"And just about every Perry Mason show that was ever written," completed Keller.
"But those were fictions, Howard. Entertainments. We're talking about reality, and the ncos exist!"
"So did the "Commies' and the "Pinkos' and the 'fellow travelers," and we damn near lost sight of the quiet professional Soviet spies because we were chasing illuminated ducks in a hundred galleries while Moscow laughed at us."
"I'd have to agree with you there but I'm not sure the analogy fits. The Cold War was real, I'm a product of it. How can lawyers deny what's happening now? Not the false ducks in a gallery, like you and the Speaker, but the real vultures like that scientist Metz, or the British assistant to the foreign secretary, Mosedale.. .. And there's another, but it's too soon to go into it."
"I'm not suggesting for a minute that the hunt for the real vultures slow down. I'd just like to puncture the ballooning mania where everybody's a potential Nazi and nobody's a false duck.
Furthermore, I believe you agree with me."
"I do. I just don't know how a Senate hearing can do it. I see only a force-eighteen storm over the waters."
"Let me explain from recent events, first stating that I. served in the military. If the attorney, that fellow Sullivan, who advised Oliver North, had, instead, been a lawyer for the Senate committee, Mr.
North would still be sitting in a stockade rather than be contemplating his next run for public office. Pure and simple, he was a liar who broke his oath as a soldier, a disgrace to his uniform and his country who coated his illegalities in self-serving, sanctimonious bromides that shifted his guilt to some higher power read that as God-who had nothing to do with what he did.
"You're saying a lawyer could have short-circuited him?"
"I just suggested one, and I can think of at least a dozen others.
During those days my colleagues and I would sit in one (if our offices, enjoying a few drinks while watching the hearings on television. The running joke was which of our legal brethren could bring the lying bastard to his knees-crying, of course-and we were a mix of both parties. We came up with a fiery senator from the Midwest, a former prosecutor who annoyed the hell out of us but who was a thundering advocate."
"Youthink he could have done it?"
"Without question. You see, he was also a marine and he'd won the Congressional Medal of Honor. We figured we'd have him in his dress blues with the purple ribbon and the gold medal around his neck and let him loose."
"Would he have done it?"
"I remember his words.
"The little whiner isn't worth it. I'm working like hell to get industry into my state." But: yes, I think he would have liked to."
"I'll do some quiet checking around in the files," said Sorenson, standing up.
"I still have grave doubts, however. Pandora's boxes aren't attractive to me, it's a legacy from my years in the field.
Come to think of it, I'm about to open one in less than an hour."
"Care to tell me about it?"
"Not now, Howard, but maybe later. It's possible I'll need your intercession with the President, if only to keep our Secretary of State in line."
"The trouble's in the diplomatic area, then?"
"To the top of an embassy."
"Bollinger's a pain in the ass, but they like him in Europe. They think he's an intellectual. They don't realize that his thoughtful pauses are filled more with how-can we-spin-this-to-our-advantage than with real solutions."
"I'd have to say I agree. I've always found him to be lacking in deep commitments."
"You're wrong, Wcs. He's got one really deep commitment:
himself. And fortunately for us, another to the President, which naturally reverberates back to himself."
"Does the President know this?"
"Of course he does, he's a very bright man, even brilliant. It's a quid pro quo. I think it's fair to say that our man in the Oval Office has needed a master spin doctor every now and then."
"No question about it, but as you say, he's bright, he's learning."
"If I could only get him to kick more ass around this town, he'd learn faster. It's much easier that way."
"Thanks for your time, Howard-Mr. Vice President, I'll be in touch."
"Don't be a stranger, Mr. Director. We dinosaurs have to guide the young two-legged creatures stumbling out of the water."
"I wonder if we're capable."
C'if not us, who, then? The Adam Bollingers of this world? The witch hunters?"