gone behind his desk, suddenly so agitated, so nervously distracted, that he now seemed entirely oblivious of the presence of Poole and Mrs. Hurley in his Oval Office.
The door flew open, and into the office, striding fast, came a tall, long-legged African, turban on his head but otherwise garmented in a conservative blue suit. Behind him came a slender, uniformed Air Force officer, whom Poole recognized a moment later as the hero of outer space, General Leo Jaskawich. Bringing up the rear, pad and pencil fluttering, came a disheveled Edna Foster.
All of them crowded around the desk. There were no greetings, there was no formality, there was only an electric air of emergency.
“Ambassador Wamba,” Dilman was saying to the African, “Miss Foster says you have definitely heard. What is it?”
Before the Barazan Ambassador could reply, General Jaskawich, after a nervous glance behind him at Mrs. Hurley and Poole, quickly said to Dilman, “Mr. President, your other guests-this may be confidential-”
Impatiently, Dilman dismissed Jaskawich’s concern with a gesture. “Forget them,” he said. His attention was again entirely concentrated upon the Barazan. “Ambassador Wamba, do you have news?”
Wamba’s speech, with a lilting English accent, precise and Sussex public-school, was forceful. “I have heard from President Amboko directly on our Embassy telephone. The word is in, sir, and the evidence is being flown to you by the CIA. Our own best agents have discovered that our Communist insurgents in the hills will launch their attack at daybreak, in ten days from tomorrow morning.”
Anxiety bunched Dilman’s features. “There can be no mistake? This is positive?”
“Positive,” said Wamba, without equivocation.
Jaskawich stepped forward. “This is it, Mr. President, no question. Scott said for sure they’ll raise the reliability rating from 2 to top 1 on this.”
“Then it is clear-cut,” said Dilman. “We’ve got to prevent their first offensive, and we can only do it by letting the Soviets know we are onto it and that we are prepared to stop it. Very well, Ambassador Wamba, speak to President Amboko at once. Tell him to convene the Foreign Ministers of the African Unity Pact nations in Baraza City, and brief them, and request that they mobilize their forces, and inform them that the United States stands ready to honor its mutual defense treaty with them. Unless Premier Kasatkin gives me absolute assurance there will be no further action, I shall order dispatched by air and sea, within ten days, our fully equipped forces, our very finest troops and rocketry teams, to fight side by side with the armies of the African democracies… General Jaskawich, notify Secretary Steinbrenner of this development. Tell him I want the Dragon Flies battalions on red alert, and I want them quietly, speedily positioned at points of takeoff. When you’re through with him, let’s get out our note of protest and warning to Ambassador Rudenko, for immediate transmission to Premier Kasatkin. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jaskawich.
Jaskawich had Ambassador Wamba by the arm, and hastily the two of them, in whispered consultation, left the office.
President Dilman was about to sit down to his eighteen-button telephone console, when he became aware of Edna Foster still standing at his desk.
He considered her curiously. “What’s the matter, Miss Foster?”
“Don’t-don’t do this!” she blurted.
He appeared confused. “Don’t do what?”
“It’s not my business, except I don’t want you convicted for impeachment. Mr. President, I hate General Fortney, I abhor him, but what he said to you before, about sending an all-white military force into Africa to die for those underdeveloped people, it’ll ruin you in the Senate, it’ll create a storm against you. Can’t you see? It’ll be used to prove what Zeke Miller’s been insinuating all along, that the New Succession Bill had to be made law so you wouldn’t show favoritism to Negroes, even if they’re African Negroes, and that here you are, ready to sacrifice the best of our white troops to do that very thing. I’m not saying don’t defend Baraza. You must-I agree, you must-but can’t you send mixed white-and-Negro battalions to fight there? Can’t you-?”
“No, Miss Foster, I cannot. There is only one counter-guerrilla force that can act effectively, that is equipped to do so with a minimal loss of life, and that, as Steinbrenner said, is the Dragon Flies.”
Edna Foster persisted. “Don’t, Mr. President. Please don’t. This will ruin you-this’ll be the end of you-”
Dilman did not disagree. “It may be,” he said. “But whatever happens to me right now does not matter. It’s what happens to a good neighbor, black or white, one that’s put its entire faith in our decency, its trust in our way of life, that does matter. I can’t make deals with Fortney, or anyone else, to compromise my country, and I won’t. I appreciate your feelings for me, Miss Foster, I really do, but I must handle it this way. Now, please, tell Tim Flannery to notify the networks that I wish air time to deliver a short, major address-fifteen minutes, say-on a matter of national emergency-make it tomorrow at six o’clock our time. Thank you, Miss Foster.”
She shook her head sorrowfully, then ran from the office.
From the sofa, Leroy Poole had witnessed these scenes with fascination. He continued to watch as the President, by now completely unaware that there were others still in the room, swiveled toward his telephone console once more. Then, to Poole’s bewilderment, Gladys Hurley was on her feet and advancing toward the desk. Poole leaped up and chased after her.
Dilman’s hand was on the white telephone when he saw Mrs. Hurley. He blinked, perplexed, then seemed to remember, and pushed the chair back and rose. “Mrs. Hurley,” he murmured, “forgive me, but-”
She stood tall, head high, shoulders thrown back, worn fingers working over her smooth shiny purse.
“You forgive me, Mr. President,” she said. “I am sorry you cannot see fit to save my boy, but from what my eyes have seen, I have seen your goodness. If you cannot help my son, I
Then her voice trembled, as she went on. “Mr. President, no matter what, my Jeff was always a good boy, attendin’ church and learnin’ the scriptures, keepin’ to cleanliness, never fibbin’ or runnin’ wild in the streets, behavin’ and readin’ his books. And when he growed up, he always respected his father, when his father was alive, and was obedient to his father, and he took care of me, always took care of me and his younger brothers and sisters and needy kin with money and letters. He was a good boy, Mr. President, and he only meant well, but there was no one to understand… Come on, Mr. Poole, let’s leave the President be. He’s got his work to do for all of us.”
At nine-thirty that evening, the West Wing of the White House was still ablaze with light.
In the Reading Room of the press section, a handful of hardy correspondents, aware that the President was still at work, lolled about, hopefully waiting for some fresh morsel of news. In the antechambers beyond the Oval Office, numerous secretaries, on overtime, pecked away at their typewriters. In the corridors, the special police and the Secret Service men of the White House Detail ceaselessly maintained their vigils.
And, in the Cabinet Room, before an audience of three, Douglass Dilman was concluding his rehearsal of the latest draft of the crucial speech that he would deliver to the nation the next evening.
Nat Abrahams, recovered from his ordeal on the Senate floor, puffed his mellow pipe, picked at the rumpled napkin on his depleted dinner tray and listened. General Leo Jaskawich, chewing a half-smoked cheroot, absently doodled on a scratch pad and listened. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jed Stover, one hand forming a hood over his shaggy eyebrows, followed the circling needle of the stopwatch cupped in his other hand and listened.
Across the glossy Cabinet table, seated in the high-backed leather chair bearing the diminutive brass plate engraved THE PRESIDENT, Douglass Dilman, without exerting himself, without emphasizing the key phrases, approached the end of the television address that the four of them had hammered out before their informal dinner.
Dilman flipped the page, and then, in a voice becoming hoarse, read aloud:
“It is my fervent prayer that these powerful battalions of this democracy, now battle-ready and on full alert, will not have to leave our nation’s boundaries. It is my fervent prayer that even if we should commit ourselves to a limited conflict, it will not spread into a worldwide holocaust, and that our ICBMs will rest forever in their silos, and
