For the first time in the nine days since the impeachment trial in the United States Senate had been under way, the front page headline of the morning edition of the Washington Citizen-American made no direct mention of the legal proceedings against the President.
This early morning, the top and banner headline, bolder and inkier than any that had appeared before, read:
SCANDAL! EXCLUSIVE! DILMAN HAS DAUGHTER PASSING AS WHITE!
The second headline, scarcely smaller, as brazen and black, read:
PRESIDENT’S HIDDEN OFFSPRING ASHAMED OF HER RACE-AND PRESIDENT KNEW IT ALL ALONG!
Slowly, Douglass Dilman folded the newspaper until the headlines were no longer visible, and then he folded it again and dropped it into the wastebasket beside the Buchanan desk.
He slumped in his chair for a moment, feeling old and feeble, sickened to the marrow of his bones, but then he forced himself to lift his bowed head and meet Tim Flannery’s angry look and Nat Abrahams’ worried one.
“Why?” Dilman asked despairingly. “Doesn’t that Zeke Miller have enough without this?”
“No,” said Tim Flannery. “He wants to be sure you’re a dead horse, a real dead horse, before he stops beating you.”
“But can’t he see, it’s not I who am the victim?” Dilman said. “It’s poor Mindy, that poor, poor girl. Why go after her? Why ruin her life? It won’t get him any more Senate votes… Nat, explain it to me-I mean it-this is not only revolting, it’s mad, it’s senseless.”
Nat Abrahams sighed. “I know, Doug.” Restlessly, he came out of his chair, crossed the Oval Office to the French doors, and stared into the bleak gray of the morning. Then he said, “When you’re locked in a death fight with a fanatical enemy, Doug, don’t expect rational motives for his actions. If there’s any rhyme or reason to this-this so-called exposé in the paper-well, trying to fathom a mind like Zeke Miller’s-I suppose the sense of it would be this.” He came around and spoke directly to Dilman. “Miller doesn’t care a hoot about your daughter. She doesn’t exist, as far as he’s concerned. You are the target, and all he cares about is hitting you, high or low, anywhere. He’s prosecuting you before two sets of jurors, so he needs as much heavy buckshot as possible, and if there’s no legitimate buckshot, then nails or anything else will do.”
“What do you mean, Nat, two sets of jurors?”
“Your first jurors, the real ones, are the great outside public, and the members of the Senate are actually only a vulnerable second jury. If Miller can keep the voters antagonized toward you, he knows their feelings will press down on the Senate, and encourage their continuing antagonism. This Reb Blaser story about Mindy passing, for instance. Try to see its value through Miller’s distorted vision. Despite your turning down the Hurley appeal, and his execution the other day, you’ve captured more and more Negro and liberal white sympathy because of your willingness to fight your tormentors. The big television speech on Baraza and our pledged defense, over a week ago, is a good case in point. The majority of the audience didn’t like it, true, because they think you’re fomenting a needless war to help some worthless African blacks. But American Negroes and white liberals liked it, for the wrong reasons, and many moderates and independents liked it, for the right reasons. Miller understood their growing sympathy for you. He doesn’t want those people going over to your side. How to turn them against you once more?
“Well, however he did it, he found out you had another child, a daughter named Mindy, who is ashamed of being a Negro and is passing, and he found out that you knew that she was doing this, yet you had not stopped her. Okay. So today he shouts it to the world-he yells out-hey, American Negroes, lookee here, your Negro President has a daughter who’s ashamed of being the same color as you, and her old man approves. Do you see, Doug? He’s desperately trying to turn the ones who are for you against you, trying to tell your Negro following that you hate their skin and your own, trying to tell everyone-Dilman, he’s ashamed of his skin. Then he’s trying to tell the liberals, and the members of the Senate, Look, look at the kind of man you are judging, a man capable of perfidy and lies, constantly saying he had one child when he had two, hiding a grown daughter, condoning her masquerade. Is this kind of man fit to remain President? He’s not only untrustworthy, he’s positively un-American.
“That’s it, I think, Doug. That’s the level of Miller’s mentality, and the thinking of his fellow managers. They are appealing to the public, trying to get the public so whipped up against you that if the Senate dared to acquit you, there’d be marchers from four directions bearing down on Washington to burn the Capitol. You saw the caliber of witnesses they threw up against you all week long. Experts? Authorities? Judicious men to explain and defend their Articles of Impeachment? Hell, no. Not one. Instead, plain people, just-folks people, brought here for the holiday, swearing to hearsay and depending upon faulty memory to insist you were a drunkard, a lecher, an extremist-anything, as long as it is foul and inciting-and all declaiming your shortcomings in language the public can understand. No, Doug, it is not Mindy, it is you-they’re after you, by means foul or fair. It’s bad luck your girl has been caught in the middle. This news story is lousy. The whole thing is rotten lousy.”
Dilman pushed himself up from the desk and walked heavily toward Abrahams, joining him at the French doors. For a long and silent interval he looked out upon the barren Rose Garden. Then, as if addressing himself rather than Abrahams and Flannery, he said, “I’m so sorry for Mindy, so sorry. She was like her mother. She wanted so badly to be white, and average, and part of life. This thing, I don’t know what this’ll do to her, publishing both her names. I’d give anything to be with her now, just to comfort her and try to talk to her, try to explain and soothe her. But I don’t even know where she is. Edna says the phone number listed under Linda Dawson no longer is connected. It was changed to an unlisted number a couple of weeks ago. Now Mindy has seen the papers, she knows the truth is out, the fact of her being Negro, and now all her white friends know, and her employer knows, and her life-what’ll it be? And I can’t even get to speak to her.”
He looked at Abrahams. “Nat, it’s my fault for not resigning when I could, for being a selfish and prideful mule and bucking the men with the whips, and all I’ll have succeeded in doing is to harm everyone-Wanda, Julian, the Spingers, and now the worst of it, my little girl Mindy. I knew I was up against mudslingers, but I thought I’d be taking most of the mud. I didn’t know it would spatter so wide, so wide and far and destructively. Well, I guess there is no turning back now.”
Absently clasping and unclasping his hands, he wandered back to the middle of the office floor. Aware of Tim Flannery again, he said, “What can I do for my girl? I don’t know.”
Flannery said, “Fight the mudslingers in the press, the way you’re fighting them in the Senate, Mr. President. Is there any statement we can release to offset this-I don’t mean just for your sake-for hers, too, to ease it for her?”
“No. What could I say that would do anything but make it worse? Thanks, Tim. You’d better get back to your work.” Then, as Flannery shrugged and prepared to leave the office, Dilman said to no one in particular, “If people only understood what makes a colored person pass for white.” Suddenly, he exclaimed with wonder. “Wait now-why not tell them? Why not tell them what it is like?”
He saw Flannery had hesitated at the door. “Tim, if Mindy can’t speak for herself, maybe her father should speak for her. I think I will make a statement.”
As Flannery returned, Dilman looked at Abrahams. “Any comment before I do, Nat?”
Abrahams said, “Don’t worry about my problems. This is something altogether your own. This is personal. Act the way I know you want to act-like a father, and not like the President.”
“Yes,” said Dilman.
“Do you want to dictate this statement now?” asked Flannery.
“Dictate it? No. I just want to go out in the press lobby-yes, that’s what I’ll do-and speak my mind. You go ahead, Tim. Alert the correspondents that I want to make a few brief remarks, and that’s all.”
Flannery hastened out. Dilman remained lost in thought for long seconds, then he went to the wastebasket, retrieved the Citizen-American, unfolded it, studied the headlines, and scanned the story.
“Poor child,” he said, and then he left, with Abrahams following him.
After Dilman went through Edna Foster’s empty office into the corridor, where two Secret Service men fell into step behind him, and turned toward the Reading Room, he was conscious of his press secretary’s staff watching him curiously from their desks as he passed them.
Nearing the open door leading to the press lobby, now blocked by Tim Flannery, with Edna Foster and her shorthand pad and pencil behind him, Dilman could see Flannery holding up his arms to quiet the clamoring reporters. Dilman hung back, listening, until Flannery finished his speech.
“-I repeat, gentlemen, those are the rules. He’s decided to make an impromptu statement about the unfortunate story that appeared exclusively in Zeke Miller’s Washington Citizen-American this morning. When he has finished his remarks, no questions about the matter will be entertained. None, boys.”
“Hey, Tim,” someone shouted, “after he does that, would he mind a couple of questions about the impeachment trial? I’d like to ask him about the House witnesses yesterday from the Vaduz Exporters, who insisted-”
“Absolutely no,” Flannery replied. “Nothing’s changed about that. No comment on the impeachment trial, or the Dragon Flies and Baraza, or anything else this morning. And no questions about his daughter. If you refuse to abide by our stipulations, I’m afraid-”
Several voices yelled out, “Okay, Tim!… Bring him out!… Let’s go! Where’s the President?”
Tim Flannery turned and nodded to Dilman, who came forward, easing his way between his press secretary and personal secretary, until he stood within the thickly massed assemblage of eager and impatient correspondents. For a moment Dilman scanned their familiar faces, then dropped his gaze to the pencils and notebooks or pieces of paper their hands held ready. They were waiting, and behind him, behind the Secret Service agents, Flannery, Miss Foster, Nat Abrahams, and many of the White House staff were waiting.
Dilman’s lips were dry. His Adam’s apple had grown huge in his throat. His lungs felt hot. For a hanging second he wondered if this was wrong, feeding fuel to the scurrilous Blaser story, and then his eyes picked out Blaser’s toad face, puffed and important, toward the rear. At once, he knew that he must speak what was in his heart, because somewhere in New York his poor girl child might be waiting also, and listening.
Dilman opened the newspaper in his hand, studied it, then held it aloft.
“You all read this-this news, I’m sure,” he said. He cast the newspaper aside, heard it flutter to the floor. “It is quite true, every word of it. Despite its tone or interpretation, these are the facts. The facts are correct. I have a twenty-year-old son named Julian, who has returned to his studies at Trafford University. I also have a daughter, yes, she is older than my son, she is twenty-four, and her legal name is Mindy Dilman. I have not seen her, not set eyes upon her, since shortly before my wife’s death, when my daughter was eighteen or thereabouts. With my wife’s encouragement, Mindy left the Midwest for the East, to seek a career. Like my wife, more than my wife, Mindy was fair-skinned, and had delicate features. On my wife’s side, for perhaps three or four generations back, and to a lesser extent on my own side, there were Caucasians and Indians, white and brown forebears.”
Dilman hesitated. “I might add, this is not unusual. I am well acquainted, as are most literate Negroes, with the history of our common ancestry. The information about ourselves comes to us largely from white sociologists and anthropologists. According to these authorities, there has always been miscegenation-racial mixing with consequent propagation-in the United States. This began in colonial times, although the most intensive interracial contact among Caucasians, Negroes, and Indians, as Dr. Gunnar Myrdal has pointed out, occurred during our period of slavery and immediately thereafter. It was a time when Negro women were sexually exploited by white men. As a result, according to Dr. Myrdal and numerous other sociologists, as a result of this mixing between whites and colored peoples, with or without the benefit of marriage, there are today estimated to be 70 per cent to 80 per cent of American Negroes who have some degree of so-called white blood or, more accurately, white genes. Because of this, my wife and I, like eight out of every ten Negro Americans, have some white heredity, no matter how minute. I might add that conversely, because of this mixing, at least 20 per cent and perhaps as high as 40 per cent of the whites in the United States have some degree of so-called Negro blood in their veins, whether they know it or not. In any case, because of these heredity facts, many Negro families will, every generation or so, produce offspring who more closely resemble their one or two Caucasian ancestors.”
Dilman studied the tops of the reporters’ heads encircling him, and then he went on.
“In our family of four, there were two of us who were black-skinned like myself and two who, because of the old admixture, were fair-skinned. My wife Aldora was fair-skinned, what is called, in a certain section of the country, ‘pumpkin yellow.’ I, her husband, as you can see, am unmistakably black. My son is also unmistakably black. But my daughter Mindy, from birth to maturity, was as fair as her mother. Her complexion was, and no doubt is today, more light-colored than many Mediterranean whites.
“Now, it is a regrettable fact, or so I believe, that among American Negroes themselves, most of them, the lighter-skinned ones, often feel superior, and are envied or looked up to by their brethren. Why is this? I think the reasons are obvious. Just as whites consider white skin more esthetically satisfying than dark skin-despite the widely prevalent effort, constantly, to become sunburned or tanned by the sun, since this is a status symbol equated with leisure time and therefore wealth-despite this, whites find whiteness more attractive than blackness, just as in India and Brazil, the natives consider the lighter ones of their communities more attractive-so this same color scale has invaded and infected the American Negro community. But ahead of pure esthetics, there is a more compelling reason why American Negroes are frequently pleased to have, and are envied for having, tan or pink or almost white or totally white skins. It is that these lighter Negroes get closer to the majority of the white population, are more acceptable to the dominant white community, more apt, by mistake or their own intent, to escape discrimination and persecution. And often these almost white Negroes, seeing how much easier and better life is for them when they are taken for white instead of Negro, become tempted to cross the color line, to live permanently in the white world as whites, to enjoy being a part of the aristocratic majority with all its advantages and privileges.
“Yes, every Negro like myself, especially one who has had a nearly white wife and an almost white daughter, knows a good deal about this subject. I can tell you, with considerable authority to support the statement, that at least three thousand American Negroes with light-colored skin, at least three thousand a year, maybe as many as six thousand a year, take advantage of their appearance, slip away from their Negro homes, communities, family, friends, and cross over and join the white race. I can tell you, also on excellent authority, that of the one million mixed or interracial marriages in the United States at the present time, and there are that many, at least nine hundred thousand are marriages in which the white partner does not know his or her mate is Negro, or of some other color, because that mate is passing as white and has got away with it.
“For the most part, Negro parents do not like it when their fairer-colored children quit their race and surreptitiously join the white classification, the white world, the white census, pretending to be white when they are not. Negro parents will condone the action of one of their children if he passes as white in order to acquire a better education or get a better job that might not otherwise be available to him. This is condoned on the condition that the one passing remembers he or she is Negro, and returns from the school or business world to resume family and social life among his or her Negro brethren. What Negroes resent is permanent passing by one of their number who resigns entirely from his race, attempts to blot out his blackness, pretends to be white in school, in work, and in his social life. Yet, as much as Negroes resent permanent passing, only rarely do they expose or give away to whites the true origin of their defectors. They will guard a passer’s secret because, as black Americans, suffering as a minority group, they can understand how driven one of their kind must be to risk this form of escape into equality.”
Dilman halted. The circle of heads came up. He inspected the faces, nodded, then resumed speaking, and the heads went down to the note-taking.
“Now you have the background explaining my daughter’s defection. She was reared as a Negro, and around her she could see the terrible injustices and inequities that were to be her lot. When she realized that she alone, of the four of us, need not endure the suffering, like a curse on her for the rest of her years, she fled it, she escaped it, she ran over the line and far away, and lost herself in the white world of New York City, where there was no reason for anyone to suspect that she was not white. I will not stand here and say I approved of Mindy Dilman’s action. I will simply say I did not try to stop or dissuade her then, and I would not now, because I understand her and the three to six thousand other Negro girls and boys who annually cross over.
“I understand Mindy and all like her who pass as white, because I can understand, as many of you around me cannot, what it is to rid yourself of second-class citizenship, of poverty, of receiving contempt, of inferior social status, and to take on in their place, even if the pleasure is acquired through a deception, the advantages and joys of equality under the law, a respectable job, the feeling of belonging, new friendships based on one’s personality rather than color. It grieves me that this has to be so, that this is the condition in our country, but I understand it.
“And I understand more. I understand the deep rage within Negroes, the deep and helpless rage that defies all reason and sense, against not only their present lives but against lives in their past, rage at the accidents of heredity and of environment that made them as they are, and put them in the wrong place at the wrong time. Do you have the slightest idea of what truly makes one human being black and another white? When you consider how violently a person’s life is affected from birth to death if he is born black rather than white, it is almost impossible to believe that such a slight change within the human body creates this vast and traumatic difference.
“According to the foremost geneticists, blacks and whites possess within them the same pigments, the same skin-coloring elements, exactly the same red blood. Then what creates the difference in their skin shading which so affects their lives? The decisive factor is a particle that cannot even be seen by the naked eye, and it is called a gene. Yes, a gene. What is a gene? Bear with me briefly, gentlemen.
“To create a human life, a Mindy, requires two factors-a male sperm so minute that a hundred million sperms can be counted in a single drop of seminal fluid, and a female egg so tiny that it is smaller than a typewritten period on a printed page. Both this liquid drop and this period-sized egg contain something even smaller called chromosomes, and they in turn contain something yet smaller called genes, and these invisible genes are what give each newborn child his hereditary characteristics and control his skin color. If a new-born child has a dominant gene that will cause the production of excessive melanin, a dark pigment, he will be black on the outside. If he possesses a different kind of microscopic gene, he will be brown or yellow on the outside. And if he has an unseeable gene that produces hardly any melanin, he will be some shade of white. And so, what a Negro is comes down to no more than a slight shake and blend of genes, like tiny dice rolling out of the past, and when the shake is done, one goes before the world as a black-skinned individual or a white-skinned one, or somewhere in between, and that’s it for life. And because of this luck of genes, a man or woman comes forth a Negro, sometimes a fair-skinned Negro, but a Negro nevertheless, and because of this luck of genes, a human being is labeled for the rest of his days, in certain places, as an inferior. No wonder the Negro rages, both against this accident in his past, and against the conditions in the present that insensibly penalize him for his ancestry. No wonder one like Mindy, light-skinned through a hap-hazard blend of white and black genes, makes use of this avenue of escape.
“My daughter Mindy committed no crime, no matter how vicious the tone of the condemnation in Representative Zeke Miller’s newspaper. She committed a deception, yes-but that is a minor human frailty, not an exclusively Negroid characteristic. Who among us, at one time or another, has not engaged in deception? Husbands lie to their wives, and wives to their husbands, and children to their parents, in order to make life easier. I do not condone this, either. I say simply, it is there, it is life. Businessmen exaggerate and boast untruths, to improve their business. Clerks and white-collar workers lie about their accomplishments and skills, and products, to sell themselves or their goods, in order to succeed, to get ahead, to improve their lot. Some Jews pretend not to be Jews, in an effort to obtain a desired position, a country club membership, a house they long for in an anti-Semitic neighborhood, in order to escape the onus of being different. Some Catholics pretend not to be Catholics, because of feelings against the Holy See, to get along, just to get along. I deplore the deceptions in our culture, but more, I deplore the conditions that seem to make them necessary.
“Mindy’s deception? Whom would it have harmed but herself? Would her secret blackness, hidden by white skin, if never revealed, have given a fatal disease to her men friends and women friends? Would it have infected them with bad or despicable notions or ideas? Would it have made her work less adequate or contaminated her living quarters? No, it would have done no harm to anyone-until now-except to Mindy herself. Can you picture my girl’s life these years since she ran off at eighteen? I often have. For all its advantages, her life, I imagine, has not been easy or uncomplicated. See her, as I have, escaping from a segregated black neighborhood of the Midwest into a white private school and then into a wide-open white world in New York. To do this, Mindy has deprived herself of mother, father, brother, and every other relative. She has disowned every childhood and school friend she had, except a handful of friends made while passing in a white school. She has sprung up, literally, from the earth afresh, with no past, no background. How impossible this seems in our world of curiosity and rapid communications today. Mindy, I suspect, had to find new friends, white friends, in her apartment building, in her white church, in her white social clubs, in her chance encounters, and in her job. What does one say to new friends, male or female, or on the employer’s application form and to his questions? Mindy must invent a white family, somewhere remote, that is actually nonexistent. She must create a cardboard white community, somewhere remote, where she grew up, and early schools that for some convincing reason cannot be contacted. And as she draws a circle of friends about her, she must fabricate a living past-find photographs of a white mother and father to put in frames, buy gifts for herself and send them to herself from her nonexistent white parents so that she is not alone giftless on Christmas, or unremembered on birthdays. She must compose and send herself occasional letters from distant places and pretend they are from white relatives or friends.
“But not enough. Once this fiction is completed, accepted, she cannot let down her guard. Will she, someday, while intoxicated or under anesthetic or even through some casual verbal slip, disclose that she is really colored? Will some astute newcomer to her circle begin to wonder about an expression she has used, an old habit of speech like ‘G’wan, man’ or ‘Look heah’ and begin to scrutinize the texture of her hair, breadth of her nose, thickness of her lips, moons of her fingernails? Will she, someday, while with her white friends, run into that one-in-a-million visitor from the Midwest, from her old place of life, who is Negro, and recognizes her, and comes up to her, a pretended white girl, and inadvertently exposes her? Will she, falling desperately in love as an equal with a young white man, unable to confess the truth and lose him, keep her secret, marry him, and awaken from the hospital table to find with horror that she has delivered an infant with features and hair more Negroid than white?
“I have not seen Mindy Dilman in all these years, not because I have not deeply wished it, for I love her, but because she chose it to be this way, so this is the way it had to be.
“Of course Mindy has been passing for white! Of course I have known it! I would not interfere, because I would not strip from her the advantages she deserves and would otherwise be denied. But I repeat, what is Mindy’s crime? Is it her fault that she was born to Negroes, and in a country where such birth is a sin? If there is crime in this, the crime is not Mindy’s, but yours and mine, that of the American government and the American people, who would not let her grow and develop in dignity and grace.
“Now, this morning, for the sake of boosting a newspaper’s circulation, for the cause of a politician’s prejudice and quarrel, Mindy’s secret is out. Now, for motives of sensation and hate, the camouflage of this harmless young girl has been stripped off, so that she is naked and alone and black, though no whit blacker or less worthy than yesterday or the day before. And for this my heart is heavy. I sorrow for my daughter, and over what she will endure, and what must become of her-but more, far more, gentlemen, I grieve for the nature of those in this country, and for the situation in this country, that drove Mindy to pass-and I grieve that such minds exist, in government, in the press, who feel that her pitiful masquerade was so monstrous a vice and transgression that they publicly had to brand her not with a searing scarlet letter but a burning black one, to destroy her, to hope to damage me as her father and as the nation’s President, in order to preserve the racial purity of the republic in which we live.
“Thank you for your attention, gentlemen. Thank you, and good morning.”
The Senate, sitting as a tribunal for the impeachment trial of President Dilman, had been convened promptly at one o’clock in the afternoon.
This was the tenth day of the trial, the first day having been given over to the opening speeches of the opposing attorneys, and the eight days since having been given over to the testimony of the witnesses for the House and the cross-examinations conducted for the defense by Abrahams, Tuttle, and Priest, with Hart confining himself to the paper work. Actually, excluding the Sunday during which the Senate had been adjourned, there had been only seven days of witnesses.
This afternoon’s session had begun with the House managers summoning Julian Dilman to the witness chair, set at eye level with Chief Justice Johnstone’s raised dais, to testify. Representative Zeke Miller’s interrogation of the President’s son had started mildly enough, with questions about the young man’s early years, eliciting information that traced his growth to the time of his entrance into Trafford University. Even though the interrogation had not been fearsome, Julian had appeared frightened, constantly twitching and twisting, his replies sometimes barely audible, sometimes too loud.
When, after twenty minutes of this, a senator had risen on a point of law and Chief Justice Johnstone had called a fifteen-minute recess to consult his associates and to review published precedent, the stately rectangular Chamber on the second floor of the Capitol had become an informal clubhouse once more.
Leaving his associates at their table on the Senate floor, their heads huddled together over some legal strategy, Nat Abrahams had quit the Chamber to smoke his pipe and to evaluate the position of the defense. He had gone through the Senators’ Private Lobby, meaning to turn off to his own assigned office, but then he had wandered into the Marble Room, so called for its circular Italian columns, had wended his way past a group of legislators chatting at the round reading table beneath the ornate crystal chandelier, and had then come to a stop next to one of the towering white columns. Still lost in thought, desiring to remain inconspicuous and undisturbed in this lair of the enemy (although every room, apparently, belonged to the enemy), Abrahams had gone behind the pillar, leaned back against it, and lighted his pipe.
Now, isolated and smoking, he could perceive the House managers’ strategy, all of it dominated by a public relations concept and intended to overwhelm the general public (and through them, the Senate jurors) in one emotional spate of accusation. After Miller’s frenetic opening address, the opposition had built the case for their Articles of Impeachment slowly and not too powerfully. Except for their presentation of several witnesses from Vaduz Exporters, to bolster their Article I charges against the President’s treasonable relationship with Wanda Gibson, except for their questioning of the Reverend Spinger and then his wife to further solidify Article I and give some credence to the extramarital liaison and preferential treatment to Crispus specifications in Article III, except for their parade of Washington experts to prove the New Succession Act was constitutional and the law of the land, and the questioning of Governor Talley to prove it had been violated by the President, which had invited Article IV, the House managers had presented only a series of shabby and inconsequential witnesses.
Analyzing it now, weighing the effect of the defense’s own cross-examinations, Abrahams was able to see better what progress the opposition had made. Miller had done a fairly good job, not legally but emotionally, in shoring up Article I, charging the transfer of secrets through Wanda Gibson. Until three-quarters of an hour ago, he had offered no witnesses on Article II, the Julian-Turnerite charge, except one affidavit, from the Attorney General, relating the President’s delaying tactics on the banning of the extremist society. As yet, Miller had made little progress on the specifications of Article III. He had made no mention of Sally Watson, and the witnesses he offered to prove the liaison with Miss Gibson, favoritism toward Spinger, political partisanship, and intoxication had been so vague and irrelevant, and had been so rattled under the relentless cross-examinations of Abrahams and his colleagues, that Article III had become more an embarrassment than an asset.
Miller’s case for Article IV, that the President had broken a law by firing Eaton in defiance of Congress, had been more impressive for the quantity of his witnesses than for their quality. Under Abrahams’ ceaseless bombardment, many of the witnesses had lost their assurance and authority. However, the question of whether the President had removed Eaton because he believed his Secretary of State was usurping his Presidential powers, or because he feared his popularity, was still not settled. And the question of whether the President had removed Eaton without consulting the Senate because he believed the New Succession Act to be unconstitutional and therefore believed that there was no need to consult anyone, or whether he had merely determined to defy and humiliate the legislative branch, and be headstrong and break a law, was still not decided. To this moment, the battle over Article IV was probably a draw.
Today, Abrahams guessed, Zeke Miller would be unloading his big artillery in one concerted and smashing effort to scatter the defense and send it into hopeless retreat. Today, no doubt, Miller would bring forth those who were still missing: Wanda Gibson to build up Article I, Sally Watson to save Article III, Secretary of State Arthur Eaton to clinch Article IV, just as he now had on the stand Julian Dilman to prove Article II. Miller would try to bring his case, through the evidence of these witnesses, to a peak in one shattering afternoon, rocking the public and the Senate with the President’s criminality, so that nothing Abrahams or the defense managers could offer in rebuttal, after that, would be able to halt, or even slow down, the assault.
Why, Abrahams asked himself, had the House managers determined to crowd the best of their case into a single afternoon? Because, he decided, they felt the timing was right, the climate never better.
The steady if gradual shift of sympathy and support to President Dilman, among the public, had faltered in the last nine days. Miller’s weather eye was keen. Eight days ago the President had admitted to the nation that he might, if necessary, sacrifice the lives of an all-white American fighting force in the defense of a little-known African nation. The Negroes and liberals approved, but the larger part of the nation boiled with resentment. Then Julian had confessed to his Turnerite affiliation, and while the majority of twenty-three million American Negroes may have been sympathetic once more, and some whites impressed, the greater part of 230 million Americans were increasingly suspicious of the President’s past activities. Now, this morning, Zeke Miller’s revelation about the President’s daughter passing for white, with the President’s knowledge and lack of disapproval, would once more turn the Negro population against him and infuriate most of the white population. And, Abrahams saw, even Doug Dilman’s profoundly moving explanation of his daughter’s passing, and of his own role in it, would fail to counteract the damaging publicity. For the rest of the press, who had missed Miller’s sensational scoop, were trying to make up lost ground by excerpting portions of the President’s remarks, lifting them out of context, angling and distorting them to make headlines anew and sell copies of their newspapers.
Abrahams rubbed his shoulders against the pillar, put a flame to his pipe again, and considered the situation. Yes, for Zeke Miller, the national climate was right to bring out, from the principal witnesses, the last of the evidence against Dilman. There was momentum in the sentiment against the President, and whatever headlines Miller could create and throw forth today would ride with the momentum, until the charges would be too many and too powerful for it to be stopped.
Abrahams did not like the defense’s position. If the prosecution concluded its testimony today, it would be the defense’s turn, either late today or tomorrow, to summon up its own rebuttal witnesses. These were good witnesses, but not colorful, not space grabbers, not names, and they would receive scant attention. Abrahams needed what Miller possessed-a cast of stars-and he had none, not one.
Only a single faint hope remained, Abrahams decided, and that was to make Miller’s stars his own stars. He must build up Julian and Wanda, even though subpoenaed by Miller, as defense witnesses. He must tear down Eaton and Sally Watson, so that resultant headlines would favor the President over his prosecutors. It would not be an easy game to play, if it could be played at all, but, he thought mournfully, it was the only game in town.
He heard an agitated voice call out, “Congressman-Congressman Miller-”
Looking off, he was surprised to see George Murdock, fugitive from the press gallery and Blaser’s collaborator, hastening in his general direction. Then Murdock hurried past him, and abruptly halted. Abrahams poked his head around the pillar, and he recognized Zeke Miller, profile to him, considering the reporter with annoyance.
“What are you doing here?” Miller demanded. “You’re supposed to be up there doing what you’re paid to do.”
“Congressman, I’ve got to speak to you,” Murdock insisted, clawing his acned, pasty face. “That story you and Reb broke this morning-about Mindy passing-”
“Don’t bother me now. I have no time. I’ve got a trial to conduct.”
“Listen-wait-I signed a paper for that girl, promising if she gave me the letter Julian wrote her, I’d never in my life whisper a word of who she is or what she is. I told it to you in confidence-remember? It was part of our deal-you could use everything else I got you, as long as you never used that. You promised, like I promised. You pledged your word.”
Miller’s lipless mouth was drawn back so that his yellowed teeth were exposed. “Boy, I don’t remember making no foolish promise like that there one, you understand? When Zeke Miller makes a promise, he keeps it. You’re not questioning my integrity, you’re not doing that, are you? That wouldn’t be sensible-would it?-for a reporter in an editorial room to doubt the word of the proprietor, would it now? I’ve seen my daddy, in his day, have his cotton pickers thrown off his land for less than that.”
Murdock shriveled. “I-I’m only trying to say-”
“Boy, what burr you got up your behind? You mean an important proud writing person like you is worrying about some cheating cullud girl, some Nigra tar baby who’s painted herself white because she wants to insinuate her class into our class? What’s happening to you, boy? Keep that up and I got a good mind to make you a foreign correspondent and send you off to cover Harlem permanently. Know what I mean? You wouldn’t like that, would you, feller? Come now, would you?”
“No-no-I wouldn’t.”
“Then get yourself back up to that gallery and write like you’re told, and don’t bother Zeke Miller again with any of that Northern weeping-willow crap.” Miller waved off to someone. “Hiya, Senator Watson. Time to get back to the combat field, I guess.”
Abrahams watched Miller leave, in step with Senator Hoyt Watson. Quickly, he glanced at Murdock. The reporter’s face was sallow gray, like a scrap of ancient papyrus. Some kind of involuntary utterance came from him, more moan than sigh, and he turned, head down, and went slowly back to the press gallery, as Abrahams, aching for his humiliation, averted his eyes.
Then, seeing that the Marble Room was quickly emptying, Abrahams tapped out the ashes from his bowl, pocketed the warm pipe, and fell in line behind those returning to the Senate Chamber.
When he took his place at the President’s managers’ table, he could see the Chief Justice already on the bench above, Julian Dilman in the witness chair timidly prepared for anything, and the last of the absent senators squeezing back in behind their desks.
Chief Justice Johnstone’s gavel came down. After calling the court to order, announcing his decision on the point of law which conceded the correctness of the senatorial challenge and therefore required no vote by the body of legislators present, the magistrate ordered, “Senators will please give their undivided attention. The counsel for the House of Representatives will proceed with the examination of the witness.”
Zeke Miller bounced up from his table, came to the front of the podium, and planted himself before Julian Dilman.
“Well, now, Mr. Julian Dilman, we have arrived at the core of the charges in Article II of this impeachment. You have confessed, in a public statement, that you were an early and secret underground member of the subversive Turnerite Group. There is no arguing about that now, is there? We can accept your public confession of membership in full, can’t we? Or do you wish to retract it?”
“I was a member, yes,” said Julian, “exactly the way I announced it last week.”
“I am pleased Mr. Witness confesses to the confession.” Miller waited for the laughter from the gallery to subside, and then he asked, “Before the day of your public confession, did the President, your father, know you were a member of the subversive Turnerite Group?”
“No, sir.”
“You say, ‘No, sir’? Let me explore this further. Did the President, your father, ever make mention of the Turnerites to you, in speech or writing?”
“Well, yes, but-”
“Oh, he did discuss the subversive Turnerite Group with you? Did he inquire if you were a member?”
“Yes, he did, but-”
“Why would he inquire if you were a member? Was it just paternal curiosity or did he have suspicions of you?”
“He’d heard I was a member. Someone told him.”
“Ah, ‘someone’ told him,” said Miller. “In other words, he was in contact with someone who definitely knew? He was in touch with other secret Turnerites?”
“No, not exactly-”
“Never mind. The point is that the President had been informed that you, his son, were a Turnerite, and he went to you, and desired for you to confirm the news of your membership?”
“He didn’t know I was one of them, but he had heard a rumor, yes. He was upset. He tried to pin me down. I denied everything. I lied to him, because-because I was afraid.”
“Afraid of whom, Mr. Witness? Afraid of your real boss, the late murderer, Jefferson Hurley-or afraid of your father’s wrath?”
“Both.”
“So you lied to your father. Are you in the habit of lying often, Mr. Dilman?”
“No. But my situation made it necessary that one time.”
“If you could lie to your parent, if you could lie to the President of the United States, might you not be capable of lying to this high tribunal?”
Abrahams leaped to his feet. “Objection, Mr. Chief Justice! Mr. Manager Miller is baiting and leading the witness.”
Miller looked up at Chief Justice Johnstone, all bland innocence. “Mr. Justice, I am merely attempting to establish the devious character of-”
The Chief Justice’s gavel rapped. “Objection sustained. The witness is under solemn oath, Mr. Manager Miller. Avoid further speculation on his veracity.”
Miller shrugged good-naturedly and considered his witness once more. “Let’s see, Mr. Julian Dilman, what have we established up to now? That you were covertly a blood member of a subversive organization. That your father heard about it. That your father confronted you with the fact, and you denied it, you lied to him. Now, from his subsequent actions, we must wonder if your father, the President of the United States, believed your denial-or if he knew more about your affiliation than he had told you. Let us see, let us see. The Turnerites, in their efforts to overthrow the established government of the United States, perpetrated a planned kidnaping of a municipal official. Despite this, as the Attorney General has testified in writing, the President refused to outlaw the society which had been responsible for this outrage. Instead, he appointed a friend and tenant of his, a Nigra lobbyist, to talk and deal privately with the Turnerites. Then, when your organization committed foul murder, the President still refused to condemn your friends until he was forced to bend to the pressure of the Justice Department and outlaw your organization. Would that not clearly indicate that Hurley had threatened to expose you, unless your father, the President, went soft on the Turnerites? Would that not clearly indicate your father, the President, knew his son was a member of a lawless society, and, to protect his son, treated with the Turnerites, went easy on them, until a life was lost? Would that not indicate that your father, the President, putting his own interests, the interests of his family, before the interests of his high office, was guilty of high crime and-”
“That’s not true!” Julian protested. “He didn’t believe I was involved, and he made no deals with them.”
“How do you know, Mr. Julian Dilman? You weren’t there when the President’s emissary was treating with the Turnerites.”
“Neither were you!”
Miller’s face darkened. “You are being insolent, young man. Who taught you your manners? The Commie terrorists and Nigra extremists in your crowd? Or the President himself?”
“Objection!” Abrahams called out.
Miller held a hand up to the bench. “Never mind, Mr. Chief Justice. I retract. I fear the younger generation can often be provoking… Very well, Mr. Julian Dilman, your father had heard you were a bona fide member of this violent, now outlawed, society. Let’s find out what nefarious activities you performed while serving-”
Half listening to Miller’s continuing examination, Nat Abrahams jotted notes on the pad before him. Miller, he realized, was making his best of a bad thing. Miller had failed to prove that the President knew of his son’s membership and had therefore promised the Turnerites he would go easy on them if they kept Julian’s membership quiet. Yet, proof or no proof, Miller was succeeding, by using the tactic of repetition. In lending some credulity to the charges in Article II. Had not the President “heard” his son was a member and accused him of it? Therefore, he might possibly have “known” for certain. Had not the President appointed a “friend,” instead of a government official, to arrange a compromise with Hurley through Valetti? Therefore, he may possibly have been party to an underhand “deal.”
After five minutes more, Miller concluded his examination, and Nat Abrahams stood before the shaken young Negro boy.
In as kind a tone as possible, Abrahams said to Julian, “Since the House managers have no witnesses, no firsthand evidence whatsoever, that the President believed you were a Turnerite, that the President made a deal with the Turnerites to protect you, the charge embodied in Article II stands or falls completely on your word. Julian Dilman, you have taken solemn oath before the Senate body, at the risk of being charged with perjury, that you will here tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. You are entirely cognizant of that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did the President, in a private room at Trafford University, ask you if you were a member of the Turnerite Group?”
“He did.”
“And you told him you were not a member?”
“I told him I was not a member.”
“Did he believe you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he ever bring up the subject again?”
“He did not, sir. He believed me.”
“In short, Julian Dilman, as far as you know, the President was satisfied from that day on that you were not a member of the Turnerites?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Therefore, he would have no reason to compromise himself with the Turnerites in order to protect you?”
“He would have no reason whatsoever, sir.”
“You have told the learned manager of the House that the President did, on several occasions, discuss the Turnerite movement with you, other than discussing your own possible involvement. Is this so?”
“Oh, yes. We talked about them. I mean, he didn’t discuss the Turnerites with me. I discussed them with him. I always brought them up.”
“Why did you bring them up?”
“I felt worried about secretly belonging, without his knowledge, and wanted to convince him that the ideals of the Group were good ones. Then, at the time, I believed in the society, and he did not, and we used to argue about it.”
“What were the President’s feelings about the Turnerites?”
“He thought they were all wrong. He detested them. He hated every extremist and pro-violence organization, black or white, left or right. So we would argue. But now I can see my father was correct.”
“Julian Dilman, one thing puzzles me. Allow me to pose the puzzle in the form of several questions. You were a member, yet you never told your father about it. Why did you not tell him? Why did you lie about this one thing? You informed Mr. Manager Miller you were afraid of revealing the truth to the President. What were you afraid of?”
“Well-”
“Were you afraid of breaking your pledge of secrecy to Hurley?”
“Only a little. That was the least part of it.”
“What was the major part of it, then? Were you afraid of your father’s disapproval?”
“I-I knew how much he was against those extremists. I knew how much he hoped for me and expected of me. I knew that if I told him, he-he would be horrified, and disappointed by the way I’d turned out, and think less of me. I knew he loved me and-I didn’t want to lose his love.”
“I see.”
It was a fine moment to dismiss the witness, but Abrahams knew that one more question needed to be asked. “Is that why you finally confessed your secret? It was your secret, and you might have kept it forever. Yet, last week, you made it known to the press and the world. What compelled you to do so? Why did you-when it was no longer necessary-jeopardize your character, make your veracity questionable, and give ammunition to the smallest and weakest part of the House managers’ indictment?”
“Why?” Julian paused. “Because-I guess because I was so proud of my father’s integrity-and-and ashamed of my own lack of it-and my own ambition was to grow up to be a man like he was, and is-and I decided the way to start was to be honest like him.”
“Thank you, Mr. Witness.”
After Julian had left the witness box, Abrahams returned to his table. He could not calculate, from the reaction of his associates or that of the senators, how effective his cross-examination had been. He decided that if it had accomplished nothing else, it had shown the legislators that the President’s son was sincere and trustworthy, and that although Julian had lied once, it was not likely that he was lying under oath today. If this image had been created, Abrahams decided, it was something, little enough, but something, a small victory. And perhaps the scale of justice (or injustice) so heavily weighted against his client had been lightened, and was better balanced, if only a trifle.
Suddenly Abrahams realized that Miss Wanda Gibson had been summoned, and was already standing before the Secretary of the Senate, right hand raised.
The Secretary of the Senate droned forth, “You, Wanda Gibson, do affirm that the evidence you shall give in the case now depending between the United States and Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: so help you God.”
“I do, so help me God.”
“The witness will kindly be seated.”
It pleased Abrahams to see her there, so composed, so attractive in her blue jersey dress and matching jacket. Wanda’s luminous eyes, shining out of her solemn tan face, fleetingly caught Abrahams’ gaze, and they flickered as if to reassure him, and he was grateful for her piquant maturity. He hoped that Doug Dilman was watching on television. Perhaps he would be less worried about the ordeal to which he had subjected her.
But then, as Zeke Miller materialized, Abrahams’ confidence in her buckled slightly. She would have to be as resilient on the inside as she appeared to be poised on the outside, if she were to survive without serious hurt.
“Miss Wanda Gibson, I have it,” said Miller, slurring the syllables of her name. “According to Articles I and III of the impeachment, according to the testimony already received, you are the great and good friend of the President of the United States. How long have you known him?”
“Five years.”
“How long have you lived under his roof?”
“I have rented a room from the Reverend Paul Spinger and Mrs. Spinger, the upstairs tenants, for six years. The President purchased the building, occupied the lower half of the duplex, and became the Spingers’ landlord, and, in turn, mine, five years ago.”
“Do you pay rent for your room?”
“Of course I pay rent for my room.”
“Have you always paid rent? Did you pay rent when the President lived in the same building with you?”
“If you are trying to say, Mr. Congressman, that I accepted special favors from my landlord in return for special favors-the answer is no, I did not.” There was a wide tittering across the gallery, and Wanda looked up with surprise, and then down at Miller. She said, “I have never missed payment of a single month’s rent.”
Miller sniffed. “Miss Gibson, were you ever, in those five years, alone with the President, either in his downstairs flat or your own?”
“Never in his flat. Occasionally in the Spingers’ living room. Most often, we were alone on the outside, when we went to dinner or the theater, that is, when the President was a senator.”
“Miss Gibson, in this dwelling on Van Buren Street where you live, which the President owns, is there any means of private access one could use to go from the downstairs to the upstairs, or vice versa?”
“Do you mean, is there some kind of private stairway or hidden passage by which the President and I could have seen one another without being seen by others?”
“I will request you to refrain from rewording or defining my questions, Miss Gibson. I mean precisely what I asked. Did the President have any private means of getting to your quarters or you to his?”
“No. Unless he used a ladder-or the vine that grows on the back wall-but I doubt if the President is, or ever was, that athletic or romantically foolhardy.”
The spectators in the gallery roared with laughter, and some stamped and whistled.
Chief Justice Johnstone’s gavel slammed down hard. When peace was restored, the robed magistrate warned, “The Chief Justice will admonish strangers and citizens in the galleries of the necessity of observing perfect order and profound silence-at the penalty of being evicted.”
Zeke Miller was staring at the witness. “Miss Gibson, previous witnesses who were acquainted with both you and the President, when he was a senator, have agreed that you had a close relationship with him. How close was it?”
“For the most part, about as close as you and I are right here.”
“Previous testimony indicates otherwise.”
“What does previous testimony indicate, Congressman?”
“That you, Miss Gibson, and the man who is now President had a relationship which might be regarded, by some classes, as an illicit liaison.”
“Can you prove that scandalous allegation? What do you possess, beyond a desire to defame the President, to support it?”
“Miss Gibson, circumstantial evidence, strong circumstantial evidence, is enough. The records of your visits and dating together, your telephone conversations, they are enough. The affair is indicated plainly. That is enough.”
“Enough only for backstairs gossips and vindictive persecutors-”
“Watch your tongue, Miss Gibson. You are sworn-”
“Watch yours, Mr. Manager. You have no proof. You have hopes. You have hopes, and hearsay, and indications. And on that you are trying to build a straw Romeo and a straw Juliet. What you are building is a nonexistent affair, a fabrication, and I am the only one in this Chamber who knows the truth, and that is what I am telling you.”
“Miss Gibson, do not insult the intelligence of this court. Do you mean to tell me that you, a grown single woman, enjoyed a friendship with a mature widowed male for five years, and there was no intimacy between you, not once in five years?”
“Intimacy?”
“Come now, Miss Gibson, you know very well what I mean.”
“I suspect I do, and I am appalled. Congressman Miller, the friendship I had with the President was based on mutual respect, common intellectual interests, and the simple pleasure of being together. We had an abiding affection for one another. We held hands. We embraced. We kissed. But, sorry as I am to disappoint you, there was nothing more furtive or lurid that ever occurred.”
“I am not disputing your sincerity, Miss Gibson, but do you mean to tell me that a person like the President-his intemperate habits have already been introduced into-”
“What intemperate habits?”
“Drinking, excessive drinking, for one thing.”
“Drinking? The President? Surely you’re joking. All he ever drank in my presence was carbonated water, celery tonic, and occasionally wine at dinner. Two glasses of wine and he fell asleep. The sight of a bourbon advertisement made him take me home early. You’re joking.”
“And you, Madam Witness, are flippant, excessively so, to the detriment of the person you, understandably, are trying to protect.”
“If I am flippant, it is because your questions inspire only my contempt, and yet I do not think they deserve the honest emotion of contempt, not from a lady and not in a court.”
“I will leave it to the honorable members of the Senate to judge your performance. However, before entering into the serious matter of how your close relationship with the President, your kiss-and-tell Vaduz relationship-”
Abrahams was on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor!”
Miller gave a disdainful gesture toward Abrahams. “Forget it. I’ll rephrase… Miss Gibson, before entering into the series of questions designed to extract from you the full story of how you were able to acquire from the President privileged state information, and pass it on to your Communist employers, in support of Article I of the House indictment, I wonder if you would be kind enough to reply to one more question about your friendship with the President. Did the President find your companionship so rewarding, so fulfilling, for five years, that he did not think it necessary to ask your hand in marriage?”
“Congressman, I suspect the implication behind your question is an insult.”
“No offense intended-”
“You are implying, despite my sworn denial, that the President and I did have an affair, and that this satisfied him sufficiently to keep him from proposing marriage.”
“Miss Gibson, you said that, I didn’t.”
“Congressman, when a snake rattles, you know it’s just a rattle, not a bite, but you know the meaning of the sound, and what comes next.”
“Miss Gibson, I will not be diverted by a lecture in zoology. I want the facts of your relationship with the President set before this tribunal. Miss Gibson, after five years, why did the President and yourself not legalize your relationship?”
“Not legalize our relationship?”
“Not marry, Miss Gibson. Why did you not marry?”
“Because he never asked me. I think he meant to, but I think he was afraid.”
“The President-afraid?”
“Of people like you, Mr. Manager, who might think him too black for me, and me too white for him, and who might cry out that our union would be mongrelizing the Congress, where he was once a member, or the White House, where he is now the President. If you are through with the Madame du Barry part of my life, Mr. Manager, can we go on to the Mata Hari part? I’m eager to know how it all comes out.”
Ten minutes later, when Zeke Miller, mopping his wet bald pate, had finished the Mata Hari part and grimly gone back to his table, it was Nat Abrahams’ turn.
Abrahams rose. “Mr. Chief Justice, the President’s managers waive cross-examination. The witness may be dismissed without recall.”
He smiled at Wanda Gibson as she left the stand. Maybe the Senate had another view of it, but for Abrahams, the President’s lady needed no further defense this day or ever. Perhaps, Abrahams reasoned, her flippancy-how difficult the attitude must have been for her, considering her essential seriousness and concern, yet how unwaveringly she had maintained that pose, determined to ridicule the outrageous charges-may have offended some senators, coming, as it did, from a mulatto. Nevertheless, Abrahams believed she had more than adequately defended herself and the man she loved. She required no counsel’s assist. If most of the Senate appreciated her sparring with Miller, her ridiculing of Miller’s charges, then her triumph was not a small one.
Scanning the inscrutable public faces of the senators as they watched Wanda Gibson leave, Abrahams could detect nothing decisive, neither favorable nor unfavorable reactions.
Looking past the podium, Abrahams saw Zeke Miller’s manner change. He appeared to light up. Then Abrahams beheld the witness who was approaching, the witness whose deceptively innocent face was set firmly in cold determination.
Sally Watson, blond hair combed bell-like for the occasion, taupe wool sheath accentuating her feminine contours, mink stole on her arm, had gone up before the witness chair and the Secretary of the Senate.
Tuttle, beside Abrahams, leaned closer. “She looks as if she’s going to be hard on us,” he whispered.
“She will be,” Abrahams whispered in return.
Zeke Miller, rubbing his hands with apparent relish, dipping his head to the seated witness in a gallant welcome, addressed her with the deference he might have accorded Varina Howell Davis-Jefferson Davis’ Varina-flower of the Confederacy.
“Miss Watson, considering the nature of your familial ties, the fact that your brilliant and beloved parent is a member of this august body, considering the ordeal you have recently undergone, it is an act of uncommon bravery and patriotism for you to have volunteered to appear here in public this afternoon. All of us in the legislative branch are appreciative that you are ready to become a collaborator in our search for the truth, in our desire to purify and strengthen the executive branch of our noble government. For my part, I shall attempt to make your appearance as brief as possible.”
“Thank you, Representative Miller.”
“I understand that you have insisted upon coming here against your physician’s wishes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Because you felt that no affidavit could adequately reveal what injury and humiliation you have suffered?”
“I believed the Senate should know what I know, sir.”
“We will proceed. Why did you, one week after Douglass Dilman assumed the Presidency, apply for the position as his social secretary?”
“Certainly not for reasons of personal advancement, Representative Miller. My father, as you know, has always been able to educate and care for his family. I had heard-because of my wide acquaintance in Washington-I had heard that many of the White House staff were resigning, since their loyalty had been only to T. C. Also, I had heard that Miss Laurel, the First Lady’s social secretary, was leaving the White House with her. I read and heard that the new President had no woman to bring into the White House to assist him with the ordinary refinements and duties that only a lady versed in the social amenities could help him with. Of course, at that time I did not know he had a grown daughter passing herself off as a white person in secret.”
“No, none of us knew that, Miss Watson.”
“I knew also that it would be difficult for President Dilman to find someone to fill a specialized position such as social secretary. Because of his-his background-his lack of knowledge of formal entertaining-it would make the position doubly burdensome. Few qualified ladies were prepared to undertake such responsibility for such meager recompense.”
“So you applied as a duty, in the same way a socialite might lend herself to hospital work?”
“If you want to put it that way, yes. I wanted to be of use, to do my part in maintaining the continuity of the social life in the White House.”
“You felt you were qualified?”
“I believed so. I had attended Radcliffe. I had handled the entertaining of account executives for an advertising agency in New York. I had often served as my father’s hostess. I believed that I was qualified, and apparently I was, for the President hired me during my first interview with him, and often congratulated me on my ability in managing his limited social affairs.”
“Did you find the position agreeable, Miss Watson?”
“In every respect except one.”
“Except one? Do I dare inquire in what area you found the position disagreeable?”
“I don’t mind. It is time the-the truth came out. Some of my friends begged me not to take the position. They said it was known that the President had been, well, carrying on with an unmarried white woman-of course, I later learned she was an unmarried mulatto woman-and that his morals were questionable. I ignored that as the inevitable rumor that precedes every new President into office.”
“You were generous, Miss Watson.”
“I don’t like to listen to petty gossip. And at first, the first few weeks, I believed that I was right. President Dilman behaved circumspectly. But then-”
“Go on, please, Miss Watson. Then what happened?”
“I don’t know. He-the President-seemed to begin to feel more confident about his office, his belonging up in the White House, and once the mourning for T. C. ceased, and he knew he was really the head man, his behavior altered. It was at first subtle, but it altered.”
“Can you give us any instances?”
“Oh, yes. His language became more imperious, coarser, and he was more demanding. Since we had many matters to confer about daily, he would insist, more and more frequently, that I come to see him in his bedroom or study, during the morning, while he was still in his pajamas. Sometimes he would demand that I stay on later at night, to meet with him the same way, and sometimes he drank in my presence and became heady.”
“Heady, Miss Watson?”
“Intoxicated. Perhaps Miss Gibson was right. He cannot hold drinks. Nevertheless, he drank. When he was under the influence of drink and we were alone-he would never permit me to bring another member of my staff along, not even his former secretary, Miss Fuller-he would become excessively informal. By that I mean he would make flattering allusions to my appearance, my features or my clothes. It made me uncomfortable. I hated to see him this way, and each time I couldn’t wait to leave him. I’m not a child, but there was something about him, the way he stared at me, that made me afraid.”
“I see. Until the night we shall discuss in a moment, the awful night he gave his true intent away, had President Dilman made an improper advance or gesture toward you?”
“No. He hinted at-at our dining alone sometime-spending a social evening together-but he never came out with it. I think he was inhibited by the possibility of gossip or what my father might say if I repeated it.”
“And, no doubt, he was put off by your own demeanor?”
“Oh, definitely. I was chilly and businesslike with him. It was so difficult, especially knowing, as I did, of his affair-or whatever you wish to call it-with another woman on the side.”
“But the President never touched you, physically, until the night in question?”
“No. If he had, I’d have quit on the spot, and told my father.”
“Miss Watson, we have arrived at the awful scene, the one that inspired the House of Representatives to condemn the morality of the nation’s President in Article III. I refer to the evening that the President, as specified in our charges, ‘while under the influence of intoxicants, made improper advances’ upon you ‘and did commit bodily harm’ to you.”
“It was an ugly experience.”
“The Senate and public will judge fairly the degree of the President’s degradation of his office, Miss Watson. I know their decision will never free your mind of the nightmare visited upon you, but you will know justice has been served. Let us, then, quickly and briefly recapitulate the events of that night. It was the evening of the dinner you had arranged on his behalf for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. There was a movie shown after dinner which you did not attend. Why did you not attend?”
“As we were leaving for the movie, the President drew me aside and whispered to me. He had a private conversation with me.”
“Yes, General Fortney has attested to that. What was the nature of the conversation?”
“The President said he wanted me to get out files on several of T. C.’s dinners given for the legislators, and review them with me, because he thought it was time to start buttering them up. He said he wanted to go over our future social program that very evening. He asked me to get the material and meet him in an hour in the Lincoln Bedroom. I had misgivings, because I could smell alcohol on his breath, but I had no choice. So I was there when he came.”
“What transpired next, Miss Watson? I know this is painful to you, and the evidence has already been introduced, but I desire that the Senate hear it from your own lips.”
“He came in-”
“President Dilman?”
“Yes, the President. He came in, and mumbled something about the movie, and brought out drinks, and kept insisting I have a drink of whiskey with him. I didn’t want to, but he forced one on me. He must have had three in the next fifteen or twenty minutes. I was sitting in a chair next to the bed, and he was sitting on the bed. He was babbling on about his life, what it was like to be Negro, how he was going to prove a Negro and other Negroes he’d bring into the Cabinet could run the government better than white politicians-then suddenly he asked to know if I had anything against him because of his color. I said no. There was more of this, his wanting to know how I felt toward him, then he began saying how he felt toward me, that I reminded him of his wife who was practically as white as I am. Then, suddenly, he asked me to bring him the papers I had in my hand, bring them to where he was sitting on the bed. So I did.”
“And then, Miss Watson?”
“He took the papers, threw them aside, and grabbed hold of me. He tried to kiss me. I refused, and that enraged him. He wouldn’t let go of me, and I tried to get free. He tore my dress, and then he became brutal, and I slapped him, and he pushed me down on the bed. Then he was after me again, and his hands, he bruised and scratched me-you have the photographs the doctor took that night-and finally I said I’d scream if he wouldn’t let go, and pulled away and stumbled to the door, unlocked it, and escaped. I never went back to the White House again.”
“What happened immediately afterward, Miss Watson?”
“I-I told some people high up in government-I was afraid to tell my father-I didn’t want him to do something terrible-and my friends then acted, decided to take action, against the President, and they told my father, and he agreed, and that was all.”
“You’ve been under the strict care of your family physician ever since?”
“I was in a state of shock. I have been confined to our house. The doctor comes by daily.”
“Miss Watson, you have performed a service to your country. Thank you for your soul-rending testimony.”
Zeke Miller bowed his head, and then turned away. Keeping his head low, shaking it sorrowfully, he returned to his table.
There was a buzzing through the Senate Chamber, much twisting, turning, consultation, as Sally Watson rose from her chair to leave.
Chief Justice Johnstone’s stentorian voice halted her. “The witness will remain in her place for the cross-examination by the President’s managers.”
Surprised, Sally Watson sat down.
The Chief Justice called out, “The senators will please be attentive. Gentlemen of counsel for the President, if you desire to cross-examine, you will proceed.”
Nat Abrahams had taken up a manila folder of documents and come out of his seat. “Mr. Chief Justice, by your leave, the defense does have a number of inquiries to make of the witness.”
Abrahams confronted Sally Watson. He had in his mind Dilman’s story of the night in question. He had, in his folder, the thorough research accomplished by Priest and Hart. Abrahams knew that he would not be able to shake her from her story, for as one psychiatrist had pointed out to him, by now she believed it to be true, as was often the case with latent paranoid schizophrenics. If he attacked her ego, her id would make the response. His task was formidable. If he overplayed, and she became hysterical, she might gain sympathy for herself while building more resentment toward President Dilman. Abrahams knew that he would have to feel his way, push where there was give, withdraw where there was resistance, and stop hastily if she got out of hand.
“Miss Watson,” he said, his tone chatty rather than severe, “like the honorable manager who preceded me, I appreciate what an ordeal this appearance must be for a young lady such as yourself. I will do my part in making it as endurable, and brief, as possible.”
Sally Watson eyed Abrahams suspiciously. “Thank you.”
“Be tolerant of me if I cover some of the same ground covered by the learned House manager. Now let me see, according to my notes, you stated that you volunteered, applied, to the President for the position of his social secretary, because-what was it now? Oh, yes-because you wished to serve your country. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very laudable. When you applied in person-I believe you saw President Dilman in the Oval Office of the White House-did he hire you immediately? Or do I understand correctly that he had some doubts about your qualifications until you said that there was a personage of importance in the government who would give you the strongest of recommendations? Is that true?”
“Yes-yes, it is.”
“Who was the person in government who recommended you?”
“The Secretary of State.”
“Secretary of State Arthur Eaton? I see. He recommended you for the position? He knew you personally and said you would be perfect for it?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“As a result of Secretary Eaton’s favorable recommendation, you were hired as White House social secretary?”
“Well, there were also my other qualifications.”
“Of course, Miss Watson, your other qualifications. Let me see.” Abrahams opened his folder and examined the photocopies of documents already entered as exhibits in the trial. “Miss Watson, you spoke of attending Radcliffe. The record shows you attended the college for ten months, and then you were dropped, no cause for the school’s action being given. Can you enlighten us?”
“I tested very well, or I wouldn’t have been there, but my grades slipped. I was impatient with school. The girls were too immature. My mind was on a career. I wanted to go out and have a career. So I moved to New York.”
“Yes, I see. You had one job there. With the advertising agency, which is headed by Senator Hoyt Watson’s former law partner. You received a sizable salary for a young lady who had no advertising experience. Yes, an excellent job, I must say. I am surprised it lasted only six months. Why was that, Miss Watson?”
“There was too much drinking and fooling around. I couldn’t stand it. Besides, I wanted to take voice lessons. I was told I could sing unusually well, and that I might have a future in that field.”
“Yes, there is some evidence you possessed a devotion to popular music. I see here that you were married to a young man connected with a Greenwich Village orchestra. Further documentation makes it clear that the marriage was annulled two weeks later. The young man with whom you eloped, evidently he was deported to his native Puerto Rico.”
“When I learned about his bad habits-he was a dope addict-I sought the annulment and disclosed his vice to-to certain people. I guess that was why he was deported. I think it is a good thing, too.”
“I have no doubt. Such vigilance is admirable… Now, Miss Watson, we have in our possession evidence that, in the next several years, you were attended by three different psychoanalysts, and for one short period you were confined to a mental institution. In itself, nothing wrong. Such treatment is not uncommon. In fact, it shows good sense to take corrective measures when you are emotionally ill. Naturally, and properly, your psychoanalysts and the mental institution would not open their confidential files on your illness to us. We have only the information that you were placed in an institution because you made an attempt upon your own life, made an attempt to commit suicide by self-inflicted wounds that-”
Zeke Miller’s voice shrieked, “Objection, Mr. Chief Justice! The testimony the manager is trying to elicit is irrelevant and immaterial to the case on trial, and an obvious effort to damage the character of the witness.”
Abrahams appealed to the Chief Justice. “Your Honor, I believe this line of questioning is highly relevant. I am not interested in damaging the character of the witness, beyond bringing to light the factual evidence of her consistent instability, and therefore her lack of capacity for the position for which the President had hired her.”
“The President did hire her!” Miller shouted.
“Because he was misled as to her qualifications by Secretary of State Eaton, and for reasons that have a direct bearing on this case,” said Abrahams.
“Objection sustained,” announced the Chief Justice. “Mr. Manager Abrahams, henceforth confine yourself strictly to questions that will bring out testimony concerned with the charges in Article III.”
Abashed, Abrahams closed his folder, walked over and handed it to Tuttle, then returned to Sally Watson.
“Miss Watson, since Arthur Eaton was partly instrumental in helping you become the President’s social secretary, I am curious to know how long and how well you have known him.”
“How long? Always, I guess. He is a sort of friend of my father. I would see him at social functions.”
“And that acquaintance was enough for him to know your qualifications for the White House position?”
“Well, we often talked. I think he thought I was intelligent, and had social experience.”
“After the catastrophe in Frankfurt, you knew that Secretary Eaton was the next in line to succession to the Presidency, did you not?”
“I may have read it. I never gave it a thought.”
“You mean you never discussed this with Secretary Eaton, not even when you two were alone together?”
“We were never alone togeth-I mean, not actually-”
“Miss Watson, since you are under oath, and before you complete your recollection, I hasten to refresh your memory. We have evidence, entered into the record, to prove that you were seen dining with the Secretary of State outside Washington, and that, later, you were frequently a visitor to his Georgetown house after dark. Do you deny that?”
“I told you he was an old family friend. I saw him sometimes because he was nice to me, gave me advice at times when my father was busy. When I had a personal problem, I always ran to Mr. Eaton. That’s not unusual.”
“Did you know the Secretary of State was married?”
“Of course.”
“Was his wife ever present at these-these fatherly private meetings you had with him?”
“No. She was traveling.”
“Then, perhaps I am old-fashioned in suggesting your conduct was unusual.”
“You’re twisting it, that’s all. We were hardly ever alone. When we went out a few times, there were other people around. When I went to his house, there were sometimes other guests, well, the servants were there.”
“Did you know that the Secretary of State, who was your friend, and the President, who was your employer, were having important political differences?”
“No, I did not.”
“Since you spent so much time in the company of the President, in his private quarters, and in the evening, where confidential documents of state might be seen and phone calls overheard, did you ever hear anything-let us say, concerning our nation’s foreign affairs-that you repeated to Secretary Eaton?”
“No, I did not.”
“Miss Watson, about the night under discussion, the night the President allegedly made improper advances to you, you have stated that he was intoxicated. Were you?”
“No, I was not.”
“Yet you were seen, at the dinner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, consuming champagne before and after the meal, and wine during it.”
“Wine does not make me drunk. It is a part of the meal.”
“And then, according to your testimony, you drank in the President’s bedroom?”
“He forced me to.”
“Forced you? How is that possible? He offered you a drink, if he did, and you accepted it. Is that what you mean?”
“I had to take it.”
“Miss Watson, you stated you were waiting in his bedroom before he arrived. How long?”
“I don’t know. Ten or fifteen minutes.”
“What did you do in his room?”
“Do? I-I smoked, and reread the papers he sent for, and kept thinking how I wished I wasn’t there.”
“The President had left his briefcase open in the room. It contained top-secret documents of such a nature as to have been useful to your friend Arthur Eaton. Did you even casually look at any of those documents?”
“Of course not! What do you think I am?”
“Then the President came in and pressed his attentions upon you, and because you resisted you were injured-is that still your story?”
“It is not my story, it is what happened.”
“Miss Watson, I have shown the photographs of the scratches and bruises on your chest and legs to three highly competent physicians. It is their opinion that while the wounds may indeed have been caused by another person, they may also, like the scar on your wrist, have been self-inflicted. Now-”
“That’s a filthy dirty lie!”
“I am merely repeating expert-”
“A lie!”
“I am sorry to have so upset you, Miss Watson. You must remember there were two persons in that bedroom, not one-”
“You bet your life there were.”
“-and you have given the court one view of what took place, but there is quite another view held by the other person who was present. In any event, let’s leave behind us the scene of our disagreement. Let’s get you out of that savage bedroom. You escaped, as you have told us. Where did you go? What happened next?”
“I ran to my office in the East Wing, to the washroom, to stop the bleeding, and clean up. Then I went home.”
“You went home. A little while ago, when learned counsel for the House asked you what you did immediately afterward, you said you promptly told some friends high up in government what had happened to you. How did you tell them, by telephone or in person?”
“In-in person. I couldn’t go right home in my condition. Now I remember. I had to speak to someone. So I went to my friends.”
“Could one of your friends, perchance, have been the Honorable Secretary of State Arthur Eaton?”
“Yes. I thought of him first.”
“You went to his house in Georgetown to tell him?”
“Yes.”
“But he was merely one friend. You say you spoke to several friends. Perhaps, when you went to Secretary Eaton, he had gathered about him others to receive you. Who was there when you arrived?”
“Mr. Eaton, and-and Governor Talley and Senator Hankins were there, and also Representative Miller. They were horrified by the way I looked.”
“Did you tell them all what had happened to you?”
“Not right away. I told Mr. Eaton. I was afraid to tell Senator Hankins and Representative Miller, knowing how outraged they would be at how a nig-a-a Negro-had acted.”
“You mean you were afraid they would be more outraged that a Negro had, as you say, made improper advances than if he had been a Caucasian?”
“I don’t mean that exactly.”
“What do you mean, Miss Watson?”
“I mean, they were already mistrustful of Dilman-President Dilman-and I was scared this behavior of his-they are very touchy about nig-about such behavior toward young ladies where we come from-I was afraid this would overexcite them.”
“Did it, when you told them?”
“Yes.”
“After that, was impeachment of the President mentioned in your presence?”
“Yes.”
“Because of what you told them?”
“Because of other things. This was just one more offense to them.”
“And Secretary of State Eaton-how did he take it?”
“He was revolted by the President’s behavior, and angry, naturally. He was restrained, because that’s part of his background and training.”
“But Secretary Eaton was pleased?”
“What?”
“He was pleased when you produced a set of file cards with notes taken by you in the President’s private bedroom, notes made from a transcript of a top-secret meeting between the Director of the CIA and the President, notes that gave warning to Secretary Eaton that the President was aware of Secretary Eaton’s efforts to usurp the Presidential prerogatives of office?”
“You’re insane!”
“Our relative sanity is not the issue here, Miss Watson. I told you that only two persons know what occurred in the Lincoln Bedroom. One is yourself, and you have given us your view of it. The other is the President, and in due time I shall introduce an affidavit signed by him proving that your story is fabricated out of whole cloth, and that your real motive in stealing into that bedroom-”
“He’s a liar like you! He’s a dirty lying black-”
She halted abruptly, staring at Abrahams, then at everyone around her, gasping.
“Are you all right?” Abrahams asked.
“I won’t be insulted!”
“I don’t think you are in any condition to go on, and I do believe I’ve heard all I want to hear. Thank you, Miss Watson. As far as the defense is concerned, you may be dismissed.”
He turned his back on her and returned to the table. When he resumed his seat, he could see that she had a handkerchief to her eyes, and, assisted by the Sergeant at Arms, was stumbling, then half running from the Chamber.
In the third row of Senate desks, Abrahams could also see Senator Hoyt Watson, livid, white mane wagging, as his colleagues crowded about him.
Abrahams sighed. He had challenged an ego, and when he thought that he had demolished it, he had found the id in its place, the immortal id that could not be demolished.
He looked up to realize that Zeke Miller was standing before the bench, glaring at him. Then Miller directed himself to the magistrate on high. “Mr. Chief Justice, the House managers offer their final witness in the trial of impeachment against the President. I shall examine the Honorable Secretary of State of the United States, Arthur Eaton.”
Abrahams’ eyes followed the tall, slender, faultlessly attired Secretary of State as he made his way to the raised dais. While Eaton ascended the podium and took the oath, Abrahams touched the arm of Walter T. Tuttle beside him.
“Walter,” Abrahams said in an undertone, “I can handle ordinary people, for better or worse, but I’m not sure I’d be any good at cross-examining someone who believes he wrote the Constitution. Think you can take him when the cross-examination comes?”
Tuttle glanced up at the witness stand, then said dryly, “Not sure anybody’s going to take him, Nat.”
“I suspect Miller will handle his last star witness on a loftier note,” said Abrahams. “He’ll evoke T. C. and Congressional dignity and the law of the land, and argue that Eaton was a symbol for all three, and in firing Eaton, our client sullied T. C.’s grave, spat on the Senate, and broke the Federal law. If that’s the gambit, I suggest we leave personal considerations out of the cross-examination. Equate the unconstitutionality of the New Succession Act with the proved unconstitutionality of the similar Tenure of Office Act back in 1868, and say it was slyly slipped through to keep Doug from performing as President and to keep Eaton serving as T. C.’s proxy in the White House, as evidenced by Eaton withholding CIA information from the President. I think that should be the note. That’s your cup of tea.”
“I think my cup of tea is weak, and so is theirs,” said Tuttle in a whisper. “I think it’s the stronger stuff everyone swallowed, or refused to, upon which the trial vote will depend. Legally, the Article supporting Eaton is the important one. Popularly, in fact, it will be the other Articles that will determine acquittal or conviction.”
Abrahams said, “I still say this technical stuff is your cup of tea. Want to handle it?”
“Gladly, even though the potion turns out to be hemlock.”
Exchanging smiles of agreement, Nat Abrahams and Walter Tuttle settled back to listen to Representative Zeke Miller begin his respectful examination of the closing witness, the man he was trying to make the new President of the United States.
For almost a half hour, Douglass Dilman had been gloomily sitting at his desk in the Oval Office, watching the spectacle on the portable television screen, watching and listening to Arthur Eaton grandly offer himself to the United States and the Senate as T. C.’s mind and conscience. Eaton had given the impression of being one who had done his utmost to save the country from a pretender, on T. C.’s behalf, in everyone’s best interests, but could do no more unless the nation took legal steps to oust the pretender and fill the vacancy with the one who alone was qualified to give the voters what they had wanted in the first place. His behavior was that of a person who fully realized he was giving a preview of what the next President would be like, and who displayed each patriotic and learned digression on domestic and foreign affairs like a model showing off a new garment the public might, and should, buy.
As Eaton’s underplayed performance, responding to Miller’s direction, came to a close, Douglass Dilman silently acknowledged its magnificence. For a while he stared out through the windows at the White House south lawn, with its stark elm and oak trees, and the long shadows of the late afternoon creeping across the expanse of brown-patched grass.
He was faintly depressed. Eaton’s poise and sophistication, his modulated eloquence, the ease with which he faced questions about farflung nations and their problems and America’s historic role in their future, his impeccable attire, above all his superior whiteness-these, and not his actual replies to the interrogation, were what depressed Dilman. The Secretary of State appeared to be the perfect archetype of a national leader, while he himself did not, and never would. If the Senate vote came down to a popularity vote, a vote for an image, then Eaton would be in this chair next week, and he himself would not see this view of the White House lawn again in his lifetime, except in tortured memory.
A familiar voice brought him back to the television screen. Abrahams’ colleague, and The Judge’s friend, the redoubtable Walter T. Tuttle, had begun his cross-examination of Eaton.
Tuttle’s stature in political history would match Eaton’s own. Tuttle’s tart sarcasm, his piercing inquiries, thrown from catapults built out of his wide knowledge of precedent and the country’s past, appeared to jolt the witness. Now and then Eaton’s invincible and arrogant confidence would give way to human uncertainty, and there were glimpses of a man no more a man than was Dilman or any other man. Did others see this, or was it only Dilman himself? Imperceptibly, his depression lifted.
He was entirely absorbed in the cross-examination when the telephone buzzer sounded. Absently, eyes still focused on the screen, his hand brought the receiver to his ear.
The voice was Edna Foster’s.
“Mr. President, it’s your son Julian, telephoning from New York City. He says that unless you are terribly tied up, he must speak to you, and even then he’d like a minute-he sounds-”
“Put him through, Miss Foster.”
He reached out, shut off the television set, then cupped the earphone and mouthpiece closer, and tensely waited.
“Hello, Dad?”
“Yes, Julian, what is it? You said-”
“Don’t be alarmed, everything’ll be fine,” Julian was saying in great agitation, “but I felt it best to call-it’s about Mindy-I’m in her apartment right now. Dad, she tried to kill herself, she tried-but she’s going to get well-everything’s working out-”
“Kill herself?” Dilman was aghast, chilled and shivering. “Are you sure she’s all right? Is there a doctor there? How is she, Julian? What happened?”
“After she saw the newspapers-the ones telling about her passing-and then heard the radio-she finally made up her mind and took an overdose of sleeping pills-my God, the amount of pills! Then, when she thought she was beyond help and ready to go, she telephoned me at Trafford. She wanted to clear her conscience before dying, I guess. Anyway, I could hardly understand her. She kept mumbling about some reporter who found her out, and to save her own neck she got him after me and my Turnerite membership, and now she was sorry and wanted to apologize. I tried to keep her talking, because I couldn’t understand her and knew something was wrong. Finally she blanked out, but luckily, when I got the long-distance operator to say we were cut off, she gave me Mindy’s unlisted number-then I made the operator get the police and police doctors. Whew, it was close, Dad. They found her sprawled on the floor, but the stomach pump did it. A few more minutes and she’d have been a goner. She’s all right, though. By the time I got her address from the police, and whizzed into New York from Trafford, she was half sitting up in bed, and her own doctor was-he’s still here. She’s okay now.”
Dilman slumped back, unable to overcome his anguish. “Julian, give me that address. I’m flying right in. I want to see her.”
“No, Dad, please-that’s the first thing she said when she knew I was calling you-she doesn’t want to see you or anyone else, no one for a while. The doctor agrees. She’s pretty weak. It would only upset her, I mean badly, that’s what the doctor says. She needs rest, some time to think, think by herself. Of course, I knew you’d want me to hire nurses to be with her-”
“She really tried to kill herself?” Dilman repeated, still aghast at what had taken place.
“Well-it was awful for her, Dad-being revealed naked in public like that, and-wait, one second, she’s trying to say something… what, Mindy?… Sure, sure, okay… Dad, I-I showed her the newspapers with the statement you made in reply to the exposé. She was just repeating something from what you said, about the crime of passing not being hers but everyone’s, for not letting her grow up with dignity. It’s hard to understand her, the way she’s talking-so indistinctly.”
Dilman understood her, if his son did not. “Julian, let me have a word with the doctor.”
The physician, impressed by the opportunity to speak to a President, was verbose and clinical, but his prognosis came down to no serious aftereffects. Mindy had taken a lethal dose of Nembutals, and been discovered, and her stomach emptied in the nick of time. With proper care and rest, she would be on her feet in forty-eight hours. As for her mental outlook in the days to come, that, of course, was beyond the province of a general practitioner. Right now it would not be advisable for the President, for her father, to visit her, considering her emotional state. Perhaps it would be permitted in the near future, if she wished it. At this time, unwise.”
When Julian came back on the telephone, Dilman said, “I want you to remain there in her apartment, nurse or no nurse, at least overnight. Mindy may want someone close to talk to when she wakes up.”
“I’ll stay right here, Dad.”
“And you keep in touch with me. Understand?”
“Absolutely. I’ll call you later tonight.”
Dilman shook his head, although there was no one to witness his despair. “Poor baby. I only wish she’d see me. I have so much to say to her.”
“She’s alive, Dad. That’s all that matters. Maybe one day-”
Maybe one day.
Slowly, Dilman hung up.
He could envision, with sorrow, Mindy’s probable destiny. Condemned and ostracized in New York City, truly alone, of no people, no race, she would-like the Wandering Jew, the cobbler who had pushed off the Lord-become an eternal wanderer, too, in search of identity and belonging. As long as she could endure it, there would be for Mindy, endlessly, another city, another lie, another fearful life lived within the fragile lie, and another exposure. Perhaps the only peace she would ever know would be the peace of the oblivion she had sought, and been denied, today. How soon would she be driven to seek it again?
Aching with grief, Douglass Dilman left his desk, circled the room, and then finally he opened the door to Miss Foster’s office and went inside. He had no specific business with his secretary. He wanted only the solace of companionship.
Edna Foster, partly attentive to the letter she was typing, partly attentive to the television screen, halted in her work and greeted him with a guilty nod.
“I guess I’m being compulsive about it, Mr. President,” she said. “I can’t keep my eyes off the set.”
On the small screen, Tuttle and Eaton were no longer in view. The camera was offering a panoramic picture of the crowded Senate floor, galleries, and press section. The volume had been turned down too low for Dilman to hear the announcer.
“What’s happening?” he asked Miss Foster.
“There was a motion for recess,” said Miss Foster. “After Mr. Tuttle finished with Eaton, the prosecution rested its case. I don’t think they’ve made such a good case-I mean, there are no facts, if you think about it.”
Dilman said, “Unfortunately, Miss Foster, too few people watching, including the senators, may think about it. Did they say what comes next?”
“Yes. Mr. Abrahams said that, except for introducing and reading the defense affidavits, he has only to examine the five witnesses for the defense that he has subpoenaed. Then somebody from the floor made a motion which was passed by a voice vote. It was agreed that Mr. Abrahams could begin his examination of defense witnesses at five-thirty this afternoon. Then the court will adjourn at seven for dinner and convene again tonight, for a night session, at eight-thirty, continuing until all the defense witnesses have been heard and cross-examined. Tomorrow the Senate will convene at ten o’clock in the morning for the closing speeches. The House managers will be given one hour, then Mr. Abrahams will be given one hour. Then there will be a lunch break, and Johnstone said if there were no undue delays, no further points of law to be discussed, the voting should begin at two o’clock tomorrow.”
It came as a small shock to Dilman that the trial, which had become a way of life for him, was almost over. There was left only the rest of this fading day, some drugged sleep, and then tomorrow the final decision to acquit or convict. He was not prepared for judgment day, not so soon, but then, he supposed, no one ever was, really.
“Thanks, Miss Foster, sorry to interrupt your work.”
He went back into the lonely Oval Office and closed the door. Hands locked behind him, he walked around the room. He tried to figure out why the trial’s end appeared to him to be so sudden and disturbing. Then he knew the answer. There was a sense of incompleteness about it for him, because he had not been an active participant. It was as if a great vessel was sinking-maybe yet to be saved, more likely to be lost forever-and the captain was not there; the captain was somewhere far away, on land, going over the steamship company’s accounts. That would be wrong, as this was wrong.
He called to mind Nat Abrahams’ firm injunction of ten days ago-ten thousand years ago, it seemed by emotion’s calendar-that the President, although legally permitted to do so, must not stand as a living witness in his own defense. Like himself, President Andrew Johnson had wanted to be heard and had been kept silent by his managers. In the end, perhaps, Johnson’s managers had been proved right. But somehow, this second Presidential impeachment trial in American history was different, basically different, from the nation’s first. The first had been important, aside from the opposing two philosophies on reconstructing the defeated South, because it pitted the legislative branch of government against the executive branch. President Johnson had been tried for being an obstructive politician. This second impeachment trial, however, was vastly more crucial to the United States. The basic issue was not the differences between two powerful branches of government. The basic issue was the hushed and invisible Article V of the impeachment. Dilman knew that Abrahams was right. As President, he was not being tried for being an obstructive politician. He was being tried for being a Negro.
Yet, the real reason for the historic trial would never be heard again on the floor of the Senate. The trial had gone its way, with oratory and testimony, and suddenly, tomorrow, it would be done, and at no time would the Senate have been forced, or the public outside have been forced, to examine themselves openly so they would understand why they were voting as they did. What had there been, these cruel days, to represent President Dilman? The interrogation of witnesses on peripheral charges, the speeches on evasive indictments. And now, tonight, more witnesses, more affidavits, offered to the Senate and the nation on what they preferred to hear and see, not on what they should hear and see.
Soon the sounds of battle would be stilled. Dilman would be ousted, condemned like Mindy to wander the country and the earth in disgrace. And more than Mindy-he was aware of this in a flash of clarity now-it would be his own fault for not helping to emphasize the nature of the real accusation against him for all the world to know. It would be his failure for not insisting that the public be forced to see for itself, firsthand, what it was really voting upon, and for not letting the people decide then whether they could, after voting, live with only satisfied minds, eyes, eardrums, or whether they needed to be able to live with their consciences, too.
He started moving toward his desk. It was John F. Kennedy, he remembered, who had so truly written of the Andrew Johnson impeachment trial: “Two great elements of drama were missing: the actual causes for which the President was being tried were not fundamental to the welfare of the nation; and the defendant himself was at all times absent.”
This time, he told himself, the great elements of drama would be fulfilled. This time America must not be lulled with a sugared half play, but must suffer, with him, the harsh play in its entirety. This time it had to be shown that the cause for trial was fundamental to the welfare of the nation, and it could be shown in only one way.
He lifted the telephone from the white console, and he instructed Edna Foster to locate Nat Abrahams for him, wherever he was in the Senate building.
Waiting, he thought Nat Abrahams would not be pleased by his casting aside of this one remaining garment of cowardice. No, Nat Abrahams would not be pleased. And might not understand. There was only one who might totally understand his act. Mindy would understand, at last.
He heard Felix Hart’s voice on the telephone, and Dilman said that he urgently wished to speak to Nat Abrahams. In a half minute, Nat Abrahams was on the other end.
“Nat, is it true you are putting on your defense witnesses between five-thirty and seven, and the rest later in the evening?”
“Yes.”
“Nat, I’ve thought about it. I want our invisible Article V opened up again-I want it there for everyone to see and hear-”
“But, Doug, you remember the ruling. We can’t-”
“There is one way we can.” He held his breath, and then he said it. “Nat, I’m coming right over to the Senate. I have made up my mind to testify. I am going to be your first and key witness.”
“Doug, you are the President of the United States.”
“I am the black man President of the United States. I don’t care what I’m asked or what I say. I only want to stand up there and be seen and heard by my judges. I know my appearance can lose it. But I also know this-something more may be finally won.”
By twenty minutes to six o’clock, as darkness covered Washington, D.C., the illuminated rectangular Chamber of the Senate of the United States was ready. Until this crucial moment, it had been filled for every speech and every witness, but now the word was out, and for the first time the vast room was crammed to overflowing with incredulous humanity. Not only was every seat occupied, but every square foot of standing space.
From his high seat, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, swathed in his black judgment robe, peered out of his wrinkled, sunken face, peered down at the kinky-haired, grim, thickset black man who stood directly below him, facing the Secretary of the Senate, right arm raised.
“You, Douglass Dilman, do affirm that the evidence you shall give in the case now depending between the United States and the President of the United States shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: so help you God.”
“I do.”
“Please be seated, Mr. President.”
The Chief Justice’s gavel struck. “As presiding officer, I once more admonish strangers and citizens in the galleries to maintain perfect order and profound silence… Senators will please give their attention… Gentlemen of counsel for the President, you may now begin your examination for the defense. Proceed with the first witness.”
Douglass Dilman gripped the knob ends of the arms of the witness chair, and stared out at the rows of blurred men, his jurymen, his impeachers, men who would decide, perhaps had already determined, his fate. Strangely, their faces were individually unclear. Angled up toward him there was nothing more than a blended disc of whiteness, curiously punctuated by gleaming varicolored dots of eyes, the eyes around the aquarium in the old bad dreams. He could not see them. It did not matter. He was here. They could see him. They could see their black conscience.
Then there was only one before him, the one he could trust. He had conceded Nat Abrahams but a single promise. He would keep his answers concise and to the point. He would, if possible, not permit himself to plead, rise to any bait, or digress. He was ready.
Nat Abrahams was speaking. “You are Douglass Dilman, President of the United States, solemnly sworn on the Holy Book to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of your country to the best of your ability?”
“Yes, sir, I am Douglass Dilman. I have sworn to that oath.”
“You are appearing here, before the tribunal of the Senate, at your own request?”
“I am.”
“You are fully conversant with the charges in the four Articles of Impeachment brought against you?”
“I am.”
“Mr. President, let us swiftly take up the indictments, one by one, and hear your replies, from your own lips, as to their truth or falsity… Mr. President, did you know, at any time before the day of his confession to the fact, that your son, Julian Dilman, was a member of the activist Turnerite Group?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
“Did you request that the Reverend Paul Spinger perform as an intermediary between the government and the Turnerite leaders because you wanted to make some kind of special personal deal with them, or because you wanted to have them come forward and confess or deny the Hattiesburg crime, and open their books to the government?”
“No, I wanted no special personal deal. I gave the Reverend Spinger his only instructions in the presence of the Attorney General.”
“Then you deny the allegation in Article II that you unlawfully hindered the Department of Justice in its prosecution of the Turnerites because you were in conspiracy with the Turnerites?”
“I unequivocally deny that allegation, sir.”
“Why did you delay the outlawing of the Turnerites, as charged?”
“Because, sir, more facts were required in order to make certain, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this extremist society could be prosecuted legally, under the Subversive Activities Control Act. In our society, every citizen, no matter what his religious or political persuasion, is innocent until proved to be guilty. Once the facts were verified, and it was proved that the Group was guilty of subversion, I ordered the banning carried out.”
“Let us examine the specifications in Articles I and III. I have brought them together, because the charges in them are repetitious and overlap… Mr. President, according to previous testimony, you have been a friend of Miss Wanda Gibson, single woman, for five years?”
“That is correct.”
“Did you, as accused, engage in an illicit love relationship with Miss Gibson at any time?”
“I did not. The charge is false.”
“Was your conduct with Miss Gibson, from the day you met her, anything but proper, in the accepted sense?”
“It was nothing else, sir. We were and are now devoted friends. I esteem Miss Gibson above all the women I have known in the last five years. My affection for her is deep and abiding. Our relationship has been one of respect and utmost propriety.”
“You were frequently in the company of Miss Gibson while you were a senator?”
“I was.”
“How many times have you personally visited with her from the night you became President until the impeachment proceedings began?”
“Once, sir. I called upon her the evening after I moved into the White House. The meeting was of brief duration. It took place in the Spingers’ flat, while they were present in that flat.”
“Since becoming President, did you communicate with Miss Gibson by any other means? Did you write to her?”
“No, I did not.”
“Did you exchange telephone calls?”
“Yes, nightly the first days I was in office, but never more than twice a week after that.”
“Did you ever, on any occasion, by any means, since becoming President, relate to her information concerning matters of state?”
“No, sir.”
“You are sure of that, Mr. President?”
“Positively sure of it.”
“Did you discuss any other aspects of your new office with her?”
“Yes. I spoke to her of my worries about having been elevated to such an office. I feared that T. C.’s advisers, the legislators, the military, the Party, in fact, the majority of the public, were not prepared to accept a Negro as President, and that they would resent me and cause me difficulty. I wondered, as all men do when they accidentally have a great responsibility thrust upon them, if I could adequately fill the office and please the electors. But most of all, I told Miss Gibson about my misgivings-my feelings that racial prejudice against me would hamper my freedom to serve my country as a President of all men.”
“That was the extent of it? You never discussed with Miss Gibson, let slip to her, any government information of a confidential nature?”
“Not once, sir, not once. I was always mindful of the responsibility of my office.”
“Mr. President, did you know, at any time during the last two years while Miss Gibson was in the service of Vaduz Exporters, that she was being employed by a Communist Front organization?”
“I did not know that. Miss Gibson has testified she did not know that either. The FBI did not know that. I first heard about it on the very day Miss Gibson suspected what was going on, and the FBI informed me of it, the day the director of the Vaduz organization fled. The company was closed down the next morning.”
“Then you do deny the entire substance of Article I, that with knowledge beforehand or through unintentional indiscretion, you passed on national secrets to a Soviet organization through Miss Gibson?”
“I emphatically deny it, sir. If it were possible to use stronger language, I would deny it in that language. I have never been a party to treason, and neither has Miss Gibson. The House charge is base fiction.”
“So much for Article I, and a portion of III. Let us dispose of the remainder of the charges in Article III. Were you at any time in your past life, or in recent years, addicted to drinking alcohol?”
“No, sir.”
“Were you ever in your life treated for alcoholism by a member of the medical profession?”
“No, sir.”
“Were you ever committed, or did you ever commit yourself, to an institution for alcoholics because of such a habit or disability?”
“No, sir.”
“Let us proceed with the only serious specification in Article III. You have read the indictment presented by the House, and elaborated upon by Miss Sally Watson this afternoon, that you attempted to seduce Miss Watson and did commit bodily harm upon her when she resisted?”
“I have read the indictment. I have seen and heard Miss Watson’s testimony on television.”
“On the night in question, did you order Miss Watson to meet you in your bedroom to confer with you on pending social engagements?”
“No, I did not.”
“But she did visit your bedroom?”
“She did. After the dinner for the Joint Chiefs, I joined them for a documentary film showing. Miss Watson took me aside to say she was intoxicated, and desired to forgo the showing. I advised her to return home. She said she was too drunk and would prefer to lie down first. I told her to do what she thought best. When I came back from the showing, I discovered Miss Watson lying upon my bed in a disheveled and drunken condition. I awakened her and told her I would arrange to have her escorted home. When she tried to get off the bed, her purse fell on the floor and the contents spilled out. I picked up these contents, and saw that among them were numerous index cards. The cards carried notes taken from a CIA document that was in my personal briefcase near the bed.”
“Was the CIA document confidential, Mr. President?”
“It was stamped “Top Secret’ and ‘Eyes Only.’ Miss Watson could not have been unaware of that.”
“What transpired afterward? Did you discuss her motivation in trying to acquire this information?
“We did.”
“Could you repeat your conversation at that time?”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Was anything else, besides her motivation, discussed?”
“Yes. It has no pertinence to this trial.”
“And then?”
“I told Miss Watson to leave. I told her she was fired. After some vituperation-”
“Can you be more explicit?”
“The usual thing, references to my race, and a few threats. Then she departed. It was a sad scene. I can only say here I bear her no animosity. She was, at the time, neither sober nor balanced. Emotional circumstances had driven her to this incredible act. I am sorry for her, but I cannot despise her.”
“You did not, then, in any conceivable way, make improper overtures to Miss Watson, or attempt to detain her forcibly, or do her bodily harm?”
“I did not.”
“Have you anything more to say about this charge, Mr. President?”
“It is untrue, every word of it. It is sheer fantasy, conceived by a fantastic mind and nurtured by other vindictive minds who have chosen to be deceived.”
“Finally, Article IV of the impeachment. You did dismiss Arthur Eaton from your Cabinet and from his position as your Secretary of State?”
“I did, sir,”
“You attempted to replace him with another highly qualified appointee, did you not?”
“I did, sir.”
“You dismissed the Secretary of State without seeking the two-thirds approval of the Senate?”
“I did, sir.”
“Were you aware that there existed a special law, the New Succession Act, passed by both Houses of Congress since you became President, forbidding you to fire a Cabinet member without Senate approval?”
“I was aware of the law. I had believed from the outset, and was supported by some of the best legal authorities in the field, that the law was unconstitutional, and would be so proved when it met its first challenge before the Supreme Court. I remembered that Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes once remarked, ‘We live under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.’ From my knowledge of precedent, I was certain the Supreme Court judges would say that the New Succession Act was and is a political measure entirely at odds with the Constitution. It was a measure rushed through merely to protect the old Administration from anticipated removals and appointments by a new Negro President. This law encroached upon the Constitution, which gives the Senate the right to advise and consent on a Presidential appointment, but gives the President himself the sole power to remove his appointees from office. I fired Eaton summarily, because I felt it necessary to do so, because I believed I had the legal right to do so, because I believed Congress had no right to dictate to the executive branch or freeze into its Cabinet posts the choices of a deceased President, and because I wanted a disgraceful and illegitimate piece of legislation put to constitutional test.”
“And so you found it necessary to dismiss Arthur Eaton? Why, Mr. President? Why, specifically, did you remove this veteran public servant from office?”
“Because I was determined to preserve our government’s system of checks and balances, which requires that our three branches-the executive, the legislative, and the judicial-remain separate and strong. I learned, and had proof of the fact, that the Secretary of State, with the approval of the legislative branch of our government, was attempting to usurp the powers of the Presidency and conduct the business of the White House from the offices of the Department of State. To save the Presidency, I had no choice but to get rid of him. I fired him. In retaliation, I presume, he and his associates impeached me.”
“Mr. President, since the memorable moment you took the oath of office, do you believe you have performed your tasks diligently, soberly, honestly, without prejudice, with consideration for the rights of all men and a sincere concern for the welfare of the United States, and have you attempted to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and this democracy?”
“This I believe-I have tried. To the best of my ability I have tried, Mr. Manager.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
Douglass Dilman’s grip on the chair relaxed. He thought that he detected the slightest smile on Nat Abrahams’ face as Abrahams nodded at the bench, then turned and went back to the defense table.
Dilman had so concentrated on his friend’s questions that he had been unable to observe or evaluate the reaction to his replies in the silent, alert Senate Chamber.
But now the Chamber seemed to come alive, and then the Chief Justice’s gavel fell.
“The senators will be attentive. The counsel for the House of Representatives will proceed with his cross-examination.”
For the first time since assuming the Presidency, since his travail and then trial had begun, Douglass Dilman found himself face to face with the custodian of all the hatred that had been directed toward him.
Zeke Miller’s mocking gray eyes boldly met his own unblinking gaze. Miller’s veiny nostrils were dilated, and his mouth fixed in a crooked line. He hooked his thumbs into his lapel buttonholes, assumed his favorite spread-legged stance, and appeared to be inspecting his quarry with a huntsman’s pleasure.
Dilman’s shoulder and chest muscles involuntarily contracted, as if preparing for a blow. Warily, he waited.
“We-ll, Mr. President of the United States of America, I did not expect to see you come down among us. This is a surprise and a privilege for us, an historic occasion, and we welcome you, heartily welcome you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Manager.”
“However, at the risk of seeming downright inhospitable after your taking this trouble to ride to the Hill, I am afraid I must pose some questions that may give you discomfort, questions that your friend and counsel overlooked asking, in his blindfolded search for the truth about your behavior and competence. I hope you will be as tolerant of Zeke Miller’s questions, the questions the House has requested me to propound, as you were of your friend Nathan Abrahams’ questions.”
“I will do my best to be tolerant of your questions, Mr. Manager.”
“Well, now, I guess it would be fitting to take up the matters under review in the order your own friend and counsel arranged them. Would that be suitable to you, Mr. President of the United States?”
“As you wish, Mr. Manager.”
“Like perhaps starting with the youngest in your official family, and then reading from left to right. This boy of yours, Julian, who pledged himself with his blood to a terrorist program of violence against the elected government and who pledged himself to extract from all of us white people an eye for an eye-has he ever engaged in similar violence before?”
“No, not before, and not now either.”
“Well, I am not saying he did any grave violence, like his boss Hurley, I am only saying he pledged himself to do it, but didn’t get time to carry out his pledge because the able Attorney General of this country stamped out-despite your interference-these extremists, before your boy could march with them. You knew all along that your son Julian was a member of that subversive gang, didn’t you, Mr. Witness?”
“I have already denied, under oath, that I knew he was a member.”
“Forgive me, a slip. I didn’t mean to say that you ‘knew,’ only that you had ‘heard’ he was a member-I meant you knew because you’d heard. Who’d you hear that from?” A Turnerite?”
“Yes. From someone I later learned was a Turnerite.”
“Want to tell us who your informant was, Mr. Witness?”
“I see no point in that now. The Turnerites are disbanded. Their leader has been executed.”
“Am I to understand you won’t reveal to us the name of your Turnerite friend informant who tipped you off about Julian?”
“It would serve no useful purpose.”
“Okay. You keep your little secrets. Not important. Well, so you heard Julian was a Turnerite and you confronted him with the fact?”
“Yes.”
“Then, the first time Attorney General Kemmler demanded that you outlaw that vicious Group, you refused. You refused, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then, against the advice of the Attorney General, you got your Nigra lobbyist and tenant rent payer, Reverend Spinger, to talk privately with those kidnaper-murderers, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You had no tricky self-serving, family-protecting deals in mind, did you? Just acting on your own for the good of the country, eh?”
“Yes.”
“So, Mr. President, what we have is this-you heard your son was a Turnerite, true? You heard the Turnerites were a Communist, anti-Christian violence society, true? You tried to delay their being banned, true? You sent a Nigra personal friend to call them up and negotiate something in privacy, true? Is all of that true?”
“That much of it, yes, that much is true.”
“Then I say to you, Mr. President of the United States, I say Article II of the House impeachment-charging you with the high crime of violating the laws of the land by hindering justice against a subversive society-I say Article II is true.”
“I say it is not, Mr. Manager.”
“Then let the august Senate in its wisdom here on earth, and the Lord of all of us in Heaven, judge which of us speaks truth and which of us speaks falsehood. Let us proceed, as your friend and counsel has done, with Articles I and III. What have we here? Ah, Miss Wanda Gibson. Yes, we have heard Miss Gibson’s little tale on this stand today. You have a great and good friend in her, Mr. President. You won’t find many women so loyally ready to go to any ends or take any risk, ready to say anything, to protect someone who is not legally their own mate. Well, now, you’ve known our Miss Gibson intimately for five years?”
“I have known Miss Gibson for five years.”
“You have held her hand?”
“Yes.”
“You have embraced her?”
“Yes.”
“You have kissed her?”
“Yes.”
“You have done all of this for five years, sixty months, more than 240 weeks, but you have never illicitly touched her? Is that right, Mr. President?”
“Yes.”
“Yet, could I describe your relationship with her as a close one, a warm one?”
“You might. I think so.”
“Sure enough, we know you couldn’t keep away from her person very long. The first day you were moved out from under the same roof with her, to be President, you came hurrying back that night, thinking you’d given everyone the slip. You did run back to see Wanda Gibson the first night after you moved into the White House?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You tried to get her into the White House, too, didn’t you? You invited your lady friend to come to the State Dinner for President Amboko of Baraza, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Sounds like a close enough relationship to me. And the two of you, when you were together, you had your long chatty talks, didn’t you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Seeing her after you became President, talking to her on the telephone, you told her what it was like to be President, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And she, working for the Communist Front Vaduz Exporters, she talked about her boss and her work sometimes, too, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“So you two, holding hands, hugging and kissing, you two talked about your jobs. You talked about what it was like being President with all the problems of that office, and she, she talked about what it was like being at work for a spying company fronting for the Soviet Union, but despite all the talk and talk, and emotional involvement, you kept your lips sealed when it came to what was top-secret that you knew about as President. True?”
“Yes, that is true.”
“And I say, and the House says, untrue-un-true! No human on earth can be so long intimate with a single lady, being single himself, and being close to her flesh, and whispering and baring every emotion, and still control and shut off certain things while saying others, as any psychologist on earth will tell you. I’m not saying you set out with your mind determined on committing treason. I’m saying you are a frail human, and a frail human person, be he Nigra or white, suffers from his flesh being weak, and I’m saying from the evidence on hand that you committed inadvertent treason, but serious, real treason nevertheless, against the flag and the country. But you alone will not admit to your flesh being weak. You will not admit your sin.”
“There is nothing to admit to, Mr. Manager. The charge is rigged up from hearsay, deductions, suppositions, wishes, an effort to make two and two add up to five, but it is unsubstantiated by factual evidence. Because no such evidence exists.”
“There is evidence enough, Mr. Witness, and none of this protesting too much will pull the wool over the eyes of the able, learned, honorable members of the Senate. There is evidence for Article I as there is evidence for Article III. Let’s take the charge of your proved record of habitual intoxication. You deny it. Your lady friend denies it. Two impartial sources like you two deny it. But the documents, Mr. President, the exhibit documents attest and affirm to the truth of it. Were you or were you not, in Springfield, Illinois, once a registered occupant in a sanitarium for alcoholics?”
“I was, yes.”
“Along with your poor deceased wife?”
“Yes.”
“You were a patient there?”
“No, I was not. My wife was a patient. I was a guest. I checked in there to live with her, be beside her, help her. I was not a patient. I was a resident guest.”
“The photostatic evidence introduced as exhibits show clearly, irrefutably, you were a registered ‘patient,’ meaning, by definition, one who was under treatment or care by a physician, in this case for alcoholism.”
“I don’t care how I was registered. I know why I was there.”
“Mr. President, I assure you the public cares and the Senate cares how you were registered. There is no disgrace in having been registered for alcoholic cure, once the cure has been successful and a person’s health, good sense, and dignity restored. But when a person has attempted to be cured, and not succeeded, has continued to be the servant of this debilitating master, and raged through the President’s House of this glorious nation in a condition such as Senator Watson’s daughter has described, I say the public must care and the Senate must care, and the addict must be curbed and quarantined, if not for his own sake, then for the survival of the nation entrusted to his leadership. Enough! It is time we discuss a charge no less evil, and far more shocking… Mr. President, the House of Representatives has charged you with improper assault upon the person of your helpless young social secretary, Miss Watson. The lady has confirmed, under oath, your misbehavior. Miss Watson, the only daughter of a great and senior Senator whose adherence to truth is a byword in the land, Miss Watson was raised up to gracious ladyhood under the guidance of this noble Senator. Miss Watson, I repeat, confirms the charge of your scandalous behavior. You deny it. Whom are we to believe? What are we to believe?… Mr. President-answer this, sir-can we believe that you and Miss Watson were alone together in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House on the night in question? Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Can we believe that you had her alone in there, were alone with her, the entire period of time?”
“Yes.”
“You did not send for the valet or housekeeper? You remained alone with Miss Watson?”
“Yes. Because of Miss Watson’s unsettled state, I rang for no one. I still hoped to protect her good name, for her father’s sake as well as her own.”
“You claim she invaded your room, yet you summoned no one. I consider that highly unnatural and abnormal. On the other hand, had you brought her to your room, kept her there, your reluctance to call for outside assistance would be more understandable. In any event, no third party was summoned, no third party intruded, and there were the two of you behind closed doors and four walls. That is correct, is it not?”
“I have already agreed that is correct-the fact of it, not the implication.”
“Then, Mr. President, what followed, the truth of it, plainly comes down to our acceptance of Miss Watson’s word on what took place or your own. Whose word shall we believe? Shall we believe the word of a naïve, unworldly young lady, educated, of unblemished reputation, the only child reared to the blossom of youthful maturity by the most revered legislator in the land, who has nothing to gain from the unpleasant ordeal of giving testimony here today? Or shall we believe the word of a witness who, according to the serious indictment voted by the House of Representatives, had secret dealings with a gang of Nigras bent on mongrelizing and weakening the nation, who kept intimate company with an unmarried female friend for half a decade, who was frequently under the unholy influence of alcoholic spirits? Mr. Witness, whose word shall it be? This you cannot answer, nor can I. We will let our peers, dedicated and objective men, steeped in human insight, decide this question. And for ourselves, we will undertake to discuss the final Article of Impeachment… Mr. Witness, the morning after our beloved T. C.’s tragic death, upon your assumption of the Presidency, you did meet with the members of the Cabinet?”
“I did.”
“Mr. Secretary of State Arthur Eaton was, by rank, the first member of that Cabinet, was he not?”
“He was.”
“Was the purpose of this meeting a desire, on your part, to inform the Cabinet members to stay on their jobs? In fact, did you request them to stay on and serve you as they served T. C.?”
“I did.”
“And the Secretary of State, and the other members, they agreed to remain at their posts?”
“They did.”
“Why did you desire Secretary of State Eaton to continue as the head of the Department of State and as the leading member of your Cabinet?”
“At the time, I thought him competent in his office and useful to the government. There was no reason to replace Eaton or anyone else under the circumstances.”
“But after several months, you found reason to fire your Secretary of State, contrary to the law of the land, and to replace him with an underling?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You knew, of course, that Secretary Eaton was a close friend of the late President, dedicated to promoting T. C.’s ideals of government, did you not?”
“That was the talk. I had heard it.”
“Of course, you were aware, you knew, that should you suffer disability or death, it was Secretary Eaton who would become President of the United States in your place?”
“Yes.”
“As time passed, could you see that Arthur Eaton, through the integrity of his behavior, because of his adherence to the policies of T. C., was growing in popularity as a national figure?”
“I would have no way of evaluating that.”
“In fact, that as Arthur Eaton’s popularity dramatically increased, so, conversely, your own popularity, Mr. President, drastically decreased?”
“That may be. I repeat, I would have no way of knowing the truth.”
“No way of knowing you were rapidly becoming the most unpopular President in history? Unpopular among those of your own race as well as among whites? Come now, do not make mockery of the intelligence of the learned senators by pretending you had no way of knowing that the electorate disapproved of you and fully approved of Secretary Eaton. Weren’t you hooted into silence by those of your own race at Trafford University? Did not one of your own color, a fellow Nigra, make an attempt to assassinate you? Answer me that.”
“Yes.”
“In your recent trip around the nation, weren’t your public appearances greeted with booing and catcalling? Weren’t you castigated and threatened? Answer me that.”
“Yes.”
“And did not all this unpopularity, along with Secretary Eaton’s obvious popularity, convince you that you might be forced and pressured by the American people to resign from your office, so that at last they could have for President a man whom you’ve just called competent and useful? Weren’t you afraid that as long as Arthur Eaton was in public office, you might be thrown out and be replaced by him, and therefore-?”
“That is an utter falsehood, Mr. Manager, a false assumption, and a vicious accusation.”
“You fired Arthur Eaton because his presence was a threat to you. You also fired him because you could not manipulate him, bend him to accept your prejudices, and you tried to replace him with Mr. Stover, who would gratefully comply with any policy and order you wished to impose on the people. I say-”
“Mr. Manager, you are not interrogating me, you are lecturing me. And you are attempting to brainwash the Senate. Your assumptions are a tissue of lies, produced by your imagination, which you are attempting to stuff into the senators’ heads.”
“Is that so? I am sure the able senators may see for facts what you prefer to see as a tissue of lies. Contrary to your reckless claim, the great Secretary of State was trying to preserve you in office, not usurp your office. If you yourself were not conscious of your inept bumbling of domestic and foreign affairs, and the national hostility this had engendered, Arthur Eaton was aware, as a dedicated patriot he was extremely aware, and devoted himself to protecting you from yourself, if only to preserve peace and the continuity of our government. If he withheld certain CIA documents from you, it was because he knew how dangerous they might be in your hands, how you might misuse the information because of your own unbalanced feelings about your race. Secretary Eaton’s reward for this act of patriotism was to be fired, illegally and lawlessly fired, by you. It is evident to one and all today, this very day, that Secretary Eaton was acting in the right in temporarily withholding from you certain hearsay information about Baraza. Because as we now see, once you had illegally removed your Secretary of State and learned what he tried to keep from you, you performed and are still performing as injudiciously and as dangerously as he had feared you would. You are ready to send American troops into Africa, are you not?”
“Yes, I am. I have already informed the American public of that possibility.”
“You are aware that Baraza has a population that is 100 per cent black?”
“Yes, I am perfectly aware of that.”
“Do you admit that, even if you alone think it should be done, you are ready to pour into the defense of this primitive African Nigra tract the peerless product of American manhood, to sacrifice rocketry battalions that are, by coincidence, 100 per cent white-skinned?”
“Yes, that is true.”
“Have you read the published accounts, only two hours ago released, that Premier Kasatkin spoke last night, in an address made in Leningrad, and said any American troops sent by you into Baraza would be regarded by the Soviet Union as an act of aggression? And that the Soviet Union would not stand for it?”
“Yes, I have been informed of his speech. I have not read the newspaper accounts.”
“Mr. President, are you prepared to risk the consequences of a worldwide nuclear war to protect something called Baraza?”
“Every head of this nation, henceforth, will have to risk the possibility of nuclear war to protect both America’s freedom and democracy elsewhere.”
“Or, in this case, to protect a patch of foreign jungle because its inhabitants are black, and you are black?”
“I trust that is not a formal question. I would not demean myself by replying to it.”
“We-ll, Mr. Witness, I am certain our honorable Secretary of State would be honest enough to reply to any question concerned with our life and our liberty. Nor would Secretary Eaton have countenanced the reckless and suicidal policy you are promoting. That is why I charge that you, knowing his feeling, and in defiance of law and the Senate, decided to thrust him aside. Tell me, Mr. Witness, do you consider yourself wiser than Arthur Eaton? Better versed in foreign affairs? More loving of your homeland than one whose ancestors came to these shores on the Mayflower and founded this republic to which your antecedents were later invited? No, there is no need to answer those questions. You need answer only this one: Do you feel that in recent weeks, and today, you have acted and are acting in the best interests of the United States, without being swayed by any outside pressures, without being influenced by any prejudices of any kind?”
“Mr. Manager, no man on earth can say to you in naked honesty that he comes to a decision, arrives at a judgment, entirely devoid of prejudices. All men are possessed of certain prejudices, certain feelings, certain emotions toward every problem they face. These prejudices need not necessarily be harmful or bad. More often, they are good, and collaborate with intelligence and common sense. I have prejudices, strong prejudices, against tyranny, slavery, against arrogance, deceit, against vengefulness, demagoguery, against poverty, ignorance. I can only say to you that my understanding of the Presidency, its responsibilities, has grown inside me these last weeks, and perhaps I have grown with the office, grown in the knowledge of myself and of other men, grown in my vision of what our country and the world should be and can be. Today I am trying to act in the interests of every man, white or colored, who believes in a human being’s right to possess dignity, independence, equality among his fellow men. Today I am doing my best, doing what I believe to be best. I hope my decisions, and the results of these decisions, will be proved right. But no man, not even such a one as our recent Secretary of State, can always be right. We are both human beings. Human beings are fallible, they make mistakes-”
“Mr. President, forgive me for interrupting your most diverting political address. But your last remark is one I dare not overlook. Human beings, you humbly and disarmingly say, are apt to make mistakes. I suggest to you, sir, that today, in this perilous day and time, this nation cannot afford to retain in office that kind of human being, a leader, a Chief Executive, a President who is apt to make a mistake-for a mistake, one mistake born of prejudice or rashness, can today mean the total annihilation of all humanity. And I fear that it is such a mistake, perpetrated by our President, that we must face, and pray to rectify in these somber hours. Mr. President, you have led us to the brink of destruction. But we have come to our senses. You shall lead us no more… That is all, sir… Mr. Chief Justice, as far as the House managers are concerned, the witness may be dismissed.”
Douglass Dilman stood up.
He had not done well, he knew. Yet he was curiously relieved. For he had done what he had known from the first must be done: he had made the invisible Article V a part of the conscience of the court, and tomorrow he would be judged on it and nothing less.
Stepping down from the witness stand, then crossing past the podium and the table of opposition managers, he could see a crowd of press photographers, along with witnesses and page boys, jammed before and around the doorway to the Senators’ Private Lobby through which he would reach the President’s Room of the Senate. Then, as he moved toward the milling mob, he recognized Wanda’s distressed face among those waiting for him.
That moment, he knew that there was one act left undone that he now wished done. In seconds, they would surround him, begging him to pose, and he would agree, yes, he would agree, but not before insisting that Wanda pose side by side with him. To some, it might be a small thing, but to him, it was of dominant importance. Yes, he would call her to him, because she was so beautiful, because she was so courageous, but, above all, because he must let her know that today, perhaps, he had finally earned the right to stand in public by her side.
Now, at eight forty-five in the evening, and for the first time since Dilman had become President, certainly for the first time in many weeks, Arthur Eaton felt in high spirits.
Arms folded across his vest, the ankles of his outstretched legs crossed, he sat back in the soft armchair and continued to watch the drama ooze out of the trial on the brilliantly colored television screen near the built-in bar of his living room. Chewing on the stem of his empty silver cigarette holder, Eaton followed Nat Abrahams as he plodded through his examination of the last of the defense witnesses.
For Eaton, the trial was all but ended. Except for a few bad moments in the afternoon, when his own name had been bandied about in the low exchange between Abrahams and Sally Watson, it had been a glorious and heady day. Even when President Dilman had unexpectedly taken the witness stand, no doubt denigrating himself further in the public esteem by his undignified self-pleading, and collaborated with his counsel on that defensive pap about Eaton attempting to usurp his powers, Eaton had not been dismayed. He had known that Zeke Miller would, when his turn came, demolish the President, and Miller had succeeded in so doing. Much as Eaton had formerly disliked the Southern legislator, he had been forced, more and more, to admire him for his clever (if barbaric) forensics. In fact, Eaton had told himself while watching the House manager make mincemeat of the President, if Miller were not handicapped by his inherited racial intolerance, he might make, very well might make, an excellent Attorney General in the Cabinet of a new Administration.
Eaton surmised that not only for himself, but possibly for the millions viewing the live spectacular on television, the dramatic climax of the trial had been the foolhardy exhibition of President Dilman on the witness stand. Why had he risked it? Had he expected, under his counsel’s soft guidance, to sway the Senate and public to his side by his posture of persecuted martyr? If so, he had failed miserably. Zeke Miller had shown him for what he was, for the entire nation to see, not martyr but satyr, not public official but pitiful fool. That had been the high point: Dilman’s fall.
All else that had followed before and after the dinner recess, and what Eaton could see now on the screen, was tiresome and technical and would change no votes. Tomorrow morning’s closing addresses by Miller and Abrahams, while they might provide some pyrotechnics, could do no more than underline and emphasize, and then summarize in capsule, the strongest contentions of both sides, all of which were already known. There was nothing left to feed into the Senate’s computing mind. The data had been fed. What was left, of interest, historic interest, was the answer that would be spewed out. When would the jurors vote? He remembered. They would vote tomorrow at two o’clock in the afternoon.
Arthur Eaton wondered which suit he should wear tomorrow afternoon.
The doorbell sounded, followed immediately by the heavy clanging of the antique brass front-door knocker.
Eaton came out of the armchair, perplexed. He had expected no visitors tonight. And Kay, it could not be Kay. He had sent the car to the airport after her only twenty minutes ago, and besides, her flight from Miami was probably not in yet.
Eaton opened the door, and then, to his amazement, he found himself staring at Sally Watson.
“Well, President-elect-by-the-Senate, aren’t you going to let me in?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, Sally. Of course, please do come in. I guess I was surprised. I thought you’d be busy, and-I was expecting someone else. I’m going to be tied up in a little while.”
“Goody for you, my hero,” she said. “Well, I’m not tied up, only fit to be tied.”
She went into the living room. Eaton closed the door and hastily followed her. She opened her leopard coat but did not remove it.
Pirouetting on a spiked heel to confront him, she jerked her thumb toward the television set. “Licking your chops, Arthur?”
“What does that mean?”
“Don’t be senile, Arthur.” She considered him. “I haven’t been made very welcome. I guess it has been as long as I thought.”
Unhappily, he stepped toward her and kissed her lightly on the lips. Her breath was acrid with the fumes of whiskey, and he stepped back quickly, fighting to hide his reaction.
“Don’t tell me, Arthur. Let me guess. Multiple choice. Is she drunk, or sorta drunk, or very drunk?” She tried to snap her fingers, but they missed. “Very drunk. Kee-rect!”
“Sally, what’s going on with-?”
She lifted her hand for silence. “Multiple choice number two. Is she drunk because she hasn’t seen or heard from him for eight days, or because he has broken three standing dates, or because he hasn’t answered six calls she made in forty-eight hours? Answer-not one but all, all, kee-rect! Fooled you, didn’t I?”
“Sally, be reasonable. With this trial going on, every move I make is watched. Besides, I’ve been busy-”
“I know, darling, busy and ill-what is the illness called?-oh yes, Presidential fever. That’s all that is ailing you, my hero.”
“Well, what the devil is ailing you?”
“Happy to tell you.” She walked farther into the room. “Am I allowed to take off my coat?”
“Sally, I wish you could, but I am expecting company in a very short time.”
“Okay. A drink, then.”
He was reluctant to go to the bar. “Sally, don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
“You bet I’ve had enough-enough of everything-so one more of anything won’t hurt.” As he reluctantly started for the bar, she added, “And shut off that damn television.”
Eaton quickly complied. Then, as quickly, he poured a Scotch on ice for Sally, and a soft drink for himself.
“Here you are, dear,” he said, handing her the Scotch.
Accepting the drink in one hand, she tapped his glass with the other. “You used to do better than that, when you asked me to take off my coat and more.”
“There is a conference tonight. I’ll have to have a clear head.”
She drank at length, then she said, “All right.” She brooded over the glass, then she said suddenly, “Let’s have it out, Arthur. Are you trying to give me the brush, or what?”
“Give you the brush?”
“Are you trying to drop me? You know, you know, Galileo’s law or whoever it was. You hold something. You get tired holding it. You let go. It falls down and goes plop. You’re free of it.”
“What a mind you have. Of course not, Sally. Don’t be silly. You know how I feel about you.”
She brought her long fingers to her crimson lips in a feigned pose of profound reflection. “I want to see if I can remember-how you feel about me, I mean. Ah yes, that last time in bed-when was it? Twelve nights ago? That was quite a session, wasn’t it?”
Eaton wanted to squirm. There was something about her, her too blond hair, her too darkly shadowed eyes, her too powdered cheeks, her too red lips, something about her flippant and coarsened speech, and something left over from the way she had behaved on the witness stand; there was all that which seemed to cheapen her and make her less attractive than she had ever been.
And now, her vulgar reference to their last time together. He wanted only to be done with her, to file her in his history as finished business, and be left alone to go on with life. But here she was, unfiled, and the vulgar question hung between them.
“Yes,” he said, “I-I won’t ever forget that evening.”
“How could you? I knew you wouldn’t. And I knew you hadn’t forgotten what you promised. You haven’t, have you?”
He had forgotten. The Lord save him from women. They remembered everything, everything. How could they expect a man to remember what he said-men said anything, they were all Alexanders promising empires-under those circumstances? What in the devil had he said? He could guess, but he would not, aloud. He waited. She would tell him.
“I’ve been waiting for you to call me, Arthur. I’ve been living for that call. What happened when you asked her? Will she give you the divorce, or will you have to go out to Reno and get it?”
Divorce, he thought. That was it. He must have been out of his mind. If treaties were made in bed, he thought, women would own the world. What in the devil could he say to her now, to be rid of her? The diplomatic truth, that was best; that was his style, and none exceeded him at it.
“Yes, of course, Sally, it has been on my mind, too, but you know, divorce is not that simple a matter,” he said pedantically. Almost instinctively, he was moving them away from the heated, irrational atmosphere of the bedroom into the cooler, logical surroundings of the civil courtroom. “You know my feelings about Kay, and you’ve known my feelings toward you, Sally. I have desired a divorce, and kept it no secret from you. However, I’ve suddenly come up against one hard mathematical fact of life. It takes two to accomplish a divorce, not one. I broached it to Kay on the telephone a few days ago, and she would not have it. She is adamant. Separation she will abide, but not a divorce. So all I can do, until I have definite grounds against her, is to work on her, wear her down, and trust that her own sense of decency-”
Sally’s pale face was cold. “She won’t give you a divorce? Or is that State Department Eatonese for-you’ve decided not to ask her?”
“Sally, I did ask her. She doesn’t give a damn about me, but she likes the idea of being married-”
“So do I, Arthur.”
“-and now she likes it more than ever, since everything seems to be changing in my life. She’s been watching that impeachment trial like everyone else. She has a good idea they’ll drum Dilman out of office. If they do, she sees herself in the White House as First Lady. There’s no use trying to reason with her about a divorce at present, not while the result of the trial is still pending. In fact, well, I’ll be honest with you, because you must believe in me, Sally-the fact is, Kay has decided to come back to Washington. She’s on her way back right now-she’s, well, she is the person I’m expecting in a half hour. She wants to be here for the kill tomorrow.”
Sally began to laugh, and then threw back her head and laughed hysterically, and it made Eaton uneasy to watch her. Then her laughter broke into a sob, and she choked to control it.
“This is too much,” she cried out, “too, too much, the irony, to think it’s my fault, I’m responsible for creating my own Frankenstein monster-me-doing what I did-snooping, spying, going through hell, suffering that goddam insulting exposure in the Senate today-those questions, I wanted to die-die-and what was it all for? For you, so you could become President, and now never leave that old bag who wants to be First Lady.”
“Sally, listen-”
She was breathing like a wounded animal now, and her eyes were glazed and staring. “But you know what’s worse, Arthur? That you’re lying to me, you are lying. You used me, like you use everyone, and I couldn’t see it because I wanted to be used, because I thought there’d be something in it for me, too. I should have known. There’s nothing for me. It’s all you, everything’s for you.”
“That is not true, Sally. If you’ll calm down a minute-”
She was too furious to listen. “I know what is true! You never asked your bag of a wife for a divorce. She’s not coming here to stand in the wings, hoping she’ll be First Lady. It’s you. You want to be President so badly, it smells, it stinks, the reek can be smelled a mile away. So no more bedroom gymnastics, no more, no more taking chances by you. You want to be there, lily-white and aristocratic and Ivy League, with the one and only wife of foreverness and togetherness on your arm, waiting in home beautiful, living the life beautiful, waiting for your country’s call the minute they boot that poor unbefitting nigger interloper out of your White House! Now everything’s got to be perfect, everything pure and American! Now you’ve got to quickly, quickly, sweep all dirt under the carpet, all dirt and maybe scandal, and there I go, under the carpet, too-”
“Stop it, Sally! You’re behaving like an insane-”
“Don’t you call me insane, you lousy, dirty no-good bastard!” she screamed, and then, before he could move, she drew her right hand back, flung it forward, and emptied the entire contents of her whiskey glass into his face.
As he sputtered, wiping his eyes and shirt with his handkerchief, she yelled, “I hope the whole world finds you out the way I did, you bastard!”
She ran out of the room, and out of the house; and Arthur Eaton, watching her, continuing to clean the dripping whiskey from his face and clothes, was no longer upset. In fact, he was pleased. It had been less costly than he had expected. For the price of a wet handkerchief, a change of apparel, and a minor indignity, he was rid of her forever.
Then, when she saw the door close, she started running.
Before that, Sally Watson did not know how long she had been waiting.
After leaving Arthur, and reeling down the cement steps into the lonely and darkened Georgetown street, she had not known where to turn, where to go. The two Secret Service men, in the car parked across the way, had pretended not to see her. She had pretended not to see them. She had started off, to nowhere, because there was no place left where she could any longer find peace from rage and shame, and then she had changed her mind.
She had come back toward the house, staying inside the shadows thrown by the stately mansions, hidden from the yellow pools of illumination under the streetlamps, and then, two houses from his, clinging to a chilled metal rail, in a recess out of sight, she had waited, senselessly waited, shivering, hating, waiting.
How long had it been, finally? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? However long it takes to die.
Once an automobile had drawn up, and it was not Kay Varney Eaton who had emerged, but five other persons, three of them male photographers, two of them (one whom she knew) women social columnists, and, chattering and cheerful, they had gathered on the sidewalk before Eaton’s residence.
Finally the limousine had arrived, and the chauffeur had leaped out and hastened to open the rear door. And there she was, that old woman, Kay Varney Eaton, tall and imperial, in her mink coat and mink hat, giving her diamond-laden hand and condescending stone smile to the serfs of the press. There were shrill questions, and requests to pose this way and that, and flashlight bulbs twinkling on and off, and then she had gone, First Lady-elect-almost, up the stairs. And at the top, horrid traitor’s face wreathed in a smile, Arthur was welcoming her, a self-conscious embrace before the cameras, an antiseptic cheek kiss, and then, a husbandly arm around her, he had taken her inside their house.
Then, when she saw the door close, she started running.
Sally went blindly, crazily, drunkenly up the street, and at the intersection fell against the post of a stoplight, gasping for air. A cruising taxi slowed, and she hailed it.
Inside, disheveled, mascara on her cheekbones, she was still too choked to speak, unable to direct the Negro cabdriver, who was attending her with curiosity, where to take her. Again, there was nowhere to go. But the last unimpaired although dying impulse of her self-esteem began to form her utterance. Only in one place, in months, years, a lifetime, had she had a raison d’être. So, not she, for she was no more, but the surviving impulse within her gave voice to her suicidal mood.
“Take me to-to the White House,” she said thickly.
She tried to look at the domes and spires of this city of monuments which she had dirtied, but she could not see. She tried to smoke a cigarette, but dropped it. She tried to cry, but no tears came, for total wretchedness suffused her heart and dry lungs.
She could not breathe, that was the worst of it. The inside of the careening taxi was dank, foul, suffocating. She made out a patch of wooded area, the tree-bowered walks ahead, and she cried out, “Boy-lemme off there-right there-Jackson and H-lemme out!”
The taxi swung into H Street, and she shoved a bill into the driver’s hand, released the door and herself, and went weaving into Lafayette Park, past the frostbitten Steuben statue, past the wet vacant benches, into the park, deeper and deeper, going nowhere.
Her sickened, self-lamenting brain would not stay behind, let her be free, but remained in the cage of her skull, mercilessly haunting and chastising her. Down through the liquor haze, her relentlessly chasing brain showed her herself as she was: the ghastly scene in the Lincoln Bedroom, the overpainted woman on the Senate podium spouting her distorted adventures into Abrahams’ pitying face, the degraded sound of her name on that sorrowful black man President’s tongue today.
All at once, through the last trees of the park, she saw the incredible sight, and seeing what she saw, her heart and legs quickened at the strange madness of it, a nightmare, another nightmare, and again she was running, drawn to the brightness ahead like a moth batting against a light.
She came through Lafayette Park, bursting out on the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue, and then stood paralyzed with disbelief at what was happening in the night.
To be seen through the iron grillwork fence, engraving itself in licking flames on the slope of the White House lawn, beyond the fence and before the North Portico, blazing in the night, burned a fiery cross.
There was more than the mammoth red glowing cross on the White House lawn, she could see. There were men around the cross, and in the White House driveway, and men clogging the open gate and straining past the guardhouse entrance. There were whooping young white men, rampaging hoodlums with incandescent torches, fleeing the lawn, then grappling and slugging it out and rolling on the grass and cement when caught by the white and colored White House policemen and Secret Service agents.
The pitched battle between the white marauders and hooligans who had incinerated a section of the lawn, now trying to escape, and the White House police trying to contain and arrest them, centered about the entrance gate. The convulsive sounds of men become animals, the sounds of clubs thudding on bone and flesh, of human wailing and cursing, of shotgun blasts in the sky and shrilling metallic whistles, made Sally recoil.
And suddenly, so suddenly, there was another sound-that of skidding rubber tires, angry brakes-and there was another sight-dozens of cars surging into Pennsylvania Avenue, erupting with shrieking men, black and white, most of them black, young and old, most of them young, all of them frenzied and armed.
More speeding and jolting cars were emptying out their vengeful cargoes of fierce Negroes or bellowing ofays and pinks. At once, the snarling white bullyboys who had branded the President’s House, and those rushing to reinforce them, and the embittered products of the capital’s squalid black slums that ringed the White House, who had had enough, enough, who would protect this one of their own, now as persecuted as they were, locked themselves into brutish pitched battle.
From the dark rim of the park, still standing detached, Sally Watson watched as if in a hypnotic trance.
The fighters milled through the street before her, striking and being struck, hurting and being hurt, vilifying and being vilified. And as she watched the race riot-the knives and scissors rising and falling, the broken bottles jabbing, the chains swinging, the hurled rocks flying, the brawling blacks and whites cursing, sobbing, shrieking with pain, the beaten men with slashed bloodied faces and smashed jaws loosened in their sockets, men whining, whimpering, going down-as she saw all of this demoniac barbarity, Sally slowly began to relate it to herself.
The seething caldron of humanity was not the result of her witchcraft, the product of her madness alone, Sally knew. The causes were wider, deeper, older than the provocation of her own evil. Yet it was, this wildness in the night, more her doing than that of any other person present.
She wanted to tell them this, tell one and all, tell them to stop doing this to one another and to do their cruelty to her.
This must cease.
They must punish her.
Unsteadily, tripping once, twice, she left the sidewalk and made her way into the swirling center of the riot.
Dimly, she was aware of the inflamed, gap-toothed, bleeding Negro faces raging around her. Dimly, she was aware of the howling, spattered-nosed white faces fulminating around her. Dimly, she was aware of policemen in uniforms and soldiers in fatigues, hammering right and left with their billy clubs and rifle butts.
The jagged edges of a bottle ripped through her coat. A rock struck her shoulder and sent her plunging to her knees. A heavy combat boot skidded against her mouth.
She crawled between legs, then staggered upright, begging them to stop, but no one heard, and she was buffeted and slapped, and then she felt the spittle and blood mingling down her face. Then, unaccountably, she begged them not to kill her, not to kill her, until she did what she must do. Pushing, tearing, fighting, beating her fists, she tried to free herself from the rioters.
And then suddenly there was room to run once more.
She looked about, trying to make out what was happening, what was breaching and parting the mob, and then she could see. Police cruisers and army trucks were surrounding the thoroughfare. Lawmen with their pistols and leashed dogs, khaki-clad soldiers with their carbines rattling gunfire overhead, helmeted firemen with their swelling and flooding hoses, swarmed through the battleground, dispersing whites and blacks.
She had wanted to reach the White House sentry box, but she could only reach the iron fence. She gripped the metal pickets to keep from falling, and then her legs gave, and she slid to the pavement.
There was the sound of feet, and then she heard her name and opened her eyes.
She blinked up into the worried features of a mulatto woman, blinked up with no recognition.
“Miss Watson-Sally-are you badly hurt?”
“I dunno-no-not-what’s your-”
Then, for Sally, recognition came. She had seen the mulatto face before, yes, every day, newspapers, television, Senate, yes, Wanda Gibson, Wanda Gibson, President’s lady.
“I’d better find you help-” Wanda Gibson was saying.
Sally closed her eyes, listening to the sirens, and then through stinging, puffed lips, she groaned, “No, Wanda-no-just get me home-please, please, take me to my father-you take me-I-I’ve got to tell him something, it’s important-help me-it’s important to both of us.”
It was almost midnight, and they were still there in the Oval Office. From the sofa, Nat Abrahams, smoking his pipe, calmly watched, listened, and marveled anew at Douglass Dilman’s energy.
The President looked up from his desk at Tim Flannery and General Leo Jaskawich nearby, and he handed the sheet of paper back to his press secretary.
“That release will do fine, Tim,” he said. “I think we have given the facts, and it’s a fair enough statement about the riot so that it will please both sides or neither… There’s been no later news from the city police?”
“No,” said Flannery. “Luckily, no deaths, and no one on the critical list, but there were 187 injured, a few concussions, mostly cuts and lacerations, broken ribs, a couple of fractured arms. It was bad, but it could’ve been worse. Remember that race riot in Detroit in 1943? Went on for a week. Thirty-four killed and almost one thousand hurt. I think fast action saved us here. The whole thing was contained in ten to fifteen minutes.”
“Thank the Lord,” said Dilman. “All right, Tim, you can roll out that release, give it to the correspondents, and let them go home. Better get some sleep yourself.”
After Flannery had left, Dilman’s gaze held on Abrahams briefly. “Still puzzles me, Nat, what Wanda is doing over at Senator Watson’s, of all places, and what the Senator wants with me at this hour. Well, as long as Wanda is safe and sound.”
Before the lighting of the fiery cross on the lawn, and the resulting riot, Dilman had been expecting Wanda Gibson to come to a late White House dinner, Abrahams knew. The riot itself had diverted Dilman’s mind from her for an hour, but once the troublemakers had been dispersed and the area was under patrol and was peaceful again, and Wanda had still not appeared, Dilman had become fretful. His concern was that she might have been caught in the fighting, and injured.
Even when no woman’s name was reported on the injury list, Dilman had continued to fret. Then the telephone call had come through. It had been Wanda on the other end, at last, to apologize for not appearing. Something had come up, she had explained, and she was now at Senator Hoyt Watson’s house, and no, there was nothing wrong, she would explain later, but meanwhile, Senator Watson had asked to see the President tonight. “Tonight?” Dilman had protested, and then, as far as Abrahams could guess, Wanda had said that she thought the President should see him, that it was something important, for Dilman had replied, “Very well, Wanda, if you think so. Have him come over.” All of that had transpired a half hour ago.
Like Dilman, Abrahams wondered what Wanda was doing in the dugout of the enemy, and what Senator Watson wanted with the President at this late hour. It was all highly irregular.
Dilman had swung his chair toward Jaskawich.
“Well, General, any last-minute intelligence from the international-situation room downstairs?”
“Status quo. The pins in the map are unchanged. The teletypes are still. Absolutely no word from Kasatkin, or the Soviet Embassy here. And nothing new from Baraza City. Just what we had earlier. Continuing signs of growing activity on the frontier. And you’ve already heard from Steinbrenner. The battalions of the Dragon Flies will be airborne and heading for Africa in-let me see-about two hours.”
“It looks like a fight, doesn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so, Mr. President.”
“You know, General, something occurred to me before. I think we all have the same feeling about this action. Not you, or Nat, or I want to see a drop of American blood shed, and yet we agree this is right; as things are, it has to be done. But what occurred to me was-by a fluke of fate-and to our eternal shame-it may never be done. You don’t understand me, do you? I’ll tell you. Suppose the Communists launch their attack, as planned, tomorrow, and suppose we are there to meet them. At two o’clock tomorrow, the Senate jury starts its vote on me. If I’m convicted, thrown out-why, by late tomorrow afternoon there can be a new President of the United States sworn in-and with Eaton in this chair, I can just see him with Fortney, making our troops retreat, recalling them, agreeing to a phony armistice. In a week from now, Amboko would be in a dungeon, and his democracy, our democracy, there with him. And the Soviets would have a satellite country in Africa. All we’re trying to do, all we’ve done, may be wasted if two-thirds of the Senate tomorrow says I’m a Negro out to trade white boys to save Africans.”
“I hope we don’t live to see that happen, Mr. President,” said Jaskawich fervently.
“We likely will,” said Dilman. “You may have worked your last full day as a Presidential military attaché. Hope they still have a place for an unemployed astronaut. Well, you’d better get some sleep, too.”
“Good night, Mr. President… Good night, Mr. Abrahams.”
Once Jaskawich had departed, the two friends were alone for the first time that day. Abrahams moved from the sofa to the chair across from Dilman. He began to analyze the closing speeches that would be made before the Senate tomorrow morning, first what he anticipated must be expected from Zeke Miller, and then the defense points that he himself wished to stress.
They had been discussing this for no more than five minutes, when they were interrupted by a knocking on the door between the Oval Room and the personal secretary’s office.
“Yes?” Dilman called out.
The door swung open, and a haggard Edna Foster stood in it.
“Are you still here?” Dilman said. “I appreciate it, Miss Foster, but I want you to get right home.”
“Yes, Mr. President. I was only waiting for Senator Hoyt Watson’s arrival. He is here now.”
“Oh. All right, show him in.”
Dilman stood up, alive with curiosity, and so did Abrahams, as Miss Foster held the door wider and Senator Hoyt Watson came through it. When the door closed, he advanced slowly toward the the President.
Abrahams had never seen the formidable Senator Watson this close before, and in this light. It surprised Abrahams how old the Senator appeared as he dragged his feet across the Oval Office. Midway in his passage he had with one hand removed his dark felt hat, and with the other adjusted his string tie, but he made no effort to divest himself of the birch cane hooked on his arm or the velvet-lapeled overcoat. Hatless, his hump of white hair mussed, his horsy, lumpy face seemed longer than ever and more doleful.
“Good evening, sir,” he said to Dilman. “It is kind of you to see me at this time. I gather that Miss Gibson telephoned to notify you of my intended visit?”
“Yes, Senator,” said Dilman cautiously, confused by Watson’s courtesy. “Please sit down.” He indicated Abrahams. “Is this anything you’d prefer to discuss in privacy?”
“No,” said Senator Watson, sitting with a grunt on the edge of the chair, “no, I would prefer to speak in front of your counsel. I shall be brief. I come here with a heavy heart, and with little to say, yet what I do say must necessarily be said by me tonight since it is important for you, both of you, to hear it tonight. My daughter Sally was caught up in the unfortunate riot outside this evening. She suffered some bruises, a minor laceration, but was otherwise uninjured. What did happen to her, whatever happened, apparently shook her back to her senses. She was found by Miss Gibson on the sidewalk, in a somewhat delirious condition, and Miss Gibson brought her directly to our house and to me.”
Senator Watson fell silent, nodding at the desk calendar, and Dilman, for want of anything better to say, said, “I’m glad she’s well, Senator.”
The legislator raised his head and shook it sorrowfully. “She is not well, sir. She never was, but I refused to face that truth, or accept it. I closed my eyes to her behavior and instability, but no more, no more. Tonight I saw Sally for what she always has been. She is ill, mentally ill, and there is no more hiding from it. You, Counselor Abrahams, surmised as much in your cross-examination. I despised you for doing so, because I suspected the truth but could not accept it. But you were right, and I must learn to live with it.”
Senator Watson unhooked the birch cane from his arm and leaned it against the desk front, and met Dilman’s eyes.
“Sir,” Senator Watson said, “my daughter has confessed what eeally happened that evening with you. She has confessed it before me, Miss Gibson, and an attorney friend I brought in to record it and witness her signature on it. Sally admitted having-having become involved with Secretary Eaton-then going to your bedroom to take notes from a CIA report, then being discovered by you, insulting you, and fashioning the entire episode into a lie to satisfy Eaton, Miller, Hankins. She did you grievous harm, Mr. President, and perjured herself before the body of the Senate, and I cannot let things rest this way another moment, or neither she nor I shall have peace again.”
His hand had gone inside his overcoat, and he withdrew a blue-covered folded document.
“I have Sally’s full statement recorded here, signed in her hand, witnessed and notarized. I suggest your counselor make use of it in his closing address to the Senate tomorrow, to let the truth be told, and destroy that specification in the House’s indictment. I wish I could offer you further redress. You deserve it. All I can offer you is this document, Sally’s wish for forgiveness, and my own deep apology.”
Abrahams watched, his mind in turmoil, as Senator Watson bent forward and held the document out for Douglass Dilman to accept.
Dilman stared at the paper. His hands remained motionless on the desk. His eyes went from the signed confession to the legislator.
Slowly Dilman shook his head. “No, Senator. I don’t want it. Tear it up and throw it away.”
The document trembled in Watson’s fingers, but still he continued to offer it. “Please, sir, you will need it, you will need as much truth on your side as possible tomorrow.”
“No,” Dilman repeated. “She is ill, as you have said, and ill people can be cured and saved. The public entering of this retraction and admission into the trial would destroy Sally forever. She would be beyond help, and as one who also has a daughter, a daughter who is ill and not yet destroyed, I will be no party to this. I appreciate it, Senator, but no. My acquittal or conviction will not be decided by this, by the Article charging this lie, nor by any of the other Articles.”
With reluctance, Senator Watson withdrew the deposition, turned it over in his gnarled hand several times, considering it, and then he looked up.
“You are generous, sir, and a gentleman,” he said to Dilman. “You must understand, however, that this humane decision on your part can have no influence on my vote tomorrow afternoon. I would not have judged against you if I believed you had behaved against my daughter as first charged by herself and the House, solely on that indictment, and I cannot judge in your favor now, simply in knowing my daughter perjured herself and that the House was misled. You understand that, sir?”
“I do.”
Senator Watson tore the document in half, and then tore it into halves again, and he stuffed the shredded paper into his overcoat pocket.
Once more he looked at Dilman. “I must judge you tomorrow on your merits as a President of the United States. I must decide in the matter of Baraza, taking that as being representative of all other matters and the most crucial, whether you acted wisely or unwisely as a President, and whether you acted as an American President or as a Negro President. The majority of my Southern colleagues are against you, and have judged you on other issues. The minority of members are for you, and have judged you on other issues. But the final weight of tomorrow’s independent vote falls on a great number of our one hundred who sleep tonight and who have not prejudged you, but must awaken with a final decision based on consideration of your merits as a man who is President.”
“I ask for nothing more, whatever the outcome,” said Dilman quietly.
Senator Hoyt Watson came wearily to his feet. “Thank you, Mr. President,” he said, and then, head nodding, he left the room.
From somewhere distant, a clock struck midnight, and time went on past midnight, and the life of the new day had begun.