Note to the Reader
This novel, like others in the Advise and Consent series, is not a prediction of what will happen. It is a prediction of what could happen if certain attitudes and trends in America and the world proceed unchecked to their logical conclusion.
As such, it will of course receive the usual shrill denunciations from that sector of the media whose members have done so much to help create the attitudes and encourage the trends.…
Come Nineveh, Come Tyre: The Presidency of Edward M. Jason, is the first of two sequels to Preserve and Protect which will conclude the Advise and Consent series.
Its companion volume, The Promise of Joy: The Presidency of Orrin Knox, is scheduled to appear in 1975.
Most of the characters in this novel, and the background of most of its events, have appeared in its predecessors, Advise and Consent, A Shade of Difference, Capable of Honor and Preserve and Protect.
In Advise and Consent (written in 1958, published in 1959) will be found the nomination of Robert A. Leffingwell to be Secretary of State; the accession of Vice President Harley M. Hudson to the Presidency; the successful Soviet manned landing on the moon; the death of Senator Brigham Anderson of Utah; the appointment of Senator Orrin Knox of Illinois to be Secretary of State following Bob Leffingwell’s defeat by the Senate. There also will be found the marriage of Orrin’s son, Hal, to Crystal Danta, the marriage of Senate Majority Leader Robert Munson of Michigan to Washington hostess Dolly Harrison, and many other episodes leading into later books.
In A Shade of Difference (written in 1961, published in 1962) will be found the visit to South Carolina and New York of His Royal Highness Terence Wolowo Ajkaje, ruler of Gorotoland, with all its explosive effects upon the racial problem in the United States and the United Nations; the beginnings of the war in Gorotoland; the early stages of Ambassador Felix Labaiya’s activities in Panama looking toward seizure of the Canal; the opening moves of California’s Governor Edward Montoya Jason in his campaign for the Presidential nomination; the death of Senator Harold Fry of West Virginia and his decision to entrust his son, Jimmy, to Senator Lafe Smith of Iowa; and many other episodes leading into later books.
In Capable of Honor (written in 1965, published in 1966) will be found the bitter convention battle between President Hudson and Governor Jason for the Presidential nomination; the selection of Orrin Knox for the Vice-Presidential nomination; the escalation of the war in Gorotoland, the outbreak of war in Panama, and their effect upon the Hudson-Jason battle. There also will be found the ominous formation of the National Anti-War Activities Congress (NAWAC), which turns the convention into a near battleground and puts Edward M. Jason increasingly in pawn to the lawless, the sinister and the violent.
In Preserve and Protect (written in 1967, published in 1968), there will be found the violent aftermath of the sudden and mysterious death of just-renominated President Hudson; the furious contest in the National Committee between Orrin Knox and Governor Jason in their struggle for the nomination; the open civil rebellion of NAWAC in its drive to nominate—and dominate—Ted Jason; and the climactic episode at the Washington Monument Grounds where Orrin Knox, nominee for President, and Edward M. Jason, nominee for Vice President, meet the destiny that furnishes the basis for Come Nineveh, Come Tyre and The Promise of Joy.
Running through the first four novels, through this and its successor—as it runs through our times—is the continuing argument between those who would use responsible firmness to maintain orderly social progress and oppose Communist imperialism in its drive for world dominion; and those who believe that in a reluctance to be firm, in permissiveness and in the steady erosion of the law lie the surest path to world peace and a stable society.
Far-called, our navies melt away,
On dune and headland sinks the fire.
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
—“Recessional,” Rudyard Kipling
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