In a press conference, Wyszynski said, “I wish he’d kept his nose out of politics, that’s all. I’m a Catholic myself. Most of you know I am. I don’t like the idea that a priest could betray his country. He should have stuck with God’s things. Those are what priests are for. When he started messing with Caesar’s, that’s when he got in trouble.”
“Joe Steele didn’t mind when Father Coughlin backed him in the election,” Walter Lippmann said. “He didn’t mind when Coughlin supported some of his early programs, either.”
One of the Attorney General’s bushy eyebrows twitched. But Wyszynski answered calmly enough: “The President wouldn’t have minded if Father Coughlin campaigned for Herbert Hoover.”
“No?” Lippmann said. Charlie wondered the same thing. Joe Steele wanted people behind him, not pushing against him.
But Wyszynski said “No” and sounded like a man who meant it. He went on, “Herbert Hoover is an American, a loyal American. He is not someone who has thrown in his lot with tyrants from overseas. Father Coughlin is. We will show that he is at the upcoming tribunal.”
“Will he confess, the way the Supreme Court Four did?” a reporter asked.
“I have no idea,” Wyszynski answered. “If he does, that will simplify things. If he doesn’t, we will prove the case to the satisfaction of the members of the military tribunal.”
“What if they acquit him?” the newshound persisted.
Both of Andy Wyszynski’s eyebrows sprang toward his hairline then. If Charlie was any judge, that meant the possibility had never occurred to him. After a shrug, though, he responded smoothly enough: “If they do, then they do, that’s all. I think it would be a shame, because Father Coughlin has shown that he’s the enemy of everything the USA stands for. But I didn’t win every case in Chicago, and I don’t know whether I’ll win every case here.”
A slicked-down Army colonel named Walter Short headed the tribunal. Also on it were a Navy captain named Halsey, an Army Air Corps major called Carl Spatz (he pronounced it spots, not spats), and an Army Air Corps first lieutenant with the interesting handle of Nathan Bedford Forrest III. Only his eyebrows reminded Charlie of his Confederate ancestor.
Charlie and Louie had the good sense to get to the District Court Building early. The crush was a little less overwhelming than it had been for the Associate Justices’ hearing. Coughlin wasn’t a government figure, and this wasn’t the first such proceeding.
The ACLU lawyer named Levine was one of Father Coughlin’s defense attorneys. He had on another godawful jacket, and a scarlet bow tie with bright blue polka dots that almost made it seem sedate by comparison. His companion, in pinstriped charcoal gray with a white shirt and a discreet maroon four-in-hand, was next to invisible beside him.
At the prosecutors’ table, Andy Wyszynski might have been the most relaxed man in the place. He smoked a cigarette, told a joke that made an aide wince, and generally seemed without a care in the world. If he wasn’t ready for anything Coughlin might do or say, he didn’t let on.
Colonel Short gaveled for order at ten sharp. “Close those doors,” he barked at the MPs and shore patrolmen by the entrance. “Let’s get on with it-the sooner the better.” He pointed to U.S. marshals at the edge of the lobby. “Bring in the prisoner, you men.”
He was the kind of officer Charlie disliked on sight. He owned a mean mouth, he used too much grease on his thinning hair, and, unlike Captain Spruance at the last tribunal, he had routineer stamped all over him.
In came Father Coughlin, handcuffed and herded along. He was in his mid-forties, the map of Ireland on his face. Wire-rimmed glasses aided his bright blue eyes. He had a shock, almost a quiff, of brown hair. In place of a clerical dog collar, he wore prison clothes.
“State your name for the record,” Short told him.
“I am Charles Edward Coughlin, sir.”
“Well, Mister Coughlin-”
“I prefer Father Coughlin, sir.”
“Well, Mister Coughlin,” Walter Short repeated with sour relish, “you are charged with doing the business of foreign countries seeking to weaken and destroy the United States of America and with doing it for money-with the crime of high treason, in other words. How say you to the charges, Mister Coughlin?”
Levine reached out toward the priest. He must have believed everyone deserved legal help, because Coughlin ranted about wicked, greedy Jewish bankers with as much gusto as he tore into Joe Steele. Levine didn’t want the priest to admit the charges. He wanted to fight.
In a voice almost too soft to hear even with the microphone, Father Coughlin said, “For the benefit of those who once believed in me, I find that I have no choice but to plead guilty, sir. I beg the tribunal for leniency for my sins, which the almighty God will also judge.”
A sigh wafted through the lobby. It was nothing like the amazement the audience had shown when the Supreme Court Four pleaded guilty. Walter Short used the gavel with officious energy just the same. He asked whether Coughlin was confessing voluntarily, whether he’d been coerced, and whether he’d been treated all right while behind bars. Coughlin gave each question the expected answer.
“All right, then.” Colonel Short sounded pleased with himself, and with how things were going. He turned to the other officers. “We’ve heard the prisoner confess. We know the charges against him. Do we need to waste a lot of time haggling over the sentence we pass?”
Halsey and Spatz sat silent. Forrest said, “Only one penalty for a crime like his-one that makes sure he never does it again.”
“Well put, Lieutenant. Well put.” Short eyed his fellow judges again. “Does anyone think anything less than the supreme penalty fits the crime?” If anyone did, he kept quiet about it. Short swung back to the radio priest. “For the crime of treason, which you have openly admitted in this tribunal, you are sentenced to die by the firing squad at a time and place the Attorney General or the President shall designate.”
Coughlin managed a nod. “We’ll appeal this!” Levine shouted.
“You have the right,” Walter Short admitted grudgingly.
“Good luck,” Wyszynski added with a chuckle. The Supreme Court was back in business, with four new justices named by Joe Steele. Papers that didn’t like the President were already calling them the Rubber Stamps. They didn’t seem likely to bite the hand that could arrest them.
“We will appeal,” Levine said. “The real truth needs to come out.”
“The real truth has come out, admitted by Mister Coughlin,” Short said. “And, since it has, this tribunal’s business is concluded. We stand adjourned.” He used the gavel one more time.
“They’re getting better at this,” Louie said as the assembly broke up. “Today, we don’t even gotta hurry back from lunch.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. He had no use for the priest. Whether Coughlin had done what he’d admitted doing might be a different question. If Charlie couldn’t prove that one way or the other, though, what was he supposed to do? Going along with the record as it came out in the tribunal might not be the bravest thing, but it was definitely the safest. And that was how Charlie wrote the story.
Appeal Levine did. The Supreme Court played safe, too. It declined to hear the appeal, saying it lacked jurisdiction over verdicts from military tribunals. Undaunted, Levine asked Joe Steele for clemency. As Charlie expected, the President went on the radio to say he wouldn’t grant it. Charlie didn’t expect Joe Steele to quote Lincoln again, but he did: “‘Must I shoot a simple-minded deserter, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?’” The question was disturbingly good.
No political kerfuffle delayed Father Coughlin’s shuffle off this mortal coil. A few days after Joe Steele rejected the appeal, Charlie got the phone call from Kagan he dreaded. The next morning, yawning despite coffee, he went to Arlington, to the open ground by the Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary. Only one post driven into the earth this time. Only one waiting firing squad.