Standing there in the cold office, at this ungodly hour, no longer night, not yet day, she felt apprehensive and nervous. She wondered why, but instantly her memory had traced the source of worry, and she knew its answer was right.
From her earliest childhood on the modern farm outside Milwaukee, Edna Foster remembered, she had been raised-by erect parents of German origin-to believe in the virtues of constancy, steadiness, punctuality. Whenever she had given voice to a girlish dream of irregular adventure, her solemn and mustached father, an omnivorous reader of almanacs and books of useful quotations, would repeat verbatim the words of Someone (rarely named, Edna suspected, because her father hoped that the terse homily would seem his own). “Gott im Himmel,” her father would say to the ceiling, addressing his approving Lutheran God, “adventures, romantic adventures she wants.” Then, glowering down at Edna, he would recite the wisdom of Someone: “Adventures are an indication of inefficiency. Good explorers don’t have them.”
Her father, she guessed long after, had the approval of his God because he had so carefully anticipated and thwarted the temptations of the Lutheran devil. Her father’s devil seduced the weak and erring not with the banal sins of immorality and unrighteousness, but with the Twentieth Century sins of irregularity and confusion. As a consequence of this paternal foresight, Edna Foster’s formative years had been boundaried by tangible disciplines: the clock at the bedside, the budget in the bureau drawer, the schedule on the kitchen wall.
These rigid lessons had stood Edna in good stead during her attendance at the business college in Chicago, during her first secretarial jobs in Detroit and New York City, and especially when she had come to work for T. C.-yes, he had been T. C., “The Chief,” even as a senator-in the Old Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. In an uncharacteristically long and almost indecipherable letter, her father had hailed her prestigious government job as the inevitable triumph of her upbringing.
It was only after so much had happened to her employer, after T. C.’s nomination, and the exacting and exciting campaign, and the heady election night, it was after all that, when she followed T. C. into the White House with her shorthand pads and special Kleenex box that Edna had come to realize that the parental standards she lived by were causing her difficulty. T. C. found her indispensable, she knew, because of her efficiency. What he did not know was that his secretary’s efficiency depended upon her opportunity to be methodical. Yet the new job, from the start, seemed to have been equipped by the old Lutheran devil. No inkpot could drive that devil off. The office of the President’s personal secretary was possessed of furnishings that mocked regularity: clocks had thirteen hours, calendars had thirty-two-day months, light switches had no “off” markings, or so it sometimes seemed to Edna.
As personal secretary to the President of the United States, Edna Foster possessed great pride in her position-she had recently learned to regard it as a position, not a job-and she had believed George Murdock, and giggled with delight, when he had told her over their second martinis in Duke Zeibert’s bar, “Edna, if the President’s wife is the nation’s First Lady, then you are the nation’s First Secretary.” It was one of the things that she liked about George Murdock, his way of putting ordinary things so cleverly, which of course came from his newspaper reporter training. But then the job-no, position, position, as George kept reminding her-had its burdens, as she sometimes explained to George, and the worst burden of all, the most disconcerting for one of her background, she could never disclose to him, for then he might think her inflexible and dull, and therefore unattractive.
The worst burden, she could tell herself alone, was emergency.
It had been so on the farm in Wisconsin. The tread of the Western Union boy’s footsteps as he came up the walk, the tinny faraway voice of the long-distance operator, had always meant emergency, and emergency was the enemy of order, peace, security. This enemy, and only this one, had always broken her father’s composure, reduced his authority, and its threat had frightened her then and it frightened her still. And now, of all people on earth, it was Edna who had the one job-position-where emergency was an expected weekly visitor, although for her always an unexpected visitor, leaving her as damp and upset as she might be left by a skipped heartbeat.
Last night late, after midnight, there had come the telephone call from Governor Wayne Talley, the President’s closest aide, and the word he had used was emergency.
“Hello, Edna, did I wake you up?”
“No-no, I was just reading.” Then she had realized the hour. “Is there anything wrong?”
“Nothing special. The usual. Look, Edna, are you well enough to come in tomorrow? How’s your cold?”
Automatically, she had coughed. “I suppose I’ll live. Yes, of course I’ll be in.”
“I’d like you to make it early, real early. T. C.’s orders.”
“You name it,” she had said.
“Around six A.M. I know that’s rough, but it’s rough all over. The Russians are giving us a bad time. T. C. will be at the table early with Kasatkin. When they break, it should be about noon or so in Frankfurt, and that’ll make it seven in the morning here, daylight time. It’s going to be an open conference call from Germany. We’re piping it into the Cabinet Room, so you get set up for seven or eight people. And you’d better hang around in case he has something personal to dictate. Okay?”
“I’ll be there, Governor Talley.”
“Sorry to do this to you, Edna, but it’s an emergency.”
There it was. Emergency. And here was she. Disconcerted.
The chauffeured limousine had been waiting before her Victorian-style apartment on Southeast E Street, just off New Jersey Avenue, when she had emerged at five forty-five. By ten minutes after six, she had crossed the empty Reading Room in the press quarters of the West Wing of the White House, and quickly gone to her cubicle between the Cabinet Room and the President’s Oval Office.
After snapping on the overhead lights, and hanging her coat beside the bookcase, she had telephoned downstairs to ask someone in the Navy Mess to bring up some hot, hot coffee and a slice of toast. Now, shivering as she waited, resenting the early hour and the loss of two much-needed hours of sleep, resenting even more the nameless emergency that shattered her pattern of work and peace of mind, she began to sneeze. Hastily she sought the package of Kleenex in her leather purse, yanked one free in time to cough into it, and then wadded it to pat her painfully reddened nose.
Trying to ignore the ache between her protruding shoulder blades, determined to bring herself up to the day’s beginning, she moved woodenly toward the small wall mirror next to the beige file cabinet, with its ugly security bar still locked in place down the center. With antagonism she stared into the mirror, blinking miserably at her bird’s nest of brown hair, all stringy, at the faint crease in her forehead, at her swollen watery brown eyes and the slight bulges below (bags filled by overtime hours), at the shiny long straight nose, and then at the quivering dry lips.
She went back to her desk for her comb and compact. Seated before the gray electric typewriter, holding the compact’s mirror above her, she toiled to achieve a semblance of efficient neatness. She had a plain face, she knew, but at its best, all well and rested, it was at least passable. George Murdock said that it was more, and she wanted to believe him, but when so many people had told you that your face had character, you knew for certain you did not have good looks. Certainly it was a face that could not afford tension or sleeplessness or the common cold.
She wondered whom or what to blame for this morning’s wreckage. She could not blame George. Dutifully, it having been a week night and with her constant sniffling, he had brought her home early from their dinner. She could not blame herself for staying up until Talley’s call after midnight, trying to read but really thinking of the miracle of her eight months with George and speculating about the months to come. After all, that was important, this thinking and daydreaming about George. It was the first time in her entire thirty years that she had had the chance to indulge herself so, that is, indulge herself seriously, that is, in secret hopes for the future.
For six years T. C. and the job for him had been enough to fill her mind. Now there was not only the President, but another, two in her life of equal importance-how it would please George to know his august standing!-and this was a pleasure worthy of her budgeted thinking time. Nor could she blame her ravaged morning face on T. C. for bringing her in here at six o’clock instead of eight. Banish that thought, she thought; veto it, it’s unconstitutional. No, not T. C., he was guiltless, a dedicated, wonderful, great man, so far away, arguing and fighting with those Communist leaders about Berlin and about Africa and about the planets.
Then she realized where to put the blame, and since it was on one still so fresh in his grave, she was sorry and ashamed. She could date her teary, tired, streaky face back to the Vice-President’s funeral ten days ago. It had rained, and they had stood there, the high and the mighty and herself, too, soaked to the bones, staring at Richard Porter’s wet oak casket, listening to the minister’s highpitched supplication, Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed, and we commit his body to the earth; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Yet, she had felt certain, all the mourners had not been listening attentively, for most seemed turned inward with self-concern induced by the shock of the suddenness of the Vice-President’s massive coronary, his first, his last, and the mourners seemed to be mentally determining to drink less, smoke less, eat less, work less, and have those medical checkups more often. Even the President, the President himself, young middle-aged and strong as he was, a dray horse for work, a tireless robot on the golf fairways, had gone to Walter Reed Hospital two days after the funeral, the day before leaving for Frankfurt am Main, for a thorough physical examination.
The unreality of the Episcopalian funeral lingered in Edna’s mind. She had felt apart from the ceremony at the time, as she was this moment. The Vice-President’s death had not upset her deeply, nor, as far as she had observed, had it emotionally moved any of the official family either, except by its suddenness and its threat to all mortality. The reason for this, she decided, was Porter’s relative unimportance. His passing left no gap, rendered the nation no weaker. He had been a good bluff man, in an affable salesman sort of way, full of clichés and politics and gallons of bourbon and Throttlebottom stances the cartoonists so enjoyed. He had been a professional politician and natural Vice-Presidential candidate brought into the campaign in order to lure the uncertain Far West with him. He had served his purpose, and in death T. C. was his legacy. Because of Porter, T. C. was Chief Executive by an overwhelming mandate from the people instead of by a close plurality. Poor Richard Porter had played his role, served the Party and the electorate, and without him life would go on unaltered. It was the seventeenth time in history the government would be without a Vice-President, and no longer unusual. It was T. C. who mattered, to Edna and to the country.
Closing her compact, Edna fully absolved the late Vice-President of responsibility for her head cold and wretched face, and now, her face repaired, her mind clearer, she smelled the steaming coffee on the desk behind her. Somebody from the Navy Mess had noiselessly come and gone, and because of her self-absorption, she did not know who it had been and whom to thank. She sipped the coffee, recoiled, blew on it to cool it, and finally, breaking the slice of toast, munching it, she was able to drink down the contents of the cup.
At last, feeling better, forgiving the day for its earliness, forgiving everyone for everything, she came to her feet. Her platinum wristwatch, a generous gift from the First Lady, showed the time to be twenty-six minutes after six o’clock. Right now, Edna guessed, T. C. and his staff were leaving the Kaisersaal, the splendid dining room of emperors of the Holy Roman Empire located in the Roemer, Frankfurt’s five-gabled city hall. The European press, and recently the American papers, had gleefully taken to calling the meeting between the President of the United States and the Premier of Soviet Russia the Roemer Conference, reminding readers that Frankfurt’s city hall had been the site, during the Middle Ages, where international merchants gathered to trade.
Well, Edna thought, T. C. has done his trading for the morning. Now, driving the several blocks to the Alte Mainzer Palace, his headquarters in Frankfurt, he is probably considering what problems of the trading he must discuss this afternoon (over there) or morning (over here) with select Cabinet members and Congressional leaders. Edna had seen photographs of the President’s ornate Gothic ground-floor bedroom in the ancient Palace-the Bonn government had suggested the President use the ancient Palace for his living quarters instead of the United States Consulate across the Main River, because it was roomier, more picturesque, and nearer the Roemer-and not seeing this fourteenth-century Palace was what Edna regretted most about missing the trip.
Ordinarily, Edna traveled with the President. She had made four trips with him abroad-a wonderland for a farm girl from Wisconsin-but this was one of the two trips that she had missed, because of the darn head cold. Frankfurt was a city she had never seen, and even though Tim Flannery, the President’s press secretary, assured her that she had missed nothing, that postwar Frankfurt was a dull, Swiss-type industrial metropolis featuring nothing more exciting than the I. G. Farben Building and the Hesse State Radio Building, both modern monstrosities, Edna knew differently. She knew that the Allied bombers that had leveled Frankfurt’s medieval Old City in 1944 had, by some miracle, left almost intact the two dusty near-crumbling architectural wonders of the fourteenth century, the Frankfurt cathedral and the three-story Alte Mainzer Palace that housed the Presidential party. Edna knew that she traveled the way she tried to work, with efficiency, and she was not ashamed that she collected palaces, castles, and museums, with which to educate her children someday. The possibility of children, for one not even married and nearing spinsterhood, brought Edna back to reality, and once more brought her mind to George Murdock. She was sorry to lose the Alte Mainzer Palace for her collection, but there was compensation in not having to be apart from George the entire week.
She realized with a start that she had been standing at the desk, daydreaming away five more precious minutes, and 3,000 miles away in Frankfurt the President was nearing his telephone in the ancient Palace, and she had not yet made the few preparations necessary for his call to the Cabinet Room. Hastily she searched her desktop for the list of those who would be present for the conference call, found no such list, and then guessed that Wayne Talley would, from long habit, have left it on the President’s own desk.
Hurrying now, Edna opened the nearest door on her left, and crossed the rug to the sturdy brown Buchanan desk at the far end of the President’s corner office. The green blotter held nothing, and neither did the empty card stand, so much like a menu holder, into which T. C.’s daily engagement schedule was slipped. Concerned, she looked about, and then she saw it, the single sheet of paper that Talley had left for her, a corner of it pinned under the weight of the black telephone, the deceptively ordinary telephone that was the much-publicized hot line.
Taking the sheet, she scanned the list typed upon it: Talley himself, of course; Secretary of State Arthur Eaton, of course; Senator Selander, Majority Leader in the Senate; Representative Wickland, Majority Leader in the House; Senator Dilman, President pro tempore of the Senate; General Fortney, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Mr. Stover, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs in the State Department; Mr. Leach, the stenotypist. Eight in all. That was it for this morning.
Studying the personnel on the list as she slowly left the President’s desk, Edna played her deduction game. One did not have to be Scott of the CIA or Lombardi of the FBI to make an accurate prediction, once one was given a set of clues. Edna made her prediction to herself, enjoying the sport almost as much as she enjoyed the diversion of the crossword puzzles and Double-Crostic games that she hoarded for weekends. The emergency conference call from the President, she told herself, would be devoted almost entirely to Africa and the trouble over the new Republic of Baraza. The presence of the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs indicated this. Then there would be talk about pushing something through a balky Congress, probably the unpopular ratification of the renewal of the United States’ membership in the African Unity Pact, as well as further economic aid to newly independent African nations. The presence of two senators and one representative and one general indicated this. The attendance of Talley and Secretary of State Eaton furnished no added clues. They were always present when T. C. spoke, always there, his confidants and alter egos.
Yes, Edna decided unhappily, Africa would be the subject, and that promised a dull and wearisome morning. African talk meant almost nothing to her. What was it, really? A black jumble of crazy names like Basutoland, Nyasaland, Malagasy, Gambia, Dahomey, Chad, Rwanda, and lately, Baraza. Even if you were intelligent, you could not tell one country from another, or one primitive face from another (despite those wild robes they wore, despite those odd Oxford or Harvard accents they assumed when they called upon the President). It was all impossible and, for Edna, Africa remained the Dark Continent, affecting her day-to-day existence in no way whatsoever. And-repressed heresy-she suspected that those comic-opera countries meant little more to T. C. or Talley or Eaton, either. Soviet Russia, now, that was another matter. Russia could blow us up, and ruin everything, everyone, before some of us had a chance to get married and live and have children.
She had paused before the French doors leading out to the cement walk with its overhang and colonnades. Outside-T. C. called it his “backyard”-the darkness had gone, and the gray dawn was brightening. Even in late August, the Rose Garden was still in full bloom, the roses and Shasta daisies and geraniums dominated by early chrysanthemums. At the far end of the garden Andrew Jackson’s hoary magnolia tree, partially obscuring the White House rotunda and Truman’s Balcony, was thick with green foliage. For a moment Edna was tempted to step outside, join the White House policeman who had appeared on the walk, deeply inhale the cool fresh air, and fully revive herself for the Frankfurt call. But the platinum watch on her left wrist bound her to duty. Swiftly she left the President’s office and returned to her own desk.
Yanking open drawers, digging supplies out of them, she was at last occupied with routine and too busy for daydreaming. In a few minutes, her thin arms heavily weighted under a pyramid of memorandum pads, boxes of pencils, shorthand notebook, and spare ashtrays, she went carefully to the door of the Cabinet Room. Balancing her load against the frame of the door, she grasped the knob, turned it, and pushed the door open with her knee.
She had somehow expected to find Arthur Eaton inside. He was usually first, seated and hunched over the long eight-sided, coffin-like mahogany table, his chalky, finely chiseled, aristocratic profile bent over sheaves of briefing notes. But he was not there. Instead, across the Cabinet Room, two khaki-clad enlisted men, plainly Signal Corps, were finishing the wiring of two gray metal boxes that rested on the dark table. Edna recognized the larger box, with its perforated side, as the receiver that would unscramble and the loudspeaker that would amplify the President’s confidential conversation from Frankfurt, while the sensitive smaller audio box was the microphone which would pick up any voice in the room, scramble it in a special transmitter, and send it off to the Gothic study in the Alte Mainzer Palace, where it would be unscrambled and made comprehensible through a similar portable system set up for the listening President.
Apparently the two Signal Corps men were too occupied to be aware of Edna’s arrival. She coughed, and called out, “Good morning, gentlemen.”
The younger, a technician third class, glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, good morning, ma’m. We’ll be outa here in a jiffy.”
“Go right ahead. We still have fifteen minutes.”
Edna lowered her precarious load to the table, then went to the three pairs of green drapes concealing the French doors and opened them, so that once more Jackson’s magnolia tree was in her view and the room behind her filled with the filtered early morning light. After shaking loose the Presidential flag, which now hung well, and taking note of the American flag, which was fine, Edna resumed her familiar routine. She distributed memorandum pads, pencils, ashtrays. She filled the water carafes. She was hardly aware that the Signal Corps men were making tests, and then saying good-bye.
She was not yet through when the corridor door opened. Startled, Edna wheeled, expecting Eaton, but instead saw two of the Secret Service agents of the White House Detail, one the red-faced, beefy Beggs, the other the wiry, blond Sperry.
“Got you busy early this morning, hey?” Beggs called out.
“They sure have,” said Edna.
“Just want to thank you for Ogden and Otis, Miss Foster,” said Beggs. She knew that her face must have reflected blankness, for he quickly added, “They’re my boys.” Then he said, “First ones in their school with the new Baraza stamps. We’re all grateful.”
“I haven’t had any more from Africa this week,” said Edna. “Most of the mail is from Frankfurt-from Germany-by diplomatic pouch, so no stamps. Of course, some other things drift in.”
“Anything’ll do, Miss Foster. Boys can use those for trading. Sure appreciate your thinking of us.” Beggs’s colleague, Sperry, had touched his arm, and he looked off, then turned back. “Here they come, Miss Foster. Be seeing you.”
The moment that the Secret Service agents were gone, Leach came through the open door, nodding his skeletal head, carrying his perpetual harassment and his portable stenotype to the table, two chairs from the center where Eaton would sit.
Edna heard more footsteps on the tile corridor floor and waited. The three of them appeared in the doorway at the same time, and then Talley and Stover hung back, deferring to Eaton. The Secretary of State, tall, slender, magnificent in his pin-striped gray Saville Row suit, fedora in his hand, entered briskly.
“Hello, Miss Foster,” he said in his deep, well-modulated voice. “Sorry about the hour, but T. C. appears to need our help.”
Eaton’s appearance, his evident good breeding, always struck Edna dumb, and as ever, she could do no more than duck her head and murmur her welcome. She watched Eaton as he deposited his hat on a bench and walked to the chair where Stover had already placed his alligator briefcase. She could see Eaton with the same eyes that the President, an old friend, saw him, and what she saw was an Easterner of excellent antecedents, schooled in the Ivy League traditions, a careful, moderate, thoughtful man, mellowed by the best of taste, and still youthful in late middle age. Where Eaton differed from T. C. was in the matter of human relationship. The President was gayer, warmer, more flamboyant, the politician’s brass section accompanying the subtle chamber-music strings. The President would always be elected; Arthur Eaton would always be appointed.
She continued to observe Eaton as he removed clipped papers from his briefcase and sat down with them. He was the most attractive man currently in public office, she was positive. The press liked to say that he resembled Warren Harding, but Edna resented this, for Harding was not patrician and his historical image was weak. Edna had once seen a portrait of James K. Polk, and although she had heard that Polk had been slight and inconspicuous, she knew that this was the man in American history that Eaton most resembled. Like Polk, the Secretary of State possessed a smooth, sleek pompadour, graying above the forehead and at the temples. His eyes were full and deep, his nose slightly Grecian in its line, his jaw (like his entire face) bony and long. He was Virginia, Andover, Princeton, and perfect.
And now, Edna could see, he had lifted his head from his papers to listen to an exchange between T. C.’s right-hand adviser, Wayne Talley, and Eaton’s own Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Jed Stover.
The short, heavyset, electric Talley was poking a finger into Stover’s shoulder for emphasis. “I don’t care about your damn facts and figures, Jed. We’ve done enough for Baraza, more than enough, and you know that. Do you want us to go to war with those Communist apes over some little jungle country not much bigger than a football field? Do you want to fight over 30,000 square miles in West Africa?”
The taller Jed Stover, squirming at Talley’s poking finger, patted his bristly eyebrows and scrub of mustache, and said calmly, “It is 33,000 square miles, and has a population of 2,437,000, Wayne. It has gold, a good deal of gold, and diamonds and iron ore. Besides-”
“There’s not enough gold in the entire place to pay for what it might cost us in trouble.”
Doggedly Stover continued. “Besides, it is our model, in a sense, our creation, our showcase, Wayne. You cannot give an emerging black nation democracy, and then turn your back on it.”
“We have enough showcases over there. We have Liberia and Ghana and a half-dozen more. That African Unity Pact was fine when it was first set up. Paper work, good propaganda. We never intended to renew. Now, just because Baraza is in it, I see no reason to change our minds. You people in African Affairs get too involved in your own little world, and you can’t see it as a small part of a bigger world with bigger problems. You’re like so many whisker-combing scholars, each with one lifetime specialty, and you get to thinking that the truth about Nancy Hanks is more important than the Presidency, or that the significance of democracy in San Marino is more important than Italy. Don’t look so damn hurt, Jed. I’m not disparaging all the spadework you fellows do, and how well you serve, but you’re all inclined to suffer from funnel vision. I mean it. The President and I have discussed this many times. And I’m sure Arthur understands this even better than the two of us.”
Talley had turned to seek Arthur Eaton’s collaboration. Jed Stover, who had been about to reply, was immediately subdued by the reference to his superior. He seemed to bite his tongue and make an effort to hold silent.
Eaton, who had been listening, pursed his lips. He considered the President’s aide. At last he spoke. “Jed and his department are doing an excellent job, Wayne.”
“I admitted that,” interrupted Talley. “I was only saying-”
“I heard what you were saying, Wayne,” Eaton went on. “There is much to what you have been saying. You can be sure that T. C. and I are perfectly aware of what is going on and what must be done.”
Witnessing the verbal scuffle, Edna Foster saw that this time it was Wayne Talley’s turn to be cowed. Eaton had made it clear that he and T. C. would make the final decisions on African intervention. He had, in a refined way, reminded Talley that although he was the President’s aide, he was not his first adviser, in no way his Gray Eminence, but only his sounding board and runner. He had put Talley in his place, which was not between the President and the Secretary of State, but somewhere behind them, outside them. But it had been carefully done, so that Talley would not lose face before a lesser State Department appointee.
Edna noted that Governor Talley reacted to the encounter, and subtle rebuff, as he always had in the past. His right eye, the one that was slightly crossed, involuntarily began to twitch. His bulbous nose reddened. He seemed less sure of the checkered suit and blue shirt and gaudy gold-coin tie clasp he was given to wearing. He appeared, Edna thought, like the officious manager of a Midwest haberdashery, who had just been reminded by the wealthy absentee owner that he had once been a humble clerk.
“Of course,” Eaton was saying now, with a serious smile, “we are dealing with yesterday’s facts, are we not? What I know, what you know, Wayne, and what you know, Jed, is useful, as of this minute, but in five minutes the President will be speaking to us from Frankfurt. After another morning with the Russians, he may have new facts, new ideas, and our recipe for a decision on Africa may be considerably changed. Don’t you both agree?”
Edna found that she had to keep herself from smiling at the Secretary of State’s adroitness. He had taken Talley and Stover in as his equals at last, and they were mollified. Talley, grunting and bobbing his head, circled the table to sit beside T. C.’s favorite. Stover, exhaling satisfaction, found a place opposite his superior.
Edna, realizing that Arthur Eaton was waving to someone behind her, turned, and to her surprise all the others were already in the Cabinet Room. Quickly she stepped forward to show Senator Selander and Representative Wickland to their chairs. Senator Dilman had not waited for her, but had gone off to take the place farthest from the Secretary of State and the President’s aide. It was understood by all, Edna knew, just as she herself understood it, that Dilman did not rank with the others, not even with Selander and Wickland. Although Dilman, as President pro tempore of the Senate, had been wielding the gavel since the Vice-President’s death, it was known that he held the position as a political gesture.
“Sorry to be the last!” Edna heard a voice boom out from the door. It was four-star General Pitt Fortney, the rigid, scarred Texan, pulling off his leather gloves. “SAC has been bending my ear from Omaha. It wasn’t easy to get away.” He handed his trench coat to Edna and strode to the table, pulling out a chair and sitting stiffly in it. He addressed Eaton. “Steiny had me on the phone last night. He thinks Premier Kasatkin means business. Even flew Marshal Borov in from Leningrad. Maybe the President ought to have me over there.”
Eaton appeared to look down his nose at Fortney. “I think Secretary of Defense Steinbrenner can represent the Pentagon very well, General. I am sure T. C. feels you are needed here.”
Noticing that her platinum wristwatch gave them two minutes to conference time, Edna Foster started around the Cabinet table toward Eaton and the portable loudspeaker.
Passing Representative Wickland, she saw him lean across the table and ask Talley, “What’s this about Earl MacPherson flying to Frankfurt from Buenos Aires? He was supposed to be here in Washington today.”
“Just a one-day detour,” said Talley. “The President felt you boys in the House could spare your Speaker for one more day. T. C. wanted him on hand.”
“On African economic aid legislation?”
“Probably. If T. C. tells you what’s going on, you boys in the House might not listen. If your own Speaker tells you, then you might listen. MacPherson’ll be back on the Hill tomorrow.”
Edna had taken a position behind Eaton, and was about to inform him that it was precisely seven o’clock, when the telephone rang out shrilly. Instantly the room was hushed.
Edna bent between Eaton and Talley, punched down the “On” button atop the beige loudspeaker, then she hit the “On” button above the microphone box, turned the volume to “Medium High,” and stepped away.
She reached her waiting chair and shorthand pad, beside Leach, as a far-off erratic voice came indistinctly over the loudspeaker, and then suddenly broke out loudly and clearly.
“-calling from Frankfurt am Main, this is Signal Corps Captain Foss calling from Frankfurt am Main. Do we have the White House in Washington?”
Calmly Secretary of State Eaton addressed the microphone box. “This is the White House, Captain. This is the Secretary of State. We are assembled and ready for the conference call.”
“All right, sir. The President is waiting to speak to you.” A muffled crossing of voices slapped against the loudspeaker, and then a jagged arrow of static, and at once T. C.’s hurried, bouncy, unceremonious voice was upon them in the Cabinet Room.
“Arthur, are you there?”
“Everyone is here, Mr. President. How are you? Is everything going well?”
“Never better, never better. In fact, I just this moment talked MacPherson into betting all even on Dartmouth against Princeton next month. I want you to ask Internal Revenue if my winnings are tax-free, since we made the wager in Germany. Remember to do that, Arthur.”
Everyone in the Cabinet Room laughed, hoping the laugh would be unscrambled in Frankfurt, and then settled into silence.
T. C. was coming through the loudspeaker again. “We broke up at the Roemer before noon. We’re reconvening at two. Our gang stayed over there to eat, but a few of us slipped out on the press and the rest of them, and came over here to talk it out in privacy. I’ve been sitting in this beat-up old Palace study-it’s cold as hell, Arthur-tell Edna she was smart not to come along-and I’ve been conferring with Ambassador Zwinn, and Secretary Steinbrenner, and our obliging Speaker of the House. One second, Arthur-” There was a long pause, and then T. C. was on once more. “Just said good-bye to the Ambassador-he’s heading back to Bonn-and to Steiny-he’s needed over at the Consulate. Okay, we can settle down now. There are a few problems to contend with, at once. I want to talk this over with you, and then I’ll put MacPherson on, and he can concentrate on Harvey Wickland. Incidentally, Harv, I want to let MacPherson rest here tonight, and you’ll have him back in the Speaker’s chair tomorrow.”
There was a pause, and then T. C. resumed through the loudspeaker. “Arthur-Wayne-all of you there, the problem is Premier Kasatkin. I’d forgotten what a tough bastard he can be. He seems determined to be difficult in four-letter words, except in Russian they’re forty-letter words, and my backside is aching after these last hours. I’m determined to get out of here in a few days, but I want to get out with the knowledge that I haven’t given up New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Bombay, and Baraza City to the Muscovites for the right to stay in Berlin.”
Wayne Talley had leaned across Eaton. “T. C.,” he said into the microphone, “this is Wayne here. Is it that bad? Does Kasatkin mean it?”
Over the loudspeaker T. C.’s retort was urgent. “Does he mean it? I’m not sure. That is what we have to judge. We have to decide how far we can go with blank cartridges. That is why I wanted to consult you before trying to digest my lunch. When I go back in there this afternoon, and sit down across from our Soviet friends, I want to know what ammunition I have or should have. In other words, I’ve got to decide how far I can go in showing Kasatkin and Marshal Borov that we intend to stand firm on Baraza, support its independence, even fight for it, at the same time making it clear that we want to be reasonable and are concerned with more dangerous trouble spots and greater issues abroad. You understand?”
Listening, Presidential aide Wayne Talley displayed his pleasure, and shot a triumphant grin at Assistant Secretary Jed Stover.
Arthur Eaton was speaking in the direction of the microphone box. “What are the latest Soviet charges against us, Mr. President?”
“On Baraza?” said T. C. “A whole bill of particulars to prove the United States is becoming an aggressor in Africa, using Baraza merely as a beachhead for our eventual domination of all Africa. They argued that we manipulated Baraza’s independence in return for the promise that they would be pro-democracy and anti-Communist. Premier Kasatkin carried the ball the whole morning. He tried to prove that we did not allow Baraza to hold a fair and open election three months ago. He accused us of rigging it, and said we got our puppet, Kwame Amboko, in as President. You know what the Premier’s evidence was? That one of our old exchange programs financed Amboko’s coming to the United States fifteen years back, and this program financed his brainwashing at Harvard. Hear that, Arthur? Harvard is still giving us Princeton men trouble.” He laughed through a rising wave of static, but it was not a mirthful laugh. He went on quickly. “Premier Kasatkin pointed to Baraza’s new anti-Communist legislation, which is being debated in their Parliament. The Premier accused us of being behind it. He raved and ranted that we were bending Amboko’s arm to get the Communist Party outlawed and the cultural exchange program with Moscow stopped.”
“What evidence did the Premier present to support that charge?” Eaton asked.
“He had no concrete evidence,” replied T. C. “I could have stayed home and reread your Embassy reports, or the translations from Pravda, and known just as much. Kasatkin argued that the economic aid we were giving Baraza came from our government funds, and not from private enterprise, and that we had threatened to cut it off unless Amboko banned the Communist Party and the cultural exchange with Moscow. He said we were afraid of Communism in Africa, because we knew that was what the blacks wanted and needed. He said, ‘Those poor people know Communism gives them bread, while democracy gives them a vote and a Letter to the Editor.’ He’s a real smart aleck, in a sort of kulak way, and absolutely distrustful of everyone. He said not only was our money leading Amboko by the nose, but that we were also using our renewal of the African Unity Pact as a bribe. It all comes down to this-the Soviets are charging us with using Baraza as a launching pad to wipe native Communism out of Africa, so we can exploit the black population, control Baraza’s gold and iron ore. That’s the picture, my friends. It may look abstract, but it is realism, and we have to cope with it.”
“You are perfectly right, Mr. President,” Eaton was saying, “we have heard most of that before. The question is-what do the Russians specifically want of us? After all, they instigated this Frankfurt conference to iron out differences. What are they suggesting?”
T. C. snorted, and the loudspeaker sent the sound splitting across the Cabinet Room like a handclap. “What are they suggesting? Good God, Arthur, they are demanding. Yes, they are demanding that we do one of two things-you see, they say they are being reasonable, ready for compromise-that we do one of two things, either kill the African Unity Pact-the AUP-kill it in the Senate, withdraw from it-or that we use our influence, show our good intentions in Africa, by getting Baraza to drop legislation against the native Communist Party and the cultural exchange program with Moscow. There it is.”
“Why this sudden strenuous objection to AUP?” Eaton asked. “They showed only token disapproval when we first went into it.”
“Because, according to Kasatkin, when we first went into it, the Soviets regarded it as a weak paper pact, limited to three countries and promising only small economic assistance. But they consider the new AUP as a threat. They point out it involves five African nations, and guarantees our military intervention to protect those countries from aggression. The Soviets argue we’re setting up a Monroe Doctrine in Africa. They won’t sit still for another NATO-a fledgling NATO they’re labeling AUP-unless we allow their own ideology perfect freedom in Baraza. It must be one or the other, but not both.”
Representative Wickland called out toward the microphone box, “Mr. President, what if we support both measures-banning of Communism in Baraza as well as membership in the new AUP? What do you think Kasatkin would do?”
“The works, Harv, the works,” said the President. “Premier Kasatkin warned me Soviet troops would occupy West Berlin, and redouble support of their adherents in and around India and Brazil. I think he means it this time. And if he does, we’re in for a shooting war, and we’d have to fire the first shot.”
“But, Mr. President-” It was Assistant Secretary Jed Stover’s pained and trembling voice. “That’s absolute blackmail. We’re committed to AUP as well as giving Baraza the absolute right to do as it pleases, and apparently Baraza wants to curb Communism. I don’t blame Amboko. He has a new and uncertain democratic coalition. His minority of Communists are militant and dangerous. If we give in on either point, drop out of AUP or force Amboko to leave the Communists alone, the Reds might infiltrate every free nation of Africa, and control the continent in a year.”
The loudspeaker was quiet, and those waiting in the Cabinet Room were quiet, too, and at last T. C.’s reply came through the loudspeaker from distant Frankfurt. “Jed-all of you-I’m sure we understand our Soviet friends very well. We know what they want. We have to prevent them from getting it. The question is where do we stop them, and when do we see the whites of their eyes? In Baraza? I don’t think so. I’d hate to risk American lives over some godforsaken little tract of land in West Africa. I don’t want to have the distinction of having been the last President of the United States, the one who encouraged nuclear annihilation. I’m more worried about Germany, India, Brazil than I am about Africa.”
“Mr. President.” The voice had come from the far side of the coffinlike table, and it belonged to Senator Dilman, whose fingers were drumming the table nervously. “Mr. President,” he repeated, “I’m sure you are-are right-yes-but if we back away from Africa, won’t we-wouldn’t we not only lose Africa for democracy-but show the Russians we are weak? I’m not disagreeing, only I am wondering-”
“Who was that?” inquired T. C. “I don’t recognize the voice.”
“That was Senator Dilman, Mr. President,” said Arthur Eaton.
“Oh, Dilman,” said T. C. “Fine, Dilman. Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about losing Africa to anyone. Those people know we’re with them. They see our money. They see we’re really making an effort to solve the civil rights problem in the United States. As to showing any weakness to the Soviets, I’m not concerned about that either. They’ve counted our ICBMs, you can bet. They know we have muscles. No, I think we stand to gain more by showing a readiness to bargain, to give a little in order to get a little, than by being bullheaded. The question is how to proceed, how to concede with strength, how to conciliate the Russians, while reassuring the Africans we are behind them, and showing our electorate back home that we have emerged from Frankfurt with a victory, that we have preserved the peace of the world?”
Arthur Eaton edged forward in his chair. “Mr. President, what is your impression of Premier Kasatkin this time around? Do you feel that he is sincere? Do you feel that he will keep hands off in Berlin, Brazil, India, if you make a concession about Africa?”
“Oh, definitely, Arthur. No doubt about it. He’s a roughneck, and crafty, peasant crafty, but he is blunt and honest. I think he wants to live and let live, if there is no other choice. Anyway, MacPherson and I have been kicking this around, and we have come up with a possible approach. We want your opinion on the strategy. Listen carefully-”
Listening carefully, Edna Foster, seated five chairs from the loudspeaker box, crossed her legs again, ready to hook her penciled ciphers across her shorthand pad, if required to do so. Beside her, Leach stopped tapping away on the stenotype set between his legs. Since all sound in the room had ceased, Edna glanced up. The intent faces of the President’s advisers seemed to form human parentheses around the loudspeaker, as each individual prepared to concentrate on what would come next from the Chief Executive in Frankfurt.
Finally there was T. C.’s familiar voice once more, washed over by the atmospheric static above an ocean that divided him from those who heard him. The President’s tone was low-keyed and insistent. “When I go back into that Roemer conference room with those bandits this afternoon, I want to tell them that the Senate is going to ratify the African Unity Pact this week. And that I intend to sign it when I return home. This ratification is necessary-I want to tell them that-because we have made a pledge to our African friends, and we want to keep our word. I want to assure Kasatkin, however, that we will never implement the Pact, act upon it, unless we are certain-absolutely positive-that a foreign power is attempting to interfere, militarily, with the sovereign rights of the Pact members. On the other hand, I want to be able to tell Premier Kasatkin, because we want peace, not only in Germany, India, Brazil, but everywhere, that we are ready to use our great moral influence in Baraza to convince its leader not to permit any discriminatory legislation against Communism to be passed into law. That should do it. I think that can wind it up, and I can come home and tell our people they can sleep safely in their beds for another year.
“However, I need your cooperation, need help from all of you there, and I’ve got to know what you can do for me, and how far I can go with the Russians today. John, I want you to bang ratification of the Pact through the Senate as fast as possible, no matter how long you have to keep in session. At the same time, Harvey, I want you to get that economic aid measure for those Pact countries out of the House committee and onto the floor. And I want it publicized, this support of our African friends. Then you, Arthur, you can call in Ambassador Wamba, and tell him we’ve got to get that anti-Communist legislation in Baraza quashed. Tell him to let his opposition natives have their little Communist Party. We’ll keep an eye on it. Tell him to let his students go to the U.S.S.R. on a cultural exchange. Let him keep an eye on that. Tell him our joining the new African Unity Pact is evidence enough of our continuing support. If he balks, put on the pressure. I won’t stand for any nonsense. I am determined to be the President who kept the peace of the world intact. Now, if you approve, what I want from you there in Washington is your promise that-that-wait, one second, MacPherson is calling out something-”
Abruptly the President’s voice was gone, and through the perforated holes of the loudspeaker box came a faint tearing sound, like canvas being ripped, and then a tinny whine, and then the ear-splitting falsetto crackle of static, and then dead silence.
Arthur Eaton had reached forward, placing a hand on the microphone box as if to steady it, and quietly he spoke into the box. “Mr. President-hello, Mr. President, we cannot hear you, we have lost you. Try again, please try again.” He remained immobilized, head cocked, listening for a response, but there was no sound. His hand shook the microphone box slightly. “T. C, this is Arthur here. Can you hear me?”
The loudspeaker stood mute. Eaton stared at it a moment, then looked about the room at the others. “I think we have been disconnected. We’ll have to get him back.”
General Pitt Fortney was already on his feet, hurrying to the ordinary green handset telephone at Edna Foster’s elbow. “Let me get hold of the Signal Corps,” he was saying. “This happens from time to time with the mechanical unscrambler. I’ll have them track the trouble down. We’ll be hooked up again in a few minutes.”
While General Fortney called the Department of the Army, reporting the communications failure, barking his displeasure, demanding that the line to his Commander in Chief be restored, Edna Foster had the mental picture, a Brueghel in animation, of a thousand little enlisted men with repair tools scurrying up and down the ramps of the Pentagon Building.
General Fortney’s stars and his ribbons and his raw Texas accent always frightened her, and she wanted to be as far away from him as possible. Since General Fortney was still on the telephone above her, Edna put down her pad, pushed back her chair and stood up. She found the silver silent butler, and began to move about the Cabinet table, emptying ashtrays into it. Here and there, around the table, the participants in the conference call had shifted positions on their chairs to discuss the President’s report of what had happened so far at the Roemer Conference and what must be done about it.
Senator Dilman was removing the cellophane from a fresh Upmann cigar, as he listened to Senator Selander and Representative Wickland discuss the possibility of expediting ratification of the African Unity Pact. Selander expressed confidence that he would have sufficient votes to obtain passage of the Pact through the Senate. Still, to win the necessary votes, he felt that he would have to do some shrewd horse-trading in the cloakrooms and at luncheons in the Hotel Congressional. He hated, he was admitting, to make concessions on the important Minorities Rehabilitation Program being debated by the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, but it might be necessary. As soon as the connection was made again with Frankfurt, he would ask the President how much he could concede to the opposition floor leader in return for his full support of AUP.
Cleaning out the last of the ashtrays, Edna could hear Assistant Secretary Jed Stover and Governor Wayne Talley once more locked in disagreement. Stover was saying that any weakness that the American government displayed in Africa would immediately aggravate Negro protest groups in the United States. Talley would not accept this. He tried to reduce Stover to the role of uninformed outsider. Talley was retorting that both he and the President had already met with the Reverend Paul Spinger, and the clergyman had assured them that the vast and conservative Crispus Society, which he headed and which had outgrown the NAACP in membership and power, would be satisfied with the ratification of the African Unity Pact.
“Wayne, I’m not speaking of the Crispus Society or the NAACP,” Jed Stover was saying. “I’m not sure they’re the voice of protest any longer. Most Negroes are becoming impatient with their drawn-out legalistic efforts. Most Negroes want what they want here and now, and they are turning to more aggressive organizations like the Turnerites. Didn’t you read Jeff Hurley’s statement in last night’s Post? He made it clear in that speech in Detroit that the Turnerites were not going to twiddle their thumbs while the Attorney General’s office studied illegal voter registration in the South or while the Crispus Society made appeals to higher courts. Hurley said they were on the verge of undertaking a new policy of unremitting demonstration, and if molested for protest, they would retaliate, demanding an eye for an eye. How do you think this group will react when they learn that the President is forcing Africans to rescind pending legislation in order to please the Soviets? This group and others like it take pride in Baraza’s unique freedom, keep using Baraza as their model of equal rights, keep insisting that is all they want here at home. I think-”
“Oh, knock it off, Jed,” Talley said impatiently. “Don’t lecture me, and don’t waste T. C’s time with that unsubstantiated nonsense. Nobody’s listening to the Turnerites or any crackpots like them. They mean nothing, nothing at all. Reverend Spinger admitted to the President that the Turnerites were a small splinter group who’d left his Crispus Society, that he wasn’t bothering to denounce or oppose them because they were inconsequential, and that there were always some elements who had to let off steam. Jed, you’ve got to stop confusing issues. Baraza is one thing. Our own domestic Negro situation is another thing. If the President can keep Baraza happy, and at the same time contain the Russians, then he has achieved a diplomatic marvel. As to our civil rights problems here, when the Minorities Rehabilitation Program is passed into law, that’ll put an end to Negro protest. Relax, Jed, just relax. Let T. C. perform as President. He’ll manage for all of us.”
“There’s too much compromise,” Jed Stover said feebly, but he seemed helpless, and said it more to himself than to anyone.
Edna Foster, after dumping the ashes from the silent butler into a wastebasket, had been watching and listening. She noticed that Arthur Eaton, slumped in his leather chair, fingers pressed together, eyes narrowed, had been watching and listening also, watching everyone, listening to everything.
Edna realized that General Fortney had completed his calls to the Pentagon, and was marching toward the center of the room opposite Eaton. “Well, finally got those chowderheads hopping,” Fortney announced. “Everything checked out on this end. Nothing wrong on this end. Our communication is A-1. Signal Corps reports the disconnection took place on the other end. Line came down in Frankfurt. They’re getting in touch with our Army Communication Center in Wiesbaden, and with our Consulate in Frankfurt. They expect repairs to be made on the double.”
“Any idea how long it will take?” asked Eaton.
“Ten minutes, no more than ten minutes,” said General Fortney. “So we’ve got a little recess before the President comes on again… Hey, Miss Foster, how’s about having some coffee brought up from the Navy Mess?”
Not ten minutes but nearly twenty minutes had passed, and still the direct communications line from the Alte Mainzer Palace in Frankfurt am Main to the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., had not been repaired.
Only General Pitt Fortney, who had asked Edna to order the coffee, had not had the time to finish more than half of his cup. Impatient with the delay, irritated by the unexplained inefficiency, he had been up and down, at the handset telephone and away from it and back to it, belaboring the Signal Corps for not yet making the President’s private line operative. Minutes ago he had bellowed into the telephone at some Pentagon underling, “Dammit, Colonel, if you aren’t fixing to get those wires up, I’m going to get SAC to fly me over in a B-70 and do the job myself. Now, get cracking!”
They were no longer gathered around the Cabinet table. General Fortney, like a caged and offended beast, was pacing near the telephone. Jed Stover stood beside the bookcase, beneath the mantel with its model ships, examining the titles of the various volumes. Near him, propped on the arm of a chair, Senator Dilman was lighting the stub of his cigar, and again reading a sheet of paper he held in his hand. Before the open door to Edna’s office, Senator Selander and Representative Wickland were engaged in a conversation. Secretary of State Eaton, his back to the others, his hands clasped behind him, stood at the French doors contemplating the Rose Garden in the dull August morning. Governor Talley was making an inquiry of Leach, the stenotypist.
Thus it was that Edna Foster found them, as she returned to the Cabinet Room from her office where she had met with Tim Flannery, the press secretary, to inform him that the conference call, while still interrupted, would soon be resumed. Passing Selander and Wickland, she heard a snatch of their conversation.
Senator Selander was saying, “Don’t you worry your head none about old Hoyt Watson. He’s the most reliable member of the Senate. Southerner or not, he’s still aware of our responsibilities abroad. He’ll go with T. C It’s that damn troublemaker in your House I’m worried about. Can’t you control Zeke Miller and that lousy newspaper chain of his? He hasn’t let up a day on our participation in Africa.”
Representative Wickland was at once defensive. “Leave him to me, I can handle him. He likes T. C He’s received plenty of patronage from T. C. If I tell him the President wants African aid, why, Zeke Miller won’t obstruct him.”
Senator Selander appeared unconvinced. “For someone who likes T. C., he’s sure raising hell with T. C.’s Cabinet. Did you see what he let Reb Blaser publish in the Citizen-American about Eaton? Dirty politics, I tell you.”
Edna Foster, who had hung back to hear the last, saw that both Majority Leaders were turning to inspect Eaton. Embarrassed at eavesdropping, she hurried to her purse lying on the table. Opening it to find a cigarette, she cast a surreptitious glance at Eaton, still at the French doors, still contemplating the Rose Garden. She wondered if he was thinking about Reb Blaser’s column in the Washington Citizen-American. Leaving dinner the night before last, George had bought the newspaper, peering briefly at the baseball scores and Reb Blaser’s story as they walked toward her apartment.
George had showed her the column. It had been devoted to the low moral tone of the Department of State, and then boldly revealed information “from an inside informant” that the Secretary of State and his attractive socialite wife, Kay Varney Eaton, were on the verge of a divorce. The gossip column had pointed out that of the 365 days past, Kay Varney Eaton and her husband had been together, in the capital city, only sixty-eight days. In fact, Reb Blaser had pointed out, she was now in Miami, being seen in nightclubs with Cartnell, the renowned decorator, while her equally renowned husband rattled around alone in their elegant Georgetown mansion. “We can only hope,” Reb Blaser had concluded, “that our Secretary of State will be more successful in maintaining peace with the Soviet Union than with his wife of two-and-twenty years.”
Edna remembered that she had considered Blaser’s column disgraceful, and she had blamed his publisher, Congressman Zeke Miller, for allowing, even encouraging, such attacks. She had been surprised to find George defending both Blaser and Miller. He had, he had said, only admiration for their news sense and for their honesty. Edna had quickly forgiven George, understanding that as a member of the White House press corps, he would naturally defend and admire his own.
Now Edna realized that Arthur Eaton had come away from the window, and caught her staring at him. Flushing, she turned away, only to observe Senator Dilman going out the corridor door, probably to the washroom. She decided to talk to Jed Stover at the bookshelves.
Starting toward the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, she became aware of a folded paper lying on the green carpet behind Stover. Quickly she went to it, picked it up, and opened it in order to find out to whom it belonged. The embossed letterhead, she saw, bore the name “Trafford University.” In the left corner was the smaller lettering, “Office of the Chancellor-Dr. Chauncey L. McKaye.” It was addressed to “Dear Senator Dilman.” Not meaning to go further, but unable to escape the typed words in the single paragraph that followed, Edna realized that the head of the University, at the suggestion of the dean of men, was writing the Senator about his son, Julian Dilman, a sophomore, whose grades had seriously fallen off and who would have to be placed on probation if this continued. She noticed words like “inattentive” and “disrespectful,” and the phrase “more interested in outside activities of late than in his schooling.”
She folded the letter, embarrassed to have seen its private contents, but for the first time she thought of Dilman as a human being. Of those in the room, she knew Senator Dilman the least. This was because, since T. C. had been President, Dilman had been less frequently in the White House than the others. Only in the few days between the Vice-President’s death and the President’s departure for Frankfurt had Dilman appeared several times with the Majority Leader. But now this letter in Edna’s hand: it gave him a son, a son who was a problem, and it made him a father, not just another senator but a human being.
Noticing that Dilman had reappeared, and was making his way toward Selander and Wickland, Edna hurried to intercept him.
“Senator, I found this on the floor,” she said. “Apparently you dropped it. I’m sorry, I had to open it.”
Senator Dilman accepted the letter with the slightest smile. “It’s quite all right. Thank you.”
Edna turned in time to see Wayne Talley approaching Eaton. “Arthur, it’s past two in the afternoon in Frankfurt. T. C.’s probably gone back into the conference. Think there’s any point in waiting around like this?”
Eaton shrugged. He addressed not only Talley but everyone. “I think we have no choice but to wait. The President just may feel this is important enough to delay the conference. He may want to speak to us further.”
As if the deferment in resuming communications was a personal affront, General Fortney charged at the regular telephone once more. For the hundredth time, it seemed, he was calling the Signal Corps.
About to continue to her chair, and shorthand pad, Edna slowed down, listening hard. She thought that she had heard her own telephone ring in her office. She was listening, trying to make it out above Fortney’s voice, when she heard Representative Wickland, the person nearest to her open door, call to her, “Miss Foster, your phone.”
She darted past the Congressman into her office, slipped between the electric typewriter stand and the table holding the television set, and caught up the receiver in mid-ring.
“Hello,” she answered, “the President’s office.”
For a suspended moment she heard nothing more than the wavy, swooshing sound that indicates a long-distance call. Then a voice came on, a strange voice from far away, and it said, “Is this the White House? Who is this?”
“This is the President’s personal secretary, Miss Foster. May I ask who is calling?”
“Oh, Miss Foster-Miss Foster-” And suddenly Edna felt goose pimples on her arms and a chill across her back, for the disembodied voice was quavering and frantic. “Miss Foster-this is Zwinn-Ambassador Zwinn in Frankfurt-Miss Foster-” The voice seemed to be choked, and then it shouted out, “There’s been a terrible emergency-get me someone-Talley-get me Talley!”
With emergency, with terrible emergency, Edna found herself shivering, and the receiver in her right hand shaking.
“One second-one second, please-” She blinked at the open door to the Cabinet Room, and screamed out, “Governor Talley! Governor, come here, something terrible has happened!”
Talley burst through the door on the run, puzzled, curious, searching her face. She merely wagged her head, wordlessly, and shoved the receiver into his hands. As he took up the telephone, she backed away from the desk, and could see the room rapidly filling with the others, all looking from her to Talley, wonderingly.
“Who?” Talley was saying into the receiver. “Zwinn? Oh, Ambassador, I didn’t know-” His speech halted as abruptly as if his throat had been cut. He listened, and listened, and as he did so, his lips began to move, but dumbness remained, and his face turned grayer and grayer until it was finally ghost-white. At last he spoke. “Are you sure? Are you positive? The President?” And then listening, lifting his head from the mouthpiece to stare at Eaton and the others. “Yes, Ambassador,” he was saying again, “yes, I understand-I can’t believe it-yes, yes, I do believe you. I’ll tell them. We’ll get right back to you.”
Talley lowered the receiver onto the cradle, and stood rooted to the spot, a portrait of stunned disbelief.
Eaton came slowly toward him. “What the devil is wrong, Wayne? What has happened?”
Talley tried to speak, tried to form the words, mouthing them, then stuttering them out. “The Pres-President-the President is dead!”
“What?” Eaton grabbed Talley’s shoulder, roughly shaking him. “What in the hell are you saying? Who was that? What did he say?”
“Arthur, that was Ambassador Zwinn. Part of that building in Frankfurt collapsed-that goddam ancient Palace-the top caved in on two rooms, and one was T. C.’s study-where he was talking to us-that’s what happened, that’s what cut off the call, broke down everything-fell on him, all of them-killed him. The President’s dead, Arthur, dead.”
Eaton was ashen, but controlled. “Are you sure? Is it certain?”
“Dead,” whimpered Talley. “Killed instantly. Blocks, slabs of granite, fell down on him, crushed him. They have the body. Two Secret Service agents in the room, too. Dead, all dead. Oh, God-God, what a terrible, terrible thing-”
That moment, the corridor door was flung open, and Tim Flannery rushed in, crying out, “Have you heard? Associated Press just got the bulletin from Frankfurt. The President-” He halted, eyes going from one dazed face to the other, and then he knew that they had heard.
Eaton’s face was hidden in his palms, and then suddenly he looked up. “The President dead,” he said. “That means the Speaker of the House-Wayne, what about the Speaker? Earl MacPherson was in there-what about him?”
Talley did not seem to comprehend.
Eaton spoke louder. “Dammit, man, is MacPherson alive or dead?”
“Alive,” muttered Talley. “He-I don’t know-I think he’s in pretty good shape-nothing critical-they’ve got him over at the hospital, they’re working on him. This is the worst tragedy in our history. The worst. What’s going to happen to all of us?”
Eaton closed his eyes. “Us?” he repeated. “The roof just fell in on us, too.”
And when he opened his eyes, Edna Foster could tell, for the first time, that they were wet. It was hard to tell, because she was weeping, and she did not know if she would ever stop…
Night had come to Washington, a city, like the nation, dumbed down in grief and mourning.
Night had come to the late President’s Oval Office, where those who had worked with him and for him, who had known him and loved him, who had depended upon him and needed him, now filled the sofas and armchairs, forlorn and disconsolate, stood in corners, heavyhearted and helpless, waiting for they knew not what.
Edna Foster, eyes swollen, lips still quivering, came into the office with the latest special editions of the evening newspapers, and wobbled through the cheerless room, passing out copies. All who had been in the Cabinet Room ten hours before were present here, but now there were also many others. Edna recognized Attorney General Clay Kemmler, Secretary of the Treasury Vernon Moody, CIA Director Montgomery Scott, Senator Hoyt Watson, Admiral Alfred Rivard, and at least a half-dozen more of equal standing. It seemed that every nook and cranny in the Oval Room was filled, except one, and that one, the vacant place tonight, was the late President’s high-backed, black leather armchair behind the Buchanan desk.
Having finished passing out the newspapers, Edna found that she was left with one copy. The group beside the French doors that led to the Rose Garden, the group consisting of Senator Selander, Representative Wickland, General Fortney, and Secretary of State Eaton, were reading the front page of the newspaper that Senator Selander held out for them. Or rather, Edna became aware, all were reading the front page except Eaton, whose attention was disengaged, whose attention was turned inward.
Edna lifted the newspaper in her hand and the mammoth headline, six inches high, assailed her: T. C. DEAD IN FRANKFURT! The second headline, almost as heavy, proclaimed: WORLD MOURNS ACCIDENTAL END OF U.S. PRESIDENT. The third headline, considerably smaller, read: HOUSE SPEAKER MACPHERSON, PRESIDENTIAL SUCCESSOR, UNDERGOES SURGERY IN GERMAN HOSPITAL.
She felt the sob grow in her lungs and throat, and suppressed it, and looked at the bottom half of the front page. The lead story, in boldface type, spilling across the width of four columns, began:
FRANKFURT AM MAIN, August 26 (AP)-The shattered body of the President of the United States lay in death tonight in a private room of the ancient Frankfurt cathedral while the entire civilized world grieved over his sudden demise.
The President was killed instantly-his smashed gold wristwatch having been stopped at 1:32 in the afternoon (8:32 A.M. EDT)-when a wing of the Alte Mainzer Palace collapsed and crashed down upon him. With difficulty, teams of West German police and firemen removed the corpse from the half ton of debris, mostly blocks of granite and crumbled brick, that showered down upon America’s head of state and three others in the historic old library from which the President was making a long-distance call to his advisers in the White House. Ironically, the President died in the ruins and rubble of one of the two 14th-century buildings of Frankfurt’s Old City spared by Allied bombers in World War II.
A German official, who did not wish to be named, stated angrily: “The Palace should have been condemned after the War. Not only was it 600 years old, but its structure had been weakened by the bombings, and never properly rebuilt and reinforced. This is a terrible tragedy, and America’s loss of one of its most popular and international-minded Chief Executives in modern times is no less our loss, too.”
At the time of the fatal accident, the President had served in office two years, seven months, and six days of his elected four-year term.
Among the first to offer condolences was Premier Nikolai Kasatkin, of the U.S.S.R., who had been meeting with the United States President this past week to work out important international differences. The official spokesman for the Soviet Union told the press: “The Roemer Conference may be considered suspended, not canceled. Some progress had been made. The points being discussed, however, still remain unresolved, and the talks must be resumed if the peace of the world is to be preserved. We anxiously await announcement of the late President’s successor to the leadership of the United States. As soon as that is made known, we hope to set a date for resumption of the meetings.”
Meanwhile, the eyes of the entire world were today focused on Frankfurt’s Hauptwache Hospital, where the President’s constitutional successor, Earl MacPherson, veteran Speaker of the House of Representatives, injured in the same accident, is undergoing spinal surgery. Three German surgeons, summoned from Munich, would make no prediction as to Speaker MacPherson’s chances, but United States Ambassador to Germany Paul F. Zwinn advised assembled reporters that there was every reason for “optimism.”
There was much more to the news story, and many more similar stories on the front page, but Edna Foster had no desire to read further. Casting the newspaper aside, she realized that Wayne Talley and Tim Flannery were whispering in the doorway to her office.
Now Talley was returning, heading for Arthur Eaton. “Stand by, Edna,” he said. Then, reaching Eaton, he said, “They have an open line to Frankfurt. No word on MacPherson yet. He’s been almost three hours in surgery. Tim spoke to Ambassador Zwinn briefly. The first phase of the operation was successful, but there’s still a way to go. But everyone is feeling better. They expect to swear MacPherson in, the minute he comes out of the anesthetic. I think Tim and I better draft a press release. There are more than a thousand accredited correspondents out there baying for news.”
“Go ahead,” said Eaton disinterestedly.
Talley hesitated. “I know how-how you still feel, Arthur. I know how close T. C. was to you. I can’t get used to it myself. I’m numb. Who would have ever dreamt that such a thing-”
“Go draft that release,” said Eaton curtly. Then he added, “Let me know the second you receive any flash on Mac.”
“Okay.”
Edna saw Talley signal her. “Edna,” he said, “Tim and I need you. I know it’s tough, but we have to dictate something about MacPherson succeeding T. C. as President.”
Sorrowfully, Edna Foster nodded her assent, hating this moment of surrender, of bitter truth, when her employer would be supplanted by another. She followed the Presidential aide into her small office, shut the door behind her, and observed that Tim Flannery had already drawn up two folding chairs. Since he and Talley were sitting, she went around the desk to take her accustomed place in the walnut swivel chair. She located her shorthand pad and several sharp pencils.
Flannery waved toward the pencils. “Don’t take anything yet, Edna. Wayne and I want to talk this out first.” Flannery had already handed the aide a sheaf of papers, which Talley was studying intently.
“Everything here?” Talley inquired, still reading.
“Everything,” said Flannery. “The boys on the Judiciary Committee pitched in, and also the justices gave us material, and for the background we had the Legislative Reference Service at the Library of Congress busy. You’ll find the Presidential Succession Acts of 1792, 1886, and 1947 in full, with pertinent sections marked out. Then there’s a lot of legal and background data, all severely condensed.”
“Isn’t it amazing how you go along and never think of anything like this,” said Talley. “You’d think I’d know most of this, but I don’t. I know eight Presidents died in office, before T. C., but I never knew this, that eight Vice-Presidents died in office, also.”
“Nine Vice-Presidents, counting poor Porter ten days ago.”
Talley looked up blankly. “Christ, I forgot all about him. Today seems to have blotted everything else out.”
Half listening, Edna doodled on her pad. Then, as Talley read on, she began to print the names of the nine Presidents, including T. C., who had died in office. She printed: William Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, Warren Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and then T. C. She counted. Eight. Who was the ninth? Then she remembered, and printed the name of William McKinley between Garfield and Harding. Next, she tried to think of the Vice-Presidents who had died in office. She could think of only Elbridge Gerry, Henry Wilson, Garret Hobart, and Porter, and not another. Finally she gave up. There was no use thinking about it. She felt ill.
She heard Talley’s strained voice. “I somehow believed that almost every President who didn’t finish his term was assassinated, but it says here that not more than four were shot down.”
“Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy,” said Flannery, fingers pressing his forehead. “Harrison and Harding died, in part, of pneumonia. Taylor’s death was caused by cholera morbus. F. D. R. suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Incredible, but poor T. C. was the only one ever to be snuffed out by an accident.” He shrugged. “I suppose it had to happen to someone sometime.” Then he added wretchedly, “Only why did it have to be T. C.?”
Edna had been watching Tim Flannery as he spoke, and there was a sweetness about him, behind his whole façade of forced factuality, that she liked very much. He was a tall Irishman, with unruly rust-colored hair, and a small reddish mustache, and a wide, ingenuous florid face, now puffy and blotched by sorrow. He looked as tweedy as his suits, with their suede elbow patches, and he had been a Midwest newspaperman who had written several highly respected history books on the side. It said much for him that most of the cynical White House press corps, and her own George among them, liked Tim Flannery.
“Chrisamighty, but I’m sure not in the mood for this,” Governor Talley was saying. His one crossed eye contemplated the ceiling and then reluctantly came down to the papers in his hands. “Well, guess somebody’s got to do it. Might as well get it over with… Let me see, Tim, says here that Speaker Earl MacPherson will fill one year and five months of T. C.’s unexpired term. Is that correct?”
“Give or take a few days, yes,” said Flannery, almost inaudibly. He seemed to make an effort to pull himself together. “All the past Vice-Presidents who succeeded Presidents had over three years of unexpired terms to fill, except Fillmore, who served two years and eight months of Taylor’s term, and Coolidge, who picked up one year and seven months of Harding’s unexpired term, and Lyndon Johnson, who served one year and three months of Kennedy’s unexpired term. MacPherson will have a long enough way to go in the-in the Presidency.”
“Yes, he will,” said Talley with gravity. He touched the papers in his hand. “You say here this is the first time in our history we have ever lost both men elected to serve us for four years.”
“Never happened before,” said Tim Flannery. “But as Clinton Rossiter wrote in The American Presidency, ‘This is no guarantee for the future.’ How right he was.” Flannery pointed to the sheaf of papers. “Did you notice that other quotation from Rossiter?”
“Which one?”
Flannery had bent forward and pointed to a paragraph on the top page. “Right there.” He read it aloud. “ ‘If we are only poorly prepared for a double vacancy, we are not prepared at all for a multiple vacancy; and it is this kind of vacancy, so I am told by colleagues who deal in the laws of probability, that we are most likely to be faced with during the next hundred years and beyond.’ ”
Talley frowned. “I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in the facts, Tim, nothing else. We’re faced with a double vacancy, not a multiple one. Let’s check the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, just get it straight, before we dictate the release to Edna.” He had begun turning the pages, and at last he found it. “Here it is. Okay, clear and simple. If the Presidency and Vice-Presidency are vacant, ‘the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress, act as President.’ ” His gaze moved down the page. “Yes, clear enough-President, Vice-President, Speaker of the House-and after that the order of succession is President pro tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, and so forth through the Cabinet.” He raised his head. “Any Speaker even come half this close to the Presidency before?”
“Not while Speaker, no,” said Tim Flannery. “One former Speaker, Polk, was later elected President. But none ever-”
“Okay, there’s always got to be a first time,” said Talley. He handed the papers back to the press secretary. “So it’s the Speaker of the House-grumpy old Earl MacPherson himself-who’d have believed it possible? Okay, that’s the law, and no matter how we feel, we might as well start dictating some kind of press announcement.”
Flannery snapped his fingers. “I forgot to get a capsule of MacPherson’s background. Some of that should be in, too.”
“Definitely,” said Talley.
Flannery twisted in his chair toward Edna. “Can you be a good girl and fetch Representative Harvey Wickland in here? He can give us what we need for now on MacPherson.”
Edna came out of her swivel chair, hastened to the door leading to the President’s Oval Office, opened it, and then halted, surprised. Everyone in the crowded room was on his feet, all converging upon Arthur Eaton, who stood in the center of the room, in the middle of the eagle of the United States seal woven into the thick green Presidential rug.
Edna turned to Flannery and Talley. “Something’s happening!” she exclaimed. “Everyone’s gathering around Secretary Eaton.”
Immediately, Talley and Flannery jumped to their feet, pushing past her into the room toward Eaton. Reluctantly Edna followed them to the center of the Oval Office.
Eaton, his voice dry and low, was speaking aloud. “I have just been called outside to take a telephone call from Frankfurt. I have terrible news to report to all of you, terrible news, and it grieves me. Speaker of the House Earl MacPherson died in surgery, on the table, under the knife, ten minutes ago. This has been confirmed. Now the Speaker is also dead.”
A great gasp swelled through the room, and off somewhere there was someone hysterically sobbing, and after that there was a sickening silence.
Edna heard Tim Flannery, beside her, whisper, almost to himself, “Multiple vacancy.”
The first to be heard speaking aloud was Governor Wayne Talley. “I don’t believe it.”
The second to be heard aloud was Arthur Eaton. “It is true.”
Then it was that General Pitt Fortney called out, “Who in the hell is T. C.’s successor?”
Arthur Eaton held up his head. “According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the next in line is the President pro tempore of the United States Senate.”
For strange and suspenseful seconds, the Secretary of State’s pronouncement hung in the air, and those who heard it were immobilized, allowing it to sink into their minds, as the curved walls with their niches and shelves of dead mementos seemed to close in on them.
“The President pro tempore of the Senate,” the Attorney General intoned, as someone might intone Amen.
And then at once, all at once, collectively, each in the room seemed to realize who this was, who their next President of the United States was, and all at once all of them, collectively, turned their gaze upon the one man who stood somewhat apart from them, near the Buchanan desk.
Everyone, it seemed, was staring at Senator Douglass Dilman. And for Edna it was frightening to see that in each person’s eyes, without exception, there was registered a look of horror.
Within thirty minutes the group, grown larger from the arrival of other members of the government, had assembled in the Cabinet Room. They stood now in a semicircle, with an opening in the center for two still photographers and two television cameramen representing the press pool, clustered around the long, dark mahogany table.
Once, while waiting, Eaton had asked Douglass Dilman if he had any close relatives or friends in the city whom he might wish to have witness the ceremony. He had replied, in an undertone, “No, sir, no one.”
Once, minutes ago, Eaton had beckoned to Edna and Tim Flannery and demanded a Bible. There was much scurrying about, but no copy of the Bible was to be found, until Edna remembered the one in the lower drawer of her desk. She had gone to get it, and found the cheap, battered Bible, a Gideon Bible she had borrowed from a hotel room in Memphis once, on a trip with T. C., and had forgotten to return, and which she now retained for reference purposes. Guiltily, she had brought in the Gideon Bible and given it to Eaton.
She found herself still standing next to Eaton, who leaned against the high-backed leather chair bearing the tiny brass nameplate “Secretary of State.”
She heard Eaton inquire of Senator Dilman, “Do you wish this open on any particular passage?”
She heard Dilman reply, “Psalms 127:1.” Slowly, Eaton leafed through the book, and then he said, “Is this it? ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’ ” He glanced inquiringly at Dilman, and Dilman swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and said, “Yes, sir, that is it.”
It was during this moment that Noah F. Johnstone, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, came through the corridor door and across the room, gravely nodding at the familiar faces turned toward him. Even without his robes, Edna thought, even in his bow tie and dark suit, the Chief Justice appeared impressive. He was a giant of a man, with a slight stoop and an uneven gait. His sunken face, wrinkled and wise, betrayed no emotion.
He came around the Cabinet table into the glare of klieg lights, nodding to Talley, and then to Dilman and Eaton, and he took his position beside T. C.’s old chair. “Are we ready?” he inquired of no one in particular, and then he accepted the open Gideon Bible from Eaton, squinted down at it, and said to Dilman, “Take the Holy Book in your left hand and raise your right hand. I will recite the oath of office as it is written in Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States. When I have finished, please repeat the oath.”
He proffered the Bible to Dilman, who accepted it and held it with difficulty in his left hand, and raised his trembling right hand. Chief Justice Johnstone lifted his own right hand, and measuring each word, he rendered the oath of office.
When he was done, he waited.
After a painful interlude, Douglass Dilman’s thick lips moved, and the words that he repeated came out low and slurred.
“I, Douglass Dilman, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
He halted, and looked around the room, bewildered, as if seeking a friend in a company of strangers. The harsh kliegs, blended with the light of the overhead neon grill, made the witnesses to the historic tableau seem ghostly. He had lowered his right hand, and suddenly Chief Justice Johnstone reached out and grasped Dilman’s right hand in his own and shook it.
“Mr. President,” the Chief Justice was saying, “we deeply mourn the passing of our beloved past President, but the continuity of our government, the welfare of our country, must stand above any one individual in these perilous times. Our hearts go out to you for your double burden-and may the Lord in Heaven bless you and watch over you as the new Chief Executive of this nation-and-as the first Negro to become President of the United States.”