The Throne of Saturn, page 36
And although he thought his tone was broad enough to slay an ox, he saw that they were actually taking him seriously. They actually looked flattered. Ego, Ego, he thought. Thy name is Omnipotent.
“Why don’t you sit over here on the sofa,” he went on easily, “it’s much more comfortable. And it gives me an excuse to use the rocker. Now: how goes it?”
“Mr. President,” Percy said firmly, “we think you should know that there is a very rapidly growing national uneasiness about the course of events in Geneva.”
“Growing damned fast,” Senator Williams agreed with a frown on his pouchy, fading baby face, melting away almost visibly under the twin erosions of too much liquor and too many willing congressional secretaries. “Damned fast.”
“What is the course of events in Geneva?” the president inquired innocently. “I didn’t know anything had been made public.”
“It hasn’t,” Percy Mercy said in a disapproving tone. “Keeping the conference secret, it seems to me, was a most unwise and undemocratic move.”
“You really think it would have helped the Russians to have those demands made public?” the president asked quickly. “Come, Percy!”
“They haven’t seemed so unreasonable to me,” Percy replied tartly; and then paused, flushing.
“I’m glad we’ve kept you informed,” the president said dryly. “And I’m glad somebody thinks the Russian demands are reasonable. I must say I don’t.”
“I can’t say I know too much about them myself,” Kenny Williams said, hesitated a moment as the president gave him a cheerfully skeptical glance and then went stoutly on, “but from what little I’ve been able to gather, I can certainly see their point of view.”
“Oh, I can see that,” the president said. “I’m trying not to forget ours.”
“And what exactly is it, Mr. President?” Percy inquired, swiftly recovered from whatever minimal embarrassment so self-contained and self-contented an ego could allow itself. “I haven’t been able to ascertain, unless it’s just complete obstruction.”
“I’m tempted to blow the conference and disclose the entire Russian text right now,” the president said with more sharpness than he had intended to let himself display. “I’d like the country to judge who’s being obstructionist.”
“This government has given its word that the details of negotiations will remain secret,” Percy said serenely. “Only the final agreement is to be made public.”
“Except to a few important souls,” the president couldn’t resist, “on a need-to-know basis.”
The editor of View gave him the solemn, owlish, intent stare that he was accustomed to use on those he wished to disconcert. The president, not being a disconcertable type, stared back. Presently Percy spoke with the gravity he was accustomed to use for matters of great national and world import.
“Mr. President, the senator and I did not come here today to indulge in intellectual fencing. We came as supporters of your Administration to tell you that a very serious political problem is developing very rapidly around Geneva. Not only political, but moral, ethical—humanitarian, if you like, in the very broadest world-sense of the term.”
“Good phrases,” the president agreed. “Next week’s editorial?”
“Mr. President—” Kenny Williams began in an indignant voice. But Percy raised a small, neat, commanding hand.
“Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “The president knows what I am talking about.”
“I do,” the president said amicably. “I surely do. The next step is for you to cry, ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of the media. When can I look for the barrage to begin?”
“There’s no need for that,” Percy said calmly, “providing there is some sign of genuine progress at Geneva. But if there is further stalling by the United States, Mr. President, then I must warn you our patience is wearing very thin. You saw the Post and the Times. You saw what Walter Dobius had to say.”
“I did,” the president said solemnly. “I was withered.”
“Nonetheless,” Percy said sharply, for, as with all the pontific, ridicule was the one weapon he could not stand, “my colleagues and I are reaching the end of our tolerance. The training stage of Planetary Fleet One is under way. The production lines are rolling. Can mankind’s dream of peace in space be allowed to fall behind?”
“Use that language, man!” the president urged. “Use it!”
“Now, Mr. President,” Senator Williams said again. But again P.C.M. needed no defense.
“Very well,” he said icily. “If this represents the attitude of the Administration toward the most pressing problem now confronting the world, then every responsible commentator in this land must speak out through every channel that is open to him. We must begin, and begin at once. We had hoped that the change in the crew and the invitation to the Communists to participate meant a real breakthrough. Obviously, the latter, in particular, was simply a grandstand play—simply window dressing in an attempt to relieve political pressure. But it won’t work, Mr. President. It won’t work. We who genuinely have the interests of the nation and the world at heart must now speak out. You permit us no choice.”
“What will you speak out about?” the president inquired with an iciness of his own. “Impossible Russian demands for a 60-40 control of launch operations? Impossible Russian demands for four men out of a crew of six? Impossible Russian demands for a waiver of all security checks on everybody who comes in with them and everybody they hire here? Good God, man, act your age.”
For several moments it seemed that P.C.M., instead of acting his age, would simply pop. But with a great effort of will, and after a titanic struggle between ego and abandon, he managed to retain control of himself and speak in a determined, if quivering, voice.
“Every thinking American who truly believes in world cooperation and peace can only conclude that the Russian ‘demands,’ as you call them, Mr. President, are entirely reasonable and warranted suggestions on their part.
“Naturally, they do not wish to risk a failure in so great an undertaking: hence the request for a preponderant control, by scientists and technicians who have amply demonstrated, particularly in Space Station Stalin—so much more sophisticated than our little Space Station Mayflower—their competence in this field.
“Naturally, they believe, and in all justice, that as the first nation to successfully place man in orbit around the earth, they should have a majority of the crew.
“Naturally, they feel, in view of all the shameful harassments of their nationals and of Americans friendly to cooperation with the Soviet Union by the FBI, the Passport Office and other agencies of this government over so many years, that they cannot join with us wholeheartedly unless these absurd and punitive harassments are removed.
“They are not asking for the shadow of cooperation, Mr. President. They are seeking the substance! And the United States quibbles and hesitates while humanity’s great opportunity hangs in the balance. For shame, Mr. President! For shame!”
There was silence as he concluded his moving statement, which displayed the best of Percy Mercy: emotional, passionate, sincere—involved. Into it the president uttered one awed expletive and a cordial farewell.
“Well,” he said softly, “I’ll be God damned. I genuinely will … Percy—” and he rose to his feet and extended his hand, and perforce Kenny Williams, looking slightly dazed, and a P.C.M. still looking nobly exalted, did too—“Percy and Kenny—thank you so much for giving me this fine statement of your concern for the country. I appreciate your views. I shall treasure them and take them under advisement. They will assist me greatly. I urge you not to be too hasty in your judgments. I urge you to be patient yet a little longer. Give us a day or two more. Let us keep trying in Geneva.” His voice became husky, his eyes became larger and brighter; almost they could imagine tears. “Give us your help!”
Wordless, bemused by Percy’s rhetoric and the president’s, his visitors moved dreamlike out the door. The moment it closed behind them he collapsed into the rocker again, laughing helplessly. It was thus the administrator found him a moment later, wiping the tears—of laughter—from his eyes.
“Andy, Andy!” he exclaimed. “Have I ever had a funny, phony afternoon!”
“How’s that?” the administrator asked, somewhat cautiously, for he did not know how the president’s mood might affect his own business. “Did the two musketeers give you a hard time?”
“Oh, you saw them, then,” the president said, his laughter subsiding. “Yes, they were, as usual, threatening me with all sorts of consequences, mostly dire. They aren’t happy with the way things are going in Geneva. Apparently, Percy has an inside line. Frankly,” he added with a frown, “I’m not happy myself. He thinks the Russian demands are great.”
“He’s a fool.”
The president nodded.
“But fools in his position are very dangerous fools, for they have the means of loosing their foolishness upon the entire populace. They are so desperately afraid of any real firmness with the Communists, so frantically committed to some sort of impossible dream of balance of power with a system whose sole aim is to tip the balance entirely its own way, that they are beyond reason. They would literally rather see their own country destroyed than see it act harshly toward the Russians. It’s a state of mind almost beyond belief but in Percy and his friends it actually does exist, beyond all reason and all rationality. And America suffers for it, dreadfully, as she has ever since the end of World War II.”
“What is going to happen in Geneva?” Dr. Anderson asked. “Is anything at all going to come out of it?”
The president gave him a cynical, candid look.
“No. A scramble for headlines, a scramble for propaganda advantage. Nothing concrete, no agreement, no cooperation. The same old pattern the Communists always follow. An exercise in futility for us.”
“Then why—?” Andy Anderson inquired though he knew the answer. The president shrugged.
“Political necessity. Perhaps for many Americans a psychological necessity. For Percy and his friends, a bone tossed by me to try to keep them quiet for a little while.” He smiled ironically. “It isn’t going to work. They really want us to surrender to these demands. Percy just came by to tell me that if we don’t, they’re going to raise hell again. He needn’t have bothered. It was implicit and inevitable in everything they’ve done for thirty years.”
“If Geneva collapses without result,” the administrator began, and then amended it: “when Geneva collapses without result—we’re going to face more than a few screams from the media, I’m afraid.”
“Mostly talk. It will blow over.”
“I’m not so sure,” Andy Anderson said slowly. “There could be more than talk.”
“Now, Andy,” the president said. “NASA isn’t seeing ghosts under the bed, is it? What are you afraid of?”
“Clete O’Donnell for one,” Dr. Anderson said, deciding to meet the problem head-on. “He’s pulled one wildcat strike to try to stop the mission and he’s as much as told me in so many words he’ll pull another if the Russians don’t get their way.”
“Andy,” the president protested, and the administrator could tell, with a sinking feeling, that he was about to meet the standard skepticism again. “You don’t mean to tell me you believe all those hobgoblin tales about Clete? You’re not going to tell me he’s a secret Communist, I hope!” He shook his head with a humorously baffled air. “You and Al Freer!”
The administrator hesitated but decided to stand his ground.
“Has he ever been investigated, Mr. President?”
The president looked almost offended for a second but answered in a reasonable tone.
“Why, I suppose so. Hasn’t anybody of any prominence at some time?”
“I’d like to see his record,” Dr. Anderson remarked.
“I think I can assure you,” the president said dryly, “that if there were anything subversive in it, it would have come to my attention.”
“Perhaps.”
“Now, see here, Andy,” the president said with some asperity, “it’s always fashionable when somebody does something some people don’t like to charge him with being a Communist. That doesn’t make him one. Clete O’Donnell has served on government commissions, official boards, national organizations of all kinds, for the past ten years or more. Surely you don’t believe he could have escaped detection all that time if he were really disloyal?”
“People have,” the administrator said stubbornly. “From Alger Hiss right on down the line. A great skepticism goes to work for them, powerful friends in the press and in public life get committed to them. If there’s anything questionable about them, it gets swept under the rug. If there’s anything embarrassing, it gets carefully glossed over. If anything shows up in the record it gets a fast shuffle and lands in a locked file to be deliberately forgotten. It’s happened many times in this town. And,” he added, though he knew he was risking real displeasure from his powerful host, “we both know it.”
“But not Clete,” the president said, more mildly than Dr. Anderson expected. “Not Clete, now, Andy. Really!”
“There it is, you see,” the administrator said bleakly. “That great skepticism again. How can one ever fight it?”
“With Clete O’Donnell, why should one?” the president inquired. “It’s true he’s involved with Percy in this CAUSE organization of theirs, but so are a great many perfectly fine and loyal citizens. I may not agree with it but it’s a legitimate activity, after all. And that little strike of his—”
“Which almost cost Al Freer’s life and did cost Stuart Yule’s leg,” the administrator could not help interjecting with some bitterness.
“—which did,” the president agreed calmly, “do those things, and nobody regrets them more than I—nonetheless could be regarded as an understandable, if somewhat excessively emotional, attempt to make a point. I don’t think it could really be regarded as a genuinely subversive attempt to stop the mission. Otherwise, why did he call it off if that was the motive? Why didn’t he just go right on and really try to wreck things?”
“Because you agreed to invite the Russians. He gained his objective, didn’t he?”
“Andy,” the president said, “if you really think I offered to go to Geneva just because Clete O’Donnell pulled a strike, you have a strangely naïve view of things, I must say.”
“Clete was the symbol. It was what he represented that turned the trick. You said yourself you had to throw them a bone.”
“But there’s a limit to how big a bone they can get,” the president said quietly. “Which is something they may not know.”
“Mr. President,” Dr. Anderson said soberly, “if we leave Geneva without an agreement for Russian participation, mark my words, we will have very serious trouble from Clete O’Donnell at the Cape and from other elements at other NASA installations around the country. I’m convinced of it.”
“Obviously, you are, Andy,” the president said, “and I don’t blame you. It’s your job to worry about NASA. But it’s mine to worry about the whole country and I tell you frankly”—he gave the sudden challenging, engaging grin that was one of his chief strengths with his countrymen—“I’m not worried. Certainly not about Clete O’Donnell, who may be a little emotional and headstrong sometimes, but who really isn’t a Communist, Andy. Honest he isn’t. So don’t let him keep you awake nights. He doesn’t me.”
“I’m glad,” the administrator said, and he could not resist a sharpness in his voice. “It’s nice to know one of us is resting easy, anyway.”
“Now, Andy,” the president said with a chuckle as the buzzer sounded and he rose from the rocker and went back to his desk to answer, “don’t get acerbic with me. My hide’s too thick for it to penetrate … Yes? Oh, good, put him on. Andy, come over here with me. It’s Our Man in Geneva, right now … Well, well,” he said cheerfully. “How goes the battle today?”
“Lousy,” the vice president said grimly; and as he told them what had just occurred in the Palais des Nations, the president’s ebullience faded and the administrator’s fears increased.
Chapter Seventeen
It had begun, in what he had come to recognize as the standard routine for such things, with the motorcycle-flanked, siren-screaming procession of sleek black limousines to the Palais des Nations, arriving promptly at 2 pm each day. There trumpets sounded, rifle stocks cracked as soldiers standing rigidly at attention presented arms, lights flashed, cameras whirred, reporters scribbled. The mighty of the earth dismounted from their rented chariots and the affairs of man stood still, awaiting their august attentions.
Three hours later to the minute, after competing statements, competing claims and much sound and fury signifying nothing of any positive value to the world, trumpets sounded, rifle stocks cracked, lights flashed, cameras whirred, reporters scribbled. The mighty remounted their rented chariots and rolled away to quibble again another day.
Promptly at 8 pm each night they met for free-flowing cocktails and a sumptuous dinner, at Soviet headquarters on even-numbered days, at United States headquarters on odd-numbered days. At 11 pm sharp they bade one another farewell and went to their hotels to compare notes, contact their governments, and prepare for tomorrow’s futility. And promptly at 2 pm the next afternoon, motorcycles roaring, sirens screaming, rifle stocks cracking, lights flashing, cameras whirring, reporters scribbling, they arrived once more at the Palais des Nations.
Out of two weeks of this, as the vice president reported to his vigorous superior each day, nothing so far had been accomplished. The Communists had presented their demands, he had taken them under advisement with an air of file-and-forget that was not lost on the Russians, and the time had passed in charge and countercharge.
All of this had taken place in secret, though of course Alexei Kuselevsky, principal adviser to the Soviet delegation, had seen to it that his friends in the Western press received all the titillating scraps of misinformation they needed upon which to build a running story of noble Russian willingness to cooperate and stubborn, inexcusable American refusal to let them do so. To Percy Mercy and a handful of others in America and Britain, Kuselevsky four days ago had confided specific details of the major Communist demands, with the understanding that they were confidential and for background only. Since then, the tone of editorials and broadcasts in the West had noticeably sharpened toward the United States.
