Irving Wallace - The Man

President Dilman was about to sit down to his eighteen-button telephone console, when he became aware of Edna Foster still standing at his desk.

He considered her curiously. “What’s the matter, Miss Foster?”

“Don’t-don’t do this!” she blurted.

He appeared confused. “Don’t do what?”

“It’s not my business, except I don’t want you convicted for impeachment. Mr. President, I hate General Fortney, I abhor him, but what he said to you before, about sending an all-white military force into Africa to die for those underdeveloped people, it’ll ruin you in the Senate, it’ll create a storm against you. Can’t you see? It’ll be used to prove what Zeke Miller’s been insinuating all along, that the New Succession Bill had to be made law so you wouldn’t show favoritism to Negroes, even if they’re African Negroes, and that here you are, ready to sacrifice the best of our white troops to do that very thing. I’m not saying don’t defend Baraza. You must-I agree, you must-but can’t you send mixed white-and-Negro battalions to fight there? Can’t you-?”

“No, Miss Foster, I cannot. There is only one counter-guerrilla force that can act effectively, that is equipped to do so with a minimal loss of life, and that, as Steinbrenner said, is the Dragon Flies.”

Edna Foster persisted. “Don’t, Mr. President. Please don’t. This will ruin you-this’ll be the end of you-”

Dilman did not disagree. “It may be,” he said. “But whatever happens to me right now does not matter. It’s what happens to a good neighbor, black or white, one that’s put its entire faith in our decency, its trust in our way of life, that does matter. I can’t make deals with Fortney, or anyone else, to compromise my country, and I won’t. I appreciate your feelings for me, Miss Foster, I really do, but I must handle it this way. Now, please, tell Tim Flannery to notify the networks that I wish air time to deliver a short, major address-fifteen minutes, say-on a matter of national emergency-make it tomorrow at six o’clock our time. Thank you, Miss Foster.”

She shook her head sorrowfully, then ran from the office.

From the sofa, Leroy Poole had witnessed these scenes with fascination. He continued to watch as the President, by now completely unaware that there were others still in the room, swiveled toward his telephone console once more. Then, to Poole’s bewilderment, Gladys Hurley was on her feet and advancing toward the desk. Poole leaped up and chased after her.

Dilman’s hand was on the white telephone when he saw Mrs. Hurley. He blinked, perplexed, then seemed to remember, and pushed the chair back and rose. “Mrs. Hurley,” he murmured, “forgive me, but-”

She stood tall, head high, shoulders thrown back, worn fingers working over her smooth shiny purse.

“You forgive me, Mr. President,” she said. “I am sorry you cannot see fit to save my boy, but from what my eyes have seen, I have seen your goodness. If you cannot help my son, I can help yours and yourself, because you are deservin’ of help from every American. I am goin’ home and I am burnin’ those files of Jeff’s, Mr. President, because even if your boy was in it too, like Jeff was, he did no wrong against the people’s law like Jeff did, and if I will appeal anywhere, it will be to the Lord Jesus Christ, to punish Jeff’s misdeeds and give him mercy so he can become the companion of the holy angels in heaven above.”

Then her voice trembled, as she went on. “Mr. President, no matter what, my Jeff was always a good boy, attendin’ church and learnin’ the scriptures, keepin’ to cleanliness, never fibbin’ or runnin’ wild in the streets, behavin’ and readin’ his books. And when he growed up, he always respected his father, when his father was alive, and was obedient to his father, and he took care of me, always took care of me and his younger brothers and sisters and needy kin with money and letters. He was a good boy, Mr. President, and he only meant well, but there was no one to understand… Come on, Mr. Poole, let’s leave the President be. He’s got his work to do for all of us.”

At nine-thirty that evening, the West Wing of the White House was still ablaze with light.

In the Reading Room of the press section, a handful of hardy correspondents, aware that the President was still at work, lolled about, hopefully waiting for some fresh morsel of news. In the antechambers beyond the Oval Office, numerous secretaries, on overtime, pecked away at their typewriters. In the corridors, the special police and the Secret Service men of the White House Detail ceaselessly maintained their vigils.

And, in the Cabinet Room, before an audience of three, Douglass Dilman was concluding his rehearsal of the latest draft of the crucial speech that he would deliver to the nation the next evening.

Nat Abrahams, recovered from his ordeal on the Senate floor, puffed his mellow pipe, picked at the rumpled napkin on his depleted dinner tray and listened. General Leo Jaskawich, chewing a half-smoked cheroot, absently doodled on a scratch pad and listened. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jed Stover, one hand forming a hood over his shaggy eyebrows, followed the circling needle of the stopwatch cupped in his other hand and listened.

Across the glossy Cabinet table, seated in the high-backed leather chair bearing the diminutive brass plate engraved THE PRESIDENT, Douglass Dilman, without exerting himself, without emphasizing the key phrases, approached the end of the television address that the four of them had hammered out before their informal dinner.

Dilman flipped the page, and then, in a voice becoming hoarse, read aloud:

“It is my fervent prayer that these powerful battalions of this democracy, now battle-ready and on full alert, will not have to leave our nation’s boundaries. It is my fervent prayer that even if we should commit ourselves to a limited conflict, it will not spread into a worldwide holocaust, and that our ICBMs will rest forever in their silos, and our jet bombers will continue confined to their runways or routine missions, and that our Polaris submarines will cruise under the seas with their nuclear rockets safely unarmed.”

He paused, and then he resumed.

“This is my fervent prayer, and I know that you share it with me, one and all. But let not the enemies of freedom misconstrue this wish for peace as an evidence of weakness. There are many abroad who may think the United States speaks in many voices, and who may choose to hear, and believe, the voice that pleases them the most. They may prefer the American voice that reflects our normal, two-party political wrangling and discord, so that they may suspect we are disunited. They may prefer the American voice that reflects our onetime isolationist ideology, that promises we will not trade a single American life to preserve the independence of an African democracy whose entire population can fit into a single one of our largest cities, so that they may suspect we are disunited. They may prefer the American voice that reflects our own domestic racial strife, the one vowing we will not protect our colored brothers in other lands any more than we will integrate them in our own land because they are inferior, so that they may suspect we are disunited.

“To the hopeful cynics abroad, I can only say-do not be misled by the discordant sounds of opinion and disagreement so much a part of our democratic system-for, in times of danger, America has always and will always speak out in one single united voice, and that will be the voice of the majority of its free citizens.

“Tonight, fellow Americans, the words to be spoken by our united voice, the voice we want our friends and enemies around the earth to hear and heed, may best be taken from the words spoken by our beloved former President, John F. Kennedy, who said, ‘The free world’s security can be endangered not only by a nuclear attack, but also by being nibbled away at the periphery… by forces of subversion, infiltration, intimidation, indirect or nonovert aggression, internal revolution, diplomatic blackmail, guerrilla warfare or a series of limited wars… Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.’