Tucker's Last Stand (3 page)

“Goddamn—he said that?”

Baroody handed over the clipping. Goldwater turned to Fred Anderson. “You got anything about that in the speech?”

“No sir.”

“Well, take this down.” Goldwater leaned back, closed his eyes, and spoke slowly, as he did when dictating to his secretary. “I hope Ambassador Lodge will not … be a … lone Republican voice crying … excuses or evasions in the—er, confusion, er …”

“Wilderness, maybe?”

“Yes … in the wilderness of this Administration's Vietnamese policy.”

“Here's something you might add. How do you like this”—Baroody had been scribbling while Barry Goldwater dictated. “‘I find it difficult for me to believe that anyone could leave such a post at such a critical time, simply to pursue a personal political course.'”

Fred Anderson looked up from his pad. “You don't want, ‘I find it difficult for me …'”

“What's the matter with that?” Baroody's pipe tilted up truculently.

“Just, ‘I find it difficult.' Not, ‘I find it difficult for me,'” Freddy said, his pencil tapping the air in front of him. The schoolboy, making a minor correction. Then he smiled. “Old debaters' stylebook.” Baroody nodded, and looked up at Goldwater.

“Okay?”

“Okay. What's the
matter
with those Eastern Establishment types? Leaving Saigon just when things there are getting really hot.… Scranton for President and Lodge for Vice President. Who will they want for Secretary of State? Billy Graham?”

Baroody picked up his copy of
Time
magazine. Goldwater went back to his manuscript. Fred Anderson lifted his portable typewriter from under the seat and began to transcribe the notes he had made. The steward came in, did anybody want anything? Baroody nodded, “Coffee.” Goldwater, engrossed in the manuscript, did not answer. “Coke, please,” said Fred Anderson. Baroody pointed at Senator Goldwater. “He'll have the same. Coke.” The steward nodded, and left through the door of the private compartment.

3

April 11, 1964

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Norfolk, Virginia

Once again, he reflected from his righthandmost position in the front pew, he was the principal male figure among mourners. Then—as now—the widow was of course the emotional center of attention. He thought back to November twenty-fifth: Jackie had never looked more beautiful than on that awful day; more gravely, stoically dignified. Oh God what a nightmare that was, and just seventy-two hours earlier he had been alive, President of the United States, the most glamorous political figure since—combine Roosevelt,
both
Roosevelts, with some of Lincoln and some of Jefferson, and that came close. His eyes felt full, but there was no sign of tears. Bobby Kennedy did not shed tears—“He cries on the inside,” he had heard Ethel say about him once over the telephone when he was playing with the kids and she thought he couldn't hear him.

And now yes, the newest widow, Jean MacArthur—tiny woman, maybe four feet ten? he wondered, glancing across the aisle to appraise the general's wife, her fine features barely visible through the black lace.

Yes, he had been the primary male figure at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington only (he counted on his fingers: December, January, February, March, April) five months ago, even though that great big loutish Texan, now President of the United States, thanks to the stupidity of the Secret Service and the maniacal marksmanship of a young madman thankfully dead—President Freckle-Belly had occupied the principal position by the aisle on the left, while Bobby had stood, and knelt, next to his—their—mother, and Jackie. Today he had no emotional standing. He had met General MacArthur only two or three times, ceremonial occasions. MacArthur had managed to look him over as he might have inspected a cadet newly arrived at West Point. Well, no one who knew him for five minutes confused him with a cadet—ask Jimmy Hoffa; I'll have him in jail before summer. But Dugout Doug was a commanding figure, no doubt about it. Jack had thought him godly during the war and after, but had been smart to stay out of the way when Truman fired him. Jack had that
great
sense of when to stay out of the way—look how he'd handled Joe McCarthy! Managed to stay out of McCarthy's firing line, treat him as a pal, and yet say all those ACLU things.

And then trust MacArthur to raise a stir even after he died, with those two ten-year-old interviews released by Lucas and Considine—good journalists, diggers—about how MacArthur would have won the war in Korea if Truman had only let him.… Interesting idea, actually, to detonate a string of atom bombs along the Yalu River, sealing off North Korea from any access to the Communist Chinese. Be nice to do that across the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Lucas also quoted MacArthur on Truman: “The little bastard honestly believes he is a patriot.” But he had said, according to Lucas, that Truman had—what was that, exactly? Yes. “Raw courage and guts.” Wonder what MacArthur thought about Lyndon Baines Johnson? Interesting, Johnson deputizing me to come here to Norfolk to represent him instead of coming himself, though he made quite a fuss over the corpse when it was in Washington for a couple of days on the way down here. But half the world's cameras are in Norfolk, and LBJ doesn't run away from cameras. Funny. Why didn't he deputize Rusk, or McNamara? McNamara would have made more sense—Secretary of Defense Goes to Funeral of a Five-Star General. One thing for sure: We'll never know why he picked me. And we're all here like sardines. Couldn't squeeze in an extra altar boy.

… LBJ likes to ask you what
you
think, but he doesn't often tell you what
he
thinks, old Freckle-Belly—nice, Pierre Salinger coming up with that description, just right somehow. An express secretary's coup, putting that phrase in circulation. And the whole world thinks he's a real decisive type. Huh. He's danced with every position on Vietnam since he took Jack's place. Mac comes back a few weeks ago and puts it to him: blockade Haiphong … bomb the airports … bomb the railways … stiffen the Khanh government.… Yeah, he tells McNamara—his Secretary of Defense!—he'll think about it. What he's thinking about is the election, as if he could lose it.

The eulogist, with one final reference to duty, honor, country, sat down, crossed in front of the altar, bowed his head to the bishop, turned, bowed to Mrs. MacArthur, and then turned another few degrees and bowed to Robert Kennedy, who returned the gesture with a small nod.

Magic. It's magic. What we
do
to people. Sure, there are Kennedy-bashers out there, mostly right-wing nuts and a few snobs. Mostly, they get shaky in the knees when they spot a Kennedy.… Some of his people are telling LBJ that with me on the ticket with him, Goldwater would sew up the Southern vote because the rednecks hate me. A lot of people hate me. One reason why so many people like me. As Jack said to his old pal Charlie Bartlett, Look Charlie, some people have it, and some people don't.… What are we supposed to do about it?

Max Taylor has done his work, really got the word around, the perfect Democratic ticket:
Johnson-Kennedy in 1964
. Speaking of magic.
That's
the way to make it up for Jack, make up for Dallas. Might lose a few redneck states—Mississippi, Louisiana; maybe more than a few—Georgia, Alabama, probably Florida, I suppose Arizona. But everywhere else? In my pocket. And it won't hurt my feelings if the pollsters rub it in that more people are drawn to the ticket on account of me than on account of Ol' Big-Belly. He'll run again in '68, sure. But in '72 I'll be only forty-seven years old.…

The Catholics in the congregation discreetly crossed themselves as the bishop gave the blessing. The organ blared out “America the Beautiful.” Mrs. MacArthur looked across the aisle at the Attorney General, who nodded and gestured that she and her son should proceed down the aisle first. Bobby and Ethel followed, and then Prime Minister Choi Doo Sun of South Korea, General Carlos Romulo of the Philippines, and the former Prime Minister of Japan Shigeru Yoshida, paying final tribute to the memory of the man who had served their countries with such distinction.

Outside the church the cameras and the newsmen formed an arc, leaving only enough room for the flag-draped coffin to enter the hearse, and for Mrs. MacArthur to disappear into the limousine directly behind. The moment her door had been shut by the attendant they tried to descend on the tousle-haired, bright-eyed Attorney General. Bobby Kennedy was used to reporters, but there was an unusual intensity in their struggle now to come within speaking distance. The two cordons of Marines leading to the cathedral held them back, as did the solemnity of the circumstances—the organ music sounding right up to the curbside. Attendants carrying what seemed to be cratefuls of floral wreaths were pressing their way, parallel to the official mourners, to hasten to the burial site at the courthouse. Then the voice broke out. A youngish woman, her hand-held microphone held high over the cordon:

“Mr. Attorney General! Mr. Attorney General! What is your comment on what President Johnson said?”

Two aides thrust themselves between him and the reporter, and Robert Kennedy gently but firmly pushed his wife into the limousine, whose door was quickly slammed shut. The thick bulletproof glass blocked out the voices of the reporters, who had come around the cordon and were crowding now on both sides of the Cadillac. Kennedy's brow furrowed. He stared intently ahead. But the limousine could not move until Mrs. MacArthur's car began the solemn vehicular procession toward the burial site. He hissed to his aide in the jump seat, “Goddamn the press. What in the hell is going on?”

The car ahead began to move forward. The Attorney General barked at his driver to move and the car lurched forward, scraping past cameras snatched back out of the way. In a moment the caravan was moving forward at a ceremonial fifteen miles per hour.

“What's going on?” he asked his aide again.

“Don't know, sir. We were in the church.”

“Turn on the radio.”

The Attorney General then reached to his side to do it himself and take over the controls. He fiddled with the dial. He slid by the stations of country music and then by what his son Bobby called “the Beatles channels.” He stopped the dial when he heard a voice giving the news. He knew immediately that he had tuned to someone broadcasting live from the crowd of reporters they had just left behind.

“—the funeral procession is on its way now to the old courthouse, where General MacArthur will be buried. Attempts to get a comment from Attorney General Robert Kennedy when he left the church were unsuccessful. He and Mrs. Kennedy entered their limousine before the reporters could get him to comment on President Johnson's statement this afternoon when asked if he had decided who to tap as his running mate for the election. ‘I haven't made my choice yet,' President Johnson said. And then added, ‘All I can say at this time is, it won't be anybody who is serving in my Cabinet.' …”

The Attorney General felt genuine pain in his chest. He didn't hear what else was coming in over the radio. Ethel gripped his hand, that special grip he had got used to when she knew he was crying on the inside.

4

December 9, 1941

Austin, Texas

On Tuesday, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the line outside the army recruiting station at the corner of 7th Street and East Avenue went almost around the entire block. The next day the
Austin American
, in its story on the rush to enlist in the armed forces, remarked that it was the longest line seen in Austin since the opening night of
Gone With the Wind
two years earlier. The difference in the composition of the two lines was obvious enough: today's line was composed of very young men, though there was a scattering of thirty-five-and thirty-six-year-olds, the paper reported. The recruiting station had broadcast repeatedly that thirty-six was the oldest eligible age—the youngest, of course, being seventeen, but to enlist at that early age required the acquiescence of the applicant's father or, if dead, his mother.

Tucker Montana's father was dead. He had been run over by a taxi while hailing a bus in a rainstorm to make a delivery of an electric fan he had repaired for a parishioner who operated a souvenir factory near the Alamo. Tucker was six and his father had struggled to feed wife and son, doing odd jobs at St. Eustace Church during the day. Faraday Montana, who traced his background to General Sam Houston and one of his Indian concubines, during the year the general left Tennessee en route to Texas, was proud that he could offer his services as an electrician, as a carpenter, as a plumber, as a mason, or for that matter as a janitor: there wasn't anything, really, he could not do with his hands. Fr. Enrique would almost always find something in the large church that needed fixing, and on good weeks, when Fr. Enrique would give a particularly galvanizing sermon at all six masses, he would manage to count out enough nickels and dimes to pay Faraday fifteen, every now and again twenty dollars. Although the elderly priest and the twenty-eight-year-old jack-of-all-trades got on wonderfully well, Fr. Enrique knew that Faraday was looking about, always, for more lucrative work. Far from resenting this, Fr. Enrique kept his own eyes open and it was he who had told Faraday about the opening at the Alamo.

Fr. Enrique had stopped by the little factory-shop on a summer day to chat with his parishioner, Al Espinoso. Sweating profusely in his Roman collar, the priest had looked wistfully at the idle electric fan behind the counter. Why wasn't it turned on, on so hot a day? Al Espinoso said it was broken and he hadn't found anybody who could fix it. Moreover, the only one of his workers who knew anything about electricity had left the factory the week before to join a brother in Houston.