Du Pray was looking at Klee very coldly. And then she became angrier than he had ever seen her. 'Why the hell didn't you cancel the whole thing?' she shouted. 'Why didn't you avert this whole tragedy? There are citizens dead out there in the street who came to see their President. You've wasted the lives of your own men. I promise you, your actions will be questioned by me to the President and to the appropriate congressional committee.'
'You don't know what the hell you're talking about,' Klee said. 'Do you know how many threats are made against the President every day? If we listened to all of them, the President would be a prisoner in the White House.'
Helen Du Pray was studying his face while he spoke.
'Why did you use a double this time?' she said. 'That is an extreme measure. And if it was that serious, why did you have the President go there at all?'
'When you are the President, you can ask me those questions,' Klee said curtly.
'Where is Francis now?'
Klee stared at her for a moment as if he would not answer. 'He's on his way to Washington. We don't know how extensive this plot is, so we want him here. He is very safe.'
Du Pray said in a sardonic voice, 'OK, now I know he's safe. I assume you've briefed the other members of the staff, they know he's safe, what about the people of America? When will they know he's safe?'
Klee said, 'Dazzy has made all the arrangements. The President will go on television and speak to the nation as soon as he sets foot in the White House.'
'That's rather a long wait,' the Vice President said. 'Why can't you notify the media and reassure people now?'
'Because we don't know what's out there,' Klee told her smoothly. 'And maybe it won't hurt the American public to worry about him a bit.'
In that moment, it seemed to Helen Du Pray that she understood everything. She understood that Klee could have cut the whole thing of before it reached the culminating point. She felt an overwhelming contempt for the man, and then, remembering the charges that he could have stopped the atom bomb explosion but didn't, she was convinced that that charge was also true.
But most of all she felt despair: she realized that Klee could never have done this without President Francis Kennedy's consent.
CHAPTER
23
THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT rocketed Kennedy to the top of the polls. In
November, Francis Xavier Kennedy was reelected to the presidency of the
United States. It was a victory so overwhelming that it carried into office nearly all his handpicked candidates for the House and Senate. At long last the President controlled both houses of Congress.
In the period before the inauguration, from November to January, Francis Kennedy set his administration to work drafting new laws for his new and cooperative Congress. In rallying support he was helped by the newspapers and TV, which were weaving fantasies to the effect that Gresse and Tibbot were linked with Yabril and the attempted assassination of the President in one giant conspiracy. The news weeklies had given the issue extensive front-page coverage.
When President Kennedy submitted to his staff his revolutionary plans for transforming the government of the United States, they were secretly horrified. Big business was to be crippled by strongly chartered regulatory agencies. The corporations would become subject to criminal penalties rather than to civil law intervention. It was clear that the end result would be indictments under the RICO laws.
In fact Kennedy had jotted down the names of Inch, Salentine, Audick and Greenwell.
Kennedy emphasized that the surest way to gain public support for his proposal was to eradicate crime in American society. In his plans were proposed amendments to the Constitution that would impose Draconian penalties on criminals. Not only would the rules of evidence be changed, but by law the brain-probe truth test would become mandatory in criminal cases.
But most startling of all was the proposal to establish criminal colonies in the wilds of Alaska for three- time offenders. In effect, life sentences.
Francis Kennedy told his staff: 'I want you to study these proposals. If you can't go along with them, even though it will be hurtful to me personally, I am prepared to accept your resignation. I expect your answers within three days.'
It was during those three days that Oddblood Gray requested a private meeting with the President. They met in the Yellow Oval Room over lunch.
Gray was extremely formal, deliberately erasing his past relationship with Kennedy. 'Mr. President,' he said, 'I must state to you that I oppose your program to control crime in this country.'
Kennedy said gravely, 'Those programs are necessary. Finally we have a Congress that will pass the necessary laws.'
'I cannot go along with those work camps in Alaska,' Gray said.
'Why not?' Kennedy asked. 'Only habitual offenders will go. Hundreds of years ago England solved the same problem by sending its criminals to Australia. That worked very well for both sides.'
Kennedy had been curt, but Oddblood Gray was in no way intimidated. He said bitterly, 'You know that the majority of those criminals will be black.'
'Then let them stop committing criminal acts,' Kennedy said. 'Let them join the political process.'
Gray shot back, 'Then let your big corporations stop using blacks for slave labor-'
'Get off it, Otto,' Kennedy said. 'This is not a racial issue. In the years gone by we worked together. I've proved to you many times I'm no racist. Now you can trust me or trust the Socrates Club.'
'On this we trust nobody,' Oddblood Gray said.
'I'll give you the reality,' Kennedy said almost angrily. 'Black criminals will be weeded out from the black population. What's wrong with that? Black people are the chief victims. Why should the victims protect their predators? Otto, I have to be frank. White people in this country, rightly or wrongly, are deathly afraid of the black criminal class.
What's wrong with most of the black population being integrated into the middle class?'
'What you're proposing is to wipe out a big part of a generation of young blacks,' Gray said. 'That's the bottom line. I say no.' He paused for a moment and then said, 'Say I trust you, Francis, what about the next President? He may use that camp to imprison political revolutionaries.'
'That's not my intent,' Kennedy said. He smiled. 'And I may be around longer than you think.'
That statement chilled Gray. Was Kennedy thinking of amending the Constitution so that he could run for a third term? Alarm bells went off in Gray's brain.
'It's not all that simple,' he said. And then boldly: 'You could change.'
And at that moment he could feel Kennedy change. Suddenly they had become enemies.
'Either you are with me or you are not,' Kennedy said. 'You accuse me of wiping out a whole generation of blacks. That is not true. They are going to a work camp where they will be educated and disciplined to support the social contract. I will be far more drastic with the Socrates Club. They don't get that option. I am going to wipe them out.'
Gray saw that Kennedy had no doubts. He had never seen the President so resolute or so cold. He felt himself weakening. And then Kennedy put his hand on his shoulder and said, 'Otto, don't desert me now. We will build a great America.'
'I'll give you my answer after the inaugural,' Gray said. 'But, Francis, this is agony for me, don't betray me. If my people have to freeze their black asses in Alaska, I want a lot of white asses to freeze with them.'
President Kennedy met with his staff in the Cabinet Room. Also present by special invitation were Vice President Du Pray and Dr. Annaccone. Kennedy knew he had to be very careful-these were the people who knew him best, he must not let them divine his actual agenda. He said to them, 'Dr. Annaccone has something to say
