“Is everyone coming?” Dilman asked.
“Ninety-six have accepted,” she said. “The others are either out of town or ill or-oh, yes, there is one guest-no, two-I haven’t heard from. Senator Bruce Hankins-”
“I predicted that. I told Talley we shouldn’t bother, but he wanted to play politics.”
“-and Miss Wanda Gibson. She and the Reverend and Mrs. Spinger were invited together. I heard from the Spingers, but I have not heard from Miss Gibson.” She looked up. “I’ll telephone Miss Gibson-”
“No,” said Dilman, and at once, from Sally’s inquisitive eyes, their widening, he knew that he had uttered his order too hastily and too strongly. He sought to rectify it. “You needn’t bother. She lives with the Spingers, and I am sure she assumed their acceptance was her own.”
“Very well.” But he could see that Sally was reluctant to drop it. He wondered if she would go further. She said, “I think I am acquainted with all of the guests, or at least know about them, except Miss-Miss Wanda Gibson. Since I want to be as useful to you as possible, Mr. President-you know, introductions, making outsiders feel at home-is there anything I should know about the lady?”
Dilman cursed himself for having added Wanda’s name to the invitation list. He had known the hazard of doing so. He had done it only to prove to Wanda that he was not afraid to see her in public. He had expected questions from Illingsworth and received none, and Sally Watson’s curiosity caught him momentarily off guard.
He halted before the French doors leading into his Oval Office, returned the greeting of a Secret Service agent, and then confronted Sally as casually as possible. “You needn’t fret about Miss Gibson,” he said. “As a senator, preparing for committee hearings, I sometimes found her a valuable information source. She is employed by a Liechtenstein corporation, the Vaduz Exporters, in Maryland. I believe her firm carries on a good deal of trading with African nations, Baraza among them, and I thought that President Amboko and his Ambassador-what in the devil is his name?-Wamba, yes, Wamba-that she’d be one more person for them to talk to. That’s all. You needn’t bother about her tonight. She’ll be well taken care of. The Springers will have her in tow. And Mr. Abrahams-you met him-I think he knows her slightly, professionally, and he’ll pitch in.”
He realized that he had explained too much, and that Sally Watson had been listening too closely.
He said, “Is that all? I’ve got to-”
She said, “Well, there are a couple of minor-”
“You take care of the rest of it, you and Illingsworth. I haven’t time to be nervous about tonight. I’ve got to save my anxiety for the press conference. Forgive me, Miss Watson. You’re doing wonderfully on your own.”
“Thank you. And I’m sorry, Mr. President. I didn’t mean to distract you. Good luck, if I’m allowed to say so.”
He turned to the closest French door, and could see Tim Flannery holding it open. He thanked his press secretary and went into the office, which was agreeably warm. Talley, making corrections on the typed pages in a loose-leaf folder, began to rise, but Dilman signaled him to remain seated.
After taking his place behind the desk and apologizing for his tardiness, Dilman said, “Well, gentlemen, I’ve been doing my homework the last couple of nights. What’s next?”
“This,” said Talley, closing the vellum folder and holding it up. “I’ve tried to anticipate every question that might be put to you in the press conference. Then Tim here kind of had drinks with some of the boys, and picked up a few clues as to what you might expect. We listed the questions, circulated them to every department, and each one sent over lengthy replies on policy, supplemented with facts and figures. Tim and I condensed this to five typewritten pages. I don’t think we’ve missed a trick.” He came out of his chair and handed the folder to Dilman. “You have enough time to go over them by yourself now. Most of it will be familiar, but if anything puzzles or confuses you, we can talk it out right here.”
Dilman picked worriedly at a corner of the blue vellum folder. “What if I don’t remember some figure or-”
“You’re not expected to be a memory expert, Mr. President,” Talley said. “Tim will be seated beside you with that folder, and you can always turn to him for some elusive fact or number.”
“Won’t that look amateurish on television?” he asked.
Flannery shook his head. “Not a bit. It’ll make you appear fallible and mortal, serve to put viewers at ease.”
Dilman did not feel reassured. There had been several hours of debate on how his first press conference should be presented to the public. Dilman had turned down a huge televised press conference from the New State Department Building auditorium as being too impersonal, and as demanding histrionic talents that he knew he did not possess. He had considered an informal gathering in the Indian Treaty Room across the street. Flannery had been against this, arguing that Dilman had yet made no contact with the American public or with the majority of the press, except through brief, impromptu remarks or dictated statements, and that full exposure was now a necessity. A compromise had been reached only two days before. Forty to fifty members of the press would be admitted to the Cabinet Room. The television networks would cover the event. The atmosphere would be comfortable and unstaged. Dilman would make a series of news announcements, and then answer questions for perhaps twenty minutes.
Dilman opened the folder. On the first page there was typed in capital letters:
FOR THE PRESIDENT-MORNING BRIEFING ON PRESS CONFERENCE
As he turned the page, he heard Tim Flannery saying, “One thing, Mr. President.” He looked up, and Flannery went on, “You’ll notice a star in the margin, and the name of a newspaper or wire service beneath it, alongside several questions. There are not many, but those are the ones we planted to be sure they were asked. They’re the ones we feel you have good replies to and can come off well with.”
“I knew it was done,” said Dilman, “but how do you manage it? Don’t the reporters resent it?”
“Not at all,” said Flannery. “It gives them added news, even if canned or controlled, as they may think. These are men we can depend upon. They do us a favor, and at the right time we repay them with an exclusive lead. It’s not too obvious. Yesterday I called in one of the bureau chiefs representing a New York paper, handed him a written question, and I said, ‘Look, if you ask the President this question, in your own words, you might get an interesting answer. I’m just tipping you off.’ He looked at the question and said. ‘You mean, he’d like to get an official policy statement on this off his chest?’ I said, ‘I think so. It won’t be pap. It’ll be solid and definite.’ He said, ‘Okay, Tim, good enough.’ ” Flannery smiled at Dilman. “It’s the way we’ve worked in the past, with excellent results.”
“Fine,” said Dilman. “You two do whatever you wish until I’ve gone over this. If I have any questions, I won’t be reticent. I’ll need every bit of direction I can get today.”
Dilman studied the second page in the folder. Under the heading, YOUR OPENING REMARKS, there was a concise list of the subjects that he would cover in his reading of the mimeographed text. Next, under the heading, QUESTIONS ON OPENING REMARKS AND OTHER MATTERS (IF ASKED), there were fourteen short queries. Turning the page, Dilman found the heading, YOU MAY RESPOND AS FOLLOWS, and here each possible inquiry was repeated, followed by a suggested reply, severely condensed to one paragraph. This ran almost two pages. The last heading read, BACKGROUND, with numbers keyed to the questions and answers, and tight paragraphs filled with authoritative quotations and statistics from government departments elaborating upon the suggested responses.