At that time Fremont was a callow lout, fat-cheeked and sullen, with beetle brows and pasted-down black hair that looked greased into place; he wore a pinstripe suit and loud tie and two-tone shoes, and it was said that he had hair on his knuckles. He was frequently photographed at the target range, guns being his hobby. He liked to wear a Stetson hat. Mrs. Greyson’s only rejoinder to him that ever received any favor was a bitter remark, made after the returns had come in, that Fremont certainly was no straight shooter, straight or not. Anyhow, Mrs. Greyson’s political career was ended, Ferris F. Fremont’s begun. He flew at once to Washington, D.C., in search of a house for himself, his wife, Candy, and their two bulbous sons, Amos and Don.
Now, you should have seen the effects in Berkeley of all this shit. Berkeley did not take it well. The radical student milieu resented a campaign’s being won on such a basis, and they resented Fremont’s showing up in Washington even more. They did not so much care for Mrs. Greyson as they resented the winner; for one thing, as Republicans pointed out, there were many gays in Berkeley, and there certainly were many pinkos. Berkeley was the pinko capital of the world.
The pinko capital of the world was not surprised when Senator Fremont was named to a committee investigating un-American activities. It wasn’t surprised when the senator nailed several prominent liberals as Communist Party members. But it was surprised when Senator Fremont made the Aramchek accusation.
Nobody in Berkeley, including the Communist Party members living and working there, had ever heard of Aramchek. It mystified them. What was Aramchek? Senator Fremont claimed in his speech that a Communist Party member, an agent of the Politburo, had under pressure given him a document in which the CP-USA discussed the nature of Aramchek, and that from this document it was evident that the CP-USA, the Communist Party of America, was itself merely a front, one among many, cannon fodder as it were, to mask the real enemy, the real agency of treason, Aramchek. There was no membership roll in Aramchek; it did not function in any normal way. Its members espoused no particular philosophy, either publicly or privately. Yet it was Aramchek that was stealthily taking over these United States. You’d have thought someone in the pinko capital would have heard of it.
At that time I knew a girl who belonged to the Communist Party. She had always seemed strange, even before she joined, and after she joined she was insufferable. She wore bloomers and informed me that the sex act was an exploitation of women, and one time, in anger at my choice of friends, she dropped her cigarette in my cup of coffee at Larry Blake’s restaurant on Telegraph Avenue. My friends were Trotskyists. I had introduced her to two of them in public, without telling her their political affiliations. You never did that in Berkeley. Liz came by my table the next day at Larry Blake’s, not speaking; I think it got her in trouble with the Party. Anyhow one time kiddingly I asked her if she also belonged to Aramchek as well as to the Party.
“What a crock,” she said. “What a fascist lie. There is no Aramchek. I would know.”
“If it existed,” I asked, “would you join it?”
“It would depend on what it does.”
“It overthrows America,” I said.
“Don’t you think monopoly capitalism with its suppression of the working class and its financing of imperialist wars through puppet regimes should be overthrown?” Liz said.
“You’d join it,” I said.
But even Liz couldn’t join Aramchek if it didn’t exist. I never saw her after she dropped her cigarette in my coffee at Larry Blake’s; the Party had told her not to talk to me again, and she did what it said. Still, I don’t believe she ever managed to rise high in the Communist Party; she was a typical low-echelon type, devoted to following orders but never really getting them right. Ever since, I’ve wondered what happened to her. I doubt if she ever wondered what happened to me; after the Party pronounced the ban on me I ceased to exist, as far as she was concerned.
One night I had dinner with Nicholas and Rachel where the topic of Aramchek came up. The Socialist Workers Party had passed a resolution denouncing both Senator Fremont and Aramchek: one the arm of U.S. imperialism, the other the arm of militant Moscow.
“That’s covering both bases,” Nicholas commented. “You SWP are certainly opportunists.”
Rachel smiled the superior sneering smile of a Berkeley poly sci girl.
“Are you still seeing that guy?” Nicholas said, meaning the SWP organizer that his wife had a crush on.
“Are you still in love with your boss’s wife?” Rachel demanded.
“Well,” Nicholas muttered, fooling with his coffee cup.
“I think Fremont has a great concept there,” I said. “Denouncing an organization that doesn’t even exist—one Fremont made up and says it’s taking over America. Obviously no one can destroy it. No one’s safe from it. No one knows where it’ll turn up next.”
“In Berkeley,” Nicholas said.
“In Kansas City,” I said. “In the heartland. In Salt Lake City—anywhere. Fremont can form anti-Aramchek cadres, youth groups on the right dedicated to fighting it wherever it manifests itself, armed uniformed bands of kids ever vigilant. It’ll get Fremont into the White House.” I was kidding. But, as we all know, I turned out to be right. After the death of John Kennedy, and his brother’s death, and the death of virtually every other major political figure in the United States, it took only a few years.
4
The purpose of killing the leading political figures in the United States by violent assassination, allegedly by screwed-up loners, was to get Ferris F. Fremont elected. It was the only way. He could not effectively compete. Despite his aggressive campaigns,
