Read Online Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Thomas Mallon
Ads: Link
called “the gimp log-cabin lore”—included the story of how, while learning to walk all over again at Walter Reed, Potter would ask to go to the House and Senate in order to observe the doings of those two august institutions in which he would later serve.
There was little enough action on the floor this week; debate had been replaced by high-pressure caucusing behind the scenes. Since the Democratic mayor of Cleveland had been named to fill the late Senator Taft’s seat, it wasn’t entirely clear which party controlled the show. At this moment there were forty-eight Democrats and forty-seven Republicans, but between Senator Morse (an Independent pledged to organize with the GOP) and Vice President Nixon, who could break a tie, Ike’s party might be able to hang on, just barely, to its committee chairmanships and agenda. “Our fellas better get some exercise and lay off the spuds,” Tommy had declared while breezing through the office a couple of days ago. “One bad heart attack and we’ll all be ordering new stationery.”
Tim now took care not to let any crumbs from Mrs. Potter’s sugar cookies fall onto the draft of the speech. Everyone agreed that the senator’s wife, who often baked for the staff in the kitchen of the Potters’ ninety-dollar-a-month Arlington apartment, was a warmhearted, if flighty, woman. Lorraine Potter’s particular part in the legend of limblessness involved her supposedly having sprung bolt upright in bed, back in Cheboygan in ’45, at the exact moment Potter stepped on the land mine in France. Her own legs, she swore, had gone numb for several minutes.
So far nothing Tim had worked on came close in importance to the paragraph of remarks he’d auditioned with, and which, so far as he could tell, Potter had never actually delivered. The little speech now sat in a file with Stevenson’s original call for a nonaggression pact, along with Knowland’s subsequent attack and reactions from several other figures. Winston Churchill himself had announced that he saw nothing terribly wrong with the idea—perhaps, Tim thought, a backhanded way of suggesting its irrelevance.
“The scourge of Adlai!” cried Tommy McIntyre, suddenly passing through the room with a cackle and a snort. The interruption made Tim happy. He hadn’t talked to anyone for an hour and a half.
“I bring you tidings from the New York Federal Building,” Tommy said.
“You mean the witness who broke down crying?”
“No,” said Tommy, smiling even wider. “Somewhat older tidings,” he said, slapping an inch-thick typescript onto Tim’s desk. “Last Thursday’s transcript. Turn to where it’s dog-eared, Mr. Laughlin.”
MR. COHN: Have you been told about any of the charges against Mr. Yamins?
MR. CORWIN (witness): No, sir, I haven’t.
MR. COHN: Was he pretty friendly with Mr. Coleman?
MR. CORWIN (witness): Well, I would say they were friendly. I don’t think they had much social contact.
MR. JONES: Friendly in what respect, then?
MR. CORWIN (witness): Well, they worked together, and it was a companionship.
MR. JONES: Scientific companionship more than a social companionship?
MR. CORWIN (witness): I would say so, yes, sir.
MR. SCHINE: Mr. Corwin, you lived with Mr. Coleman, didn’t you?
Tim looked up, worried where this transcribed colloquy (“it was a companionship”) might be headed. But Tommy, who seemed to have something different on his mind, just roared with delight and derision: “Jones and Cohn and Schine. Like three kids playing gumshoe up in their tree house! Our boy Roy even calls Schine ‘Mr. Chairman’ from time to time! Dontcha think a little adult supervision might be in order? There ain’t a single solon in the room. And look at this,” Tommy added, flipping to the title page of the binder, where he’d circled “Robert Jones, administrative assistant to Senator Potter.”
For his look of perplexity, Tim earned a playful swat with the transcript.
There was little enough action on the floor this week; debate had been replaced by high-pressure caucusing behind the scenes. Since the Democratic mayor of Cleveland had been named to fill the late Senator Taft’s seat, it wasn’t entirely clear which party controlled the show. At this moment there were forty-eight Democrats and forty-seven Republicans, but between Senator Morse (an Independent pledged to organize with the GOP) and Vice President Nixon, who could break a tie, Ike’s party might be able to hang on, just barely, to its committee chairmanships and agenda. “Our fellas better get some exercise and lay off the spuds,” Tommy had declared while breezing through the office a couple of days ago. “One bad heart attack and we’ll all be ordering new stationery.”
Tim now took care not to let any crumbs from Mrs. Potter’s sugar cookies fall onto the draft of the speech. Everyone agreed that the senator’s wife, who often baked for the staff in the kitchen of the Potters’ ninety-dollar-a-month Arlington apartment, was a warmhearted, if flighty, woman. Lorraine Potter’s particular part in the legend of limblessness involved her supposedly having sprung bolt upright in bed, back in Cheboygan in ’45, at the exact moment Potter stepped on the land mine in France. Her own legs, she swore, had gone numb for several minutes.
So far nothing Tim had worked on came close in importance to the paragraph of remarks he’d auditioned with, and which, so far as he could tell, Potter had never actually delivered. The little speech now sat in a file with Stevenson’s original call for a nonaggression pact, along with Knowland’s subsequent attack and reactions from several other figures. Winston Churchill himself had announced that he saw nothing terribly wrong with the idea—perhaps, Tim thought, a backhanded way of suggesting its irrelevance.
“The scourge of Adlai!” cried Tommy McIntyre, suddenly passing through the room with a cackle and a snort. The interruption made Tim happy. He hadn’t talked to anyone for an hour and a half.
“I bring you tidings from the New York Federal Building,” Tommy said.
“You mean the witness who broke down crying?”
“No,” said Tommy, smiling even wider. “Somewhat older tidings,” he said, slapping an inch-thick typescript onto Tim’s desk. “Last Thursday’s transcript. Turn to where it’s dog-eared, Mr. Laughlin.”
MR. COHN: Have you been told about any of the charges against Mr. Yamins?
MR. CORWIN (witness): No, sir, I haven’t.
MR. COHN: Was he pretty friendly with Mr. Coleman?
MR. CORWIN (witness): Well, I would say they were friendly. I don’t think they had much social contact.
MR. JONES: Friendly in what respect, then?
MR. CORWIN (witness): Well, they worked together, and it was a companionship.
MR. JONES: Scientific companionship more than a social companionship?
MR. CORWIN (witness): I would say so, yes, sir.
MR. SCHINE: Mr. Corwin, you lived with Mr. Coleman, didn’t you?
Tim looked up, worried where this transcribed colloquy (“it was a companionship”) might be headed. But Tommy, who seemed to have something different on his mind, just roared with delight and derision: “Jones and Cohn and Schine. Like three kids playing gumshoe up in their tree house! Our boy Roy even calls Schine ‘Mr. Chairman’ from time to time! Dontcha think a little adult supervision might be in order? There ain’t a single solon in the room. And look at this,” Tommy added, flipping to the title page of the binder, where he’d circled “Robert Jones, administrative assistant to Senator Potter.”
For his look of perplexity, Tim earned a playful swat with the transcript.
Similar Books
