Advise and Consent Read online

  Night had fallen on the capstone of Western civilization, and sex and society were on the move.

  For Dolly, standing just inside the door as the first car drew up, this was always one of the most exciting moments in life. It was even more so in Washington, where one never knew who the accident of timing would bring to one’s doorstep first. She played a little superstitious game with herself which usually proved out—the first arrival or two would set the tone of the evening, whether it was to be basically political, diplomatic, or just social. This time fate contrived the obvious by depositing both politics and diplomacy on the stoop at once: Bob Munson arrived in his tired old Buick just as Krishna Khaleel rode up with a flourish in the Indian Embassy’s sleekest chauffeured Cadillac. Senator Munson turned his car over to one of the parking attendants as K.K. got grandly out, and after an effusive greeting they advanced together upon their hostess.

  “Ah, you see?” the Ambassador cried gaily. “I was wise to come early, you see; I am the chaperone of our dear Dolly and her gallant Senator.”

  “I’m sure all sorts of terrible things would have happened if you hadn’t been here, darling,” Dolly said coolly, taking his hand and drawing him in. “We do appreciate it so.”

  “I don’t,” Bob Munson said. “I resent it, as would any red-blooded American youth.”

  “You,” Dolly told him, “are undoubtedly Washington’s most dazzling humorist.”

  “Ah, you Senators,” K.K. said airily, moving on into the fern-decked hallway. “You and Hal Fry. All I get, all day long at the UN, is Hal making jokes. For me, at me, about me, but always jokes, jokes, jokes. If we had Senators in my country they would be less frivolous. They would realize life is a serious matter, for us poor Asians.”

  “We all sympathize with you, K.K.,” Bob Munson said, “and of course we regret our own levity, too. I know Hal just wants to lighten your heavy load for you with an innocent jest now and then. He can’t help it if he isn’t properly reverent.”

  “There you go,” K.K. sighed. “Just like he is. I think you are laughing pleasantly with me and suddenly you bite. It is disconcerting, you know?”

  “Dear old K.K.,” Senator Munson said expansively, seizing him by the arm as Dolly turned away to greet the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Army, and an Assistant Secretary of State for something-or-other, and their wives, “do come in here someplace and let’s talk it over privately.”

  The Indian Ambassador gave him a shrewd sidelong glance and smiled dryly.

  “Yes, dear old Bob,” he said, “I know you wish to talk privately, and you wish to talk about your problem, Mr. Leffingwell. But I have already discussed this unfortunate, for you, matter with dear old Hal, who I know was on the telephone to you five seconds after to tell you what I said, and I really fail to see why I should discuss it any further with dear old Bob.”

  “Have a drink,” Senator Munson said, steering him toward a bar in one corner, “and don’t be any more stubborn than you can help.”

  “Really,” K.K. said in a different tone, and for a second Bob Munson was afraid he had gone too far, you always had to watch it with the Indians, they were always so alert to see an insult in everything and take umbrage at the slightest excuse, “really, Bob, I try not to be stubborn, I do indeed. It is simply my way of saying that there is really nothing I can say to you that would in any way make clearer my already clear exposition to your good colleague from West Virginia.”

  “He seemed to have a very firm grasp on what you meant,” Senator Munson agreed, “but I’d like to hear it, too. What do you want, scotch or bourbon?”

  “Scotch and soda, please,” K.K. said, and Bob Munson ordered it and a bourbon and water for himself.

  “Now,” he said against the glad greeting cries of Dolly, three generals, an admiral, the counselor of the Brazilian Embassy, and the Secretary of the Interior, and their assorted wives, “what have you folks got against Bob Leffingwell?”

  The Indian Ambassador sighed, watching the rapidly-filling room with shrewd appraising eyes.

  “That Hal,” he said. “Why does he think we have anything against your able Mr. Leffingwell? I am afraid I must not have made myself clear to him after all. I wished to indicate merely that we were proceeding with caution, which of course is necessary in this distraught world in which we live. I did not wish to indicate distaste, although apparently that is the interpretation given you by your attractive colleague.”

  “Then you’re for him,” Bob Munson said quickly, and K.K. sighed again.

  “Honestly,” he said, going into one of his more petulant moods, “does nothing I say make sense to anyone? Mr. Leffingwell is a difficult and controversial man. In some ways he is excellent, but in some others, of course, not so excellent. In general I would say we are for him, except when it comes to those features of character and interest which, of course, might dispose us to be against him. On the whole, I think that is our position,” he said thoughtfully; and then, with firmness, “Yes, I am sure of it. You may count upon it.”

  “Well, thanks so much, K.K.,” Senator Munson said. “You know how helpful this is in our thinking about it. Because seriously, you know, if anyone has a really violent dislike for him, it would have some bearing on what the Senate does. We don’t want to confirm someone who starts with a dozen enemies abroad to begin with; he’ll make enough as he goes along without an initial handicap. So I’m glad you’re not hostile.”

  “Oh no,” K.K. said, and suddenly he laid a hand on the Majority Leader’s arm and said sympathetically, “We do not wish to complicate your problem, dear old Bob. I shall talk about it to my colleagues, you know. Our paths will cross sometime during the evening somewhere in this delightful house. There will be some clarification of views, perhaps. There will perhaps be other clarifications as the days go by. Then we will know better where we all stand. If the Senate wishes then to know our opinion, strictly unofficially, of course, why, we will probably have one.”

  “Stated in English?” Senator Munson couldn’t resist, and the Ambass-ador gave him a rather wintry smile.

  “Since that is the language of our past, our present and, it would seem, our future,” he said, “that is what it is most apt to be. And now I must circulate, dear Bob, and so must you. That is half our business, circulation, is it not?”

  Senator Munson sighed in his turn.

  “It is,” he said. “Take care, K.K. See you later.”

  “Arrivederci,” the Indian Ambassador said with a pixyish expression and moved off toward a South American enclave that was beginning to form near one of the buffet tables. As he did so Bob Munson became aware of a reproving presence near at hand; large plump body, large dark face, large liquid eyes looking with wistful reproach: the Pakistani Ambassador. He sighed again, involuntarily, and cursed a small private curse at the burden of world leadership that made life at Washington parties a constant careful navigation between bruisable egos, vulnerable feelings, and quivering national prides. He did not, however, intend to talk to the Pakistanis yet a while, and so with a bright smile and a quick, “Good evening, Mr. Ambassador, don’t leave before I get a chance to talk to you, it’s important”—uttered with hearty haste before the Ambassador had a chance to do more than begin an uncertain half smile and start tentatively forward—he took his drink and moved slowly off through the growing crush toward Howard Sheppard, the outgoing Secretary of State, who had come in a moment before with his little gray wisp of a wife and now was standing near one of the bay windows with his usual drooping, uncertain, melancholy look. This was heightened by the inevitable he’s-on-his-way-out atmosphere that was already beginning to surround him. This inexorable attrition of prestige, which could reduce a man’s influence in Washington overnight, was now at work on the outgoing Secretary; the greetings he was receiving were just a little vague, a little absent-minded, a little oh-so-you’re-still-here; the fervent cordiality of yesterday was giving way to the half-puzzled, half-forgetful greeting o
f tomorrow. Although his resignation for reasons of health had been announced weeks ago, he had been around so long as Secretaries of State go that it had not seemed really final until the President named a successor. Now he had, and Howard Sheppard was occupying that lonely position of men in Washington who yesterday were all-powerful but today are only men. His expression changed from wan to a little less wan when the Majority Leader approached.

  “Bob,” he said, putting a little more strength than usual into a normally languid handshake, “how nice to see you. Grace dear,” he added to the slight little figure he had carried with him through law practice, the governorship of Ohio and seven uneasy years in Foggy Bottom, “you remember Senator Munson,” and Grace said of course she did. Bob Munson felt he must say something to relieve the encircling gloom and offered the first thing that popped into his head.

  “Well, Howie,” he said expansively, “you must be glad to be getting out of this rat race.” Then he remembered hastily that of course Howie wasn’t and tried to make amends.

  “We’ll miss you,” he said firmly. “Your hand on the helm has held us steady, Howard. We’re going to miss it more than you know. I hope you’re not going to be leaving Washington? Surely you’ll stay close by and let us have your counsel from time to time?”

  “I don’t think,” Secretary Sheppard said with a sudden flash of unexpected and uncharacteristic bitterness, “that he gives a damn whether I stay here or not. He hasn’t taken my advice on anything in six months.”

  “Oh, now,” Senator Munson said soothingly, “I’m sure you’re mistaken, Howie. Why, he told me only this morning—”

  “I don’t care what he told you,” Howie said morosely, taking a deep gulp of his Manhattan, “it was just words. Why do you think I’m quitting, Bob? This is strictly between us, you understand, but he wanted me to. I’m not sick, I’m sound as a dollar. But he said something about wanting to try a new approach with the Russians and maybe he should have a new face to do it. I’ve done everything I could to work out an accommodation with the Russians and I could have tried again, but he wouldn’t have it and I couldn’t refuse. I don’t know what this means for the country.”

  “Continued good diplomacy, I hope, Howie,” Senator Munson said.

  “I hope,” the Secretary said darkly.

  “Well, I’m disappointed to know you feel this way, Howie,” Bob Munson said, and he really was, because Howie still had quite a few friends in the Senate and some of them might listen to him, “because I was counting on you to help me with the nomination.”

  “Bob Leffingwell?” the Secretary asked in a tone so harsh that Grace murmured, “Now, dear,” in a worried way. “I wouldn’t help him for anything.”

  “I hope that won’t be your final answer, Howie,” Bob Munson said earnestly. “There’s too much involved—”

  “You’re damned right there is,” the Secretary said bluntly, “and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure the Senate doesn’t make a mistake about it.”

  “I’m sure it won’t,” Senator Munson said, with a certain coldness coming into his voice, “if you appear before Foreign Relations as the opening witness and testify in his behalf.”

  “I’ll never do that,” Howie Sheppard said angrily and Bob Munson stared thoughtfully into his highball glass.

  “I think you will, Howie,” he said gently. “I think I will ask the President to ask you to, and I think he will, and I think you will. I don’t want to get blood on Dolly’s oriental rug,” he said, and his voice dropped chattily to a confidential level, “but you’re not a rich man, Howie, and you don’t really want to leave diplomacy, and I know it as well as you do. The post of special ambassador to NATO is going to open up soon, as you know, and the President was asking me only the other day if the Senate would confirm you for it. I told him I thought we would. You’re sixty-seven years old, Howie, and it would be a very pleasant way to spend your later years, a good salary, a good social life, enough association with our allies to keep your hand in. I want you to have it. I want the President to give it to you. I think I can promise he will, but he certainly won’t if you’re not up there tomorrow morning crying your little heart out for Bob Leffingwell. Which you will be, Howie. I’m sure you will be.”

  “I won’t!” the Secretary said, so vehemently that the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, the Secretary of Agriculture and two members of the Dutch Embassy turned around to stare. “I’ll be damned if I will!” he said in an abruptly lowered voice, with a half-hearted attempt to make his expression noncommittal.

  “Think it over, Howie,” Senator Munson said pleasantly, and Grace said, “Oh, dear.”

  “Why should the Administration treat me like this?” Howard Sheppard asked with muffled bitterness, turning toward the bay window as Bob Munson placed a brotherly hand on his shoulder. “Why is politics like this? I’ve done my best to serve my country, I’ve done everything I could to help him and please him. I’ve thought I was a friend of yours—”

  “You are, Howie!” Bob Munson said in a shocked tone, “you are!”

  “—and now I get this sort of treatment. Why does it have to be so brutal?”

  “You were never brutal to anybody when you were Governor of Ohio and wanted something done, Howie?” Senator Munson asked softly. “You never laid it on the line to anybody as Secretary of State and told him he was up against something he couldn’t defy and he’d better go along? You never did, Howie?”

  “I don’t see why it has to be like this,” the Secretary insisted stubbornly, not answering. “I just don’t see.”

  “It’s a rough game, underneath the backslaps and the handshakes and the big noble speeches, Howie,” Bob Munson said thoughtfully, “and we all discover it sooner or later. It’s a cruel business, sometimes, when you’re in the big time the way we are, because up here the country is involved and men play for keeps. Now you think it over and see if you can’t get a good statement together for us tomorrow, okay?”

  “I don’t see,” Howard Sheppard said bitterly. “I just don’t see.”

  “Well,” Bob Munson said bluntly, “you’re still part of this Admini-stration until we confirm him, so you’d just better have your cry and blow your nose and turn a bright face to the world and get back into this party and make it look good, Howie. And you needn’t worry about the NATO job. It’ll be there waiting for you, I give you my word on that.”

  “How can you be a party to it,” Secretary Sheppard asked, without irony, “when you’re such a kind person at heart?”

  “Now you’re getting maudlin,” Senator Munson said. “Here comes Henrik Kroll, just bubbling to see you, so you just bubble back, Howie, and I’ll see you later.”

  And as the Danish Ambassador came forward, hand outstretched, a rosy smile on his rosy face, with his rosy little wife coming along as rosily at his side, the Majority Leader clapped Howard Sheppard heartily on the back, squeezed Grace’s hand, and went on his way, observing as he did so that the Secretary of State after a moment’s hesitation straightened his shoulders, smiled graciously if a little wobbily, and returned the ambassadorial greeting with a cordiality which, while not overwhelming, was adequate to the occasion. Bob Munson dismissed that particular matter from his mind and, noting that his hostess was looking a little tired, went forward to her side through the press of tuxedoes, dress uniforms, gowns, gossip and highball glasses.

  “Hi,” he said. “How are you bearing up?”

  “All right,” Dolly said. “What were you and Howie Sheppard talking about?”

  “The price of wheat in China,” he said lightly. “Nationalist China, that is. He’s going to be our opening witness for Bob Leffingwell at the hearing tomorrow.”

  “Oh?” Dolly said. “That’s nice.”

  “I thought so,” Senator Munson said. “He didn’t, at first, but I think he does now.”

  “Are you proud of it?” Dolly asked, and Bob Munson leaned close to her ear. “Sometimes I wonder,” he said, “whet
her I was wise to give you the right to ask me questions like that.”

  “You’d be in a bad way if there wasn’t anybody who could,” Dolly said swiftly, and turned back to offer a cordial, “So nice to see you,” to the Attorney General and his wife, looking as always small, neat and secretive. Just behind them there was a slight commotion and on a burst of cold air, a wave of perfume, and the little extra excitement that always accompanied their entrance no matter what the troubles of their ancient and indomitable land, the British Ambassador and his lady swept into view, accompanied by their colleagues from across the Channel.

  “Dear Kitty!” Dolly said as they kissed, “Dear Celestine, dear Raoul, dear Claude. It is so nice to see you.”

  “It’s starting to snow,” Kitty announced excitedly. “Do you suppose we will all be able to get back home all right? Washington gets so confused when it snows.”

  “If you leave right now,” Dolly said with a smile, “I’m sure you can make it.”

  “Not for hours,” Lady Maudulayne said gaily. “Not for hours. Claude has too many people to see and I enjoy your parties too much. Isn’t that right, Claude?”

  “I think the latter reason is the more diplomatic,” Lord Maudulayne said. “Don’t let people know I’m here on business, Kitty. It destroys all my effectiveness.”

  “These British!” Raoul said dryly, while Celestine smiled and said nothing in her characteristic way. “Do they take nothing seriously?”

  “Lord, I hope not!” Claude Maudulayne said with his abrupt laugh. “We’d all have shot ourselves long before this if we had. But here is Bob, too, how nice.”

  “Claude,” Senator Munson said cordially, “Raoul, ladies, it’s good to see you.” Then he said to the men with calculated abruptness, “Why don’t we let them gossip while we go talk about Bob Leffingwell?”