Capable of Honor (18 page)

“I’m awaiting a blast any minute. Or he may just be clever enough to keep still. We’ll see.”

“I’ll bet he’s under plenty of pressure to speak out,” the Speaker said with a chuckle.

“I feel for him,” Orrin said, realizing he had said the same thing to Bob Munson about Walter, and realizing that it came from the same commingling of impatience and contempt for those who could not see their country’s best course as clearly as he could. Or, as he reminded himself with the saving grace that kept Orrin Knox from being insufferable, as clearly as he thought he could.

“Darling,” Patsy Labaiya was saying at that very moment from the house in Dumbarton Oaks, “you know we’re counting on you to introduce Walter Friday night. Why don’t you call Ted right now—collect, of course—and consult with him about it? Then you can also tell him that Walter and all his friends back here do hope that he’s going to issue a strong statement condemning this latest insanity by the President and Orrin Knox in Gorotoland. Could you do that, darling?”

Downtown in the marvelous gingerbread structure known as the Executive Offices Building, or, more historically and affectionately, as “Old State,” the director of the President’s Commission on Administrative Reform swung around in his chair and stared across West Executive Avenue at the White House. It was gleaming so brightly in the sun that Robert A. Leffingwell felt he could touch it if he reached out a hand. The snow was melting fast on the roof; as he looked, a large section slid off and doused a couple of photographers emerging from the press room. He could almost hear their shouted profanities as they jumped back. It lent an amusement to his voice that Patsy was quick to notice.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “I might or I might not, at this point. I don’t just know yet.”

“Don’t
know?”
Patsy demanded in some dismay. “Well, it isn’t any laughing matter, I can tell you that.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” Bob Leffingwell said. “I just saw a couple of friends of mine get socked by the snow over at the White House. It melted and fell down on them. Anyway, why ask me to talk to Ted? He’s your brother. You two are still speaking, aren’t you?”

“He knows what I think, we don’t have to communicate on a thing like this. It’s important that other people talk to him, though.”

“It might be important for him to stay out of it for a day or two,” Bob Leffingwell suggested. “He can’t be hurt by keeping his mouth shut, but he might be if he kept it open.”

“I don’t agree. I think it’s imperative that he say something right now while things are at their peak.”

“Do you think that this is their peak? I have a feeling we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

“Even more reason why he should speak out,” Patsy said firmly. “And you, too, I might add, especially if you’re going to be associated with him in the campaign. Have you read Walter’s column?”

“Yes, I read it.”

“Well, then,” she said triumphantly. “You agree with it, don’t you?”

There was a thoughtful pause and she repeated in some alarm, “You
do
agree, don’t you?”

“I told you, I just don’t know,” Bob Leffingwell said slowly. “I thought Walter was a little extreme. In fact, I thought he sounded hysterical. It didn’t really sound like Walter at all. He’s usually so calm and judicious.”

“This time he obviously feels very, very deeply. He obviously feels this is THE END.”

“Even so,” Bob Leffingwell said in an unimpressed voice, “I thought he went overboard. Quite amazingly so, for Walter. I wonder if he’s losing his touch?”

“He is
not
losing his touch,” Patsy said sharply. “He is just simply frightfully concerned about this insane act by the President and Orrin, that’s all. Aren’t you?” she demanded in a challenging tone. “Don’t tell me YOU’VE gone over to the enemy. That would be the day!”

“Of course I’m frightfully concerned,” Bob Leffingwell said with a show of annoyance rare for one normally so suave and self-possessed. “Don’t be a fool. Everyone’s frightfully concerned, and I’ll thank you not to impugn my intelligence or integrity.”

“I’m sorry, darling,” Patsy said hastily. “I just got carried away. But, REALLY, now, you aren’t going to side with Orrin and the President on this, are you? It would be so DREADFUL to have you on the other side. I did so want you,” she added forlornly, “to introduce Walter Friday night. It would have made it so perfect for Ted.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t introduce Walter. I just said it’s a situation that requires some thought and some restraint. I don’t know if I want to associate myself with everything he says if he’s going to be as rabid as he was in that column this morning.”

“I still don’t think it was rabid,” Patsy said stubbornly, “but if you do, I suppose I can’t change you. But honestly, you don’t want to be with Orrin and the President, do you? It’s one of those issues that narrows down to just where
does
a man stand. You’ve got to make a choice, you know. You can’t just sit out the campaign.”

“Is Ted going to fight the campaign on this issue? That would be interesting.”

“He may be forced to. It may be one of those things a candidate can’t avoid, you know. Especially with the enemy taking the other position.”

“Who is this enemy you keep talking about?” Bob Leffingwell asked with some amusement. “If you mean nice old Harley and volatile old Orrin, that seems a slightly fierce way to talk about them.”

“I think that’s the kindest tone I’ve heard you use about Orrin since he—since a year ago,” Patsy said. “You really AREN’T going over to him, are you, darling?”

“I doubt it very much,” Bob Leffingwell said in a voice that was suddenly quite crisp as they both remembered the way in which Orrin, then senior Senator from Illinois, had blocked his nomination to be Secretary of State. “Even so,” he said, less arbitrarily, “I think it is easy—dangerously easy—to oversimplify a situation like the present one. I think it is a time to be reasonable and mature in our judgments of it.”

“Darling,” Patsy said in a wistful tone, “you don’t sound liberal at all, any more. You sound just like a REACTIONARY. Don’t you think Orrin and the President have oversimplified? Don’t you think they should have been reasonable and mature? Don’t you think what they’ve done is dangerous?”

“Of course I do,” he said with a renewed impatience. “But I’m not saying I might not have done the same had I been—had I been in a position where my advice was sought. It wasn’t. If it had been, I couldn’t honestly tell you at this moment what I would have counseled.”

“Well,” Patsy said, really dreadfully shocked at this apparent betrayal of what everyone on the Right Side had always thought Bob Leffingwell stood for, “I guess if you don’t want to introduce Walter, then, we’ll just have to get somebody else. But I had so hoped—”

“I repeat,” Bob Leffingwell said, “I’m not saying I won’t introduce Walter. In fact, I will. But I’m going to reserve the right to qualify my own position as I see fit.”

“You want it both ways,” Patsy said, though she told herself she mustn’t be spiteful, it would only antagonize. “You want to be in both camps at once. I never thought I’d have to see the day when Bob Leffingwell abandoned his principles.”

“Perhaps Bob Leffingwell is learning a few,” he said crisply. “Give my best to Ted when you talk to him, because I’m not going to, at this point.”

“He would value your advice,” Patsy said soberly. “That’s the only reason I asked.”

“My advice is to keep quiet,” Bob Leffingwell said in the same crisp tone. “But I don’t suppose he’ll take it.”

Sitting in his office in Sacramento, however, staring thoughtfully down at the crowds of state employees hurrying to work along the walkways of the Capitol, the Governor of California was not being as hasty as his friend feared and his sister desired. It was still early in the West but already the full flood of Eastern opinion was shrieking from the headlines, blaring from the radio, snarling with a suave indignation from the television screens. The little turns of phrase that do so much to tear down something Walter and his world wish to tear down were everywhere apparent to the perceptive citizen:

“The
sudden
and
abrupt
American move against Gorotoland.…An action
which many Americans themselves regard as indefensible
.…A situation in which the rebels,
apparently seeking only to establish an independent government free from colonial control,
are suddenly confronted with the
ghastly ghost of colonialism,
strangely revived by the West’s leading democracy.…A minor
skirmish
and
a few
American lives, transformed instantaneously into
the sort of issue that could destroy the world
.…The President’s
inexplicable,
and
many people feel, inexcusable
decision.…”

Walter and his world had wasted no time, and dutifully the chant was being picked up in the West as well.

Ted Jason sighed as he looked at the state’s morning papers spread across his desk. The homogeneity of Walter’s world impressed him anew. It had been increasing ever since World War II until now it was virtually a solid mass of automatic opinion, swinging on cue against this issue, for that personality, as though someone punched a button. From Manhattan to the Golden Gate the cry was predictable, consistent, and virtually impenetrable by any dissenting opinion. When the big boys in the big city spoke, those who considered them the epitome of sophistication wanted desperately to speak like them. In pursuit of that goal, a blanket of conformity stultifying to thought and murderous to genuine discussion lay upon the nation. Orrin and the President, Ted told himself grimly, would have a tough time making their way against it. It wouldn’t matter much if the entire populace started out solidly behind them, Walter and his world would do their damnedest to swing the balance the other way. And if, as was certainly the case now, many Americans were divided, uncertain, and confused, the current might be too strong for even the President to overcome.

Should Ted, then, swim with it and seize what advantage he could? The way was open and it could be easy. Perhaps the President, all unknowing, had handed him the key to the White House after all. Quite possibly he had if Orrin ran, and—heady thought—perhaps he had even if he himself should run. Governor Jason was absolutely certain that if he issued a strong statement denouncing the President’s decision, the entire apparatus would be his to ride as far and as high as he could. And that, he realized with a cold-blooded calculation as he studied the harshly self-righteous journals before him and remembered the indignant and condemnatory broadcasts he had heard and seen with breakfast, might be far and high indeed.

Still, there were other things. He had to admire the President’s guts, taking such an action on the very eve of a campaign: such things were usually deferred until after, when politically it was quite, quite safe. Many a staunch defender of the nation was braver after November than he ever was before. Harley Hudson had preferred to meet the issue head-on and do it now. So, too, had Orrin Knox, who had gone into it with his eyes open, knowing it was to be a decision that he too must carry should the President retire and he become an active candidate for the nomination. Ted Jason, not for the first time, was forced to admire the courage and integrity of his principal opponent.

And his own courage and integrity? Recalling how Ceil, very glamorous and Givenchy as always, had paused in the doorway to look back at him this morning, he had wondered if these qualities were showing signs of the strain they were under.

“Sweetie, I must dash,” she had said with her cool little humorous air. “That thing the P.T.A. convention is putting on, you know, that breakfast for distinguished ladies. Of whom,” she commented with an amused expression, “they seem to think I am one. I shall try not to make a speech. If I do, I shall try not to mention Gorotoland. But, my dear”—giving him that long, slanting glance that he sometimes felt might penetrate his defenses, though it never had and they both knew it; but Ceil kept trying in a humorously halfhearted way—“my dear, what about you? Can you get by without, today?”

“I don’t know,” he had confessed. “Do you think I should?”

“Whatever you decide I shall be for,” she said with the look repeated, the humor exaggerated. “I’m a politician’s wife. I go along.”

“That’s not responsive to my question,” he told her with his calm, self-possessed smile.

“I repeat,” she said with her cool, cordial little laugh, “I’m a politician’s wife. You name it, I’m for it.”

“Then you think I shouldn’t say anything. Sit down a minute,” he had added impatiently, but with the basic good nature that underlay all their discussions, “and stop being the social butterfly long enough to apply that magnificent brain of yours to it.”

“Sweetie!” she cried. “You say the nicest things!” But she complied and, disposing herself gracefully across from him at the huge old table gave him a long, analytic stare which he returned unflinching. “You
aren’t
sure, are you?” she observed finally. “I thought Ted Jason was always cold, calculating, self-assured, and ruthless. As the papers say. Not so much this morning, eh?”

“The stakes are very high,” he remarked, gesturing at the papers spread about. “Look at this reaction.”

“Very high in every way,” she agreed, slipping off one of her gloves and studying her long, handsome fingers critically in the sunlight that fell across the comfortable room. “Politically and personally both. I imagine if you hop on the bandwagon it might carry you right on up. I also imagine your voice would be more powerful than any other single voice in slowing the bandwagon down, if you so decided. It poses a problem.” She slipped the glove back on, clasped her hands on her purse, and looked at him with her shrewd, level gaze. I’m glad it isn’t mine.”

“Tell me what to do,” he suggested. She smiled and shook her head.

“I know what honor would suggest, but perhaps conviction is too strong for it. And ambition. It isn’t everybody who’s lucky enough to have those two coincide. Perhaps you should make the most of it.”

“But you don’t think I should.”