To the Death

… from thee alone do we ask help.
Guide us on the straight path,
The path of those upon whom is thy favor,
… Light upon light,
God guides whom He will, to his Light…

Washington, D.C.

Not every member of President Bedford’s White House staff was absolutely thrilled about the continued presence of Admiral Arnold Morgan at the elbow of the chief executive.

And in particular, there was a small cabal of the president’s speechwriters who considered the admiral a gross intrusion upon their ambitions. These were youngish men, three of them, highly educated, who believed to the depths of their egotistical souls that they alone knew what the president should be saying.

The problem with such people is they also believe they know what he should be doing. Not all the time. But enough of the time to make certain senior staffers extremely wary of them.

The business of writing speeches for the boss has, over the years, developed into the function of a committee. First draft, rewrite, alterations, new thought, new draft. Christ, he better not say that. why not? He is the president, right? Yes, but the media will go for him. they’ll go for him no matter what. yes, but. yes, but. yes, but. yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.

This crowd, bursting with self-importance, would rewrite Shakespeare—To be or not to be (delete the last “to be,” superfluous), That is the question (delete “question” and substitute “problem,” it’s more positive, less indecisive).

Writers and editors, the endless war. I don’t think you should say this, or indeed that.

Yeah, but where were you, asshole, when the paper was blank?

After a couple of years of this internal strife, these literary staffers quite often lose track of the fact that what a president says has nothing whatsoever to do with what he does.

They begin to believe that their thoughts and words represent actual policy. And when a tyrant like Admiral Morgan comes rampaging in, not giving a damn, one way or another, who says what, only about what the president does — well, that causes inevitable friction among the scribes.

They are also apt to rear up a bit when he writes something down, tells someone to type it out and then release it immediately, on behalf of the president—and someone tell those assholes who work here not to touch one single word of it, if they want to stay employed.

Staff relations were never a strong point with Admiral Morgan — though, when he commanded a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine, the crew, to a man, believed him to be some kind of a god.

When he headed up the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, he conducted some kind of a reign of terror, growling from the center of a vast spider’s web, striking fear into the hearts of agents, field officers, military commanders, and foreign heads of state.

When the previous president brought him into the White House as his national security adviser, he caused havoc among senior members of the staff, bypassing some people completely, speaking only to the president. He treated the chain of command as if it were not there, riding rough-shod over anyone who intervened.

That first president, the one who recruited the admiral, trusted him totally. As did the present incumbent of the Oval Office. If that’s Arnie’s opinion, that’s the way we go.

The president who served between these two was virtually frog-marched out of the Oval Office by the United States Marines. Directly into resignation, because he thought he could ignore the advice of the old Lion of the West Wing, the man every serving chief in the armed forces revered above all others.

Arnold Morgan was the Top People’s Man. Only the truly brilliant truly liked him. The rest regarded him with the suspicion that lurks only in less able minds. And this was a quality that had no place in an assessment of Admiral Morgan. He was selfless, demanded no financial reward, and had no personal ambitions.

He had sufficient patriotism to last ten lifetimes. And when he walked through the corridors of the White House, he still nodded sharply to the portrait of the former Supreme Allied Commander, President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

On the wall of his study at home was a portrait of General Douglas MacArthur. Any time Arnold sat alone wrestling with some awkward problem, he invariably ended by muttering, That’s the way the United States of America should go. Maybe not Great Britain, or any of those lightweight foreigners over there. But that’s the way for the U.S. of A.

And then he would look up at the general’s portrait and snap, “Right, sir?” As if expecting a confirming, “Affirmative, Admiral,” from the stern face that gazed out from the east wall of the study in toney Chevy Chase.

How could such a man possibly be understood by youngish graduates consumed by their own ambitions? How could a man who had commanded his mighty nuclear boat in the freezing depths of the North Atlantic ever expect to be comprehended by the president’s speechwriters?

The truth was, the old Cold Warrior, with his innate mistrust of Russia and dislike of China and the “Towelheads,” expected nothing from those he brushed aside in Washington. Except for loyalty to the country, support for the military at all times, and unquestioning obedience.

The speechwriters did not like him, this immaculately dressed bull of a man who held no torch for anyone and whose only concern was for the good of the USA.

The speechwriters were held, literally, at arm’s length by the president throughout the entire day of the Logan bomb. He and Admiral Morgan were closeted in the Oval Office for hours. The admiral drafted the president’s speech; the admiral made the decisions on who was going into military custody and who was not.

As for that missing Flight 62, the one that apparently crashed into the Atlantic off Norfolk. There was rumor all over the White House, but no facts, because the president discussed the issue with no one except for the admiral. Only the serving national security adviser, Professor Alan Brett, was confided in by Paul Bedford.

And anyway, so far as the speechwriters were concerned, Professor Brett, West Point lecturer, Army Commander, and all that, was too much like Admiral Morgan to be trusted.

Neither the president nor Admiral Morgan was a political animal. Neither of them had antennae for personal danger, plotting, and scheming. In a Medieval royal court, the pair of them would have lost their heads in the first ten minutes. They simply did not do intrigue.

And intrigue was brewing in Paul Bedford’s White House. Hints were being dropped to the media. the president did not see a reason to brief on that. the president decides such things entirely on his own, consulting only Admiral Arnold Morgan. there is less cabinet government in today’s White House than at any time in the last forty years.

It was only a remote drip. The press did not pick up the undercurrent of unrest among staffers, and no one thought anyone was briefing seriously against the president and his hard-man buddy. And they were wrong.

The speechwriters had limitless access to the news media, and columnists, and broadcasters. It was just a matter of time before one of them decided to help some writer construct a major feature article about the overpowering presence of Admiral Morgan in the Oval Office. And they could start with one question, of “national importance”—what the hell went on with Flight 62?

The White House staffer who ultimately did the deed was Anthony Hyman, a 31-year-old English graduate with a master’s from Yale and a postgraduate doctorate in political science from Balliol College, Oxford.

Anthony had strict personal goals. He expected to become the president’s chief speechwriter within eighteen months. He expected to have a position with a senior senator, hopefully from his home state of Connecticut, within five years, and to run for office as a congressman well before his fortieth birthday.

He was a tubby person, inclined to sarcasm and impatient with those of less obvious qualities than his own. He blinked at the world through thick lenses set into gold wire spectacles, and he possessed an ego approximately the size of the Smithsonian.

Anthony Hyman’s personal confidence was little short of atomic. He walked on the balls of his feet with a