The Man

“Why, I’m your counselor, Mr. President.”

“My assistant gravedigger, you mean.” Suddenly Dilman sobered. “How badly did we need that deal, Nat, no soft-soaping? At the press conference today, Reb Blaser said the House managers took a straw poll, and while they need only sixty-seven votes to convict me, the poll says they have eighty. Any truth to that?”

“Exaggerated. Allan Noyes took his own poll. He’s hardheaded Party. No sleight-of-hand.”

“Well?”

“He comes up with seventy-four to convict. Seven more than they need.”

“What do you come up with, Nat?”

“How do I know? I look and listen. I hope.”

“Come on, Nat.”

“Okay. If it is sixty-seven for conviction, they win. If it is sixty-six for conviction, short of two-thirds by one, you win. Right now, wetting my finger and putting it into the wind, I’d say they have-there’s no way of knowing-but Tuttle and Hart believe they may have seventy votes.”

“In other words, they have what they need plus four?”

“Don’t think about it, Doug. It’s all guesswork. Let them vote and let’s see.”

“Oh, I’ll let them vote.”

“There are other things to think about… Hey, Edna Foster tells me Mindy is here. Is that true?”

Dilman found a way to smile. “Absolutely true. She’s hurt, she’s not well, I’m going to see that she gets help. But she’s back, yes. And beautiful beyond belief. She’s upstairs napping this minute.” He shook his head. “I only wish I had come to my senses sooner and forced Mindy to come here, permitted Wanda to, while I was still a tenant of the White House.”

“You’re still a tenant.”

“Yes. Only it’s begi

The desk telephone rang. Dilman wiped his mouth with the paper napkin, then rose and hurried to the desk.

“Direct Pentagon hookup-I wonder what now-”

He could picture Secretary of Defense Steinbre

Dilman picked up the telephone. “Yes, this is the President.”

“Mr. President, Steinbre

Dilman’s palm was warm on the hand telephone. He thought of Harry Truman: the buck stops here, here in this Oval Office, not in the more ornate office of the Secretary of Defense.

It was a difficult decision to make. If he gave the word, the Dragon Flies would strike, perhaps topple the enemy in a lightning stroke, perhaps gain an advantage, perhaps save countless lives. Yet he would have committed the United States to an action of offense, not defense. He would have betrayed America’s entire historic philosophy of peace for a possible military advantage.

He hesitated, momentarily troubled by the man in the Pentagon with the command line and easel and zone clock and maps, and then he heeded his instinct.

“I don’t want to be the aggressor, no matter what is going on,” Dilman said. “You order the General to continue to keep a close watch on their movements, but only shoot when shot at.”

He heard Steinbre

Again Dilman hesitated. The official order to set in operation DEFCON ONE would poise the entire United States, its military and civilian forces, on an all-out war alert. Dilman tried to visualize this alert: The screens of the DEW and BMEWS radar network would be under double surveillance, and fingers would creep closer to buttons that could order the North American Defense Command to activate 720 different Warning Points. The triple blockhouses stationed throughout the world would begin electronically elevating the fixed Minuteman ICBMs from their concrete casings. The secret trains carrying their mobile Minuteman missiles and squadrons would speed to preassigned positions. The Polaris submarines, each with twenty nuclear weapons, would rise from the ocean bottoms. Beneath the yellow clay of Nebraska, from the concrete command center of SAC, special world would send the B-70 jets and their hydrogen-bomb loads hurtling aloft in greater number. And just as his own Marine helicopter would be readied nearby to spirit him away to the subterranean second White House burrowed deep in a Virginia hillside, Dilman knew that fallout shelters across the nation would be ma

A precautionary measure, this DEFCON ONE, Dilman thought, a drastic measure; perhaps a necessary one, as Steinbre

There was a pounding behind Dilman’s temples. His head ached. Then, suddenly, there was the relief of decision. The defensive value of DEFCON ONE was obliterated by the horrifying danger it invited-that of hastening the triggering of the first shot against the United States itself.

“No,” said Dilman, “too soon.”

The Secretary of Defense was worried. “They are on the move in Africa, Mr. President. Are you sure you want to hold back?”

He was sure. “For an hour, anyway, Secretary Steinbre

After he hung up, Dilman remained standing behind his desk. Shuffling the papers lying on his blotter to be signed, he told Nat Abrahams what was happening.