House staff fought with an almost desperate ferocity, more and more of their plans were defeated.
The knowledge that in the last year of his presidency the battle was being lost filled him with a despairing anger. He knew that his cause was just, that he was on the side of what was right, that he held the moral high ground, that his course of action was the most intelligent for the survival of America. But it seemed to him now that intelligence and morality had no weight in the political process.
President Kennedy waited until everyone on his senior staff had been served tea.
'I may not run for a second term,' he said evenly. Looking over to the Vice President, he added, 'Helen, I want you to prepare to make your run for the presidency.'
They were all struck dumb, but Helen Du Pray smiled at him. The fact that this smile was one of her great political weapons was not lost on these men. She said, 'Francis, I think a decision not to run requires a full-length review by your staff without my presence. Before I leave, let me say this. At this particular point in time I know how discouraged you are. But I won't be able to do any better, assuming I could be elected. I think you should be more patient. Your second term could be more effective.'
President Kennedy said impatiently, 'Helen, you know as well as I do that a President of the United States has more clout in his first term than in his second.'
'True in most cases,' Helen Du Pray said. 'But maybe we could get a different House of Representatives for your second term. And let me speak of my own self-interest. As Vice President for only one term I am in a weaker position than if I served for two terms. Also your support would be more valuable as a two-term President and not a President who's been chased out of office by his own Democratic Congress. '
As she picked up her memorandum file and prepared to leave, Francis Kennedy said, 'You don't have to leave.'
Du Pray gave everybody the same sweet smile. 'I'm sure your staff can speak more freely if I'm not present,' she said, and she left the Yellow Oval Room.
The four men around Kennedy were silent. They were his closest aides.
Kennedy had appointed them personally and they were responsible solely to him. The President was like a strange kind of Cyclops with one brain and four arms. The senior staff was his four arms. They were also his best friends, and, since the death of his wife, his only personal family.
Du Pray closed the door behind her, and there was a small flurry of movement as the men straightened their folders of memorandum sheets and reached for tea and sandwiches. The President's chief of staff, Eugene Dazzy, said casually, 'Helen may be the smartest person in this administration.'
Kennedy smiled at Dazzy, who was known to have a weakness for beautiful women, 'And what do you think, Euge?' he said. 'Do you think I should be more patient and run again?'
Eugene Dazzy had been the head of a huge computer firm ten years before, when Francis Kennedy first entered politics. He had been a cruncher, a man who could eat up rival companies, but he had come from a poor family, and he retained his belief in justice more out of a practical sense than a romantic idealism. He had come to believe that concentrated money held too much power in America and that in the long run this would destroy true democracy. And so when Francis Kennedy entered politics under the banner of a true social democracy, Dazzy organized the financial support that helped Kennedy ascend to the presidency.
He was a large affable man whose great art was the avoidance of making enemies of people whose important wishes and special requests the President denied. Dazzy bowed his balding head over his notes, his tubby upper body straining the back of his well-tailored jacket. He spoke in a casual voice. 'Why not run?' he said. 'You'll have a nice goof-off job. Congress will tell you what to do and refuse to do what you want done. Everything will stay the same. Except in foreign policy.
There you can have some fun. Maybe even do some good.
'Look at it this way. Our army is fifty percent under quota, we've educated our kids so well they are too smart to be patriotic. We have technology but no one wants to buy our goods. Our balance of payments is hopeless. You can only go up. So go get reelected and relax and have a good time for four years. What the hell, it's not a bad job and you can use the money.' Dazzy smiled and waved a hand to show that he was at least half kidding.
The four men of the staff watched Kennedy closely, despite seemingly casual attitudes. None of them felt Dazzy was being disrespectful; the playfulness of his remarks was an attitude that Kennedy had encouraged in the past three years.
Arthur Wix, the national security adviser, a burly man with a big-city face-that is, ethnic, born of a Jewish father and an Italian mother-could be savagely witty, but also a little in awe of the presidential office and Kennedy.
Wix had met Kennedy ten years before, when he had first run for the Senate.
He was an Eastern seaboard liberal, a professor of ethics and political science at Columbia University. He was also a very rich man who had contempt for money. Their relationship had grown into a friendship based on their intellectual gifts. Kennedy thought Arthur Wix the most intelligent man he had ever met. Wix thought Kennedy the most moral man in politics. This was not-could not be-the basis of a warm friendship, but it did form the foundation for a relationship of trust.
As national security adviser, Wix felt that his responsibilities obliged him to be more serious in tone than the others. He spoke in a quiet persuasive voice that still had a New York buzz. 'Euge,' he said, motioning to Dazzy, 'may think he's kidding, but you can make a valuable contribution to our country's foreign policy. We have far more leverage than Europe or Asia believes. I think it's imperative you run for another term. After all, in foreign policy, the President of the United States has the power of a king.'
Kennedy turned to the man on his left. Oddblood 'Otto' Gray was the youngest man on Kennedy's staff, only ten years out of college. He had come out of the black left-wing movement, via Harvard and a Rhodes Scholarship. A tall, imposing man, he had been a brilliant scholar and a first-rate orator in his college days. Kennedy had spotted under the firebrand a man with a natural courtesy and sense of diplomacy, a man who could persuade without threats. And then in a potentially violent situation in New York, Kennedy had won Gray's admiration and trust.
Kennedy had used his extraordinary legal skills, his intelligence and charm, and his clear lack of racial bias to defuse the situation, thus winning the admiration of both sides.
After that, Oddblood Gray had supported Kennedy in his political career, and urged him to run for the presidency. Kennedy appointed him to his staff as liaison with the Congress, as head man to get the President's bills pushed through. Gray's youthful idealism warred with his instinctive genius for politics. And to some extent, naturally, idealism suffered defeats, because he really knew how government worked, where leverage could be applied, when to use the brute force of patronage, when to skip in place, when to surrender gracefully.
'Otto,' Kennedy said. 'Give us the word.'
'Quit,' Gray said. 'While you're only just losing.' Kennedy smiled and the other men laughed. Gray went on. 'You want it straight? I'm with Dazzy.
Congress shits on you, the press kicks your ass. The lobbyists and big business have strangled your programs. And the working class and the intellectuals feel you betrayed them. You're driving this big fucking Cadillac of a country and there ain't even power steering. And you want to give every damn maniac in this country another four years to knock you off, to boot? I say let's all get us the fuck out of here.'
Kennedy seemed delighted, the handsome Irish planes of his face breaking into a smile and his satiny blue eyes sparkling. 'Very funny,' he said.
'But let's get serious.' He knew they were trying to goad him into running again by appealing to his pride. None of them wanted to leave this center of power, this Washington, this White House. It was better to be a clawless lion than not to be a lion at all.
'You want me to run again,' Kennedy said. 'But to do what?'
Otto Gray said, 'Damn right I want you to run. I joined this administration because you begged me to help my people. I believed in you and believe in you still. We did help, and we can help more. There's a hell of a lot more to do. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and only you can change that. Don't quit that fight now.' Kennedy said, 'But how the hell can I win? The Congress is virtually controlled by the Socrates Club.'
Gray looked at his boss with the kind of passion and forcefulness found only in the young. 'We can't think like that. Look what we've won against terrible odds. We can win again. And even if we don't, what could be more important than trying?'
The room was quiet for a moment, as everyone seemed to become aware of the silence of one man, the
