patrolmen, schools that were to be open to youths of any race, color, or
nationality, and from which they would go forth to guard the peace of every
country but their own. To that country a man would never return during his
service. They were to be a deliberately expatriated band of Janizaries,
with an obligation only to the Commission and to the race, and welded
together with a carefully nurtured esprit de corps.
It stood a chance of working. Had Manning been allowed twenty years without
interruption, the original plan might have worked.
The President’s running mate for re-election was the result of a political
compromise. The candidate for Vice President was a confirmed isolationist
who had opposed the Peace Commission from the first, but it was he or a
party split in a year when the opposition was strong. The President sneaked
back in but with a greatly weakened Congress; only his power of veto twice
prevented the repeal of the Peace Act. The Vice President did nothing to
help him, although he did not publicly lead the insurrection. Manning
revised his plans to complete the essential program by the end of 1952,
there being no way to predict the temper of the next administration.
We were both over worked and I was beginning to realize that my health was
gone. The cause was not far to seek; R photographic film strapped next to
my skin would cloud in twenty minutes. I was suffering from cumulative
minimal radioactive poisoning. No well defined cancer that could be
operated on, but a systemic deterioration of function and tissue. There was
no help for it, and there was work to be done. I’ve always attributed it
mainly to the week I spent sitting on those canisters before the raid on
Berlin.
February 17, 1951. I missed the televue flash about the plane crash that
killed the President because I was lying down in my apartment. Manning, by
that time, was requiring me to rest every afternoon after lunch, though I
was still on duty. I first heard about it from my secretary when I returned
to my office, and at once hurried into Manning’s office.
There was a curious unreality to that meeting. It seemed to me that we had
slipped back to that day when I returned from England, the day that Estelle
Karst died. He looked up. “Hello John,” he said.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Don’t take it so hard, chief,” was all I
could think of to say.
Forty-eight hours later came the message from the newly sworn-in President
for Manning to report to him. I took it in to him, an official dispatch
which I decoded. Manning read it, face impassive.
“Are you going, chief?” I asked.
“Eh? Why, certainly.”
I went back into my office, and got my topcoat, gloves, and brief case.
Manning looked up when I came back in. “Never mind, John,” he said. “You’re
not going.” I guess I must have looked stubborn, for he added, “You’re not
to go because there is work to do here. Wait a minute.”
He went to his safe, twiddled the dials, opened it and removed a sealed
envelope which he threw on the desk between us. “Here are your orders. Get
busy.”
He went out as I was opening them. I read them through and got busy. There
was little enough time.
The new president received Manning standing and in the company of several
of his bodyguard and intimates. Manning recognized the senator who had led
the movement to use the Patrol to recover expropriated holdings in South
America and Rhodesia, as well as the chairman of the committee on aviation
with whom he had had several unsatisfactory conferences in an attempt to
work out a modus operandi for reinstituting commercial airlines.
“You’re prompt, I see,” said the President. “Good.”
Manning bowed.
“We might as well come straight to the point,” the Chief Executive went on.
“There are going to be some changes of policy in the administration. I want
your resignation.”
“I am sorry to have to refuse, sir.”
‘Well see about that. In the meantime, Colonel Manning, your are relieved
from duty.”