“Your luggage is being collected, sir,” the Sergeant said. “As soon as the Corporal gets it here I’ll take you to your aircraft. They’re waiting for you.”
“It comes down to politics, doesn’t it,” Hinman said.
“You say that word like it was something dirty,” Ben Butler said. “You shouldn’t. Politics isn’t a dirty word, it isn’t a dirty profession. Some of the people who practice it are bastards, I’ll admit that. Maybe most of them. You have to remember one axiom, ‘Politics is the art of the possible.’ In the military service you can order a man to do something he doesn’t want to do and he has to do it or be punished. Can’t do that in many places in civilian life. Hard to do it at all in government. So you politic, you do what is possible. FDR is a politician. He had to see this tour as a chance for him to shore up some weak areas in his vote-getting powers. Don’t let it worry you. Now here’s what I got when we arrived, the instructions that were waiting for me.
“You’ll see the President tomorrow morning at the White House and have a private talk with him. Then he’ll hold a full dress press conference and introduce you to the newsreel cameras, the radio networks, the newspaper reporters and the rest of the world. Don’t get upset if one or two reporters take some heavy shots at the Old Man. He may be your Commander-in-Chief and mine but to reporters he’s just a politician who won the biggest race. He knows how to handle those people, you don’t. So while we’re on the plane I’ll give you some pointers.
“Lieut. Joan Richards, the WAVE, will meet us after the press conference. I sent her copies of the speeches I wrote for you and she’ll probably have nasty things to say about the way I write.”
“You wrote speeches for me? When?”
“When you were on your way back to Pearl,” Butler said. “I wrote ten speeches. Bob Rudd went over each one and corrected the technical mistakes I made about submarines. I made quite a few of those,” he grinned.
“All of the speeches say the same thing, basically. Some are tailored for wealthy business groups, some for Veterans’ organizations, that sort of thing.
“We’ll be in Washington tomorrow and after that’s over I leave you. Joan will go with you to New York and you’ll get the key to the city or some other damn fool thing and make two speeches there and hold press conferences. Then you go to Chicago and the Mayor is going to roll out the red carpet. Motorcade from the airport, parade up State Street and two speeches there with press conferences afterward. You’ll be staying in the Palmer House. I think it’s got the best food in the city. I don’t know the rest of the itinerary; Joan will have that. All I know is that you wind up talking to workers in aircraft factories.”
“What the hell does a submariner say to people who make aircraft?” Hinman grumbled.
“You inspire them,” Butler said, smiling. “You tell them that if they turn out good planes for the war in the air you’ll do your part by winning the war underseas.”
“Oh, bullshit!” Hinman said.
“Agreed,” Butler said. “But that’s what the people want to hear, what they need to hear. It may turn your stomach but I know that it will make a lot of people happy and it will raise money. Wars run on money just as much as they do on oil, maybe more so.”
The Dakota’s crew met Hinman and Butler as they walked to the steep little stairs that had been let down from the side of the plane. A young Army Air Force Captain with a smudge of new mustache on his upper lip stepped forward.
“I’m Captain Fredericks, sir. This is First Lieutenant Daniels, my co-pilot, and Master Sergeant Broker, our engineer. We’re honored to have you aboard, sir.” He grinned, showing a little-boy gap between his two upper front teeth.
“You’ll forgive me, sir, but you look awfully young to be the C.O. of a big submarine.”
“You look too young to fly this aircraft,” Hinman replied.
“Tricks to all trades, I guess,” Captain Fredericks said cheerfully. “As soon as your luggage is aboard we’ll leave. We’ll be making two fueling stops on the way to Washington. Our ETA is zero eight hundred tomorrow, sir.”
Walking up the sidewalk toward the White House steps Butler tugged gently at Hinman’s sleeve.
“Don’t look, don’t stare at his legs,” he whispered. “Just keep looking at his face.”
“What are you talking about?” Hinman said.
“The President is crippled. I guess a lot of people don’t know that. He had polio when he was thirty-nine, about twenty years ago. The reporters never mention it, the photographers never take pictures of his legs or his wheel chair.”
A Navy Lieutenant with a gold aiguillette draped from his shoulder met them at the door of the White House and escorted them down a long hall past the grand staircase and to the President’s office. As they walked down the hall of the old building, Hinman could feel the aura of power that seemed to be everywhere. He marched into the President’s office and stood at attention in front of a massive desk that had a small American flag on one corner and the Commander-in-Chief’s flag on the other.
The face of the man sitting in back of the desk was familiar, he had seen it scores of times in newsreels, magazines and newspapers. The massive head looked larger in real life than it did in the pictures and the heavy shoulders beneath the fabric of the blue suit bulged the cloth. The President’s eyes were clear behind his rimless glasses and his cigaret holder was cocked at a rakish angle in his wide mouth. He stretched a hand across the desk and Hinman, responding to Butler’s nudge, stretched his own hand across the desk and was surprised at the iron grip of the older man’s fingers.
“Welcome, gentlemen,” the President said in his sonorous, rolling tones. Ben Butler smiled. The Old Man was giving them the full treatment, using the measured cadences he used in press conferences and in his fireside chats on radio.
“I am particularly pleased to meet you, Captain Hinman. As for Ben, well, one cherishes old and honored adversaries.” He waved a big hand spotted with the brown marks of advancing age at two chairs that stood against a wall. He propelled his wheel chair from behind his desk and rolled to a stop in front of the chairs. A sudden upward jerk of the cigaret holder clamped in his mouth brought his Naval aide to his side.
“Coffee for all of us, if you will, sir.” He swiveled the chair slightly to face Hinman. “Now, Captain, tell me about this running sea battle you waged against the Japanese destroyers and the oil tankers they were guarding. From what Ben wrote me it appears that you used your submarine in a most unorthodox manner.” The massive head lifted and Hinman saw that the President’s eyes were not focused on him but on something very far away.
“I was an Assistant Secretary of the Navy, you know.” The President’s voice was soft. “In ‘Thirteen, Nineteen-Thirteen under President Wilson. Before this.” His big right hand gently touched one of his withered thighs. He straightened in his chair and his eyes focused on Captain Hinman.
“Tell me, Captain, about your action in your own words. I understand ship-handling terminology.” He listened intently as Hinman spoke and when he had finished he leaned back in his wheel chair, his clear eyes studying Hinman.
“It is an axiom, Captain,” the President said, “it is an axiom that generals always fight the war they find themselves in with the tactics of the last war they fought. The French Maginot Line is a perfect example of World War One thinking. The French generals assumed the Germans would attack frontally. They did not, they outflanked the Maginot Line and left it, a monument to outdated strategy!” He paused and eyed Hinman.