And what about the moral issue? I have a conscience to live with, gentlemen, I have a tradition to uphold, I am responsible to something more important than dollars and cents. And I tell you, I will not mollycoddle the enemy at the risk of American lives, unless of course I am ordered to do so. Mr. President, I must speak from my heart, I would be remiss as a General of the United States Army if I did not. Mr. President, if on the day you took office we had, with your permission, lined up and shot every single Vietnamese we could find, by so doing we would have saved fifteen thousand American lives. Instead, sir, following the course of action that you have ordered as Commander-in-Chief, and shooting and blowing them up piecemeal, catch as catch can, ten here, twenty there, and so on, we have suffered severe losses of both men and materials.
Admittedly, by doggedly pursuing your strategy, we are now beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel. And I have every hope that we will be able to help you make good on your promise to the American people, that by Election Day 1972, and according to your own secret timetable, you will have accomplished the complete withdrawal of the Vietnamese people from Vietnam.
My point, sir, is that we have ways of accomplishing such withdrawals in a matter of hours. I beg of you, Mr. President, let us not repeat the errors of Vietnam in our own backyard.
LEGAL COACH: Of course, Mr. President, I can not fault the General on his tactical wisdom, and believe me, I am not for a moment worried about taking on these civil-rights nuts. It’s just that if we shoot these Scouts in the street before we round ‘em up and jail ‘em, it is, as I said, going to create an awful lot of unnecessary busywork for my staff, many of them first-rate young men whom I can employ at far more useful and worthwhile tasks. However, before or after, Mr. President, whichever you choose, you can count on my support. But for you to go on TV and make a confession, or an apology, or any kind of explanation for yourself whatsoever, well, to my mind, nothing could more seriously undermine your moral and political authority, or constitute a graver threat to the cause of law and order. I will even go so far as to say that if you appear in any way to give ground on this issue — or any issue for that matter — you will be opening the floodgates to anarchy, socialism, communism, welfarism, defeatism, pacifism, perversion, pornography, prostitution, mob rule, drug addiction, free love, alcoholism, and desecration of the flag. You’ll see a rise just in jaywalking that will stagger the imagination. Now I don’t mean to throw a scare into anyone, but the fact is a vast criminal element in this country is waiting for just a single sign of weakness in our leader, so as to make its move. Anything at all that might suggest to them that Trick E. Dixon is not totally in control, of himself and the nation, and I hate to tell you what would follow.
TRICKY (interrupting): That’s exactly why I’m having my sweat glands removed, to show how in control I am.
LEGAL COACH (continuing): Now, as you know, there is bound to be a certain amount of blood shed, when we go ahead and kill these young people, whether we do it before or after. This blood is something we seem always to run into with the killings, one of those facts of death we have to live with. Reverend, I see you shaking your head. Are you suggesting that it is possible to kill people, even youngsters like this, without spilling blood? If so, I’d like to hear about it.
SPIRITUAL COACH (anguished): Well.. what about gas.. poison gas… Something like that? Surely enough blood has been shed in our century.
MILITARY COACH: The only trouble with gas, Reverend, if I may speak here on the basis of my own firsthand experience — the trouble with gas is that unfortunately we don’t have these Scouts in a big open space. If we had them, say, smack in the middle of a desert somewhere, sure, spray ‘em and it’s over with.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Couldn’t we get them to a desert then?
LEGAL COACH: How? (Wary) Are you suggesting bussing them there?
SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, yes, busses would do it, I suppose.
TRICKY: No, I’m afraid they wouldn’t, Reverend. I have thought this matter through and I have made my decision: this administration will not bus children from Washington, D.C., all the way to the state of Arizona to poison them. That is a matter in whieh the federal government simply. will not intervene. This is a free country, and certainly one of your fundamental freedoms here is choosing the place where you want your child to be killed.
SPIRITUAL COACH: And there’s simply no way you can poison them right here?
MILITARY COACH: Much too dangerous, Reverend. Start out gassing these kids, and next thing, you get a wind or something, and you have poisoned some perfectly innocent adult miles away.
LEGAL COACH: Of course, you’re going to get some guilty adults too, you know, if you let it spread far enough.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Gentlemen, please! I stand utterly opposed to any course of action wherein the welfare of ‘a single innocent adult is even remotely threatened. I don’t care how many guilty adults you get in the process.
MILITARY COACH: All right with me, Reverend. I’d rather shoot ‘em anyway. I have always maintained that it gives the individual soldier a stronger sense of participation and accomplishment to pull the trigger and see the results with his own eyes.
SPIRITUAL COACH (to Legal Coach): And you?
LEGAL COACH: Fine with me. So long as we all realize beforehand that there is going to be this blood, and sure as we are sitting here, the media are going to exploit it to the hilt. I don’t have any doubt whatsoever, given the kind of people who pull the strings in the press and TV, that they are going to blow this whole thing out of proportion, and, for instance, are not going to have a word to say about the restraint that’s been displayed by our not using poison gas, or bussing. I mean, we could subject these kids to what is virtually a cross-country bus trip, a long hot grueling drive out to Arizona, without food, water, toilet facilities and so on, prior to killing them, and yet, as we all know, with the exception of the Reverend here, not a single member of the administration has spoken in support of such a proposal. But will you hear about that on TV? I think not.
TRICKY: Oh, no. They never tell that side of the story. It’s not sensational enough for them, not enough gore. Not enough violence to suit their taste. No, it’s never what we didn’t do, it’s always what we’ve done. That, unfortunately, is what these people consider newsworthy.
LEGAL COACH: Luckily, Mr. President, the people of this country are still by and large passive and indifferent enough not to get all stirred up by this kind of irresponsible sensationalism on the part of the media.
TRICKY: Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ve never lost my faith in the wonderful indifference of the American people. Just because they happen to see a little Boy Scout blood on TV… Boy Scout blood on TV? (His lip is suddenly drenched with perspiration) They’ll impeach me! They’ll —
LEGAL COACH: Nothing of the sort, Mr. President, nothing of the sort. It’s only another crisis, you have nothing to worry about. Come on nowcool, confident and decisive. Come on, repeat it after me, you know how to behave in a crisis: cool, confident and decisive.