Report of the County Chairman by James A. Michener Read Free Book Online Page B

Because that ticket might prove to be the very best.”
    Captain Heimark was not entirely satisfied. “You think that Adlai Stevenson would run in second place with Kennedy?”
    “If asked,” I said. “Or Kennedy will run in second spot to Stevenson. The difference between my Democrats and your Republicans is that your two top men can’t get together to win an election, whereas our four top men will submit themselves to any possible combination in order for the party to win.”
    Somebody asked slowly, “Let me get this straight. You are saying that in your opinion Lyndon Johnson would accept the Vice Presidency in second place to Jack Kennedy?”
    “Certainly,” I replied.
    Then Lieutenant Meisenheimer asked bluntly, “But tonight, what do you think the ticket will be?”
    I thought for some time and said, “I suspect it’s going to be Johnson in first spot and Kennedy in second, but I sure hope it works out the other way.”
    Guatemala illuminated two other aspects of the campaign. Adlai Stevenson had recently passed through Mexico and Latin America, and I was surprised at the manner in which Republicans who might have been disposed to scorn him said, “Stevenson accomplished wonders for the United States down here. No American in recent years has done as much. It’s one thing to see Adlai at home, where the press is always hammering him. But it’s quitedifferent to see him overseas, where he’s about the only American the foreign nations really respect.” Listening to many such comments, I began to suspect that Stevenson might have a better chance for the Presidency than I had originally thought, but if he did not win, I hoped that the victorious Democrat, whoever he might be, would find a major place for him in his official family. My wife, of course, exulted, “See! I told you, Adlai’s the only candidate of any stature.” I replied, somewhat churlishly I’m afraid, “If he could win, I’d be for him.”
    The second discovery was in some ways more amusing, in others, more ominous. An American wife, normally a loyal Democrat, chuckled, “I hope Rockefeller wins, and I’ll tell you why. I want to see the startled look on America’s face when he decorates the White House with his personal art collection. Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Feininger and Jack Levine! It’s about time we had some art in our life, after the dreadful drabness of the last eight years.”
    I asked, “Would you, a good Democrat, vote for Rocky against Lyndon Johnson or Jack Kennedy?”
    “I sure would,” she snapped. “Rocky knows his way around. He’s modern. He talks my language, and we’ve got to get some vitality in the White House. Can’t you just imagine Rocky’s first musicale? Not Guy Lombardo, not Meyer Davis, not Lawrence Welk, but the Schola Cantorum singing Carl Orff. That I want to see.”
    I returned to Pennsylvania to find the U-2 incident splashed across the papers, and from the first I took a much more grave attitude toward this than did some of my friends, who found considerable consolation in
Time
magazine, which pointed out that after all the incident merely demonstrated our ability to penetrate Russia.
    I had known something of the problems of espionage, and a fundamental understanding of all who occupied themselves with it was that if they were caught by the enemy, their own government would piously wash its hands of the whole affair. When the Eisenhower administration elected to pursue a course counter to historical precedent, I suspected that real trouble would follow, for one of the basic arrangements whereby nations are able to continue talking with one another had been breached. Along these same lines, I was appalled at the reported behavior of the aviator, Francis Powers, and it seemed to me as if a segment of our whole national posture had been willfully jeopardized. Both the government and the man behaved badly, and when Power’s trial eventuated, he proved the sickliness of the situation. As