The Throne of Saturn, page 28
He would, he decided, stress the themes stressed by the Times, the Post, and all the other Right Thinkers whose editorials, commentaries, and analyses would flood the country and the world in the next few days.
The simple, thrilling, wonderfully noble Blackness of Jayvee Halleck—the utter naïve political stupidity of Jazz Weickert (but a few gracious, saving words for his great ability as an astronaut, too)—the marvelous, ecstatic, almost-beyond-belief statesmanship and leadership of the president: these were good themes. They were great themes. And Percy Christ Mercy—calm, judicious, fatherly, and all-knowing, now that the horrible mistakes of the past few days which had so aroused the awesome fury of Percy Comma Mercy had been washed away—was prepared to do them justice.
He would do so with the sort of dreamlike denying of the known facts which so easily afflicted himself and his colleagues in their patient, unending endeavor to bring some sense to their poor, stupid, wayward countrymen.
He would do so knowing perfectly well that Jayvee Halleck was a difficult, immature, neurotic, potentially dangerous man to send into space—but Percy would always describe him in his pages as a man cooperative, reliable, steady, and mature.
He would do so knowing perfectly well that both Dr. Freer and Jazz Weickert had touched on something that privately made Percy himself profoundly uneasy, namely a really serious doubt about the loyalty of Clete O’Donnell and some others opposed to the flight—but Percy knew that in his pages Clete O’Donnell and those others would always be described as fine, patriotic, decent, and loyal Americans inspired only by the noblest motives.
He would do so knowing perfectly well that the Russians had always flatly refused to cooperate in space, and that if by any chance they were smart enough to accept the president’s invitation, they would join Project Argosy with no other aim than to block, thwart, subvert and destroy it in every way they possibly could—but Percy knew that in his pages he would always describe the Russians as fine, noble, upright, trustworthy and honest allies whose only aim, ever, was to work sincerely and helpfully with the United States of America.
So, it had always been, with Percy and his particular element in the media. So, presumably, it would always be. A sort of deliberate insanity gripped them, a sort of willfully upside-down logic that miraculously transformed the world they knew into the world they wished, every time they wrote, reported, commented upon, or pictured it.
Moved by this sweet, deliberate euphoria with which he and his friends had contributed so much to the misinformation and confusion of their countrymen over so many years, Percy began to write his editorial for the upcoming issue of View.
Around him his domain was hushed and silent. The only sound on that whole floor of the building in this late, deserted hour was the steady tapping of his typewriter and the jubilant little hum that now and then burst unconsciously from his lips.
He was elated almost beyond his considerable capacity for expression by the knowledge that Planetary Fleet One—bright and shining at last, thank goodness—had been rescued almost miraculously, by the concerted efforts of himself and his friends, from the shabby, disgraceful, ruinous disunity with which it had begun, so short a time ago.
Book Two
Chapter Fourteen
There now began, for the crew of Piffy One, for the administrators and staffs of NASA, for the contractors and subcontractors and for all their families, friends, and relations, that period of intensified pre-launch activity that veterans of the program knew so well from the great days of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Practical men made practical plans. Pragmatic decisions followed upon pragmatic decisions. Hours grew longer, lives more selfless. With a spirit befitting the bravery of the men who would fly and the skills of the men who would help them do so, all segments of the nation united in a great, selfless, noble dedication to the cause.
Perfect, shining, and pure, Project Argosy moved on its majestic way in harmony, happiness, and peace.
Politics and human emotions were banished and allowed no more to trouble it.
Much.
It was not, the vice president thought, that he was a fussy man: but he did like a little more advance warning than his vigorous superior had given him in his address to the country last night, if he was to mount a full-scale negotiation with the Russians. It was all very well for the president to say grandly, in effect, “I have asked the vice president to do the dirty work,” but it didn’t look that easy in the baroque, baronial office in the baroque, baronial old gingerbread Executive Offices Building next door to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. There, it caused problems.
Not, of course, that the vice president objected to the task, though he was extremely skeptical of its success. He was not about to violate the basic rule of vice presidents, which is never to comment in any way, shape, manner or form upon the wisdom of what their presidents do or do not do. But had it been his responsibility, he might have handled it differently. To begin with, he would certainly have stated a few conditions. He would not have made it quite such a grandiose “Come and get it, boys,” type of invitation—although, he supposed with a certain wryness, the president had to satisfy the shouters and screamers. But he didn’t really see why he had to go as far as he did, when he had already thrown them the bone of the new assignments to the crew of Piffy One.
Like all vice presidents of the space age, the incumbent was slightly more Catholic than the Pope when it came to supporting the program. “This job of being chairman of the Space Council,” one of them had remarked privately, “is about the most fun there is in this job. Maybe,” he added, only half-joking, “the only fun.” His boys, as the current vice president liked to call them, were among the most pleasant and exciting people he knew in his curious and generally thankless occupation. He felt they had been most cavalierly treated by the president and he regretted deeply that he had been away at the time.
Had he been in Washington instead of gallivanting around Europe on a good will jaunt the chief executive had asked him to undertake, (more or less, he suspected, to give him something to do) he might well have thrown his weight on the side of the Astronaut Office in the conferences and strategy sessions that had preceded the crew change. As it was, he had arrived back last night shortly after the president’s talk to find everything decided, two good men booted off the crew and two—or at any rate one—of doubtful quantity added, and morale, he had no doubt, generally shot to hell. This was too bad, the vice president felt, and he decided he would call Houston soon and get a rundown on the situation from his favorite astronaut, the amiable and redoubtable Colonel Trasker.
Meanwhile, he must decide how to approach these talks with the Russians. Already the State Department was giving him assistance. One of its ablest negotiators, a man wise and experienced in the methodology of yielding ground to the Communists while maintaining for the folks back home the illusion of American achievement, had been waiting on his doorstep when he arrived. All brisk, bright, shiny, and suave, he had begun to advise the vice president candidly on how to handle the Russians.
The vice president was to be soft, he was to be gentle, he was to be respectful, he was to be mild, he was to accept each Soviet insult—“And they will come, Mr. Vice President, oh yes, we all know they will come!”—as simple strategy concealing kind and willing hearts. He was to smile and smile and agree and agree and accept and accept. He was not to demand, not to insist, not to raise his voice, not to present conditions, not to ask concessions, not to—
“How am I to negotiate?” the vice president interrupted, deliberately sounding like the dullard he knew they all thought he was. “I mean, if I just accept everything they suggest and agree to everything they demand—well, where’s the negotiation? I don’t get it.”
“Mr. Vice President,” the State Department’s clever one said, “sir: the negotiation comes in the skill with which the representatives of the United States adapt themselves to the rather crude ways in which the Soviet Union states its demands. It’s not that they’re basically unreasonable. They’re just a little—unpolished, sometimes, that’s all. You have to be sympathetic and see things through their eyes. It was our thought that if you were just aware of this, if you were just forewarned, if you were alert to the real purposes behind their sometimes rather flamboyant words—”
“I’m aware of their real purposes,” the vice president said. “They want to do us in. Are you telling me I should let them?”
“Mr. Vice President,” the State Department’s expert said, “Mr. Vice President! Certainly, we do not advocate that. We simply want to be helpful, that’s all. We think that style and method are so important in arriving at an accommodation to their views, Mr. Vice President. They are so important.”
“I want them to arrive at an accommodation to our views,” the vice president said. “What’s the style and method for that?”
“That is such an impossible goal,” the State Department’s expert confessed with a charming smile, “that we don’t even worry about that.”
After he had wound up that interview with an amiable but implacable speed, the vice president was subjected to several more of a similar nature from the CIA, the U.S. Information Service, the chief press officer at NASA, and the White House communications director. Finally, he had remarked to the last gentleman, somewhat tartly, “I don’t see why everybody is telling me all this. The president wants it, so that’s the way it’s going to be. What’s the fuss?”
“We just thought you should be briefed,” the communications director told him. “It’s quite a delicate matter.”
“If my humble homespun ways aren’t delicate enough just as they stand in all their stark, naked simplicity,” the vice president said, “then perhaps he should get somebody else. Why don’t you suggest it?”
“We wouldn’t think of it,” the communications director assured him hastily.
But the next move, the vice president knew, would be to surround him with a crew of advisers whose whole aim would be exactly that of the State Department: to agree, to accept, to accommodate, to make no fuss and to do it, by God, with style.
Basically, he supposed, this was the right thing to do, from the standpoint of the historical record. Despite the paeans of joy from the media, he did not believe for one minute that the president had the slightest illusion that the Communists would accept his invitation. No more did the media, he suspected, but they were putting up such a happy hullaballoo you would never guess it. So, his job was to make the attempt in good faith for the record and await the inevitable rejection that would permit the United States to say to the world, “You see? We made the offer and they turned it down. What more can you ask?”
Of course, he knew, and so did the president, what a good many of the watching nations would ask if they thought they could get it. Already ninety-seven members of the ruling party in the British Parliament, having nothing better with which to engage their energies in the aftermath of empire, had adopted a resolution calling on the United States to abandon the flight altogether. The premier of lucky Sweden, always in the middle, had led a protest march through downtown Stockholm demanding the same. Not to be outdone, though they couldn’t possibly do any better than that, the Communist nations behind the Iron Curtain were joining the chorus. India and the Maldives formed a mighty duo crying for the same.
The poor old United States, the vice president reflected ironically, just couldn’t win. Somehow it would just have to struggle along and survive in spite of it, the way it always did.
And somehow, he had to help his boys and do what he could to guarantee the success of their mission. He regretted that his own mission would be taking him out of the country again just as they were beginning their long, intensive grind. But given a three-week limit such as the president had suggested, he should be back in ample time to assist if needed. He prided himself that he could contribute something, even from his strange Constitutional limbo. He was respected in the program and, he thought, respected in the White House. In an office whose influence depended largely upon the personal character and strength of the incumbent, he was not the weakest ever, by any means. It gave him a comfortable if not overwhelming clout when he wanted to use it.
Before he left for Geneva, he decided, he should check the bases, not only with Connie in Houston but with people like Jim Matthison at North American Rockwell, Hans Sturmer in Huntsville, Al Freer, and of course Stuart Yule, in Orlando. He could generally find out a good deal on a need-to-know basis. He felt he did need to know how things were going in these opening days of the new Piffy One.
There were no real worries, as he soon found out, at North American Rockwell, at Boeing, at Bendix, at IBM, at Grumman. Nor, Jim Matthison and his colleagues reported, were there any major problems with the various subcontractors—except, of course, the overriding problem of recapturing lost personnel, particularly in the higher grades.
“I’ve kept in touch with quite a few over the years,” Jim explained, “and so have we all. But the trouble is, you see, we’re all competing with each other: these guys can practically name their own tickets now that the government has suddenly decided we need them back, and brother, they are.
“Furthermore, Mr. Vice President, there’s a certain amount of aging process here, too. Everybody’s grown older, they’re settled in other jobs, their families have roots in other places, they’re usually making a great deal more than they did when they left the program … It’s just a damned shame,” he observed sadly, “that the Administration and the Congress didn’t decide about ten years ago that we were going to maintain a steady, active, relatively high-achievement program, with salaries to match, that would have kept these fellows in. We’re suffering for it now that we need them, and we’re going to suffer more before we get it sorted out.”
“And yet,” the vice president said thoughtfully, “the Administration and the Congress had ample warning from everybody in a position to know, as I read the record. I can say this,” he added with a smile, “because I wasn’t in the government then, I was just a lowly governor. But it certainly was clear enough at the time.”
“The trouble with us,” Jim Matthison said, “as a government, as an Administration, as a Congress, and as a people, is that we never look an inch beyond our noses. We never think ahead, we never plan, we never really believe we’re going to have to do the things that ordinary common sense, at any given moment in time, tells us we’re going to have to do. We’re just not farsighted and we’re not prudent. We’d rather pretend it isn’t so, because to admit it would cost money and sacrifice and make us work. Then comes the big crisis and everybody demands instant miracles, and Lordy, Gordy, the overalls land in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder and there’s hell to pay. Why are we so stupid? Do you have a good explanation?”
“I don’t,” the vice president admitted. “I wish I did. Not that anybody would pay any attention, of course. The thing that really worries me,” he said with a frown, “is that we might suffer for it in some mechanical way that will hurt the astronauts—that because we didn’t keep on top of it when we had the chance, we’re going to get sloppy workmanship in this emergency situation that could really endanger lives. How does that strike you?”
“Well …” Jim Matthison said, frowning, too. “That could be a problem. I won’t pretend it couldn’t. But I think we’re going to come out all right. I won’t deny that sabotage is a worry, though. You take a crash program such as we’ve let ourselves get boxed into, and it could be tight in that area. It could be.”
“What are you boys going to do to prevent it?” the vice president inquired.
“Build back our security force to where it was, as near as possible, and re-establish all of our regular security procedures, starting with personnel investigations, badging, the whole bit. We’ve of course kept them up to some extent in these slack years, but inevitably we’ve been a lot more relaxed about it than we were when Apollo was at its peak. We haven’t had the need.”
“No,” the vice president agreed, somewhat glumly. “I hope we really won’t have the need now. I’d like to think, fondly and romantically that we didn’t—but of course we do.”
“Oh, sure,” Jim Matthison said. “I’m afraid so, particularly with Clete O’Donnell throwing his weight around the way he is.”
“What do you make of him?” the vice president asked. “Have you ever had any thought that—?”
“Once or twice,” Jim Matthison said, thoughtfully. “Once or twice. Nothing I could quite put my finger on—I don’t know him very well, we’ve only really talked once, when he was out here as part of one of NASA’s VIP tours of the major installations—but there was just … something. I couldn’t quite tell you, I couldn’t tell you now, but something just didn’t ring quite true. To me, that is. Now to most of the country, the press, television, newspapers, the rest of them, he’s apparently a great hero. Maybe he is. I don’t know. He’s a very smart boy, there’s no doubt about that.”
“What do you think of his performance at the Cape the other day?”
“Well, he got out of it clear, didn’t he? I heard him on CBS after he called off the strike. It was certainly a fine statement, a real clarion call for the right of patriotic dissent.” Jim Matthison smiled, a trifle ironically. “Made me feel I’d be damned unpatriotic to disagree with him. Didn’t you have the same feeling?”
The vice president nodded.
“We have a lot of those in this country. The words are just fine. The actions—” his smile, too, turned ironic. He shrugged. “I think I’d like to keep an eye on him. You might do the same. I imagine you have some pretty good contacts on the working level at the Cape.”
“Sure,” Jim Matthison said. “I’m in and out all the time. I’ll make it a point to get chummy.”
