She had lengthened her runs and put aside all thoughts of remarrying; she was too far up the political ladder to risk allying herself to a man who might be a booby trap, with secret skeletons in his closet to drag her down. Her two daughters and an active social life were enough, and she had many friends, male and female.
She had won the support of the feminist groups of the country not with the usual empty political blandishments but with a cool intelligence and a steadfast integrity. She had mounted an unrelenting attack on the antiabortionists and had crucified in debate those male chauvinists who without personal risk tried to legislate what women might do with their bodies. She had won that fight and in the process climbed high up the political ladder.
From a lifetime of experience she disdained the theories that men and women should be more alike; she celebrated their differences. The difference was valuable in a moral sense, as a variation in music is valuable, as a variation in gods is valuable. Oh, yes, there was a difference. She had learned from her political life, from her years as a district attorney, that women were better than men in the most important things in life. And she had the statistics to prove it. Men committed far more murders, robbed more banks, perjured themselves more, betrayed their friends and loved ones more. As public officials they were far more corrupt, as believers in God they were far more cruel, as lovers they were far more selfish, in all fields they exercised power far more ruthlessly. Men were far more likely to destroy the world with war because they feared death so much more than women. But all this aside, she had no quarrel with men.
On this Wednesday, Helen Du Pray started running from her chauffeured car parked in the woods of a Washington suburb. Running from the fateful document waiting on her desk. The Secret Service men spread out, one ahead, another behind, two on the flanks, all at least twenty paces from her. There had been a time when she had delighted in making them sweat to keep up. After all, they were fully clothed while she was in running gear, and they were loaded with guns, ammo and communications equipment.
They had a rough time until the chief of security detail, losing patience, recruited champion runners from small colleges, and that had chastened Du Pray a bit.
The higher she rose on the political ladder, the earlier in the morning she got up to run. Her greatest pleasure was when one of her daughters ran with her. It also made for great photos in the media. Everything counted.
Vice President Helen Du Pray had overcome many handicaps to achieve such high office. Obviously, the first was being a woman, and then, not so obviously, being beautiful. Beauty often aroused hostility in both sexes.
She overcame this hostility with her intelligence, her modesty and an ingrained sense of morality. She also had her fair share of cunning. It was a commonplace in American politics that the electorate preferred handsome males and ugly females as candidates for office. So Helen Du Pray had transformed a seductive beauty into the stern handsomeness of a Joan of Arc. She wore her silver-blond hair close cropped, she kept her body lean and boyish, she camouflaged her breasts with tailored suits. For armor she wore a string of pearls and on her fingers only her gold wedding ring. A scarf, a frilly blouse, sometimes gloves, were her badges of womanhood. She projected an image of stern femininity until she smiled or laughed and then her sexuality flashed out brilliant as lightning. She was feminine without being flirtatious; she was strong without a hint of masculinity.
She was, in short, the very model for the first woman President of the United States. Which she must become if she signed the declaration on her desk.
Now she was in the final stage of her run, emerging from the woods and onto a road where another car was waiting. Her detail of Secret Service men closed in and she was on her way to the Vice President's mansion.
After showering she dressed in her 'working' clothes, a severely cut skirt and jacket, and left for her office-and the waiting declaration.
It was strange, she thought. She had fought all her life to escape the trap of a single-funneled life. She had been a brilliant lawyer while rearing two children; she had pursued a political career while happily and faithfully married. She had been a partner in a powerful law firm, then a congresswoman, then a senator and all the time a devoted and caring mother. She had managed her life impeccably only to wind up as another kind of housewife, namely, the Vice President of the United States.
As Vice President she had to tidy up after her political 'husband,' the President, and perform his menial tasks. She received leaders of small nations, served on powerless committees with high-sounding titles, accepted condescending briefings, gave advice that was accepted with courtesy but not given truly respectful consideration. She had to parrot the opinions and support the policies of her political husband.
She admired President Francis Xavier Kennedy and was grateful that he had selected her to be on the ticket with him as Vice President, but she differed with him on many things. She was sometimes amused that as a married woman she had escaped being trapped as an unequal partner, yet now in the highest political office ever achieved by an American woman, political laws made her subservient to a political husband.
But today she could become a political widow and she certainly could not complain about her insurance policy, the presidency of the United States of
America. After all, this had become an unhappy 'marriage.' Francis Kennedy had moved too quickly, too aggressively. Helen Du Pray had begun fantasizing about his 'death,' as many unhappy wives do.
By signing this declaration she could get all the loot. She could take his place. For a lesser woman this would have been a miraculous delight.
She knew it was impossible to control the exercises of the brain, so she did not really feel guilty about her fantasies, but she might feel guilty about a reality she had helped to bring about. When rumors floated that
Kennedy would not run for a second term, she had alerted her political network. Kennedy had then given his blessing. This was all changed.
Now she had to clear her mind. The declaration, the petition, had already been signed by most of the Cabinet, the Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury and others. CIA was missing, that clever, unscrupulous bastard Tappey. And of course, Christian Klee, a man she detested. But she had to make up her mind according to her judgment and her conscience. She had to act for the public good, not out of her own ambition.
Could she sign, commit an act of personal betrayal and keep her self-respect? But what was personal was extraneous. Consider only the facts.
Like Christian Klee and many others, she had noted the change in Kennedy after his wife died just before his election to the presidency. The loss of energy. Helen Du Pray knew, as everyone knew, that to make the presidency work you could lead only by building a consensus with the legislative branch. You had to court and cajole and maybe give a few kicks. You had to outflank, infiltrate and seduce the bureaucracy. You had to have the Cabinet under your thumb, and your personal senior staff had to be a band of Attilas and a gaggle of Solomons. You had to haggle, you had to reward and you had to throw a few thunderbolts. In some way you had to make everyone say, 'Yes, for the good of the country and the good of me.'
Not doing these things had been a fault in Kennedy as President; also he was too far ahead of his time. His staff should have known better. A man as intelligent as Kennedy should have known better. And vet she sensed in Kennedy's moves a kind of moral desperation, an all-out gamble on good against evil.
She believed, and hoped, she was not regressing into an outmoded female sentimentality, that the death of Kennedy's wife was the root of the drift of his administration. But did extraordinary men like Kennedy fall apart merely because of some personal tragedy? The answer to that was yes.
She herself had been born to politics but she had always thought that
Kennedy himself had not the temperament. He was more a scholar, scientist, teacher. He had too much idealism; he was, in the best sense of the word, naive. That is, he was trusting.
The Congress, both houses, had waged brutal war against the executive branch, and usually won the war. Well, it would not happen to her.
Now she picked up the declaration from her desk and analyzed it. The case presented was that Francis Xavier Kennedy was no longer capable of exercising the duties of President because of a temporary mental breakdown.
Caused by the murder of his daughter. Which now affected his judgment, so that his decision to destroy the city of Dak and threaten to destroy a sovereign nation became an irrational act, far out of proportion to the degree of provocation, a dangerous precedent that must turn world opinion against the United States.
But then there was Kennedy's argument, which he had presented at the staff and Cabinet conference:
