safe than sorry, when we and the whole free world have so much at stake in this nomination.”

The trouble with the president of the United Auto Workers, in the opinion of Bob Munson, was that he thought he owned the Senators from Michigan, or at least the senior Senator from Michigan, namely Bob Munson. He didn’t try to pressure Roy Mulholland very often, except indirectly through Bob, but he was always after Bob about something.

“Now, God damn it,” he was saying vigorously over the line from Detroit, “we want to get organized and get this nomination through as soon as possible. We want to help, Bob. We want you to let us know what we can do.”

“John,” Bob Munson said with a trace of asperity, “I think maybe this one is going to be difficult enough without stirring up a lot of old animosities to complicate matters.”

“Rubbish, Bob,” the president of the UAW said tersely. “Rubbish. We’ve got to beat these reactionary bastards at their own game. You’re going to need all the assistance you can get, Bob, and we intend to help you. We want you to know that, Bob. Incidentally, what about that lily-livered pantywaist of a colleague of yours? What are they going to scare him into doing?”

“I haven’t talked to Roy yet,” Bob Munson said. “I imagine on this one he’ll make up his own mind.”

“Well,” said the president of the UAW darkly, “you tell him we’re going to be watching his actions on this one very closely. Damn closely.”

“Aren’t you always watching his actions very closely, John?” Bob Munson asked. “I can’t see that it makes much difference to him.”

“Well, someday it will, by God,” said the president of the UAW belligerently. “Someday, by God, it will. He’ll get it yet, you wait and see, even if he does have General Motors and half the fat cats in Michigan in his corner.”

“Isn’t it enough to own one Senator from Michigan, John?” Bob Munson asked. “Don’t I satisfy you? Must you have a union label on us both?”

The president of the UAW uttered an expressive four-letter word.

“Who owns you?” he asked bitterly. “When did anybody ever own you? By God, Bob, you’re the slipperiest character in seventeen counties. Every time we think we have you pegged you slide out from under us. I’ll bet we can’t even count on you on this one, even if you are Majority Leader.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Bob Munson said.

“We’ll be watching you, Bob,” the president of the UAW promised. “We’ll be watching you, by God, and Roy too. Don’t try any funny stuff on this. And we’re going to help too, Bob, God damn it, so don’t try to push us aside.”

“You wait until you hear from me before you start anything,” Bob Munson said angrily, and his tone suddenly hardened into one that would brook no nonsense. “I mean it, John. I don’t want you messing this one up with any of your God-damned phony-liberal headline-grabbing crusades. You stay out of this until I give you the word, do you understand me?”

“Well, all right, Bob,” said the president of the UAW in a startled voice, “if that’s the way you feel.”

“That’s the way I feel,” Senator Munson said crisply, “and you keep your hands off this until I tell you. Good-by.”

“Well, good-by, Bob,” said the president of the UAW hurriedly, “if that’s the way you feel.”

“I really don’t see why he didn’t tell
me
,” Harley Hudson was saying in an aggrieved way as the plane prepared to set down at National Airport. “Certainly I can be of some help to him in the Senate, even if he does act as though I can’t. Don’t you think I can, Tom?”