Irving Wallace - The Man

Dilman reached forward and picked up the envelope upon which he had scribbled.

“Leaving the second floor of the White House for this meeting, I had occasion to run into the late President’s widow. We talked, and coming down in the elevator I jotted a few reminders of our talk. I was moved that, in this period of her deep personal grief, her one concern was that I, as her husband’s successor, continue to uphold his program for the welfare of all the people of the nation. This good woman was thinking not of herself but of others. She hoped I would be the transmitting agency of a solution to her concern over the fate of her husband’s vast and dependent following.”

Dilman laid down the envelope and looked around the table.

“I am here to pledge to you that I shall, to the best of my ability, within my limitations, serve the United States in such a way as to relieve the First Lady’s concern about our program ahead, and in such a way as to assure the millions who voted for and backed T. C. that their support was not given in vain.”

The ringing out of applause was spontaneous, and it surprised Arthur Eaton. He could not remember ever having witnessed such a demonstration during T. C.’s tenure. He cast a glance at the black man to his left, sitting hunched forward, head lowered, one hand folded over the other on the blotter. The blackness still made Dilman impenetrable, but now, for the first time, Eaton wondered if behind the stolid, dull mask there lay astuteness and the intuition needed for winning favor. Now it occurred to Eaton that perhaps Dilman had not been elected to Congress by political accident and shenanigans, but that he had been elected because he was clever enough to judge people and use them. Yet this evaluation of Dilman was so drastically the opposite of Eaton’s judgment of the man the past week that he was not ready to accept it. More likely, Dilman had just scored because of the emotional climate created by T. C.’s death, which had affected not only his listeners but Dilman himself.

Eaton looked down the table at Talley, who winked. Then Eaton understood why Talley had winked, and what had just happened. Dilman had made his pledge. He would not walk outside of T. C.’s shadow.

Dilman was addressing them once more.

“At this first meeting, I have no specific problems or legislation about which to ask your advice. It is too soon. Except for my knowledge of what is going on as a senator, and from briefings by the former President’s advisers, I am not yet fully conversant with what T. C. had to face and what I must now face in his stead. I require all the information I can get, as fast as possible, and I need any suggestions you have to offer. So let me say, for this get-together at least, I would like each of you, specialists in your own fields, to speak of your problems, so I may understand my problems. You do the talking today. I’ll be only too ready to listen. At the next meeting, perhaps, I’ll be able to be more constructive. There are ten of you, and the Ambassador, eleven of you, and if you each take five minutes, I’ll be sufficiently befuddled and informed to feel we’ve got off to a good start, and I’ll still be out of here in time to keep a heavy day of other appointments… Mr. Secretary Eaton, do you wish to start off my education?”

Eaton tried to smile. “Mr. President, you are doing so well that I feel you can educate us. As a matter of fact, there are a number of foreign-policy problems of the most pressing nature to remark upon.”

Eaton found himself vividly reporting to the Cabinet the last conversation with T. C., and T. C.’s desires up to that moment when he had been killed. Carefully, he elaborated upon what Talley had tried to tell Dilman in the Oval Office. Premier Kasatkin and the Russian Presidium were suspicious of United States intervention in emerging Africa.

“The Russians,” said Eaton, “feel that our renewal of membership in the African Unity Pact, promising these African countries economic aid and military support if their independence should be threatened from the outside, is a provocative slap at Moscow. In short, another NATO. However, T. C. said, the Russians would overlook our Pact if we would cease to encourage anti-Communist legislation in Baraza. Almost the last words T. C. spoke were that we must compromise with honor, maintain a moderate course, to insure world peace. While he wanted the Pact ratified, he also wanted to give the Russians their bone-our promise that Baraza would lift its anti-Communist measures. This week, as Secretary of State, I did two things-I brought Ambassador Slater from the United Nations meetings to hold talks with the Barazan Ambassador to this country, and I sent Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Stover to Baraza City to feel out President Amboko. Perhaps Ambassador Slater would like to tell you about his conferences?”

The United Nations Ambassador, a diminutive, onetime history professor celebrated for his eloquence, launched into a detailed account of his talks with Ambassador Wamba of Baraza. The talks had made it clear that while Baraza was fearful of American abandonment by its not joining the African Unity Pact, the little country was equally fearful of giving its minority of Communist-trained natives a free hand. Ambassador Wamba would make no promises. The decision would have to come from President Amboko.

Here Eaton took over again. Stover’s one long conversation with President Amboko had reflected the same fears and indecision.

Eaton turned in his chair to Dilman. “Amboko wants to see you in person, Mr. President, before he makes up his mind. If I may be frank, I think he suspects that because you are an American Negro, while he is an African Negro, you will be more sympathetic toward his views, perhaps let him have his cake and eat it, and promise to defy Russia.” Eaton could see Dilman squirm slightly at his undiluted candor, but he felt that it was time to let Dilman know that there were those abroad who might make use of his color. “Mr. President, no matter what our African friend may have to say to you, our own course has been distinctly charted by T. C. We cannot risk a nuclear war to serve the self-interests of one tiny African country. This can be discussed in detail before Amboko’s arrival. I suppose you will have to receive him.”

“Yes,” said Dilman quietly, “I think I’d like to.”

Now Eaton brought up the resumption of the Roemer Conference, and promised to see Russian Ambassador Rudenko about a mutually satisfactory date and the possibility of holding the conference in or about Paris. Then, feeling that he had dominated the table long enough, Eaton hastily told Dilman that foreign policy had become so complex it overlapped from his Department of State into numerous other Departments, notably those of the Defense and the Treasury.

As if on cue, Secretary of Defense Steinbrenner, a mirthless, ponderous, shrewd aircraft millionaire, made a statement about the country’s current standing in the weapons race, emphasizing the number of stockpiles of nuclear warheads, and the country’s situation as to overseas bases. Except for the recent development of the Demi John guided missile, mainstay of the nation’s highly mobile airborne rocketry force known popularly as the Dragon Flies, Steinbrenner deplored the fact that in readiness for limited warfare the United States was woefully behind the Russians. He wanted greater expenditures devoted to select units like the Dragon Flies. Furthermore, he wanted reorganization of the Pentagon, especially in the areas of enlarging the military manpower draft and in enforcing speed upon government-subsidized contractors’ production schedules.

Immediately Secretary of the Treasury Moody leaped into the fray, protesting the cost of a Pentagon reorganization and opposing part of Eaton’s foreign-aid program. Listening to the contentious banker’s rasping voice, Eaton took out a cigarette and his silver holder, fitted them together, and smoked. He had heard all this before, and he could see that Dilman had heard it, too, in the Senate, and Eaton tried to hide his boredom. As Moody went on about deficit spending, lower interest rates, tax cuts, economy, Eaton shut him out. Then, suddenly, the Secretary of the Treasury mentioned the budget of the proposed Minorities Rehabilitation Program, and immediately there were six voices, one from every part of the table, superimposed upon each other.