Listening carefully, Edna Foster, seated five chairs from the loudspeaker box, crossed her legs again, ready to hook her penciled ciphers across her shorthand pad, if required to do so. Beside her, Leach stopped tapping away on the stenotype set between his legs. Since all sound in the room had ceased, Edna glanced up. The intent faces of the President’s advisers seemed to form human parentheses around the loudspeaker, as each individual prepared to concentrate on what would come next from the Chief Executive in Frankfurt.
Finally there was T. C.’s familiar voice once more, washed over by the atmospheric static above an ocean that divided him from those who heard him. The President’s tone was low-keyed and insistent. “When I go back into that Roemer conference room with those bandits this afternoon, I want to tell them that the Senate is going to ratify the African Unity Pact this week. And that I intend to sign it when I return home. This ratification is necessary-I want to tell them that-because we have made a pledge to our African friends, and we want to keep our word. I want to assure Kasatkin, however, that we will never implement the Pact, act upon it, unless we are certain-absolutely positive-that a foreign power is attempting to interfere, militarily, with the sovereign rights of the Pact members. On the other hand, I want to be able to tell Premier Kasatkin, because we want peace, not only in Germany, India, Brazil, but everywhere, that we are ready to use our great moral influence in Baraza to convince its leader not to permit any discriminatory legislation against Communism to be passed into law. That should do it. I think that can wind it up, and I can come home and tell our people they can sleep safely in their beds for another year.
“However, I need your cooperation, need help from all of you there, and I’ve got to know what you can do for me, and how far I can go with the Russians today. John, I want you to bang ratification of the Pact through the Senate as fast as possible, no matter how long you have to keep in session. At the same time, Harvey, I want you to get that economic aid measure for those Pact countries out of the House committee and onto the floor. And I want it publicized, this support of our African friends. Then you, Arthur, you can call in Ambassador Wamba, and tell him we’ve got to get that anti-Communist legislation in Baraza quashed. Tell him to let his opposition natives have their little Communist Party. We’ll keep an eye on it. Tell him to let his students go to the U.S.S.R. on a cultural exchange. Let him keep an eye on that. Tell him our joining the new African Unity Pact is evidence enough of our continuing support. If he balks, put on the pressure. I won’t stand for any nonsense. I am determined to be the President who kept the peace of the world intact. Now, if you approve, what I want from you there in Washington is your promise that-that-wait, one second, MacPherson is calling out something-”
Abruptly the President’s voice was gone, and through the perforated holes of the loudspeaker box came a faint tearing sound, like canvas being ripped, and then a tinny whine, and then the ear-splitting falsetto crackle of static, and then dead silence.
Arthur Eaton had reached forward, placing a hand on the microphone box as if to steady it, and quietly he spoke into the box. “Mr. President-hello, Mr. President, we cannot hear you, we have lost you. Try again, please try again.” He remained immobilized, head cocked, listening for a response, but there was no sound. His hand shook the microphone box slightly. “T. C, this is Arthur here. Can you hear me?”
The loudspeaker stood mute. Eaton stared at it a moment, then looked about the room at the others. “I think we have been disconnected. We’ll have to get him back.”
General Pitt Fortney was already on his feet, hurrying to the ordinary green handset telephone at Edna Foster’s elbow. “Let me get hold of the Signal Corps,” he was saying. “This happens from time to time with the mechanical unscrambler. I’ll have them track the trouble down. We’ll be hooked up again in a few minutes.”
While General Fortney called the Department of the Army, reporting the communications failure, barking his displeasure, demanding that the line to his Commander in Chief be restored, Edna Foster had the mental picture, a Brueghel in animation, of a thousand little enlisted men with repair tools scurrying up and down the ramps of the Pentagon Building.
General Fortney’s stars and his ribbons and his raw Texas accent always frightened her, and she wanted to be as far away from him as possible. Since General Fortney was still on the telephone above her, Edna put down her pad, pushed back her chair and stood up. She found the silver silent butler, and began to move about the Cabinet table, emptying ashtrays into it. Here and there, around the table, the participants in the conference call had shifted positions on their chairs to discuss the President’s report of what had happened so far at the Roemer Conference and what must be done about it.
Senator Dilman was removing the cellophane from a fresh Upmann cigar, as he listened to Senator Selander and Representative Wickland discuss the possibility of expediting ratification of the African Unity Pact. Selander expressed confidence that he would have sufficient votes to obtain passage of the Pact through the Senate. Still, to win the necessary votes, he felt that he would have to do some shrewd horse-trading in the cloakrooms and at luncheons in the Hotel Congressional. He hated, he was admitting, to make concessions on the important Minorities Rehabilitation Program being debated by the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, but it might be necessary. As soon as the connection was made again with Frankfurt, he would ask the President how much he could concede to the opposition floor leader in return for his full support of AUP.
Cleaning out the last of the ashtrays, Edna could hear Assistant Secretary Jed Stover and Governor Wayne Talley once more locked in disagreement. Stover was saying that any weakness that the American government displayed in Africa would immediately aggravate Negro protest groups in the United States. Talley would not accept this. He tried to reduce Stover to the role of uninformed outsider. Talley was retorting that both he and the President had already met with the Reverend Paul Spinger, and the clergyman had assured them that the vast and conservative Crispus Society, which he headed and which had outgrown the NAACP in membership and power, would be satisfied with the ratification of the African Unity Pact.
“Wayne, I’m not speaking of the Crispus Society or the NAACP,” Jed Stover was saying. “I’m not sure they’re the voice of protest any longer. Most Negroes are becoming impatient with their drawn-out legalistic efforts. Most Negroes want what they want here and now, and they are turning to more aggressive organizations like the Turnerites. Didn’t you read Jeff Hurley’s statement in last night’s Post? He made it clear in that speech in Detroit that the Turnerites were not going to twiddle their thumbs while the Attorney General’s office studied illegal voter registration in the South or while the Crispus Society made appeals to higher courts. Hurley said they were on the verge of undertaking a new policy of unremitting demonstration, and if molested for protest, they would retaliate, demanding an eye for an eye. How do you think this group will react when they learn that the President is forcing Africans to rescind pending legislation in order to please the Soviets? This group and others like it take pride in Baraza’s unique freedom, keep using Baraza as their model of equal rights, keep insisting that is all they want here at home. I think-”
“Oh, knock it off, Jed,” Talley said impatiently. “Don’t lecture me, and don’t waste T. C’s time with that unsubstantiated nonsense. Nobody’s listening to the Turnerites or any crackpots like them. They mean nothing, nothing at all. Reverend Spinger admitted to the President that the Turnerites were a small splinter group who’d left his Crispus Society, that he wasn’t bothering to denounce or oppose them because they were inconsequential, and that there were always some elements who had to let off steam. Jed, you’ve got to stop confusing issues. Baraza is one thing. Our own domestic Negro situation is another thing. If the President can keep Baraza happy, and at the same time contain the Russians, then he has achieved a diplomatic marvel. As to our civil rights problems here, when the Minorities Rehabilitation Program is passed into law, that’ll put an end to Negro protest. Relax, Jed, just relax. Let T. C. perform as President. He’ll manage for all of us.”