again, sir. The senator’s waiting for you.”
The President offered him his hand.
“Hello, Franklin,” Truman said. “It’s good to see you, too.”
He followed the lead two Secret Service agents into Fowler’s apartment.
Richardson K. Fowler and Fleming Pickering rose to their feet.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Fowler said.
“Good morning,” the President said. “Could these fellows wait in your study?”
“Of course, Mr. President,” Fowler said.
“It’s through there,” the President said, pointing. “When I need you, I’ll call.”
The Secret Service agent was visibly unhappy with his orders to be left alone.
“It’s all right,” Truman went on. “Senator Fowler thinks I’m a threat to the country, but I don’t think he’s thinking of assassination. Go on.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” the Secret Service agent said, and trailed by the other, left the room, closing the door after themselves.
The President turned to Fowler.
“You can call me ‘Harry,’ Dick. We’ve known each other a long time.”
“A long enough time to know better, Mr. President. What is it they say, ‘beware of Democrats wearing smiles’?”
Truman smiled, and offered his hand to Fleming Pickering.
“Thank you for coming, General,” he said. “And I have to say that for a man who spent the night flying across the country, you don’t look very mussed.”
“I was very mussed, Mr. President, when we landed at Andrews,” Pickering said.
Franklin appeared with a silver coffee set and placed it on the sitting room’s coffee table.
“What did you set up for breakfast, Franklin?” Fowler asked.
“A little buffet, Senator. I thought you gentlemen would rather be alone.”
“Why don’t you move the coffee into the dining room? Then I won’t spill it on my new tie.”
“Yes, sir,” Franklin said, and picked up the tray and carried it into the dining room, with the three men following him.
He set the tray on a table that would hold sixteen diners, then left the room.
“Before we go a word further, it is agreed that this is out of school, right?” Truman asked.
“Agreed, Mr. President,” Fowler said.
“Yes, sir,” Pickering said.
The President looked at Pickering as if making up his mind about something.
“What is it they say in the Navy, General? ‘Let’s clear the decks’?”
“It’s something like that, Mr. President. But I’m really not a general, Mr. President. That was a long time ago.”
“Let’s clear that part of the deck first, General,” Truman said. “Yes, you are. You are a brigadier general, USMC, Reserve.”
Pickering was about to argue when he stopped.
Goddamn it, maybe I am. Probably, I am. I was never discharged, in ’45. I was released from active duty and ordered to my home of record.
“And as your commander-in-chief, General, I can order you to keep anything that’s said in this room to yourself.”
Pickering looked at him but said nothing.
“Unfortunately, I can’t order you around, Dick,” Truman went on, “as either a senator or a journalist. I can only appeal to your patriotism. We’ve said—and probably believe—some unkind things about each other, but I don’t think you’ve ever questioned my patriotism, and I certainly have never questioned yours.”
“What is it you want, Mr. President?” Fowler asked, coldly.
“I don’t want headlines on the front page of every newspaper in the country reading, ’MacArthur Ignored Warning of North Korean Attack,’ ” Truman said.
“In point of fact, Mr. President,” Pickering said, “I don’t believe General MacArthur was aware of McCoy’s assessment. ”
“He’s in charge over there, General,” Truman said. “He should have been made aware of this assessment. He’s responsible for the actions—or lack of action—of his subordinates. ”
Pickering shrugged his agreement.
“We’re about to go to war over there,” Truman said. “The League of Nations failed because nobody paid any attention to it. Remember when Mussolini was getting ready to invade Ethiopia in 1936? The Emperor of Ethiopia . . . what’s his name, Dick?”
“Haile Selassie, Mr. President,” Senator Fowler furnished.
“Haile Selassie went to the League of Nations,” Truman went on, “and the League of Nations told Mussolini to stop. He knew the League of Nations had no teeth, so he invaded Ethiopia. And the League of Nations didn’t— couldn’t—do a damned thing about it.”
“I remember, Mr. President,” Fowler said.
“And so the dictators of the world—Italian, German and Japanese—drew the logical conclusion that since the League of Nations was a joke, they could get away with anything they wanted to do. And that gave us World War Two.”
“You think the United Nations is going to be different?” Fowler asked, on the edge of sarcasm.
“For one thing, Dick,” Truman said. “We belong to the UN; we didn’t belong to the League of Nations. For another, we now face the