Jay Acton was an aide to-and, the documentary had strongly hinted, the intellect and strategist behind-a curious fellow by the name of Elysius Culhane, the self-styled "last of the conservative purists." Culhane's words in his syndicated newspaper column and over the air on the political television talk shows he regularly hosted or appeared on were sometimes insightful, but always abrasive, and were raptly absorbed by millions of Americans.
To me, the man was a baying full-mooner. I considered Elysius Culhane a not-so-subtle Nazi sympathizer, a shameless hypocrite, a zealous ideologue, and an aggressive intellectual thug. He was a master of language, despite a slight speech impediment that caused him to occasionally slur two or three words together, but this man's language was not a descriptive or analytic tool for carving truth. It was just one more weapon to be used against what Culhane perceived as America's enemies-"godless communism" in general and all Russians in particular, glasnost and perestroika and the crumbling of the Evil Empire or no, liberals, moderates, humanists, women who had abortions and doctors who performed them, the Supreme Court, unmarried people who did not practice chastity, homosexuals, and any nation, institution, or individual not reflecting or espousing "Christian values," as he defined them.
In his autobiography, If You're Not Right You're Wrong, rumored to have been ghostwritten by Jay Acton, Culhane described his upbringing as the "runt" in the rough-and-tumble world of a Roman Catholic, working-class family with eleven children headed by a hard-drinking father and a manic-depressive mother who spent more time in mental hospitals than her home. I'd thought his father sounded more than a bit abusive, single-handedly ruling his brood of children with fists and a leather strap, but Culhane had written glowingly of a childhood dominated by a father who "taught me what real values are, and wasn't afraid to lay on the leather when you got it wrong." He had been educated in Roman Catholic schools run by priests, nuns, and brothers who "brooked no nonsense when it came to the meaning of the blood of Christ and America's hallowed place in God's plan for the world." Near the end of the book, after coming perilously close, within a verb or two, to calling for a coordinated, preemptive nuclear attack on Russia, China, and the "Arab world," he lamented the fact that all American children had not had the benefit of his upbringing. Elysius Culhane was always looking to lay on the fists and leather, at home and abroad.
Culhane had cut his political teeth as a fund-raiser in the political twilight world of Lyndon Larouche, a fact he denied but which had been confirmed by a number of reporters, then left when Larouche's ship began to sink under the combined weight of too many preposterous conspiracy theories, charges of widespread mail and credit card fraud, and increasingly frequent visits from the IRS.
He landed on his feet, running, when, through powerful connections he'd made while working for Larouche, he was taken on board by successive conservative administrations that found him, at least for a time, useful as a bulwark against right-wing critics. Then Kevin Shannon was elected president- an event in which Garth and I played no small part, albeit by default, and through no choice of our own-and Culhane was out.
Out, maybe, but by no means down. Quite the contrary.
Within a short time after Shannon's inauguration, Culhane was signed for a syndicated column, and began popping up all over the place on various television news and talk shows as a "spokesman for the right." He certainly caught on in this post-Vietnam world among a segment of the population living in an America that no longer quite fit their notion of what America had once been, and should be. Culhane's was an "us against them" view of the planet-and by "us" he by no means meant all Americans, but only those who shared his views; those who perceived things differently were "dupes of the Russians" at best, and at worst traitors.
It was a song-and-dance revue that played very nicely in Peoria, and a good many other places as well. While I might consider Elysius Culhane a monumental pain in the ass, a national embarrassment, and a transparent demagogue dispensing apocalyptic visions that bore no relationship whatever with reality, a very large mass of people considered him little less than a potential savior of America.
According to the PBS documentary, stating an opinion reflected in a number of articles I'd read since then, the eminence grise behind Elysius Culhane's relatively rapid rise to his present position of celebrity, power, and wealth was none other than the mysterious, rarely seen Jay Acton. Acton was the strategist who'd found the right formula to successfully mix hot air, flaming oratory, flammatory ideas, and uncanny skill at obfuscation into a potent brew that fueled an increasingly powerful political infernal medicine of divisiveness and hatred.
I wondered what Jay Acton was doing in Cairn, at this art exhibition.
"Dr. Robert Frederickson, I presume?"
Ah, again. Jay Acton was in Cairn, at this art exhibition, because his boss was here.
I turned around to face Elysius Culhane, who was standing directly behind me. I was used to seeing him in close-up on a television screen, perspiration filming his high forehead and upper lip as he leaned forward to launch into one of his harangues about "cleaning up the soul of America." On television he always loomed large, and I was surprised to find that he was no more than five feet six or seven, stocky. He was wearing an expensive gray silk suit with a cream-colored shirt, patterned silk tie, and black alligator shoes. His graying black hair was combed straight back. He had piercing black eyes, a nose that looked as if it had been broken at least once and not properly set. There was a comma of scar tissue at the corner of his right eye. His deep tan nicely highlighted the unnatural white of his capped teeth. I thought he looked like a Hollywood version of a mobster, but then I was prejudiced.
"Elysius Culhane," I replied. When I shook the hand he extended I noted a slight tremor.
"I'm flattered that you recognize me," he said with a disingenuous smile that indicated he certainly wasn't surprised I'd recognized him.
"Do I detect a note of false modesty? You're the celebrity here, Mr. Culhane, not me."
"From what I've heard about you, I wouldn't think that you'd be one of my viewers."
"I don't know what you've heard about me," I said with a little bit of my own disingenuous smile, "but the fact of the matter is that you're pretty hard to avoid these days if you watch any news shows at all."
He smiled thinly and nodded, obviously pleased with my observation. "Well, you and your brother aren't exactly just faces in the crowd, are you? It seems to me that I've been reading and hearing about the exploits of Mongo the Magnificent, ex-circus headliner turned criminology professor and private investigator, for years. You're quite a colorful character, and I'm pleased to meet you."
"Likewise," I said, trying as best I could to mask my lack of enthusiasm.
"You're in partnership now with your brother, aren't you?"
"You're very well informed, Mr. Culhane."
"It's my business to be informed, Dr. Frederickson, especially as it concerns the waxing and waning of political fortunes in Washington."
"You must have the wrong dwarf, Mr. Culhane. Frederickson and Frederickson has nothing to do with politics or power in Washington."
Culhane narrowed his eyelids and pursed his lips. "Now I think it's you who's displaying false modesty. It's well known in the circles I travel in that you and your brother are personal friends of the president, as well as of that aging, cagey old fellow who's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency."
Elysius Culhane's tendency to slur words together was becoming gradually more pronounced, and he seemed slightly nervous. It occurred to me that he was digging for something.