Author: Jed Mercurio
Category: Other
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That night as he lay in bed, flat and unable to turn, as usual, the First Lady having once again execrated “that tasteless showman,” the President might have been tempted to defend his former ally were it not for the nagging embarrassment that Frank could command far more attention in a room than he up until the election and that now, outside of the Beltway, he remains equally if not still more charismatic, and that despite the President’s war record, he is tougher, and in all probability a better lover.
The matter reached its crisis when Frank advised the President’s brother-in-law to impress upon the President his own ministrations to security, having instructed contractors to install impregnable quarters on his property.
“I don’t think I can make it,” the President told Peter.
“Jack, he’s had men working round the clock.”
“It can’t be helped.”
“Well, I think you should be the one to tell him.”
Peter is a fellow fornicator, a characteristic readily deducible when one factors regular exposure to Hollywood starlets plus lengthy sojourns away from home when performing with Frank in Las Vegas or movie-making on location. Adultery as it pertains to his personal life is naturally a delicate matter, given his marriage to the President’s younger sister, but the subject would rather he were able to express his innate polygamous urges than become a bitter and resentful husband, and in turn the relationship is delicate as it pertains to the President’s womanizing, as he’s frequently availed himself of Peter’s Hollywood connections to procure women, and occasionally he has performed the same service here in Washington, while at work on Advise and Consent, in which he played a supporting role of a United States senator (with too much panache to be convincing), escorting on one evening a studio girl and on another a governor’s receptionist to an intimate White House soirée in the First Lady’s absence.
He brings the girls as a favor, or in tribute, and often the President chooses his escort service because his brother-in-law’s charm, good looks and celebrity will invariably result in a high class of guest at these club dinners, that being the term given to such evenings where one or two close male colleagues will entertain young women with the President, often complete strangers whom he’ll never see again once they’ve returned to the office or department from which they’ve caught the eye of the brother-in-law, or the Beard, or whoever has sought to entertain the commander-in-chief with a gift of female company.
Afterward they are invited to retire to the President’s private quarters. Some say, “No,” of course, and that is entirely their prerogative—the Beard will summon a White House vehicle to carry them home, though with slightly more strained courtesy than afforded to a young woman more cognizant of the tacitly assumed transaction—yet most are willing, since they have appreciated the unusual nature of an invitation to dine in the company of the President, and an understanding merely suspected at that point will certainly become more obvious as the evening progresses.
Now that he’s in office, the President is aware he must proceed with greater circumspection than in the past, only consorting with women to whom he’s been introduced by close colleagues he can trust, because, while the woman herself may confide in her friends, which can’t be helped, they are usually amenable to showing the necessary discretion. Fiddle, Faddle and the new girl—who may well have been christened Fuddle— understand their responsibility to national security, but this cannot be assumed of all participants; the governor’s receptionist, for example, after they had spent some time alone together in the Lincoln Bedroom, returned a blank and puzzled look when, on showing her to the door, outside which the Beard stood waiting to escort her down to the West Gate where a White House car was parked ready to whisk her home, the President said, “And, er, kiddo, I’m sure you understand national security considerations apply.”
“Excuse me, Mr. President?”
“Our evening together. Which I enjoyed very much. There’s a consideration for national security I’d be most grateful if you should observe.”
This time at her bemused look the President gabbled, “I’m sure Mr. Powers will explain,” dumping her on the Beard, who would elucidate patiently before he put her in the car.
As a loyal citizen, as a patriot, she had to understand how damaging it might be if she were to discuss with enemies of the state the President’s personal habits, which bear no relevance whatsoever to his Leadership of the Free World, but, if discussed frivolously, might undermine his authority, whereupon the Beard would ensure the girl nodded gravely, ideally swallowing a patriotic lump in her throat (in keeping with any other patriotic swallowing she might have done that evening), before she vanished into the night, possibly to swear her best friend to secrecy, or possibly to bear her burden till the day she dies.
The question of how these girls are managed after the event is of more concern to the President than their position beforehand. Initially he wondered if they oblige him out of duty, or even fear that rejection is tantamount to treason, but, before he accused himself of exercising droit de seigneur, he dismissed the question. He is man and President and the girls fall for one and both.
Nowadays the Beard is arguably the President’s most faithful aide. From his days under the senator to putting females under the President, the Beard understands that modulating the subject’s orgone energy helps him perform his elected duties, and the President is touched that the Beard regards this service as a service to America.
The brother-in-law serves himself. At Cape Cod this weekend, Peter and the President’s sister join a family party, and, once the welcoming pleasantries have been conducted, he picks his moment to corner the President on the sands, revealing that his agent has panicked over some holdup in the deal for a supporting role in Frank’s next picture, a project he believed was as good as his.
“Frank’s pissed at me,” Peter says.
The President says, “It was a political decision not to stay at his place.”
“I’ve never seen him like this. It’s worse than when Ava left him. You’ll have to call him.”
The President gazes out to sea. “I’ll get someone to call him.”
“No, you, Jack. Maybe if you could make it up to him …”
“Some things matter more than movies.”
“Like what?”
Aides who’d been involved in planning the West Coast trip had repeatedly raised concerns about Frank’s alleged underworld connections, though they sound no murkier than the average congressman’s. When the President telephoned, Frank came on the line with a nonchalant air, as if he’d been tipped off.
“This trip,” the President said, “I can’t see it’s going to work out.”
“No sweat, man,” he said, but there was a short silence—in which the President said, “I’m sorry”—and he said, “Thanks, Jack,” and then hung up instead of following the etiquette of waiting for the senior man to do so first, that one small gesture betraying his resentment and defiance in an otherwise classy exchange. The President held the receiver for a couple of seconds, the dial tone humming, as he stared out over the South Lawn, feeling a little shitty, but then he heard footsteps gathering next door, insisting he must move toward the next business of the day, Berlin.
In their meeting in Vienna, the Soviet Premier asserted his intent to sign a peace treaty with East Germany that in his view would supersede the postwar division of Berlin into East and West, after which, if Western forces did not withdraw, he would either blockade or invade the last remaining outpost of western democracy on his side of the Iron Curtain. In his eyes, West Berlin is an anomaly that threatens world peace and must be neutralized. One side must blink—and, following his verbal muscularity in Vienna, the Premier counts on it being the President of the United States—or else direct military aggression will ensue, whereupon escalation to all-out nuclear exchange would become alarmingly likely. The President asked the State Department and the Department of Defense to prepare contingency plans for the def
ense of Berlin, and is deeply perturbed that all such plans involved at minimum the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, a certain prelude if ever there was one to global thermonuclear war.
Consequently in today’s meeting the President orders his advisors to explore strategies that will permit a political solution to the crisis and to define military options that are non-nuclear but sufficiently robust to defend Berlin for sufficient time to create a cooling off period during which both sides might return to the negotiating table instead of escalating to first use of tactical nuclear weapons. The President addresses the nation with a message of which the Soviet Premier will read a translated transcript:
“We cannot and will not permit the communists to drive us out of Berlin, but we do not intend to abandon our duty to mankind to seek a peaceful solution. We do not want military considerations to dominate the thinking of either East or West. In the thermonuclear age, any misjudgment on either side about the intentions of the other could rain more devastation in several hours than has been wrought in all the wars of human history. Nuclear weapons would pollute our planet for all eternity. Those children that survive would curse our memories.”
All the time he is talking, the Football perches on a table in the hall outside, today handcuffed to the wrist of an Army captain. Anyone passing who was unfamiliar with the Football would not appreciate its nature, and would walk on by, oblivious.
The President visits Chicago for a Democratic Party dinner, receiving a message via Mrs. Lincoln from Judy, who must have read the itinerary in the press, because she claims to be staying at the Ambassador East on the same night. After the dinner, his limousine transfers him discreetly to her hotel, though he can only spend a few minutes in her room on account of a State Department briefing, but even in that short time her performance persuades him to invite her to Washington.
The First Lady takes the children up to the Cape on Thursday afternoon, while official engagements keep the President occupied till Saturday morning, whereupon he arranges for a car to bring his date from her hotel to the West Gate and then for the Beard to convey her through the White House to the second-floor Residence while the President swims to loosen his back, before the three of them enjoy a short lunch together and then, as planned, the Beard excuses himself.
The President escorts Judy to the bedroom, puts on a record and fixes some drinks.
“How’s Frank?” he says.
“You know Frank,” she says.
“He’s fine?”
“He’s having a fine time.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
She undresses in the bathroom while he gets onto the bed, and, when she sees him lying flat on his back, she realizes he’s not going to be able to contribute very much, as usual, but she conceals any disappointment she may feel and maneuvers into position.
A few mornings later, the President is woken by the phone ringing next to his bed. He can’t turn to reach it because his back is frozen solid, so it rings till the First Lady wakes and scoops the receiver to his ear. Overnight in Berlin, East German troops and police have closed off most of the crossing points between East and West. By the next day, the President learns they’ve closed off all of them and within the week erected a wall of concrete and barbwire to end the embarrassing exodus of refugees fleeing communist austerity. Border guards have begun shooting at anyone attempting to cross, some victims being left to bleed to death in no-man’s-land. The hawks in the administration want to bulldoze the Wall and deploy tanks to reopen the crossing points. To avoid direct confrontation, the President argues that it’s an internal matter for East Berlin, but, to show that commitment to the Western sector remains firm, he dispatches an infantry division to take up positions in West Berlin, the column passing of necessity through East Germany.
The President sits with aides in the Oval Office, his back numbed by painkilling injections and his attention made acute by some of Dr. Feelgood’s stimulants, receiving dispatches every half-hour on the condition of the column. Any attack by East German or Soviet forces would constitute an act of war. Pain gnaws at his stomach, and he must leave the room, first vomiting a small amount of blood-stained gastric contents and then suffering diarrhea so explosive it resembles nuclear warheads dropping from his fundament.
But the column makes it to West Berlin unscathed, though tensions remain high, and the next turn of the screw occurs when Mr. Khrushchev announces the resumption of Soviet nuclear testing, a policy he ruled out in Vienna after both leaders concurred that it only served to boil up the Cold War, prompting the President to conclude that he’s not so much testing nuclear weapons as testing him.
The challenge inflames his gut and bladder, but he intends to answer it, and answer it in the front line of the Cold War.
The President flies to Berlin. His advisors worry for his safety, yet he stands atop a guard tower and peers across the ugly concrete Wall to the grimly deserted streets on the other side, seeing people in apartment windows peering back, some even waving, as if they are prisoners in their own homes. In the upper chambers of City Hall, he stares at the carefully diplomatic speech that his aides have prepared, and feels nausea at the prospect of delivering it to the tens of thousands of beleaguered citizens gathering in the plaza below. He recalls the speechwriters urgently and tells them what he really wants to say. They scratch out the words with pencils, and then, clutching them in a fist of notepapers, the President ventures out into the air that bites with a ferrous wind, the crowd’s cheers striking him in waves, whereupon, thanks to the limbering effect of painkillers and muscle relaxants, with the added ingredient of one of Dr. Feelgood’s inspirational tonics, he mounts a high podium from which he peers out at the masses quarantined in this most precarious bastion of freedom.
The President says,
“There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the Free World and the Communist World. Let them come to Berlin.”
The crowd roars, the sound hitting him in concussive waves, and he knows he is sending a message to the world, and to his enemies. He looks out toward the grey concrete divide with its cruel barbwire traps where dozens of Germans, young and old, have been cut down by Soviet machine guns as they vainly sprang toward freedom, and, for a moment, he disregards the raw notes screwed in his fist.
“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect—but we never had to put up a wall to keep our people in.”
Another of wave of cheers strikes him.
“Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. You live on a defended island of freedom, but your life is part of the main. So let me ask you to lift your eyes beyond the dangers of today, to the advance of freedom everywhere, beyond the wall to the day of peace with justice, beyond yourselves and ourselves to all mankind. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades.
“Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was ‘civis Romanus sum.’ Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’ All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ich bin ein Berliner!”
A few days later, the Soviet Premier renounces his intent to agree to a treaty with East Germany that would signal a communist effort to take West Berlin by force.
On Monday morning, the President telephones the British Prime Minister, and they return to the subject of nuclear tensions between East and West, agreeing to a summit, which, since London and Washington have grown equally wintry, they site in Bermuda. The President flies down with a small party of close aides, advisors from the State Department and the Department of Defense, together with Fiddle, Faddle and Fuddle, an arrangement that can now be made without embarrassment, as it is all left to the Beard, who dubs them the President’s “hand luggage,” but, owing to a packed s
chedule of briefings on the flight, the only presummit free time he gets is in the limousine conveying him from Kindley AFB to his first meeting at Government House, so the President asks Fuddle to ride in the backseat, remarking to her as they pass through the lush, tropical countryside that he came here a number of times as a young man, once nearly getting himself killed by falling off a friend’s moped, before he confides that he needs to be put in a relaxed mood before the summit, drawing the curtain that divides them from the driver as she slips off the seat to kneel in the well.
Meeting the PM, though, is one of the few examples of contact with a foreign leader where the President doesn’t require particularly strict modulation of his orgone energy, which is just as well, as the deepest release comes from sex with a brand-new partner, a fact verified by Dr. Feelgood himself, and that evening, the PM and the President relax on the verandah of Government House, sipping cocktails while the squawks of birds fade with the setting sun and the scratching of crickets becomes the music of the night.
“How’s Lady Dorothy?” the President enquires.
“Very well. Very well indeed.” He shifts in his wicker chair. It seems like the only slightly uncomfortable moment of the evening. He says, “I miss her frightfully when I travel.”