Charles Snow - Corridors of Power

Douglas, tilting back his chair like an undergraduate, speaking with his casual, lethal relevance, was arguing that the Luke — Getliffe view also, wasn’t really ‘on’. Furthermore, it might be attractive to the public, and we ought to be prepared to ‘damp it down’. It might be a practicable policy ten or fifteen years ahead, but it wasn’t a practicable policy now. The scientists thought it was easy to find absolute solutions; there weren’t any. None of the great world pundits, no one in the world — for once Douglas showed a trace of irritation — knew the right way, or whether there was a way at all.

Rose began to speak, massive, precise, qualified. I was thinking that until Brodzinski had been disposed of, Douglas had spoken like a correct departmental chief, representing his Minister’s view. But what he had just said was nowhere near his Minister’s view, and Douglas must have known it. I was sure that he did not feel either irregular or conspiratorial. This wasn’t intrigue, it was almost the reverse. It was part of a process, not entirely conscious, often mysterious to those taking part in it and sometimes to them above all, which had no name, but which might be labelled the formation, or crystallization, of ‘official’ opinion. This official opinion was expected to filter back to the politicians, so that out of the to-ing and fro-ing a decision would emerge. Who had the power? It was the question that had struck me, moving between Basset and Clapham Common. Perhaps it was a question without meaning — either way, the slick answers were all wrong.

I wanted to play for time. The longer it took for official opinion to crystallize, the better. But I was in an awkward position. Officially, I was junior to these Heads of departments; further, I had to take care that I didn’t speak as though I knew Roger’s mind.

The talk went on. Someone had just said, ‘We mustn’t try to run before we can walk.’ Douglas cocked an eyebrow at me, as he heard that well-judged remark — as though indicating that, though we might be on opposite sides, our literary comradeship was not impaired.

I thought this was my best time.

‘I wonder if I could say something, Hector?’ I put in, ‘Just as a private person?’

Hector Rose was irritated. We had never got on, our natures gritted on each other: but he had known me a long time, in this kind of situation he knew me very well, and he could guess that I was going to break the harmony. He wanted me to be quiet. He said: ‘My dear Lewis. Anything you have to tell us, in any of your various capacities, we shall all be delighted to hear. Please instruct us, my dear Lewis.’

‘I just wanted to raise a question, that’s all.’ I was as used to his techniques as he to mine.

‘I’m sure that would be equally illuminating,’ said Rose.

I asked my question: but I asked it in several different ways. Wasn’t Douglas pre-judging the issue when he talked about Getliffe’s view as the ‘other extreme’? Wasn’t this view, in fact, deliberately conceived as a means of taking one first step? Did they assume that no first step could ever be taken? Were they all accepting that the entire process had got out of conscious control?

Osbaldiston spoke first. ‘I don’t think it’s possible, you know, to look too far ahead.’

‘We’re all grateful to you, Lewis,’ said Rose, ‘for a most interesting piece of exegesis. We’re very, very grateful. But I suggest, with great respect, that we’ve got to deal with immediate situations. The problem really is, isn’t it, what our masters can actually perform in the course of the present Parliament? The point at issue is how much, in that time, they could alter their present defence policy, or whether they can alter it at all. We do appreciate, believe me, your taking the trouble to give us — what shall I call it? — a more uninhibited point of view. Thank you very, very, very much.’

I didn’t mind. I had taken none of them with me, but I didn’t expect to. I had done what I intended, that is, warn them that others were thinking flat contrary to them, that official opinion might not be altogether homogeneous. They knew now, since they were far from fools, that those other opinions must have reached Roger, and that I had intended most of all.

Other people were trying to nobble the civil servants, I thought, a night or two later, when Margaret and I were sitting in the stalls at Covent Garden. I looked at the lower right-hand box and there saw, in white tie, white waistcoat, Hector Rose. That was surprising, for Rose was tone-deaf and hated music. I didn’t care for it myself, but had gone to please Margaret: and, as she had pointed out to me, opera at least had the benefit of words. It was even more surprising to see him as a guest of honour, with one of the most forceful of aircraft manufacturers on his right, the aircraft manufacturer’s wife on his left, and two pretty daughters behind him.

It was absurd to suppose that Rose could be bought by dinner and a ticket to the opera. It was absurd to suppose that Rose could be bought by any money under Heaven: it would be like trying to slip Robespierre a five-pound note. And yet, though he could not have wanted to, he had accepted this invitation. I remembered the instructions he used to give me during the war: that a civil servant ought not to be too finicky about accepting hospitality, but should take it if he felt it natural to do so, and if not, not. I wondered how natural Hector Rose felt in the box at Covent Garden..

It was equally absurd to suppose that, when Roger made a counter-move, Lord Lufkin could be bought by a dinner, even by a lavish dinner in his honour. Lord Lufkin was financially capable of paying for his own dinners, even lavish ones. Yet he too, who disliked being entertained, accepted the invitation. He was one of the hardest and most austere of men, as I had known for years, having worked for him long before. He would be about as easy to bribe as Rose himself. I had never heard a bribe, in the crude sense, so much as hinted at, anywhere near these people, much less offered. In my own life, I had been offered exactly one bribe, flat, across the table — but that had happened when I was a don at Cambridge. Nothing of the sort was thinkable with the Roses and the Lufkins, although enormous contracts flowed from Rose and Osbaldiston towards Lufkin, and enormous influence flowed back. If Roger got his policy through, one enormous contract would cease to flow to Lufkin. That was a reason why Roger invented a pretext for fêting him — and the pretext was, rather improbably, the occasion of his sixty-first birthday.

The point was, Lufkin came. A crowd was waiting for him in the penthouse of the Dorchester. In the hot flowery room, door opened to the corridor so that men could watch for Lufkin himself, stood Hector Rose, Douglas, Walter Luke, Laurence Astill, Monty Cave, Leverett-Smith (the new Parliamentary Secretary), Tom Wyndham, MPs, civil servants, scientists, the whole of Roger’s entourage, businessmen, even some of Lufkin’s competitors. At last he was seen, sighted like the first sail of the Armada, turning out of the main passage, walking along the soundless corridor, flanked by two of his own staff and two hotel servants, like so many security men.

He had got lost on the penthouse floor, he said, as Roger greeted him. Lufkin spoke as though his getting lost was much to his credit, but even more to everyone else’s discredit. He stood there, drinking tomato-juice, surrounded by people absorbing the radiations of power. There was one man whom I had seen absorbing such radiations before; he loved them for their own sake, he was an executive, something like a sales manager, of a rival organization. Bald, rosy-cheeked, faintly Pickwickian, he stayed happy in the presence of the great man, smiling when the great man spoke. I remembered that his name was Hood.