Part 49 (1/2)
The new President had not been in office ten days before it became clear to his own party as well as to the ”loyal opposition” that he was eyen more of a disaster than the defeated candidate had predicted.
Nevertheless the country was shocked when he served even fewer days than the ninth President-killed in a crash, his private plane, himself at the controls; dying with him his three top aides: White House chief of staff, press secretary, appointments secretary.
No U.S. or Canadian news medium said a word about alcohol or incidents in the dead President's past; they treated it as a tragic accident. Papers and TV reporters elsewhere were not as reticent.
The Speaker of the new House saw the ex-Vice President first (even before the oath of office) as the Speaker's seniority in line of succession enabled him to do. He came right to the point. ”I am ready to take this load off your shoulders. We both know that you were picked simply to support the ticket; no one ever expected to load you down with this. Here's how we'll do it: You resign at once, then we'll meet the press together-after I'm sworn in. I'll do most of the talking. I promise you, it won't be a strain on you.”
”I'm sure that it won't be. You're excused.”
”Huh!”
”You may leave. In fact I am telling you to leave. I thought you had come to stand beside me as I take the oath.. . but you have something entirely different in mind. You would not enjoy staying; I would not enjoy having you stay.”
”You'll regret this! You're making a mistake!”
”If a mistake was made, it was made at the Convention. By you and five others, I believe; I was not present. Yes, I may regret it but this is what I undertook to do when I accepted the nomination for the Vice-Presidency. Now get out. p.r.o.nto!”
The new President sent for the Director of the Budget forty minutes after the swearing in. ”Explain this to me.”
The Director hemmed and hawed and tried to say that the budget was too technical for anyone not in public life before- -and was answered, ”I'm accepting your resignation. Send in your deputy.”
It was almoSt a week before this call was made: ”Admiral? This is the President. If I come to your home, do you feel well enough to see me?”
There was a tussle of wills that the Admiral won only through pointing out that it was never proper to subject the President of the United States to unnecessary risk of a.s.sa.s.sination. . . and that with his new car, fitted for his wheelchair, he still went to the Pentagon twice a week. ”I'm old, I admit; I was born in 1900. But I'm not dead and I'm quite able to report to my Commander in Chief. And we both know that threats have been made.”
The President won the next argument. On b,eing wheeled in the Admiral started to get out of his chair. ”Do please sit down!”
The old man continued to try to rise, leaning on the arm of his nurse. The President said quickly, ”That was expressed as a request but was an order. Sit down.”
The Admiral promptly sat back down, caught his breath and said formally, ”Ma'am, I report-with great pleasure!-to the President of the United States.”
”Thank you for coming, sir. In view of our respective ages . . . and your health, I felt that it was a time to dispense with protocol. But you are right; there are indeed a flood of threats, many more than get into the news. I don't intend to be a target.. - at least until we have a new Vice President sworn in.”
”Never be a target, Madam. You would be mourned by everyone, both parties. Uh, if I may say so, you are even more beautiful in person than you are on the screen.”
”Not mourned by everyone, I'm certain, or I would not nave to be cautious about a.s.sa.s.sination. As for that other, I'm not beautiful and you know it. I know what I have. I project. But it's not physical beauty. It's something that a pro-a professionally competent actress-does with her whole being. Her voice, her expression, her hands, her body. A gestalt, with regular features the least important factor. Or not present, as with me.”
The President smiled, got up and went around the big desk, leaned over the Admiral, kissed his forehead. ”But you are an old dear to have said it.”
He cleared his throat, noisily. ”Ma'am, what is your opinion in the matter against that of millions of men?”
”We've dropped that subject. Now to work! Admiral, why is it that there has been so much difficulty with nuclear power plants ash.o.r.e but never any trouble with your nuclear submarines?”
The President slapped her desk, glared at the leader of the delegation. ”Stop that! Han'kerchief head, you've come to the wrong church. In this office there are no Blacks-or Blues, Whites, Greens, or Yellows- just Americans. Besides that, you claim to be a Black representing Blacks. Hmmph! That's a phony claim if I ever-”
”I resent that, Mrs. Ni-”
”Pipe down! 'Madam President,' if you please. And one does not interrupt the President. I said your claim was phony. It is. I'm at least three shades darker than you are.. . yet I'm smooth brown, not black.”
She looked around. ”I don't see a real sooty black in your whole delegation. Mmm, I see just one darker than I am. Mr. Green, isn't it? That is your name?”
”Yes, Madam President. From Brooklyn.”
”Any white blood, Mr. Green? Perhaps I should say 'Any Caucasian ancestry?'”
”Possibly. But none that I know of, Ma'am.”
”We're all in that boat - . . including all whites. A person who claims to be absolutely certain of his ancestry more than three generations back is accepting the short end of a bet. But since you are from Brooklyn, you can help me pa.s.s a word. An important word, one that I'll be emphasizing on the networks tonight but I'll need help from a lot of people to let all the people know that I mean it. A Black who gets elected from Brooklyn has lots of Jewish friends, people who trust him.
”That's right, Madam President.”
”Listen to my talk tonight, then pa.s.s it on in your own words. This nation has split itself into at least a hundred splinter groups, pressure groups, each trying for a bigger bite of the pie. That's got to stop!-before it kills us. No more Black Americans. No more j.a.panese Americans. Israel is not our country and neither is Ireland. A group calling itself La Raza had better mean the human race-the whole human race-or they'll get the same treatment from me as the Ku Klux Klan. Amerindians looking for special favors will have just two choices: Either come out and be Americans and accept the responsibilities of citizens.h.i.+p . . . or go back to the reservation and shut up. Some of their ancestors got a rough deal. But so did yours and so did mine. There are no Anglos left alive who were at Wounded Knee or Little Big Horn, so it's time to shut up about it.
”But race and skin color and national ancestry isn't all that I mean. I intend to refuse to see any splinter group claiming to deserve special treatment not accorded other citizens and I will veto any legislation perverted to that end. Wheat farmers. Bankrupt corporations. Bankrupt cities. Labor leaders claiming to represent 'the workers' . . . when most of the people they claim to represent repudiate any such leaders.h.i.+p.
Business leaders just as phony. Anyone who wants the deck stacked in his favor because, somehow, he's 'special.'”
The President took a deep breath, went on: ”Any such group gets thrown out. But two groups will get thrown out so hard they'll bounce! I'm a woman and I'm Negro. We've wiped the Jim-Crow laws off the books; I'll veto any Crow-Jim bill that reaches this office. Discrimination? Certainly there is still discrimination-but you can't kill prejudice by pa.s.sing a law. We'll make it by how we behave and what we produce-not by trick laws.
”I feel even more strongly about women. We women are a majority, by so many millions that in an election it would be called a landslide. And will be a landslide, on anything, any time women really want it to be. So women don't need favors; they just need to make up their minds what they want-then take it.”
The President stood up again. ”That's all. I'm going to devote this term to those 'unalienable rights'-for everybody. No splinter groups. Go tell people so. Now git.. . and don't come back! Not as a splinter group. Come back as Americans.”
They moved toward the door. Their erstwhile leader muttered something. The President demanded, ”Mr. Chairman, what did you say?”
”I said,” he answered loudly, ”you aren't going to have a second term.”
She laughed at him. ”I thought that's what I heard. Burr head, I'm not worrying about being reelected; I worry only about how much I can do in four years.”
(Editorial in the Springfield Eagle)
LIFE INSURANCE?.
The President's surprise nomination of the House Minority Leader for the vacant vice-presidency has produced some snide theories, one of the nastiest being the idea that she fears a plot on her life by the wheeler-dealers who put the late President into office, so she is spiking their guns (literally!) by rigging things to turn the presidency over to the opposition party should anything happen to her....
prefer to take her at her word, that her objective is to get the country unified again, and that a woman and a man, a Republican and a Democrat, a White and a Black, could be the team to do it.
The Speaker of the House has still not commented, but his floor leader and the nominated minority leader appeared with the President when she announced her choice. The Senate President Pro Tempore said, ”I see no reason why confirmation should not go through quickly. I've known Don for thirty years; I trust that I am not so narrow-minded that I can't recognize presidential caliber in a man of another party.
customary to be of the same party, there is a custom just as long standing (and more important) that a President have a Vice President he (she) trusts to carry out his (her) policies.
Let's back them to the limit! Let's all be Americans again!