Authors: Philip Roth
the whole thing. More accurately, the lack of brains.
You see, that's really our number one clueeverything
else aside, this was a pretty stupid thing
to do to the President. There he is, the President,
and they do a stupid thing like this. Now if this is
somebody's idea of a practical joke, well, I for one
don't consider it funny. You're not just stuffing
anybody into a baggie, you're stuffing the President
of the United States. What about the dignity of his
office? If you have no respect for the man, what
about the office? That's what really gravels me,
personally. I mean, what do you think the enemies
of democracy would think if they saw the President
of the United States all curled up naked like that.
Well, I'll tell you what they'd think: they couldn't be
happier. That's just the kind of propaganda they
love to use to brainwash people and make
Communists out of them."
"Do you think then that the assassin was an
enemy of democracy as well as a madman?"
"I do. And as I said, a practical joker. Fortunately,
we happen to have a complete file on all madmen
who are enemies of democracy and
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 161
practical jokers, and they're under constant surveillance.
So I don't think there's going to be any
trouble finding our man, or madman. And even if
we don't find him, we've got the Boy Scouts from
Boston who confessed to this thing in reserve, so
I'd say, on the whole, we're in much better shape
than we were last time, and are really just waiting a
go-ahead from the White House . . ."
"We are privileged to have with us in the studio
one of the most distinguished members of the
House of Representatives, a leading Republican
statesman, and a friend and confidant to the late
President. Congressman Fraud, this is a sorrowful
day in our nation's history."
"Oh, it's a day that will live in infamy, there's no
doubt about that in my mind. I am, in fact,
introducing a bill into Congress to have it declared a
day that will live in infamy and celebrated as such in
coming years. What you've got here, as Chief
Heehaw at the FBI was saying, is a real lack of
respect for the office of the Presidency. What
you've got here in this assassin is a very disrespectful
person, and, I would agree, probably a madman to
boot."
"Do you have any idea, Congressman, why the
White House continues at this late hour to refuse to
confirm the story of the assassination?"
"I think it goes without saying that we're in a
sensitive area here, and consequently they want to
move cautiously on this whole thing. I think they
want, first off, to gauge the public reaction here at
home, and then of course there is the reaction
around the world to consider. On the one hand
you've got our allies who depend upon us for
support, and on the other hand you've got our
enemies who are always on the lookout for some
chink in our armor, and if you keep all that in mind,
then I think you have to agree that in the long run it
is probably in the interest of our integrity and our
credibility to cover this whole thing up. I would
think that some such reasoning as that is going on
behind the scenes at the White House right now."
."Has the First Lady been notified?"
Oh, of course."
"What was her reaction?"
"Well, she was understandably quite overcome in
the first moment. But, as you know, she is a very
decorous woman, even in moments of great
emotion. Consequently, her immediate reaction was
to note that the manner in which the assassin went
about the assassination was in extremely bad taste.
The baggie aside for the moment, she thinks that at
the very least the President should have been slain
in a shirt and a tie and a jacket, like John F.
Charisma. She says there was a suit fresh from the
dry cleaners in the closet at the hospital, and that it
really shows
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
163
that the assassin was a person of very poor breeding
to have failed to recognize how important it is for
the President, of all people, to be neatly and
appropriately garbed at all times. She said she just
had to wonder about the upbringing of a person
who would forget something like that. She said she
didn't want to blame the assassin's family, until she
knew all the facts, but it was clear she felt there
probably could have been a wee bit more attention
given to good grooming in his house when the
assassin was growing up."
"Congressman Fraud, there has been some
speculation that the President's assassination is a
reprisal for the destruction yesterday of the city of
Copenhagen. What do you think of that idea?"
"Not very much."
"Can you explain?"
"Well, it just doesn't make any sense. The
President himself went on television, after all, and
explained to the American people the situation in
Denmark and why we might have to destroy
Copenhagen. Now he didn't have to do that, you
know-but he did, because he wanted the people to
have all the facts. So I just don't see how you can
fault him there. And, I must say, in praise of this
great country, that except for a few elderly people
out there in Wiseonsinand they of course turned out
to be of Danish
164
OUR GANG
extraction, and obviously didn't have any objectivity
on this matter at all-but except for those few
irresponsible demonstrators out there shouting
dirty words in Danish, the overwhelming majority
of the people of this country have taken the
destruction of Copenhagen with the wonderful
equanimity and solidarity we have come to expect
of them in matters like this. No, I just can't see
where somebody is going to assassinate the
President for a sound policy decision such as this
one, and that even goes for a madman. No, he had
the mandate of the people here, lunatics included."
"And the mandate of the Congress as well?"
"Well, of course, as you know, there are unfortunately
a very few Congressmen and Senators -I
guess you could call them headline seekerswho will
go so far as to try to make political hay out of the
bombing of a little Godforsaken village out in the
middle of nowhere, some crossroads nobody has
ever heard of before and surely after the bombing
will never hear of again-so I leave it to you to
imagine what such
politicians are going to do with the nuclear de
struction of a place like Copenhagen. In their
behalf, however, let me say that even
they
would
not be so reckless as to assassinate the President
because of a difference of opinion over some
thing like bombing sites. I mean, nobody's
perfect. One President chooses this target, one
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
165
President chooses that target, but fortunately we
have in this country a political system that can
accommodate itself to that kind of disagreement,
without recourse to assassination. And by and large
I think you can say that
in
the end the mistakes in
judgment and so on shake themselves out, and we
pretty much destroy the places that need destroying.
It seems to me, in fact, that as regards the
destruction of Copenhagen, you'll find that even
among the President's staunchest critics in the
Senate, there was a sense that a decision of that
magnitude simply couldn't have been arrived at
lightly or arbitrarily. I think most of the truly
responsible members of the Congress feel as I do,
that having made a strong show of strength such as
this in Scandinavia now, we are not going to get
ourselves bogged down there later the way we did in
Southeast Asia."
"So you see no connection between the 'Something
is Rotten in Denmark' speech and the assassination?"
"No, no. Frankly I can't believe that the murder
of the President has to do with anything he has ever
said or done, including his courageous remarks in
behalf of the unborn and the sanctity of human life.
No, this is one of those wild, crazy acts, just as the
FBI describes it-the work of a madman, and, as the
First Lady suggests, a pretty ill-mannered madman,
at that. It seems to me that any attempt to find
some rational political motive in anything so bizarre
and boorish as stuffing the President of the United
States unclothed into a water-filled baggie in the
fetal position is so much wasted effort. It's an act of
violence and disrespect, utterly without rhyme or
reason, and cannot but arouse the righteous indignation
of reasonable and sensible men everywhere."
"-the hairy, the half-cocked if you know what I
mean, the hammer-and-sickle supporters, the
hard-core pornographers, the hedonists, the Hell's
Angels, those whom God won't help because they
won't help themselves, the hermaphrodites, the
highbrows, the hijackers, the hippies, the Hisses,
the homos, the hoodlums of all races, the heroin
pushers, the hypocrites-"
"Yes, the tribute has begun, the tribute to the
man they loved more than they knew. By trains
they come, by busses, by cars, by planes, by
wheelchairs, by feet. Come some on canes and
crutches, and some on artificial limbs. But come
undaunted they do, like pilgrims of yesteryear and
yore, to honor pay to him they loved more than
they knew. Reaped by the Grim Reaper before his
reaping was due, he brings us together at last, as he
promised he one day would do. And doing it he is.
For in they come, the ordinary
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
167
people, his people, barbers and butchers and
brokers and barkers, tycoons and taxidermists and
the taciturn who till the land. It is, I daresay, a
demonstration the likes of which he who has been
grimly reaped by the Grim Reaper did not, alas,
survive to witness. No, during his brief residence on
this planet Earth, and his three years in the White
House, they demonstrated not to honor him but to
humiliate him, not to pay him homage and respect
but to shout their obscenities at, and display their
disrespect toward, him. But these are not the
obscenity-shouters and the disrespect-displayers
gathering here tonight along the banks of the
Potomac-banks as old as the Republic itself-and