Preserve and Protect Read online

  In Panama, Felix Labaiya, standing alone as he liked to do on the terrace of his ancestral estate, “Suerte,” staring down the long valley that led from Chiriqui to the sea, was calculating what the convention’s humiliation of his brother-in-law, Governor Jason, might drive that brilliant, ambitious mind to do. On the basis of what he thought he understood of Ted, who now was virtually trapped into launching a “Peace Party” in the coming election in an attempt to defeat the ticket of Harley Hudson and Orrin Knox, Felix was making his decision with a renewed determination. He would order his forces to fight on in their battle to overturn the legitimate Panamanian government, seize the Canal, and force the United States once and for all out of his fiercely loved land.

  At the UN, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Cuba and nine Afro-Asian nations were preparing yet another resolution demanding United States withdrawal from around the globe, agreeing that they would reintroduce it regularly each month from now on so that America, if she so desired, might keep on affronting the world with her hated and inexcusable vetoes in the Security Council.

  In San Francisco, the disgruntled, the hopeful, the idealistic, the subversive, the believers in Ted Jason and the Right Position on Things, the famous names and prima donnas of the world of Walter Dobius who were now more than ever determined to keep Harley and Orrin out of the White House, were beginning to drift into the ballroom of the Hilton. An hour ahead of time, cameras, lights and microphones were in place to record the organizing session that would set the time and place for the Peace Party’s rump convention.

  And at Andrews Air Force Base, the Mayor and City Council of Washington, the members of the Cabinet, the members of Congress, the members of the diplomatic corps, the public, the reporters, and one other, waited.

  Gracefully the giant craft glided toward the runway, ten miles from the great white city on the Potomac where the hopes and dreams, the triumphs and failures, the pasts and futures of so many men and causes were centered, while all around the lovely, rolling green countryside drowsed in the peaceful heat of a soft, exhausted twilight, late in the month of July.

  “Do you suppose he’ll have anything to say to us?” the Times asked as they watched the beautiful machine coming lower and lower, nearer and nearer, skimming now scarcely a hundred feet above the ground. “Something about God and Motherhood and why it’s all right for us to be fighting two wars at the same time on opposite sides of the earth?”

  “Come on, now,” the Post said. “None of this subversive humor at a time like this.”

  “What time is it?” the Evening Star asked idly, and behind him from somewhere in the crowd a voice said, “8:12” in an odd, tense tone that disturbed them a little, though they did not quite understand why. And that was how they knew, for as long as they knew.

  Down it came, Air Force One, veteran of so many journeys, some happy, some tragic, all heavy with the precious burden of the Presidency. Some viewers, standing far back, were able to report later that they thought they had seen Harley Hudson looking out, and indeed it was a fair presumption that by then he was awake and preparing himself for those formal little solemnities that always take place when the Executive returns to the capital. Senate Minority Leader Warren Strickland, arriving late and just emerging from the terminal on his way to the ramp, was such a one. He always refused to be quoted later, but he was quite sure his old friend was waving in response to the waves and shouts that were beginning to rise from the small but friendly crowd.

  “Get her down, boy!” the Christian Science Monitor said with a sudden sharp intake of breath. “Why doesn’t he put her down?”

  “He will,” the Post said quickly, but in spite of himself a nervous tremor came abruptly into his voice.

  “My God,” the Times said explosively, “she’s landing on one wheel!”

  “She’s coming this way!” the Star shouted frantically.

  “Something’s wrong!” the Monitor cried in a horrified sing-song. “Something’s wrong, something’s wrong, something’s wrong!”

  And indeed there was, though no one ever knew exactly later, despite all the investigations by the Civil Aeronautics Board, the Air Force, the President’s Special Commission, six committees of Congress, innumerable articles, television specials, broadcasts and books, what it was. Those who might have been able to say, assuming they had known, were not there to testify. Nor were many of those astute and perceptive professional observers who might otherwise have given an accurate account to the public.

  For Air Force One had a date with a good many of them, as one wheel crumpled and the other failed to make contact, as she teetered and tottered to a horrible screaming of reversed engines and the beginnings of the sickening sound of metal ripping apart, as she rocked and veered and swung about, as she bumped and jumped and then in one great BOOM! landed flat on her belly, slid, exploded, and burst into a single enormous hurtling balloon of fire that raced inexorably toward the waiting crowd.

  For a terrible split second the Mayor and City Council of Washington, the members of the Cabinet, the members of Congress, the members of the diplomatic corps, the public, the reporters, and one other, robbed forever of his chance for glory by an Almighty Whose capacity for irony is quite a bit greater than men are willing to concede, stood paralyzed together in the gentle twilight now filled with the awful sound of human certainties being revealed for the frail and futile things they are.

  Then as the great tumbling ball of flame and debris rolled toward them, they began to scream and run.

  But many of them did not run far, or, mercifully, scream for long.

  2

  Thus with a dreadful abruptness it becomes necessary once again, for the nation and the world to experience the death of an American President. It is occurring too often in this hectic age: the nation is becoming traumatic.

  The world, which secretly or openly always enjoys the discomfitures of its most powerful, most patient and most confused member, responds as might be expected.

  In London (“We Have Lost a Good Friend”), in Paris (“A Curious Figure Passes from the Scene”) and in Moscow (“H. Hudson, American Politician, Dies”) the reactions are at least reasonably respectful. But in Asia, Africa and some parts of Latin America, the chorus of jubilation mounts. From India’s “President Hudson Dies in Midst of Questionable Overseas Adventures” to Dar-es-Salam’s “Invader of Africa Cut Down,” to Cairo’s “American Assassin Gets Deserts,” to Cuba’s “World Breathes Thanks as U.S. Criminal Killed,” the note of naked satisfaction sounds throughout. In these first hours in which the fantastic news races the globe, the response is one of immediate emotion, for the moment only. It will be a while before the ultimate implications sink in.

  Not so, of course, in Harley Hudson’s native land, where a President need do no more than suffer a slight head cold to start the speculations whirling. Confronted by actual death in the White House, those whose profession it is to assess implications and consequences go at once to work. Everyone who has access to newsprint, editorial, magazine or television tube is instantly a-cackle. This time the implications and consequences are not only enormous: they are without precedent. Never before has a Presidential candidate died before an election. The fact that Harley is actually gone, as Senate Majority Leader Bob Munson of Michigan remarks bitterly to his wife Dolly when he calls her at “Maine Chance” immediately after hearing the news, is almost forgotten in the rush of conjecture about What Will Happen Now.

  Some are like Helen-Anne Carrew, that astute observer of society and politics for the Washington Evening Star, whose instinctive, startled reaction in the San Francisco Hilton’s press room—“If Orrin Knox doesn’t have all the luck!”—is immediately succeeded by a shame-faced, sad and genuine, “Poor Harley, poor Harley!” There are others, like her ex-husband Walter Dobius, who waste no time on such sentimental maunderings but plunge at once into the analysis, and creation, of the news.

  “The place of Harley M. Hudson in the sometimes sorry story
of America in these troubled times,” Walter types swiftly now in his hotel room (he has avoided the press room since he and Helen-Anne had their savagely bitter and by now quite historic shouting match there, forty-eight hours ago) will have to remain for history to decide.

  “As the man who, in the weeks just past, deliberately and some think quite irresponsibly plunged the United States into simultaneous wars in Gorotoland and Panama—as the man who in pursuit of those irresponsible purposes ordered the first American vetoes in the United Nations—he may have much to answer for.

  “Personally, he was a likable and rather inoffensive individual, tossed to the top by one of those strange quirks that all too often decide the course of American government.

  “Politically he was, in the opinion of many, a disaster.

  “But he is gone now, and even before he is decently buried, the clamor begins: What will happen now? Will some back-door deal be worked out by which Secretary of State Orrin Knox, the man who bears equal responsibility with the late President for America’s recent disastrous course in world affairs, automatically succeed to the position at the head of the ticket for which many believe him neither qualified nor entitled?

  “Or will the great convention which is just dispersing here in San Francisco be immediately reassembled—such recall is in the power of the National Committee—to choose a new nominee for President? And will California’s Governor Edward M. Jason, humiliated and put down by President Hudson and Secretary Knox—yet still the undoubted favorite of a majority of the delegates had they been free to select him—have the second chance which in all justice and by all standards of common fairness is rightly his?”

  This, quite obviously, is what Walter and Walter’s world most desperately desire, and already from the small but powerful group of columnists, commentators and publications who see things as he does, the suave suggestions are coming forth in these first stunned hours:

  The convention must be reassembled.

  Ted Jason must have another chance.

  There is no other way things can possibly happen.

  It is inevitable.

  But, as is so often the case with these deliberate attempts to convince the public which are so persistently launched by the tight-knit little consortium of top-flight talents whose opinions Walter sometimes forms and sometimes acts as spokesman for, the insistence that it is “inevitable” is of course quite untrue. It is what Walter’s world would like to rush the country into believing before anyone has time to think of an alternative, so that there will be a solid weight of press-created national opinion upon those who must make the decision. But this does not make it true, nor does it, in this case, make it inevitable.

  Governor Jason’s supporters are aided powerfully now, as they have been throughout the convention and preconvention period, by many of the nation’s major commentators and publications. But whether they will triumph depends upon a number of astute and thoughtful individuals.

  Some of them are extraordinarily tough.

  Several, having weathered many storms and survived many battles, are quite immune to pressure.

  And some have nothing any more to lose.

  The widowed First Lady, for instance, who has just made the human mistake of breaking down in public and has thereby shadowed forever her place in legend, is such a one. Lucille Hudson is devastated by grief right now, but after the ceremonies and the pomp and circumstance are over, the shrewd brain that functions behind that fluffy pink-and-whiteness will begin to operate again: its conclusions will not be of assistance to Governor Jason.

  Senate Majority Leader Munson is another who has things to do and people to see, and will not be deflected by press campaigns or any other pressures that may be brought against him. At this moment he is acutely aware that no one knows what will happen: the game can go in any direction.

  Acting alone, the fifty-three men and fifty-three women of the National Committee (representing the fifty states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) can select new nominees for President and Vice President. Or they can reconvene the convention and let the matter be fought out there. Whatever the procedure, there is the not-improbable chance that the new nominees, under these difficult conditions of strain and confusion, will not carry sufficient electoral votes in November to win a clear-cut victory. In which case, the matter will return to Capitol Hill to be decided by the House of Representatives, with no one knows what further strains and stresses on the fabric of American government and the strength and stability of America’s policies foreign and domestic.

  So there is much for Bob Munson to do, and already he is doing it, telephoning many important people around the country from the California Zephyr as it climbs slowly through the Rockies on its way to Denver. And he is doing it without reference to the forces of public opinion already being massed against the outcome he would like to see; although, being an old and very experienced hand at the game of national politics, he knows these forces cannot be ignored. They must be met head on and conquered.

  For Orrin and Beth Knox in Carmel, California, this knowledge also is so immediate as to be virtually instinctive. Three times the Secretary of State has sought the Presidential nomination, and on this third try, after saying he would not accept second place—as so many people high in American politics say they won’t do things, and then do—he has agreed to run with Harley in order to strengthen the policy of firmness toward Communist imperialism that they have believed best for the security of the republic and the peace of the world. Now, instantly, fantastically, unbelievably—except as one has to believe these things in a nation’s life, for there they are—Harley is gone and Orrin is left alone to stand for the cause they both believed in.

  For the first half hour or so, while Beth calls Lucille at “Maine Chance” and they weep together, he sits in Carmel and stares down at the rolling sea from the beautiful cliffside home on Spindrift Drive that Esmé Harbellow Stryke, National Committeewoman from California, has given them to use for as long as they wish. Esmé is an odd one, he thinks now, fighting him as bitterly as she did at the convention and then turning around and giving him the use of her summer home. He hadn’t known she had a conscience, but apparently she has: in her strained, embarrassed voice when she called the St. Francis Hotel and made the offer, he thought he detected an apologetic guilt for the terrible episode in which his daughter-in-law, Crystal Danta Knox, lost her baby after being pummeled in the fog outside the Cow Palace by ferocious black-uniformed bullyboys backing Governor Jason. It wasn’t Esmé’s fault, but she was nice enough to try to make amends.

  And now, he thinks with an ironic amusement, she is stuck with it, because as surely as that wave just smashing on the rocks will be succeeded by the next, Esmé is going to be back fighting him the moment it becomes clear when and where the battle is to be joined. He is as certain of that as he is certain that he is going to have to meet Ted again for the Presidential nomination. Now that Harley is gone there is no question whatsoever in his mind that he must step up and take the nomination; and he knows that Ted, for all his fiddling with a “Peace Party” is going to have exactly the same idea.

  “Peace Party!” … Orrin is willing to bet, with a grim little smile, that at this moment the “Peace Party” meeting at the Hilton is being dismantled as swiftly as it was put together.

  In this he is entirely right, but the curious thing about it is that it is being done without any real communication between the “Peace Party’s” organizers and their assumptive candidate. The Governor of California is still incommunicado. No one has been able to reach him, and aside from the correct and formal statement which he has issued through his press secretary on hearing of the President’s death, he might as well not exist.

  Who really knows, at this frightful moment when the gagging crews at Andrews Air Force Base are still cleaning up what remains of Air Force One and trying to rake together enough human scraps to fill a Presidential coffin—at this moment when the
nation is still stunned by the enormity of the catastrophe that has taken not only Harley Hudson but three Cabinet members, four members of Congress, three members of the diplomatic corps, six of the press corps’ ablest reporters and thirteen members of the general public—who knows what Governor Jason will do?

  His wife Ceil has left him, at least for the time being, apparently because of his tacit approval of the violent methods of some of his supporters at the convention. His ex-campaign manager, Robert A. Leffingwell, who still carries great influence with many of the nation’s liberals despite his recent defections from their cause, has gone over to the Hudson camp. The ruthlessness with which he has pursued the Presidential office has created an uneasy, insistent questioning in the minds of many of his countrymen.

  What will he do? Many would like to know, but none has the word. Like Orrin Knox in Carmel, Ted is sitting in his Mark Hopkins Hotel room, thinking. Presently he picks up the telephone and calls the man whom Orrin has already tried to reach. But there is no answer for anyone in the room of Robert A. Leffingwell, and no one knows what he will do, either. True, he left Ted Jason to place Harley Hudson in nomination. But he has not said yet how he feels about Orrin Knox, who as Senator from Illinois led the successful Senate fight to defeat Bob Leffingwell for Secretary of State a year ago. Bob’s loyalties yesterday lay with Harley, the man who rescued him from political oblivion after that defeat. Where do they lie now? Two or three times again, from Carmel and from Sacramento the phone rings in Bob Leffingwell’s room. But the switchboard says he is accepting no calls, and the question remains: what will he do?

  What will they all do, for that matter, all those whose hopes and ambitions, dreams and desires, went into the making of the wild, chaotic convention just concluded? Cullee Hamilton, Negro Congressman from California, candidate for Senator from California, steady and decent and no friend to Ted Jason … Roger P. Croy, former governor and now National Committeeman from Oregon, no friend to Orrin Knox … Patsy Jason Labaiya, sister of Ted, estranged wife of Felix … Senator Lafe Smith of Iowa, close friend of Orrin, Harley and Bob Munson … Rep. J. B. “Jawbone” Swarthman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, friend or not-friend of the Hudson policies, as it has suited him … Supreme Court Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis, sometime friend of Bob Leffingwell, all-time enemy of Orrin Knox … Senator Fred Van Ackerman of Wyoming, bitter enemy of Harley and Orrin, spokesman for the Committee on Making Further Offers for a Russian Truce (COMFORT) … LeGage Shelby, old friend and present enemy of Cullee Hamilton, national chairman of Defenders of Equality for You (DEFY) … Rufus Kleinfert, Knight Kommander of the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism (KEEP) … and all those in the world beyond, whose nations and peoples are so deeply affected by the occupant of the American Presidency, such men as the Secretary-General of the United Nations … Krishna Khaleel, Ambassador of India … Lord Claude Maudulayne, Ambassador of the United Kingdom … Raoul Barre, Ambassador of France … Vasily Tashikov, Ambassador of the U.S.S.R.…Prince Obi … Terrible Terry … Felix Labaiya … and all the others who have so profound and basic a stake in the outcome.