Well, by God, I could and I would. I think of history in terms of tragedy — but not my own. I saw Uncle Sam, his pipe coughed up at last, the stem turned into a peashooter, striding forward to cut me off, but I didn’t give him a chance. Taking my cue from the flag-leafed Bond clothing store statues I’d just glimpsed rearing chalkily above me, a bronze shield between them with the legend EXCELSIOR, I coldly turned my other cheek and, hopping to the other side of the stage, snatched the first piece of bunting I could reach (which turned out to be a flag actually, the first one, circle of thirteen stars), wrapped myself in it, and then whirled with a vengeance (which was not as easy as it sounds, hobbled as I was: I had to face them cross-legged in the end, nearly lost it again before I’d even got started) on this mindless boozed-up but malleable rabble: “My fellow Americans!” Uncle Sam stopped short, eyeing me curiously. Herb Brownell, slipping out from behind the wings with his program notes, blinked and stepped back in again, elbowing Judge Kaufman in the right eye. The Warden was back there, too, I noticed, muttering something in the ear of the skullcapped Prison Chaplain and chewing bemusedly on his long black cigar — and now out front I discovered my old man, sitting on the edge of his chair, glowering intently, just as he used to do at all my school debates — my biggest thrill in those years was to see the light in his eyes when I destroyed my opponents, and by God I was not going to let him down now. Or Mom either, seated quietly beside him, hands folded in her lap, a goddamn saint. “We live in an age of anarchy!” The mob, which had been applauding itself drunkenly, now broke into laughter again, but there were cheers and whistles as well. Let them laugh, I thought. This is a generation that wants to laugh, a generation that wants to be entertained, thanks to the movies, TV — a sea of passivity, but so much the better for us swimmers. I stared boldly out at them, mob and cameras alike, feeling very much in control of things once more, wiser than I knew…. “We see mindless attacks on all the great institutions which have been created by free civilizations in the last five hundred years!”
They were listening now, even as they continued to whoop it up. People have noticed that “peculiar sales executive charm” I have, and I poured it on, smiling, scowling, clutching the flag tight around me with one hand (though it was all hand-stitched and the seams chafed me sorely), hammering home my points with the other — not for nothing had Dick Nixon won the Reader’s Digest Southern Conference Extemporaneous Speaking Contest so many years before! I started out by laying on them a real eye-opening, tub-thumping, hackle-raising sermon on world history (I’ve always been basically a history buff): the rise, development, and — as some would argue — partial decay of the philosophy called “liberalism”; the parallel emergence of a liberal heresy called Communism; the assumption of world leadership by two superpowers, America and Russia, each wedded to a competing faith; and finally, the present confrontation of these two faiths and these two superpowers in every part of the world. “America today stands almost alone between Communism and the Free Nations of the world!” I told them, and now I was addressing myself to all the people leaning out of hotel and business block windows and the anonymous masses crammed into the distant streets and avenues all the way up to Central Park as well, Jesus, I was in good voice. “If you could lift the United States bodily off today’s globe, the rest of the world would live in sheer terror!” This was my big play, and, egged on by my father’s grins and grimaces, I swung into it with all my might. I told them we had to roll back the Phantom’s power, had to give up the negative, futile, and immoral policy of containment which abandoned countless human beings to a despotism and godless terrorism, and set out immediately to liberate the captive peoples. “All that is needed is the will to win — and the courage to use our power — ALL our power — NOW!” The mussed-up clown trying to crawl over the lip of the stage gasped and slipped back, clinging to the edge by his fingertips. Conscious of the cameras on me, I flashed a smile and demanded that the Russians dismantle the Iron Curtain, free the satellites, and unite Germany under free elections. I called for all-out victory in Korea: “The only way to end the war in Korea is to win it on the battlefield!”—and made it clear that we should warn the Chinese Communists that “unless they cease their aggression against Korea by a certain date, our commanders in the field will be given the authority to bomb Manchurian bases! History tells us we are on the right side! Man needs God, and Communism is atheistic, so what we must do is to act like Americans and not put our tails between our legs and run every time some Communist bully tries to bluff us!” Hoo boy, I was really wound up! I thought of things I hadn’t even thought of yet! I argued for a naval blockade of Red China, a massive invasion of Southeast Asia, and if necessary, a preventative attack against mainland China itself: “All we have to do is take a look at the map and we can see that if Formosa falls, the next frontier is the coast of California!” I bounded forward, coins and belt buckle jangling against the stage floor, and shouted that we should not be afraid to use — wherever and whenever — all the massive, mobile, retaliatory power at our disposal! “Remember, it’s a cause bigger than yourself! It’s the cause of making this the greatest nation in the world — the leader in the world — because without our leadership the world will know nothing but war, possibly starvation or worse in the years ahead! With our leadership it will know peace, it will know plenty—“