The Book of Daniel

  “They understand,” Ascher said. “They are both intelligent children.”

  “I can see that,” the Judge said. “I can see that very clearly.”

  The bottoms of Susan’s thighs were sticking to the leather cushion. She kept lifting her legs and the sound was like adhesive tape coming away from the skin.

  “So we have this problem,” the Judge said. “And it is whether, in view of the present cicumstances, it is better for you to stay at the Shelter facility, or to be placed in a private home to live privately with a family the way children are supposed to live. And to be as fair as possible I wanted to know how you children feel about the matter.”

  “Excuse me,” Ascher said. “They should be told, Your Honor, of their parents’ opinion on the matter.”

  “We will not lead them, Mr. Ascher,” the Judge said, staring at me with his hand tucked between his crossed knees.

  “I agree to that,” Ascher said. “To tell them neither how anyone thinks they’re supposed to live. Not even justices of the Federal District,” he added after a moment’s thought.

  “Well, children, I am waiting for your answer,” the Judge said. “You understand,” he said turning to Ascher again, “my sole concern is here in this room. There is in your attitude what I detect as a presumption of my brotherhood with a certain Justice of the Federal Court.”

  “Oh no, not so,” Ascher said. He seemed genuinely aghast.

  “I do not feel obligated to defend the judiciary for that man,” the Judge said. “And I resent the pressure I feel from you.”

  “It has been a long and frustrating trial,” Ascher said. “I’m not well. I would like to hear one ruling out of all of this that favors a defense motion.”

  “My dear Ascher, these children are not on trial!”

  “They most assuredly are,” Ascher said, rising to his feet. He began to pace the room. “Their parents are still alive. They have hope. They have hope of being all together again.”

  “I am merely asking a question.”

  “It has been answered. May God in Heaven forgive me, if you cannot give these children their mother and father, do not force on them other mothers and other fathers.”

  “According to your own words a dozen families have offered their homes. They are all presumably sympathetic?”

  Ascher sighed and slapped his arms against his sides.

  “Do you know what life is like in a public facility?” said the Judge. “Do you think it can be any good in a city barracks for children for not months but perhaps years? At best? And there is a history here of running away.”

  “Once.”

  “It is enough. No, you are being melodramatic.”

  “The parents—”

  “I am not concerned with the parents. Their mental health is not the province of my court. It is the children I must consider and it is for the children’s welfare decisions must be made. You have to make that clear to them.”

  The Judge closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “There is such a thing as too much hope,” he said.

  TRUE HISTORY OF THE COLD WAR: A RAGA

  Cold War is a phrase given to Bernard Baruch, a non-officeholding adviser to presidents and one of the architects of the Baruch plan for the international control of atomic energy. This plan, which was presented to the UN in June 1946, proposed that for the sake of mankind, the United States—the only country that had atomic bombs—would continue to build its stockpile and sophisticate its bomb technology until a system of foolproof international inspection and control had been established to its satisfaction all over the world, including internally in the Soviet Union. While its plan was under discussion the United States exploded another atom bomb in the South Pacific, on the island of Bikini. We may tentatively define Cold War as a condition of incipient bomb-falling hostility by which the United States proposed to apply such pressure upon Soviet Russia that its government would collapse and the power of the Bolsheviks be destroyed. Citations available from Kennan (also known as Mr. X), Acheson, Dulles.

  As is well known the senior man in the cabinet, Henry Stimson, believed that the diplomatic use of a temporary bomb monopoly to ultimately change conditions in Soviet Russia was a terrible miscalculation that could lead to disaster. Let us look at Stimson. A long life devoted to the interests of his nation. A professional life not without its flush of patriotism, and a hot error or two. A member of the ruling class, as they say. But thirty-five or forty years of high governmental service polishes the skull to a wisdom that is almost oriental in its translucidity. At the level of international relationships life is not complicated at all, but polished by the large simple facts of national self-interest it can shine in simple beauty (and as all the sages of the East point out, the truth is simple and beautiful and unnecessary even to articulate). Perhaps Stimson feels that like genetic change induced by radiation the sole possession of this crackling nuclear energy is changing our national character—or fulfilling it. Either way, he sees with the polished eyes of an old man soon to die. We are at a moment when we have the power to alter human history or confirm it finally in its ancient awful courses. He writes a memo to Harry dated September 11, 1945. It’s not Lao-tzu but for a diplomat it’s not bad at all. It is not bad at all shouldering these concepts as only an old man could have the strength to do in the ultimate flush of youth the spirit blossoms, the last extrudescence before death: “If we fail to approach them now but merely continue to negotiate with them having this weapon ostentatiously on our hip, their suspicions and their distrust of our purposes and motives will increase…. Unless the Soviets are voluntarily invited into the partnership upon a basis of cooperation and trust, we are going to maintain the Anglo-Saxon bloc over against the Soviet in the possession of this weapon. Such a condition will almost certainly stimulate feverish activity on the part of the Soviet toward the development of this bomb in what will in effect be a secret armament race of a rather desperate character. There is evidence to indicate that such activity may have already commenced.” Harry, listen to me. This is the moment for remaking the world.

  Harry, at dawn, walks briskly through the White House grounds. Someone, Byrnes, has told him what terrible shape the Russians are in—at a moment when the United States is the most powerful country in the world. Stimson is losing his grip. He wants to negotiate a treaty directly with Russia whereby we would impound our bombs, cease their development provided she (and Britain too) would do the same, and that the three nations would agree not to use the bomb unless all three decided on that use. The idea is to cede a military edge that he thinks is temporary anyway to strike an international bargain that has some chance of being kept and saving civilization—not for five years, or twenty years, but forever. Harry at dawn walks briskly in the White House gardens. Stimson has been around an awfully long time. The President, I mean Franklin, was around too long too. The both of them. Of Stimson the suspicion leaks through that he has lost his usefulness to us. Instead of thinking of our interests he’s thinking of humanity. Let him get Joe Stalin to think of humanity.

  To confirm how wrong Stimson is, the Russians themselves propose at the UN a treaty close to the Stimson model. The memo of Sept. II is filed. The Honorable Secretary is filed. Harry and his Sec. of State, Byrnes of So. Car., will use the bomb the way it ought to be used. War-weakened, man-poor, Russia is seen as a tottering bear who can be brought down. Simply don’t give her anything to hold onto. A month after Roosevelt’s death all Lend Lease shipments and finances to the Russian ally are suddenly and without warning canceled. Leo Crowley, Harry’s Foreign Economic Administrator, tells Congressmen the theory behind this move: “If you create good governments in foreign countries, automatically you will have better markets for ourselves.” With that honeycunt staring you in the face, you’d forget your grammar too.

  There is no evidence that even before the end of the war against Germany and Japan a policy of coexistence with the Russians is seriously considered, let alone put t
o the test. The false popular view of Yalta. The profound confusion of diplomacy with appeasement. Diplomacy in the formulation of Truman, Byrnes and Vandenberg, is seen not as a means to create conditions of peaceful postwar détente with the Soviets, but as a means of jamming an American world down Russia’s throat. Historian W. A. Williams’ analysis is that recalling the Depression the American leaders are worried about a postwar economic slump. The solution is to secure foreign markets for American goods. This is the traditional solution to ensure American prosperity. It is called many things by many people but by the State Department it is called the policy of the Open Door.

  We may prefer a more primitive analysis: that when you defeat an enemy you are required to eat his heart. In this way is your victory recorded with The Gods. In this way too do The Gods ensure the continuation of their amusement: You consume the heart of your enemy so that it can no longer be said of him that he exists—except as he exists in you.

  Horowitz in THE FREE WORLD COLOSSUS quoting Blackett, another historian of the cold war, demonstrates that the Soviets make comparable reductions to our own in land-army strength: With her potentially hostile borders in Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East, she drops to 25 percent of her strength in 1945. We, with the bomb, and no threatening borders, reduce to 13 percent of our strength in 1945.

  At Potsdam Russia tells the Americans they need reparations from Germany, preferably in the form of heavy industrial equipment so as to get her shattered economy going again and also to lessen the chance of future German incursions, Germany being now a nation of whom she has historical reason to be morbidly suspicious, deathly afraid. The Americans reply that this is out of the question. At this point the bear has nothing. The art, however, is not in giving your adversary nothing, for with nothing he has nothing to lose by going to war. The art is in giving him nothing while making him think that you’re giving him something. James Byrnes of So. Car. knows this. Here is one of the great moments in international relations. Molotov and Stalin sit impassive in their badly tailored suits. They do not permit themselves the luxury of rage. They are the rulers of a vast violent multination bound in ice whose major industry is death, whose only plenitude is violent death. Byrnes opens his carpetbag. He understands that all the aides, translators, guards, microphones, headsets, ranks of negotiators around the table are nothing. He understands the coals of the fire are growing cold in the lodge. And as Harry next to him drums his fingers in miniature representation of artillery fire, clouds of sparks and smoke glinting on Harry’s glasses, he removes with loving hands from his carpetbag for the eyes of these savages a sample of glittering cloth. This has always been the way to deal out savages—with bits of glitter and tasteless design. And what is this, they inquire as he bows his Southern aristocratic; neck and begs of them to feel the texture.

  Mr. Molotov: My understanding, Secretary Byrnes, is that you have in mind the proposal that each country should take reparations from its own (occupation) zone.

  The Secretary: Yes.

  Mr. Molotov: Would not this suggestion mean that each country would have a free hand in their own zone and would act entirely independently of the others.

  The Secretary: That is true in substance.

  Byrnes closes his valise. We’ve got them on the reservation, now let them realize we own it. The trouble is the Russians assume differently. Did we or did we not exactly mean a free hand? Having reluctantly accepted Byrnes’ proposal as a poor substitute for German reparations, the Soviets are determined to make the best of it. This is not according to the American plan. In March 1946, Churchill makes a speech in Fulton, Missouri, with Truman on the platform applauding vigorously. Churchill finds provocative menace in the “iron curtain” the Soviets have dropped in front of Eastern Europe.

  A MESSAGE OF CONSOLATION TO GREEK BROTHERS IN THEIR PRISON CAMPS, AND TO MY HAITIAN BROTHERS AND NICARAGUAN BROTHERS AND DOMINICAN BROTHERS AND SOUTH AFRICAN BROTHERS AND SPANISH BROTHERS AND TO MY BROTHERS IN SOUTH VIETNAM, ALL IN THEIR PRISON CAMPS: YOU ARE IN THE FREE WORLD!

  The Russians are portrayed as aggressive, devious, untrustworthy, and brutally single-minded. Yet according to Williams in THE TRAGEDY OF AMERICAN DIPLOMACY, as late as 1946 Russian postwar policy has not been decided. Russia has backed down on many issues and has shown indecision in many others. In Moscow a conflict has existed between those who subscribe to friendly relations with the U.S. and those who don’t. There is evidence that Stalin favors the former view particularly as expressed by the economist Eugene Varga, who argues that Russia can recover from the war by concentrating internally on domestic problems rather than by expansionist policies. Varga also calls for a reassessment of American capitalism. Not until 1947 do Varga and his mush-headed gang disappear and the hard-liners under Molotov take over. This happens about the time Henry Wallace is fired from the Truman cabinet for making this statement: “We should be prepared to judge Russia’s requirements against the background of what we ourselves and the British have insisted upon as essential to our respective security.”

  A Congressional Committee in 1947 reports on the unprecedented volume of anti-Soviet propaganda coming out of the U.S. Government. It turns out to be absolutely necessary. On the one hand America considers itself the strongest nation, the first and only nuclear nation, the wealthiest, the most powerful nation in the world. On the other hand it must live in fear of the Russian. Secretary of State Acheson will testify some years afterward that never in the counsels of the Truman cabinet did anyone seriously regard Russia as a military threat—even after they got their bomb. Bipartisan Senator-Statesman Vandenberg tells how the trick is done: “We’ve got to scare hell out of the American people,” he says.

  The Truman Doctrine will not be announced as a policy of providing military security for the foreign governments who accept our investments, but as a means of protecting freedom-loving nations from Communism. The Marshall Plan will be advertised not as a way of ensuring markets abroad for American goods but as a means of helping the countries of Europe recover from the war. Russia has had the effrontery not to collapse. We are faced with an international atheistic Communist conspiracy of satanic dimension. Which side are you on? Russia moves into Rumania, Bulgaria, East Germany. Russia rolls over Czechoslovakia. Here is NATO. Here is the Berlin Blockade. And behold, it came to pass, just the kind of world we said it was—

  I don’t remember who drove the car. It was not Ascher, Ascher was sitting next to me in the back seat. I was in the middle. Susan was on my right—I had given her the window. I could see over her head anyway. We were going up the Saw Mill River Parkway. The road was dry but snow lay in banks along the side. It was old snow covered with soot and dirt. This was the same way, I knew, that you went to Peekskill. The wheels hummed on the road. The hills were turning green.

  “What?” said Ascher. “What is it?”

  “The gas fumes. I want to open the window.”

  “Fumes? There are no fumes.”

  “Just a little.” I was having trouble breathing.

  I can’t remember who drove. Ascher sat in the back with us, I was between Ascher and Susan. My stomach hurt. My fingers ached. I held a package wrapped in brown paper, a gift for my father. I had made a pair of book ends in school in the woodworking shop—they were slabs of wood nailed together at right angles, with the edges beveled and the surfaces sanded. Then we carved designs with the woodburning tool and then stained the whole thing walnut. For my design I had burned a large “I” into the vertical face of each book end.

  Susan’s gift was for our mother—a sheaf of her crayon drawings tied together with a hank of yarn in a bow.

  Susan kept shifting and squirming. She wouldn’t stop even after I asked her nicely. I punched her in the arm and she tried to scratch my face.

  “Children,” Ascher said. “Please, children, no nonsense.”

  It was a long trip. We had left just after lunch. When you are traveling to see people the sense of them fills your mind. Their voic
es and their attitudes. But I couldn’t see them clearly—only their shadows. I was not feeling well. I was afraid to be going to see them. It was a long trip. I didn’t know what they would say. I wasn’t sure they would be glad to see me.

  “Is this the right day?” I asked Ascher, not for the first time.

  “Yes, Daniel.”

  “Do they know we’re coming?”

  “I told you yes.”

  “They expect us this very afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re dead,” Susan said.

  “No, my little girl, that is not true. They are alive.”

  “They’re not alive anymore, they were killed,” Susan said. “It was in the newspaper.”

  “How do you know, you can’t read,” Daniel said.

  “I can, I have learned how to read.”

  “You’re a liar,” Daniel said.

  “Please,” Ascher said.

  “I’m a good reader,” Susan said. “I can read everything.”

  “What newspaper?”

  “In my class.”

  “And what did it say?”

  “It said that my mother and father were killed. Bugs killed them.”

  “Please, children, enough.”

  “What kind of bugs?”

  “Bugs and death.”

  “You’re a dope,” Daniel said. But it bothered me that she sounded so sure of herself.

  We got to the prison in the middle of the afternoon. It was cold although the sun was shining. I was glad to be out of the car. We had parked beside a wall of yellow brick. The windows in this wall were enormous—arched, like cathedral windows, but striped with bars. I stepped back for a better view. It was a big building. Rising from the corner of the building was a hexagonal tower topped with glass, like a lighthouse, and a roof of its own, like a Chinese hat. At the far end of the building was another tower.