"In what capacity, Ron, would Dr. Gold be coming to work for the Administration?"
"I don't know. May we move on?"
"You remember Henry Kissinger, don't you? What was your opinion of him?"
"Second-rate."
"That was his opinion of Richard Nixon, wasn't it?"
"Make that third-rate."
"That's something that's always puzzled me, Ron. If Richard Nixon was second-rate, what in the world is third-rate?"
"Henry Kissinger."
"You rate Henry Kissinger below Richard Nixon?"
"Only in intelligence and wit. In character and credibility they're about the same."
"On this subject of credibility, Ron. You remember that Richard Kleindienst was caught lying under oath in connection with his appointment to Attorney General. Now, this is perjury. Yet he was allowed to plead guilty to just a misdemeanor and to continue practicing law. Can you tell us now why Richard Kleindienst, like Richard Helms, was afforded this lenient treatment normally denied to other criminals?"
"I don't know."
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"It's a little fishy, isn't it?"
"It's fishy as hell."
"Is that for attribution?"
"Of course not. Who's next?"
"Now that so much time has passed, can you tell us the real reason—it's a lot of Richards, I know, that we're dealing with now in the criminal element but 1 hope you will bear with me, Ron—Gerald Ford found it necessary to pardon Richard Nixon for all the sex crimes he committed while in office?"
"Did Nixon commit sex crimes?"
"I don't know. But wasn't that the effect of pardoning Nixon for all crimes committed while he was President?"
"I don't know."
"This Administration has decided to fight inflation by raising prices to lower demand to reduce prices to increase demand and bring back the inflationary high prices we want to lower by reducing demand to increase demand and raise prices. Isn't that pretty much all your present economic policy amounts to?"
"I don't know."
"Ron, are you sure you don't know or are you merely guessing?"
"I'm absolutely sure I don't know."
"What are you willing to predict will happen tc unemployment and the economy in the short-tern: period ahead?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know what you would predict?"
"That is correct."
"Is there anyone in government who does know?"
"What I would predict?"
"I withdraw the question."
"How about our overseas alliances? If just about a are based on bribery, coercion, and subversion an other corruption of one kind or another, what stabilit will they have in a genuine crisis or when a governmer changes?"
"Lord, I don't know that."
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"Well, is there anyone in the Administration who does know?"
"What?"
"Anything."
"Would you repeat that question?"
"Anything."
"Is that a question?"
"Is that an answer?"
"I don't know."
"I forgot my question."
"I'll withdraw my answer."
"Well, how about the President? Doesn't he have any intelligent opinions about what's going to happen at home or abroad?"
"I don't know."
"Ron, please. Pretty please. Can I have that one again for the television camera? I'd like to zoom in on you just before you answer. Hold your answer until you see us zooming in."
"Sure. I don't know."
"That was peachy."
"Ron, I have to ask you this about the President. Is it that you really don't know or that you don't want to say?"
"I don't know."
"You mean you don't know if you don't know or not?"
"That is correct."
"Thank you, Ron," said the senior correspondent in the first row. "You're to be congratulated. This has been the frankest and most informative press briefing I've ever attended."
"Oh, I don't know."
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JKaLPH phoned the next morning while Gold was making breakfast to tell him the President wanted to see him to congratulate him personally. "He tried phoning you at your hotel, but the switchboard told him you weren't taking any calls."
"I'm staying with Andrea," said Gold. "Registering at the hotel is a way of protecting myself."
From Ralph came a low whistle of homage. "You're deep, Bruce. That's exactly the safeguard we all should use to protect our most vital secrets. Be at the White House at eleven. Use the servants' entrance."
Gold followed directions and was ushered upstairs through a pantry into a private waiting room just as Ralph emerged on tiptoe from a private inner office and led him back out. The appointment was canceled. The President was asleep.
"He's taking a nap," whispered Ralph.
"At eleven in the morning?" cried Gold.
"The President," Ralph explained, "is a very earl) riser. He is up at five every morning, takes two sleepin*
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pills and a tranquilizer, and goes right back to bed for as long as he can sleep."
"When does he work?" asked Gold.
"What do you mean?" said Ralph.
"When does he work?"
Ralph's chief emotion was perplexity. "I still don't get it."
"When does he do what he's supposed to be doing? As President?"
"Twenty-four hours a day," said Ralph. "The poor man is probably working right now, even while he's napping. You've been promoted, you know. He meant to tell you that."
"To what?" Gold exclaimed in surprise.
"We haven't decided, but it's a big step up."
"From what?"
"We never found out, did we? You can just about have your pick now, unless you can't. That much is official, although it has to be approved, and it must remain secret until we announce it, in case we decide we won't. You're way past a spokesman and a source now."
"Will I make more money?" Gold wanted to know.
"As much," said Ralph, "as you can get away with, although the competition is always strong. You know, Lyndon Johnson and Jack Javits were not the only ones to get rich while serving in government. I bumped into Harris Rosenblatt and found out what the Secretary of the Treasury does," said Ralph as they settled down comfortably in his office. "People of your religious beliefs inevitably do well there."
Gold cleared his throat. "I have no religious beliefs, Ralph."
"You know what I mean, Bruce," said Ralph. "I was trying to phrase it with tact."
"I'm very grateful for your tact."
"There's something mysterious happening with Harris Rosenblatt, Bruce," Ralph said with a furrowed brow. "Each time I see him he looks more and more like someone like me and less like someone like you."
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Once more Gold found difficulty speaking. "In what way, Ralph, does Harris Rosenblatt look more and more like you and less like me?"
"He gets taller and leaner, Bruce," Ralph answered simply and honestly and seemed unmindful of the frostiness with which Gold had spoken. "And he stands up straight. You remember how short and flabby he used to be. And he seems to be getting paler too. I saw Andrea at a party the other night and I'm worried about her also. Didn't she used to be taller?"
"Taller?" Gold searched Ralph's eyes for some beam of shared intelligence. "Taller than what?"
"Than she is. I'd check if I were you. You wouldn't want her to get too short, would you?"
"Too short for what, Ralph?"
"For you, Bruce. I don't think it would add much to your stature if your second wife turned out to be as short as Belle, would it?"
"I'll ask, Ralph, when I have the chance. What does the Secretary of the Treasury do?"
"He reassures the business community."
"I could do that," said Gold.
"Sure you could," Ralph agreed. "And promises to hold down deficits. He doesn't actually hold them dow
n, you understand, but merely promises to. He also looks after the financial interests of himself and his friends so they can continue to live on the level they're used to."
Gold was losing interest. "I'm not so crazy about my friends," he confessed, "and I'm trying to improve the level I'm used to."
"Your heart wouldn't be in it."
"I've been giving second thoughts to Chief of NATO, Secretary of Defense, Director of the CIA or FBI, and even to Secretary of the Army, Navy, or Air Force, if it isn't too late."
"No, of course it isn't," said Ralph, "unless, of course, it's already too late. Did we come to a decision on Health, Education, and Welfare?"
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"I'm only interested in my own."
"What about Housing and Urban Development? It helps to know what it's like to be poor—"
"I've been poor."
"—and identify with the underprivileged."
"Count me out."
"How about Attorney General, Bruce? That one really packs a wallop."
"I have an open mind," said Gold. "I think I could really get behind such issues as busing and integration now that my own children won't be affected by them. But don't I have to be a lawyer to be Attorney General?"
"I don't think so. Not as a matter of law."
"Could you find out?"
"I'll ask the Attorney General."
"Let's pass it up."
"How do you feel about the State Department?"
"It's where I think I'd fit in best."
"The President may think so too." Ralph, rising, stretched contentedly. "I know I can just about guarantee that you'll get the appointment you choose as soon as you want, although I can't promise anything. So please don't hold me to that."
Although there was nothing but pure friendship in Ralph's voice, Gold determined he might bear closer inspection. "Ralph, I find myself listening to things here that I can't believe I am hearing."
"I know just how you feel." Ralph ran his hand through his auburn cowlick. "Now that I've been in Washington awhile, I'm willing to believe almost anything."
Gold wondered if he was being too abstruse. "Ralph, I'm hearing them from you."
"From me?" Ralph spoke with frank surprise. "Bruce, you can believe what I tell you, because I will never lie to you. Everything I've promised has come to pass, hasn't it? Tell me how you're handling your job at the college."
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"I've promoted all my students into the Honors Program," said Gold, "and assigned them term projects. I may never see any of them again."
Ralph gasped approvingly and tapped the side of his nose with his finger. "You're deep, Bruce, deep indeed. I doubt there's a problem in government you won't be able to solve with ease. All that remains is for you to leave Belle and marry Andrea. It would be so much better, Bruce, if you did that before your confirmation hearings begin. It's always bad for the country when someone waits until after he's made it big in government before dumping his old wife for a better one. That may be acceptable ethics for a Senator or Congressman, but you're much bigger than that now."
"I am?"
"I thought you knew that," said Ralph, "although there's no way you could have found it out. Leave Belle, Bruce. Do the right thing."
Gold was slightly cowed. "Leaving a wife is not so easy, Ralph."
"You say that to me?"
"And how do I know Andrea will marry me?"
"How can she refuse when you tell her about your promotion?"
"How can I tell her when it has to be a secret?"
"Oh, you can give her a hint," said Ralph. "She's probably been listening in anyway. Have you met Pugh Biddle yet? He's special, you know, and so is his estate in the hunt country. What are you working on these days?"
"I still have to do that book on . . ."
"Jewish people?" Ralph showed off.
"Jews," Gold said bravely. "Although it's more in the nature of a personal history now. And I'm organizing material for a humorous book on David Eisenhower and a serious one on Henry Kissinger, although it may turn out the other way around."
"How will you treat Henry Kissinger?"
"Fair."
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"I never liked him either. Oh, yes, the President asked me to find out from you if Russia will go to war if we reduce our military strength."
Gold looked at Ralph through the corner of his eye. "How should I know?"
"Could you find out?"
"From who? Ralph, doesn't anyone here have an idea?"
"Oh, we have lots of experts. But the President feels your guess might be as good as anyone else's."
"I'll ask around."
"You're aces, Bruce," said Ralph. "The President will be grateful."
"Ralph," said Gold, with skepticism predominating again over a multitude of other concerns, "do you ever really see the President?"
"Oh, yes, Bruce," Ralph answered. "Everybody sees the President."
"I mean personally. Does he see you?"
"The President sees a great deal, Bruce."
"Do you ever see him to talk to him?"
"About what?" asked Ralph.
"About anything."
"Oh, Bruce, you can't just talk to the President about anything," Ralph chided. "The President is often very busy. He may be writing another book."
Gold persisted rationally in the face of a gathering fog of futility. "Well, Ralph, if you did have something of importance to discuss with the President, could you get in to talk to him?"
"About what?" Ralph asked again.
"About whatever you had that was important—no, don't stop me—like war, for example."
"That's not my department," Ralph said. "That's out of my area."
"What is your area?"
"Just about everything I cover, Bruce."
"What do you cover?"
"Everything in my area, Bruce. That's my job."
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Gold was struggling to keep his voice down. "I've been trying to find out, Ralph, just what your job is."
"Well, I'm glad I've been able to help," said Ralph, pumping his hand. "Please give my love to Belle and my best to Andrea, or my love to Andrea and my best tp Belle, whichever seems more appropriate."
Gold stood wearily. "And you give mine," he said, "to Alma."
Ralph looked blank. "Which Alma?"
"Isn't Alma the name of your wife?" Gold demanded.
"It's also the name of the girl I'm engaged to," said Ralph. "She's almost a full year younger. Bruce, take my advice. If a man is going to leave one wife to marry another, it's better if he divorces the first before he marries the second. I've tried both ways. And leave them quickly, before they start getting those tumors and hysterectomies. Yes, it's always practical to leave your wives while they're healthy and young enough to attract another husband to pay the medical bills and make those dreary hospital visits. Oh, yes, I'm supposed to find out if there is anything disgraceful in your life that would be embarrassing to us if it were made public?"
"Like what?" Gold watched him shakily.
"I haven't any idea."
"Then I have to say no."
"Have you ever done anything worse than the rest of us?"
"Absolutely not."
"Then you're in the clear." One would have guessed from his serenity of expression and the deep breath Ralph took as he stared out the doorway at the banks of desks on the office floor that he was contemplating a fertile meadow and inhaling breezes enriched by privet and honeysuckle and astir with the seasonal hummings of countless bucolic copulations. "Isn't this breathtaking," he exclaimed. "It's been said, Bruce, by two out of three of our most dependable think tanks, that if someone stood in this doorway of mine long enough.
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sooner or later he might see the President walk by. Would you care to wait?"
Gold looked at "him askance, doubtful once more that he had heard his Protestant friend aright. "I have to propose to Andrea."
"The President wi
ll be pleased."
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VJOLD was nervous and faintly giddy all through dinner. Preserving his outward calm, he artfully inculcated Andrea again with the need to forbear discussing their relationship and sexual intimacies with people like Miss Plum or anyone else. Andrea attended him with a credulous sort of rapture that had him feeling superbly gifted and slightly alarmed. He was not used to wielding such hypnotic influence over anyone he revered.
The Scotch kippers and Lithuanian rye bread he had brought from New York had gone down well, and Andrea would find out from contacts in the Commerce and Agriculture Departments if Arabian mocha coffee beans could be obtained anywhere in the world or if they were extinct. He preferred the Arabian mocha to the French. Gold put the last of the saucers in the dish drain and moved into the living room, where Andrea awaited him on the sofa in a recumbent attitude that summoned to mind the painting and the marble statue of Madame Recamier, her head resting lightly on her
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hand and her fine, lithe legs extended atop the cushions of the couch. His breath was swept away again by the lavender expanding radially from the clear, sea-blue circles surrounding her pupils. Her face was the loveliest into which he had ever peered, and he questioned anew why he occasionally was so bored. Her fingers played affectionately with the dark hairs at the back of his neck.
"Ralph thinks," he said, kissing her, "that we ought to get married."
An influx of color made her cheeks shine. "I think so too."
"He feels it would be good for the country," said Gold, suffused with an embarrassed shyness that he did not believe descended on people past the age of fourteen and which he made Spartan effort to suppress. "I'm going to work for the government, you see. It's absolutely definite now, although I can't be sure."