For a long moment the president didn’t reply. Then he leaned forward, his hands clasped before him on the table. His expression was somber. “I have reservations about the whole agreement-even the name they proposed for it: the Washington Protocols. The Russians even give us the benefit of naming the agreement after our capital. Like everything else in the agreement, its uncharacteristic of the Russians. They never give anything away.
“Take the economic clauses of the protocols. Why are they willing to relieve us of the burden of supporting the Third World, when our misguided philanthropy is bankrupting us very nicely without their help? Why are they trying to save us?”
“They’ve decided that peace is preferable to war,” Davis concluded. “Not a very difficult concept to understand.”
“For us-not for Russians. Their whole history is built on aggression, from Alexander Nevski in the thirteenth century right down to the present day. It’s in their blood. Then note their plan for the division of labor: the Russians take over manufacturing, we take over farming.”
“Quite right, too. We farm better than they do, that’s all,” commented Davis.
“We manufacture better, too-if you exclude what comes out of Detroit. But you can easily switch manufacturing capacity from consumer goods to arms, from automobiles to tanks. You can’t switch from rutabagas to rockets.”
“True, Mr. President,” Spoke countered, “but such a conversion to armaments would take several years, and its very first stages would be detected by our inspection. Could-”
“Perhaps,” said the president, cutting Spoke off, “I should confide in you what my staff thinks will happen if I sign and the Congress ratifies the protocols: for the first few years, everything will proceed precisely as the Russians outline. We will concentrate on agriculture, the Russians on manufacturing. The living standards of the whole world will benefit, for nearly one-third of the world’s gross national product is presently consumed in military preparations. Meanwhile, the fleets exchange visits without incident or observed enemy build-up. This state of affairs lasts four or five years- long enough for our industry to run down, to pass beyond the point of no return, to be plowed under like a rank weed. That of Russia will have grown commensurately while their farming, to be sure, languishes.
“At this point, we must ask ourselves: how long does it take to build a national industry from scratch? Five years? Ten? And how long does it take to plant the fields and reap a crop? One year.
“Now then, at some point the Russians, conscious that we are no longer capable of manufacturing the means to defend ourselves, on the short or long term, begin to rearm, quite openly. Naturally we halt our grain shipments. But the Russians have carefully withheld large portions of their grain and stored them in underground silos for just such a day. They can survive eighteen months or two years without additional shipments, and meanwhile they are replanting the Ukraine.
“Their fleet, in American waters at the time, now is in a position to cover the Russian invasion-an invasion not of Russians but of South and Central Americans who have been under training ten or fifteen years. Their weapons will be the simplest-rifles, pistols, grenades-because remember, the arms industry has been dead for five years. But such weapons, which the United States no longer manufactures, will suffice to permit the invaders to swarm up through Mexico in their millions and overrun the United States and Canada. Any trouble spots will be dealt with by the aerial cover of the Russian fleet, which-”
“Which would bring instant reprisals against Europe by our fleet,” Dr. Spoke said triumphantly.
“Very true, but of no significance in strategic terms.
After all, we have no army on Russia’s doorstep ready to invade. Then too, would Russia worry if our planes killed several thousand, or several million, Europeans? Just fewer mouths to feed when the conquest of the United States is complete.”
“What you have outlined is pure conjecture,” Bernard Davis said acidly. “Not one of these catastrophes need happen. Admit it, Mr. President.”
The president admitted it.
“On the other hand, they could. On form, the Russians can be expected to pull something very much like what I have just outlined. And if it did, gentlemen, the United States would cease to exist.”
Dr. Spoke cleared his throat. “I agree with Bernie here, Mr. President. We must distinguish two things: the certainty of peace and prosperity now, so long as guarantees are made and enforced, and the possibility of Russian betrayal at some nebulous future time. The advantages so obviously outweigh the potential-note well the word ‘potential’-handicaps that, in my opinion, we have no choice but to accept the protocols. And rejoice!”
The president seemed to shrivel in his high-backed chair. He had invited the men in the hope that they would heed his appeal for caution, for a deliberate and exhaustive examination of the protocols, before the clamor of the American people for the instant eternal-peace fix stampeded the Congress and himself into signing what he believed would be the death warrant of his country. The issue was too serious to be decided quickly. But now, he knew, it would be. If he failed to release the terms of the protocols very soon, the Russians would leak them to obtain a cheap propaganda victory. He would be branded a warmonger for having tried to suppress proof of the Russians’ pacific intentions. The peace-at-any-price partisans would in either case be mobilized by the seven men who had so vigorously supported the salvation of the Third World. The ensuing pressures on him to sign would be irresistible. If he didn’t, against the unanimous opposition of the nation, he would likely be impeached.
The irony was that, though his instincts said to be wary, cold logic said there was nothing to fear. As Spoke pointed out, the alternatives were present peace and prosperity, and the possibility of betrayal at some vague future date. By then, the Russian regime might see the benefits for all mankind of part one of their carefully contrived scheme to conquer the United States-if that was what it was. Besides, whatever he thought personally was immaterial in the face of the unanimous accord of the people of the United States: he was their voice, and he would be a traitor to his trust if he said no to a peace agreement they-or at least these seven men who told them what to think- believed in.
The voice of Dr. Spoke recalled him from his reverie.
“I’m sorry, Werner,” he apologized, “I was thinking about . . . What were you saying?”
“I merely asked, Mr. President, whether copies of the Washington Protocols will be released any time soon?”
President Wynn smiled sadly. There was his answer. The news. News was what mattered, not the security of the nation.
“I’ll tell my press secretary to give you copies,” he said, “right after lunch. It will be for immediate release.”
28 DECEMBER 1997: P.M.
Lunch was strained and awkward. The press lords were plainly anguished as they endured course after leisurely course, each trying to contrive an excuse that would permit an early departure so as to break the news of Russia’s magnanimous offer before his rivals. CBS, pleading that rich desserts and coffee gave him heartburn, was the first to take his leave. One by one, the others were quick to follow. President Wilson Wynn and Gwillam Forte, who had spoken but few words during the morning’s discussions, were left alone in the Executive Dining Room.
“It occurs to me, Will, that with all the flak flying around I didn’t get hit with any from you. That’s a novel experience.”
Forte shook his head. “I’m afraid, Mr. President, that’s because as yet I have nothing to shoot at. You advance one theory, the others the precise opposite, to account for the Russian initiative. Either, it seems to me, could be right.”
“But you agree that it’s Russian intentions-not protocols, declarations, guarantees-that count?”
“Of course. But, as usual, we have no way of knowing what they are. No one has yet succeeded in bugging the Kremlin.”
Wynn smiled, the crafty politician’s smile reserved for the boys in the back room. A voter, having seen that smile, would have automatically cast his vote for Wynn’s opponent, on the grounds that no one with a smile so cagey, so cunning, so sly, could possibly be entrusted with the destiny of the great open-faced American people.
“We’ve done better. We’ve got a piece of the Kremlin-right here in the White House.”
“What?”
“More coffee, sir?” came a grave voice at his elbow.
Forte looked up. He had thought they were alone. The tall gray-haired man with the silver tray looked down at him with an expression at once deferential and cool.
“Uh-no thanks,” Forte said, wondering how much the man had heard.
“No?” the man in the steward’s jacket said. “Well, in that case you won’t mind if I have a cup. It’s quite good. Made it myself.”