A thing of state, p.24
A Thing of State, page 24
“It won’t be me.”
“That implies that if he doesn’t, you’re going to have to force him to, right?”
He leaned forward, half-humorous, half-earnest.
“Listen, lady! I’m not going to back down; he’s going to back down. You’re like too many Americans, you know—you’re too absolute. It’s either/or from the git-go, with no room to maneuver. That’s what I’m leaving myself, I’ll say again, room to maneuver! Don’t worry. I’ll work it out.” He smiled. “Have faith in the President of the United States. He won’t let you down.”
“He doesn’t think he will,” she said, “but he just might be mistaken. Anyway,” she added, rising and holding out her hand for his glass, “have another martini. It helps the world stay rosy.”
“I’m not being rosy,” he protested, but humorously. “There’s a realistic situation here, I’m trying to handle it realistically.… About half, thank you. If Sidi and his friends bomb Washington tonight, I want to be alert.”
“No doubt you’d joke your way out of it,” she remarked, handing back his glass half full as requested. “But they just might. It’s a strange world we live in.”
“That’s right,” he agreed as two members of the kitchen staff came in with a food trolley and began to prepare their trays. “But not that strange.”
* * *
It was this eternal confidence of his that made him sometimes so difficult to work with, the Secretary of State told his wife as they, too, settled in for a rare meal at home—“off the circuit,” as Mary put it.
This seldom-possible luxury always began, weather permitting, with drinks on the terrace of their Washington Harbor apartment overlooking the Potomac, now dark and deserted in the soft spring night. On the other side the highways sparkled with the steady stream of lights from the incessant flow of traffic, homeward-bound into Virginia.
“Self-confidence in a President,” he said, “is fine, but there are times when he overdoes it. He’s convinced that Sidi’s going to give in, so all he has to do is charm the daylights out of the world and all will be well. It isn’t going to be that easy.” He smiled, rather ruefully. “At least, that’s the way I hear it. From my contacts. Which haven’t been too helpful, today.”
“Bets appreciated your call,” Mary said. “She was glad you had time to be a father, along with all your other headaches.”
“A welcome note of human reality,” he remarked wryly, “‘midst th’ encircling gloom.’ I hope that doesn’t turn out to be something really serious. I can’t believe Boo and Samir would do anything foolish.”
“Men,” she said with equal wryness. “They love to play games. We’ll just have to hope … Did you have a nice talk with Tony Marsden?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “When all’s said and done, Britain’s still the most reliable friend we have in the world.” He gave her a candid look. “He upset me a little, though.”
“Oh? How so?”
“He asked me if I would resign if the President took a course in this matter that I couldn’t conscientiously support.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I’d have to consider it very carefully and weigh a loss of influence through resignation against what I could do if I stayed in there and pitched for what I believed, in the hope that I could turn things around. He seemed to think this was equivocating. It seemed only realistic to me. What do you think?”
“It may be something you’ll have to face one of these days,” she said. She gave him a long and thoughtful look. “I’m surprised you haven’t faced it with this one before now.”
“Well, you know I haven’t,” he said. “So far, we’ve managed to see pretty much eye to eye on things.”
She smiled.
“And in the State Department they don’t train us to be radicals. It would take a very substantial difference of opinion for you to do anything like that, I would think.”
“It’s not inconceivable, though,” he said, sounding suddenly rather anxious, as though she, too, were questioning his integrity.
She smiled again.
“No, no,” she said. “I know that. What’s your particular worry with this President? How might it come about, would you think?”
“The same thing we’ve discussed. Take a stand and then run from it … issue a threat and then weasel away from it … demand adherence to principles and then betray them … state a moral position and then abandon it … destroy a little further the credibility and the moral and psychological strength of the United States … continue the pattern of recent years, made even more obvious and more devastating by the fact that this time we’re being blatantly challenged as never before, and by a pipsqueak country at that.”
“And that’s what he’s proposing to do?” she inquired. “I haven’t seen any signs of it—yet, anyway. Are you sure you’re not worrying unnecessarily?”
“Maybe I am,” he said. He smiled. “Maybe it’s Eulie’s influence. She’s so convinced he’s going to waffle that she may have worried me into seeing things that way too.”
“But of course if you did think there was an irreconcilable difference—”
“Then I would have to restudy my position with great care,” he said gravely.
She gave him a sudden amused look.
“Which is Statespeak for maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I’m afraid if it comes to that point I’ll be siding with Eulie. I think then you had better restudy your position—hard—and then do it.”
“It would depend on the circumstances,” he said.
Her amusement deepened.
“It’s just as well I’m not Secretary,” she said. “I still don’t quite fit the mold in spite of all my years in the Foreign Service. You’re much more the organization type than I am, at heart.”
“I’m surprised the bureaucracy never caught up with you,” he remarked, also with amusement. “You’re such a radical.”
“That’s me,” she said. “And if I didn’t have so much faith in your integrity, I’d really raise hell. But I suspect that if it really came to a basic moral point, you’d be true to yourself. You always have been, after all.”
“I’ve tried,” he said. He stood up and started toward the built-in bar at the other end of the terrace. “How did we get into this sanctimonious talk, anyway? Have another drink.”
“Just build up the ice and the tonic,” she said. “Forget the gin. That will do fine.… When do you go to the UN?”
“Next Friday, Kumbatta tells me. Want to go along?”
“Sure,” she said. “It’s always interesting to watch the circus in action.”
“You can help me lobby for our resolution.”
“Is it going to be a strong one?”
“I hope so,” he said. He frowned as he returned her glass, refreshed his own. “We haven’t got the final language worked out yet. I’m not sure the President knows exactly the wording he wants.”
“More importantly,” she remarked, “what wording do they want? That may be the determining factor.”
“Not if we can help it,” he said flatly.
“That sounds very secretarial,” she told him with a smile that removed most of the sting—not quite all, but most. “Is it really going to be that easy?”
“No,” he confessed glumly, settling back in his chair. “It may be a hell of a fight.”
“If the President sticks with it,” she said.
“Which is where we came in,” he agreed wryly.
Later, when they were eating the cheese soufflé she had prepared, still on the terrace, so mild was the night, the phone rang. He answered and found it to be Reginald Pennebaker Sims, calling from his place on the river up in Potomac, Maryland, just over the District line.
“Ray!” he exclaimed with his usual flamboyance. “Have you and his majesty really thought through what you want to do with this Sidi bastard?”
“Pretty much,” Ray said. “But I’m sure you have some invaluable insights for us, Penny.”
“Don’t be sarcastic,” the ex-Secretary of State advised. “Are you folks alone? Are you eating?”
“Yes and yes,” the Secretary said, “so make it brief, please.”
“Oh, I’ll call you back later, then.”
“No,” Ray said firmly, knowing that the prospect of free time later would only encourage Penny to fill it to the limit with his characteristic orotundities. “Let me have it right now.”
“I’ll be brief,” Penny promised.
“Do,” the Secretary said.
“Stand firm!” Penny said. “Stand firm! Smite the bastard hip and thigh! De-nut him, Ray, de-nut him!”
“I would like to,” the Secretary said grimly, thinking of poor Creed Moncrief, poor savaged body now mercifully reduced to ashes and scattered on the Potomac near Key Bridge by his grieving family. “But it isn’t that simple.”
“Make him an international pariah!” Reginald Pennebaker Sims urged, and Ray could see the bristling handlebars of his glorious mustache jumping up and down and vibrating in the winds of righteous indignation. “Isolate him, devastate him, destroy him!”
“We’re going to do our best, Penny,” Ray Stanley said, “allowing for all our friends at the UN who appear to want to be more gentle with him than we do.”
“Oh, those,” Penny said, scornfully dismissive. “They never had any doubts where I stood, Ray. They jumped when I said jump!”
“Yes, well,” the Secretary said, “the situation is very fluid at the moment. Even more so than in your day, Penny. They don’t jump quite as easily as they used to, I’m afraid. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
“Do you need any help?” Penny asked, trying to sound offhand and casual, which was not easy for him. “I would always be glad to come to New York and help you lobby, either as a member of your official party, or just as a private, interested individual, or—”
“No, thank you, Penny,” Ray Stanley said hastily. “You just stand by and hold yourself available for whatever appearances you’re asked to make down here, and help us that way. That will be an invaluable contribution.”
“I have been invited to go on MacNeil/Lehrer with a panel next week, and there’s a possibility of Able Montague,” Penny said. “If any of the shows come to you for suggestions, you might bring up my name. My new book, The Consequences of Indecision, will be out in August, remember. It’s getting some very good advance blurbs, from you among others.”
“And so it should,” Ray said sincerely, reflecting that Penny was like Oliver Goldsmith, whose friends said, “He writes like an angel but talks like Poor Pol.” “They all know you,” he said. “I’m sure your name is being kicked around in a dozen offices. I’ll certainly push it along if they come to me.”
“And you’re going on with Sally Holliwell on Sunday,” Penny said. “She’s a bright young thing.” (All of forty-three, the Secretary thought.) “I hope you’re going to give ’em hell, Ray.”
“I shall certainly try to make our position entirely clear,” the Secretary said. He placed a hand half over the mouthpiece and called out, “Yes, Mary, just a minute. I just have to say goodbye to Penny.”
“Well,” Penny said, unperturbed but conceding, “I must run along and let you get back to your meal. Give her my love, Ray. She’s the one who ought to be Secretary, you know, not you!”
“Very diplomatic, Penny,” Ray said dryly. “That’s what everybody says. Thanks so much, I’ll tell her. And thanks for calling. Your advice is always welcome.”
“Anytime,” Reginald Pennebaker Sims said comfortably. “Anytime.”
“One who wants you to stand firm, anyway,” Mary said with a smile.
The phone rang again, she picked it up this time, said, “Yes, dear, just a minute,” and handed it to him. “And another.”
“Eulie,” he said warmly. “How goes it?” His expression changed, became grave; Mary put down her fork and listened. “I am so sorry,” he said finally. “Yes … yes, I understand … yes, of course … no, you mustn’t try to do that. You just stay right there and … no, you mustn’t, Eulie. You just stay there. Don’t try to come in, he needs you there … Well, okay—whatever you think best. But I still wish you’d—all right, whatever you like. Would you like Mary to come by and sit with him when you—oh, all right. If you need anything, call us day or night. And let us know if—if anything changes. Love to you both from both of us.…”
He put down the phone, frowned, and shook his head.
“That was probably clear enough, right?”
She nodded. “He’s gone into a coma?”
“Yes. And of course she wants to come in to the department tomorrow as though nothing has happened.”
“She mustn’t do that,” Mary objected.
He smiled ruefully.
“You know Lulie. When did she ever take anybody’s advice or welcome anybody’s concern. Young Herbie’s already come down from New York prepared to stay for the duration, which she says will probably be anything from a day to two weeks, so the doctors tell her. She’s inclined to think it will be more like a day, which would be best for poor Herbie and for everyone concerned, and would permit her to get this over with and concentrate on worrying about damned Sidi, which she feels her duty requires.” He sighed. “How long have we known them, Mary? Forty years? Time is drawing on.”
“Yes,” she said, eyes suddenly filling with sympathetic tears. “For thee and me, as well … Well!” she said briskly. “Let’s finish up and get you to bed and let you get some rest. You’re going to need it. Nothing’s going to get any easier, for a while.”
“No,” he agreed. “That’s for sure.”
* * *
Later that evening, around ten-thirty, when the President and his wife, the Secretary and his, and most of the others most directly concerned with the matter of Sidi were either in bed or getting ready for it, Boo Bourassa and Samir Hashimi were preparing to leave their respective homes for another of those late evenings that so bothered and upset their Western wives, who would never completely understand their male-oriented Arab ways.
And in far-off Greater Lolómé, The Wearer of the Two Hats, President of All the Peoples of Lolómé, etc., was meeting with his powerful friends to discuss the final timetable for the surprises—of which they had in mind several, all unpleasant—that they intended to inflict upon their Western adversaries.
And at a certain friendly (to them) port, a nondescript tramp steamer of uncertain registry began its long, circuitous journey to other friendly ports and thence across the Atlantic to landfall in New York harbor and a rendezvous with an always complacent and unsuspecting America.
Presently, inevitably, and as planned, the Georgetown meetings, the Greater Lolómé conferrings, and the tramp steamer would come together.
But not for a while yet.
First, the stately, accustomed ballet of world diplomacy, the hallowed dance of stern advance and soft retreat, must proceed upon its stately, inevitable, all too predictable way.
And first in that, as always in the communications-ruled world of the almost-twenty-first century, came the by now inevitable obeisance to the great god television.
High and mighty were its supplicants, and into the homes of many millions around the globe came their august personages, bearing offerings to lay before the multitudes.
To a considerable extent, an aging, acerbic, but still powerfully influential columnist in Georgetown, though he was not of television and was almost an anachronism left over from an earlier day, framed the debate; perhaps even more than the President, for he was able to do it hours before the President was scheduled to appear, in the one publication that could still compete—if only just barely, now—on equal terms with television.
As on several notable occasions before, and as shrewdly as Tim Bates from a different point of view, James Van Rensselaer Burden set the tone.
The article in the Sunday Times magazine was Jimmy Van at his most moralistic, most indignant, and most powerful.
Three
1
This was The Other Side of the Argument, as Jimmy thought of it. He had no doubt it was the best side. He intended to give it the strong support he felt it deserved. He had read Tim Bates’s column in the Washington Inquirer—as everyone had, Tim in his difficult way was part of the Washington establishment, too—and he didn’t think much of it. He and Tim had been “friends” for many years in the press corps, as much as two smart men with strongly opposed opinions could be friends in Washington’s ideologically sensitive climate; but while Tim’s standing with the P.C.B.Y.T.s (Politically Correct Bright Young Things, as Jimmy characterized them sarcastically in the privacy of his own mind) had never been solid and now was fading into history, Jimmy’s was still relatively secure.
Since he was usually to be found on The Right Side of Things, he was generally regarded as a “grand old man.” Since Tim had always swum upstream against the compliant and complacent tide of the politically correct, he was an “old has-been.”
Nonetheless, Jimmy knew, Tim still carried a lot of weight with a sizable segment of the country. If his views in this instance could not be censored and suppressed by Right Thinkers, as they had been on many occasions in a long and controversial career, he could at least be given strong opposition. To this Jimmy had devoted his considerable talents in the three days the paper had given him in which to produce “Here We Go Again? Pride and Prejudice Clash Anew in the Desert.”
The gist of it summed up the arguments of all those—very many, he was sure—who did not favor what Jimmy thought of as “going after Sidi again”—those in whom the President would find his most vigorous and vocal support if he decided to proceed with what Jimmy regarded as statesmanship instead of hysteria. Hysteria, he felt, had far too often clouded America’s conduct in foreign affairs. The US and the world, he reflected sternly as his fingers flew over the old, familiar keys, could do without that this time.
“The President of the United States,” he concluded, after a lengthy review of the first Gulf War and a carefully minimized “second Gulf War,” “is now confronted with the question: Is a ‘third’ Gulf War—and the satisfaction of temporary national (and perhaps personal) pique—worth the satisfaction of that national, and personal, pique?
