Advise and Consent (88 page)

“You know him, too,” the Vice President said. “He fights just as hard. Only in his case I think he has more to base confidence on than the President has.”

“I wonder what would have happened,” the Secretary of State said thoughtfully, “if you and I had decided to go for him that night.”

“He would have been President,” Harley said. “It was in the cards that year. We couldn’t lose.”

“I know that,” Howie Sheppard said. “I mean, I wonder what would
really
have happened. To the country. After he got there.”

“It seems idle,” the Vice President said. “He didn’t.”

“Do you ever wonder if we did the right thing?” the Secretary asked. There was a pause.

“I often wonder,” Harley Hudson said. “How about you?”

“Yes,” said Howie Sheppard. “I often wonder.”

“Well,” the Vice President said in a businesslike way, “about those Ambassadors, I’ve been thinking, Howie, that it might be better from my standpoint to see them together. I know it wouldn’t from theirs, but there’s safety in numbers and I’m not so sure I want to be involved in any confidential little tête-à-têtes with them individually.”

“Why, Harley,” the Secretary of State said dryly, “you sound just like a President.”

“Maybe,” the Vice President said with a matching dryness. “Maybe. In any event, I think I’d be willing to see them sometime Thursday afternoon. I’d rather not tomorrow, because I expect we’ll be starting the session at ten to get started debating the nomination and I want to stick pretty close all day to see how it’s going. I imagine we’ll vote sometime Thursday night, so Thursday afternoon would be good. It would be too late to entertain any last-minute appeals that I exert my influence for Leffingwell. Not that I have any influence, of course.”

“You’re beginning to reach the point where you’re just saying that,” the Secretary of State observed shrewdly. “You don’t really believe it any more. Anyway, they want to see you; that’s indication enough. Incidentally Claude Maudulayne and Raoul Barre have asked for appointments too, so I’ll just throw them all in together for you. How about three-thirty Thursday?”

“That will be fine,” the Vice President said.

“Are you helping Orrin?” Howie asked bluntly. Harley paused.

“Are you?” he asked.

“Any way I can,” Howie Sheppard replied.

“Maybe we did do the wrong thing that night,” the Vice President remarked. The Secretary of State gave a dry little chuckle.

“I’ve thought so for quite some time,” he said. “I’ll tell the Ambassadors.”

“In my office over by the chamber,” Harley said. “You can come too, if you’d like.”

“Gladly,” Howie said. “It should be an interesting hour in which to visit the Senate. I’ll see you then.”

At the airport, he and Beth saw the Andersons off on their sad journey to Salt Lake City, where final rites would be held tomorrow. Mabel looked for a long moment at the gleaming white metropolis across the river before giving a little shudder and turning away to kiss them good-by. “I never want to see it again,” she said. “Don’t forget to visit us when you get to Utah.” They promised they would, Brig’s brother lifted a sad-eyed little girl into his arms and the three of them entered the plane which bore in its rear compartment the Senator’s coffin. “I’m not sure I do either,” Orrin said grimly as they got in the car.

But by the time Beth dropped him off at the Office Building his mood had changed. The committee would meet in half an hour and he felt ready for it. So much so, in fact, that his wife thought a cautionary note was in order. “Good luck,” she said casually. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He gave her a quick kiss and a sudden grin. “How many years ago did I stop taking that advice?” he asked, and she chuckled. “Very well, my boy,” she said, “but just don’t mess it up. It’s going your way, so keep it like that.” “I’ll try,” he promised more seriously. “I really will try. I’ll get home as soon as possible after the meeting breaks up.” “Yes,” she said. “We do have a son getting married tonight, after all.” “I wish him luck,” he said gravely, and tears came into her eyes. “Too much emotion, these days,” she remarked. “I hope we can get away for a while after the nomination is settled. I need a vacation.” “So do I,” he said. “I’ll try to get things squared away so we can. Maybe we can take a real trip to Europe this time.” “Famous last words,” she said with a smile as she started the car. “How many years ago did I first hear that?” “I’ll
try
,” he shouted as she drove off, but she only shook her head ironically and gave him a rueful wave.

The television cameras were in place, the bright lights were on, reporters milled about, and the usual tourists stood in little gaping groups as the members of Foreign Relations arrived for their final date with the matter of Robert A. Leffingwell. Except for the one absence caused by death, the press noted that the full committee was present this afternoon, brought to its full complement by Hal Fry and Clarence Wannamaker, who had passed up the UN session to be on hand. Despite the combined efforts of the news industry, there was a polite and consistent refusal to say anything of any moment for the busy pencils and the voracious cameras.

“How do you think the committee will vote, Mr. Chairman?” they asked Tom August, and the senior Senator from Minnesota said softly, “Oh, I wouldn’t want to predict at this moment. I just wouldn’t want to predict.” “And you, Senator?” they said to Orrin Knox. “My job is to report to the full committee what the subcommittee did,” he observed; “after that, we’ll see.” “And what’s your guess, Senator?” they pressed Arly Richardson, who gave them a skeptical look. “I don’t guess,” he said, “particularly about this committee.”

Altogether, they agreed as they settled back to wait outside the slatted door in the ornate old corridor, the pickings were rather sparse. Some had a hunch the committee would probably support the subcommittee by a small margin, but there were some who saw it otherwise and some who wouldn’t guess. The only certainty was the significance of the occasion to the world at large, for at least a hundred reporters stood about, and everyone from TASS to the
Bangor
Daily
News
was on hand to speculate about what was going on around the green-baize table under the mammoth cut-glass chandelier, and to report it to the far reaches of the globe once it had been formally announced.

“The committee will be in order,” Tom August said, and, “Mr. Chairman!” Senators Knox and Richardson said.

“If the committee will be patient,” the chairman said gently, “I should like to ask if the committee wishes to make this a formal meeting with an official reporter present, or shall we discuss the matter informally?”

“Let’s take our hair down,” Verne Cramer said. “After all, we’re among friends. Only half a dozen of us will tell the press what went on.”

“That was my thought,” Senator August said with a wistful regret. “I should like an informal discussion if we could all agree that it would be truly confidential, because it seems to me there are matters involved here that...”

“Mr. Chairman,” Orrin said, “I move that we have a discussion off the record and formalize only the final vote and our recommendation.”

“I second that, Mr. Chairman,” Senator Richardson said. Tom August looked hesitantly about the table. Everyone nodded.

“Without objection, then,” he said. “Orrin, did you care to say something further?”

“Not a great deal, Mr. Chairman,” the Senator from Illinois said, making his characteristic gesture of straightening the papers before him as he began to speak, “because the events of the past two days speak for themselves. As the result of a deliberate decision on the part of the President of the United States, made as a part of his campaign to confirm this nominee, the senior Senator from Utah was driven to his death. Accessories before the fact were the junior Senator from Wyoming and the nominee himself. Proof of these facts is known to at least six members of this committee, who I think will vouch for them, without going into details, to the other members. Am I right in that, Mr. Chairman?”

Senator August looked uncomfortable.

“You state it rather harshly,” he said, “but in essence I would say you are correct, yes.”

“The proof of this is known to six members of this committee?” Senator Richardson asked. “What about the rest of us?”

“Well, Mr. Chairman,” Orrin said tartly, “maybe I am a liar. Maybe you are. Maybe Bob and Stanley and Warren and Lafe are. Are we? Arly? You may think I am, but are the other five? How about it?”

“You don’t have to fly off the handle,” Arly Richardson said quietly. “You’re riding high, after yesterday, and I’ll grant you have a right to feel triumphant, but you don’t have to overdo it. If you say it’s so, we’ll accept it. I wonder if the Senate will.”

“I would hope the Senate would not be called upon to go into that phase of it at all,” Senator Knox said. “I’m only mentioning it for our own background right here.”

“Somebody may bring it up,” Senator Richardson said.

“If you encourage it, yes,” Orrin said shortly. “I have some hopes you’ll be decent enough not to
....
In any event, that is what lies behind the tragedy. But there are other aspects of it, and these are more important, and I believe they should be placed in full detail before the Senate.”

“And they are damaging to Leffingwell,” Arly said dryly.

“They are damaging to Leffingwell,” Orrin said crisply. “You will remember he denied the testimony of Herbert Gelman that they had been copartners in some sort of Communist cell in Chicago. According to Gelman there were two other members, one dead, the other a man known as James Morton. He denied knowing Morton, too. Last week the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Economic Affairs, now traveling at the specific direction of the President, after the President was advised of his true identity, called Seab Cooley and disclosed that he was James Morton, that there was such a cell, and that Bob Leffingwell was a member. Seab told him to call Brig, which he did, and it was because of this knowledge that Brig wanted to reopen the hearings and tried, without success, to get the President to withdraw the nomination. For that,” he said bleakly, “he died.”

“Why wasn’t all this brought out in the subcommittee meeting?” Senator Richardson demanded. “It was all put on an emotional basis of Brig being hounded to death by the Administration because he got in the way and nobody said why he got in the way. I might have voted differently had I known all this. One reason I voted the way I did was because I thought you were just stampeding Johnny and Win.”

“Thanks so much for that vote of confidence, old man,” John DeWilton said sharply.

“Very touching tribute,” John Winthrop agreed. Senator Richardson looked impatient.

“Well, damn it,” he demanded, “did we have all the facts yesterday or did we not? Did you vote emotionally because you were upset about Brig or did you not?”

“Well,” Senator DeWilton said angrily, “I am not about to account to you for my motives when I vote. I’m damned if I am.”

“Whatever the reason,” Senator Winthrop pointed out quietly, “it apparently was a sound decision, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not so sure,” Arly Richardson said.

“Not so sure?” Lafe Smith demanded. “What more do you need, for God’s sake?”

“I need something to prove to me that because Bob Leffingwell did something stupid years ago he is unfit to be Secretary of State now,” Arly said sharply. “That’s what I need.”

“I should think,” Warren Strickland said quietly, “that lying like a trooper under oath ought to be some indication of that.”

“Oh, hell,” Senator Richardson said shortly. “Anybody will lie to protect himself.”

“But the validity of the protection is what we are supposed to judge,” the Minority Leader said reasonably. “Whether it was justifiable and forgivable or whether an honest avowal of his mistake would be more in keeping with the integrity we have a right to expect in the Secretary of State. It’s not a minor office, you know.”

“I am fully aware of its importance,” Arly said. “More so than ever right now. Have you seen this?” And unfolding an early edition of the
Washington Star
that he had been holding carefully under his arm, he displayed its headlines to them:

ARE REDS ON MOON? MOSCOW HINTS IT

WORLD-SHAKING ANNOUNCEMENT

PLEDGED SOON

“I say we have delayed this thing long enough,” he said soberly. “I don’t know whether the bastards are ahead of us again or not, but I do know we need a strong Secretary of State to deal with them if they are.” He turned suddenly on Hal Fry and Clarence Wannamaker, sitting quietly together at one end of the table. “How about you boys?” he demanded. “You’re at the UN. Aren’t we being hurt by this in the eyes of everybody all over the world?”

Hal Fry shrugged.

“If there’s anything I’m tired of,” he said calmly, “it’s being told how something looks in the eyes of the rest of the world. Nothing we do ever looks good in the eyes of the rest of the world; if the Russians don’t have the knife out for us, some one of our old pals like the British do. We can’t win no matter what we do. My feeling is this is our problem and we shouldn’t be stampeded in deciding it.”

“Let’s just do what we feel is right,” Clarence Wannamaker remarked. “All the rag, tag, and bobtail in the world will come trailing along after us if we do that. Subconsciously that’s what they want, for us to make up our own minds, no matter how hard they try to talk us out of it.”

“Well, what about this?” Arly demanded, hitting the newspaper. Hal Fry nodded.

“That’s the talk up there,” he said.

“All right, then,” Senator Richardson said. “I think we should forget this stupid youthful error—”

“He was thirty-four,” Orrin said stubbornly.

“—and judge this man on his merits now, as the man we need in the crisis that faces us. Or may face us,” he amended. “It doesn’t yet
....
Doesn’t anybody else think I have any point at all?”

“I do,” George Hines said cheerfully. “I think you do, Arly boy.”

“Thanks, George boy,” Senator Richardson said dryly. “Does anybody else?”

“I think perhaps you do,” Stanley Danta said slowly, and the Senator from Illinois gave him a sharp look. “I’m sorry, Orrin,” he said quietly, “But I’ve been thinking it over and I’m not so sure you’re right.”