I tried to make them understand that he had sacrificed himself for a cause. They still remained fairly impassive.
I also explained that it was that way in this country too before Vietnam. People went to fight to defend their principles. And then I tried to bring it closer to home by saying that was why our own ancestors fought the British in 1776.
Andy doesn’t like it when I mention this sort of thing. In fact, he was pretty unreceptive to my whole sermon.
He told me that I was incapable of getting into my head that the world has got to outgrow war. That no violence is ever justified.
Okay, I wasn’t going to press the point. I figured it was just a stage he was going through. What the hell does a spoiled teenager know about principles anyway?
Even Lizzie was getting a little impatient. So I concluded our talk by saying I had to go into town and buy some more fireworks.
This suddenly awakened Andy’s interest. He asked if we were making July Fourth a two-day holiday.
I replied that this was something special.
We were going to set off some flares tonight in memory of Jason Gilbert.
George Keller spent his first month as the President’s Special Advisor for National Security Affairs almost literally up in the air. He accompanied President Ford and Secretary Kissinger (with a gaggle of reporters) on voyages to Peking, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Cathy, of course, understood that these were not the sort of trips you could take your wife on. So she busied herself working in the ERA campaign headquarters and debachelorizing George’s townhouse.
As soon as he returned, Kissinger swooped him up again into an air-force jet heading for Russia to make a last-ditch effort at saving the SALT negotiations.
In their absence, the congressional attacks on Kissinger escalated. Ever sensitive to public criticism, the Secretary of State was in despair. One day George overheard Henry talking to Washington on the secure American Embassy phone in Moscow.
“Mr. President, with due respect, if I have so drastically lost the confidence of my countrymen, then I am prepared to tender my resignation.”
George sat with bated breath, wondering how Gerald Ford was reacting to Henry’s latest histrionic offer to step down. Someday, he thought, they’re going to call his bluff and he’ll be out. And somebody else will be Secretary of State.
Maybe me.
From February on, Washington began to focus increasingly on domestic affairs. For Gerald Ford this meant currying public favor for the upcoming election in November while holding off the threat from Ronald Reagan to usurp the Republican nomination.
George Keller’s problem was even more literally domestic. Cathy wanted to start a family. While he argued that they had plenty of time, she countered with a reminder that she wasn’t getting any younger.
“Don’t you have the urge to be a father?” she coaxed.
“I’d be a lousy one. I’m much too selfish to give a kid the time.”
“Aha then you’ve actually thought about it.”
“Yes, a bit.”
In fact, he had thought about it more than just a little. From the moment they were married he had been aware that Cathy aspired to motherhood.
All their friends had children. Even Andrew Eliot, who had jokingly remarked, “You ought to try it, Keller. I mean, if I can do it anyone can.”
Yet, something visceral in him recoiled at the prospect. Cathy sensed his misgivings and wanted to believe that they were caused by his own abrasive relationship with his father. So she tried to reassure him that, if anything, he would overcompensate to his child.
To some extent she was right. But that was only part of it. Deep within him was an avenging fury warning that he was too guilty to deserve to be a parent.
Kissinger and George were sitting in the wings during the second debate between President Ford and his Democratic opponent, Jimmy Carter, on October 6, 1976.
They winced when Ford fumbled with the ill-considered statement that Eastern Europe was “not under Soviet domination.”
At this point Henry leaned over and whispered sarcastically, “Nice briefing job you did, Dr. Keller.”
George shook his head. The moment the debate ended he asked Kissinger, “What do you think?”
The Secretary of State replied, “I think that unless there’s an immediate revolution in Poland, we’re all out of a job.”
Kissinger was right. On Election Day, the voters of America sent Jimmy Carter to the White House and Gerald Ford to the golf courses of Palm Springs. Washington would now be a Democratic town — at least for the next four years. And those closely allied with the Republican cause like George Keller had no place in it. Ironically, George’s office would be taken over by his first Harvard patron, Zbigniew Brzezinski. (He wondered fleetingly if he hadn’t choosen the wrong horse.)
Cathy was secretly delighted at the turn of events, since she hated her native city. And she was jealous of her husband’s mistress, politics.
After his initial disappointment, George started looking for a new career. He rejected invitations from several universities to teach government and several publishing houses to write a book about his White House experiences. As far as he was concerned, they were by no means over.
Instead, he opted to become an international trade consultant to the powerful New York investment firm of Pierson Hancock. The potential remuneration was beyond his wildest dreams.
As he joked to Cathy, “Now I’m worse than a capitalist. I’m a plutocrat.”
She smiled and thought, wouldn’t it be nice if you became a parent, too. And with maternity in mind, she convinced her husband that they should live in the country.
George at last acceded and they bought a Tudor house in Darien, Connecticut. It meant a lot of commuting for him each day, but at least he got to read the papers thoroughly before arriving at his office. To discover what was happening in the world that he no longer helped to run.
Two years after moving up from Washington, he had more money than he knew what to do with. And his wife had the same plethora of empty time.
Despite George’s urging, she did not take the New York Bar exam and seek a job with a metropolitan law firm. Instead, she qualified in Connecticut and took a one-day-a-week lectureship at nearby Bridgeport University law school.
George pretended to ignore the significance of her desire to remain at home. And Cathy’s sadness was compounded by a growing bitterness that he didn’t trust her enough to believe she was taking The Pill. Such lack of confidence is hardly conducive to a good marriage. And indeed, theirs was fast becoming a very unhappy one.
George sensed her increasing discontent and, instead of confronting it, deliberately fashioned a lifestyle that managed to avoid the issue. He began to work later and later — and come home drunker and drunker.
The New Haven Railroad may have been falling to pieces, but the scotch in its club cars still held many a commuter together. Or at least gave George that illusion.
Suburbia without children was stultifying. All of Cathy’s contemporaries were busily involved in the activities of their offsprings’ lives, and at lunch discussed little else. Thus, she felt like a double outcast. An alien among mothers, and a stranger to her own husband.
“Are you happy, George?” she asked one evening, as she was ferrying him from the train station.