Charles Snow - Corridors of Power

When we arrived at Lord North Street, it was about half-past nine and Roger and Caro were still sitting in the dining-room. It was the place where Roger, nearly three years before, had interrogated Rubin. As on that evening, Rubin was ceremonious — bowing over Caro’s hand: ‘Lady Caroline’ — greeting Roger. As on that evening, Roger pushed the decanter round.

At Caro’s right hand, Rubin was willing to drink his glass of port, but not to open a conversation. Caro looked down the table at Roger, who was sitting silent and impatient with strain. She had her own kind of stoicism. She was prepared to chat with Rubin, in a loud brassy fashion, about his flight next day, about whether he hated flying as much as she did. She was terrified every time, she said, with the exaggerated protestations of cowardice that her brother Sammikins went in for.

All four of us were waiting for the point to come. At last Roger could wait no longer.

‘Well?’ he said roughly, straight at Rubin.

‘Minister?’ said David Rubin, as though surprised.

‘I thought you had something to tell me.’

‘Do you have time?’ said Rubin mysteriously.

Roger nodded. To everyone’s astonishment, Rubin began a long, dense and complex account of the theory of games as applied to nuclear strategy. Talk of over-simplification — this was over-complication gone mad. It was not long before Roger stopped him.

‘Whatever you’ve come for,’ he said, ‘it isn’t this.’

Rubin looked at him with an expression harsh, affectionately distressed. Suddenly his whole manner changed from the incomprehensibly devious to a brutal-sounding snap.

‘I came to tell you to get out while there’s time. If not, you’ll cut your own throat.’

‘Get out of what?’

‘Out of your present planning, or design, or whatever you like to call it. You don’t stand a chance.’

‘You think so, do you?’ said Roger.

‘Why else should I come?’

Then Rubin’s tone became once more quiet and reasonable: ‘Wait a minute. I couldn’t make up my mind whether to let it go. It’s because we respect you—’

‘We want to hear,’ said Caro. This wasn’t social, it wasn’t to make him comfortable. It was said with absolute attention.

Roger and Rubin sat blank-faced. In the room, each sound was clear. To an extent they liked each other: but that didn’t matter. Between them there was something quite different from liking or disliking, or even trust. It was the sense of actuality, the sense of events.

‘First of all,’ said Rubin, ‘let me make my own position clear. Everything you’ve planned to do is sensible. This is right. Anyone who knows the facts of life, knows that this is right. For the foreseeable future, there can only be two nuclear powers. One is my country, and the other is the Soviet Union. Your country cannot play in that league. As far as the economic and military side go, the sooner you get out the better. This is correct.’

‘You told us so,’ said Roger, ‘in this very room, years ago.’

‘What is more,’ said Rubin, ‘we will want you out. The way our thinking is shaping up, we will decide that these weapons ought to be concentrated in as few hands as possible. Meaning, us and the Soviets. This is right also. Before long, I’m ready to predict that you’ll be under some pressure from us—’

‘You’re saying it in different terms, and for slightly different reasons.’ Roger spoke without either intransigeance or suggestibility. ‘But you’re saying what I’ve been saying, and what I’ve been trying to do.’

‘And what you can’t do.’ Rubin’s voice hardened as he added: ‘And what you must get out of, here and now.’

There was a pause. Then, as though he were being simple, Roger asked: ‘Why?’

Rubin shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands.

‘I’m a scientist. You’re a politician. And you ask me that ?’

‘I should still like to hear the answer.’

‘Do I have to tell you that a course of action can be right — and not worth a second’s thought? It’s not of importance that it’s right. What is of importance, is how it’s done, who it’s done by, and most of all, when it’s done.’

‘As you say,’ said Roger, ‘one’s not unfamiliar with those principles. Now I wish you’d tell me what you know.’

Rubin stared down at the table.

‘I mustn’t say that I know,’ he said at last. ‘But I suspect. A foreigner sometimes picks up indications that you wouldn’t give such weight to. I believe you’re swimming against the tide. Your colleagues will not admit it. But if you swim too far, they wouldn’t be able to stay loyal to you, would they?’

Rubin went on: ‘They’re not fools, if you don’t mind me saying so. They’ve been watching you having to struggle for every inch you’ve made. Everything’s turned out ten per cent, twenty per cent, sometimes fifty per cent, more difficult than you figured on. You know that better than any of us. Lewis knows.’ For an instant, under the hooded lids, I caught a glance, glinting with Weltschmerz and fellow-feeling. ‘Everything’s turned out too difficult. It’s my view of almost any human concern, that if it turns out impossibly difficult, if you’ve tried it every way, and it still won’t go, then the time has come to call it a day. This is surely true of intellectual problems. The more I’ve seen of your type of problem the more I believe it’s true of them. Your colleagues are good at keeping a stiff upper lip. But they’re used to dealing with the real world. I suspect that they’ll be compelled to think the same.’

‘Do you know ?’ Roger spoke quietly, and with all his force.

Rubin raised his head, then let his eyes fall again. ‘I’ve made my own position clear to everyone I know in Washington. They’ll come round to thinking that you and I were right. But they haven’t got there yet. They don’t know what to think about your weapons. But I have to tell you something. They are worried about your motives for wanting to give them up.’

‘Do you think we ought to care about that?’ cried Caro, with a flash of arrogance.

‘I think you’ll be unwise not to, Lady Caroline,’ said Rubin. ‘I don’t claim they’ve analysed the situation. But as of this moment, they’re not all that interested in what you do — as long as you don’t seem to be sliding out of the Cold War. This is the one thing that they’re scared of. This is the climate. This is the climate in which some of them are anxious about you now.’

‘How much have they listened to Brodzinski?’ I said angrily.

‘He hasn’t helped,’ said Rubin. ‘He’s done you some harm. But it’s deeper than that.’

‘Yes,’ said Roger, ‘it’s deeper than that.’

‘I’m glad you know.’ Rubin turned to Caro. ‘I told you, Lady Caroline, you’ll be unwise not to care about this. Some of our people are in a state of tension about it. At various levels. Including high levels. Some of that tension is liable to be washed across to this side. Maybe some of it has been washed across already.’

‘That wouldn’t be so astounding,’ said Roger.

‘Of course, it’s frustrating to disengage oneself,’ said Rubin. ‘But the facts are very strong. So far as I’ve observed anything on this side, you’ve only to play it cool and put it aside for five, ten years. Then you’ll be right at the top here, unless my information is all wrong. And you’ll be swimming with the tide, not against it. As for Washington, they’ll be begging you to do exactly what you can’t do now.’ Rubin gave a sharp, ironic smile. ‘And you’re the one person in this country who will be able to do it. You’re a valuable man. Not only to Britain, but to all of us. This is why I’m giving you this trouble. We can’t afford to waste you. And I am as certain as I am of anything that if you didn’t take one step backwards now, you would be wasted.’