Tucker's Last Stand (14 page)

“How can you be ‘old friends' when you say they are only twenty-two?”

“Some girls—I don't mean Alice and Mayday; you will see that they are different—consider anyone an old friend whom they've known for more than thirty days. But actually, Alice and Mayday went to college together.”

“College?”

“Yup, U of Maryland, majored in sociology. They just want a very good time before they make wonderful, monastic mothers, and at their rates they will be rich by the time they go to the altar. I don't know what they studied in their sociology course, but it must have been principally Samoan.” Anthony was exuberantly recalling a joint experience he and Blackford had had in Paris when the doorbell rang, and he let the girls in.

They were in light summer wear, Alice in yellow with flecks of white like a light snowstorm against the sunlight. She was short, fair, pretty, full-bodied, and had a twinkle in her lively eye. Mayday was taller and more nearly beautiful, with pale cheeks, aquiline nose, and soft black hair. She wore pearls over her light blue chiffon V-necked dress. They were both offered, and accepted, champagne. The talk was animated. Mayday was especially excited by the action of the Supreme Court, which the day before had reversed a ban on the French movie
The Lovers
.

“I mean, Alice and I have seen the movie—have you?”

Both men shook their heads.

“I mean, there isn't anything there a Boy Scout doesn't know, age, oh, fifteen. One of my professors, Dr. Moore, predicted the Supreme Court would reverse. I mean, the lower court's ruling on
The Lovers
. The furthest it goes is when the girl undresses the guy. Slowly, lots of music. He's finally down to just his shorts. Then as she goes on, he turns his back to the audience, you know, and she draws down his shorts, but all the audience sees is just, well, his backside, then the lights dim and they make it to bed—I mean, that's it.”

Alice was equally pleased by the decision, but she thought the companion decisions of the Court were just as interesting. The Court would review the ban on Henry Miller's novel
Tropic of Cancer
—“Granted, I haven't read it. I did try to, but in fact you can't get it in Baltimore, though a friend of mine who is going to be in France said she'd bring me back a copy. Anyway that, and the Court's overturning the Florida ban on
Pleasure Was My Business
, by the madam in Miami—she doesn't give her name—and
that
book I've read, a straight-out account of the life of a modern madam—what she does, what the girls do, what Johns expect, that kind of thing. Straight-out information, right, Anthony?” Alice reached over and kissed him. Mayday would not be delinquent and said, mock-teasingly to Alice, “That's not the way they do it in
The Lovers
. Look, more like this.” She moved forward and put her lips on Blackford's—and lingered. Before she was done, Alice felt contrition over her peremptory handling of Anthony, and now used lips and hands to express her feeling for him. Blackford, when Mayday retrieved her tongue, said to her a little hoarsely, “Just how does it go, in
The Lovers
, when she takes his clothes off?” Mayday smiled exultantly, got up and led Blackford to the bedroom to which Anthony pointed her. She dimmed the lights, closed the door, and took off his shirt. He lowered his trousers, which maneuver required gentle circumnavigation, while she undressed. Then she said to him, “In the movie, it goes just like this. Here,” her hands went to his hips and with her two thumbs she engaged the boxer shorts. “She does it like this … very slowly. When the shorts are halfway down,” she said, “he begins to turn”—she moved him gently—“like that, exactly, so that your back is now all they can see.” Her hands had moved the shorts down now to his ankles. “Whereas the girl can see
everything
. Just like me, Mayday. I can see everything, and it's all very beautiful,” she said.

13

July 18, 1964

The Oval Office

Washington, D.C.

When Lyndon Johnson wanted legal advice, he wanted Abe. He had known Abe Fortas a good many years; thought of him, as he had several times put it sensitively to close associates, as “one of the smartest Jews in the United States.” And he intended to put him on the United States Supreme Court the first chance he got. Meanwhile Fortas was always good for a little legal or constitutional advice, and not at all bad at giving political advice.

“Abe,” said the President to the cosmopolitan attorney-musician-intellectual with the dark, handsome face of an elderly Valentino, “I want you to tell me: Is it conceivable that Ike would run for Vice President on a ticket with Barry Goldwater?”

“You asking me a political question or a constitutional question, Mr. President?”

“Both. But before that, listen to this.” From his drawer he got out the clippings. “Alexander Wiley, former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the man—get this, Abe—who
actually wrote
the Twenty-second Amendment and shepherded it through Congress in 1947. He is quoted in the
Baltimore Post
as saying that the drafters of the Twenty-second Amendment ‘never meant it to prohibit a man from running for Vice President even if he had served two terms as President.'”

“Wiley said that?” Abe Fortas wrinkled his brow.

“Wait. Wait … here's another one. Joe Martin was Speaker of the House when the amendment was passed. And now
he
writes, ‘I never thought the Constitution stood in President Eisenhower's way.' And so now having given Ike a constitutional okay, he goes on with stuff might as well be a nominatin' speech: ‘If he would take this new prospective assignment, there's no question he would be elected. It would chase away any doubts that some people now seem to entertain concerning our coming national ticket. If Ike went on the ticket, he would bring to it that stability, confidence, and security we all want. He well might have to face up to a personal sacrifice'”—President Johnson was standing now, imitating the gestures and the inflections of a nominating speaker at a national convention—“‘
He well might have to face up to a personal sacrifice, but I have no doubt it would be a winning sacrifice
.'”

“I hope you're through, Mr. President.”

“Nope. George Aiken.
George Aiken
! Votes half the time with
us
. ‘I am happy to go along in suggesting former President Eisenhower as Vice President at this critical period in world history!' Now watch, Abe: He's putting it to Ike here to save the GOP from Goldwater. Careful now. Watch how he does it: ‘… It will
undoubtedly
be a
great
sacrifice for the former President to re-enter the national political arena. However'”—at this point the voice of Lyndon Johnson was sheer molasses. His erstwhile colleagues in the Senate knew that voice well, and it was generally good for ten extra votes—“‘for one who has so ardently preached party unity, it is up to
him
to decide. If he wants it he undoubtedly will get it.'”

Lyndon Johnson sat down. He looked at the clippings. “I won't bother you, Abe, to hear what other senators and congressmen said. Jack Miller, Leslie Arends, Paul Findley, Karl Mundt. No. I'll read you just the
las
' sentence of what Mundt said. ‘I would consider it an honor to nominate Ike for the Vice Presidency.'” He banged his wrist down on the table. “Have none of these people
heard
of the Constitution of the United States?”

“Well, Mr. President, presumably Alec Wiley has, since as you point out he wrote that part of the Constitution you're talking about.”

“Well goddamnit, it says right there that no person who has—er …”

“What it says, Mr. President, is ‘No person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice.' They're not proposing to elect him President.”

“
Do you mean to sit there and tell me, Abe Fortas, you who I have always respected, do you mean to say that this shit they're thinkin' of would get by the Supreme Court
?”

“Lyndon”—it was almost inevitable, hard though he tried, but when matters got tense it was still and always would be, “Lyndon.” “I think you could make a very good constitutional argument saying that any man you can't elect as President, you can't elect as Vice President. You could use all kinds of arguments. If you're less than thirty-five you can't serve as President; could you elect a thirty-four-year-old as Vice President? If you're foreign-born, you can't serve as President; could you elect someone born in Jamaica as Vice President? You can carry those arguments forward and say that having served two terms is as much of a disqualification as being under thirty-five years old, or being foreign-born. But look at it as a practical matter.”

“Lookin' at things as a practical matter is mah
specialty
, Abe.”

“I know it is, I know it is. As a practical matter, what happens? Ike gets nominated, say. The Attorney General files a suit asking the Supreme Court to invalidate that nomination. But the Supreme Court can't hold that the Twenty-second Amendment has been violated until it has been violated. And that wouldn't be until Ike was sworn in as President—if Goldwater died, or was killed.

“But here's where it helps to be practical. And I expect, Mr. President, that you know exactly what I know, which is that the Justice of the Supreme Court never existed who would step in and say,
The man you just swore in as President can't serve
. It's just that simple. If they nominate him, no matter what the Philadelphia lawyers say, or the columnists, or the editorial writers, or the deans of the law schools: If Goldwater wins with Ike on the ticket, he'll be sworn in as President, and Ike will be sworn in as Vice President.… What you got to do, Lyndon, is make it so Ike won't be tempted.”

Johnson looked up. “How'm I going to do that?”

“You know Ike better than I do.”

“What you sayin', Abe?”

“Ike loves to be above the conflict. And he likes to be thought of as pure of heart. Father-of-his-country type. What you got to do is two things. First, give it out that the Goldwater boys are trying to manipulate him. Get that into Jock Whitney's
Herald Tribune
—Ike reads it every day. Quote some of the stuff Goldwater and his cronies have said about the Eisenhower years—they have been pretty careful not to mention
him
, but there isn't anything he did or didn't do that they didn't blast him for. Hell, he appointed Earl Warren! He's the guy who didn't go save the Hungarians! The guy who invited Khrushchev over here! The guy who got caught lying over the U-2 incident! The guy who broke up the summit! Who's had a budget deficit every year except the first, and that was on account of the Korean War ending. Get him to get mad at the people who are courting him with this idea.”

Lyndon Johnson was attentive. He removed his glasses. “What's your second point?”

“Stick it to Goldwater. The attacks on him have been pretty tough—and well earned, needless to say. But I mean really
stick
it to him. Get his name associated with American mud. Link his name to—the people Ike led the war against.”

“You mean …?”

Abe Fortas looked right back at the President. “I mean …”

In the cramped working quarters of the LBJ Ranch in Texas President Johnson was serene, as he generally was when outside the heat of Washington. But he was made even more serene by the collection of clippings that had been gathered together for him by his press secretary. They were there in chronological order.

The
New York Herald Tribune
: “The Republican Party now does face a clear and present threat from the Know-nothings and purveyors of hate and the apostles of bigotry.”

“That's a beauty,” said Lyndon Johnson. “Jock Whitney is one good, responsible, patriotic Republican. I thought the publisher would come through. I think I
will
have a scotch, haven't had one all week.” Jack Valenti nodded. “Keep going, Mr. President.”

He read the lines from the editorial in the
New York Times
: “Barry Goldwater is a man with an incredibly bad, short-sighted, simplistic voting and speaking record. He is unfit, on the basis of his views and his votes, to be President of the United States.”

“I always like the
die-rectness
of the
New York Times
, don't you, Jack? I mean, I cain't always
agree
with them. But you just have a feeling they're … incorruptible. Right?”

“Right, Mr. President. Go on.”

“Okay.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
: ‘The Goldwater coalition is a coalition of Southern racists, county-seat conservatives, desert rightist radicals and suburban backlashers.' Don' much like that Southern-racist business, but that's really giving it to him.” He had a deep swallow of scotch.

“Oh man! Jee-zus! This one must have been written by Abe Fortas! Only it's by Jackie Robinson, fust colored ballplayer in baseball, and God bless him. He says, ‘I would say that I now believe I know how it felt to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany.' That is telling it, eh? And what about Martin Luther King? Here he is: ‘Goldwater articulates a philosophy which gives aid and comfort to the fascists.'—Now, can Drew Pearson beat that? Here's what he says: ‘The smell of fascism has been in the air—' Get that?
Smell of fascism
?

“And, oh-ho, and Pat Brown. The Governor of the Great State of California says that speech by Goldwater ‘had the stench of fascism. All we needed to hear was
Heil Hitler
.'”

“That's a pretty good collection. They've all gone to Ike?”

“Jock Whitney volunteered to do that, Mr. President. With a covering letter on the Vice Presidential business.”

Lyndon Johnson looked out at the setting sun and said, “Do you know, Jack, you get down here in Texas, and the whole world smells clean.”