Preserve and Protect Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Note to the Reader

  One: The Speaker’s Book1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Two: Bob Leffingwell’s Book1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  Three: Preserve and Protect1

  2

  3

  Appendix

  About the Author

  Allen Drury

  Preserve and Protect

  Allen Drury

  The United States is thrown into chaos as the President is killed in a plane crash shortly after securing his party’s nomination in a hotly contested race for re-election. As suspicions are cast upon the circumstances of the place crash, the incumbent party quickly convenes to nominate a candidate in a storm of domestic and international chaos.

  Against the backdrop of a rich cast of characters, the motivations and drives of each candidate and player help shape the future of the nation and the world. Allen Drury’s Preserve and Protect brings to a climax the epic saga begun with Pulitzer Prize winning Advise and Consent—and ends with one of the greatest cliffhangers in all of political fiction.

  ***

  Other Allen Drury Titles

  from Wordfire

  The Advise and Consent series

  Advise and Consent

  A Shade of Difference

  Capable of Honor

  Other Novels

  Preserve and Protect

  Come Nineveh, Come Tyre

  The Promise of Joy

  Decision

  Mark Coffin, U.S.S.

  ***

  Smashwords Edition – October 2014

  WordFire Press

  wordfirepress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61475-217-2

  Copyright © 2014 Kevin D. Killiany and Kenneth A. Killiany

  Originally published by Doubleday and Company, Inc. 1968

  Foreword excerpted from “An Exclusive Interview With Allan Drury” by John Knoop, which appeared in Writer’s Yearbook 1968, with permission from Writer’s Digest.

  “Education for Politics” published in the Rollins Animated Magazine, Volume XXXIV, Number 1. February 26, 1961, on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee observance of the founding of Rollins College, 1885–1960. Reprinted with permission.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by Janet McDonald

  Art Director Kevin J. Anderson

  Book Design by RuneWright, LLC

  www.RuneWright.com

  Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers

  Published by

  WordFire Press, an imprint of

  WordFire, Inc.

  PO Box 1840

  Monument, CO 80132

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  ***

  Dedication

  To the hopeful, the well-meaning

  and the goodhearted, who may

  still be in the majority

  ***

  Foreword

  Interviewer: What is the title of your next novel?

  Drury: Preserve and Protect

  Interviewer: There’s an echo there. Can you tell me a little about it?

  Drury: Well, it carries on the same characters into a new Administration; a new President and various crises along the way. I’m about 150 pages in and it’ll take most of the year to finish it.

  Interviewer: How contemporary is it?

  Drury: Well, it’s like all of them, it’s—the time reference and time framework is slightly in advance of the present day, which is just a novelistic gimmick, of course, to permit the freedom to comment on a lot of things. Again, I’ve had letters from readers who tell me exactly what Administration I was writing about—It could only be so-and-so and Johnson was so-and-so, but it’s none of those of course. And this one I think is more and more going to revolve around the central theme of violence because inevitably it is the central theme we’re living through. Not so much violence for or against a particular thing, but the whole question of violence; when and ever it’s justified, and what it leads to and what it does to the people who employ it, as well as the people it’s employed against, and so on.

  Interviewer: This includes an international situation?

  Drury: Yes.

  Interviewer: How directly do you draw from events of the past three years?

  Drury: Well, nothing specific, except riots and demonstrations, but then, no particular one. I mean, there are such things going on and they are apparently becoming an increasing failure of our national life with many implications and consequences in the long run.

  Interviewer: But you’re not referring directly to Vietnam?

  Drury: Well, no. Of course in Capable of Honor, I had already established a couple of wars going on in which the U.S. is involved and I’m just turning them forward, I’m not creating any new ones.

  Interviewer: You really are building a continuum.

  Drury: Yes, this will be the fourth and I think this will be the last book for a while with the same group of characters. I don’t know, it may not be. I just have to see how this thing develops.

  Excerpted from “An Exclusive Interview with Allan Drury” by John Knoop, which appeared in Writer's Yearbook 1968, with permission from Writer's Digest.

  MAJOR CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL

  At Andrews Air Force Base:

  Harley M. Hudson, President of the United States

  In Washington

  William Abbott, President of the United States

  Lucille Hudson, former First Lady

  Orrin Knox, Secretary of State

  Beth, his wife

  Hal, his son

  Crystal Danta Knox, his daughter-in-law

  Robert Durham Munson of Michigan, Majority Leader of the United States Senate

  Dolly, his wife

  Governor Edward M. Jason of California

  Ceil, his wife

  Patsy Jason Labaiya, his sister

  Mr. Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis of the United States Supreme Court

  George Harrison Wattersill, an advocate

  Robert A. Leffingwell, director of the President’s Commission on Administrative Reform

  Helen-Anne Carrew, a columnist

  Walter Dobius, a columnist

  Frankly Unctuous, a commentator

  LeGage Shelby, director of Defenders of Equality for You (DEFY)

  Senator Fred Van Ackerman of Wyoming, spokesman for the Committee on Making Further Offers for a Russian Truce (COMFORT)

  Rufus Kleinfert, Knight Kommander of the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism (KEEP)

  J. B. “Jawbone” Swarthman of South Carolina, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee

  At the United Nations

  Lafe Smith, Senator from Iowa

  Cullee Hamilton, Representative
from California

  Lord Claude Maudulayne, the British Ambassador

  Raoul Barre, the French Ambassador

  Krishna Khaleel, the Indian Ambassador

  Vasily Tashikov, the Soviet Ambassador

  Prince Obifumatta Ajkaje of Gorotoland

  Felix Labaiya-Sofra of Panama

  On the National Committee:

  Roger P. Croy of Oregon

  Esmé Harbellow Stryke of California

  Asa B. Attwood of California

  Pierre Boissevain of Vermont

  Mary Buttner Baffleburg of Pennsylvania

  Lizzie Hanson McWharter of Kansas

  Anna Hooper Bigelow of New Hampshire

  Lathia Talbott Jennings of South Dakota

  Lyle Strathmore of Michigan

  Luther W. Redfield of Washington

  Ewan MacDonald MacDonald of Wyoming

  Blair Hannah of Illinois

  ***

  Note to the Reader

  Most of the characters in this novel, and the background of most of the events in it, have appeared in its predecessors, Advise and Consent, A Shade of Difference and Capable of Honor.

  In Advise and Consent (1959) will be found the story of the nomination of Robert A. Leffingwell to be Secretary of State; the accession of Vice President Harley M. Hudson to the Presidency; the successful Soviet manned landing on the moon; the death of Senator Brigham Anderson of Utah; the appointment of Senator Orrin Knox of Illinois to be Secretary of State following the defeat of Bob Leffingwell by the Senate. There, also, will be found the marriage of Orrin’s son Hal to Crystal Danta, the marriage of Senate Majority Leader Robert Munson of Michigan to Washington hostess Dolly Harrison, and many other episodes leading into later books.

  In A Shade of Difference (1962) will be found the visit to South Carolina and New York of His Royal Highness Terence Wolowo Ajkaje, ruler of Gorotoland, with all its explosive effects upon the racial problem in the United States and the United Nations; the beginnings of the rebellion in Gorotoland; the early stages of Ambassador Felix Labaiya’s activities in Panama; the opening moves of California’s Negro Congressman, Cullee Hamilton, in his race for the Senate; the opening moves of California’s Governor Edward M. Jason in his campaign for the Presidential nomination; the death of Senator Harold Fry of West Virginia and his decision to entrust his son Jimmy to Senator Lafe Smith of Iowa; and many other episodes leading into later books.

  In Capable of Honor, (1966) will be found the bitter convention battle between President Hudson and Governor Jason; the selection of Orrin Knox for the Vice Presidential nomination; the escalation of the war in Gorotoland, the outbreak of war in Panama, and the United Nations debates that culminate in the first United States vetoes in history. There also will be found the ominous coalition of Defenders of Equality for You (DEFY), the Committee on Making Further Offers for a Russian Truce (COMFORT), and the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism (KEEP) which turns the convention into a near-battleground and paves the way for the events that surround the selection of a President and Vice President in the present novel.

  Running through previous novels, through this and others to come—as it runs through our times—is the continuing argument between those who would use responsible firmness to maintain orderly social progress and oppose the Communist drive for world dominion, and those who believe that in a reluctance to be firm, in permissiveness, and in the steady erosion of the law lies the surest path to world peace and a stable society.

  ***

  One

  The Speaker’s Book

  1

  Sometime he read. Sometimes he dozed. But mostly, as Air Force One moved swiftly back from San Francisco to Washington across a summer-somnolent land, the President of the United States thought.

  Not particularly profound or major thoughts: the furious national convention just concluded in the lovely city by the Bay had left him too tired and too emotionally exhausted for that. Just the rather wandering, musing thoughts of a gentle man still surprised by his own capacity for deviousness, his own surrender to anger and retaliation, his own grim pursuit of the power he had once thought himself too mild and generous ever to need or want.

  He had meant it a year ago when, upon his accession to the White House following the death of his brilliant predecessor, he had told a hushed and emotional Senate that he did not want another term and would not run. Now international crisis and those hostile columnists and broadcasters who had produced the savage commentaries, the hurtful news stories, the suavely damaging broadcasts and the screaming headlines about him and about the convention had changed all that.

  (PRESIDENT FORCES BITTER DELEGATES TO TAKE SECRETARY OF STATE ORRIN KNOX FOR VICE PRESIDENT ON PRO-WAR TICKET, they said now. GOVERNOR EDWARD JASON OF CALIFORNIA, DEFEATED IN PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE-PRESIDENTIAL BIDS, MAY LAUNCH THIRD PARTY IN CAUSE OF WORLD PEACE.)

  He had meant it when he announced a month ago that he would not attempt to dictate the choice of Vice President Ted Jason and the cynical souls supporting him had changed all that.

  He had meant it, years ago, when he thought that all he wanted from life was a loving family, a good home, a peaceful life.

  The strange ways of power and politics in a strange and complex country had changed all that.

  So here he was, plan-changer, word-breaker, grasper after power as avid as his fellows: Harley M. Hudson, President and candidate, learner with the rest that certain roads of power, once entered, sometimes cannot be abandoned.

  Nor should they be, he told himself as the giant craft passed into Maryland, providing a man believed he could see a road that led at last, through whatever dark forest, toward some ultimate benefit for the United States. If a man saw somewhere ahead some shining upland where the puzzled, unhappy, beloved Republic might rest at last, if history had given him a chance to lead her to it, then he had a right to seek power, a right to get it if he could, a right to hold and use it as the Lord gave him strength.

  Most things were justified by this … for Presidents in pursuit of their fearful duty, he was finally beginning to believe, all things.

  Much had been made of honor at the convention, as Ted Jason had said in his agonized speech of withdrawal, after Harley had won their savage battle for the Presidential nomination and then had thrust Ted aside to choose Orrin Knox for second place. And this was true, and each of them had been forced to come to terms with honor in his own way, as best he could.

  For himself, the President had done what the imperatives of history required. So, no doubt, had all the rest, from Ted to Walter Dobius, that hostile and rather ridiculous bellwether of the press whose syndicated column in 436 newspapers gave him such enormous impact on the ideas and policies of his time.

  The President was satisfied in his own conscience about the angry events of recent days: let Ted and Walter and the rest make what bargains they could with theirs.

  There came a point where a man could not worry about others’ peace of mind.

  His own was problem enough.

  He closed his eyes, his plain, pleasant face slipping into repose. He wished Lucille were with him, but the First Lady was on her way to “Maine Chance” for a week of recovery from the convention’s turmoil. He wished Orrin Knox were, too, but the Secretary of State and Beth were taking their son Hal and his wife Crystal to Carmel, so that Crystal might recover from the beating by anonymous Jason supporters which had resulted in the loss of her baby.

  Quite frequently, the President mused with a wry little smile, the people you needed most were far away. All you had was the comfort of knowing that they were probably thinking of you. He knew Lucille and Orrin were. His face relaxed completely. For the last time on his journey home, he slept.

  “There it is!” cried the New York Times at Andrews Air Force Base in nearby Maryland, just outside the District of Columbia. “It’s a bird—it’s a man—”

  “It’s Fearless Peerless,” the Chicago Daily News replied, using the ironic nic
kname the press corps had given Harley a year ago when he faced down the Russians at Geneva, “so cut the disrespectful, irreverent, God-damned chatter.”

  “Shall we kneel down and touch our heads to the ground?” the Washington Post inquired.

  “Better lie down in a line and let him use us for a rug to walk to the White House helicopter, hadn’t we?” the Washington Evening Star suggested in wry reference to the way the President had triumphed over the opposition of a majority of press and television at the convention. “That might be more fitting, under the circumstances.”

  They all laughed, somewhat ruefully, but dauntless still; not noticing in the flurry and excitement and sudden bustling all about that in the jostling, police-held crowd pressed up against the fence behind them, one other, gifted by a sometimes puzzling Almighty with the gift to change the world, laughed too.

  In Gorotoland in Central Africa at that moment, at the ancient city of Mbuele in the highlands, Prince Obifumatta Ajkaje and his stern-faced Communist advisers were even then rejecting, for the twenty-seventh time, the cautious peace feelers put out by Britain through the circuitous route of Ceylon, Nigeria and Guyana, in an attempt to end the steadily escalating war with the United States. And in the capital, dusty Molobangwe on the plains, his cousin Prince Terence, “Terrible Terry,” head of the legitimate government, was reviewing the latest detachment of U.S. troops, whose arrival, as yet unannounced, would lift the formal American commitment to one hundred thousand men.