The Last President: A Novel of an Alternative America (3 page)

“I doubt that,” Adams said. “But I’m quite willing to believe that the President of the United States thinks there are Communist agents secretly supporting the party that’s trying to oust him—implacable enemy of communism that he is. The man doesn’t seem to trust anyone.”

“Don’t you think it could have been just a political move?”

Adams shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “But that’s the most stupid of the possibilities. Any professional intelligence officer would have assessed the gain against the possible damage and dropped the idea. If you get caught, you could blow the whole campaign, and if you don’t get caught, what can you learn? Where the next pep rally is going to be held? No, if I had to vote, I’d go with the President’s paranoia.”

“But you think I did right in going along with it?”

“I’m not going to give you right or wrong,” Adams said, “but you did what you had to do. You had no acceptable choice.”

Kit nodded. “But it’s nice to hear someone else say it.”

Adams looked up at the gathering clouds for a moment, “I’ll tell you something else.”

“What’s that?”

“Be prepared for a sudden job offer from the White House.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know, but it will either be in the Executive Office Building or in Antarctica. And listen—either way, keep in touch.”

PRESIDENT REELECTED

LANDSLIDE 61% MAJORITY

carries every state but massachusetts:

fails to carry district of columbia

—
Washington Post, November 8, 1972

Charlie Ober ran his staff meetings like a Prussian officer. When he was at UCLA he’d taken a course in European History in the Nineteenth Century, and The Prussian General Staff had been required rea
ding. The description of the orderly, Spartan existence of the Prussian officer had touched Ober somewhere deep in his soul. He joined ROTC, but found them too namby-pamby and disorganized, so he dropped out six months later. The advertising agency he’d worked for after graduation had frowned on Prussian tactics in the office, but these government types almost seemed to expect it. They lined up docilely in the rows of seats in front of his desk, waited quietly for him to come in, stood as he entered, and otherwise behaved as subordinates should. It was very gratifying to see how effective his methods of office management were.

They watched without expression as he marched across to his desk, his broad but trim frame held in military fashion, his dark, thinning hair slicked back against his skull. It never occurred to Charlie Ober that his childish tantrums when thwarted, along with his absolute power over his subordinates’ jobs, might have something to do with their attitude.

“The President wants to start this term with a clean slate,” Ober told the mass of faces of the assembled executive staff staring up at him like pink raisins in a pudding. And a token black raisin. “So he wants us all to hand in our resignations.”

There was a murmur of surprised protest from the raisins.

“Now, if we’ve done good jobs, and I’m sure all of us have, then this will just be
pro forma
. The President will spend a week or two going over all the resignations, and refusing to accept those of persons he’s happy with. He’d appreciate a short paper with your resignation telling him why you should have your job back. You know—what you’ve done while in the office, why the office itself shouldn’t be abolished.”

A young staffer stood up. Ober didn’t remember his name. “You mean we work our asses off getting the President reelected, and for the next two weeks we won’t know whether we get to keep our jobs? That doesn’t seem fair. Why doesn’t he just ask for the resignations of those he’s not satisfied with? Why make the whole staff go through this?”

Ober leaned forward, his palms down on the desk, and memorized the young man’s face. “It’s not just the executive staff,” he told them. “Everyone in an appointive office anywhere in the country is being asked the same as we are. It’s to show the voters that they’re going to get a new beginning. ‘A new beginning’ is the phrase we’ve picked for the first year of this term. We might even get a couple of extra bills through the Democrat Congress on the strength of that phrase alone. But we have to do something to make it look like more than hollow words. This is part of that something. Do you understand?”

Ober looked around, seeing dismay on some faces, dogged acceptance on others. His foot tapped a disjointed rhythm behind the desk, in an unseen but habitual accompaniment to the thoughts on his mind. There was Coles, whose resignation would be accepted with little regret: a man who didn’t know the meaning of the word loyalty. Bender, in the corner, would be left to sweat it out for an extra week and ponder the significance of Ober’s words.

“Those of you who have been loyal to the President,” Ober said, “have nothing to fear. But loyalty must come first, even before our jobs. If it was in the President’s best interest for me to quit my job, I’d resign tomorrow.”

Teaseman stood up now, at Ober’s nod. “I’ve prepared a model resignation form we can all follow,” the stout man from Press Relations said. “Of course, for your job description and accomplishments in office you’re, heh heh, on your own.” He sat back down.

“Any questions?” Ober asked.

“Whose bright idea was this?” That was Barry Coles, puffing on his unlighted pipe.

Ober drew his tight lips apart in a smile. “We may all give suggestions and ideas to the President,” he said, “but the decisions are his alone.”
And I’m going to enjoy putting it to you, you insubordinate son of a bitch!

Sten Craig, Ober’s aide, raised his hand, and Ober nodded to him. “What are the legal implications of this, jobwise?” Craig asked. “Like, what happens to seniority and benefits if you put in your resignation?”

A perfect question, perfectly timed. That should get their minds off the moral aspects of this thing. Hit ’em in the job if you want to get their attention. Ober had been proud of the question from the moment he thought it up two hours earlier. “The resignation will not affect job benefits,” he said. “Unless, of course, it’s accepted. And I’m sure none of us in here have to worry about that.”

The thin smile came on his face again. “Let’s have them in to the Oval Office by Monday morning, okay, fellows?”

It was early Thursday afternoon when Kit got back to his office in the Executive Office Building, having spent the morning at a CIA briefing.

Barry Coles had the next office. A thin, ascetic Columbia economics professor who had been brought into the administration as a token Eastern intellectual, he spent most of his time puffing on his pipe, reading airmail editions of British magazines, and preparing position papers that disappeared, unread, into the files.

Now he was methodically packing up the belongings in his desk. “I hate to part with the electric stapler,” he said, waving the device at Kit as he paused in the door. “I feel as though it’s grown to be a part of me, and I part of it.”

“You could claim it followed you home,” Kit said. “What happened, you finally quit?”

“I hand in my papers with the rest of the herd,” Coles said, “fully expecting to be—I think the expression is culled.’”

“What papers?”

“You don’t know? Where’ve you been this morning? We’ve all been requested to hand in our resignations. Part of the President’s ‘New Broom—Clean Sweep’ program. They will not, of course, be accepted. Except in a few cases—like mine.”

“You think this is all one of Charlie Ober’s machinations?”

“It has all his earmarks, doesn’t it? Little sneaky move that looks good till you get up close to it. You want to see my resignation?” He pulled a paper off his desk.

Sure.

“Here. They gave us a form to follow, but it was a puling, mealymouthed sort of resignation, not the direct ballsy resignation that the public has a right to expect from their servants.” He handed it to Kit, who read it with amused interest.

From: Barry Coles, Ph.D.

Adviser on Economic Affairs,

Foreign Department of International Trade

The Executive Office Building

To: President, the United States

Subject: Resignation

I resign.

Sincerely yours,

Barry Coles, Ph.D.

Accomplishments while in office:

Papers produced: 37

Papers acted on by executive branch: None

Papers read by executive branch: None

Score: 0 for 37

“I think I’ll follow the standard form,” Kit said, handing the documents back. “One gets the feeling you haven’t been completely happy here.”

“It’s been invaluable for me,” Barry told him. “But I can’t say I see what they’ve gotten out of it.”

“What was its value to you?”

“It’s impossible to really know about government until you are one,” Barry said. “Even ignored as I am in this little office, I’m closer to the center of power than I will ever be again. There’s a certain exhilaration in being on the inside. Don’t you ever feel it?”

Kit shook his head. “Not me. I’m nothing but a highly paid messenger boy. It was much more exciting over at the Agency before I accepted the President’s shilling.”

“You mean the Department of Agriculture, don’t you?” Coles asked, smiling.

“Sure do,” Kit said. “You know, there’s nothing stranger looking in this government than a document with a cover sheet stamped ‘Department of Agriculture—Top Secret.’ Are you going to be happy back at Columbia? Where all you can do is teach about government instead of being one?”

“Home, as a wise man once said, is where they have to take you in. At Columbia I’ve got tenure. Here, all I’ve got is heartache. I understand that in previous administrations the Presidents used to listen to the people they hired to give them advice. They wouldn’t often do anything about it, but at least they listened.”

“It does seem as though many of us are here more for show than substance.”

“Why are you here?” Barry asked.

“I ask myself,” Kit said. “They offered me the job because I did them a favor, but why I took it…I suppose was something of the feeling of getting closer to the center of power. And a feeling that it might be good for my career. When I go back to the Agency, I may skip a few grades.”

“Well, be careful of this president,” Barry Coles said. “You have no control over his actions, but the same brush can give you a good coat of tar. If these advisers of his take him too far down the wrong path, don’t get dragged along.”

“You’ve been soured,” Kit told him.

“I,” Coles said, “am naturally sour. What I’ve been is sobered. Come look me up in New York.”

“You have my word.”

The phone in Kit’s office buzzed, so Kit gave Coles a quick handshake and dashed over to pick it up.

“Mr. Young?” the operator’s nasal voice asked.

“That’s right.”

“There’s a Mr. Schuster down here to see you. Shall I send him up?”

“Mr. Schuster?”

“That’s right. He’s with the
Washington Post
.”

“Oh.” What the hell could the
Post
want with him? “Sure, send him up.” He couldn’t talk about his job—not that there was anything to talk about—but refusing to see the
Post
man would give the appearance of having something to hide. Not telling him anything would merely make Kit seem like a normal bureaucrat.

After a few minutes, a slight young man with a prominent nose appeared at Kit’s door. He had on a raincoat at least two sizes too big for him and a fedora that must have been his father’s. A cigarette dangled from his lips. “Mr. Young?”

“That’s right,” Kit said, getting up. “Mr. Schuster?”

“Right. I’m a reporter for the
Post.
Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Have you any identification?” Kit asked. The question was reflex.

“Right. Here.” The young man pulled cards from his wallet that showed him to be Ralph Schuster, 28, of the
Washington Post
city desk. He had a District of Columbia Police press pass and a congressional press pass to go along with his D.C. driver’s license. The three photographs on the documents showed that he varied between sporting a beard and going clean-shaven. At the moment he was clean of face.

“Okay,” Kit said, handing the cards back. He waved Schuster to a chair and flopped back into his own. “You can ask whatever you like. You understand that I reserve the right not to answer.”

“Of course,” Schuster said. “Is it true that you’re the White House Liaison for Intelligence Matters?”

“That’s what it says on the organizational charts.”

“Is it true that you moved into this job on the nineteenth of June?”

“I think that’s also a matter of public record,” Kit said. “Why?”

“Mr. Young, I want you to help me. Anything you can say will be of help, either on or off the record. Your confidentiality will be completely respected.”

Kit leaned back. “What are we talking about?”

“Let me lay my cards on the table,” Schuster said. “Here’s what I’ve got: On the night of the sixteenth of June the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Towers were burglarized by five men. They were arrested in the offices by plainclothes officers of the Metropolitan Police. A camera was left behind when they were removed. The film in that camera had not yet been exposed. The men were released at the request of the CIA, and the operation was hushed up to the extent that the boys of the DNC didn’t even find out that the men had been arrested. DNC was told that they were apprehended in the building but released at that time for lack of evidence, whereas actually they were taken to the station house and booked before they were released.

“I traced the camera back by its serial number. It was one of several purchased by the Fleming Importing Company, which a cursory check showed to be a CIA front operation.

“You were the CIA man on duty at the Washington DOD desk that night. You were called to the police station. You met with the men. You made a mysterious phone call. The men were then released. Two days later you suddenly take a job with the White House.”

Schuster paused and lit a fresh cigarette from the stub of his last. Then he crushed the stub out in the glass ashtray on Kit’s desk. “That’s what I’ve got,” he said.

Kit stared at him. “That was five months ago,” he said finally. “Isn’t that a long time to be following up a minor burglary?”

“That’s the trouble,” Schuster said. “I’ve been doing this pretty much on my own time. The city editor thinks it’s a minor story, too. I don’t. I smell something big in it. I’m learning to trust my nose, and, Mr. Young, this story smells. What do you think, Mr. Young? Was it a minor burglary? Who were the five John Does, Mr. Young? What were they after in the DNC headquarters?”

“You put me in a difficult position, Mr. Schuster,” Kit said. “As you must know, I can neither confirm nor deny any part of your story. I do have a job in the Executive Office. So do about two thousand other people. I did come from another branch of government; so did most of them. I did come to work on a certain date, two days after an event you claim happened. I’m sure that most of the other people here come to work within a day or two of something significant happening somewhere.”

“You could deny my story, Mr. Young,” Schuster said. “If you wanted to, you could deny it. If it wasn’t true. If any part of it isn’t true, you could deny that part. Supposing I go over it again, point by point, and if there’s any part of it you’d like to deny, stop me when I reach that point. Okay?”

Kit laughed. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry, Mr. Schuster, but I have nothing to say on that subject.”

“Right,” Schuster said. He stood up and pulled a card case out of his jacket pocket. “Here’s my card,” he said, extracting one from the case. He scribbled on it with a ballpoint. “That’s my home phone, if you want to get me direct for any reason. You can leave messages at the
Post
number anytime—twenty-four hours. Thank you for talking to me.” He flipped the card onto the desk.

“I wish I could help you,” Kit said.

“I can wait,” Schuster said. “Five months already, like you said.” He left the office and strode down the hall, his oversized raincoat flapping almost to his ankles.