I realized he was putting me on the spot, testing me, and I didn’t know quite what to answer. Did it have something to do with Korea? Stalin? My Checkers speech? American jurisprudence? Alger Hiss? I raked my mind for some clue to his drift. He was leaning against a bench, tossing the shiny white balls up in the air, juggling them two, three, seven…thirteen at a time. His white cuffs flashed in the sunlight like signal flags. Of course, I expected to be tested like this, expected it and welcomed it, knew it to be part of the sacred life, something Uncle Sam had to do to protect his powers. And I trusted him — he’d never used kid gloves on me, but he’d never been unkind to me either, I was pretty sure he liked me — I trusted him and was eager to please him. Maybe he only wants to be reassured, I thought.
I was glad about the way the case turned out, of course, but he knew this already. After all, having gone out on a limb about it back in ’49, I couldn’t help but be flattered when J. Edgar Hoover actually found a spy ring and busted it. But past that, I had to admit, I didn’t know too much about the case. The trouble was, by the time it came up in ’51, I had begun to catch fleeting glimpses of Uncle Sam’s blue coattails and was busy chasing them, and so I had pretty much stayed out of Hoover’s and Saypol’s way. Oh, I knew well enough what the Big Issue was, my whole political career had been built on it. And I knew, of course, that the Rosenbergs were part of it, an important part: Edgar had called it “the Crime of the Century” in the Reader’s Digest, and I’d gone along with that, even if I did think he should have given equal billing to the perjury of Alger Hiss. And even though I didn’t follow the details — about all I knew for sure was that Fuchs had led the FBI to his American courier Harry Gold who had led them to Ethel Rosenberg’s brother David Greenglass who subsequently had turned state’s evidence against the Rosenbergs (Morton Sobell fitted in there somewhere — maybe he was the one who tore the Jell-0 box) — I did admire Irving Saypol’s dynamic, intransigently hostile prosecution of the case, applauded the breadth of Judge Kaufman’s vision and courage, and was properly relieved when the Supreme Court, still dangerously New Deal-tainted, refused to review the case. On the other hand, let me say — and I don’t mind being controversial on this subject — I was a little sorry that two people, a father and mother of two little boys, had to die. I’m always sorry when people have to die, my mother taught me this. Especially women and children. But how much of the world’s sadness can any one man handle, no matter how sensitive he is? I had troubles of my own, and I knew that Uncle Sam would do what was right and necessary; just stay on the reservation, keep the faith, do your own job well, get your rhetoric ready, and don’t ask too many irrelevant questions: that seemed the best policy.
But maybe it was not. Maybe I had not done enough. I fussed about, choosing a ball for teeing up, worried about this. Everything was remarkably green, the sky was deep blue, the balls a blinding white: my senses were still on edge from the transmutation. Uncle Sam was now balancing a putter on his sharp thin nose while juggling the golf balls. The empty tee awaited me: the novice called upon to show what he knows. I’d built my reputation on the thoroughness with which I’d pursued the Hiss case, after all, and maybe I’d gone soft on this one, lost some of my fabled diligence and so part of my image as well, perhaps this was the thrust of Uncle Sam’s question now. He somehow had his old plug hat up on top of the putter and was twirling it around. His playfulness could be deceptive. Don’t take chances, I thought — stick with what you know. I wasn’t sure whether or not the actual conspiracy charge had been proven, but let’s be frank about it, it was just a technicality anyway — mainly because of the statute of limitation, I supposed, and the fact that in these espionage cases there were rarely two witnesses to anything. They were being tried in fact for treason, never mind what the Constitution might say, which was anyway written a long time ago — and on that charge, J. Edgar Hoover’s word was as good as a conviction.
“Well,” I said finally, poking around bravely in my golf bag, “well, I believe they’re, uh, probably guilty.”
Uncle Sam blinked in amazement, gathering in the balls with one big hand, catching the putter and hat as they fell with the other. “Guilty!” he roared, his chinwhiskers bristling. I realized, glancing away, pretending to study the distant green, that Abraham Lincoln, whom I’d always admired, was probably the most terrifying man of his age. “Well, hell, yes, they’re guilty!”
I knew by his reaction I must be miles off the mark, but my answer still made sense to me and I resented what seemed like some kind of entrapment. Instinctively, I counterattacked: “Well, naturally, I haven’t had ample opportunity to study the transcripts carefully, but I, uh, from what I’ve seen of them, the case has not been proven—”
“The case!” he snorted incredulously. “Proven! Gawdamighty, you do take the rag off the bush, boy!”
I stared miserably into my golf bag while he railed at me. Not only was I giving all the wrong goddamn answers, I was also having trouble with my drives. I do not believe that some men are just naturally cool, courageous, and decisive in handling crisis situations, while others are not. I chose a number two wood for a change. I knew this was a mistake and put it back. “There…there was no hard evidence,” I said, pressing on desperately. “And since the Rosenbergs refused to cooperate, all we had left really was the brother’s story!” I wasn’t sure this was true. I’d read it somewhere. I thought: there is less than a 50 percent chance that what I’m doing will help me. “And to get that, we’d had to make this deal with him and his wife which—”
“So all that courtroom splutteration was a frame-up,” he blustered — he was in a ferocious state, “what trial isn’t?”
“Wait, that’s not what I meant!” I protested. “Irving Saypol’s a fine trial lawyer!” I wished I could keep my mouth shut. But I’d always admired Saypol, the greatest of the anti-Communist trial lawyers, though I knew he was mean and ornery with a mind about as broad as a two-by-four, and a Tammany Democrat to boot. I pulled out my driver, swished it around a little. My hands were so sweaty it nearly slipped right out. “I don’t think he’d ever—”
“Rig a prosecution?” Uncle Sam laughed sourly. I knew better, of course, I was being a fool. “Hell, all courtroom testimony about the past is ipso facto and teetotaciously a baldface lie, ain’t that so? Moonshine! Chicanery! The ole gum game! Like history itself — all more or less bunk, as Henry Ford liked to say, as saintly and wise a pup as this nation’s seen since the Gold Rush — the fatal slantindicular futility of Fact! Appearances, my boy, appearances! Practical politics consists in ignorin’ facts! Opinion ultimately governs the world!”
“Yes, but… I thought—”
“You thought! Cry-eye, look out when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet, we’re all in for it! I’m tellin’ you, son, the past is a bucket of cold ashes: rake through it and all you’ll get is dirty! A lousy situation, but dese, as the man says, are de conditions dat prevail!”
I felt my neck flush, so, to cover up, I stooped and concentrated on teeing up my golf ball, grunting to kill time. My hand was shaking and the ball kept falling off. I seemed to see my father down in the front row at a school debate, flushing with rage as I disgraced myself with a weak rebuttal.