4
But it wasn’t very certain, and as afternoon wore on into evening and then into night, it was again obvious that there were many in influential places who wanted, not compromise, but victory, for their views.
“It is amazing,” Walter Dobius wrote rapidly in the den at “Salubria,” hushed and quiet in the gently steaming twilight of the lovely Virginia countryside, “how rapidly politics can be rearranged in this fantastic land. One moment Mrs. Ceil Jason, supremely attractive, supremely qualified, supremely able, is the nominee for Vice President. Two hours later, by her own wish and deliberate decision, she is no longer the nominee for Vice President.
“Instead, she is the highly partisan supporter of the man who trounced her husband for the Presidential nomination—and has aligned herself with him in opposition to all those sincere lovers of world peace who formed the principal basis of her husband’s overwhelming political support.
“The true motivations for this must always remain a puzzle and a bafflement to all who worked for the cause of Edward M. Jason. His wife gave no real reasons for her decision not to run, other than her repudiation of what she chose to term ‘the violent’—thereby ignoring all the millions of perfectly decent, genuine, nonviolent citizens who simply cannot stomach the ill-fated military adventures in Panama and Gorotoland. Nor did she really pay any genuine tribute to her late husband. Her comments were strangely lukewarm, strangely qualified. Almost, her listeners might have believed, she had never really supported him, and was not too sorry he was gone.”
Walter paused and reconsidered. That phraseology was a little harsh. Perhaps he was letting himself get carried away. He struck out the words “and was not too sorry he was gone,” and proceeded, with his customary emphatic touch on the keys, to the next paragraph.
“Certainly she does not now support any of the things in which he believed. Since this unhappily seems to be the case, most observers believe it is just as well that she has voluntarily removed herself from the ticket. Her continued presence would have been an unfortunate distraction that would only have strengthened the pro-war policies of the Secretary of State should he become the President. Her presence as an independent campaigner for the Secretary, which is what she apparently intends to be, will be distraction enough. It is better for all concerned, most of political Washington feels, that she be relegated to the status of private citizen—where, it is to be presumed, she will simply be a pale and repetitious echo of the official Knox line.”
You hope, he told himself with a certain savage impatience. You hope Ceil Jason, the lovely, the intelligent, the powerfully appealing both in her own right and as glamorous widow, will be a pale echo. Otherwise, Orrin still has a plus even if she isn’t on the ticket. He stared out gloomily for a moment into the velvet dusk. Believers in Right Causes such as he always had their difficulties. The Lord never made it easy.
“Her withdrawal,” he wrote on presently, “of course reopens the great issue of the national convention, and of the National Committee meeting which finally, after intensely bitter controversy, gave the Presidential nomination to Orrin Knox and the Vice Presidential to Edward M. Jason. That question is: Will war or peace be the fate of America in the next four years?
“And will a bellicose Presidential candidate shadowed by the mysterious death of his peace-loving running mate be able to impose his will and place beside himself another who thinks as rigidly as he along the old warmongering, imperialistic lines that have so disfigured the last two Administrations?
“It is time, in the opinion of most observers here, for all who love peace to appeal to the National Committee as they have never appealed to it before.
“By a tragic turn of fate—and by Mrs. Jason’s arbitrary refusal to lend herself to the peace-keeping cause—they have been given one more chance to control and, hopefully, nullify, the warlike tendencies of the man who may well be the next President.
“It is to be hoped they will not allow the opportunity to pass.”
Nor were they, he reflected with considerable satisfaction as he reviewed the events of the hours since Ceil had made her dramatic renunciation.
The mobs of NAWAC were still in place, encamped in the parks and behind the barbed wire guarding both banks of the Potomac. Their banners were defiant, their mood unrelenting. From their principal spokesman, Senator Fred Van Ackerman of Wyoming, had come a statement opposing any compromise in what he termed “this great battle to save American democracy, and the world.”
“It is unbelievable to all dedicated members of the National Anti-War Activities Congress,” he went on, “that Mrs. Ceil Jason should have removed herself in such an almost frivolous manner from the cause for which her husband labored and died. It is with a bitter regret that we hear her announced intention to join the pro-war forces represented by the candidacy of Orrin Knox.
“The executive board of NAWAC, acting on behalf of the membership, endorsed that candidacy because its members firmly believed that Edward M. Jason as Vice President would be able to restrain the imperialist adventures of his running mate. It now must reassess that decision.
“It is incumbent upon all members of NAWAC and all who believe in the right of democratic protest against the big-stick imperialist diplomacy of the present American government to examine most carefully any new name proposed to fill the vacancy on the Knox ticket. It is also incumbent upon them to make their opinions emphatically known, and, if necessary, to express most vigorously their opposition to any candidate who does not fully endorse and actively support the peace-loving policies of Edward M. Jason.”
In similar vein, and at times in language almost as strong, Super-media weighed in. The Times, the Post, The Greatest Publication That Absolutely Ever Was, Time, Newsweek and all their think-alikes across the country joined in sharp unanimous criticism of Ceil for her decision and her support of Orrin, unanimous insistence that only one cast in the mold of her husband could possibly be chosen to fill the Vice Presidential vacancy. Without quite inciting to riot, Frankly Unctuous and his colleagues of tube and airwave did the same. From “activist” professors, clergymen, lawyers and movie stars of a certain headline-avid type came equally fervent pronouncements. Giving them assurance that they were doing the Right Thing for the Right Cause around the world, many leading journals, politicians and expounders-on-American-shortcomings joined the chorus.
So efficiently and effectively did the one point of view blanket the nation and the globe that it seemed impossible that Orrin Knox could, or would, dare to do anything but exactly what his critics wanted.
All this, of course, as his critics well knew, did not take into account Orrin Knox. Even as they attempted to bring pressure upon him, those who knew and had studied him most closely were aware that he would do exactly what seemed best to him. They were taking a calculated gamble that they could stampede him. But none of the knowledgeable believed it would do much good.
Even so, he was not living, of course, in a vacuum; and though his first instinct after Ceil’s withdrawal was to cut his ties to the Jason wing of the party and begin working for someone aligned entirely with his own point of view, he knew it could not be done. His constituency, like that of any American President or Presidential candidate in the twentieth century, was far broader than that, encompassing as it did not only the diverse elements of his own party and his own country but those of the entire world as well.
Somehow he must find a path between all the conflicting forces that had suddenly, with Ceil’s decision, returned to harass him again. He respected her decision and was delighted with her frank declaration of support, but he wished unhappily that she could have seen her way clear to accepting his offer. It would have simplified many things. Now they were all awry again.
Thinking about this as his heavily guarded caravan moved out from Kennedy Center through the hooting throngs to return him, his family and his immediate advisers to Spring Valley—“war group seen dominant as Knox calls in president, Munson, Leffingwell to advise on vice presidential nomination”—he had concluded finally that he must win by political finesse what he could not win by direct assault. Accordingly he went through the motions as soon as they reached the house and were safely inside. Here, too, there were generally hostile mobs; here, too, a large cordon of troops and police held them back. He was jeered into his own house, and from time to time, as at the Center, distant murmurs of anger or resentment or scorn erupted in the distance. But at least here he was away from the insistent eyes of television and the press, and could deal with his problem in the private consultations which he now felt provided the only medium through which it could be solved.
“Bill,” he said without preliminary when they were seated in the comfortable study where he had formulated so many ideas, written so many speeches, read so many books, prepared so much legislation, “how wedded are you to the idea of returning to the House?”
The President blinked and gave him promptly the answer he had counted on.
“Too wedded to accept the Vice Presidency, if that’s what you mean, Orrin. You need me as Speaker again. God help you if you get Jawbone Swarthman.”
The mention of the voluble chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, hiding his Phi Beta Kappa intelligence behind his deliberately exaggerated corn-pone accent, brought a brief moment of amusement. Orrin nodded.
“I suppose you’re right on that. However, I think I could deal with him and it might be that your presence on the ticket would give me just the extra strength I need to win the election and carry the House. Which at the moment,” he confessed with a sudden glumness, “I am not at all sure I can do.”
“I’m not sure either,” William Abbott agreed, “but I think you’d damned well better try. I can be more help to you with that, I think, if I stay free of the ticket. Not that I mean any disrespect to you,” he added quickly, “or any disloyalty. I think for the sake of the country you’ve got to win. It’s just a question of where I can be of most assistance. Plus the fact,” he said with a wry little smile, “that I’ve had it with the White House. I haven’t minded being a ‘caretaker President,’ as the Times called me, but I’m one of the few men in American history who is genuinely and entirely ready to step down. The Hill’s been my whole life, after all. I don’t really enjoy it much at the other end of the Avenue, though I’ve tried to do my best.”
“And have,” Orrin said, “and we are all grateful and indebted to you for it.”
“All indebted, anyway,” Bill Abbott said. “Not all grateful, by any means.…No, I appreciate it very much, Orrin, and like Ceil, I’m deeply sensible of the honor. But I don’t think you’d better try to name me. It would throw the Committee into the screaming meemies, and we’ve had enough of that.”
“Whoever I name will throw it into the screaming meemies,” the Secretary of State said with some of his old tartness. “I’ve got to expect that. I just want the effort to be worth the uproar.” He turned to the Senate Majority Leader, sitting back comfortably relaxed in his chair, but even before he spoke, Bob Munson interrupted with a lifted hand to give the second answer Orrin had counted upon.
“Orrin,” he said, “thanks, but no, thanks. Like Bill, I belong on the Hill. You need me there, I can do you more good there, and anyway, the Jason faction would never accept me. There’d be a hell of a fight to no purpose, and the upshot would be that you’d just have to start all over again. Even if we did get my nomination through, Ted’s supporters would never give the ticket their wholehearted backing. It would cripple you all the way and might very well lose you Congress.”
“They’ll never give the ticket their wholehearted support as long as I head it, anyway,” the Secretary said in the same tart way. “And I may lose Congress whatever I do. Why not be consistent, as I always have?”
“Until you accepted Ted on the ticket,” Senator Munson pointed out with a smile. “You ain’t old All-the-Way Orrin anymore.” He leaned forward, abruptly serious. “No, Orrin, I can’t do it for you, much as I’d like to. It would cause too much resentment, too many problems. Let me stay where I am and run the Senate for you. It’s what I do best.”
“Very well, then,” he said, turning to Bob Leffingwell, sitting quietly across from him near the fireplace. The man whose nomination for Secretary of State he had defeated a year and a half ago in the Senate, the man he had told at the convention he would name as his own Secretary of State, tensed and stared at him with a startled disbelief. “The biscuits are getting cold, Bob, but if you can understand the reasons why you’re last, and forgive me, I would like to offer it to you. In fact,” he added with the sudden amiable air that was one of his appealing characteristics, “I’d like to have all three of you. That can’t be done, so I’ve had to take you in order of rank. So how about it?”
For a moment Robert A. Leffingwell did not reply. Then he said in a skeptical voice, “Surely you must be joking, Mr. Secretary. Surely you cannot be serious. I cannot imagine a choice less suited to the position, or one more likely to provoke a storm in the Committee, in the country and indeed just about everywhere. I just can’t believe you’re serious.”
“I’m not being frivolous, if that’s what you mean,” Orrin said with some sharpness. “Of course I’m being serious. I have faith in your abilities, otherwise I wouldn’t be planning to make you Secretary of State.”
“Your faith has changed,” Bob Leffingwell said quietly, one last reference to their bitter confrontation at the time of his original appearance before the Senate, “and I am still not sure it has changed for the better.”
“You have changed,” Orrin said, “and that shows much to me.”
“It shows weakness and wishy-washiness to many people, including the Jason camp,” Bob Leffingwell said. “First I oppose our foreign policy, then I support it, first I oppose you, then I support you—what does it add up to?”
“The same as it adds up to with me, I like to think,” the Secretary said shortly. “Some ability to change and grow and accept the facts of a shifting world. Adaptability and character are what it shows to me. I always knew you had the brains, now I know you have the character. I don’t appeal to you frivolously.”
“And I don’t reject you frivolously,” Robert A. Leffingwell said slowly, giving the third answer Orrin had counted upon, “but I feel I must reject you.” He turned to the others, men with whom he had once differed bitterly but whose views he had come finally to support. “What do you think, Mr. President?” he asked. “What do you think, Senator? Don’t I make more sense”—a touch of wry amusement robbed the question of its sting—“than he does?”
“You do to me,” the President said bluntly. “It won’t wash, Orrin. Too many problems. And this, Bob, with no disrespect to you. Just the practicalities of it, as you say.”
“With which I concur,” Senator Munson said. “Too many enemies, too much controversy, too many allegations of weakness and equivocation—some of them,” he reminded Orrin dryly, “by you—no, it’s going to be tough enough getting him through the Senate for Secretary of State. Vice President I can’t see at all, I’m sorry to say. I can see his personal merits but I can’t see his political viability.”
“And political viability, Mr. Secretary,” Bob Leffingwell said calmly, “is what you must be concerned with now. So: thank you, but, like the Majority Leader—no, thanks.”
“Well,” he said with enough asperity to make them think he was really being forced to consider alternatives other than the one he had been considering all along, “then you force me to fall back on my last line of defense. See what you think of it.”
He was pleased that they thought it an idea both viable and exciting. A quick phone call produced the astounded but delighted agreement of the potential nominee. A pledge of secrecy sent them out of the house in Spring Valley to face, without response other than patient smiles, the barrage of questions from the waiting press; and he was alone in the study to contemplate what he would do tomorrow when the Committee met again.
As he considered it, and as his three guests considered it after they left him, the logic of it seemed—as logic always does to those who think of it—impeccable.
But this, of course, was planning without really considering the Committee, the media or the friends of Edward M. Jason, all of whom retained their considerable and continuing ability to make trouble.
Again the Committee came, through mobs again unruly and armed forces again at ready, to Kennedy Center in August’s suffocating sun. Again he was introduced as “the next President of the United States,” again he surveyed them for his long, characteristic moment. Again he spoke, and again controversy rose and raged and swirled about his words.
“Mr. President,” he said quietly, looking, sounding and acting much stronger, “yesterday I nominated a great lady for the office of Vice President, and yesterday she declined. I was as astounded as any of you and as fully dismayed. But life affords us no luxury of prolonged regret in these hurrying days. We must move on.
“I am deeply grateful for Mrs. Jason’s declaration of support and I know it will help me immeasurably, in the campaign and after. I expect to take full advantage of her generous offer of assistance, for America knows no more intelligent, lovely and capable woman. I am very lucky indeed to have her on my team.”
Far came the distant booing, while in the room there was a mixed and uncertain sound as some applauded vociferously, some hesitated, some grumbled among themselves but grudgingly concurred. Ceil Jason as ardent partisan of Orrin Knox was still a difficult concept for many to assimilate: except that, as with so many things in politics, what happens happens, and the astute are well advised to be nimble and make the most of it.
“I could not agree with her more,” Orrin said, “concerning the dangers of the violent in this country.” There was a sharply rising sound from the world outside: his only acknowledgment was to speak more firmly. “I shall do everything I can to stop them, and I shall do everything I can to drive what they represent out of American life.
“This does not mean,” he said sharply over the angry roar that answered, “that honest dissent cannot have a place. Nor does it mean that I shall be arbitrary in my policies or harsh in the treatment of opposing views. It simply means that I shall do my utmost to see that political debate in America is no longer disfigured and besmirched by intolerance, hatred and what has already come very close to civil rebellion.” Again the roar rose, again he challenged it sharply. “In my campaign, and in my Administration if such there be, I will have none of it. On that I give you my absolute and unshakable pledge.”
Sullen, protesting, angry and unappeasable, the animal sound retorted. Inside, united on this one thing as on perhaps no other, the Committee applauded with heartfelt concurrence, while some among the audience looked skeptical and some among the media made appropriately ironic remarks.
“We meet again today,” he said quietly, “with our problem still unsolved. I have considered very carefully several courses of action.
“I could throw the nomination open and let it be decided on this floor. This is what will eventually happen anyway, of course; but to do it without any suggestion from me would be to create even more controversy than might normally be expected. I think there is a responsibility resting on me to again offer advice, and I think many of you feel that I should have the opportunity.” There was a restless stirring in some parts of the room, and with a sudden smile he added calmly, “In any event, I intend to take it.…
“I could also be arbitrary, of course, and demand that it be my suggestion or no one. This would automatically increase the controversy by a very substantial degree. Nothing would be gained by such an arbitrary policy save greatly increased bitterness, and, perhaps, the complete breakdown of our proceedings.
“By the same token, of course, any similar arbitrariness on the part of those who don’t quite see eye to eye with me would produce the same result. Therefore, it seems to me, we had best find another compromise. I have one to suggest. No doubt there may be others. But at least we should begin in a reasonable spirit of discussion. With luck this will lead us on to agreement—hopefully, a reasonably early and cordial agreement. We can then get on with what is, after all, our major business: winning the election.”
He paused, took a sip of water, appeared to study his notes for a moment while he let the thought sink in. Again he had issued the tribal call to battle, and again they were realizing, as he knew they would, that their paramount interest as politicians was just what he said it was: winning the election. He hoped, although he wasn’t as sanguine as he appeared, that it would help to keep all but the most maverick in line.
“Today,” he resumed with a return of the quick, appealing humor, “I am going to offer you a man. I didn’t have too much success with a lady yesterday. Maybe I’ll do better today.…” The humor faded, seriousness returned.
“This is a man well known to all of you, a young but already much-distinguished member of the Congress who has served his country superbly in several fields. Not only has he distinguished himself in Washington, but as a diplomatic representative of his country he has performed with great integrity, under great provocation, in another arena.”
In the audience, seated side by side, Congressman Cullee Hamilton of California and Senator Lafe Smith of Iowa, members of the American delegation to the United Nations, suddenly began to breathe very softly and listen very intently, not daring to look at one another, though very many were suddenly looking at them.
“There are others,” Orrin said quietly, “to whom I might have turned; others with more years, longer records in national position. But after considering those who to me seemed most deserving, I decided upon this man for four fundamental reasons: he is young, he is experienced, he is supremely able and he is as devoted to peace as anyone in this room or anyone within sound of my voice. Those, I think, are the desiderata which must govern us today.
“He has one other qualification that he was born with”—he smiled, and Lafe, without turning his head, gave Cullee a nudge with his elbow and whispered, “Right on, man!” Cullee, with a great effort, suppressed the start of an excited grin and kept his face impassive. But he returned the nudge. “A qualification which in a sense both is, and isn’t, important. To those who attach great importance to it, it may outweigh all his other qualifications. To those who regard him first and foremost, as I know he regards himself, as an American, it will be nice but not overwhelmingly relevant. It may give him a slight edge in working with the many diverse interests among his countrymen” (“And a slight edge in stopping opposition here,” the Times remarked sardonically to Newsweek. Newsweek nodded) “but other than that, it is, in the last analysis, immaterial when it comes to judging him. Certainly it has been immaterial in my mind” (“Oh, sure,” Newsweek whispered. The Times responded with a knowing glance) “as I hope it will be in yours.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Committee,” he said with a concluding fall in his tone that brought them all to a tense silence, “you need no lengthy or flowery introduction. You know him well and favorably. I have faith and confidence in him and believe he would make a great Vice President, and also a great President should the need ever arise. His name is Cullee Hamilton and he is presently Congressman from California. I commend him to your most serious consideration.”
And he left the lectern and sat down, exchanging a glance with Cullee, who beamed back with such innocently happy excitement that all friendly observers were pleased. Not all, however, were friendly.
From outside there came a long, astounded, uncertain sound. In the room applause rose, pleased and enthusiastic from Orrin’s supporters, dutiful—and ready to have second thoughts—from the Jason camp. It was apparent that the second thoughts were swift in coming. Roger P. Croy was on his feet requesting recognition. The President granted it, a certain tiredness in his voice. Roger Croy picked it up at once.
“Now, Mr. President,” he said, showing a carefully calculated testiness of his own, “if I bore the Chair, I am sorry, but it does seem to me that we had better stop, look and listen now, rather than later. This nomination by the candidate for President faces us squarely once again with the fundamental issue we have been contending over ever since the convening of the national convention.
“Let me state it with some of his own famed candor.
“It is salvation or disaster.
“It is war or peace.
“It is life or death.”
There was an approving roar beyond, a vigorous burst of applause within. Blair Hannah was on his feet, flushed with annoyance. A mask had come down over Cullee’s handsome face. He looked somber and ominous. The innocent happiness was gone already. Such was the withering effect of the present suspicious world.
“Mr. President,” Blair Hannah said, “I think we can do without the flamboyant rhetoric of the national committeeman from Oregon. The distinguished nominee for President has offered us the name of a candidate for Vice President worthy in every respect of our trust and support. He is a fine young man, able in public service, dedicated to the cause of world peace, thoroughly responsible in every way. He is also—”
“He is also,” Roger P. Croy interrupted, “one of the chief architects of a consistently disastrous foreign policy, and the fact that he is black is not going to be sufficient to bamboozle those who abhor that policy into forgetting it. If the candidate for President thinks this, he is unhappily mistaken. He is, as usual, being too clever.”
“Mr. President,” Mary Buttner Baffleburg cried angrily, roly-poly little body shaking with indignation, “look who is dragging in the race issue here to confuse everything. That—great—liberal, Mr. Roger P. Croy! It has no place in these discussions, Mr. President! It is so much hogwash!”
“Hogwash or no,” Roger Croy retorted, flushing but holding his ground, “it is patently clear to many of us that the candidate for President is making deliberate use of it to confuse the issue and secure approval of a Vice Presidential candidate who agrees one hundred per cent with his own point of view.”
“Is that bad?” Asa B. Attwood inquired innocently, and at once Roger P. Croy rounded on him with a fine show of righteousness.
“Yes, it is bad!” he said sharply. “And I will tell the committeeman from California why. It is bad because it would reverse the hard-fought decision of this committee when it chose Edward M. Jason. It is bad because it would wipe out all the elements of balance that we struggled so hard to achieve. It is bad because it would make the ticket simply Tweedledum and Tweedledee, betray all the supporters of Edward Jason and give the man who may be our next President virtual carte blanche to continue headlong down the road to endless overseas involvement and endless war. That is why it is bad, Mr. President, and I for one intend to oppose it as vigorously as I know how.”
“I think the issue is race,” Asa B. Attwood said with a calculated indifference, turning his back deliberately upon Roger Croy. “If the committeeman wants to be tagged with that, it’s his responsibility.”
“The issue is not race!” Roger Croy cried, his anger entirely genuine this time. “That is a vicious, unprincipled, unworthy falsehood, I will say to the committeeman from California! It is entirely typical of the tactics with which Orrin Knox and his supporters have acted here, throughout. It is just one more of those vicious, unprincipled—”
“Well, now!” William Abbott interrupted with a sudden thunder that startled into silence all except CBS, who murmured dryly to NBC, “I thought that would bring a little work with the gavel.” And the President did indeed use it, so hard that it seemed it must break the lectern.
“I do not propose,” he said, as the room became abruptly silent, keeping his tone level but breathing hard, “that this committee degenerate once more into the name-calling aggregation of political asps that it turned into a week ago. We have some responsibility to proceed in an orderly fashion to make the grave decision that devolves upon us, and I for one don’t intend to let us get into personalities if I can help it. The committeeman from California and the committeeman from Oregon will both be in order, because we shan’t proceed until they are.”
And he stopped and stared angrily at Asa Attwood and Roger Croy until both began to avoid his gaze and subside, looking annoyed and resentful but not quite daring to challenge him. Seated at the President’s side, Orrin stared out impassively at the room, face devoid of expression. From outside there came a scornful, mocking sound.
“Now,” the President said after a sufficient period of silence had elapsed, “we will proceed. You have heard the nomination, you know the man, you are all aware of all the issues—God knows we have discussed them enough in recent weeks. Your candidate for President has given you his second nomination for Vice President. How many more must he offer before you condescend to act? Who will move that we approve this nomination and give the country what it seeks from us, a worthy and responsible choice for Vice President?”
“Mr. President!” Esmé Harbellow Stryke cried, as across the room a dozen other Jason supporters also sprang angrily to their feet. “Oh, no, you don’t, Mr. President! We won’t have that kind of railroading here! We just won’t have it! There will be a fair and open debate on the qualifications of the proposed nominee, or I for one will walk out, Mr. President, and then where will your precious committee be? And I don’t think I will be alone, either!”
And she sat down, her sharp-featured, intelligent face peering angrily about like that of some shrewd little fox. From many of her colleagues came supportive shouts of “Hear, hear!” and from beyond the walls a massive, approving roar.
Abruptly the nominee for President made a sudden decisive gesture, rose and came forward to the lectern.
The President, taken by surprise, said, “Are you sure you want to—?” Orrin nodded with something of his old brusqueness. The President shrugged and turned to the Committee.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “Secretary Knox.”
He stood for a moment, supporting himself with a firm grip on the lectern, while his audience first stirred, then settled down. An intent, absolute concentration came upon them. Into it he spoke with a biting impatience and an annoyance he did not bother to conceal.
“Members of the Committee—my co-workers in this campaign: either we choose a nominee for Vice President here today or we open the door to squabbles and divisions that could occupy us for weeks, ending in a party so badly split that we could never win. That is not how I conceive your function. It is to achieve unity, and to win.”
“Whose fault are the divisions?” Ewan MacDonald MacDonald inquired in a gentle undertone just loud enough to be heard. There was some amusement in the room, a raucous hoot from the grounds outside. Orrin raised his head with a sharp, uncompromising anger and stared straight at Ewan MacDonald.
“If you think it is mine,” he said with a harsh directness that left them breathless, “I am prepared to get out of the way. If you want me to withdraw Congressman Hamilton’s nomination, I will do so. If you want me to withdraw my own, I will do so. Is that what you want? Make the motion!”
(“Make it, God damn it!” the Times whispered savagely to the Post; but the moment for a decisiveness to match the nominee’s was gone almost before it existed. “They haven’t got the guts,” the Post whispered savagely back; and as Orrin had accurately foreseen, they didn’t. His gamble was won the instant he took it.)
For perhaps thirty seconds there was absolute silence while his gaze remained locked with that of the committeeman from Wyoming. No one whispered further, no one spoke, no one moved. The world hung suspended until Orrin exercised his option to set it back in motion. When he did, it was his world again. “Orrin’s little extra” had once more carried the day.
“Very well,” he said quietly, and in the room and outside there seemed to be a universal expulsion of tightly held breath. “So we go forward together. And if we go forward together, we go forward together. I have offered you my choice of Vice President. Vote him up or vote him down, but vote. The whole world is waiting on you.”
And he turned and went back to his chair while the tension held just too long for the supporters of Ted Jason to take advantage of it.
“Mr. President,” Blair Hannah said quickly, “I move the Committee approve the nomination of Representative Cullee Hamilton of California to be our nominee for Vice President of the United States!”
“Second the motion!” Mary Buttner Baffleburg cried.
“Vote!” cried the friends of Orrin Knox.
“BOO!” cried NAWAC.
“Mrs. Jennings,” the President said quickly, “will you be so good as to act as clerk for us again?”
“Alabama!” Lathia Talbot Jennings cried, so eager to comply that she uttered the name even as she got up and scurried to the stage, trailing a startled amusement in her wake to lighten, if only briefly, the angry moment.
And the vote was on.
When it concluded the President stood for a moment looking over the wildly excited room. Then he faced full into the cameras, the watching nation, NAWAC and the world.
“On this vote,” he said, his voice showing just an edge of the universal tension, “the Yeas are 651, the Nays are 642, and the Honorable Cullee Hamilton of California is the Vice Presidential nominee of this party.”
After that, for a few minutes, there was pandemonium as the media scurried to broadcast, note and record the reactions of the Committee, the audience and the crowds outside. When all the counterclaims of “Marvelous choice!” and “Railroad!” had been faithfully reported and immortalized, the room settled down again into a restive, buzzing semblance of order. Into it the President said quietly, “Ladies and gentlemen, the next Vice President of the United States.”
Cullee came forward to the podium, helping Sarah Johnson up the steps, seating her in the chair hastily provided by one of the sergeants at arms, shaking hands with the President and with Orrin. Then he turned to face the room. His expression was somber. The burst of excited applause that had greeted him from Orrin’s supporters quickly died away. In the tumbling minutes since Orrin had offered his name his mind had raced through several alternative things to say. He had finally decided to tell them exactly how he felt. With the honest bluntness that had distinguished his utterances in the United Nations and in the House, he proceeded to do so.
“Mr. President,” he said, “Secretary Knox, members of the Committee, ladies and gentlemen:
“I accept your nomination and I shall do everything I can to help this ticket win in November, and to help create a responsible and forward-looking Administration starting next January.
“I don’t think,” he said, raising a hand to silence the automatic response that came from his friends and Orrin’s, “that this will be easy. I don’t think any of us should be under any illusions about that. It is going to be very difficult for all of us, and mostly so for President Knox. Let’s talk about that for a minute.” His expression turned stubborn, curiously youthful.
“To begin with, I don’t think either Orrin Knox or I should have to apologize for the fact that I am black. There’s not much either of us can do about it at this late date. There it is. If it makes it impossible for some of our colleagues to support the ticket, so be it. I daresay we can get along without them if we have to.”
From the press tables there came a hardly muffled snort of derision, from outside a long, rolling roar of boos. Roger P. Croy flushed with indignation and Esmé Stryke’s tense little body seemed to quiver with it. But he gave them look for look and went on, unimpressed.
“It looks as though maybe we’ll have to get along without some other people, too, and to them I say: we couldn’t care less. Neither the Secretary nor I have been beholden to the kooks, the crazies, the vicious or the violent. We haven’t had them and we don’t need them now. But we do need everybody else—all responsible Americans who believe, as we do, that we must return to a reasonable ground of decency in our public life, while at the same time maintaining a strong foreign policy abroad—above all, a patient but firm attitude toward the Soviets.”
(“Those damned right-wing clichés again,” the Christian Science Monitor whispered to The New York Post. “We thought we had all that licked with Jason,” the Post agreed morosely. “And now look where we are. Right back where we started.”)
“If this makes the ticket,” Cullee went on, and again the sarcasm came into his voice, “just a matter of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, then so be it. I don’t think myself that it does, because I have had some differences with the Secretary in the past, and I expect I’ll have some in the future.”
(“But not on foreign policy or defense,” Justice Davis murmured to Patsy Labaiya, holding herself ostentatiously rigid with disapproval of the speaker. “Not on anything that really counts.” “I know,” she responded. “It’s frightful. Simply FRIGHTFUL.”)
“So there will be divergences,” Cullee said, “and I expect I’ll not hesitate to tell the President about them. And I expect he’ll hear my advice”—he paused and turned deliberately to Orrin, who nodded (after all, what else could he do? CBS inquired of ABC)—“because that’s the kind of frank understanding we have always had, and that’s the kind of man he is.”
He paused, lifted his head, stared straight out; a thoughtful, almost wondering expression crossed his face.
“This is quite a day,” he said with a sudden childlike candor that was most disarming to all but his harshest critics, “for a little black boy from Greenville, South Carolina. There are two people I wish could see me now. One is my mother, bless her heart. And the other is that old curmudgeon Senator from my native state who isn’t with us any more, Seabright B. Cooley. I think maybe they’d both be proud. I think so.
“Anyway”—and suddenly he grinned, for a moment unashamedly and openly delighted, before the realities of the world closed down and his expression turned somber again—“I am, and that’s for sure.…
“So,” he concluded solemnly, “I accept your nomination. I pledge you everything I have in me. I say with our candidate for President—let us move forward together. We have a big job to do. Let’s get started!”
And he turned, as the applause, now disposed to be generous, rolled up from the room, and from NAWAC’s distant hordes the booing answered back, to shake hands with the President, with Orrin, Hal and Crystal, with Lathia Talbot Jennings, who gave him a sudden impulsive kiss and then turned bright pink. Then he and Orrin were standing together at the lectern, hands linked and raised high, posing for the cameras; a reminiscent moment suddenly tense for everyone, but passing this time, of course, without incident in the tightly guarded room.
“This special emergency meeting of the National Committee,” the President said, stepping forward to bring down the gavel with a final decisive crack!, “stands adjourned sine die. Goodbye, and God bless you all.”
And Orrin had the running mate he wanted, and the savage campaign, as of that moment, was begun.