Philip Roth: Our Gang

CITIZEN: Sir, I want to congratulate you for coming out on April 3 for the sanctity of human life, including the life of the yet unborn. That required a lot of courage, especially in the light of the November election results.

TRICKY: Well, thank you, I know I could have done the popular thing, of course, and come out against the sanctity of human life. But frankly I’d rather be a one-term President and do what I believe is right than be a two-term President by taking an easy position like that. After all, I have got my conscience to deal with, as well as the electorate.

CITIZEN: Your conscience, sir, is a marvel to us all.

TRICKY: Thank you.

CITIZEN: I wonder if I may ask you a question having to do with Lieutenant Calley and his conviction for killing twenty-two Vietnamese civilians at My Lai.

TRICKY: Certainly. I suppose you are bringing that up as another example of my refusal to do the popular thing.

CITIZEN: How’s that, sir?

TRICKY: Well, in the wake of the public outcry against that conviction, the popular thing — the most popular thing by far — would have been for me, as Commander-in-Chief, to have convicted the twenty-two unarmed civilians of conspiracy to murder Lieutenant Calley. But if you read your papers, you’ll see I refused to do that, and chose only to review the question of his guilt, and not theirs. As I said, I’d rather be a one-term President. And may I make one thing more perfectly clear, while we’re on the subject of Vietnam? I am not going to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. If President Thieu has sufficient evidence and wishes to try those twenty-two My Lai villagers posthumously, according to some Vietnamese law having to do with ancestor worship, that is his business. But I assure you, I in no way intend to interfere with the workings of the Vietnamese system of justice. I think President Thieu, and the duly elected Saigon officials, can “hack” it alone in the law and order department.

CITIZEN: Sir, the question that’s been troubling me is this. Inasmuch as I share your belief in the sanctity of human life —

TRICKY: Good for you. I’ll bet you’re quite a football fan, too.

CITIZEN: I am, sir. Thank you, sir… But inasmuch as I feel as you do about the unborn, I am seriously troubled by the possibility that Lieutenant Calley may have committed an abortion. I hate to say this, Mr. President, but I am seriously troubled when I think that one of those twenty-two Vietnamese civilians Lieutenant Calley killed may have been a pregnant woman.

TRICKY: Now just one minute. We have a tradition in the courts of this land that a man is innocent until he is proven guilty. There were babies in that ditch at My Lai, and we know there were women of all ages, but I have not seen a single document that suggests the ditch at My Lai contained a pregnant woman.

CITIZEN: But what if, sir — what if one of the twenty-two was a pregnant woman? Suppose that were to come to light in your judicial review of the lieutenant’s conviction. In that you personally believe in the sanctity of human life, including the life of the yet unborn, couldn’t such a fact seriously prejudice you against Lieutenant Calley’s appeal? I have to admit that as an opponent of abortion, it would have a profound effect upon me.

TRICKY: Well, it’s very honest of you to admit it. But as a trained lawyer, I think I might be able to go at the matter in a somewhat less emotional manner. First off, I would have to ask whether Lieutenant Calley was aware of the fact that the woman in question was pregnant before he killed her. Clearly, if she was not yet “showing,” I think you in all fairness have to conclude that the lieutenant could have had no knowledge of her pregnancy, and thus, in no sense of the word, would he have committed an abortion.

CITIZEN: What if she told him she was pregnant?

TRICKY: Good question. She might indeed have tried to tell him. But in that Lieutenant Calley is an American who speaks only English, and the My Lai villager is a Vietnamese who speaks only Vietnamese, there could have been no possible means of verbal communication. And as for sign language, I don’t believe we can hang a man for failing to understand what must surely have been the gestures of a hysterical, if not deranged, woman.

CITIZEN: No, that wouldn’t be fair, would it.

TRICKY: In short then, if the woman was not “showing,” Lieutenant Calley could not be said to have engaged in an unacceptable form of population control, and it would be possible for me to square what he did with my personal belief in the sanctity of human life, including the life of the yet unborn.

CITIZEN: But, sir, what if she was “showing”?

TRICKY: Well then, as good lawyers we would have to ask another question. Namely: did Lieutenant Calley believe the woman to be pregnant, or did he, mistakenly, in the heat of the moment, assume that she was just stout? It’s all well and good for us to be Monday Morning My Lai Quarterbacks, you know, but there’s a war going on out there, and you cannot always expect an officer rounding up unarmed civilians to be able to distinguish between. an ordinary fat Vietnamese woman and one who is in the middle, or even the late, stages of pregnancy. Now if the pregnant ones would wear maternity clothes, of course, that would be a great help to our boys. But in that they don’t, in that all of them seem to go around all day in their pajamas, it is almost impossible to tell the men from the women, let alone the pregnant from the nonpregnant. Inevitably then — and this is just one of those unfortunate things about a war of this kind — there is going to be confusion on this whole score of who is who out there. I understand that we are doing all we can to get into the hamlets with American-style maternity clothes for the pregnant women to wear so as to make them more distinguishable to the troops at the massacres, but, as you know, these people have their own ways and will not always consent to do even what is clearly in their own interest. And, of course, we have no intention of forcing them. That, after all, is why we are in Vietnam in the first place — to give these people the right to choose their own way of life, in accordance with their own beliefs and customs.