Tucker's Last Stand Read Free Page B

the Twenty-second Amendment”—he flipped open his well-worn 1964 World Almanac —“and what it says”—he turned the pages—“is … No person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice, et cetera. Hell, a Vice President who becomes President because the President is shot—excuse me, Senator, just making a theoretical point—hasn’t been elected President. Suppose the President and the Vice President were shot and the Speaker of the House was next in line, but he had already been President twice—are you saying he wouldn’t qualify? Or are you saying that he wouldn’t qualify to serve as Speaker because he might just end up being President, and that’s against the Twenty-second Amendment?”
    â€œGoddamnit, Freddy, you sound like a Harvard debater.”
    â€œBill, I was a Harvard debater. But does that make my constitutional reasoning wrong?”
    â€œWell,” Goldwater interrupted, “it’s not a crazy idea, let’s face it. I’m not sure I’d want to be the person to suggest it to Ike, that he come back into government as a second lieutenant. But it would take care of the inexperience bit, and the Goldwater-wants-to-go-to-war—you’ve got to agree on that, don’t you?”
    Baroody drew on his pipe, and his dark, puffy Lebanese-inherited features contracted as he communicated an urgent wish to stay on the point. “The point is, Barry, that’s an out of-this-world suggestion. But it is true we’ve got to keep Ike neutral, and there’s one thing Lodge said in Saigon yesterday that helps.”
    â€œWhat did he say that helps? I don’t remember ever hearing Cabot Lodge say anything that helped anything. Except maybe Cabot.”
    Baroody pulled the clip from the folder at his side. “He said, he said, let’s see … ‘I cannot see how Vietnam could possibly be a presidential campaign issue. It involves the Eisenhower administration and the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and the Truman administration.’”
    â€œGoddamn—he said that?”
    Baroody handed over the clipping. Goldwater turned to Fred Anderson. “You got anything about that in the speech?”
    â€œNo sir.”
    â€œWell, take this down.” Goldwater leaned back, closed his eyes, and spoke slowly, as he did when dictating to his secretary. “I hope Ambassador Lodge will not … be a … lone Republican voice crying … excuses or evasions in the—er, confusion, er …”
    â€œWilderness, maybe?”
    â€œYes … in the wilderness of this Administration’s Vietnamese policy.”
    â€œHere’s something you might add. How do you like this”—Baroody had been scribbling while Barry Goldwater dictated. “‘I find it difficult for me to believe that anyone could leave such a post at such a critical time, simply to pursue a personal political course.’”
    Fred Anderson looked up from his pad. “You don’t want, ‘I find it difficult for me …’”
    â€œWhat’s the matter with that?” Baroody’s pipe tilted up truculently.
    â€œJust, ‘I find it difficult.’ Not, ‘I find it difficult for me,’” Freddy said, his pencil tapping the air in front of him. The schoolboy, making a minor correction. Then he smiled. “Old debaters’ stylebook.” Baroody nodded, and looked up at Goldwater.
    â€œOkay?”
    â€œOkay. What’s the matter with those Eastern Establishment types? Leaving Saigon just when things there are getting really hot.… Scranton for President and Lodge for Vice President. Who will they want for Secretary of State? Billy Graham?”
    Baroody picked up his copy of Time magazine. Goldwater went back to his manuscript. Fred Anderson lifted his portable typewriter from under the seat and began to transcribe the notes he had