He sat on the toilet and read capsule biographies, written on plain typing paper in a feminine hand. Written with a fountain pen — Leopold Vanders also used a fountain pen, albeit a different one. Was that to be a trademark of the movement? He hadn’t seen a fountain pen in years, wasn’t aware that they still manufactured them.
John Lowell Drury.
Senior senator from New Hampshire. Kennedy loyalties and political philosophy. Democratic presidential aspirant. Late but strong antiwar stand. Early antipollution stand. Economic left-centrist. Strongest support from non-radical students. Insignificant black support. Good image with white middle class. Record acceptable to organized labor. Effective speaker, frequent university appearances. Speedy termination advised, preferably via identifiable leftist. This cover may be transparent. Age: 49. Married. One child. Residence: (Washington): 2115 Albemarle; (Berlin, New Hampshire): 114 Carrollton Place...
Emil Karnofsky.
Director, National Brotherhood of Clothing Workers. Member, national board, AFL–CIO. Jew. First major labor leader to take antiwar position. Union membership chiefly black, Puerto Rican. Respected by colleagues but regarded as New York Jew leftist. Termination advised to foster solidarity in labor circles. Strongly recommend termination via natural causes or accident. If unavoidably otherwise, political motivation must not be suggested. Age: 77. Widower. Three children, eight grandchildren...
William Roy Guthrie.
Three term governor of Louisiana. Presidential candidate, Free American Party, 1964, 1968, Sectionalist demagogue with minor racist appeal In industrial Midwest. Controlled alcoholic. Insufficient stature and character for national leadership. Political program neopopulist, negative. Termination advised to allow his personal following In the southeast to flow Into the movement. Termination of Guthrie must precede termination of Theodore. Thrust may come from black extremist or university radical. This cover should be opaque. Age: 57. Married. No children...
Waller Isaac James.
First term mayor of Detroit. Black. Economic and social moderate. Foreign policy views unstated. Enjoys near total support of black constituency plus strong support of while power structure, professionals, intellectuals. Relationship improving with white working class. Efficient administrator. Termination acceptable via black extremists or while racists, though latter slightly preferable. Termination ideally to be as dramatic as possible. Perhaps family could be Included. Age: 44. Married. Five children...
Patrick John O’Dowd.
Second term mayor of Philadelphia. Liberal Republican. National aspirations. Charismatic. Social radical, economic conservative, National appeal to youthful left centrists. Strong secondary black appeal. Focal point of white working class hailed throughout eastern seaboard. Termination recommended but not urgent. Natural or accidental termination advised. Age: 47. Married...
Henry Michael Theodore.
Vice President, United States of America. An intuitive political amateur with an instinctive appreciation of centrist and right centrist anxieties. A refined demagogue. Romanian ancestry, original name Teodorescu. Theodore’s moderate right-centrist stance and his extraordinary success at focusing white middle class discontent make his termination a quintessential ingredient in movement policy. It should be scheduled at least one and no more than three months after Guthrie’s termination. Terminal thrust must be unmistakably via large scale leftist conspiracy. Involvement should extend to both black and while radicals. N.B. It is imperative that the terminal cover be wholly opaque. Not only must there be no official or unofficial suspicion of movement involvement, but there can he no evidence of any involvement that is not absolutely identifiable as leftist and/or black. Age: 62. Married. One child, one grandchild...
He paused on his way out of the men’s room to wash his hands with liquid soap. As he dried them in a steam of hot air, a wall scribble caught his eye.
“If you are not part of the solution,” he read, “you’re part of the problem.”
Heidigger had said, “If you could take them in order, so much the better. But it’s not vital. Only that Guthrie goes before Theodore.”
“I imagine there are other lists.”
“Not on this level of priority. There will be a great many smaller incidents which we will help to develop. Riots, confrontations. But I should be surprised if half of what occurs during the next six months is our work. All of this” — a hand flung out to indicate the world — “would eventually come to pass without us. We lend it direction.”
“You expect these six in six months?”
“Just the first four. O’Dowd is less important than the others. If you can’t get to him in hot weather, you might almost as well skip him entirely.”
“I thought he was supposed to go quietly.”
“So they say. It hink he should go out loud, that he’s only worth taking out if it makes the niggers burn down Philadelphia. Hot weather for Walter Isaac James, of course. Anyway, figure six months’ lead time. And then the date for Theodore is mid-October. You come as close to that as you can, but no later than the last week of the month.”
“The election is next year.”
“What a quick mind! But some states hold off-year gubernatorial elections.”
“Oh.”
“And the bigger our man wins, the better he looks next year.”
“I gather I don’t get to learn his name.”
“Not today. But don’t shoot any governors except for Guthrie. Just to be on the safe side.”
“I don’t know if I can do all these.”
“It’s what you do, Miles, and you do it as well as anyone I have ever known.”
“I have been known to miss.”
“Not often.”
“And these are not six nonentities. There’s not only security in front but the certainly of a stench afterward. The Vice-President, for Christ’s sake.”
“No one’s safe if you want him. No one on earth. Who knows this better than you?”
He acknowledged this with silence, then looked thoughtfully at Heidigger. His voice softened. “Why should I do this, Eric? You expect me to do it. You and I both sit here expecting that I will do it. Why is this so?”
“You’ll act for the good of the country. To preserve the American Way of Life. Bathrooms and Holiday Inns.”
“The question was serious.”
“So was the answer. Do you know what happens if we don’t act? Do you know? Chaos. Literally, chaos. The trends continue. Polarization increases. The left retains certain strengths. The right is too splintered to lake control. The economy goes completely to hell. The center evaporates like piss on a hot iron. The cities erupt. Pointless bloodbaths. Utter disorder. That is the alternative, Miles Dorn. The mistake everyone makes is to believe that the alternative to change is preservation of the status quo. And this is so rarely true. The alternative to change is another sort of change. You know this.”
“No, I don’t know it. Perhaps it is true—”
“It is.”
“—But I do not know it. I have no politics, Eric. You know that. I do not act out of principles.”