Charles Mccarry: The Tears Of Autumn

Christopher shrugged.

“You think the U.S. government can work with a man like Diem?” Foley asked.

“Maybe not. He wants to stop the war and get us out of there. His brother is talking to the North. They have relatives in Hanoi, and Ho and Diem know each other from the old days.”

“That’s beautiful. Do you think we can countenance their talking to Ho Chi Minh behind our backs?”

Webster had begun to move across the room toward Foley and Christopher. Foley moved a step closer to Christopher, as if to prevent anyone stepping between them.

“They asked for our help,” he said. “We’ve committed our power. You suggest that we stand by, tolerate corruption and wink at what amounts to Fascism, and let the whole project go down the drain?”

“I don’t know that it would make much difference, except in terms of American domestic politics.”

Foley’s face had gone red. He tapped Christopher’s chest with a blunt forefinger.

“The freedom of a people is involved,” he said, “and that’s all that’s involved. If you think we’re holding on in Vietnam because we’re afraid of losing the next election, you don’t know a hell of a lot about John F. Kennedy or the men around him.”

“I’ve got no answer to that, Mr. Foley.”

Webster put a hand on Foley’s arm. “Sybille says dinner is ready,” he said.

Foley continued to stare into Christopher’s face. “What do you suggest we do out there?” he asked. “Nothing?”

“Sometimes,” Christopher answered, “that’s the best thing to do.”

“Well, buddy, that’s not the style any longer.”

Foley put his glass into Webster’s hand and strode into the dining room with Sybille and Peggy McKinney trailing after him.

At dinner, Foley’s mood improved. He entertained Sybille on his right and Peggy McKinney on his left with stories about the President.

“There are dogs and kids, great books and great paintings and good music all over the White House,” he said. “It’s human again, the way it must have been under Franklin Roosevelt. If I want to see the boss, I just go in. You know you’ll come out of there with a decision. The door is wide open on the world. He’s likely to pick up the phone and call some little twirt way down the ladder in the Labor Department. Imagine, you’re forty and gray-faced, wearing a suit from Robert Hall, and for fifteen years you haven’t even been able to get an office with a window. Then- ring and ‘Mr. Snodgrass, this is the President. What the hell are you doing about migrant workers today?’ It stirs up the tired blood.” Foley looked around the table at the smiles of his listeners.

“The bureaucracy can use a little of that, believe me,” said Peggy McKinney. “God, how we’ve needed to bring brains and style back into the government. The embassy just crackles with ideas and energy. De l’audace, et encore de l’audace, -that’s what the foreign policy of a great nation should be.”

“Christopher was just telling me the opposite,” Foley said.

“Oh? Well, so many of Tom’s friends have to be cautious.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sybille asked, with her elbow on the table and her wineglass held against her cheek.

“Oh, Sybille, come along now. We all know about Tom’s friends,” Peggy McKinney said. “Is it true,” she asked Foley, “that the President putts when he thinks? I mean, does he really get out his putter and knock golf balls around the Oval Office? I think that’s so lovely, do say it’s true. I just devour all this gossipy stuff. You really don’t have to humor me.”

“I don’t mind. I’ve just spent a week listening to Couve de Murville. Believe me, you’re a welcome change,” Foley said. “Yes, the boss putts occasionally. He’ll do it at the damnedest times. The other day a couple of us came in with a recommendation. It was serious stuff. A decision had to be made-the kind of decision that would drive me, for instance, into agony. But his mind is like crystal. He’s right on top of everything. He knew the situation- felt it, if you will, better than any of us. We gave him some new information. He absorbed it. We gave him the options. He didn’t say a word at first. He got up, grabbed his putter, lined up a shot, and tapped it across the rug. We all watched the ball roll. Somehow-this will sound corny, but it’s true-we all suddenly saw that golf ball as the symbol of the fate of a nation. Not a very big nation, not our nation, but a nation. The ball ran straight into the cup. ‘Okay,’ said the boss. ‘Go.’ There’s never been another like him.”

Sybille turned to Christopher. “Paul has just seen a president out in Vietnam,” she said. “A little president. Do tell, Paul.”

“Oh,” said Peggy. “Diem or Ziem, or whatever his name is. Horrid man.”

“I’m interested,” Foley said.

“There’s not much to tell,” Christopher said. “I stood by while he talked to somebody else. Or, rather, listened. The other man was an American.”

“Who’s that?” Foley asked.

“Carson Wendell. He’s a Republican from California.”

“I know about him,” Foley said. “What poison is he spreading?”

“I don’t think you want to hear it, Mr. Foley.”

“Now I do,” Foley said.

“You may not like this,” Christopher said. “Wendell hates you people. He said Kennedy ran a dishonest, dishonorable campaign in 1960-lying about a missile gap that didn’t exist and inventing a USIA report that was supposed to show American prestige abroad was at an all-time low.”

“Losers have to have some excuse,” Foley said. “What else?”

“Wendell told Nhu that Kennedy wasn’t elected President -Nixon was. He claimed there’s evidence that votes were stolen in Illinois and a couple of other states where there was a very small difference in the popular vote. The Democrats are in the White House by fraud, according to Wendell. He was very circumstantial, citing numbers and precincts to Nhu.”

Peggy McKinney beat her fist on Sybille’s tablecloth. “I’ve never heard such slander,” she cried. “That man’s passport ought to be taken away from him! I mean, Christ. …”

Foley unwrapped a cigar. “What did Nhu say to all that?” he asked.

“Nothing. I had a feeling he’d heard it all before.”

Peggy McKinney opened her mouth to speak. Foley laid a hand on her arm. “People like Wendell and Nhu don’t count,” he said. “Power counts-and the right people are in power. I think we’ll stay in power for quite a while.” He grinned for the first time all evening, and sipped his wine. “In fact, if I can use one of the Republicans’ more famous phrases, I think Mr. Nixon can look forward to at least twenty years of treason.”

“Wit is back in the White House,” said Peggy McKinney with tears of laughter in her eyes. “Let’s drink to that.”

Sybille led her guests into the salon for coffee. Peggy McKinney stood with Foley, her feet placed at right angles like a model’s. She wore a pink Chanel suit, pearls, and a half-dozen golden bracelets on her right wrist. With her thin, nervous body and her bold features, she might have been taken for a Frenchwoman who had affairs. That, she told Foley, was the impression she had cultivated until the last election; the Kennedys had made her want to be an American again.

Tom Webster had said nothing during dinner. The evening had been spoiled for him by outsiders. Christopher operated all the time on hostile ground; in every country but his own he was a criminal. Outsiders, who did not know how fast betrayal traveled, could do him harm, perhaps even kill him, by knowing his name and speaking it at a cocktail party. Tonight Webster had entrusted Christopher’s identity to two people who had no right to know it. He put his hand on Christopher’s shoulder and began to speak.