“I’m not dealing here in this episode—and the ever-hopeful country and the world are not dealing here—with what is. That’s reality and it’s too frightening for them to face. I’m dealing with the promise of what could be. That’s all they want—that’s all they need to keep them happy. That’s what I’m going to give them.”

  He paused, took a sip of water.

  Ray Stanley shifted in his chair, started to speak, hesitated. The President deferred, waved him on. Ray spoke as if it pained him, which it did.

  “There is a cynicism and a corruption here,” he said slowly, “so far beyond the corruptions of money and sex and oil and the other petty Washington nonsense the media always makes so much of and the public gets so riled up about, that it isn’t even in the same ballpark … a corruption of morals and ethics and integrity so great that it almost can’t be grasped … so profound and deep-seated that it’s almost as though it weren’t there.”

  “Pretend it isn’t,” the President suggested. “You’ll feel so much better.”

  “Let’s remember what’s happened here,” the Secretary said, sounding almost dazed, although he had been around politics for a long, long time. “You were threatening Sidi, not Mustafa. Now you’ve turned on Mustafa to avoid having to make good on your threats to Sidi. You’re using Mustafa as a stand-in for Sidi, and in the process you’re giving Sidi everything he wants. Mustafa pays for Sidi’s transgressions because you don’t dare punish Sidi. You’ve done great damage to yourself, your office, and the country, but you plan to come out of it smelling like a rose. And you probably will. It’s upside down. It’s crazy.”

  “But how many will realize that?” the President inquired. “You’re right, a few will think—ponder—analyze—realize—cause a little rumpus and raise a little hell. But perhaps the major thing one learns in politics is that the American people have no memory; figuratively speaking, everything lasts ten minutes and then it’s gone. Collectively they have the attention span of a two-year-old child. Modern-day communication has destroyed their capacity to remember even as it has made it impossible for them to think. They are bombarded with information and opinions incessantly. It is just too much.

  “If you can coddle them past that first ten minutes, you’re home free. All you need is a good, stirring, upbeat rationalization, and they’ll forget all about what really happened. They’re sunny souls at heart; put a rosy gloss on it, and you’ve got it made. Such is what I intend to do. It’s what I’ve done all my political life. It’s always worked, and it will work now. You’ll see. The public and the media are champing at the bit to cut loose and declare me a hero. I’m going to tell them why they should.…

  “Incidentally,” he said, tone changing, becoming warmer, more intimate, that of the likable seducer at work, “why don’t you and Eulie stay around awhile longer? I’m not so bad. I have to pilot this ship. I don’t always like myself for what I have to do, but there it is. It goes with the territory.” He gave them his most charming smile. “Stick around. I might need you.”

  And with a cheerful nod to the others he stood up, said, “Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen, it’s been an interesting morning, and I think we’ve accomplished quite a lot”—gave them all a friendly wave—blew a kiss to his wife, who did not respond—and strode out.

  They moved slowly out of the room, not really talking—because what was there to say, their heads were whirling with too many things, filled with anger and resentment toward their clever host yet curiously, almost helplessly, sympathetic toward him too, on whom so much depended.

  The Secretary and Eulie found themselves walking along the hall with Helen.

  “And Sidi still has his bombs and his missiles,” Ray said gloomily. “He’s still a world menace, and he’s still a loose cannon, out of control, free to do whatever he chooses.”

  “Yes,” Eulie agreed. “And the President hasn’t really achieved a thing.”

  “Oh, yes, he has,” his wife remarked. “He’s saved his own neck. And that,” she said with an irony not so gentle, “is an achievement beyond price.”

  She gave them a sudden shrewd look.

  “Are you going to resign?”

  Again they looked at each other as they had in their talk with their colleagues in the department. This time there was no laughter.

  “I really don’t know,” the Secretary said slowly.

  “Nor I,” the Deputy Secretary said. She sighed. “It’s a terrible decision to have to make, at my age and with all my years in the Foreign Service.”

  “Yes,” Ray agreed soberly. “It isn’t easy.”

  “Think about it,” Helen suggested.

  The Secretary smiled, rather grimly.

  “We are.”

  “He came as close to begging just now as he’ll ever come,” she said. “He wasn’t kidding. He does need you. And he does have terrible responsibilities. Can you justify leaving him now?”

  “He’d find someone,” Eulie said.

  Helen smiled briefly at the uncertainty implied in the conditional tense.

  “Well, he would,” Eulie repeated, smiling a little herself. “A cast of thousands waits in the wings.”

  “Well,” Helen said, “you think about it. It doesn’t have to be done today, does it?”

  “If it isn’t,” the Secretary said with a rueful humor, “we may lose our flying speed.”

  “Give it a day or two,” she suggested. “Give him that much courtesy. Then if you want to, go ahead.”

  “You’re very persuasive,” Eulie said.

  The First Lady gave her a wry smile.

  “He’s habit with me,” she said. “And I feel sorry for him. Which he would absolutely hate if he knew.” Again the wry smile. “Don’t tell him. And don’t do something this serious on impulse. It wouldn’t become either one of you.” She paused as she started to turn away. “Why don’t you give me a call when you’ve made up your minds? I’d like to know.”

  “We’ll call you,” Ray agreed.

  “We appreciate your interest,” Eulie said.

  They watched the First Lady, always perfectly turned out, stylish and self-possessed, as she turned and walked down the corridor toward the elevator that would take her up to the family quarters.

  “What must it be like to be married to someone that completely cynical?” Eulie mused. “Do you suppose she ever challenges him on it as you did? Incidentally, I thought you were great.”

  “You weren’t so bad yourself,” the Secretary said. “I couldn’t help it. His approach to this thing is so completely cynical, so completely devoid of ethics and integrity—”

  “He doesn’t seem to think so,” she said. “It’s all a matter of practical politics, with him.”

  “And the damnable thing is that he’s probably right about the public reaction,” Ray said gloomily. “He’s going to get away with it. Wait and see.”

  “I wish you were wrong,” she said as they got into the waiting limousine that would take them back to State. “I wish he was wrong. But I’m very much afraid that he’s completely and absolutely right.”

  4

  And of course, a little later when all was said and done and settled down, he was.

  “The President knows his country,” Senator Wilson remarked to the Secretary two days later as they sat in Ray’s office and read the digests of media comment that were coming in from all over the country and the world.

  Aside from a few little glitches that might occur along the way to the strangest bit of presidential image-making ever to take place on the south lawn of the White House, it was already apparent that things were going to fall into place just about as the President had predicted.

  There were those, like James Van Rensselaer Burden, Able Montague, Sally Holliwell, and Tim Bates, who expressed alarmed disapproval in columns, television shows, and general commentary. Nor were they alone. Quite a few members of the media were equally skeptical, equally insistent in reminding the country of how this had all begun, what the original issue was, how willfully and arrogantly the President had attempted to bluff Sidi into retreat, and how ignominious and demeaning to America was his own retreat, the blatant appeasement of Sidi, the ruthless sacrifice of Mustafa.

  The country didn’t pay much attention. The threat of war was removed, the bogeyman was gone back into his distant citadel, the President was seen to be, as the capital’s most egregious newspaper summed it up for the great majority, “the strong and effective leader of democracy whom his admirers have always known would emerge triumphant from this little contest of wills with President Sidi.

  “Few things in recent years,” the paper assured its readers, “have represented such a victory for democracy as the President’s removal of the corrupt Sheikh Mustafa from Lesser Lolómé. Few things carry greater hope for the future than the pledge he has secured from President Sidi to hold free and democratic elections in the soon-to-be reunited country of Great Lolómé.”

  The problem of the A-bombs and missiles was handled in the way certain elements of the media always handle subjects embarrassing to their pet beliefs and fiercely cherished biases. Nine-tenths of the time it wasn’t even mentioned.

  And when it was—

  “It is true that Sidi’s continued possession of atomic bombs and long-range missiles must raise some legitimate questions in many sincerely troubled citizens’ minds. It must be acknowledged that these concerns are shared by the International Atomic Energy Agency and by many concerned scientists. Yet surely these concerns can be addressed—and settled—at some convenient future time in friendly discussions with President Sidi, now that cordial and cooperative relations have been reestablished between him and the United States.

  “The possibilities for a peaceful, swift, and mutually satisfactory solution of this bothersome problem are everywhere apparent. We look with confidence to the President to secure an early, friendly, and constructive outcome.”

  “Do you really?” Willie Wilson murmured gently. “Well, well … Ray,” he said abruptly, “are you and Eulie going to quit? If you do, I’m going to have you up before the Foreign Relations Committee in public session and give you a chance to spill your guts about the miracle-worker in the White House.”

  The Secretary smiled but shook his head.

  “I don’t know that I want to make a circus out of it.”

  “Are you referring to my distinguished committee as a circus?” Willie demanded with humorous indignation. “We’ll show you. Anyway, don’t duck my question. Are you?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Ray said slowly. “What I want to do …” he paused and gave Willie a thoughtful look. “I tell you what. Eulie and I haven’t had a chance to talk in the last couple of days, we’ve been so bombarded by media for comment on the general Lolómé situation. Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? We’ll have Eulie, and maybe Jaime. I got the feeling in the NSC that he’s getting very doubtful too.” He gave a sudden wry smile. “Wouldn’t that be something, if his three top foreign policy people all left at the same time?”

  “It would embarrass him a bit,” Willie said, “but it wouldn’t hurt him much. He’s riding high now. What time?”

  “Come over about six, we’ll have drinks and an early dinner and thrash it out.”

  “It would serve him right, at that,” Willie said thoughtfully. “He shouldn’t be allowed to get away scot-free with something as barefaced as this.”

  “He and his White House crew of diapered wonders will put the spin on it,” Ray said. “But at least we’ll have our own integrity where we can put our hands on it … if,” he added as the Senator smiled, “we do quit. There’s something to be said for staying in place and trying to influence events from inside.”

  “Haven’t influenced much in this case, have you?” Willie noted dryly as he rose to go.

  “No,” the Secretary conceded with a rather bleak smile. “Thanks for coming by to see these news digests. I thought you’d be interested. See you at six.”

  “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away,” Willie said with a grin.

  After he left to return to the Hill, the Secretary called Mary and told her they were having company, and why.

  “Good,” she said. “You’ve been so silent about it these last couple of days that I was beginning to wonder. It’s been all I could do to keep my mouth shut.”

  He chuckled.

  “I’ve regarded it as a sort of character test for you. You’ve passed with flying colors.”

  “Do you want me to invite Mrs. Jaime?”

  “No, no. She doesn’t speak very good English, for one thing, and I don’t think he’d want her there, for another.”

  “Do you think he’s going to stay?”

  “I’m not so sure,” he said. “I’m beginning to think Jaime has a few more surprises in him than we thought. I’m sure his wife will support whatever he decides, without question. As you will, of course,” he added humorously.

  “I will not!” she exclaimed. “If you resign on a matter of principle, I’ll beam proudly. If you decide to stay with that—that”—her tone turned acrid—“that clever soul, you’ll never hear the last of it, Raymond Cass Stanley, leader of world diplomacy.”

  “That’s an inducement,” he said with a chuckle. “Something light for dinner.”

  “To go with heavy thinking,” she said. “Rosella and I will whip up something.”

  “And bring your own bright thoughts to the table, too,” he suggested. “We need all the help we can get.”

  “Mine are very simple,” she said. “Go!”

  When he called Eulie a few minutes later, she was delighted.

  “I think that’s a marvelous idea,” she said. “I’ve been stewing and stewing ever since the meeting. I want to go, but should I? Will it be fair to him? Will it really hurt him with his other responsibilities, as Helen suggests? How will it look to the country and the world?”

  “Willie Wilson says it would embarrass him a bit but it wouldn’t hurt him much. He’s riding high, Willie says.”

  “Willie’s right,” she said. “But maybe that’s a reason for staying. If it doesn’t hurt him and make him think about what he’s done, then what good would it do? Except shut us out of things and destroy whatever slight influence we may still have with him.”

  “He must think we have some,” Ray said. “He wants us to stay. Helen wants us to stay … See you at six. We’ll confabulate, as my dear mother used to say.”

  And so they did, until almost midnight, after relaxing drinks and an excellent dinner put together in some haste by the Stanleys’ longtime Filipina cook, Rosella. Ray led them into the study shortly after eight, Mary, Eulie, Jaime, Willie, and closed the door with a solemn air. The discussion ran earnest and thorough for more than three hours.

  During the course of it, they ranged over the whole diplomatic scene, reviewed the sorry course of The Matter of Lolómé, excoriated again what they all saw as the President’s inept, wishful, and willful handling of it, and balanced as much as possible the arguments for and against resignation.

  Willie acted as informal moderator and devil’s advocate, though it was obvious from the first what he wanted them to do.

  “Not that my opinion matters in such a momentous decision,” he said, “but my basic rule has always been that if you really have principles, and if something really affronts them, which it obviously does here, then by all means, go. He hasn’t taken your advice throughout this episode, what makes you think he would take it any more if you remained in office? Whereas, if you go, the public and political shock could be so great that it might jolt him into being more realistic and more cautious about things in the future. Might. I’m not saying it would.”

  “On the other hand,” Ray remarked, “if he’s heading for the kind of universal congratulations we think he is, neither our going or staying would have much effect on him, right? And it wouldn’t damage him much politically, if at all, right? So …”

  “So it comes down to what we feel about it,” Eulie said, “and how strong our principles are and how much it means to us to act in accordance with them.”

  “Yes,” Jaime agreed, speaking up after a long period of silence. “That is the question. Me, I did not like to be the messenger boy for this errand. I did not like to give old Mouse the ax. He ees not a lovely character and no doubt deserves everything he is goin’ to get, but even so, I don’ like to be a bully of somebody helpless. It is not a nice feeling.”

  “No,” the Secretary agreed.

  “But of course,” Senator Wilson said, “there are a thousand and one other issues of foreign policy on which you have agreed with him in the past and presumably would continue to agree with him in the future. Would those outweigh the one matter of the Lolómés, which will very soon be forgotten as the world goes on to something else?”

  “Yes,” the Secretary agreed dryly. “He laid that all out for us in the NSC. He said it would be forgotten in ten minutes, figuratively speaking. He said the American people have no memory and the attention span of a two-year-old child. That was quite an interesting little lecture, wasn’t it, friends?”

  “You won’t find its like in textbooks on democratic government,” Eulie remarked, “but it was truer than most people like to think, I’m afraid.”