The Oval Office
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Despite his stature, Chairman Thomas Stanton didn’t have a government issued, lightly armored Cadillac at his disposal, which was the vehicle the federal government provided its upper-rung Washington bureaucrats for their personal safety. Members of Congress realized that images of them being chauffeured around Washington at taxpayers’ expense in luxury cars wouldn’t sit well with their constituents. They had to come up with their own alternatives. Stanton had a staff member ferry him around town so he could make phone calls or read in his car’s rear seat.
As his driver neared the first Secret Service barricade outside the White House, Stanton glanced outside at the neoclassical home of the nation’s president with a mixture of pride and envy. The pride came from knowing that the White House was the only private resident of a world leader that was open to public tours. It was the people’s house, not its occupants’. That appealed to his Lincolnesque view of a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” even though Stanton knew that Lincoln had not originated that phrase when he uttered those famous lines in his Gettysburg Address. In one of the earliest English translations of the Holy Bible, printed in 1384, John Wycliffe had declared that the bible was not the property of the church but “This Bible is for the government of the people, for the people and by the people.” It appeared that even presidents occasionally plagiarized.
Stanton’s envy came from his disappointment in knowing he would never be president. He’d run for the nation’s highest office the same year Sally Allworth had entered the race. Although Stanton had been viewed as the sure winner of their party’s nomination—and should have been—he had found himself caught in an unexpected wave of anti-Washington voter sentiment that political consultant Decker Lake had helped foment for Allworth. This anger and the sense that the federal government had become ineffective and unresponsive crippled Stanton. Political historians would later compare it to the fervor that led to a farmer-frontier-worker political rebellion in 1828 against the Eastern establishment that had landed Andrew Jackson in the White House. Stanton had been painted as the ultimate Washington insider, a veteran legislator in a Congress that had disappointed voters for decades. In contrast, Sally Allworth had been the fresh-faced outsider. There was a Norman Rockwell purity to a woman who had never intended to seek office until her senator husband had collapsed dead. Reporters had cast her as a plain-speaking, earnest Mr. Smith Goes to Washington newcomer and—with Decker Lake behind the scenes subtly directing—portrayed Stanton as a relic, another old white man who cut deals in a smoke-filled back room. By the time Allworth claimed her first primary win, Stanton didn’t need his half-glasses to read the writing on the wall. A party loyalist, Stanton had buried the hatchet and stumped for Allworth after she had secured their party’s nomination. He’d drafted much of her foreign policy platform, including her position on fighting terrorism. They’d worked well together, but neither had any genuine affection for the other. Respect was expected, friendship was not, nor was it particularly wanted.
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for coming to see me,” President Allworth proclaimed as soon as he entered the Oval Office. “Let’s have a private chat.” She nodded toward the two sofas in front of her desk near a rug embroidered with the Great Seal of the United States.
As soon as they were seated, Allworth addressed him by his first name, “Thomas, the two of us have always been able to speak candidly, which I greatly appreciate, so let’s get right to it. I understand from my chief of staff that you intend to move forward with committee hearings about the embassy attack in Somalia.”
“Ms. Harper and Director Grainger were not especially convincing in suggesting that I not hold them,” Stanton replied. “As I’m certain they told you, my staff has obtained troubling information that suggests the CIA was warned at least four hours before the embassy was attacked but took no safeguards to protect our ambassador and staff.”
“Yes, that’s a very, very serious charge,” Allworth said. The president paused for a moment—a subtle gesture intended to show Stanton that she understood the gravity of what he’d said. “Mallory is handling this for me,” she continued, “and she has assured me that Director Grainger has a plausible explanation and has launched a thorough investigation.”
Stanton and the president both knew that in Washington, leaders chose their words carefully, knowing that no matter how innocent a conversation may seem, it might be later used against them. The president’s reference—“Mallory is handling this”—might sound as if it was merely a matter of the president delegating authority. But Stanton had a more suspicious interpretation. The president had a buffer—a possible scapegoat—in case events in Mogadishu blew up in her face. She could argue that she was unaware of any possible wrongdoing and her only fault had been to trust her chief of staff and the CIA director.
“If you are confident Director Grainger’s probe will not find any mishaps, then I’m certain my committee will not find any either,” Stanton said.
“Please do not misinterpret my reason for inviting you here to discuss this,” Allworth replied. “If mistakes were made, I want to know them, and if someone in my administration acted improperly in any way, I will take the appropriate action. I am not opposed to you holding hearings.”
“With all respect, Madam President, then why did you ask me here to discuss this?”
“Because two American terrorists just tried to murder me,” Allworth said in a clearly irked tone. “Because two Americans attacked me in our nation’s capital, the very heart of our democracy. The public is scared. Where will these radicals strike next? Who will they try to kill? Is it safe to go into a grocery store? Is it safe to send your children to an elementary school? What about your favorite bar or your church on Sunday? The objective of terrorism is to terrify, and these attacks on me inside the National Cathedral and on the streets outside it have made Americans feel vulnerable and unsafe. Certainly you understand that?”
“Yes, Madam President, I do.”
Before he could continue, she said, “This is why I asked Mallory and Director Grainger to speak to you about delaying your hearings. It was not, and let me repeat that, it was not because I am concerned about what you might find. It is because holding hearings right now would further undermine the public’s confidence in the government’s ability to protect us from attack.”
“Without being argumentative, let me suggest that hearings which showed no mistakes were made in Mogadishu might bolster confidence.”
President Allworth shot Stanton a stern look. “Mr. Chairman, our people were taken hostage in Somalia. From what I’ve been told, that was because the local general there didn’t protect our embassy—that his own troops turned on him—so we may have not done one thing wrong. But the fact that our people were held hostage and two of them were murdered and those murders were shown on the Internet—those facts alone are going to erode public confidence. We don’t need a hearing right now rehashing that horrific incident. A hearing would play into the terrorists’ hands by sparking more fear and terror. What difference will it make if you wait to conduct your hearings after Director Grainger has time to fully investigate what happened and there’s some distance between those hearings and the embassy attack and attempts to murder me? Giving time for the public to regain confidence in our ability to protect our people doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request.”