“The indictments did not gain a majority vote. They were not passed. Most of the time, however, civil officers whose names are introduced by the House for impeachment don’t let it come to a vote. For example, fifty-five Federal judges have been investigated for impeachment. Eight were impeached, eight were merely censured, twenty-two were acquitted, and seventeen simply resigned their offices and put an end to the proceedings.”
“Nat,” Wanda said quietly, “Doug told me that he was given a chance to resign yesterday-yesterday morning.”
Abrahams felt his hand tighten on the warm bowl of his pipe. “He was? I didn’t know that.”
“Arthur Eaton came to him on behalf of the others. Eaton told him to step aside or quit, on some health pretext, or-or be prepared for what’s going on today.” Wanda fiddled with the buttons of her blouse, eyes downcast. “Nat, you can do something for me, and for Doug. Make him resign. Please do it for both of us.”
Abrahams studied her unhappy profile. “Why, Wanda?” he asked.
She lifted her head, and her eyes had filled. “Because I-I love him-love him too much to see him stripped and tarred and feathered and lynched in front of the whole world. It’ll destroy him, and any happiness he-both of us- might have had. Please make him quit.”
Abrahams felt helpless. “If Eaton couldn’t make him resign, what makes you think I can, even if I believed it was for the best?”
“I know Doug, his sensitivity. Coming from Eaton, it was an insult, got his hackles up. Coming from you, his closest friend, he would listen, knowing you want the best for him.”
Abrahams sucked at his empty pipe, and thought about it. Finally he met her anguished gaze. He shook his head slowly. “Wanda, I truthfully don’t know what is best for him. If he sees this through, he has two chances to survive, to win, to prove he deserves to be President. If he quits now, he loses, he has no more career in public service, he admits incompetence and worse.”
“He’ll be
“Wanda, you can’t decide this for Doug, and neither can I. Please believe me. Even if he has been goaded beyond common sense, no one can make such a pivotal decision for him. He must make it for himself. That’s all I can say to you.”
“Yes,” she said wearily.
Nat Abrahams wanted to comfort her, but further words would be useless. He rose, and went to the coat tree. As he pulled on his overcoat, he said, “I’ll be on my way. I’m at the Mayflower. I want you to promise me, if any more of the House investigators come snooping, you’ll pick up that telephone and summon me. No more answers to questions without legal counsel at your side. Will you promise?”
She said nothing.
“Wanda, it’s for Doug’s sake as well as your own,” he said sternly.
“I promise,” she said.
“Fine. Now, no more television, either. Keep yourself occupied. Not all of our congressmen are witch hunters. Let’s trust there is a majority who still cling to sensibility and decency. If there is, this will be as forgotten as a bad dream. I’ll see you soon, Wanda.”
“Thanks for everything.”
Not until he had fully emerged into the cold afternoon, and gone down the walk to his car, did he realize how relieved he was to escape Wanda’s problems and Doug Dilman’s problems and the whole impossible situation. Closing himself into his sedan, he felt momentarily insulated from all constricting, suffocating evil, and grateful that he was the lucky person he was, free of torture and punishment, free to return to his untroubled and loving mate, to a new career that promised him wealth and security, to a life unfettered by savage scandal and constant cruelty. Never had he been more grateful than now for being who he was, with so snug and tidy a niche in so seething and blazing a world.
Then, as he turned the ignition key and heard the engine whine and catch, heard its power idling, his conscience was awakened by the smooth mechanical purr.
Before the bar of his conscience, the blood went to his cheeks, and he felt the heat of shame. For he knew that he had allowed himself the vain corruptions of superiority and safety, and in his heart he knew that he possessed neither. He and Douglass Dilman were both men on this earth, with minds and hearts and limbs like one another and every man. His own position in life was high, but no higher than Doug’s position, and he was no more secure on high than his friend. If Doug was vulnerable today, and could be brought down, then so could he. He possessed nothing that Douglass Dilman did not possess. And his shame now came from the vanity of his one safe possession that Douglass Dilman did not have and could never own-the thin sheath of his conforming white epidermis.
Nat Abrahams shifted gears, and the car leaped forward. He was satisfied to know, at last, what he fervently prayed that the honorable members of the House of Representatives would know in due time-that any impeachment of Douglass Dilman, because of his difference, would also become an indictment of themselves, and of half-civilized men everywhere, for all of history.
On the fourth day after his departure from Washington, President Douglass Dilman stood hatless and coatless in the wind and the sun of Cape Kennedy, near Cocoa Beach on the east coast of Florida. He stood flanked by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by the nation’s most famous astronaut, by several members of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, posing for pictures being taken by the dense swarm of press photographers around him.
Following the wintry weather (and receptions) endured elsewhere on the trip, the Florida sun now baking down on his bare head and the Atlantic breeze now gently nipping at his brown suit represented an agreeable change. Yet Douglass Dilman was uncomfortable.
Staring back at the clicking shutters being manipulated by the crouching, kneeling, shouting photographers, Dilman experienced the sinking sensation of one who suddenly realizes that he is having his picture taken for some nefarious purpose. Under different circumstances, the excessive photography might have been innocent and natural: news shots heralding the Commander in Chief on his first inspection of his country’s foremost missile test center. Under today’s circumstances, the excessive photography was suspicious: news shots recording for posterity and editorial morgues the nation’s leader on his last outing as President of the United States.
The darker side of Dilman’s mind wondered what the caption would be on each still shot, as it was transmitted to New York and from there around the world. Then he knew that there would not be one caption to every photograph, but two, and with cynical amusement he wrote the alternate captions in his head: (A) “The grim and embittered President, shown minutes before learning he was impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors by a majority of the House”; (B) “The determined and courageous Chief Executive at Cape Kennedy minutes before hearing of his vindication by a majority of the House, who voted down the charges against him.”
In an effort to supply appropriate art for the happier caption, Dilman tried to reset his face, tried to look determined and courageous, but he knew that he was not succeeding. He still looked grim, because his innards were poisoned with disappointment and bitterness.
The swing around the country had been an unremitting disaster. Everywhere, he had been preceded by the one-sided, unrefuted charges introduced into the House of Representatives, the charges of his treasonable conduct, his immorality, his intemperance, his contempt of the people’s own elected Congress, all trumpeted into every municipality and hamlet, into every ear, via newspapers, radio, and television. Everywhere, the seeds of hatred had been sown, and everywhere, he had reaped the harvest of malice and malevolence.
There seemed no color line that divided the nation in its united aversion to his presence. The white folks screamed at him as if he were a dangerous orangutan on the loose. The colored folks condemned him as if he were a black Quisling who had sold his people back into slavery. If the demonstration against him in Cleveland had been a horror, his violent reception in the Shrine Auditorium of Los Angeles (where his life had been briefly imperiled by young hotheads who rushed the stage) had been worse, equaled only by his reception in Seattle, where not one word of his fifteen-minute talk had been heard.
The hurried visits to widespread military installations, under the reluctant guidance of General Pitt Fortney, had been no less distressing. At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, at general headquarters of the Strategic Air Command
