In High Places

The Prime Minister paused, surveying the others grimly. The President's eyes were riveted upon the map. Admiral Rapoport opened his mouth as if to interject once more, then closed it. Arthur Lexington was covertly watching the admiral's profile.

'The Canadian regrouping territory,' Howden continued, 'must meet three main needs. It must be south of the tree line and the sub-arctic zone; if it were not, communications and support of life would be beyond our means. Second, the area must be west of our combined northern missile line; and, third, it must be a place where fallout is likely to be negative or light. North of the 49th parallel there is only one such area meeting all requirements – Alaska.'

The President asked softly, 'How can you be sure about fallout?'

Howden replaced the pointer against the wall. 'If, at this moment, I had to pick the safest place in the Northern Hemisphere during a nuclear war,' he said, 'it would be Alaska. It is fortified against invasion. Vladivostok, the nearest major target, is three thousand miles away. Fallout, either from Soviet attacks or our own, will be unlikely. As certain as anything can be – Alaska will come through.'

'Yes,' the President said, 'I think I agree with you – about that at least.' He sighed. 'But as to the other… it's an ingenious idea – and I must admit in honesty that a good deal of it makes sense. But surely you must see that neither I nor Congress can barter away a state of the Union.'

'In that case,' James Howden replied coldly, 'there is even less reason for my Government to barter away a country.'

Admiral Rapoport snorted angrily, 'The Act of Union would involve no bartering away.'

'That scarcely seems true,' Arthur Lexington interceded sharply. 'Canada would pay a heavy price.'

'No!' The admiral's voice took on a cutting edge. Tar from paying a price, it would be an act of amazing generosity to a greedy, vacillating country which has made a national pastime of timidity, fence-straddling, and hypocrisy. You talk of rebuilding Canada, but why bother? America did it for you once before; we'll probably do it again.'

James Howden had resumed his chair. Now, his face suffused with anger, he sprang to his feet. He said icily, 'I don't believe I have to listen to this, Tyler.'

'No, Jim,' the President said calmly, 'I don't believe you do. Except that we agreed to speak plainly, and sometimes there are things better said, and out in the open.'

Tense with resentment, Howden fumed, 'Am I to assume that you subscribe to this vicious libel?'

'Well, Jim, I grant that what was said could have been put more tactfully, but then that isn't Levin's way, though if you like I apologize for his choice of words.' The voice drawled easily across the desk to the Prime Minister, still standing erect. 'But I'd also say he has a point about Canada always wanting a great deal. Even now, with all that we are offering in the Act of Union, you're demanding more.'

Arthur Lexington had risen along with Howden. Now he walked to the window and, turning, his eyes were on Admiral Rapoport. 'Perhaps,' he observed, 'it's because we're entitled to more.'

'No!' The word snapped back from the admiral as though a needle had been jabbed. 'I said you were a greedy nation and so you are.' His thin voice rose. 'Thirty years ago you wanted an American standard of living, but you wanted it overnight. You chose to ignore that American standards took a century of sweat and belt-tightening to build. So you opened up your raw wealth that you might have husbanded instead; and you let Americans move in, develop your birthright, take the risks, and run the show. That way you bought your standard of living – then you sneered at the things we had in common.'

'Levin…' the President remonstrated.

'Hypocrisy, I said!' As if he had not heard, the admiral stormed on, 'You sold your birthright, then went searching for it with talk about distinctive Canadianism. Well, there was a Canadianism once, but you got soft and lost it, and not all your Royal Commissions piled on end will ever find it now.'

Hating the other man, his own voice tight with anger, James Howden exclaimed, 'It hasn't all been softness. There's a list from two world wars you may have heard of: St Eloi, Vimy, Dieppe, Sicily, Ortona, Normandy, Caen, Falaise…'

'There are always exceptions!' the admiral snapped. 'But I also recall that while US Marines were dying in the Coral Sea, the Parliament of Canada was debating conscription – which you never had.'

Wrathfully Howden said, 'There were other factors -Quebec, compromise…'

'Compromise, fence-straddling, timidity… what in hell's the difference when it's a national pastime? And you'll still be fence-straddling on the day the United States defends Canada with nuclear weapons – weapons you're glad we have, but are too self-righteous to employ yourselves.'

The admiral had risen and was standing facing Howden. The Prime Minister resisted an urgent impulse to strike out, raining blows on the face before him. Instead the President broke the hostile silence. 'I tell you what,' he suggested. 'Why don't you two fellows get together tomorrow morning at dawn by the Potomac. Arthur and I will be seconds, and we'll have the Smithsonian lend us pistols and swords.'

Lexington inquired dryly, 'Which of the two would you recommend?'

'Oh, if I were Jim, I'd take pistols,' the President said. 'The only ship Levin ever commanded missed everything it fired on.'

'We had poor ammunition,' the admiral remarked. For the first time the ghost of a smile creased his leathery face. 'Weren't you Secretary of the Navy then?'

'I've been so many things,' the President said. 'It's hard to remember.'

Despite the lessened tension, the heat of indignation still gripped Howden. He wanted to retaliate; to return words in kind, countering what had been said; attacking, as he could so readily: An accusation of greed came ill from a nation grown fat and opulent from riches… Timidity was hardly a charge to be laid by the United States which had practised selfish isolationism until forced at gun point to abandon it… Even Canadian vacillation was better than the blundering, naive ineptness of American diplomacy, with its crude belief in the dollar as an answer to all problems… America with its insufferably virtuous air of always being right; its refusal to believe that other concepts, alien systems of government, might sometimes have their virtues; its obstinate support of puppet, discredited regimes abroad… And at home slick, glib talk of freedom through the same mouth which smeared dissenters… and more, much more…

About to speak… fiercely, wildly… James Howden checked himself.

At times, he thought, there was statesmanship in silence. No catalogue of faults could ever be one-sided, and most of what Admiral Rapoport had said was uncomfortably true.

Besides, whatever else Rapoport might be, he was no fool. Subtly the Prime Minister had an instinct that a performance had been staged with himself as a participant. Had there been a deliberate attempt, he wondered, adroitly managed by the admiral, to throw him off balance? Perhaps; perhaps not; but brawling would achieve nothing. He was determined not to lose sight of the original issue.

Ignoring the others, he faced the President. 'I must make it perfectly clear, Tyler,' he announced evenly, 'that failing a concession on the issue of Alaska there can be no agreement between our respective governments.'

'Jim, you must see that the entire situation is impossible.' The President seemed calm and controlled, unshakable as ever. But the fingers of his right hand, Howden noticed, were drumming urgently upon the desk top. Now he went on, 'Couldn't we go back – let's talk about the other conditions. Maybe there, are more points we can cover, things we can spell out to Canada's advantage.'