‘Of course, Mrs. Kane. I will ask Mr. Chadwick to call you later today.’
Florentyna was ushered into the Majority Leader’s office at ten o’clock the next morning.
‘Mark, I want to be put on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.’
‘I wish it were that easy, Florentyna.’
‘I know. Mark, this is the first favor I’ve asked for.’
‘There is only one slot open on that subcommittee and so many members are twisting my arm it’s amazing I’m not permanently in splints. Nevertheless, I’ll give your request my serious consideration.’ He made a note on the pad in front of him. ‘By the way, Florentyna, the League of Women Voters is holding its annual meeting in my district and they’ve invited me to make the keynote speech on opening day. I know how popular you are with the League and I was hoping you might find it possible to fly up and do the introduction speech.’
‘I’ll give your request my serious consideration,’ said Florentyna, smiling.
She received a note from the Speaker’s office two days later informing her of her appointment as the junior member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Three weeks later she flew to Massachusetts and told the League of Women Voters that as long as there were men like Mark Chadwick in Congress, they need have no fears for America’s well-being. The women applauded loudly while Florentyna turned to find Mark with a pained expression on his face and one arm behind his back.
During the summer vacation, the whole family went to California. They spent the first ten days in San Francisco with Bella and her family in their new home, high up on the hill, now overlooking the bay.
Claude had become a partner in the law firm, and Bella had been appointed assistant headmistress. If anything, Richard decided, Claude was a little thinner and Bella a little larger than when they had last seen them.
The holiday would have been enjoyed by everyone if Annabel hadn’t frequently disappeared off on her own. Bella’s gripping of a hockey stick firmly in her hand left Florentyna in no doubt how she would have dealt with the girl.
Florentyna tried to keep harmony between the two families, but a confrontation was unavoidable when Bella found Annabel in the attic smoking pot.
‘Mind your own business,’ she told Bella as she inhaled once more.
When Florentyna lost her temper with Annabel, Annabel informed her mother that if she took more interest in her welfare and less in her precious career, perhaps she could have expected a little criticism from her.
When Richard heard the story he immediately accompanied Annabel back to the East Coast while Florentyna and William traveled on to Los Angeles for the rest of their holiday.
Florentyna spent an unhappy time phoning Richard twice a day to find out how Annabel was. She and William returned home a week early.
In September, William entered his freshman year at Harvard, taking up residence in the Yard, on the top floor of Grays Hall, making the fifth generation of Kanes that had been educated at Cambridge. Annabel returned to the Madeira School, where she seemed to be making little progress despite the fact that she spent most weekends under her parents’ watchful eyes in Washington.
During the next session, Florentyna allocated a considerable part of her time to reading the defense papers and books her staffers recommended. She became engrossed in the problems the nation faced if it wished to remain strategically safe. She read papers by experts, spoke to assistant secretaries at the Defense Department and studied the major U.S. treaties with her NATO allies. She visited the Air Force SAC headquarters, toured U.S. bases in Europe and the Far East, observed army maneuvers in North Carolina and California, even spent a weekend submerged in a nuclear submarine. She sought meetings with admirals and generals, as well as having discussions with enlisted men and noncommissioned officers, but she never once raised her voice in the House chamber and only asked questions in committee hearings, where she was often struck by the fact that the most expensive weapons were not always the most effective. She began to realize that the military had a long way to go in improving its readiness if a national security crisis was to be handled effectively. This had not been tested fully since the Cuba confrontation. After a year of listening and study she came to the conclusion that Representative Buchanan had been right and it was she who had been the fool. She was surprised to find how much she enjoyed her new discipline and realized how her views must have changed when a colleague openly referred to her as a hawk. America had no choice but to increase defense spending while Russia remained so openly aggressive.
She studied all the papers on the MX missile system, which came under the jurisdiction of the House Armed Services Committee. When the so-called Simon Amendment to hold up the authorization of the system came on the calendar she asked Chairman Galloway to be recognized during the debate. She told Richard. He agreed.
Florentyna listened intently as other members gave their views for and against the amendment. Robert Buchanan gave a considered speech against it. When he took his seat, Florentyna was surprised the Speaker called on her next. She rose to a packed house. Representative Buchanan said in a voice loud enough to carry, ‘We are about to hear the views of an expert.’ One or two Republicans seated near him laughed as Florentyna walked to the podium. She placed her notes on the lectern in front of her.
‘Mr. Speaker, I address the House as a convinced supporter of the MX missile. America cannot afford to delay any further the defense of this country because a group of congressmen claim they want more time to read the relevant documents. Those papers have been available to every member of the House for over a year. It hardly needs a course in speed reading for members to have done their homework for today. The truth is that this amendment is nothing more than a delaying tactic for members who are opposed to the MX missile system. I condemn those members as men with their heads in the sand, heads that will remain in the sand until the Russians have made their first pre-emptive strike. Don’t they realize America must also have a first-strike capability?
‘I approve of the Polaris submarine system, but we cannot hope to push all our nuclear problems out to sea, especially now that navy intelligence informs us that the Russians have a submarine that can travel at a speed of forty knots and remain underwater for four years — four years, Mr. Speaker — without returning to base. The argument that the citizens of Nevada and Utah are in more danger from the MX system than anyone else is spurious. The land where the missiles would be deployed is already owned by the government and is at present occupied by nineteen hundred and eighty sheep and three hundred and seventy cows.
‘I don’t believe the American people need to be mollycoddled on the subject of the nation’s safety. They have elected us to carry out long-term decisions, not to go on talking while we become weaker by the minute. Some members of Congress would make Nero appear to the American people as a man who was giving a violin concert in aid of the Rome fire brigade.’
When the laughter had diminished, Florentyna became very grave. ‘Have members so quickly forgotten that in 1935 more people worked for the Ford Motor Company than were in the entire United States armed forces? Have we also forgotten that in the same year we had a smaller army than Czechoslovakia, a country since trampled on by Germany and Russia in turn? We had a navy half the size of that of France, a country humiliated by the Germans while we sat and watched, and an air force that even Hollywood didn’t bother to hire for war movies. When the threat of Hitler first arose we could not have rattled a saber at him. We must be certain such a situation can never rise again.