OUR GANG by
Philip Roth
"The victims may not enjoy it, but they should be
flattered. It is no small distinction to have provoked the
wittiest and wickedest political satire since Dryden."
-Atlantic Monthly
Bantam Books by Philip Roth
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OUR GANG
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PRINTING HISTORY
Random House edition published October 1971
2nd printing ... November 1971 3rd printing ... November 1971
4th printing ... December 1971
Literary Guild edition published January 1972
Book Find Club edition published January 1972
Bantam edition published May 1972
Sections of this book appeared in somewhat different form in
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Copyright © 1971 by Philip Roth.
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED ST ATES OF AMERICA
To MILDRED MARTIN of Bucknell University,
ROBERT MAURER now of Antioch College,
and NAPIER WILT of the University of Chicago
three teachers to whom I remain particularly
grateful for the instruction and encouragement
they gave me.
And I remember frequent Discourses with my Master
concerning the Nature of Manhood, in other Parts of the
World; having Occasion to talk of Lying, and false
Representation, it was with much Difficulty that he
comprehended what I meant; although he had otherwise a
most acute judgment. For he argued thus; That the Use of
Speech was to make us understand one another, and to
receive Information of Facts; now if anyone said the Thing
which was not, these Ends were defeated; because I cannot
properly be said to understand him; and I am so far from
receiving Information, that he leaves me worse than in
Ignorance; for I am led to believe a Thing Black when it is
White, and Short when it is Long. And these were all the
Notions he had concerning that Faculty of Lying, so
perfectly well understood, and so universally practised
among human Creatures.
-Jonathan Swift, A Voyage
to the Houyhnhnms, 1726
... one ought to recognize that the present political
chaos is connected with the decay of language, and
that one can probably bring about some improvement
by starting at the verbal end.... Political language-and
with variations this is true of all political parties, from
Conservatives to Anarchists-is designed to make lies
sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an
appearance of solidity to pure wind.
-George Orwell, "Politics
and the English Language,"
1946
FROM PERSONAL AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS
I CONSIDER ABORTIONS AN UNACCEPTABLE
FORM OF POPULATION
CONTROL. FURTHERMORE, UNRESTRICTED
ABORTION POLICIES, OR
ABORTION ON DEMAND, I CANNOT
SQUARE WITH MY PERSONAL BELIEF IN
THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFEINCLUDING
THE LIFE OF THE YET
UNBORN. FOR, SURELY, THE UNBORN
HAVE RIGHTS ALSO, RECOGNIZED IN
LAW, RECOGNIZED EVEN IN PRINCIPLES
EXPOUNDED BY THE UNITED
NATIONS.
RICHARD NIXON,
SAN CLEMENTE, APRIL 3, 1971
Tricky Comforts a Troubled
Citizen
CITIZEN: Sir, I want to congratulate you for coming
out on April 3 for the sanctity of human life,
including the life of the yet unborn. That required
a lot of courage, especially in the light of the
November election results.
TRICKY: Well, thank you, I know I could have done
the popular thing, of course, and come out against
the sanctity of human life. But frankly I'd rather be
a one-term President and do what I believe is right
than be a two-term President by taking an easy
position like that. After all, I have got my
conscience to deal with, as well as the electorate.
CITIZEN: Your conscience, sir, is a marvel to us all.
TRICKY: Thank you.
CITIZEN: I wonder if I may ask you a question
2 OUR GANG
having to do with Lieutenant Calley and his
conviction for killing twenty-two Vietnamese
civilians at My Lai.
TRICKY: Certainly. I suppose you are bringing that
up as another example of my refusal to do the
popular thing.
CITIZEN: How's that, sir?
TRICKY: Well, in the wake of the public outcry
against that conviction, the popular thing-the
most popular thing by far-would have been for
me, as Commander-in-Chief, to have convicted
the twenty-two unarmed civilians of conspiracy
to murder Lieutenant Calley. But if you read
your papers, you'll see I refused to do that, and
chose only to review the question of his guilt,
and not theirs. As I said, I'd rather be a one-term
President. And may I make one thing more perfectly
clear, while we're on the subject of Vietnam?
I am not going to interfere in the internal
affairs of another country. If President Thieu has
sufficient evidence and wishes to try those
twenty-two My Lai villagers posthumously, according
to some Vietnamese law having to do
with ancestor worship, that is his business. But I
assure you, I in no way intend to interfere with
the workings of the Vietnamese system of justice.
I think President Thieu, and the duly elected
Saigon officials, can "hack" it alone in the law
and order department. CITIZEN: Sir, the question
that's been troubling
TRICKY COMFORTS A TROUBLED CITIZEN 3
me is this. Inasmuch as I share your belief in the
sanctity of human life
TRICKY: Good for you. I'll bet you're quite a
football fan, too.
CITIZEN: I am, sir. Thank you, sir ... But inasmuch
as I feel as you do about the unborn, I am
seriously troubled by the possibility that Lieutenant
Calley may have committed an abortion. I
hate to say this, Mr. President, but I am seriously
troubled when I think that one of those twentytwo
Vietnamese civilians Lieutenant Calley killed
may have been a pregnant woman.
TRICKY: Now just one minute. We have a tradition
in the courts of this land that a man is innocent
until he is proven guilty. There were babies in
that ditch at My Lai, and we know there were
women of all ages, but I have not seen a single
document that suggests the ditch at My Lai
contained a pregnant woman.
CITIZEN: But what if, sir-what if one of the
twenty-two was a pregnant woman? Suppose
that were to come to light in your judicial review
of the lieutenant's conviction. In that you personally
believe in the sanctity of human life,
including the life of the yet unborn, couldn't
such a fact seriously prejudice you against Lieutenant
Calley's appeal? I have to admit that as an
opponent of abortion, it would have a profound
effect upon me.
TRICKY: Well, it's very honest of you to admit it.
4 OUR GANG
But as a trained lawyer, I think I might be able to
go at the matter in a somewhat less emotional
manner. First off, I would have to ask whether
Lieutenant Calley was aware of the fact that the
woman in question was pregnant before he killed
her. Clearly, if she was not yet "showing," I think
you in all fairness have to conclude that the
lieutenant could have had no knowledge of her
pregnancy, and thus, in no sense of the word,
would he have committed an abortion. CITIZEN:
What if she told him she was pregnant?
TRICKY: Good question. She might indeed have tried
to tell him. But in that Lieutenant Calley is an
American who speaks only English, and the My
Lai villager is a Vietnamese who speaks only
Vietnamese, there could have been no possible
means of verbal communication. And as for sign
language, I don't believe we can hang a man for
failing to understand what must surely have been
the gestures of a hysterical, if not deranged,
woman.
CITIZEN: No, that wouldn't be fair, would it. TRICKY:
In short then, if the woman was not "showing,"
Lieutenant Calley could not be said to have
engaged in an unacceptable form of population
control, and it would be possible for me to square
what he did with my personal belief in the sanctity
of human life, including the life of the yet unborn.
TRICKY COMFORTS A TROUBLED CITIZEN 5
CITIZEN: But, sir, what if she was "showing"? TRICKY:
Well then, as good lawyers we would have to ask
another question. Namely: did Lieutenant Calley
believe the woman to be pregnant, or did he,
mistakenly, in the heat of the moment, assume that
she was just stout? It's all well and good for us to be
Monday Morning My Lai Quarterbacks, you know,
but there's a war going on out there, and you cannot
always expect an officer rounding up unarmed
civilians to be able to distinguish between. an
ordinary fat Vietnamese woman and one who is in
the middle, or even the late, stages of pregnancy.
Now if the pregnant ones would wear maternity
clothes, of course, that would be a great help to our
boys. But in that they don't, in that all of them seem
to go around all day in their pajamas, it is almost
impossible to tell the men from the women, let
alone the pregnant from the nonpregnant.
Inevitably then-and this is just one of those
unfortunate things about a war of this kind-there is
going to be confusion on this whole score of who is
who out there. I understand that we are doing all we
can to get into the hamlets with American-style
maternity clothes for the pregnant women to wear
so as to make them more distinguishable to the
troops at the massacres, but, as you know, these
people have their own ways and will not always
consent to do even what is clearly in their own
interest.
6 OUR GANG
And, of course, we have no intention of forcing
them. That, after all, is why we are in Vietnam in the
first place-to give these people the right to choose
their own way of life, in accordance with their own
beliefs and customs. CITIZEN: In other words, sir, if
Lieutenant Cal ley assumed the woman was simply
fat, and killed her under that assumption, that would
still square with your personal belief in the sanctity
of human life, including the life of the yet unborn.
TRICKY: Absolutely. If I find that he assumed
she was simply overweight, I give you my utmost
assurance, I will in no way be prejudiced against his
appeal.
CITIZEN: But, sir, suppose, just suppose, that he did
know she was pregnant.
TRICKY: Well, we are down to the heart of the matter
now, aren't we?
CITIZEN: I'm afraid so, Sir.
TRICKY: Yes, we are down to this issue of "abortion
on demand," which, admittedly, is totally
unacceptable to me, on the basis of my personal and
religious beliefs.
CITIZEN: Abortion on demand?
TRICKY: If this Vietnamese woman presented herself
to Lieutenant Galley for abortion . . . let's assume,
for the sake of argument, she was one of those girls
who goes out and has a good time and then won't
own up to the consequences; unfortu
TRICKY COMFORTS A TROUBLED CITIZEN 7
nately, we have them here just as they have them
over there-the misfits, the bums, the tramps, the few
who give the many a bad name ... but if this woman
presented herself to Lieutenant Galley for abortion,
with some kind of note, say, that somebody had
written for her in English, and Lieutenant Galley,
let's say, in the heat and pressure of the moment,
performed the abortion, during the course of which
the woman died. . .
CITIZEN: Yes. I think I follow you so far.
TRICKY: Well, I just have to wonder if the woman
isn't herself equally as guilty as the lieutenant-if she
is not more so. I just have to wonder if this isn't a
case for the Saigon courts, after all. Let's be perfectly
frank: you cannot die of an abortion, if you don't go
looking for the abortion to begin with. If you have
not gotten yourself in an abortion predicament to
begin with. Surely that's perfectly clear.
CITIZEN: It is, sir.
TRICKY: Consequently, even if Lieutenant Galley did
participate in a case of "abortion on demand," it
would seem to me, speaking strictly as a lawyer,
mind you, that there are numerous extenuating
factors to consider, not the least of which is the
attempt to perform a surgical operation under
battlefield conditions. I would think that more than
one medic has been cited for doing less.
8 OUR GANG
CITIZEN: Cited for what?
TRICKY: Bravery, of course.
CITIZEN: But ... but, Mr. President, what if it wasn't
"abortion on demand"? What if Lieutenant Calley
gave her an abortion without her demanding one,
or even asking for one-or even wanting one?
TRICKY: As an outright form of population control,
you mean?
CITIZEN: Well, I was thinking more along the lines of
an outright form of murder. TRICKY (reflecting):
Well, of course, that is a very iffy question, isn't it?
What we lawyers call a hypothetical instance-isn't it?
If you will remember, we are only supposing there
to have been a pregnant woman in that ditch at My
Lai to begin with. Suppose there wasn't a pregnant
woman in that ditch-which, in fact, seems from all
evidence to have been the case. We are then
involved in a totally academic discussion. CITIZEN:
Yes, sir. If so, we are. TRICKY: Which doesn't mean it
hasn't been of great value to me, nonetheless. In my
review of Lieutenant Calley's case, I will now be
particularly careful to inquire whether there is so
much as a single shred of evidence that one of those
twenty-two in that ditch at My Lai was a pregnant
woman. And if there is-if I should find in the
evidence against the lieutenant anything whatsoever
that I cannot square with my person
TRICKY COMFORTS A TROUBLED CITIZEN 10
A belief in the sanctity of human life, including the
life of the yet unborn, I will disqualify myself as a
judge and pass the entire matter on to the Vice
President.
CITIZEN: Thank you, Mr. President. I think we can all
sleep better at night knowing that.
TRICKY HOLDS A PRESS CONFERENCE 11
Tricky Holds a
Press Conference
MR. ASSLICK: Sir, as regards your San Dementia
statement of April 3, the discussion it provoked
seems now to have centered on your unequivocal
declaration that you are a firm believer in the rights
of the unborn. Many seem to believe that you are
destined to be to the unborn what Martin Luther
King was to the black people of America, and the
late Robert F. Charisma to the disadvantaged
chicanos and Puerto Ricans of the country. There
are those who say that your San Dementia statement
will go down in the history books alongside Dr.
King's famous "I have a dream" address. Do you
find these comparisons apt?
TRICKY: Well, of course, Mr. Asslick, Martin Luther
King was a very great man, as we all must surely
recognize now that he is dead. He was a great leader
in the struggle for equal rights for his people, and
yes, I do believe he'll find a place in history. But of
course we must not forget he was not the President
of the United States, as I am, empowered by the
Constitution, as I am; and this is an important
distinction to bear in mind. Working within the
Constitution I think I will be able to accomplish far
more for the unborn of this entire nation than did
Dr. King working outside the Constitution for the
born of a single race. This is meant to be no
criticism of Dr. King, but just a simple statement of
fact.
Now, of course I am well aware that Dr. King
died a martyr's tragic death-so let me then make one
thing very clear to my enemies and the enemies of
the unborn: let there be no mistake about it, what
they did to Martin Luther King, what they did to
Robert F. Charisma and to John F. Charisma before
him, great Americans all, is not for a moment going
to deter me from engaging in the struggle that lies
ahead. I will not be intimidated by extremists or
militants or violent fanatics from bringing justice
and equality to those who live in the womb. And let
me make one thing more perfectly clear: I am not
just talking about the rights of the fetus. I am talking
about the microscopic embryos as well. If ever there
was a group in this country that was
"disadvantaged," in the sense that they are utter-
12 OUR GANG
ly without representation or a voice in our national
government, it is not the blacks or the Puerto
Ricans or the hippies or what-have-you, all of
whom have their spokesmen, but these
infinitesimal creatures up there on the placenta.
You know, we all watch our TV and we see the
demonstrators and we see the violence, because,
unfortunately, that is the kind of thing that makes
the news. But how many of us realize that
throughout this great land of ours, there are millions
upon millions of embryos going through the most
complex and difficult changes in form and structure,
and all this they accomplish without waving signs
for the camera and disrupting traffic and throwing
paint and using foul language and dressing in
outlandish clothes. Yes, Mr. Daring.
MR. DARING: But what about those fetuses, sir, that
the Vice President has labeled "troublemakers"? I
believe he was referring specifically to those who
start in kicking around the fifth month. Do you
agree that they are "malcontents" and "ingrates"?
And if so, what measures do you intend to take to
control them? TRICKY: Well, first off, Mr. Daring, I
believe we are dealing here with some very fine
distinctions of a legal kind. Now, fortunately
(impish endearing smile) I happen to be a lawyer
and have the kind of training that enables me to
make these fine distinctions. (Back to serious
business)
TRICKY HOLDS A PRESS CONFERENCE 13
I think we have to be very very careful here and I
am sure the Vice President would agree with me-to
distinguish between two kinds of activity: kicking in
the womb, to which the Vice President was
specifically referring, and moving in the womb. You
see, the Vice President did not say, despite what you
may have heard on television, that all fetuses who
are active in the womb are troublemakers. Nobody
in this Administration believes that. In fact, I have
just today spoken with both Attorney General
Malicious and Mr. Heehaw at the FBI, and we are
all in agreement that a certain amount of movement
in the womb, after the fifth month, is not only
inevitable but desirable in a normal pregnancy.
But as for this other matter, I assure you, this
administration does not intend to sit idly by and do
nothing while American women are being kicked in
the stomach by a bunch of violent five-month-olds.
Now by and large, and I cannot emphasize this
enough, our American unborn are as wonderful a
group of unborn as you can find anywhere. But
there are these violent few
that the Vice President has characterized, and I
don't think unjustly, in his own impassioned
rhetoric, as "troublemakers" and "malcontents" and
the Attorney General has been instructed by
me to take the appropriate action against them. MR.
DARING: If I may, sir, what sort of action
will that be? Will there be arrests made of
14 OUR GANG
violent fetuses? And if so, how exactly will this be
carried out?
TRICKY: I think I can safely say, Mr. Daring, that we
have the finest law enforcement agencies in the
world. I am quite sure that Attorney General
Malicious can solve whatever procedural problems
may arise. Mr. Respectful.
MR. RESPECTFUL: Mr. President, with all the
grave national and international problems that
press continually upon you, can you tell us why you
have decided to devote yourself to this previously
neglected issue of fetal rights? You seem pretty fired
up on this issue, sir-why is that? TRICKY: Because,
Mr. Respectful, I will not tolerate injustice in any
area of our national life. Because ours is a just
society, not merely for the rich and the privileged,
but for the most powerless among us as well. You
know, you hear a lot these days about Black Power
and Female Power, Power this and Power that. But
what about Prenatal Power? Don't they have rights
too, membranes though they may be? I for one
think they do, and I intend to fight for them. Mr.
Shrewd.
MR. SHREWD: As you must know, Mr. President,
there are those who contend that you are guided in
this matter solely by political considerations. Can
you comment on that?
TRICKY: Well, Mr. Shrewd, I suppose that is their
cynical way of describing my plan to intro
TRICKY HOLDS A PRESS CONFERENCE 15
duce a proposed constitutional amendment that
would extend the vote to the unborn in time for
the '72 elections.
MR. SHREWD: I believe that is what they have in
mind, sir. They contend that by extending the vote
to the unborn you will neutralize the gains that may
accrue to the Democratic Party by the voting age
having been lowered to eighteen. They say your
strategists have concluded that even if you should
lose the eighteen-to-twentyone-year-old vote, you
can still win a second term if you are able to carry
the South, the state of California, and the embryos
and fetuses from coast to coast. Is there any truth to
this "political" analysis of your sudden interest in
Prenatal Power?
TRICKY: Mr. Shrewd, I'd like to leave that to you-and
to our television viewers-to judge, by answering
your question in a somewhat personal manner. I
assure you I am conversant with the opinions of the
experts. Many of them are men whom I respect, and
surely they have the right to say whatever they like,
though of course one always hopes it will be in the
national interest ... But let me remind you, and all
Americans, because this is a fact that seems
somehow to have been overlooked in this whole
debate: I am no Johnny-come-lately to the problem
of the rights of the unborn. The simple fact of the
matter, and it is in the record for all to see, is
16 OUR GANG
that I myself was once unborn, in the great state of
California. Of course, you wouldn't always know
this from what you see on television or read in the
papers (impish endearing smile) that some of you
gentlemen write for, but it happens
nonetheless to be the truth. (Back to serious
business) I was an unborn Quaker, as a matter of
fact.
And let me remind you-since it seems necessary
to do so, in the face of the vicious and mindless
attacks upon him-Vice President What's-his-name
was also unborn once, an unborn Greek-American,
and proud to have been one. We were just talking
about that this morning, how he was once an
unborn GreekAmerican, and all that has meant to
him. And so too was Secretary Lard unborn and so
was Secretary Codger unborn, and the Attorney
Generalwhy, I could go right on down through my
cabinet and point out to you one fine man after
another who was once unborn. Even Secretary
Fickle, with whom as you know I had my differences
of opinion, was unborn when he was here
with us on the team.
And if you look among the leadership of the
Republican Party in the House and the Senate, you
will find men who long before their election to
public office were unborn in just about every
region of this country, on farms, in industrial cities,
in small towns the length and breadth of
TRICKY HOLDS A PRESS CONFERENCE 17
this great republic. My own wife was once un
born. As you may recall, my children were both
unborn.
So when they say that Dixon has turned to the
issue of the unborn just for the sake of the votes ...
well, I ask only that you consider this list of the
previously unborn with whom I am associated in
both public and private life, and decide for yourself.
In fact, I think you are going to find, Mr. Shrewd,
with each passing day, people around this country
coming to realize that in this administration the
fetuses and embryos of America have at last found
their voice. Miss Charmin', I believe you had your
eyebrows raised. Miss CHARMIN': I was just going to
say, sir, that of course President Lyin' B. Johnson
was unborn, too, before he came to the White
Houseand he was a Democrat. Could you comment
on that?
TRICKY: Miss Charmin', I would be the first to
applaud my predecessor in this high office for
having been unborn. I have no doubt that he was
an outstanding fetus down there in Texas before he
came into public life. I am not claiming that my
administration is the first in history to be cognizant
of the issue of fetal rights. I am saying that we
intend to do something about them, Mr. Practical.
MR. PRACTICAL: Mr. President, I'd like to ask you
18 . OUR GANG
to comment upon the scientific problems entailed
in bringing the vote to the unborn. TRICKY: Well, of
course, Mr. Practical, you have hit the nail right on
the head with the word "scientific." This is a
scientific problem of staggering proportions-let's
make no mistake about it. Moreover, I fully expect
there are those who ,are going to say in tomorrow's
papers that it is impossible, unfeasible, a utopian
dream, and so on. But as you remember, when
President Charisma came before the Congress in
1961, and announced that this country would put a
man on the moon before the end of the decade,
there were many who were ready to label him an
impossible dreamer, too. But we did it. With
American know-how and American teamwork, we
did it. And so too do I have every confidence that
our scientific and technological people are going to
dedicate themselves to bringing the vote to the
unborn-and not before the decade is out either, but
before November of 1972.
MR. PRACTICAL: Can you give us some idea, sir,
how much a crash program like this will cost?
TRICKY: Mr. Practical, I will be submitting a
proposed budget to the Congress within the next
ten days, but let me say this: you cannot achieve
greatness without sacrifice. The program of research
and development such as my scientific
advisers have outlined cannot - be bought "cheap."
After all, what we are talking about
TRICKY HOLDS A PRESS CONFERENCE 19
here is nothing less than the fundamental principle
of democracy: the vote. I cannot believe that the
members of the Congress of the United States are
going to play party politics when it comes to taking
a step like this, which will be an advance not only
for our nation, but for all mankind.
You just cannot imagine, for instance, the impact
that this is going to have on the people in the
underdeveloped countries. There are the Russians
and the Chinese, who don't even allow adults to
vote, and here we are in America, investing billions
and billions of the taxpayers' dollars in a scientific
project designed to extend the franchise to people
who cannot see or talk or hear or even think, in the
ordinary sense of the word. It would be a tragic
irony indeed, and as telling a sign as I can imagine
of national confusion and even hypocrisy, if we
were willing to send our boys to fight and die in
far-off lands so that defenseless peoples might have
the right to choose the kinds of government they
want in free elections, and then we were to turn
around here at home and continue to deny that
very same right to an entire segment of our population,
just because they happen to live on the
placenta or in the uterus, instead of New York City.
Mr. Catch-Me-in-a-Contradiction.
MR. CATCH-ME-IN-A-CONTRADICTION: Mr. President,
what startles me is that up until today you have been
characterized, and not unwilling-
20 OUR GANG
ly, I think, as someone who, if he is not completely
out of touch with the styles and ideas of the young,
has certainly been skeptical of their wisdom.
Doesn't this constitute, if I may use the word, a
radical about-face; coming out now for the rights
of those who are not simply "young" but actually in
the gestation period? TRICKY: Well, I am glad you
raised that point, because I think it shows once and
for all just how flexible I am, and how I am always
willing to listen and respond to an appeal from any
minority group, no matter how powerless, just so
long as it is reasonable, and is not accompanied by
violence and foul language and throwing paint. If
ever there was proof that you don't have to camp
on the White House lawn to get the President's
attention away from a football game, I think it is in
the example of these little organisms. I tell you,
they have really impressed me with their silent
dignity and politeness. I only hope that all
Americans will come to be as proud of our unborn
as I am.
MR. FASCINATED: Mr. President, I am fascinated
by the technological aspect. Can you give us just
an inkling of how exactly the unborn will go about
casting their ballots? I'm particularly fascinated by
these embryos on the placenta, who haven't even
developed nervous systems yet,
let alone limbs such as we use in an ordinary
voting machine.
TRICKY HOLDS A PRESS CONFERENCE 21
1 'RICKY: Well, first off, let me remind you that
nothing in our Constitution denies a man the right
to vote just because he is physically handicapped.
That isn't the kind of country we have here. We
have many wonderful handicapped people in this
country, but of course, they're not "news" the way
the demonstrators are.
MR. FASCINATED: I wasn't suggesting, sir, that
just because these embryos don't have central
nervous systems they should be denied the right to
vote-I was thinking again of the fantastic
mechanics of it. How, for instance, will the embryos
be able to weigh the issues and make
intelligent choices from among the candidates, if
they are not able to read the newspapers or watch
the news on television?
TRICKY: Well, it seems to me that you have actually
touched upon the very strongest claim that the
unborn have for enfranchisement, and why it is
such a crime they have been denied the vote for so
long. Here, at long last, we have a great bloc of
voters who simply are not going to be taken in by
the lopsided and distorted versions of the truth
that are presented to the American public through
the various media. Mr. Reasonable.
MR. REASONABLE: But how then will they make up
their minds, or their yolks, or their nuclei, or
whatever it is they have in there, Mr. President? It
might seem to some that they are going to be
Z2 OUR GANG
absolutely innocent of whatever may be at stake in
the election.
TRICKY: Innocent they will be, Mr. Reasonablebut
now let me ask you, and all our television viewers,
too, a question: what's wrong with a little
innocence? We've had the foul language, we've had
the cynicism, we've had the masochism and the
breast-beating-maybe a big dose of innocence is
just what this country needs to be great again.
MR., REASONABLE: More innocence, Mr. Pres
ident?
TRICKY: Mr. Reasonable, if I have to choose between
the rioting and the upheaval and the strife and the
discontent on the one hand, and more innocence on
the other, I think I will choose the innocence. Mr.
Hardnose. MR. HARDNOSE: In the event, Mr.
President, that all this does come to pass by the '72
elections, what gives you reason to believe that the
enfranchised embryos and fetuses will vote for you
over your Democratic opponent? And what. about
Governor Wallow? Do you think that if he should
run again, he would significantly cut into your share
of the fetuses, particularly in the South?
TRICKY: Let me put it this way, Mr. Hardnose: I
have the utmost respect for Governor George
Wallow of Alabama, as I do for Senator Hubert
Hollow of Minnesota. They are both able men,
TRICKY HOLDS A PRESS CONFERENCE 23
and they speak with great conviction, I am sure, in
behalf of the extreme right and the extreme Ieft.
But the fact is that I never heard either of these
gentlemen, for all their extremism, raise their voices
in behalf of America's most disadvantaged group of
all, the unborn.
Consequently, I would be less than candid if I
didn't say that when election time rolls around, of
course the embryos and fetuses of this country are
likely to remember just who it was that struggled in
their behalf, while others were addressing
themselves to the more popular and fashionable
issues of the day. I think they will remember who it
was that devoted himself, in the midst of a war
abroad and racial crisis at home, to making this
country a fit place for the unborn to dwell in pride.
My only hope is that whatever I am able to
accomplish in their behalf while I hold this office
will someday contribute to a world in which
everybody, regardless of race, creed, or color, will be
unborn. I guess if I have a dream, that is it. Thank
you, ladies and gentlemen.
MR. ASSLICK: Thank you, Mr. President.
3. Tricky Has Another Crisis;
or, The Skull Session
Tricky is dressed in the football uniform he wore
during his four years on the bench at Prissier
College. It is still as spanking new as the day it
was issued to him some forty years ago, despite
the fact that when he finds himself at night so
perplexed and anguished by the burdens of the
Presidency as to be unable to fall off to sleep, he
frequently rises from his bed and steals down
through the White House to the blast-proof un
derground locker room (built under his direction
to specifications furnished by the Baltimore Colts
and the Atomic Energy Commission) and "suits
up," as though for "the big game" against Prissi
er's "traditional rival." And invariably, as during
the Cambodian incursion and the Kent State
killings, simply to don shoulder guards, cleats
and helmet, to draw the snug football pants up
24
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 25
over his leather athletic supporter and then to turn
his back to the mirror and catch a peek over his big
shoulders at the number on his back, is enough to
restore his faith in the course of action he has taken
in behalf of two hundred million Americans. Indeed,
even in the midst of the most incredible international
blunders and domestic catastrophes, he has till now,
with the aid of his football uniform, and a good war
movie, been able to live up to his own description of
the true leader in Six Hundred Crises as "cool,
confident and decisive." "What is essential in such
situations," he wrote there, summarizing what he
had learned about leadership from the riots inspired
by his 1958 visit, as Vice President, to Caracas, "is
not so much `bravery' in the face of danger as the
ability to think `selflessly'-to blank out any thought
of personal fear by concentrating completely on how
to meet the danger."
But tonight not even barking signals at the fulllength
mirror and pretending to fade back, arm
cocked, to spot a downfield receiver (while being
charged by the opposing line) has he been able to
blank out thoughts of personal fear; and as for
thinking "selflessly," he has not been making much
headway in that department either. Having run plays
before the mirror for two full hours-having
completed eighty-seven out of one hundred
attempted forward passes for a total of two thousand
six hundred and ten yards
26 OUR LANG
gained in the air in one night (a White House
record)-he is nonetheless unable to concentrate on
how to meet the danger before him, and so has
decided to awaken his closest advisers and summon
them to the underground locker room for what is
known in football parlance as a "skull session."
At the door to the White House, each has been
issued a uniform by a Secret Service agent,
disguised, but for a shoulder holster, as an ordinary
locker room attendant in sweat pants, sneakers and
T-shirt stenciled "Property of the White House."
Now, seated on benches before the big blackboard,
the "coaches" listen carefully as Tricky, with his
helmet in his hands, describes to them the crisis he
is having trouble being entirely selfless about.
TRICKY: I don't understand it. How can these
youngsters be saying what they are saying about
me? How can they be chanting those slogans,
waving those signs-about me? Gentlemen, by all
reports they are growing more surly and audacious
by the hour. By morning we may have on our
hands the most incredible upheaval in history: a
revolution by the Boy Scouts of America! (In an
attempt to calm himself, and become confident and
decisive, he puts on his helmet)
Now it was one thing when those Vietnam
soreheads came down here to the Capitol to turn
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 27
their medals in. Everyone knew they were just a
bunch of malcontents who had lost arms and legs
and so on, and so had nothing better to do with
their time than hobble around feeling sorry for
themselves. Of course they couldn't be objective
about the war-half of them were in wheelchairs
because of it. But what we have now isn't just a
mob of ingrates-these are the Boy Scouts!
And don't you think for one moment that the
American people are going to sit idly by when a
Boy Scout, an Eagle Scout, climbs to the top of the
Capitol steps and calls the President of the United
States "a dirty old man." Let there be no mistake
about it, if we do not deal with these angry Scouts
as coolly and confidently and decisively as I dealt
with Khrushchev in that kitchen, by tomorrow I
will be the first President in American history to be
even more hated and despised than Lyin' B.
Johnson. Gentlemen, you can go to war without
Congressional consent, you can ruin the economy
and trample on the Bill of Rights, but you just do
not violate the moral code of the Boy Scouts of
America and expect to be reelected to the highest
office in the land!
And yet when I made that speech at San
Dementia, it all seemed so ... so perfectly and, if I
may say so, so brilliantly, innocuous. Five minutes
later I didn't even remember what it
28 OUR GANG
was I'd endorsed. That my political opponents
could now be so desperate to oust me from powerso
disrespectful, not simply of me, but of the
august office of the Presidency, to take those few
utterly harmless and totally meaningless words that
I spoke that day, and turn them into this monstrous
lie!
Gentlemen, I am no newcomer to the ugly
game of, politics. I have seen all kinds of chicanery
and deceit in my day-falsification, misquotation,
distortion, embellishment, 'and, of course, outright
suppression of the truth. Nor am I what you would
call a babe-in-the-woods when it comes to the
techniques of character assassination. Years ago I
looked on in disgust and horror when they
crucified Senator Joseph McCatastrophy just
because he kept changing his mind as to the
number of Communists there were in the State
Department. I saw what they did only recently to
judge Carswell. I saw what they did to judge
Haynsworth. Why, just last month look what they
tried to do to Secretary Lard, when he held up that
phony piece of pipe before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee and said it was from Laos
instead of Vietnam. Five miles away-and they're
ready to hang him for it!
But, I must admit, never in my long career of
dealing with falsehood have I come upon a lie so
treacherous and Machiavellian as this one my
enemies are trying to pass off about me ... What
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 29
did I say? Let's look at the record. I said nothing!
Absolutely nothing! I came out for "the rights of the
unborn." I mean if ever there was a line of hokum,
that was it. Sheer humbug! And as if it wasn't clear
enough what I was up to, I even tacked on, "as
recognized in principles expounded by the United
Nations." By the United Nations. Now what more
could I possibly have said to make the whole thing
any more inane? Maybe I was supposed to have told
them "as recognized in principles expounded by the
American Automobile, Association." Maybe I
should have given the whole speech in Pig Latin,
and made funny faces while I was at it! Maybe I
should have come out to make the statement in a
clown's costume! But I did not do that-because I
refuse to talk down to the American public. I refuse
to pull my punches. I refuse to believe that the
people of this great nation are incapable of
recognizing the most outrageous kind of hypocrisy
or sniffing out the most blatant contradictions
imaginable . . . And yet this, this is my reward, for
my faith in America. The Boy Scouts of America
screaming to the TV cameras that Trick E. Dixon
favors sexual intercourse. Favors fornicationbetween
people!
POLITICAL COACH: Of course, as of now, it's still only
the Boy Scouts, Mr. President.
TRICKY: Today the Boy Scouts (here he sinks down
onto the bench before the blackboard,
30 OUR GANG
barely restraining a sob)-tomorrow the world! ...
And what about my wife-what is she going to think?
What if she starts to believe it? What about my
children? WHAT ABOUT THE VOTERS!
SPIRITUAL' COACH: Here, here, Mr. President. I
sympathize with your chagrin, particularly as it
relates to your fine family. But, frankly, I do not
believe that the American people who see you on
TV, any more than those who know you at
firsthand, are going to be taken in by such a blatant
fabrication. If ever a man, in his every word and
deed, his every movement and gesture, his glance,
his sneer, his very smile, put the lie to such a
slanderous accusation as this one, it is you.
TRICKY (visibly moved) : Reverend, I thank you for
that tribute. Surely I have tried to give no indication
whatsoever to the people of this country that I even
know what sexual intercourse is. Futhermore, I have
instructed my family that they must under no
circumstances allow it to appear that any of us have
ever in our lives been. infected by desire or lust, or,
for that matter, an appetite for anything at all,
outside of political power. This may sound
immodest of me, but I happen to pride myself on
the fact that if it weren't for my perspiring so on
television, the American people would probably
have no way in the world of telling that under my
clothes I
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 31
am flesh. And, of course you all know, as a result
of a decision I reached here during a lonely vigil in
the locker room only a few nights ago, this disorder
will very shortly be corrected when I enter Walter
Reed Hospital to undergo a secret operation for the
surgical removal of the sweat glands from my
upper lip. You see, gentlemen, that is how
dedicated I am to dissociating myself from
anything remotely resembling a human body.
But now to accuse me of this! As though to be
for the rights of the unborn was prima facie
evidence-that is, evidence sufficient to establish a
fact, or to raise a presumption of fact ... that's what
we lawyers mean by that phrase ... as you know,
before entering the White House I was a lawyer, and
so I know phrases like that ... as though that were
prima facie evidence that I was also in favor of the
process by which the unborn come into existence in
the first place. To accuse me, because of a perfectly
innocuous statement like that, of encouraging
people to have intercourse in order that they should
have unborn, in order that those unborn should
have these rights -that don't even exist! And that I
wouldn't care about, even if they did! How could I?
Here I am, President of the United States and
Leader of the Free World, working and slaving with
every fiber of my being, night and day, three
hundred and sixty-five days a year, for the sole
purpose of
32 OUR GANG
getting myself reelected-where would I find the
time to worry about the rights of anything?
Haven't they any idea what this job is all about?
The whole thing is so patently absurd! And yet
there are those Boy Scouts, in uniform,
marching in the streets of the nation's capitaland
those signs:
GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA,
SENSUALIST, WHERE YOU BELONG
POWER TO THE PENIS? NEVER!
REPRESSION-LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!
SPIRITUAL COACH (solemnly, taking the arm of
the shaken President) : Mr. President, forgive them,
they know not what their signs say. TRICKY: Oh,
Reverend, Reverend, I assure you, under ordinary
circumstances I would bend over backwards to
forgive them. I like to think that I am the kind of
man who can find it in his heart to forgive his worst
enemy. Why, not only have I forgiven Alger Hiss,
but when I was elected President, I sent him an
anonymous telegram expressing my gratitude for all
he had done in my behalf. And that man was a
perjurer! Listen, I would actually have forgiven
Khrushchev himself, yes, right there in that kitchen,
if it had
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 33
been politically expedient to do so. Just look what I'm
up to right now: I'm in the very process of forgiving
Mao Tse-tung, who by my own estimate has enslaved
six hundred million people!
But I am afraid, Reverend, that where these Boy
Scouts are concerned, we are fighting for a principle so
fundamental to civilized life, that even a man of my
magnanimity must rise up and say "No, this time you
have gone too far." Reverend, they are trying to
prevent me from winning a second term!
SPIRITUAL COACH: I see . . . I see . . . I must
confess that I had not thought of it quite that way.
TRICKY: It is not a pleasant way to have to think
about it. All of us would prefer to look with charity
and respect upon our fellow human beings, whatever
their race, creed, color or age, and to treat them
according to the tenets of our religious beliefs.
Certainly no one in this country wishes to appear more
religious than I do. But sometimes, Reverend, people
just make being religious impossible, even for
someone who stands to gain as much from that
posture as I do. SPIRITUAL COACH: But if such is
the case, if these Boy Scouts, for some
incomprehensible reason, are out to destroy your
political career by casting doubt upon your Sunday
school morality, perhaps it would be best for you to go
on televi-
34 OUR GANG
sion and give the people the facts as they really are. As
you did when they accused you in the 1952 election of
being the recipient of an illegal political fund. The
Checkers Speech. TRICKY (intrigued) : You mean
give it again?
SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, perhaps not the very
same speech.
TRICKY: Why not? It worked.
SPIRITUAL COACH: True. But I wonder, Mr.
President, if it addresses directly the issue at hand.
TRICKY: Maybe not. But you know, Reverend, when
you're dealing with wild and reckless charges like
these, when you're in the midst of a crisis such as this
one, that could snowball overnight into political
disaster, then you sometimes have to do what works,
and leave things like the issues themselves for later.
Otherwise, I'm afraid there might not be any later.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, I'm not a politician, Mr.
President, and I must admit that I may be hopelessly
naive to believe that The Truth Shall Make Ye Free.
But I do think that if instead of giving the Checkers
Speech again, instead of itemizing your earnings over
the years and telling how much money you owe your
parents and so on, you were now to make a similar
address, in which you presented to the nation an
itemized account of your sexual experiences, giving
exact dates from your appointment calendar-when,
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 35
where, and with whom-you might well feel secure in
leaving it to the American people to judge whether or
not you are an advocate of fornication.
TRICKY: You mean, go on TV with the appointment
books ...
SPIRITUAL COACH: Yes, and leaf through them
page by page, until at last you come upon an item to
read aloud. I would think the long silences will in
themselves be the most eloquent part of the broadcast.
TRICKY: What about charts though? What about a
graph? You see, I don't know if people are going to sit
around all night in front of their television sets waiting
for me to say something. But if we had a graph where
we measured the hours in which I have engaged in the
ordinary human activities of scheming, plotting,
smearing and so on, against those I've spent having
intercourse-well, it could be pretty impressive.
And I could use a pointer! At the risk of seeming
immodest, I think I can hold my own with any
schoolmaster in the country in using a pointer and
charts, though of course by training I'm a lawyer, you
know ... And I'll borrow a dog!
Well, how does it sound to the rest of you?
POLITICAL COACH: Speaking frankly, Mr. Pres
ident, I think we are barking up the wrong tree with
this whole idea of using the truth or the
36 OUR GANG
dog. We've used the dog, of course, and with some
success, and though I don't have my file with me, I'm
sure we've used the truth some time or other in the
past, too. Off the top of my head I can't remember
exactly when, but if you like I'll have my secretary
look -it up in the morning. However, right now it
seems to me that, given the hysteria of those Scouts,
and the kind of coverage they're getting, if you were
to go on television and say that you have had intercourse
only once in your entire life, maybe as some
kind of initiation rite when you were in the Navycrossing
the equator maybe-and that the whole thing
had lasted less than sixty seconds, and you had hated
it from beginning to end, and that you had to be held
down throughout, and so on, even that would be
enough to make you appear guilty of the charges the
Boy Scouts are bringing against you. TRICKY
(reflecting) : Of course, if you're going to rule out the
dog and truth and so on, maybe the best approach is
for me to go on TV and deny the whole thing. Say
I've never had intercourse.
POLITICAL COACH (shaking his head) : Have
you seen that mob, Mr. President? They wouldn't
believe you, not at this point. TRICKY: Suppose I
spoke from HEW, with the Surgeon General at my
side, and he read a medical report stating that I am
not now, nor have I
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 37
ever been in the past, capable of performing coitus.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Mr. President, at the risk of
being politically naive again, you are the father of two
children . . . that is, if that means anything, in this
context ...
POLITICAL COACH: Politically naive, hell-that
was good thinking, Reverend.
TRICKY: But why can't we just say they were
adopted?
POLITICAL COACH: No, no, that doesn't really
solve the problem. Even if we are able to establish you
as not only sterile, but one hundred percent impotent,
even if we were able to get the American public to
believe that these children who resemble you so were
adopted-and, mind you, I think we could do both, if it
came down to it-you are still going to be
compromised, it would seem to me, by appearing to
have taken into your home the offspring of somebody
else's sexual intercourse. You are still going to be
locked into this fornication issue.
LEGAL COACH: Absolutely. Open and shut case
of guilt by association. If I were the judge, I'd throw
the book at you. And another objection. If he goes on
TV and says he's impotent, most of the people out
there aren't even going to know what he's talking
about. I don't doubt that half of them are going to
think that he means he's queer.
38 OUR GANG
POLITICAL COACH: Wait a minute! Wait one
minute! How about it, Mr. President?
TRICKY: How about what?
POLITICAL COACH: Going on TV and saying
you're queer. Would you do it?
TRICKY: Oh, I'll do it, all right, if you think it'll work.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Oh, but surely, Mr. President
TRICKY: Reverend, we are talking about my political
career! With all due respect, we happen now to be
listening to a man whose business is politics, just the
way yours is religion, and if he says that in a situation
like this one the truth and the dog and so on are not
going to get us anywhere, then I must assume he
knows what he is talking about. After all, one of. the
signs of a great leader is his willingness to listen to all
sides of an issue without being blinded by his own
prejudices and preconceptions. Now I am a Quaker, as
you well know, and consequently it is only natural that
I should be prejudiced in behalf of the advice given to
me by a spiritual person like yourself. But I cannot run
from the facts, just so as to be a better Quaker in your
eyes and in mine. We are dealing with a mob of
youngsters whose minds have been poisoned with a
terrible lie. We are going to have to find a way to
restore them to their senses while simultaneously
restoring to the office of the Pres
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 39
idency its dignity and prestige. And if in order to
accomplish those two important tasks I have to go on
TV and say I am a homosexual, then I will do it. I had
the courage to call Alger Hiss a Communist. I had the
courage to call Khrushchev a bully. I assure you, I
have the courage now to call myself a queer!
The problem is not my courage to say this or say
that; it never has been. The problem, as always, is one
of credibility. Will they believe me?
General, will they buy it over at the Pentagon? That
should certainly be a good test case.
MILITARY COACH (considering) : They might,
sir. They very well might.
TRICKY: Would it help if I batted my eyes more,
when I talk?
MILITARY COACH: No, no, I think they feel you
bat your eyes enough already, sir. Any more and it
might not go over too well with some of the oldtimers.
TRICKY: I take it from what you say that you would
positively rule out my wearing a dress. Something
simple. A basic black, say.
MILITARY COACH: Not necessary,
sir. TRICKY: How about earrings?
MILITARY COACH: No, I think you're fine as you
are, sir.
TRICKY: The point is I don't want to come off
40 OUR GANG
as just a sissy. Five o'clock 'shadow and all, I really
have to watch myself in that department. '
SPIRITUAL COACH: Mr. President, if I may, in.
your eagerness to do the right thing for the nation,
I. think you may be overlooking a small technical
point. Homosexuals have intercourse also.
TRICKY (stunned) : They do? . How?
(Here the Spiritual Coach takes Tricky by the handmuch
as he might comfort one in bereavementand,
leaning forward, discreetly whispers the answer
into the President's ear)
TRICKY (recoiling) : Why, that's awful! That's
disgusting! You're making that up!
SPIRITUAL COACH: Would that I were, Mr. Presi
dent.
TRICKY: But-but-(Here he leans forward to whisper
into the Reverend's ear)
SPIRITUAL COACH: I suppose they don't care
about that, Mr. President.
TRICKY (outraged) : But that's bestial! That's
monstrous! This is America! And I'm the President
of America! And-and-(turning in bewilderment
to the other coaches) listen, do you people realize
what's going on in this country? Do you know what
he just told me?
POLITICAL COACH: I think we do, Mr. Pres
ident.
TRICKY: But that's grotesque! Uccchhy! It makes
my lip crawl!
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 41
POLITICAL COACH: To be sure, Mr. President.
But nonetheless in terms of the problem that is facing
us, it happens to be neither here nor there. The point
is this: homosexuals, regardless of whatever else they
may do, are in no way involved in the sort of sexual
activity that produces fetuses-and that is still what
these Boy Scouts are up in arms about. Consequently,
if you were to go on TV and say you were a
homosexual, in the minds of most Americans you
would have cleared yourself of the charge the Boy
Scouts are making, that you are a heterosexual activist.
You'll be entirely in the clear.
TRICKY: I see . . I see . . . Okay-I'll do it! There-that's
the way to be in a crisis: decisive! Just as I wrote in my
book, summarizing what I learned during General
Poppapower's heart attacks, "Decisive action relieves
the tension which builds up in a crisis. When the
situation requires that an individual restrain himself
from acting decisively over a long period, this can be
the most wearing of all crises."
You see, it isn't even what you decide-it's that you
decide. Otherwise there's that darn tension; too much,
and, I tell you, a person could probably crack up. And
I for one will not crack up while I am President of the
United States. I want that to be perfectly clear. If you
read my book, you'll see that my entire career has been
42 OUR GANG
devoted to not cracking up, as much as to anything.
And I don't intend to start now. Cool, confident and
decisive. I'll do it-I'll say I'm a queer!
LEGAL COACH: I wouldn't if I were you, Mr.
President.
TRICKY: You wouldn't?
LEGAL COACH: Nope, not if I were the President
of the United States. Why should you? At the time of
the Checkers Speech, when you were only a candidate
for the Vice Presidency, of course it. was necessary to
explain and apologize and be humble and tell them
how much money you owed your Mommy and Daddy
and that you had a doggie and so on. Look, I wouldn't
have objected back then if you had gotten down on
your hands and knees on television, and demeaned
and debased yourself in whatever way was most
natural to you, in order to come to power. But now
you are in power. Now you are the President. And
who are those kids in the street, leveling these
outlandish charges at you? They're kids, in a street. I
don't care what kind of uniforms they wear, they are
still not adults in houses. And that makes all the
difference in the world.
TRICKY: Your suggestion then is what?
LEGAL COACH: No less than any other citizen in
this country, Mr. President, you still have recourse to
the law. I say use it. I say round 'em
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 43
up, put 'em in the clink, and throw the key away.
MILITARY COACH: Objection! Enough mollycod
dling of the enemy. Let's get it over with once and
for all. Shoot 'em!
TRICKY (considering) : Interesting idea. I mean that is
just about as decisive as you can get, isn't it? But
may I ask, General, shoot 'em after we round 'em
up, or before? This of course is the problem we
always have, isn't it?
MILITARY COACH: After, sir, and we are run
ning the same old risk.
LEGAL COACH: On the other hand, General, be
fore and don't think you aren't running a risk too.
Before, and I can tell you now, sure as we're sitting
here, you are going to get those civilrights nuts
down on your neck, and I tell you they are a great
big pain in the ass to everybody involved, and can
tie up my staff for days at a time. I
MILITARY COACH: Granted, they are a nuisance.
But after, and you are going to get yourself mired
down with these Boy Scouts just the way we are
mired down in Southeast Asia. After, and you are
sacrificing what is fundamental to the success of any
attack: the element of surprise. Common sense tells
us that even the enemy is not so stupid as to stand
around waiting to be shot, but if he has had
sufficient warning that he is about to be killed, will
take some kind
of cowardly and, often enough, vicious means of
protecting his life, such as fighting back. Now I, of
course, abhor that kind of deviousness as much as
anyone; nonetheless we must face up to it: these
people haven't the slightest sense of fair play, and
many of them will not even stand still waiting
around to be jailed, let alone killed.
And what about the moral issue? I have a
conscience to live with, gentlemen, I have a tradition
to uphold, I am responsible to something
more important than dollars and cents. And I tell
you, I will not mollycoddle the enemy at the risk of
American lives, unless of course I am ordered to do
so. Mr. President, I must speak from my heart, I
would be remiss as a General of the United States
Army if I did not. Mr. President, if on the day you
took office we had, with your permission, lined up
and shot every single Vietnamese we could find, by
so doing we would have saved fifteen thousand
American lives. Instead, sir, following the course of
action that you have ordered as Commander-in-
Chief, and shooting and blowing them up
piecemeal, catch as catch can, ten here, twenty
there, and so on, we have suffered severe losses of
both men and materials.
Admittedly, by doggedly pursuing your strategy,
we are now beginning to see some light at the end
of the tunnel. And I have every hope that we will
be able to help you make good on
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 45
your promise to the American people, that by
Election Day 1972, and according to your own
secret timetable, you will have accomplished the
complete withdrawal of the Vietnamese people
from Vietnam.
My point, sir, is that we have ways of accomplishing
such withdrawals in a matter of hours. I beg
of you, Mr. President, let us not repeat the errors of
Vietnam in our own backyard.
LEGAL COACH: Of course, Mr. President, I can
not fault the General on his tactical wisdom, and
believe me, I am not for a moment worried about
taking on these civil-rights nuts. It's just that if we
shoot these Scouts in the street before we round
'em up and jail 'em, it is, as I said, going to create an
awful lot of unnecessary busywork for my staff,
many of them first-rate young men whom I can
employ at far more useful and worthwhile tasks.
However, before or after, Mr. President,
whichever you choose, you can count on my
support. But for you to go on TV and make a
confession, or an apology, or any kind of explanation
for yourself whatsoever, well, to my mind,
nothing could more seriously undermine your moral
and political authority, or constitute a graver threat
to the cause of law and order. I will even go so far
as to say that if you appear in any way to give
ground on this issue-or any issue for that matter-you
will be opening the
46 OUR GANG
floodgates to anarchy, socialism, communism,
welfarism, defeatism, pacifism, perversion, pornography,
prostitution, mob rule, drug addiction,
free love, alcoholism, and desecration of the flag.
You'll see a rise just in jaywalking that will stagger
the imagination. Now I don't mean to throw a
scare into anyone, but the fact is a vast criminal
element in this country is waiting for just a single
sign of weakness in our leader, so as to make its
move. Anything at all that might suggest to them
that Trick E. Dixon is not totally in control, of
himself and the nation, and I hate to tell you what
would follow. TRICKY (interrupting) : That's exactly
why I'm having my sweat glands removed, to
show how in control I am.
LEGAL COACH (continuing) : Now, as you
know, there is bound to be a certain amount of
blood shed, when we go ahead and kill these
young people, whether we do it before or after.
This blood is something we seem always to run
into with the killings, one of those facts of death
we have to live with. Reverend, I see you shaking
your head. Are you suggesting that it is possible
to kill people, even youngsters like this, without
spilling blood? If so, I'd like to hear about it.
SPIRITUAL COACH (anguished) : Well .. what
about gas .. poison gas ... Something like that?
Surely enough blood has been shed in our century.
MILITARY COACH: The only trouble with gas,
Reverend, if I may speak here on the basis of my
own firsthand experience-the trouble with gas is
that unfortunately we don't have these Scouts in a
big open space. If we had them, say, smack in the
middle of a desert somewhere, sure, spray 'em and
it's over with.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Couldn't we get them to a
desert then?
LEGAL COACH: How? (Wary) Are you suggesting
bussing them there?
SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, yes, busses would do
it, I suppose.
TRICKY: No, I'm afraid they wouldn't, Reverend. I
have thought this matter through and I have made
my decision: this administration will not bus
children from Washington, D.C., all the way to the
state of Arizona to poison them. That is a matter in
whieh the federal government simply. will not
intervene. This is a free country, and certainly one
of your fundamental freedoms here is choosing the
place where you want your child to be killed.
SPIRITUAL COACH: And there's simply no way
you can poison them right here?
MILITARY COACH: Much too dangerous, Rever
end. Start out gassing these kids, and next thing,
you get a wind or something, and you have
poisoned some perfectly innocent adult miles away.
LEGAL COACH: Of course, you're going to get
some guilty adults too, you know, if you let it
spread far enough.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Gentlemen, please! I stand
utterly opposed to any course of action wherein
the welfare of 'a single innocent adult is even
remotely threatened. I don't care how many guilty
adults you get in the process.
MILITARY COACH: All right with me, Reverend.
I'd rather shoot 'em anyway. I have always
maintained that it gives the individual soldier a
stronger sense of participation and accomplishment
to pull the trigger and see the results with
his own eyes.
SPIRITUAL COACH (to Legal Coach): And you?
LEGAL COACH: Fine with me. So long as we all
realize beforehand that there is going to be this
blood, and sure as we are sitting here, the media
are going to exploit it to the hilt. I don't have any
doubt whatsoever, given the kind of people who
pull the strings in the press and TV, that they are
going to blow this whole thing out of proportion,
and, for instance, are not going to have a word to
say about the restraint that's been displayed by
our not using poison gas, or bussing. I mean, we
could subject these kids to what is virtually a
cross-country bus trip, a long hot grueling drive
out to Arizona, without food,
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 49
water, toilet facilities and so on, prior to killing
them, and yet, as we all know, with the exception
of the Reverend here, not a single member of the
administration has spoken in support of such a
proposal. But will you hear about that on TV? I
think not.
TRICKY: Oh, no. They never tell that side of the
story. It's not sensational enough for them, not
enough gore. Not enough violence to suit their
taste. No, it's never what we didn't do, it's always
what we've done. That, unfortunately, is what these
people consider newsworthy. LEGAL COACH: Luckily,
Mr. President, the people of this country are still by
and large passive and indifferent enough not to get
all stirred up by this kind of irresponsible
sensationalism on the part of the media.
TRICKY: Oh, don't get me wrong, I've-never lost my
faith in the wonderful indifference of the
American people. Just because they happen to see
a little Boy Scout blood on TV ... Boy Scout blood
on TV? (His lip is suddenly drenched with
perspiration) They'll impeach me! They'll-1
LEGAL COACH: Nothing of the sort, Mr. Pres
ident, nothing of the sort. It's only another crisis,
you have nothing to worry about. Come on nowcool,
confident and decisive. Come on, repeat it
after me, you know how to behave in a crisis: cool,
confident and decisive.
50 OUR GANG
TRICKY: Cool, confident and decisive. Cool,
confident confident and decisive. Cool, confident
and decisive. Cool, confident and decisive. LEGAL
COACH: Feel better now? Crisis over? TRICKY: I
think so, yes.
LEGAL COACH: You see, you mustn't be frightened
of Boy Scouts, Mr. President. Of course they're
going to bleed a little and there may even be this
hue and cry about it on TV, but when the country
sees this sign that one of them was carrying before
the bleeding began (extracts from his briefcase a
sign reading DIXON FAVORS EFFING- The
Reverend gasps), I think our worries are going to
be over. Let the newspapers run all the photos of
Boy Scout corpses they want-we'll just run a photo
of this sign, and of the five thousand replicas that I
have asked the Government Printing Office to run
off by morning. We'll see who gets the support of
the nation then.
TRICKY: Look! I've stopped sweating!
LEGAL COACH: See? You've weathered another crisis,
Mr. President.
TRICKY: Wow! That makes six hundred and one!
(Congratulations all around, from everyone except
the Highbrow Coach, who speaks now for the first
time)
HIGHBROW COACH: Gentlemen, I wonder if I may
take a somewhat different approach to the problem
that we have been assembled here to
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 51
solve. All the while I have been listening to your
suggestions, I have simultaneously been bringing to
bear upon the problem all my brainpower, wisdom,
academic credentials, cunning, opportunism, love of
power and so on, and the result is this list that I am
holding in my hand, of the names of five individuals
and/or organizations upon whom I think we can
safely-if I may use the vernacular for a moment-pin
the rap. LEGAL COACH (his interest suddenly aroused,
after initial suspiciousness of "the Professor"): The
rap?
HIGHBROW COACH: "The rap."
LEGAL COACH: Which rap?
HIGHBROW COACH: You name it. Inciting to
riot. Tampering with the morals of minors. If you
prefer, corrupting the youth of the nation.
POLITICAL COACH: "Corrupting the youth."
Hey, that's got a real campaign ring to it! HIGHBROW
COACH: And a certain historical resonance, I would
think.
SPIRITUAL COACH: At the risk of sounding "square,"
may I put in a good word for "tampering with the
morals of minors"? I've always found it to have
tremendous appeal. It seems there is something in
the word "tampering" that particularly infuriates
people. LEGAL COACH: That may be, Reverend, but
in my book you still can't beat "inciting to riot" for
scaring the hell out of the public.
52 OUR GANG
TRICKY: 'And you, General? You look distressed
again.
MILITARY COACH: I am distressed again! I am
distressed every time the Professor opens his
mouth! What is this business of bringing charges?
Oh, mind you, they're good charges and I don't
have anything against them personally, but the last
thing I remember we were talking about shooting
the bastards.
HIGHBROW COACH: General, despite your low
opinion of intellectuals, I happen to have the
highest regard for Army officers such as yourself,
particularly in their devotion to their men and to
their country. I wonder if once you have heard me
read my list, you won't agree that to charge any of
these five self-avowed enemies of America with the
crime, to fix the responsibility for the uprising of
the Boy Scouts on any one of them, will
simultaneously absolve the Boy Scouts themselves
of any real guilt, while totally discrediting the
charges they have made against the President. The
Scouts will retreat in panic...
MILITARY COACH: But without our firing a shot!
HIGHBROW COACH: The country isn't going away,
General.
TRICKY: Sounds interesting, Professor. But why only
one of the five? That strikes me as highly unusual.
HIGHBROW COACH: Well, perhaps, but I was
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 53
just wondering if we haven't gone the route with
the conspiracy business.
TRICKY: Oh, but it's so much fun when you get to
choose two or three. Each person picks his
favorites-and then all the wheeling and dealing,
until we come up with the conspiracy that suits
everybody.
LEGAL COACH: And, of course, Mr. President, to
put in a word here in behalf of the cause of justice,
the more choice you're allowed, the greater the
chance of catching the right culprit. My feeling is
that just to stay on the safe side, each of us should
choose a minimum of three.
SPIRITUAL COACH: I know I'm outside my baili
wick again, but if it is going to improve the chances
for justice being done, why can't we choose all five?
MILITARY COACH: Mr. President, I am growing
more and more exasperated by the moment. Here
we sit, in the comfort and spendor of this fully
equipped underground locker room, in full football
regalia, deliberating over the niceties of justice,
while, with every passing moment, those Boy
Scouts are readying themselves for battle against
my men. I think it is high time we reminded the
Professor that he is no longer up there in his ivory
tower, where you can talk yourself blue in the face
about this one's rights and that one's rights and
how many rights fit on
the head of a pin. There is an angry mob of Boy
54 OUR GANG
Scouts out there, Eagle Scouts among them, and
they are growing angrier and more threatening by
the moment. I say shoot 'em and shoot 'em now!
TRICKY: General, you are a brave soldier and a loyal
American. But, I must say, I sense in your remarks a
certain disregard for fundamental constitutional
liberties such as I have pledged myself to uphold in
my oath of office.
MILITARY COACH: Mr. President, I have the highest
regard for the Constitution. If I didn't, I wouldn't
have devoted my life to fighting to defend it. But
the fact of the matter is, we are playing with a time
bomb. Right now it is still only the Boy Scouts. By
morning, and I can guarantee you this, their ranks
are going to be infiltrated by dissolute Brownies and
Cub Scouts looking for adventure. Now it's one
thing to ask my men to mow down Eagle Scouts; it
is another for them to have to deal with little boys
and girls half that size. Those kids can run like the
dickens, and they're small. As a result, what right
now would still be a routine street massacre, will be
converted into dangerous house-tohouse fighting, in
which we are bound to sustain heavy losses by way
of our soldiers shooting mistakenly at each other.
TRICKY: I think you know, General, that nobody
wants to save the lives of our boys-by that I mean,
of course, our men-any more than I do.
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 55
But I repeat: I will not do so by trampling upon the
Constitution. I campaigned for this office as a strict
constructionist where the Constitution of this
country is concerned, and if I were now to take the
course that you suggest and acted to prevent this
group from voting in open and honest elections on
the Professor's list, then the American people would
have every right to throw me out of office
tomorrow.
And let me make one thing perfectly clear:
nobody is ever going to do that again. They have
thrown me out of office enough in my lifetime! I
will not be cast in the role of a loser-of a war, or of
anything. And if that means bringing the full
firepower of our Armed Forces to bear upon every,
last Brownie and Cub Scout in America, then that is
what we are going to do. Because the President of
the United States and Leader of the Free World can
ill-afford to be humiliated by anyone, let alone by
third- and fourth-graders who have nothing better
to do than engage the United States Army in
treacherous house-to-house combat. I don't care if
we have to go ,into the nursery schools. I don't care
if our men have to fight their way through
barricades constructed of lanyards and hula hoops
and bubble gum, under a steady barrage of toys
being grossly misused as weapons-I, as
Commander-in-Chief, will not run from the battle.
Not when my prestige is at stake! If I have to call in
air strikes
56 OUR GANG
over the playgrounds, I will do it! Let's see them try
to bring down B-52's with their bats and their balls!
Let's see them try to flee from my helicopters on
those little tricycles of theirs! No, this mighty giant
of a nation of which I am, by extension, the mighty
giant of a President, will not have its nose tweaked
by a bunch of little brats who should be at home
with their homework in the first place!
(All applaud)
Now, as to the voting. Since I am a decisive man,
as you can see from my book Six Hundred Crises, I
am now going to decide how many of these five
enemies of America each of you will be allowed to
choose to charge with the crime. Of course, we still
have to decide which of the three crimes that the
Professor mentioned we're going to use, but in that
it is getting on to morning, perhaps we can put that
off to a later date. In the meantime, we will come to
a decision as to who is guilty. (Impish endearing
smile) That's the best part, anyway!
Now (back to serious business), we will proceed
in the following manner: the Professor will read his
list, and each person present will select as many as
he wants, up to three ... No, two .. . No, three ...
Uh-oh, my lip's sweating-uh-oh, I think I'm having
another crisis! Two! Two! Say two!
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 57
POLITICAL COACH: Good going, Mr. President
you've weathered it!
TRICKY: Wow! That makes six hundred and two
crises! Wait'll I tell the girls what Daddy did! LEGAL
COACH: Mr. President, in that we are to be allowed
only two of the candidates from the Professor's list,
may I ask if we can each add two names of our own,
should we think we have more that warrant
suspicion? TRICKY:, Well, let me ask you a question.
Is this a deal you want to make?
LEGAL COACH: Well, if you want to think of it
that way, that's okay with me.
TRICKY: I'd prefer to. Otherwise it might seem that I
was changing my mind because I'm indecisive. But
if it's just a matter of a payoff for something or
other you'll deliver in the future, I think everybody
here will understand.
LEGAL COACH: Suits Me.
TRICKY: There we are then. Two from the Professor's
list and two of your own choice. HIGHBROW COACH:
To the list then, gentlemen. is Hanoi. z: The
Berrigans. 3: The Black Panthers. 4 : Jane Fonda. 5:
Curt Flood. ALL: Curt Flood?
HIGHBROW COACH: Curt ... Flood.
SPIRITUAL COACH: But-isn't he a baseball player?
TRICKY: Was a baseball player. Any questions about
baseball players, just ask me, Reverend.
58 OUR GANG
Was the center fielder for the Washington Senators.
But then he up and ran away. Skipped the
country.
HIGHBROW COACH: He did indeed, Mr. Pres
ident. Curt Flood, born January 18, 1938, in
Houston, Texas, bats right, throws right, entered big
league baseball in 1956 with Cincinnati, played from
'58 to '69 with the St. Louis Cardinals, presently
under contract at a salary of $110,000 a year to the
Washington Senators, on the morning of April 27,
1971, with the baseball season not even a month
old, boarded a Pan Am flight bound from New
York to Barcelona, giving no explanation for his
hasty departure other than "personal problems."
Though Flood is known to have purchased a ticket
for Barcelona, he apparently disembarked in
Lisbonwearing a brown leather jacket, bellbottomed
trousers and sunglasses-there to make
connections with a flight for his final European
destination ... The question, gentlemen, is obvious:
why, a week to the day before the uprising of the
Boy Scouts in Washington, D.C., why did Mr. Curt
Flood of the Washington baseball team find it
necessary to leave the country in so precipitous and
dramatic a fashion? TRICKY: Oh, I think I can answer
that one, Professor, knowing sports as I do inside
and out. Poor Flood was in a slump, and a bad one.
In his first twenty times at bat this year, he'd had
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 59
only three hits, and two of those were bunts. Fact is,
Williams had benched him. He'd sat out six starts in
a row against right-handed pitching. Now I may be
the highest elected official in the land, but I still
don't think I'm going to second-guess Ted Williams
when he benches a hitter. No, sirree. On the other
hand, you can well imagine the effect being benched
had upon a one-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year star
player like Flood.
HIGHBROW COACH: With all due respect, sir, for
your knowledge of the game, which far exceeds my
own, this "slump,"as you call it, might it not have
been just the right "cover" for a baseball player
planning to leave the country in a hurry, just the
right alibi?
LEGAL COACH: If I get your drift, Professor, are
you suggesting that Ted Williams, the manager of
the Senators, is implicated in this as well? That
benching Flood was part of some overall plan?
POLITICAL COACH: Now hold- on. Before we
carry this any further, I want to say that I think we
are skating on very thin ice here, when we are
dealing with a baseball figure of Ted Williams'
stature. Despised as he was by many sportswriters in
his time-and I'm sure we could call upon these
people for assistance, if we should want them-my
gut reaction is that it is in the best interests of this
administration to
6o OUR GANG
maintain a hands-off policy on all Hall of Famers.
TRICKY: And what a Hall of Famer! I wonder how
many of you know Ted Williams' record. It certainly
is a record for all Americans to be proud of, and I'd
like to share it with you. Just listen and tell me if you
don't agree. Lifetime batting average, .344. That
makes him fifth in the history of the game. Lifetime
slugging average, .634. That makes him second only
to Babe Ruth himself! In doubles, fourteenth with
525; in home runs fifth with 521; in extra base hits
seventh with 1,117; and in all-important RBI's, and I
really can't say enough about RBI's and how
important they are to the national pastime, in RBI's,
also seventh with 1,839. And that isn't all. Led the
league in hitting in 1941 with an average of-just
listen to this-.4o6! In '42again, with .356; in '47 with
.343; in '48 with -369-(Suddenly angry) And they said
Jack Charisma was the one who had the memory for
facts! They said Charisma was the one who had the
grasp of the issues. Oh, how they loved to
downgrade Dixon! No wonder I had a crisis in that
campaign! They were always picking on me! My
beard! My nose! My tactics! Well, just let me say one
thing as regards my so-called "tactics": if in any of
the averages I have just quoted to you, I have
altered Ted Williams' record by so much as one
hundredth of one per
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 61
centage point, I will submit my resignation to
Congress tomorrow. Now that would be an unprecedented
act in American history, but I would
do it, if I had dared to play party politics with the
American public on a matter as serious as this one.
(All applaud)'
POLITICAL COACH: Mr. President, that was a
most impressive recitation of the facts and has only
served to strengthen my conviction that it would be
utterly foolhardy to bring a slugger like Williams
under federal indictment. TRICKY: Good thinking.
Good sharp political thinking. Of course, with
Flood himself, we have a very different situation. To
be sure, he batted over .300 for the Cards in '61, '63,
'64, '65, '67 and '68, but never once did he lead the
league in hitting or home runs, as Williams did, and
his slugging average is almost half what Williams'
was at the end of his career.
Of course, in 1964, Flood did lead the National
League in base hits with 211, and something like
that could stir up a certain amount of sympathy.
Now let me make one thing perfectly clear: I am
not saying that he is anywhere near the all-time
leader in that department, George Sisler, who got
257 hits in the year 1920, but a fact is a fact, and we
are going to have to confront it. Those 211 base
hits could mean trouble.
6z OUR GANG
HIGHBROW COACH: Mr. President, under ordi
nary circumstances I too might be leery of bringing
a charge as drastic as whichever one we come up
with, against a man who, as you so wisely remind us,
led the National League in total base hits with 21I.
But Curt Flood is something more than your runof-
the-mill hitting star of yesteryear: he is a bona
fide troublemaker, and was in hot water right up to
his neck even before I put him on my list. That is
why I put him on my list: for not only has he
jumped a hundred-thousand-dollar contract and
skipped the country only a month into the season,
but he of course is the man who in 1970 refused to
be traded by the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia
Phillies, claiming that the trade denied him his
basic rights to negotiate a contract for his services
on the open market. Subsequently, he hired as his
attorney none other than Lyin' B. Johnson's
appointee to the Supreme Court .. .
POLITICAL COACH (hopefully) : Abe Fortas! HIGHBROW
COACH: No, no, but almost as good.
Arthur Goldberg. G-o-l-d-b-e-r-g. And these two
instituted a suit against baseball on constitutional
grounds, asserting that organized baseball was in
violation of the Antitrust Laws, and that the
owners, by trading players from one team to
another without their permission, treated them like
pieces of property, which was both illegal and
immoral.
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISES 63
Now, impugning the sacred name of baseball in
this way did not go over very well with a good many
loyal Americans, including the Commissioner of
Baseball himself, and in the eyes of many,
sportswriters and fellow players, as well as fans
throughout the country, Flood, and his mouthpiece
Goldberg, appeared to be out to destroy the game
beloved by millions. Flood, in a book he has written
on the subject, even quotes himself as saying in
conversation, `Somebody needs to go up against the
system. I'm ready." And, gentlemen, that is only one
of the selfincriminating statements that is scattered
throughout that manifesto. Of course, as if all that
he has said and done isn't compromising enoughincluding
hiring a Mr. Goldberg to represent him in
this attack upon the most American of American
sports-Flood is a black man.
LEGAL COACH: Where is he now, Algeria? That
would sew it up for us, if he was in Algeria.
HIGHBROW COACH: To the contrary, had he fled
to Algeria-which he has not-they would already be
selling posters of him at bat in a beret, and ads to
"Free Flood" would be appearing daily in The New
York Times, signed by movie stars and Jean-Paul
Sartre. There'd be marches and pickets and probably
one of those mule trains camping on the White
House Lawn. TRICKY: Oh, those mule trains! Those
marches!
64 OUR GANG
Really, I can't stand those things. It never failsevery
time they start marching on Washington, I'm the
one who has to leave town. Now does that make
any sense to you? I'm the President, I live here, and
still I'm the one who has to pack his bags and get
on a helicopter and go when these marchers start
pouring in from all over the country! Honestly, I've
got this big beautiful house, and I spend half my
life living out of suitcases. Can you imagine what
it's like for a President, on practically five minutes'
notice, to try to pack everything he needs in his
briefcase, while outside the window the propellers
are going and everybody is screaming "Hurry, hurry,
let's get out of here, before they go crazy and
send a delegation to the door!" Oh, it's just awful.
One time I forgot my jersey, one time I forgot my
cleats, one time I even forgot to pack my ball-and
really, the whole weekend was just ruined. And
those marchers couldn't care less!
HIGHBROW COACH: Well, you won't have to
leave town this time, Mr. President. Because this
fugitive has not fled to Algeria to set himself up as
some kind of ersatz revolutionary leader in exile;
nor has he fled to Africa to live among his own
kind, as he might have done if he were looking to
build a following. No, there isn't going to be much
sympathy in this country, I can assure you, for a
handsome and muscular young
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISES 65
black man like Mr. Curt Flood, who, from all
indications, has decided to make his homegentlemen,
it couldn't be better-in Copenhagen.
SPIRITUAL COACH: No!
HIGHBROW COACH: Yes, Reverend, Copenhagen.
The Mecca toward which the filth peddlers of the
world go down on their knees morning and night.
The pornography capital of the world.
POLITICAL COACH: WOW! (Ecstatic) And that's
not all they've got in Denmark to compromise Mr.
Flood, is it?
HIGHBROW COACH: Very fast on your feet,
young man ... The word is miscegenation. Not that
we have to come right out with it, any more than
we mean to say, in so many words, that he is a
known smut addict.
SPIRITUAL COACH: No, please, you mustn't.
Where a baseball star is involved, we are inevitably
going to be dealing with young impressionable
minds, boys eight, nine, ten years of age- If they
were to hear such words ...
POLITICAL COACH: I agree, Reverend. It'll be bet
ter by far to do it by "implication."
LEGAL COACH: Fine with me. What about you,
Mr. President? Think you can manage that? A hint
here, a slur there, instead of coming right out with
it?
TRICKY: Well, if it's a matter of making the
Reverend feel at ease about the wonderful young
Little Leaguers of this country, I sure am going to
try.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank
you, gentlemen.
TRICKY: You see, Reverend, there's that restraint
again, there's that sense of proportion and moderation
that according to the newspapers I'm not
supposed to have. After all, here is a black man
engaging in just about the wickedest act any
American can imagine, and with the women of
Denmark, who are among the whitest in the entire
world, and yet instead of coming right out with it,
and thus exposing our Little Leaguers to a highly
dangerous and tempting idea, we are going to smear
him by insinuation and innuendo.
SPIRITUAL COACH: I'm deeply indebted, Mr. President.
POLITICAL COACH: We thought that went without
saying, Reverend.
HIGHBROW COACH: Good enough, gentlemen. I
shall now proceed to read the list one more time,
so that you may decide how you wish to cast your
votes. I: Hanoi. 2: The Berrigans
POLITICAL COACH: May I interrupt here? I
wonder if I can take a moment to make a case for
the innocence of the Berrigan brothers. LEGAL
COACH (outraged) : The innocence of the Berrigan
brothers?
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 67
POLITICAL COACH (backpeddling): Of this
charge! Of this charge!
LEGAL COACH: But we haven't even decided yet
upon the exact nature of the charge-so how can
they be innocent? Where is your evidence? Where
is your proof?
POLITICAL COACH: Well, I don't have any.
LEGAL COACH: Then, maybe, young man, you
oughtn't to go around calling people innocent until
you do!
POLITICAL COACH: I grant you that-but what I
am fearful of is this: if we do try to pin still another
crime on those priests, we are going to produce a
sympathetic reaction toward them such as you
ordinarily don't get until after an assassination. I
should tell you that at this very moment a
Hollywood movie is in the early stages of planning,
in which Fathers Phil and Dan Berrigan are to be
portrayed by Bing Crosby and an actor, as yet
unnamed, who will be made up to resemble the late,
great Barry Fitzgerald. Now these Hollywood
producers, gentlemen, no matter how they may
dress or wear their hair, are not hippies or left-wing
fanatics by any stretch of the imagination.
Underneath those anti-establishment muttonchops
they are hardheaded business men with a product to
market and an audience to exploit, and they can
spot a trend developing a long way off. According
to my informants, the movie being planned deals
68 OUR GANG
sympathetically with two priests who decide to blow
up West Point, after Army defeats Notre Dame
before seventy million television fans in the big
football game of the year. There'll be nuns and
songs and so on, and who knows but that a picture
like this could turn the whole damn country
Communist overnight.
MILITARY COACH: Two hundred million Reds
on American soil? Not if I have anything to say
about it.
POLITICAL COACH: Easier said than done, General.
Shoot two hundred million Americans-if that's what
you have in mind-shoot one hundred million
Americans, and I'm afraid you're going to give the
Democrats just the kind of issue they can play
politics with in the '72 elections.
MILITARY COACH: The level to which political
life in this country has sunk! Now if the military
were running this show ...
POLITICAL COACH: Granted. Granted. But you
do not build a utopian society overnight, General.
And that is why I wish to caution you, one and all,
against voting for the Berrigans. I know how
tempting it is, especially after what we went
through to track them down, but I am afraid that
this is another one of those instances when we are
going to have to display our characteristic restraint
and moderation. Certainly the-last thing in the
world we want is Bing Crosby in a collar crooning
to Debbie Reynolds in her habit about b-b-b-blowing
things up. Not even Lenin could have
devised a more sure-fire method of converting the
American working class into bombthrowing
revolutionaries.
HIGHBROW COACH: Ingenious analysis. Nonetheless,
I think you misread Hollywood's intentions. If the
Berrigans were to get the chair, to be sure
Hollywood would immediately go into full-scale
production of some kind of musical about them,
along the line of Going My Way. But that is only an
argument against killing them. Keep them in jail,
and you will be surprised how quickly the public
and the movie moguls will forget they exist.
LEGAL COACH: I agree. Bury them alive. Always
better.
SPIRITUAL COACH: And more merciful, too. That way,
you see, it's not capital punishment.
HIGHBROW COACH: To move on then. Number
two was the Berrigans.
SPIRITUAL COACH: What was one again? Harvard?
HIGHBROW COACH: Hanoi.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Ah, yes. I knew it was some
thing beginning with an H.
MILITARY COACH (angrily) : And what about
something else beginning with an "H"? What about
Haiphong! How can you have Hanoi without
Haiphong? That's like Quemoy without Matsu!
TRICKY: Quemoy and Matsu! Does that bring back
memories! Quemoy and Matsu! ... What ever
happened to them?
POLITICAL COACH: Oh, they're still out there,
Mr. President, if we should ever need them.
TRICKY: Well, that's wonderful. Where were they
again-exactly? Wait, let me guess, let's see if I can
remember ... Indonesia!
POLITICAL COACH: No, Sir.
TRICKY: Am I warm? The Philippines! No? ... Near
Hawaii? ... No? Oh, I give up.
POLITICAL COACH: In the Formosa Straights,
Mr. President. Between Taiwan and Mainland
China.
TRICKY: No kidding. Hey, listen, whatever happened
to what's-his-name? The Chinaman.
POLITICAL COACH: Which Chinaman, Mr. President?
There are six hundred million Chinamen. TRICKY: I
know, enslaved and so on. But I'm thinking of, you
know, the one with the wife. Oh, it's one of those
names they have ...
HIGHBROW COACH: Chiang Kai-shek, Mr. President.
TRICKY: Right, Professor! Shek. Little Shek, with
the glasses. (Fondly) The Old Dixon .. .
(Chuckling) Well! Enough wandering down
memory lane. Forgive me, gentlemen. Where
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 71
were we? So far we have Moscow and the Berrigans.
HIGHBROW COACH: Hanoi and the Berrigans, Mr.
President.
TRICKY: Of course! See what you did with that
Quemoy and Matsu? I was still back there in the
fifties. Look at me, my lip is covered with goose
flesh.
HIGHBROW COACH: To proceed. Number 3:
The Black Panthers. No dispute there. Good.
Number 4: Jane Fonda, the movie actress and
antiwar activist. Number 5: Curt Flood, the
baseball player. Any questions, before we proceed
to the vote. Reverend?
SPIRITUAL COACH: Jane Fonda. Has she ever
appeared nude in a film?
HIGHBROW COACH: I can't honestly say I
remember seeing her pudenda on the screen,
Reverend, but I think I can vouch for her breasts.
SPIRITUAL COACH: With aureole or without?
HIGHBROW COACH: I believe with. SPIRITUAL
COACH: And her buttocks?
HIGHBROW COACH: Yes, I believe we've seen
her buttocks. Indeed, they constitute a large part
of her appeal.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Thank you.
HIGHBROW COACH: Any other questions? POLITICAL
COACH: Well, about the Black Panthers-do you
really think that the American
i
72 OUR GANG
people will believe that the Black Panthers are
behind the Boy Scouts? That really does require
quite a bit of imagination.
TRICKY: Now I take exception there. I don't want to
influence the voting, but I do want to say this: let's
not underestimate the imagination of the American
people. This may seem like old-fashioned
patriotism such as isn't in fashion any more, but I
have the highest regard for their imagination and I
always have. Why, I actually think the American
people can be made to believe anything. These
people, after all, have their fantasies and fears and
superstitions, just like anybody else, and you are
not going to put anything over on them by simply
addressing yourself to the real problems and
pretending that the others don't exist just because
they are imaginary.
HIGHBROW COACH: I agree wholeheartedly, Mr.
President. May we proceed to the voting? TRICKY:
By all means ... Of course, gentlemen, these are
going to be free elections. I want it to be perfectly
clear beforehand that I wouldn't have it otherwise,
unless there were some reason to believe that the
vote might go the wrong way. And I am proud to
say I don't think that's possible here in this locker
room with men of your caliber. You may vote for
any two candidates on the list, and you may, in the
interest of justice, add any two names of your own
choosing. I will write down the votes cast for
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 73
each candidate and tabulate them on this sheet of
paper.
Now you'll see that this is an ordinary sheet of
lined yellow paper such as you might find on any
legal pad. I was a lawyer, you know, before I became
President, so you can be pretty sure that I know the
correct manner in which to use this kind of paper.
In fact, I should like you now to examine the paper
to be sure nothing has been written on it and that it
contains no code markings or secret notations other
than the usual watermark.
HIGHBROW COACH: I'm sure we all can trust
your description of the piece of paper, Mr.
President.
TRICKY: I appreciate your confidence, Professor, but
I would still prefer that the four of you examine the
paper thoroughly beforehand, so that afterwards
there cannot be any doubt as to the one hundred
percent honesty of this electoral procedure. (He
hands the paper around to each) Good! Now for a
free election! Suppose we begin with you, Reverend.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, really, I'm in a tizzy. I
mean, I know for sure that I want to vote for Jane
Fonda-but after her I just can't make up my mind.
Curt Flood is so tempting.
HIGHBROW COACH: Vote for both then.
TRICKY: Or suppose you think it through a little
longer and we'll come back to you. General?
74
MILITARY COACH (belligerently): Hanoi and
Haiphong!
TRICKY: In other words, that's your write-in vote,
Haiphong.
MILITARY COACH: Mine, and every loyal American's,
Mr. President!
TRICKY: Fair enough. (Records vote) Next.
POLITICAL COACH: I'll take Hanoi, too. TRICKY:
With or without Haiphong?
POLITICAL COACH: I think I like it just by
itself.
TRICKY: And, anything else?
POLITICAL COACH: No, thank you, Mr. President-I
stick.
TRICKY: Okay, time to hear the voice of Justice.
LEGAL COACH: The Berrigans, the Panthers, Curt
Flood.
TRICKY: Slowly, please, slowly. I want to be sure to
get it right. The Berrigans . . . The Panthers .. . Curt
Flood ... But that's three. You're allowed only two.
LEGAL COACH: I understand that, Mr. President.
But in that my predecessors have each used only
one from the Professor's list of five, it did not seem
to me a violation of the spirit of the law, if I took
up some of the slack. I am a great believer, as I
think you are, sir, in the spirit of the law, if not the
letter.
TRICKY: Well, okay, if that's the reason: Do you want
now to add any names of your own?
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 75
LEGAL COACH: As a matter of fact, Mr. President, I
do.
TRICKY: One or two?
LEGAL COACH: As a matter of fact, Mr. President,
five.
TRICKY:Five? But you were the one who made up
the rule about only two.
LEGAL COACH: And I stand by it, Mr. President
or would, under the circumstances such as existed at
the time I suggested it. But I am dealing at this
moment with what I can only call "a clear and
present danger." I am afraid, Mr. President, that if I
were to submit only two of these five names that I
have just this minute come up with, this
administration would be in the most serious clear
and present danger you can imagine of appearing to
be out of its mind. If, on the other hand, the five
names are submitted together, thus suggesting some
kind of plot, a charge that might otherwise have
appeared, at best, to be an opportunistic and vicious
attack on two individuals we don't happen to like,
will take on an air of the plausible in the mind of the
nation, such as it is.
Surely, Mr. President, you will permit me at least
to read the names of the five. This is, after all, a free
country where even the man in the street can say
what's on his mind, provided it isn't so provocative
that it might lead somebody in another state, who
doesn't even hear it, to riot. It would be a sad irony
indeed, if the man who is this nation's bulwark
against those very riots that such freedom of speech
tends to inspire, was to be denied his rights under
the First Amendment.
TRICKY: It would, it would. And you can rest assured
that so long as I am President that particular sad
irony-if I understand it correctly-is not going to
happen.
LEGAL COACH: Thank you, Mr. President. Now
try not to think of the five individually, but rather as
a kind of secret gang, protected, as much as
anything, by the seeming disparateness of individual
personality and profession. I: the folk singer, Joan
Baez: the Mayor of New York, John Lancelot. 3: the
dead rock musician, Jimi Hendrix. 4: the TV star,
Johnny Carson ... ALL: Johnny Carson?
LEGAL COACH (smiling) : Who better to be acquitted?
It's always best, you see, to have one acquitted,
especially if he appears to have been unjustly
accused in the first place. It provides the jury with a
means of funneling all their uncertainty in one
direction, makes them feel they've been fair about
the whole thing. Makes the convictions themselves
look better all around. And, of course, freeing
Johnny Carson, you'll be freeing the most popular
man in America (besides yourself, Mr. President).
Why,' we can even, midway through the trial, have
the Pres
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 77
ident step in and make a statement in Carson's
behalf. Exactly as he did about Manson, only the
other way around this time. Imagine, the whole
country crying "Free Johnny!" and the President
going on TV and casting serious doubt on the
charges raised against this great entertainer. TRICKY:
And then when he's free, I could have a press
conference! Wouldn't that be something? I could
say, "H-e-e-e-re's Johnny," and he could come out
from behind the curtain and do his cute little golf
stroke! He could make jokes about being in jail
with the other conspirators. Maybe he could even
wear a ball and chain and a striped suit!
POLITICAL COACH: Fantastic! And we could do
it on prime time the night before the election.
While Musty is boring their pants off about how
honest the pine trees are in Maine, we'll be on TV
with Johnny Carson!
LEGAL COACH: And that's not all, gentlemen.
You have not yet heard the name of the fifth
conspirator.
POLITICAL COACH: Merv Griffin!
LEGAL COACH: No, not Merv Griffin . . . Jacqueline
Charisma Colossus.
(Stunned silence)
Daring, yes. Absurd? I think not. Consider first,
gentlemen, that like the other four conspirators, her
Christian name too begins with a "J". Now you
cannot imagine the mileage we can get
78 OUR GANG
out of a seemingly nonsensical fact like that.
Overnight the newspapers and the TV commentators
are going to begin calling them "The Five
J's," thereby linking them together in the public
mind as though they were the Dionne quintuplets,
or the New York Knicks. Just by that ruse alone,
we will have moved halfway toward a conviction.
Inevitably there will be speculation we'll see to thatabout
the relationship between Mrs. Colossus and
Mayor Lancelot. Isn't it about time that we turned
those looks of his to our advantage instead of his?
Then too there is the former First Lady's bitterness
toward her own country, as manifested in her
decision to marry a foreigner and live in a foreign
country.
POLITICAL COACH: Well, it isn't exactly as though
she's living in Peking or Hanoi, you know.
LEGAL COACH: I've considered that, and I think that
the wisest course to follow is not to mention the
name of the country itself. We'll just keep saying
foreign-suggesting intrigue and despots and shady
operations-and hope that nobody will remember
it's only Greece.
POLITICAL COACH: Jackie and Lancelot-I've got to
admit, we're going to get the headlines on this one.
But why Jimi Hendrix, if he's dead? LEGAL COACH:
Because we haven't had a rock performer yet. And
personally I think _the parents of the country are
ready to hang one of those bastards. We'll start
cautiously, however, with a dead one. And if we
don't pick up any flak there, we'll get ourselves a
live one in time for, the election ... And, of course,
last but not least, his name begins with a "J."
TRICKY: I must say, from the sound of it, you
certainly appear to have thought this through in all
its ramifications in only about five minutes. The
political advantages to be gained by associating
Lancelot and the Charisma name with rock singers
and folk singers seem to be inestimable. And
indicting and then freeing Johnny Carson is
probably just about the most fantastic opportunity
for self-aggrandizement I've come upon since
Hiss.
LEGAL COACH: Thank you, Mr. President.
TRICKY: But-and this is a very big but-there is the
rule, of your own devising, that we all agreed to
earlier. Yes, I know you see this as "a clear and
present danger" to the party-but I happen to see it
as nothing short of a tremendous boon.
Consequently, I am not going to allow you to
submit these five names. But-and here is an even
bigger but-but, because the five are inextricably
linked by their first initial, I am going to ask you
rather to submit them as though they were one. And
to indicate that they are to be tabulated as one and
not five, I am going to place a large bracket there in
the margin, like so ... See? I want all of you to see. I
have just done exactly as I said I would. Please take
a good long look so that afterwards there is no
cause to question the honesty of these proceedings.
(All examine the bracket and agree it is a bracket,
just as the President said) Now then, Professor.
Your vote.
HIGHBROW COACH: I cast my vote for Curt
Flood and Curt Flood alone. Not only is his a fresh
name to a country that is growing pretty weary of
the Berrigans and the Panthers-and, with all due
respect, is sick to death of Jacqueline Charisma-but
on top of that he is, as I said earlier, someone we
can slander and vilify without any danger of turning
him into a hero or a martyr. In the argot of baseball,
he is a natural.
TRICKY: Very good. (Records the vote) And,
Reverend? Have you reached a final decision? You
can't say I haven't given you time to make a wise
choice.
SPIRITUAL COACH: No, I can't. Only I'm afraid
that having listened to everything that's been said,
I'm really more confused now than when I began. I
mean I'm still very much for Jane Fonda. She is still
far and away my first choice. but once I get beyond
her-well, I just can't make up my mind. And it really
would be terrible to do the wrong thing, wouldn't it,
given the gravity and seriousness of what we're
about ... ?
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 81
(To the General) Excuse me, but who did you vote
for again?
MILITARY COACH: Hanoi and Haiphong. SPIRITUAL
COACH (to Political Coach) : And
you?
POLITICAL COACH: Hanoi, without Haiphong.
SPIRITUAL COACH (to Legal Coach) : And you
have the five-in-one-and what were the others?
LEGAL COACH: Berrigans, Panthers and Flood.
SPIRITUAL COACH (throwing his hands up) : Oh,
this is just impossible! Each one sounds better than
the one before! Oh-the heck with it! Eeny, meeny,
miney, moe ... Okay! Jane Fonda and Curt Flood!
Done!
TRICKY: (Records the Reverend's vote) Now that all
the ballots have been cast, gentlemen, I am going
once again to pass this sheet of paper among you
so that you may be certain that your votes have
been correctly tabulated. Even the President of the
United States, you know, is capable of making a
clerical error, and if he has, he certainly hopes that
he can be a big enough man to admit it. (He passes
the paper among them)
LEGAL COACH: Jimi Hendrix, Mr. President
the first name is spelled J-i-m-i, not J-i-m-m-y, as
you've written it here.
TRICKY: Well, let's correct it then, because that is just
the sort of error, inadvertently made, that tends to
be totally misconstrued by the press.
82 OUR GANG
Now I never claimed to know how to spell the
names of every colored person in this country, but
I will tell you this much: where someone's name is
concerned, colored or not, he has a constitutional
right to have it spelled correctly on any indictment
that is handed down on him, no matter how absurd
or outrageous the charges themselves. And so long
as I am President, I am going to make every effort
to see that this is done. Now, J-i-m what?
LEGAL COACH: I.
TRICKY: J-i-m-i. There. And I'll initial the change,
just to make clear exactly who is responsible for
both the error and the correction. There!
Now I only wish that the wonderful colored
people of this country could have seen the scrupulosity
with which I attended to a matter
seemingly so picayune as this one. Oh sure, the
media would still find something to carp about, you
can bank on that. But I am certain, if I know the
great majority of good, hard-working colored
people in this country, that the time I just took
from my pressing duties as President of the United
States and Leader of the Free World to correct a
single letter in one of their names would not have
gone unnoticed and unappreciated. Call me a
dreamer; call me a believer in humanity; call me, as
the song has it, a'cockeyed optimist; and be sure to
call me a big man too,
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 83
for admitting to my error; but I am sure that they
would understand just how difficult a problem this
is for us to solve, given the kinds of ways they
spell those names of theirs, and I think they would
have that wonderful wisdom, such as comes to
people who work in menial occupations, to realize
that a job of these proportions is not going to be
completed overnight, and that consequently we are
not about to be bullied into spelling their names
correctly by marches or demonstrations or mule
trains parked on the White House lawn. We will
spell them right but in our own sweet time, and
according to our own secret timetable, on earth as
it is in Heaven.
SPIRITUAL COACH: Amen.
TRICKY And, my friends, on that sanctimonious
note, I am going to call this conference to a close.
At ten A.M., we shall meet to settle upon the exact
nature of the crime. In the meantime, I will remain
here in the locker room, in uniform .. .
SPIRITUAL COACH: Mr. President, it is nearly
dawn. You must get some rest. You must take
your helmet off and go to bed.
TRICKY: I couldn't sleep now, Reverend, if I tried.
Not with a smear campaign of this magnitude
before me.
SPIRITUAL COACH: But a man has only so much
to give ...
TRICKY: When it comes to something like this,,
84 OUR GANG
Reverend, I have to say, immodest as it may sound,
I am indefatigable. No, I will remain in uniform,
helmet and all, and with the aid of the ballots you
have cast here in this free election, I will hammer
out, in the lonely vigil of the night, the conspiracy
that seems to me most beneficial to my career. I
only hope and pray that I am equal to the task.
Good night, gentlemen, and thank you.
ALL: Good night, Mr. President. (They rise to leave)
TRICKY: And don't forget to hand in your uniforms at
the door. I won't mention names, but I understand
that last time one of you tried to smuggle his out,
under his street clothes, in order to show off at
home to his wife and children. Of course, I
understand the temptation. How many times have I
wanted to address the nation in my shoulder guards!
I've never told this to a soul, but strictly between us,
at the time of the Cambodian incursion, I did go on
nationwide TV, unbeknownst to everyone, wearing
my regulation National Football League athletic
supporter.
I just couldn't help myself. I'd seen Patton and I'd
invaded Cambodia, and I guess the whole thing
went to my head. Of course, not a word beyond
these four walls: if any of my critics found out, well,
you know how they like to jump on Dixon. All I
have to do is wear a football player's jockstrap on
TV while making
TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 85
a foreign policy speech and the morning papers
would have me pegged as a psychopath. Down here
in the secret underground locker room it's one
thing-up there in the real world, banker's gray!
ALL: You can trust us with your secrets, Mr.
President.
TRICKY (moved) : I know I can ... All right, then. It
remains only for each of you, as he passes from the
room, to slap me on the behind the way the pros do
coming out of the huddle. And don't forget to say,
"Way to go, Tricky D, way to go!"
* 4 *
Tricky Addresses
the Nation
(The Famous "Something Is Rotten in
the State of Denmark" Speech)
Good evening, my fellow Americans.
I come before you tonight with a message of
national importance. While it is true that I do not
intend to offer you false hope by minimizing the
nature of the crisis confronting our nation at this
hour, I do not believe there is cause for any such
alarm as you may have seen or heard in the news
media from those critical of the decisions I have
reached in the last twenty-four hours.
Now I know there are always those who would
prefer that we take a weak, cowardly and dishonorable
position in the face of a crisis. They of course
are entitled to their opinion. I am certain, however,
that the great majority of the Ameri
86
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 87
can people will agree that the actions I have taken in
the confrontation between the United States of
America and the sovereign state of Denmark are
indispensable to our dignity, our honor, our moral
and spiritual idealism, our credibility around the
world, the soundness of the economy, our
greatness, our dedication to the vision of our
forefathers, the human spirit, the divinely inspired
dignity of man, our treaty commitments, the
principles of the United Nations, and progress and
peace for all people.
Now no one is more aware than I am of the
political consequences of taking bold and forthright
action in behalf of our dignity, idealism and honor,
to choose just three. But I would rather be a oneterm
President and take these noble, heroic
measures against the state of Denmark, than to be a
two-term President by accepting humiliation at the
hands of a tenth-rate military power. I want to make
that perfectly clear.
Let me tell you now the measures I have ordered
taken to deal with Denmark, and the reasons for
my decision. (Picks up his pointer and turns to map
of Scandinavia)
First: despite the treacherous manner in which
the Pro-Pornography government in Copenhagen
has moved against the United States, I have
responded swiftly and effectively to gain the military
initiative. At this very moment, the American Sixth
Fleet, dispatched by my order to the Baltic and the
North Seas, is in complete command of the
waterways to and from Denmark, as indicated on
this map. (Points to the Baltic Sea and the North
Sea) Aircraft carriers, troop ships and destroyers
have been placed in a strategic ring around the
Danish peninsula of Jutland (points) and the
numerous adjacent Danish islands, all of which you
see here colored in red. Taken together these
territories make Denmark approximately as large
(turns to map of United States) as the wonderful
states of New Hampshire and Vermont, famous for
their beautiful autumn foliage and delicious maple
syrup, and colored here in white.
Now let me tell you the results of this action,
ordered by me as Commander-in-Chief of the
Armed Forces meeting his responsibilities.
To all intents and purposes, Denmark is at this
time isolated by a blockade as impenetrable as the
blockade with which President John F. Charisma in
1962 prevented Soviet nuclear missiles from
entering Cuba and the Western hemisphere, which
is here (points to map of Western Hemisphere).
And that as we all know was the finest and most
courageous hour of his Presidency. This blockade,
then, is exactly like that one.
Now while it is true that I have effectively
isolated Denmark from the rest of the world, I
have refused to take an isolationist position for
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 89
America of the kind my critics would counsel me
to take in this crisis. Because let there be no
mistake about it: America cannot live in isolation if
it expects to live in peace.
Now I hear you ask: "Mr. President, you have
moved swiftly and effectively to protect our dignity,
idealism and honor; but what about our national
security-isn't that endangered, too?"
Well, that is a good question and one that
deserves a thoughtful answer. For we are all familiar
with the belligerent and expansionist policies of the
state of Denmark, in particular the territorial designs
that country has had upon the continental United
States ever since the eleventh century. As you
remember, at that time landings were made upon
the North American continent by forces under the
command of Eric the Red, and later under the
command of his son, Leif Ericson. These landings
by the Red family and their Viking hordes were of
course made without warning and in direct violation
of the Monroe Doctrine. Aside from these invasions
of a paramilitary nature, there were also various unsuccessful
attempts made by these Vikings ' to
establish privileged sanctuaries on our eastern
seaboard, right here (points) in the vicinity of
Boston, the birthplace of Paul Revere and his
world-renowned midnight ride, and the site of the
famous Boston Tea Party.
So when you ask me if our national security is
threatened by these Danes, with their longstanding
history of open contempt for our territorial
integrity, I think I have to answer in all candor, yes
it is. And that is why I have made clear to the Pro-
Pornography government in Copenhagen tonight
that I do not intend to react to any renewed threat
to our territorial integrity, to our honor, or to our
idealism, with plaintive diplomatic protests. And in
order that there should be no misunderstanding of
my position, I have ordered the American Seventh
Army, stationed in West Germany, to be mobilized
in striking position here (points) at the fifty-fifth
parallel on the border between Germany and
Denmark. And I assure you, my fellow Americans,
as I have assured the Pro-Pornography government
in Copenhagen, and as I would have assured the
Red family regime in the eleventh century had I
been your President at that time, that I will not for a
moment hesitate to send our brave American
fighting men over the border and into Denmark
tonight, if that is what is necessary to prevent our
children from having to fight the descendants of
Eric the Red in the streets of (pointing with his
pointer) Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk, Wilmington,
Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Miami, Key
Biscayne and, of course, points west.
Now, though Denmark is effectively isolated
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 91
from the world by the Sixth Fleet, and effectively
threatened with occupation by the Seventh Army,
the fact is that the Danish people have yet to see a
single armed American soldier on their soil.
Contrary to whatever wild rumors have been
irresponsibly disseminated by the alarmists and
sensationalists in the news media, the fact of the
matter is that (checks his watch) as of this hour, we
have no troops inside Denmark, serving either in a
combat capacity, or as advisers in uniform to the
Danish Anti-Pornography Resistance, considered
by many the legitimate Danish government-in-exile.
Whatever reports you may have heard of an
armed American invasion of Danish territory are
categorically false, and constitute a deliberate
distortion of the facts.
The truth is this: the amphibious landing by a
detachment of one thousand brave American
Marines that did occur only a few hours ago, at
midnight Danish time, was not an invasion of
Danish territory, but the liberation from Danish
domination of a landmark that has been sacred for
centuries to English-speaking peoples around the
world, and particularly so to Americans.
I am speaking of the liberation of the town of
Elsinore, the home of the fortress popularly known
to tourists as "Hamlet's Castle." After centuries of
occupation and touristic exploitation by the Danes,
the town and the castle, which
92
owe their fame entirely to William Shakespeare, the
greatest writer of English in all recorded history, are
occupied tonight by American soldiers, speaking the
tongue of the immortal bard.
Let's look again at the map. Here on the coast is
Elsinore, approximately thirty-five miles north of
the capital city of Copenhagen. Because of its
proximity to the capital, it was believed for centuries
to be heavily guarded and impregnable to attack. It
is surely a great tribute to both our intelligence units
and our brave fighting Marines, that American
forces were able to wade ashore at midnight and
under cover of darkness drive the foreign invaders
from the castle without firing a single shot.
I am proud to report that the guard on duty at
Elsinore was so taken by surprise that when roused
from his bed by a knocking at the gate, he came to
the door in his pajamas and opened it so wide that
our brave Marines were able to overrun and secure
the grounds in a matter of minutes. The guard, who
was the only foreign invader on the premises at that
time, has been taken into custody, along with his
tourist guidebooks, and a thorough interrogation is
currently under way in the famous dungeons of the
castle, in accordance with the rules laid down at the
Geneva Convention, to which this country is a
proud signatory.
Following the liberation of Elsinore, I have
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 93
sent a communique to the Pro-Pornography
government in Copenhagen, making it absolutely
clear that our action was in no way directed to the
security interests of any nation, Denmark included.
Any government that chooses to use these actions
as a pretext for harming relations with the United
States will be doing so on its own responsibility, and
we will draw the appropriate conclusions.
Incidentally, in that connection, if the Danish
Army should attempt to harass or dislodge our
Marines in any way whatsoever from "Hamlet's
Castle," it would be interpreted by Americans of all
walks of life, professors and poets as well as
housewives and hardhats, as a direct affront to our
national heritage. I would have no choice but to
respond in kind by retaliating against the statue of
Hans Christian Andersen in Copenhagen with the
largest air strike ever called upon a European city.
I realize that as a result of my decision to free
Elsinore from the yoke of foreign domination, the
American people are going to be assailed by
counsels of defeat and doubt from some of the
most widely known opinion leaders of the nation.
But let me say this to those defeatists and doubters:
should the state of Denmark, now or in the future,
attempt to occupy Mark Twain's Missouri, or the
wonderful old South of Gone with the Wind, in the
way that they have so ruthlessly occupied "Hamlet's
Castle" all these centuries, I would no more hesitate
to send in the Marines to free Hannibal and Atlanta
and Richmond and Jackson and St. Louis, than I did
tonight to free Elsinore. And I firmly believe that
the great majority of the American people would
stand behind me then, as I know they do now.
Fortunately, however, I now have every expectation
that not only our children, but our
children's children, will never have to defend with
their blood the literary landmarks of their native
land from the onslaught of the Danish Tourist
Office, because we, their parents, failed to do our
duty by them in a quaint little seaside village in a
faraway land.
The next move is up to Copenhagen. They have
two choices. Either they can extend to us the
diplomatic courtesy we have requested of them
under international law; or, in the face of that
request, they can continue to display the
intransigence, belligerence and contempt that
originally touched off this grave confrontation.
Now if they choose within the next twelve hours
to negotiate with us in good faith by
conceding to us what we want, I shall immediately
call off the blockade of their coast, just as
John F. Charisma called off the blockade of
Cuba in his finest hour. Furthermore, I will reduce
at the rate of one sixteenth a year the
number of troops massed at their borders. Lastly,
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION
the guard taken prisoner at Elsinore castle will be
returned to Copenhagen, provided the interrogation
now being conducted does not reveal him to be a
Danish citizen in the employ of the Danish
government.
If, however, Copenhagen should refuse to negotiate
in good faith by giving us what we want, I
shall immediately order 100,000 armed American
troops onto Danish soil.
Now, quickly, let me make one thing very clear:
this will not constitute an invasion, either. Once we
have overrun the country, bombarded the major
cities, devastated the countryside, destroyed the
military, disarmed the citizenry, jailed the leaders of
the Pro-Pornography government, and established
in Copenhagen the government currently in exile so
that, as Abraham Lincoln said, it shall not perish
from this earth, we shall immediately withdraw our
troops.
For unlike the Danes, this great country harbors
no designs on foreign territory. Nor do we wish to
interfere in the internal affairs of another country.
Despite our very deep sympathy with the aspirations
of the Danish Anti-Pornography Resistance, we
have over the years maintained a scrupulous waitand-
see attitude, in the hope that these eminently
decent and idealistic men of the D.A.R. would be
permitted to achieve political office in Copenhagen
through democratic means. Unfortunately, the Pro-
Pornography Party
96 OUR GANG
would not permit this to come about, but repeatedly,
in one so-called free election after another,
chose to brainwash the Danish people in voting
against the D.A.R. So elaborate and thoroughgoing
were these brainwashing techniques, that eventually
the D.A.R. did not collect a single vote and, to all
intents and purposes, might just as well not have
been on the ballot. In this way did the forces of filth
and smut make a mockery of the democratic
processes in Denmark.
My fellow Americans, it is precisely this sort of
contempt for the rights of others that Copenhagen
would now display toward the United States of
America. Only this country is not about to be
bullied and disgraced by a tenth-rate military power,
and see our credibility destroyed in every area of the
world where only the power of the United States
deters aggression. And that is why tonight I have
put the leaders in Copenhagen on notice that if they
continue to refuse what we ask them, I will bring all
our military might to bear to restore to legitimate
authority in Denmark a government that will
respond to reason instead of force, a government
that stands for decency instead of degradation, a
government, as Abraham Lincoln said, of, by and
for, not only the Danish people, but the American
people and all good people everywhere.
What are we asking of Copenhagen, my fel
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 97
low Americans? Neither more nor less than what
we requested and received from the United
Kingdom in 1968, when, according to the rules of
international law and the custom of civilized
nations, that country returned to our shores the
fugitive from justice who was later convicted of the
murder of Martin Luther King.
What are we asking of Copenhagen? Neither
more nor less than what we would have requested
of the Soviet Union in 1963, had President
Charisma's murderer attempted to take refuge for a
second time in that country.
What are we asking of Copenhagen? Nothing
more nor less than that they surrender to the proper
American authorities the fugitive from the
Washington Senators of the American League of
Professional Baseball Clubs, the man who fled this
country on April 27, 1971, exactly one week to the
day before the uprising of the Boy Scouts in
Washington-the man named Charles
Curtis Flood.
Now events have moved so rapidly during these
past twenty-four hours that in the interest of clarity
I should like to review for you in all its pertinent
details, the case of Charles Curtis Flood, who,
previous to his disappearance, played baseball right
here in Washington, under the alias "Curt Flood."
As always, I want to make everything as per
perfectly clear to you as I can. That is why you hear
me say over and over again, in my speeches and
press conferences and interviews, that I want to
make one thing very clear, or two things, or
three things, or as many things as I have on my
agenda to make very clear. To give you a little
glimpse of the lighter side of the President's life
(impish endearing smile), my wife tells me that I
even say it in my dreams. (Back to business) My
fellow Americans, I am confident that you recognize
as well as I do, that any man who says he wants to
make things perfectly clear as often as I do, both
awake and in his sleep, obviously does not have
anything to hide.
Now who is this man who calls himself "Curt
Flood"? To many Americans, particularly the
wonderful mothers of our land, that name is
probably as strange as the name Eric Starvo Galt,
which, you may remember, was the alias taken by
James Earl Ray, the convicted murderer of Martin
Luther King.
Who is "Curt Flood"? Well, until a year or so
ago, the answer would have been simple enough.
Flood was a baseball player for the St. Louis
Cardinals of the National League, a center fielder
with a more than respectable lifetime batting
average of .294. Not a Hall of Famer, not the best
baseball player in the big leagues, but far from the
worst. Many even believed that his finest years lay
ahead of him. I am proud to say
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 99
that I, as an avid fan of baseball as well as all manly
sports, was among them.
Then tragedy struck. In 1970, with no more
warning than the Japanese gave at Pearl Harbor,
"Curt Flood," as he then called himself, turned
upon the very sport that had made him one of the
highest-paid Negroes in the history of
our country. In 1970, he announced-and this is
an exact quotation from his own writings-
"Somebody needs to go up against the system," and
proceeded to bring a legal action against Organized
Baseball. According to the Commissioner of
Baseball himself, this action would destroy the game
of baseball as we know it, if Flood were to emerge
victorious.
Now no one expects ordinary citizens, who earn
their livelihoods outside the legal profession, to be
able to wade through the intricacies of a legal suit
such as this fugitive from justice has brought
against our great national pastime for the purpose
of destroying it. That's why people hire lawyers in
the first place. I know when I was a lawyer that was
why people hired me, and
I think without boasting, that I was able to help
them. When I was a young, struggling lawyer,
and Pitter and I were living on nine dollars a
week out in Prissier, California, which is right
here (points), I would read through my law
books and study long into the night in order to
help my clients, most of whom were wonderful
100
young people just like Pitter and myself. At that
time, by the way, I had the following debts
outstanding:
-$1,000 on our neat little house.
-$200 to my dear parents.
-$110 to my loyal and devoted brother.
-$15 to our fine dentist, a warm-hearted Jew
ish man for whom we had the greatest re
spect.
-$4.35 to our kindly grocer, an old Italian who
always had a good word for everybody. I still
remember his name. Tony.
-75 cents to our Chinese laundryman, a slightlybuilt
fellow who nonetheless worked long into
the night over his shirts, just as I did over my
lawbooks, so that his children might one day
attend the college of their choice. I am sure
they have grown up to be fine and outstanding
Chinese-Americans.
-6o cents to the Polish man, or Polack, as the
Vice President would affectionately call him,
who delivered the ice for our old-fashioned
icebox. He was a strong man with great pride
in his native Poland.
We also owed moneys amounting to $2.90 to a
wonderful Irish plumber, a wonderful Japanese-
American handyman and a wonderful couple from
the deep South who happened to be of
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 101
the same race as we were, and whose children
played with ours in perfect harmony, despite the
fact that they were from another region.
I am proud to say that every last dime that we
owed to these wonderful people, I paid back
through long hard hours of work in my law office.
And the point I wish to make to you tonight, my
fellow Americans, is that because of those long,
hard hours of work, I believe myself qualified today
to understand in all its cunning and clever intricacies
the legal action that this fugitive has brought against
the sport made famous by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig,
Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Roger Hornsby, Honus
Wagner, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and
Ted Williams-Hall of Famers all, and men that
America can well be proud of.
And let me tell you this: having studied this case
in all its ramifications, I find I can only concur in
the wise opinion of the Commissioner of Baseball
when he says that a victory for this fugitive would
inevitably lead to the death of the great game that
has probably done more to make American boys
into strong, decent *and law-abiding men than any
single institution in the land. Frankly, I do not know
of a better way for our enemies to undermine the
youth of this country, than to destroy this game of
baseball and all it represents.
Now there is another question you may want
to ask, and it is this: "Mr. President, if Curt Flood is
out to undermine the youth of this country by
destroying baseball, where could he possibly find a
lawyer who would be willing to take his case to
court?"
Now I am going to be as forthright as I know how
in answering that question.
Scrupulous and honest and dedicated to the
principles of justice as ninety-nine and ninetenths of
the lawyers in this country are, there is in my
profession, as in any other, I'm afraid, that tiny
percentage who will do and say anything if the
stakes are high enough or the price is right. In law
school our professors used to call them
"ambulance-chasers" and "shysters." Unfortunately,
these men cling not only to the bottom rungs of the
profession, which would be bad enough, but on rare
occasions manage to climb to the very top-yes, even
to positions of great responsibility and power.
Now I needn't remind you of the scandal that
took place here in Washington during the tenure of
the last administration. You all remember that a
lawyer appointed by my predecessor to the Supreme
Court of the United States, the highest court in the
entire land, had to resign as a justice of that court
because of financial wrongdoing. Horrifying as that
incident was to every decent American, there seems
to me nothing to be
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 103
gained now by reawakening the sense of moral
outrage that swept the nation at that time.
As some of you will be quick to point out, there
were actually two men who found it necessary to
resign from the Supreme Court, after they had been
appointed justices of that court by my predecessor.
But whether there was one, two, three, four or five,
I simply do not believe it is in the interests of
national unity to harp upon the errors, grievous
though they were, of an administration that you
voters, in your wisdom, repudiated three years ago.
What is past is past; no one knows that better
than I do. If I recall to you now the names of these
two men who found it necessary to tender
unprecedented resignations to the highest court in
the land, it is only to answer, as forthrightly as I
know how, your question, "What kind of lawyer
would represent Curt Flood?"
The two men who resigned from the Supreme
Court were Mr. Abe Fortas and Mr. Arthur
Goldberg. My fellow Americans, the name of the
lawyer representing Charles Curtis Flood is Arthur
Goldberg. G-o-l-d-b-a-r-g.
Now, before I am accused of trying to shock or
alarm the Ameriean public, let me say that I myself
am not the least bit shocked or alarmed by this turn
of events. Having served on the highest court of the
land, Mr. Goldberg undoubtedly now knows the ins
and the outs of the
104 OUR GANG
law as well as the most devious lawyer in the
country. Moreover, none of us should be surprised
to discover a man who has fallen from the pinnacle
of his profession, willing to try just about anything
to get back into the public eye. Before the Flood
case is concluded, I would not be surprised to find
Mr. Abe Fortas joining forces with Mr. Arthur
Goldberg in defense of Charles Curtis Flood.
Now you may say to me, "But surely, Mr.
President, any man who wishes to destroy the game
of baseball, and enlists such attorneys as these in his
attempt to accomplish that end, is not even entitled
to a hearing in court. Not only is he making a
mockery of our entire judicial system, but in order
for him to go `up against the system' we, the
American taxpayers, have to pay for the upkeep of
the very system he is working to annihilate. If we
allow that, then we might as well allow selfconfessed
Communists to teach our children in the
classrooms. We might as well throw down our arms
right now in the battle for freedom, and hand over
our schools and our courtrooms without a fight to
the avowed enemies of democracy."
Well, let me assure you that I couldn't agree
more. In fact, we are right now studying ways of
restoring the dignity and majesty and, sanctity of
old to the courtrooms of the land. As, you know,
one experiment that we have tried with some
TRICKY ADDRESSES TIM NATION 105
success here in Washington is the "Justice in the
Streets Program." This is a program whereby
sentencing and punishment, for capital crimes as
well as felonies and misdemeanors, is delivered on
the spot at the very moment the crime is
committed, or even appears to have been committed.
Through J.I.T.S.P. and related methods of
expediting the judicial process, we hope to be able
not only to unclog the court calendars but to wind
down the whole trial system by Election Day 1972.
Now, winding down the trial system will of
course be a great boon to the dignity of our judges,
who will no longer be forced to demean themselves
by dealing with the most undesirable elements in the
population. Our judges, so terribly overworked as
they are today, hopefully will not have to deal with
any elements of the population once the trial system
is completely phased out. This will leave them free
for the reflection and reading that is so essential to
maintaining a high level of judicial wisdom.
The second benefit to be derived from replacing
the archaic and slow-moving trial system by more
modern judicial methods is this: the courtrooms of
this land will once again be a wonderfully inspiring
place for the schoolchildren of America to visit. I
see a day, in fact, when parents will be able to send
their children off to visit a courtroom without fear
that they will
have to witness anything inappropriate or unsettling
to the eyes or ears of a growing youngster. I
see a day in which not only schoolchildren, but
mothers holding their babies, will be able to walk
through the halls of justice to observe the judges
in their wonderful black robes, relieved of the
time-consuming burdens of the courtroom,
gathering the wisdom of the ages from their
thinking and their lawbooks. I see a day when
schoolchildren and mothers holding their babies
will be able to sit in the jury boxes, just as though
a real trial were underway, and in this way
experience at firsthand the age-old grandeur of a
legal tradition that has come down to us in all its
glory from Anglo-Saxon times.
But of course we cannot undo overnight the
judicial mess that we have inherited from the
previous administration, and the thirty-five administrations
before his. As a result, even as we
are winding down the trial system that has
caused this country so much expense and
confusion, we have still to deal in the
courtroom with the likes of Charles Curtis
Flood and his team of attorneys.
Now fortunately two different courts have already
found against Charles Curtis Flood in his
attempt to destroy the game of baseball. These
decisions made during the tenure in office of
this administration, have gone a long way, I am
sure, to restoring the confidence of a public
only recently so disappointed by the verdict
reached in Mayor John Lancelot's New York, to
free thirteen members of the Black Panther
Party.
Of course I have no more right to tell the
Mayor of New York how to run his city than he
has to tell me how- to run the country or the
world. But I must, in all honesty, say that I was
as startled as the great majority of Americans,
first by that verdict, and second, by Mayor
Lancelot's decision, following the verdict, to allow
these thirteen Black Panthers to resume their
political activities in his city. All I can say as
President is that I trust this will not become the
model for the treatment of the acquitted in other
cities around the country.
Now I have no doubt that if the Mayor of
New York were in my place he would not hesi-
tate to declare a hands-off policy where Charles
Curtis Flood is concerned. If self-confessed
Black Panthers are to be left free to stalk the
streets that are no longer safe for our wives and
daughters, why bother to bring to justice a man
who has not confessed to being a Black Panther?
So, I am afraid, the. logic would run, if another
man were in my shoes.
But so long as he is not, so long as I am the
duly elected President of the United States, I can
assure you that there will be no mollycoddling of
any fugitive who, after twice being prevented by
the courts from destroying baseball and un-
108 OUR GANG
dermining the youth of this country, decided that
he, Charles Curtis Flood, had had enough of law
and order and life within the system. There will be
no mollycoddling of a man who undertook to
subvert and corrupt the youth of this country by
the most insidious means imaginable, with a
recklessness and a viciousness equalled not even by
the most hardened drug pushers and the most
loathsome pornographers.
No, it was not to the dissolute, unprincipled and
overindulged on our college campuses that Charles
Curtis Flood turned with his plan to destroy
America. Nor was this yet another call to violence
to the dropout and hippies and flagdefilers of the
left.
Who then, you ask, did he seek to corrupt? The
answer, my fellow Americans, is the Boy Scouts of
America. Not only did Charles Curtis Flood incite
them to riot, and tamper with their morals, but
what is even worse, it was he and he alone who
drove the Boy Scouts headlong into the tragedy
that occurred here yesterday in Washington, D.C.
Surely the great majority of Americans will agree
that it is a tragedy in every sense of the word when
the brave fighting men of our Army are called
upon to risk their lives in the streets of
Washington, D.C., instead of in a foreign country.
But that is what happened here in the na
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 10g
lion's capital, when, through a long day and a long
night, our brave soldiers, armed only with loaded
rifles, fixed bayonets, tear-gas canisters and gas
masks, faced a mob of Boy Scouts, numbering
nearly ten thousand.
I am sure you all know by now the nature of the
chants and the songs that these ten thousand Boy
Scouts were singing in the streets of the nation's
capital. I am sure you are familiar with the kind of
placards they were waving before the television
cameras. I do not intend to repeat to you the
wording of those posters. It should suffice to say
that they did justice to the language and interests of
Charles Curtis Flood, whose favorite city, according
to his own writings, is Copenhagen, Denmark, the
pornography capital of the world.
The posters are presently in the hands of the FBI,
whose laboratories have already begun the
painstaking job of fingerprinting each and every
poster, and submitting them to blood tests so as to
determine the correlation between the obscenity
printed on an individual poster and the blood type
of the Boy Scout bearing the poster containing
those objectionable words. If such correlations can
be established with a reasonable degree of accuracyand
we think they can-it will of course be of great
assistance to our law enforcement agencies. Under
our program of "preventive detention," we will be
able to round up
110 OUR GANG
those with suspect blood types before sueh
demonstrations as this even get under way, thus
preventing them from violating community standards
of decency, and the ordinary everyday rules of
courtesy, decorum and good taste that are sacred to
the great majority of Americans.
As you all know from the headlines, of the
approximately ten thousand Boy Scouts who assembled
here in Washington during the two-day
uprising to threaten the lives of our brave fighting
men, it was necessary to kill only three in order to
maintain law and order. That breaks down to one
and one-half Scouts dead per diem, while nine
thousand nine hundred and ninetyeight and a half
Scouts continued to live full and active lives the first
day, and nine thousand, nine hundred and ninetyseven
the second.
Now I would think that by anyone's standards, a
mortality rate in a crisis of this kind of .0003 is a
wonderful tribute to the very great restraint with
which we were able to confront what could have
been a terrible' tragedy for our soldiers. Certainly it
should give solace to all of those who detest
bloodshed as much as I do, and put the lie once and
for all to the vicious charge that it was the military
and not the Scouts who were responsible for the
violence. On the other hand, I think the fact that we
did have three Scouts dead by the end of the second
day is a good indication of the necessary firmness
with
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 111
which we always try to balance off our very great
restraint.
Of course, I am sure the great majority of
Americans realize that there is always going to be a
small, vocal minority of cavilers and critics, who are
never going to be satisfied, no matter how perfectly
balanced the restraint and the firmness with which
we deal with civil disruptions of this kind. Even if
there should be only one person dead over a twoday
period, or as little as half a person a day; even if
over a two-day period there should be only one
person who is slightly maimed-these critics will
begin to talk as though the tragedy wasn't the overwhelming
danger to which tens of thousands of our
brave soldiers were subjected, but the maiming of
one person out of only ten thousand, and what is
more than likely, an out-of-towner who, unlike our
brave soldiers, had only to remain at home to stay
out of harm's way.
Well, to this small vocal minority, let me make
one thing very clear.
I too have great sympathy for the families of the
three Boy Scouts who were killed here in
Washington. I am a father, and I know full well how
important children can be to a man's career; and
incidentally, in that connection, a wife. As a matter
of fact, my wife and I and our wonderful children
had condolence messages prepared for far more
than the three who died
112 OUR GANG
here, and were prepared to dispatch them on a
moment's notice. Throughout the crisis I was in
continuous touch with the morgue here in Washington,
as I am with the morgues around the
country, by a special "hot line," and had it been
necessary to wire not three, but three thousand such
messages, I assure you that my family and I would
have seen that those words of sympathy had left the
White House before the bodies were even cold. I
am proud to say that my wife and my daughters
were prepared to work' far into the night in order
that families less fortunate than our own might have
some small comfort in their hour of need. Nor do
we intend to forget these people when Christmas
time rolls around.
But let there be no mistake about it: quick on the
trigger as I may be with compassion for the
innocent families, I am equally swift in my condemnation
of these three guilty Scouts. And I say
"guilty" because if they were not guilty they would
not be dead. That is not the kind of country we live
in.
Now I know there are those apologists for the
Boy Scout uprising who have attempted to arouse
sympathy for the three guilty Scouts by pointing
out that while one had attained the rank of Eagle
Scout, the other two were "only" Tenderfoots. If
pressed they will concede that an Eagle Scout is a
highly trained and disciplined youngster, capable of
functioning as a guerrilla
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 113
insurrectionist because of the various survival tactics
he has had to master in order to attain his key
position in the Scout infrastructure. But what of the
two Tenderfoots, they ask. How could two little
Tenderfoots pose so serious a threat to our national
security as to make it necessary to kill them?
Well, let me answer that question, my fellow
Americans, by showing you the weapons that were
found concealed, hanging from the belts, of these
"two little Tenderfoot Scouts" when their bodies
were searched by the FBI, the Secret Service, the
CIA, the Military Police, the Shore Patrol, the
Attorney General's office, the Capitol Police Force,
the Police Force of the District of Columbia, as well
as by law enforcement officers summoned from
around the country, to guarantee the probity and
thoroughness of this investigation.
Now I am sure that we all still remember with a
sad and mournful heart the 6.5-millimeter Italian
carbine rifle purchased for $12.78 from a Chicago
mail-order house by President Charisma's assassin,
Lee Harvey Oswald, whom I mentioned earlier in
connection with James Earl Ray and Charles Curtis
Flood. In the mail-order catalog that rifle probably
did not appear to be any more sophisticated than
the weapon I am about to show you now, or any
more capable of changing the course of history.
And yet none of
114 OUR GANG
us will ever forget the impact it had upon President
Charisma's career and my own. I know that to many
of you this object that I am holding in my right
hand looks as innocent and harmless as that $12.78
mail-order rifle undoubtedly did in the mail-order
catalog. But let there be no mistake about it, it is just
as effective, if not more so.
Firstly: whereas the rifle that destroyed President
Charisma's political career measured forty inches
overall, this knife that I hold here in my hand
measures, with the blades sheathed, only four and
five-eighths inches. This makes it an ideal weapon
to use in public places, as opposed to a forty-inch
rifle which might arouse suspicion on a school bus,
or in a supermarket, or any of the hundred places
where you and your loved ones find yourselves in
the course of an ordinary day.
Secondly: it is a far more vicious weapon than an
ordinary rifle and, needless to say, does not even
begin to approach in humaneness a simple
thousand-pound bomb, let alone a nuclear explosive.
As one who was raised as a Quaker, you
know, I have a particularly strong interest in being
humane. That is why, since coming to office, I have
done everything I can to get Congress to
appropriate money for a weapons system that would
make us number one in the world in that
department. Surely there is no reason why a coun
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 115
try with our scientific and technological resources
cannot develop weapons with destructive powers so
total and immediate as to guarantee to every man,
woman and child on this planet what until now has
been reserved for those few fortunate people who
die in their sleep, and that is the comfort of passing
unknowingly from this life into the next. Now that
is the type of death people have dreamed about for
themselves since time immemorial, and let it not be
recorded that Trick E. Dixon lacked the moral and
spiritual idealism to address himself to that dream.
But now let me ask you this, my fellow Americans.
What could be further from the kind of
painless death for men everywhere that this administration
is working so hard to bring about, than
that which is experienced by the victim of a knife
such as I am holding in my hand? Not only is it
necessary to deliver as many as five to ten
horrifyingly painful stab wounds in order to kill
somebody with a weapon this small, but in order to
accomplish this the murderer must exhibit a
sustained viciousness, a cold-blooded determination
to kill, that, I assure you, would shock and appall a
combat-tried B-5z bomber pilot no less than it does
you and me.
And let me tell you how they manage that
sustained viciousness: Unlike our pilots in Vietnam,
whose satisfaction consists solely in getting the job
done as quickly and thoroughly as pos-
116 OUR GANG
sible, and who have no interest at all in whatever
cries and moans may happen to arise from those
who do not die instantly in the blast, the people
who use weapons like these are obviously sadists of
the sort who enjoy watching the blood run out of
their victims, and, incidentally in that connection,
hearing the cries of a person in physical torment.
Why else would they use a weapon that takes up to
half an hour to do the sort of job our pilots
accomplish in a split second, and without the
groaning and the gore?
Now let's look at the knife closely. 4 am going to
open out the blades one by one, and describe to you
the purpose and function of each. You should not
be misled by its four-and-five-eighthsinch exterior
into imagining that it is simply an instrument
designed to kill. Like so many of the weapons
carried by guerrilla revolutionaries around the world,
it has multiple uses, of which murder of the
agonizing and sadistic variety is but one.
Let's begin here, with the smallest of the four
blades. In the language of those who employ such
weapons, it is known as "the bottle opener." I'll tell
you how it got that name in a moment. You will
observe that it is hook-shaped at the end, and
measures one inch and oneeighth. It is employed
during the interrogation of prisoners primarily to
gouge out one or both of the eyes. It is also used on
the soles of the feet,
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 117
which are sliced open, like so, with the point of the
hook. Last, but not least, it is sometimes inserted
into the mouth of a prisoner who will not talk, in
order to slit the flesh at the upper part of the
larynx, between the vocal cords. That opening up
there is called the glottis, and "bottle opener" is
derived from "glottal opener," the pet name
originally attached to the blade by its most coldblooded
practitioners.
This second largest blade, measuring one inch
and three-quarters, tapers to a point and probably
looks to you to be a miniature bayonet. Do not be
fooled by appearances. It has nothing to do with
bayonets such as those our brave soldiers found it
necessary to fix to their rifles in selfdefense during
the two-day Boy Scout uprising. This little blade is
known as "the leather punch," and far from being
an instrument of self-defense, it is yet another
torture device, along the lines of the bottle opener.
As its name suggests, it is used to punch holes in
human flesh, or "leather" as the flesh is called by
revolutionaries who consider their enemies to be no
more than animals. It will come as no surprise to
you to learn that it is most frequently driven into the
palms of the hands, much the same way that the
nails were in the movie The Greatest Story Ever
Told.
Now this third blade, an eighth of an inch longer
than the leather punch, is also wider and
118 OUR GANG
less tapered, and has a flat rather than a pointed
end. It is known as "the screwdriver." Traditionally,
it is inserted into the groove between the nails and
the flesh and turned in a rotary fashion, like so.
However, we know from intelligence reports that
the screwdriver may also on occasion be introduced
into bodily apertures, of which the nostrils and the
ears are the only ones I shall choose to make
mention of on nationwide television. Some of my
political opponents may think otherwise-and they
have every right to disagree with my position-but I,
for one, have never believed it necessary to use bad
language to make my point, and I have no intention
of resorting to those kinds of tactics in the midst of
a major address to the nation.
This last blade of the four is probably the one
you're most familiar with from your nightmares.
Two inches and three-quarters in length, ninesixteenths
of an inch at its widest point, it has a
sharp cutting edge that I shall demonstrate for you
on this piece of paper.
Incidentally, it is no accident that printed on this
piece of paper is the Preamble to the Constitution,
the Bill of Rights and the oft-quoted and much
beloved Ten Commandments, with their famous
"Thou shalt nots." As you all remember, these same
Ten Commandments provided the wonderful and
inspiring background for another motion picture of
great spiritual value that I am
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 119
sure the grcat majority of American families enjoyed
as much as our family did. I don't think I am too far
afield when I say that what you see printed on this
sheet of paper (close-up of paper) is just about
everything we believe in and cherish as a people.
I want you to watch as I demonstrate what this
blade can do in a matter of seconds to all that you
and I hold near and dear.
(He slices the piece of paper into one-inch strips
and then holds them up for the audience to see)
Of course you can peel apples with a blade like
this, you can slice your potatoes for frying and you
can cut up your cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes,
onions and celery for salad. And I am sure that
those who would seek to exonerate these three
Scouts will maintain that it was only to prepare a
delicious salad such as I described that they secreted
these weapons upon their belts and carried them
hundreds of miles across state lines to the nation's
capital. I am afraid that whether it is knife-carrying
Boy Scouts or cardcarrying Communists, there will
always be a handful of apologists around to come to
their defense.
My fellow Americans, I want to leave it to you,
and not to the apologists, to decide. ,I ask you to
look at this knife, with all four of its blades
unsheathed, blades capable of inflicting
120 OUR GANG
physical torment of a kind that goes all the way back
to the Crucifixion and beyond. I ask you to look at
this four-pronged instrument of torture. I ask you to
look at what just one of those blades was able to do
to the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of
Rights and the beloved Ten Commandments. And
now I ask you if you think there is anything at all to
be said in defense of three Boy Scouts carrying such
knives into the nation's capital.
And incidentally, in that connection, these were
not the only three Boy Scouts in Washington
bearing concealed weapons on their belts. These
were only the three we happened to kill. In all, a
total of eight thousand four hundred and sixty-three
knives, each resembling this one in every last detail,
were confiscated during the two days the Scouts
were here. That means a grand total of thirty-three
thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two blades, or
enough blades to torture simultaneously every single
resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland, including
women and children.
Now you ask, how did we prevent this bloodbath
from taking place in Chevy Chase? The
answer is by setting up an enclosed camping site
for the Scouts who were not shot. The answer is by
diverting their attention from -violence and
lawbreaking by giving them a chance to test
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 121
their scouting abilities overnight in a wilderness
environment without food or shelter.
And let me tell you something: it is to the very
great credit of the scouting movement in this
country, that once we were able to get these boys
off the streets and into a rugged camping situationand
we have the police to thank for volunteering
their help in getting all the boys out there-they
showed themselves worthy in every way of their
famous motto, "Be Prepared."
Let's take a look at just a few of their accomplishments:
First, in the absence of toilet facilities, they did a
tremendous job in disposing of their waste matter
and the leaves they used for personal hygiene.
Next, what little water they had in their canteens,
they shared in an admirable way, or so it would
seem from the fact that not a single one of the
nearly ten thousand died of thirst. Nor did they
make the mistake of drinking from, or even daring
to bathe in, the pond at the campsite,. so familiar
were they with the danger signs of sewage and
stagnation.
Now anyone familiar with Boy Scout training
could have expected that they would be able to use
their kerchiefs as tourniquets to stop one another's
bleeding, but few of us believed they could ever do
the kind of near professional job
122 OUR GANG
they did making splints out of vines and branches
and shirts torn up into rags.
As for eating, well, I'm proud to say that by
morning they had discovered edible roots and
berries we didn't even know were there. And as
for warmth, as you could expect, they managed
during the night to start several fires in the classic
Boy Scout manner of rubbing two sticks together.
In all, what might have been a nightmare for the
citizens of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was converted
into wonderful scouting experience for the boys
themselves, and one that I'm sure they'll
remember for a long time to come. I know that
when the police vans returned this morning to
take them away, many of the boys were reluctant
to leave the campsite. So anxious were some to
spend another night under the stars, and away
from the so-called "comforts" of civilization such
as medical attention, lawyers, telephones and
food, that it was necessary for the police to chase
after them and literally drag them off the premises
and into the waiting trucks. With fewer and
fewer opportunities available to our youth for
"roughing it," this administration naturally takes
pride in what we were able to do for these
youngsters last night. Moreover, we have given
them every assurance that if and when they ever
come to Washington again, we will make every
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 123
effort to provide them with the same facilities, or
ones even more primitive, if we can find any.
Now I know that many of you out there across
the country are asking yourselves why I should be
making such a generous offer to the Scouts. Why do
I praise them for their behavior at the campsite?
Why am I willing to forgive these youngsters and
give them another chance to make a decent start in
life? It must seem to those of you who saw the
Scouts waving their signs here in the streets of the
nation's capitalsigns offensive and insulting not only
to me but, what is far worse, to my innocent familythat
I more than anyone have a right to harbor a
grievance against these ten thousand Boy Scouts;
and particularly against the three who are now dead
and will never be able to come to me like
responsible children and apologize for trying to
smear my reputation. Why, you may ask, am I so
compassionate, judicious, charitable, tolerant and
wise, when it was my very own political career that
stood to be most damaged by these signs?
Well, those are good and intelligent questions. Let
me try to answer them as forthrightly as I know
how.
My fellow Americans, it is as simple as this
(quickly passes a sponge over his upper lip and slips
it back into his breast pocket): I would
124 OUR GANG
rather be a one-term President than carry a grudge
against a lot of twelve- and thirteen-yearold
American kids. Oh sure, somebody else might try to
make political capital out of a vendetta against these
youngsters, calling them hoodlums and bums and
rotten apples, but I am afraid I am just too big a
man for that. As far as I am concerned, these boys
have learned their lesson, as they proved at the
campsite; and that goes for the three dead Scouts as
well. Even if those three dead boys don't come and
apologize, as far as I am concerned the past is past
and I for one am willing to forgive and forget. For
make no mistake about it: while it is true that I am
strongly opposed to permissiveness, I am just as
opposed to vindictiveness. I no more believe in
punishing a wrongdoer to excess than I would
subscribe to the liberal philosophy that allows a
criminal to go merrily on his way, after he has
committed a crime.
But of even greater importance, I just don't think
we ever cure a disease by treating one of its
symptoms. Rather, we must get to the cause of the
illness. And certainly you know as well as I do, that
the cause of America's problems is not the Boy
Scouts of America. Nobody is ever going to believe
that, and that is why I don't even attempt to make a
case for it.
No, the Boy Scouts of America:-and I think this
will come as a relief to all of you-are no
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 125
more guilty of anything than you are or I am. They
are just another group of American youngsters who
have fallen prey to that small dedicated band of
malcontents and revolutionaries who are out to
destroy our country by destroying our most
important natural resource of all, our wonderful
youth. And unless we cut these sources of contagion
from our society as swiftly and thoroughly as we
would excise a cancer from a living body-and I
know we are all united in our opposition to cancer,
Democrats and Republicans alike-this disease that
has spread even to the Boy Scouts will grow in
virulence until it has infected every last child in the
land, including your own. And so long as I am
President, I am not going to stand idly by while the
children of this country come down with cancer,
leukemia, or, incidentally in that connection,
muscular dystrophy.
No, it is not the Boy Scouts of America, but the
man who incited them to this riot by tampering with
their morals who must be made to take the
punishment that comes to all who would corrupt
the youth of our nation. And that man, my fellow
Americans, is the very same fugitive for whom the
Pro-Pornography government in Copenhagen is
providing refuge at this moment.
Now I cannot divulge to you over nationwide
television the overwhelming evidence compiled by
the justice Department and the FBI, linking
126 OUR GANG
Charles Curtis Flood to the uprising of the Boy
Scouts. We all know, however, the tremendous
influence that major league baseball players have
over the minds and hearts of the young boys of this
nation. I am sure that anyone who remembers how
he himself idolized the great ballplayers of his
youth, will not even need the evidence in order to
imagine just how Charles Curtis Flood might misuse
and mislead these boys for his own subversive ends.
I am afraid that is all I can say to you tonight
about the evidence proving Flood's guilt. As one
who has practiced law, I am particularly sensitive to
the Constitutional rights which every defendant is
entitled to. And I certainly do not intend to
endanger the chances of a conviction by appearing
to try this fugitive on nationwide TV. Once he is
returned to America, he will be entitled to a fair
trial, despite what he has done, and by a jury that
has not been prejudiced against him by so august a
person as the President of the United States of
America.
Right now, as your President, my duty is to do
everything within my power to see that this fugitive
from justice is returned to our shores. Of course, we
have never expected of Flood that he would
voluntarily leave his sanctuary in Denmark, given
the kinds of pleasures such a man might feel free to
pursue in a 'Country with customs that are hardly
those of our own. And if
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 127
Flood is incapable of tearing himself away from his
pleasures so as to face the consequences of his
vicious actions, neither has the Pro-Pornography
government in Copenhagen done anything whatsoever
to force him to surrender himself to the
proper authorities for extradition. On the contrary,
they have rejected out of hand every legitimate
request we have made of them. Even now, with the
American Army massed on their borders, the
American Navy blockading their coast, and the
American Marines firmly in control of "Hamlet's
Castle," they continue to provide him with the
same protection from the law that they provide to
pornographers and filth peddlers from around the
globe.
I know that in the face of such profound
contempt for American power and prestige, the
great majority of Americans would agree that I
have no choice but to order our troops onto
Danish soil so as to establish the D.A.R. as the
freely elected government in Copenhagen. However,
I want to tell you this: because of my Quaker
background, I have, only two hours ago, made one
last valiant effort to bring about a peaceful
resolution of our differences with Denmark. I am
going to conclude my address to you tonight by
recounting in some detail the nature of that effort.
It is a story of bravery and devotion to country that
every American will be proud of. It is a story that
will convince the entire world how
128 OUR GANG
very far this great nation has gone in its attempt to
avoid the armed confrontation that the state of
Denmark seems committed to forcing upon us.
My fellow Americans, only two hours before
coming on television to address you, I gave the
order, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed
Forces meeting his responsibilities, for a fleet of
helicopters to make a surprise landing on the large
Danish island of Zealand at a spot right here
(points), only twenty nautical miles from the capital
of Copenhagen.
Now I realized how dangerous such a gallant
humanitarian effort might be. So did the brave
Green Berets and Rangers who volunteered to
carry it out. Not only would they have to fly in at
treetop level to avoid detection by the Danish radar
system, but there was no precise way of telling the
exact size of the arsenal that Flood had managed to
assemble, with the approval, if not the outright
assistance, of the Danish government. Would he
resort to poison gas? Would he dare to employ
tactical nuclear weapons? There was no way in
which our aerial photography could penetrate this
man's skull, to see just how far he would go in
violating the written and unwritten rules of warfare.
But in that reconnaissance by satellite, as well as
by manned and drone aircraft, h t l established
beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was where
TRICKY ADDRESSES TIM NATION 129
the fugitive was in hiding; and in that I also knew
that there was no way to force the Danish
government to return Flood to the United States,
short off the armed conflict which I am so opposed
to as a Quaker, I proceeded to give the order
for this raid to take place.
Designed to capture Flood, remove him by
helicopter to Elsinore, and hence by military jet to
America, the mission was named, by me, Operation
Courage, and assigned to joint Contingency Task
Force Derring-Do.
It is with deep pride, my fellow Americans, that I
can now tell you that Operation Courage has been
carried out to perfection, exactly in accordance with
the meticulously rehearsed schedule drawn up
beforehand.
First off, the dangerous flight from Elsinore to
the landing site was made in twenty-two minutes
and fourteen seconds, precisely according to the
plan. Next, the hazardous search of the farmhouse,
the outbuildings and the tilled acreage was
accomplished in thirty-four minutes and eighteen
seconds; in other words, with two full seconds to
spare. The ticklish evacuation proceedings required
precisely the seven minutes called for in the
schedule, and the daring return flight to Elsinore, at
treetop level, was accomplished in twenty-two
minutes flat. That is not only four seconds under
the time allotted, but I am proud to say, a new
record for that distance for a Danish
130 OUR GANG
domestic helicopter flight. Moreover, our forces
returned to safety without sustaining a single
casualty. As at Elsinore, the enemy was so completely
taken by surprise that they did not fire a
single shot.
I am proud to tell you that the intelligence on
Operation Courage was equally as impressive as the
split-second timing with which this perilous
mission was accomplished.
First, the seven blond-haired females who were
identified on the aerial photos moving in and out
of the farmhouse at all hours of the day were
present at the time of the landing. They were
found, as expected, in beds scattered throughout
the house, and taken immediately into custody for
interrogation by the Green Berets, as was the
couple claiming to be their "father" and "mother."
The blond-haired females found in the beds in
various stages of undress ranged in age from seven
to eighteen.
Second, the dark round objects visible in the
aerial photographs and identified positively by
intelligence as watermelons, were no longer in the
field, or "patch," at the time of the landing, nor was
there evidence any longer of the watermelon vines
themselves. This has led intelligence to conclude
that only hours before the raid, the telltale
watermelons were removed and replaced with the
ordinary rocks and potato plants found at the time
of the landing. Obviously, this consti
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 131
tuted a desperate last-minute attempt on the part of
the fugitive to avoid detection from the air.
As for the large dark object identified as Charles
Curtis Flood himself, apparently at the very last
minute he too was replaced with a big black
Labrador dog. This was verified when the dog was
found romping in the very fields where
photographs, taken the previous night, revealed the
fugitive exercising by moonlight.
It is to the great credit of the commander in
charge of Operation Courage-and represents the
highest order of dedication and professionalism-that
in order to keep faithfully to the plan, the dog was
taken into custody in precisely the same amount of
time as had been allotted for the capture of Flood.
She was then transported in the command
helicopter, bound and under heavy guard, to
"Hamlet's Castle" at Elsinore. However, once the
helicopters touched safely clown, I immediately gave
the order from the White House that the
interrogation of the dog was to be suspended, and
that she was to be released from her bindings and
allowed to roam on a leash in a grassy enclosure on
the castle grounds.
My fellow Americans, I can assure you that the
friendly treatment that dog is receiving now at the
hands of American soldiers is in sharp contrast to
the heartlessness and cynicism with which the
fugitive himself forced this defenseless
132 OUR GANG
animal to serve as his "stand-in" while he took flight
from justice yet again.
Now it had been my hope that I could come
before you tonight to tell you that Flood was in the
custody of American officials, and that it would not
be necessary to take further measures against a
recalcitrant and contemptuous Danish government
in order to secure his release. And make no mistake
about it. If we were not dealing with a man so
vicious that he would rather risk the life of an
innocent female dog than his own, I could have
done just that.
However, even though they were unable to
apprehend the fugitive at this time, I should still like
to take this opportunity to pay a tribute to the skill,
courage and devotion with which joint Contingency
Task Force Derring-Do carried out Operation
Courage. The flawless fashion in which they
executed this delicate secret mission was
inspirational to all Americans. And surely it must be
accounted the most successful single operation of
its kind staged thus far in the Danish crisis. The
embarrassment alone that we have caused
Copenhagen by pointing up the holes in their radar
system, will inevitably have a profound effect upon
the morale of the Danish people and their armed
forces.
TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 133
They were written by the immortal bard and
renowned humanitarian, William Shakespeare. Yes,
they were written with a quill pen on a piece of
parchment hundreds and hundreds of years ago, but
probably never have they been so true as they are
tonight. This is what Shakespeare said: "Something,"
he said, "is rotten in the state of Denmark." Little
did the immortal bard know then, how prophetic
those words would be in the centuries to come.
My fellow Americans (here Tricky rises from his
chair to sit on the edge of his desk), something is
rotten in Denmark-let there be no mistake about it.
And if it has now fallen to American boys to step in
and eradicate the rottenness that Danish boys are
unable to step in and eradicate, I know they will not
hesitate to do so. (Makes fist) Because we will not
watch as the once-great homeland of Hamlet slips
down the drain of depravity. (Looks down) Instead,
with all the might that we can summon in our
righteous cause, we shall (quick friendly glance at
ceiling), with God's help, purge Denmark of
corruption, now and for all time. (Looks for a
moment into eternity without batting eyelashes)
Thank you, and good night.
My fellow Americans, I am going to conclude my
address with the words of a very great man.
The Assassination
of Tricky
The President of the United States is dead. We
repeat this bulletin. Trick E. Dixon is dead. That is
all the information we have at this time.
The White House has refused to comment on an
earlier bulletin announcing that the President of the
United States is dead. The White House Bilge
Secretary says, "There is no truth whatsoever to
reports of the President's death," but adds that he
will not "categorically" deny the story at this time.
Conflicting stories continue to circulate concerning
the death of the President. A second White
House announcement has now called attention to
the President's schedule for the day, pointing out
that no mention is made there of dying. Also
released was the President's schedule
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 135
for tomorrow, wherein there also appears to be no
plan on the part of the President or his advisers for
him to die. "I think it would be best," said the White
House Bilge Secretary, "in the light of these
schedules, to wait for a statement, one way or
another, from the President himself."
Reports out of Walter Reed Army Hospital now
seem to confirm the earlier bulletin that the
President of the United States is dead. Though the
circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear,
it appears that the President was admitted to Walter
Reed late yesterday for surgery. The purpose of the
secret operation was to remove the sweat glands
from his hip. That is all we know at this time.
The Vice President has flatly denied reports of the
President's death. Here is a portion of the Vice
President's remarks, made as he was on his way to
address the National Yodeling Association:
"Now this is just the kind of reckless rot and
rotten recklessness that you can expect from the vile
vilifiers who are out to vilify vilely."
"What of the reports, Mr. Vice President, that he
had secretly entered Walter Reed last night to have
the sweat glands removed from his hip?"
"Hogwash and hokum. And hooliganism. And
heinous. I spoke to him only five minutes ago and
found him fit as a fiddle. This lachrymose lie is a
lamentable lollapalooza launched by the lunatic
left."
Unconfirmed reports from Walter Reed Hospital
now indicate that the President was found dead at
seven A.M. this morning. No word yet on the cause
of death, or where he was "found." Speculation
mounts that death came following surgery for the
removal of sweat glands lodged in the hip.
We take you now to Republican National
Headquarters, where the chairman of the national
committee is meeting with reporters:
"I cannot believe that the great majority of
Americans are going to keep this great American
from a second term in the White House just
because he is dead, no."
"Then you are admitting, sir, that he is dead?"
"I didn't say that at all. I said, I just don't think
that his death, if it were to come about between
now and the election, would affect his popularity
with the great majority of Americans. After all, this
isn't the first time you people were ready to call him
dead, and here he is, President of the United States."
"But we meant dead politically."
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY , 137
"I'm not going to get into a fancy discussion of
semantics with you fellas. All I'm saying is that
whether these rumors are true or false is not going
to affect our campaign plans by one iota. I'd even
go so far as to say that if it turns out he actually is a
corpse, our margin of victory in '72 will be greater by
far than what it was in '68."
"How do you figure that, Mr. Chairman?'
"Well, I for one just cannot imagine the press of
this country, irresponsible and vicious as it may be,
going after this man dead and buried with the same
kind of virulence they used to go after him alive.
Furthermore, as regards the voters themselves, it
would seem to me that there is a certain sympathy, a
certain warmth that a dead Dixon is going to be able
to arouse in the people of this country that he never
really was able to summon up when he was living
and breathing and so on."
"If he is dead then, you think it would be good
for his image?"
"No doubt about it. I think that in terms of
exposure he may have gone about as far as he can
alive. This is probably just the shot in the arm we've
been looking for, particularly if the Democrats run
Teddy Charisma."
"Can you explain what you mean, Mr. Chairman?"
"Well, assuming for the sake of argument that
Trick E. Dixon is no more, that is going to
138 OUR GANG
cut strongly into the source of Charisma's appeal.
It's one thing, you see,-for a candidate for the
Presidency to have two brothers who are dead-it's
something else when the incumbent himself is dead.
I mean, if experience is any kind of criterion-and I
think it is-I just don't see how you can top the
President now, where this whole death issue is
concerned."
"Mr. Chairman, is there any truth at all to the
growing suspicion that you people are sending up a
trial balloon with these rumors of the President's
death? To see just how much political mileage there
is in it, if any? That is, on the one hand you
yourself sound convinced that the President's death
would give a great boost to his waning popularity,
while Vice President What'shis-name asserts that
the President is `fit as a fiddle and that these
rumors have been propagated by `the lunatic left."'
"Look, I have no intention of criticizing the
alliteration of the Vice President of the United
States of America. Under the Constitution he has a
right to alliterate just as much as any other
American citizen. I am speaking to you boys strictly
as party chairman, and all I am saying, in language
plain and simple, is that the President has
absolutely no intention of withdrawing from the
race for any reason whatsoever, including his
own death. Anybody who counts him out be
cause of something like that, just doesn't know
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 139
the kind of guy they are dealing with. This isn't a
Lyin' B. Johnson, who tosses in the towel because
the country hates his guts and doesn't trust him as
far as they can throw him. No, you're not going to
intimidate Trick E. Dixon just by hating him. Hell,
he's had that all his life; he's used to it. And you're
not going to keep him off the ballot by killing him
either. We've seen him rise from the ashes before,
and I have every expectation that we are going to
see precisely
that again. If he has to address that convention
from inside an urn, he'll do it-that's the kind of
dedicated American we're talking about."
The White House has now issued a statement
denying-I repeat, denying-that the President entered
Walter Reed Hospital yesterday for the removal of
the sweat glands from his hip. There continues
however to be a total news blackout from that
source as to whether President Dixon is dead or
alive.
We take you now to the National Weightlifters
Convention, where Vice President What'shis-name
is in the midst of an impromptu ad
dress on those who he claims have perpetrated
upon the nation this "lachrymose lie":
"the nitwits, the namby-pambys, the neurasthenics,
the neurotics, the necrophiliacs-"
140
We interrupt the Vice President's alliteration to
take you to Walter Reed Hospital for a special
report:
"The mood here is somber, though it remains
impossible to piece the story together in its entirety.
It seems now that the President did enter the
hospital late yesterday for a secret operation. First
reports had it that the operation was to have been
on his hip, for the surgical removal of sweat glands
apparently lodged in that area. However, the White
House, as you know, has flatly denied that story,
and only a moment ago I learned the reason why.
The operation was to have been not, on the Chief
Executive's hip, but on his lip, l-i-p. The sweat
glands were, from all reports, to have been removed
from the lip this morning. But now, according to
the latest White House communique, surgery has
been postponed for the time being because of, and I
quote, `an unforeseen development.' According to
highly placed sources within the hospital itself, that
unforeseen development is the death of the
President of the United States. Now I see that the
Secretary of Defense has just emerged from the
hospital and is walking this way. Secretary Lard,
have you just come from the President's side?"
"Yes."
"You seem quite despondent, sir. Can you tell us
if he is dead or alive?"
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 141
"I'm not at liberty to answer that question."
"Unconfirmed reports from various sources say
he was found dead at seven A.M. this morning.
,
"No comment."
"Can you tell us then why you were visiting
him?"
"To find out his secret timetable for ending
the war."
"Is there anybody other than the President
who knows the secret timetable?"
"Of course not."
"Then if he's dead, he's taken the secret time
table with him to the grave?"
"No comment."
"Secretary Lard, did the President have any
other visitors aside from yourself?"
"Yes. The Joint Chiefs. And of course the
Professor."
"And they don't know the secret timetable either?"
"I told you, nobody knows it but him. That's
what makes it secret."
"Not even his wife?"
"Well, actually, she thought she had it, when
we called her this morning. But it was just an old
train schedule between Washington and New
York. She found it in one of his suits."
"There's no other place he might have left
it?"
"It doesn't seem like it."
"Cut open the mattresses, did you?"
"Oh, all of that. Ripped up floors. Tore out
paneling. Turned the place inside out. No sign of
anything resembling a secret timetable."
"Mr. Secretary, everything you say seems to
confirm the rumor that the President is dead. If that
is the case, what were you and the joint Chiefs and
the Professors doing sitting around a corpse, trying
to find out vital information?"
"Well, we also had a medium with us."
"A medium?"
"Oh, don't worry. She's worked for us before.
Highest security clearance. Top-flight Gypsy."
"And did she get through to the President?" "I
believe I can say she did." "How do you
know?"
"Well, she got through to a voice who kept
saying he was a Quaker."
"And what about the secret timetable?"
"He says a secret is a secret, and he owes it to
the American people, who have placed their
confidence in him, not to betray a sacred trust.
He said they can brand and skewer him in Hell,
he's never going to tell a soul."
"Honest almost to a fault."
"Well, he had to be, you know, with that
sweating problem. Otherwise people tended not
always to believe everything he said."
"Ladies and gentlemen, that was the Secre
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 143
tary of Defense, speaking directly from the lawn
outside of Walter Reed Hospital. As you saw, he
was distraught and very near to tears throughout the
interview, thus appearing to confirm the reports of
the President's death. We return you to the Vice
President, who is now addressing the National
Sword Swallowers Association."
"-the psychotics, the sob sisters, the skin
merchants, the saboteurs, the self-styled Sapphos,
the self-styled Swinburnes, the swine, the satyrs, the
schizos, the sodomists, the sissies, the screamers,
the screwy, the scum, the self-congratulatory selfcongratulators,
the sensationalists, the snakes in the
grass, the sex fiends, the shiftless, the shines, the
shaggy, the sickly, the syphilitic-"
We go now to the headquarters of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation:
"Is it the same knife that the President
demonstrated on television last night, Chief?"
"No doubt about it. Here are the four blades.
Count 'em. One, two, three, four. Open-and-shut
case."
"But my understanding was that some eight
thousand such knives-"
"We've sifted through the eight thousand, don't
worry about that. And this is the one. This is the
murder weapon, no doubt about it."
"Then the President has been murdered?"
"I can't tell you that right now. But I can assure
you that if there has been a murder, this is what did
it."
"And do you have the murderer in custody?"
"One thing at a time. You rush in and say you've
got the murderer, everybody thinks you picked up
the first guy you could find out on the street. Let's
at least get the announcement of a murder, before
we start accusing people."
"How about the kind of murder. Stabbed to
death?"
"Well, there again it's like, `Have you stopped
beating your wife.' But of course I will say this
much: with a knife, you may very well find that the
victim has been stabbed to death, yes. Of course,
there are other possibilities as well, and I can assure
you we're looking into them thoroughly."
"For instance."
"Well, you've got your bludgeoning, of course.
You've got your various forms of torture such as the
President himself outlined on TV the other night."
"In other words, it's possible the President's
famous eyes may have been gouged out."
"I wouldn't rule that out at this time, no." "But by
whom? How? When? Where?" "Look, as we say
here at the Bureau, ask me no questions and I'll
tell you no lies. The important thing right now is
that we want to assure
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 145
the American people, not only that we are actually
on top of this case even before it has broken, but
that we are keeping them abreast of the facts
virtually before there are any. We just don't intend
to come in for the sort of criticism on this
assassination of a President that we did on the last
one."
"What sort of criticism do you mean?"
"Well, last time there was just some kind of cloud
over the whole thing, wasn't there? Credibility gap
and so on. People thinking they weren't getting the
straight story. Accusing us of covering up and being
caught off guard and so on. Well, this time it's going
to be different, I can assure you. This time we have
the weapon and a fairly good idea of who did it
beforehand, and we're really only waiting for word
that it actually happened, to make an arrest. After a
decent interval, of course, just so it doesn't look as
though we picked up the first poor slob we found in
the gutter."
"Is it a Boy Scout? That is, will it be a Boy Seout,
if and when?"
"Well, of course I am only a law enforcement
officer. I don't decide who commits the crimes, I
just catch them, after that decision has been made
by the proper authorities. I will say this, however.
We would not have decided on a Boy Scout knife as
the murder weapon, if we didn't think there was a
good strong motive to go with
146 OUR GANG
it. That was one of the troubles with the last
assassination: didn't have a good strong motive to
go with it. After all, we are talking about the
assassination of the highest elected officer in the
land. People like a good strong motive when
something like that happens, and I can't say that I
blame them. That's why this time we intend to give
it to them. Otherwise, you're just going to get your
national disunity, your credibility gap, your doubt,
and your cloud over the whole thing."
"And you honestly think that this Boy Scout
knife will clear up such doubt and incredulity?"
"Why? Don't you?"
"Well, it's not for me to say. I'm just an
objective reporter."
"No, no, go ahead, say. What do you think? Just
because you're objective doesn't necessarily make
you a fool. You don't find the Boy Scout knife
convincing? Is that it?"
"But what I think isn't at issue-either this is or is
not the murder weapon."
"In other words, you're implying that it does
seem to you far-fetched. Good enough. What would
you think of this, then?"
"That?"
"Yes, sir-a Louisville Slugger. Curt Flood's very
own baseball bat. Let me show you on this model
here of the President's head the kind of damage you
can do with one of these things.
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 147
Remember, before, when I said `bludgeoned'? Well,
watch this."
To the White House now, for an important
announcement by the President's Bilge Secretary.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to make the
following announcement concerning the President's
health. At midnight last night the President entered
Walter Reed Army Hospital for minor surgery
involving the surgical removal of the sweat glands
from his upper lip."
"Can you spell that, Blurb?"
"Lip. L-i-p."
"And the first word?"
"Upper. U-p-p-e-r ... Now as you know, the
President has always wanted to do everything he
could to gain the trust and the confidence and, if it
was within the realm of possibility, the affection of
the American people. It was his belief that if he
could stop sweating so much along his upper lip
when he addressed the nation, the great majority of
the American people would come to believe he was
an honest man, speaking the truth, and maybe even
like him a little better. Now this is not to say that
people who sweat Along the upper lip are
necessarily liars and/or unlikable. Many people who
sweat profusely along the upper lip are outstanding
citizens in their communities and sweat the way they
do because of the many civic duties they are called
148 OUR GANG
upon to perform. Then too there are a lot of good,
hard-working ordinary citizens who simply sweat
along the upper lip as a matter of course
That is really all I have to say to you at this
hour, ladies and gentlemen. I wouldn't have
bothered to call you together like this, had it not
been for the continuing rumors that it was the
President's `hip' that had required surgery. There is
absolutely no truth to that whatsoever, and I wanted
you to be the first to know. I hope by tomorrow in
fact to have available for you x-ray photos of the
President's hip that will make it absolutely clear that
it is in perfect condition."
"Which hip will that be, Blurb?"
"The left hip."
"What about the right one?"
"We'll try to get those to you within the week. I
assure you that we're working to clear this thing up
just as fast as we can. We don't want the people in
this country to go around thinking the President has
something wrong with his hips any more than you
do."
"What about the reports that he's dead, Blurb?"
"I have nothing to say about that at this time."
"But Secretary Lard was seen weeping as he
left Walter Reed today. Surely that suggests that
President Dixon is dead."
"Not necessarily. It could just as well mean
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 149
that he's alive. I'm not going to speculate either way,
gentlemen, in a matter this serious."
"What about reports that he's been murdered by a
Boy Scout gone berserk?"
"We're looking into that, and if there's any truth
at all to that story, I assure you, we'll be in touch
with you about it."
"Can, you say anything definite about his condition
at all?"
"He's resting comfortably."
"Are the sweat glands out? And if so, can we see
them?"
"No comment. Moreover, it would really be up to
the First Lady anyway, whether she wanted the
President's sweat glands to be made available for
photographers and so on. I think she might want to
keep something as personal as those glands just for
the immediate family, and maybe eventually build a
Trick E. Dixon Library at Prissier in which to house
them."
"Can you tell us how big they are, Blurp?"
"'Well, I would imagine that given the sheer
amount of sweating he used to do, they were pretty
good-sized. But I'm only guessing. I haven't seen
them."
"Blurb, is there any truth to the report that while
at Walter Reed he was also going to have surgery
done to prevent his eyes from shifting?"
"No comment."
"Does that mean they were gouged out?"
150 OUR GANG
"No comment."
"Will the eyes be in the Trick E. Dixon Library
at Prissier too, Blurb?"
"Once again, that would be entirely up to the
First Lady."
"Blurb, what about his gestures? He's been
criticized for a certain unnaturalness, or falseness, in
his gestures. They don't always seem tied in to what
he's saying. If he's still alive, are there any plans for
him to have that fixed too? And if so, how? Can
they sort of get him synchronized in that
department?"
"Gentlemen, I'm sure the doctors are going to do
everything they can to make him appear as honest
as possible."
"One last question, Blurb. If he's dead, that would
make Mr. What's-his-name the President. Is there
any truth to the rumor that you people are
postponing the announcement of Dixon's death
because you're looking for a last-minute
replacement for What's-his-name? Is that why Mr.
What's-his-name himself keeps denying so
vehemently the reports that the President is deadfor
fear of being dumped?"
"Gentlemen, I think you know as well as I do
that the Vice President is not the kind of man who
would want to be President of the United States if
he felt there was any doubt as to his qualifications
for the office. That's f of even a question I will take
seriously."
TAE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 151
"Good evening. This is Erect Severehead with a
cogent news analysis from the nation's capital ... A
hushed hush pervades the corridors of power. Great
men whisper whispers while a stunned capital
awaits. Even the cherry blossoms along the
Potomac seem to sense the magnitude. And
magnitude there is. Yet magnitude there has been
before, and the nation has survived. A mood of
cautious optimism surged forward just at dusk.
Then set the age-old sun behind these edifices of
reason, and gloom once more descended. Yet
gloom there has been, and in the end the nation has
survived. For the principles are everlasting, though
the men be mortal. And it is that very mortality that
the men in the corridors of power demonstrate. For
no one dares to play politics with the
momentousness of a tragedy of such scope, or the
scope of a tragedy of such momentousness. If
tragedy it be. Yet tragedies there have been, and the
nation founded upon hope and trust in man and the
deity, has continued to survive. Still, in this worried
capital tonight, men watch and men wait. So too do
women and children in this worried capital tonight
watch and wait. This is Erect Severehead From
Washington, D.C."
"-the flag-burners, the faggots, the fairies, the
filth peddlers, the Fabian Socialists of yore,
152 OUR GANG
the fair-weather friends, the fairies, the faithless,
the flesh-show operators-"
We interrupt the Vice President's address to the
National Primates Association to bring you the
following bulletin. A troop of Boy Scouts from
Boston, Massachusetts, the home state of Senator
Edward Charisma, has confessed to the murder of
the President of the United States. The FBI has
declined to give their names until such time as the
President's murder has been announced by the
White House. The Boy Scouts are being held
without bail, and according to the FBI the case is,
quote cinched unquote. The murder weapon, which
at first was believed to be the very knife that the
President had exhibited on television during his
famous "Something Is Rotten in Denmark" speech,
is now identified as a Louisville Slugger baseball bat,
formerly the property of Washington Senator center
fielder Curt Flood. We return you to Vice President
What's-his-name at the Primates convention:
"-the flotsam and jetsam of the universities, the
fairies, the folk singers, the fairies, the freaks, the
fairies, the free-loaders on welfare, the fairies, the
free-speechers with their favorite four-letter word,
the fairies-"
We switch you to our correspondent at Walter
Reed Army Hospital.
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 153
"Ladies and gentlemen, this terrible news has just
come to us from a highly reliable source within the
hospital. The President of the United States was
assassinated sometime in the early hours of the
morning. The cause of death was drowning. He was
found at seven A.M., unclothed and bent into the
fetal position, inside a large transparent baggie filled
with a clear fluid presumed to be water, and tied
shut at the top. The baggie containing the body of
the President was found on the floor of the hospital
delivery room. How he was removed from his own
room, where he was awaiting surgery on his upper
lip, and forced or enticed into a baggie is not known
at this time. There would seem to be little doubt,
however, that the manner in which he has been
murdered is directly related to the controversial
remarks he made at San Dementia on April 3, in
which he came out four-square for `the rights of the
unborn.'
"Right now, hospital officials seem to believe that
the President left his bed voluntarily to accompany
his assailant to the delivery room, perhaps in the
belief that he was to be photographed there beside
the stomach of a woman in labor. The recent Scout
uprising, and yesterday's nuclear bombing of
Copenhagen, seemed to those of us here in
Washington to have taken something of an edge off
his campaign in behalf of the unborn, and it may
well be that he had
154 OUR GANG
decided to seize upon this fortuitous circumstance
to revitalize interest in his program. Doubtless,
with the destruction of Copenhagen and the occupation
of Denmark successfully accomplished,
he was anxious to return to what he considered our
most pressing domestic problem. Rumor has it that
he intended, in his next major address, to use his
new upper lip to outline his belief in `the sanctity
of human life, including the life of the yet unborn.'
"But now there will be no speech on the sanctity
of human life with the new lip he would have been
so proud of. A cruel assassin with a macabre sense
of humor has seen to that. The man who believed in
the unborn is dead, his unclothed body found
stuffed in the fetal position inside a water-filled
baggie on the floor of the delivery room here at
Walter Reed Hospital. This is Roger Rising-to-the-
Occasion at Walter Reed."
Quickly now to the White House, and the latest
bulletin from the Bilge Secretary.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have a few more facts
for you now about the President's hip, including
the x-ray I promised earlier. This gentleman in
white that you see beside me in his surgical gloves,
gown and mask is probably the foremost authority
on the left-hip in the world. Doctor, will you
comment on this x-ray of the President's left hip
for the members of the press. I'll hold it for you so
you don't dirty your gloves."
"Thank you, Blurb. Ladies and gentlemen, there is
just no doubt about it in my mind. This is a left
hip."
"Thank you, Doctor. Any questions?"
"Blurb, the report from Walter Reed is that the
President has been assassinated. Stuffed naked into
a baggie and drowned."
"Gentlemen, let's try to keep to the subject. The
doctor here has flown in from Minnesota right in
the middle of an operation on a left hip, to verify
this X-ray for you. I don't think we want to keep
him longer than we have to. .Yes?"
"Doctor, can you be absolutely sure that the left
hip is the President's?"
"Of course I can."
"How, Sir?"
"Because that's what the Bilge Secretary said it
was. Why would he give me a picture of a hip and
say it was the President's if it wasn't?"
(Laughter from the Press Corps)
"-the gadflies, the go-go girls, the geldings, the
gibbons, the gonadless, the gonorrheacarriers-"
We interrupt the Vice President's address to i I is
National Association for the Advancement
156 OUR GANG
of Color Slides to switch you to our correspondents
around the country.
First, Morton Momentous in Chicago:
"Here in the Windy City the mood is one of
incredulity, of shock, of utter disbelief. So stunned
are the people of this great Middle Western
metropolis that they seem totally unable to respond
to the bulletins from Washington that have come to
them over radio and television. And so from the
Gold Coast to Skid Row, from the fashionable
suburbs of the North to the squalid ghettos of the
South, the scene is much the same: people going
about their ordinary, everyday affairs as though
nothing had happened. Not even the flags have
been lowered to half-staff, but continue to flutter
high in the breeze, even as they did before the news
reached this grief-stricken city of the terrible fate
that has befallen our leader. Trick E. Dixon is dead,
cruelly and bizarrely murdered, a martyr to the
unborn the world round-and it is more than the
mind or spirit of Chicago can accept or understand.
And so throughout this great city, life, in a manner
of speaking, goes on-much as you see it directly
behind me here in the worldfamous Loop. Shoppers
rushing to and fro. The din of traffic continuous.
Restaurants jammed. Streetcars and busses packed.
Yes, the frantic, mindless scurrying of a big city at
the rush hour. It is almost as though the people here
in Chicago
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 157
are afraid to turn for a single second from the
ordinary routine of an ordinary day, to face this
ghastly tragedy. This is Morton Momentous from a
stunned, incredulous Chicago."
We take you now to Los Angeles and correspondent
Peter Pious.
"If the people in the streets of Chicago are
incredulous, you can well imagine the mood of the
ordinary man in the pool here in Trick E. Dixon's
native state. In Chicago they are simply unable to
respond; here it is even more heartrending. The
Californians I have spoken withor tried to speak
with-are like nothing so much as small children who
have been confronted with an event far beyond
their emotional range of response. All they can do
when they learn the tragic news that Trick E. Dixon
has been found stuffed in a baggie is giggle. To be
sure, there are the proverbial California wisecracks,
but by and large it is giggling such as one might hear
from perplexed and bewildered children that
remains in one's ears, long after the giggler himself
has (lived off the high board or driven away in his
sports car. For this is Trick E. Dixon's state and
these are Trick E. Dixon's people. Here he is not
just the President, here he is a friend and a
neighbor, one of them, a healthy child of the
sunlight, of the beaches and the blue Pacific, a wan
who embodied all the robustness and grandeur of
America's golden state. And now that
158 OUR GANG
golden child of the Golden West is gone; and
Californians can only giggle to suppress their sobs
and hide their tears. Peter Pious in Los Angeles."
Next, Ike Ironic, in New York City.
"No one ever believed that Trick E. Dixon was
beloved in New York City. Yes, he lived here once,
in this fashionable Fifth Avenue apartment building
directly behind me. But few ever considered him a
resident of this city so much as a refugee from
Washington, biding his time to return to public
office. Nor did New Yorkers seem much impressed
when he assumed the powers of the Presidency in
1969. But now he is gone, and all at once the very
deep affection, the love, if you will, for their former
neighbor, is everywhere apparent. Of course, you
have to know New Yorkers to be able to penetrate
the outer shell of cynicism and see the love
beneath. You had to look, but you saw it today,
here in New York: in the seeming boredom and
indifference of a bus driver; in the impatience of a
salesgirl; in the anger over nothing of a taxi driver;
in the weariness of the homebound workers packed
into the subway; in the blank gaze of the drunks
along the Bowery; in the haughtiness of a dowager
refusing to curb her dog on the fashionable Upper
East Side. You had to look, but there it was, love
for Trick E. Dixon .. .
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 159
Only now he is gone, gone before they could, with
their boredom and indifference and impatience and
anger and exhaustion and blankness and
haughtiness, express to him all they felt so deeply in
their hearts. Yes, the bitter irony is this: he had to
die in a baggie, before New Yorkers could tender
him that hard-won love that would have meant so
much to him. But then it is a day of bitter ironies.
Ike Ironic from grief-stricken and, perhaps, guiltridden
Fifth Avenue in the city of New York, where
he lived like a stranger, but has died like a long-lost
son."
Reports coming in from around the nation
confirm those you have just heard from our correspondents
in Chicago, Los Angeles and New
York, reports of people too stunned or heartbroken
to be able to respond with the conventional tears or
words of sorrow to the news of President Dixon's
assassination. No, the ordinary signs of grief are
clearly not sufficient to express the emotion that
they feel at this hour, and so they pretend for the
time being that it simply has not happened; or they
giggle with embarrassment and disbelief; or they
attempt to hide beneath a gruff exterior, the deep
love for a fallen leader that smolders away within.
And what of the madman who perpetrated this
deed? For that story, we return you to the
headquarters of the FBI in Washington.
"That's right, we're pretty sure now it was a
madman who perpetrated this deed."
"And the Scouts? The knife? The Louisville
Slugger?"
"Oh, we're not ruling out any of the hard
evidence. I'm talking now about the brains behind
the whole thing. More accurately, the lack of brains.
You see, that's really our number one clueeverything
else aside, this was a pretty stupid thing
to do to the President. There he is, the President,
and they do a stupid thing like this. Now if this is
somebody's idea of a practical joke, well, I for one
don't consider it funny. You're not just stuffing
anybody into a baggie, you're stuffing the President
of the United States. What about the dignity of his
office? If you have no respect for the man, what
about the office? That's what really gravels me,
personally. I mean, what do you think the enemies
of democracy would think if they saw the President
of the United States all curled up naked like that.
Well, I'll tell you what they'd think: they couldn't be
happier. That's just the kind of propaganda they
love to use to brainwash people and make
Communists out of them."
"Do you think then that the assassin was an
enemy of democracy as well as a madman?"
"I do. And as I said, a practical joker. Fortunately,
we happen to have a complete file on all madmen
who are enemies of democracy and
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 161
practical jokers, and they're under constant surveillance.
So I don't think there's going to be any
trouble finding our man, or madman. And even if
we don't find him, we've got the Boy Scouts from
Boston who confessed to this thing in reserve, so
I'd say, on the whole, we're in much better shape
than we were last time, and are really just waiting a
go-ahead from the White House . . ."
"We are privileged to have with us in the studio
one of the most distinguished members of the
House of Representatives, a leading Republican
statesman, and a friend and confidant to the late
President. Congressman Fraud, this is a sorrowful
day in our nation's history."
"Oh, it's a day that will live in infamy, there's no
doubt about that in my mind. I am, in fact,
introducing a bill into Congress to have it declared a
day that will live in infamy and celebrated as such in
coming years. What you've got here, as Chief
Heehaw at the FBI was saying, is a real lack of
respect for the office of the Presidency. What
you've got here in this assassin is a very disrespectful
person, and, I would agree, probably a madman to
boot."
"Do you have any idea, Congressman, why the
White House continues at this late hour to refuse to
confirm the story of the assassination?"
"I think it goes without saying that we're in a
sensitive area here, and consequently they want to
move cautiously on this whole thing. I think they
want, first off, to gauge the public reaction here at
home, and then of course there is the reaction
around the world to consider. On the one hand
you've got our allies who depend upon us for
support, and on the other hand you've got our
enemies who are always on the lookout for some
chink in our armor, and if you keep all that in mind,
then I think you have to agree that in the long run it
is probably in the interest of our integrity and our
credibility to cover this whole thing up. I would
think that some such reasoning as that is going on
behind the scenes at the White House right now."
."Has the First Lady been notified?"
Oh, of course."
"What was her reaction?"
"Well, she was understandably quite overcome in
the first moment. But, as you know, she is a very
decorous woman, even in moments of great
emotion. Consequently, her immediate reaction was
to note that the manner in which the assassin went
about the assassination was in extremely bad taste.
The baggie aside for the moment, she thinks that at
the very least the President should have been slain
in a shirt and a tie and a jacket, like John F.
Charisma. She says there was a suit fresh from the
dry cleaners in the closet at the hospital, and that it
really shows
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 163
that the assassin was a person of very poor breeding
to have failed to recognize how important it is for
the President, of all people, to be neatly and
appropriately garbed at all times. She said she just
had to wonder about the upbringing of a person
who would forget something like that. She said she
didn't want to blame the assassin's family, until she
knew all the facts, but it was clear she felt there
probably could have been a wee bit more attention
given to good grooming in his house when the
assassin was growing up."
"Congressman Fraud, there has been some
speculation that the President's assassination is a
reprisal for the destruction yesterday of the city of
Copenhagen. What do you think of that idea?"
"Not very much."
"Can you explain?"
"Well, it just doesn't make any sense. The
President himself went on television, after all, and
explained to the American people the situation in
Denmark and why we might have to destroy
Copenhagen. Now he didn't have to do that, you
know-but he did, because he wanted the people to
have all the facts. So I just don't see how you can
fault him there. And, I must say, in praise of this
great country, that except for a few elderly people
out there in Wiseonsinand they of course turned out
to be of Danish
164 OUR GANG
extraction, and obviously didn't have any objectivity
on this matter at all-but except for those few
irresponsible demonstrators out there shouting
dirty words in Danish, the overwhelming majority
of the people of this country have taken the
destruction of Copenhagen with the wonderful
equanimity and solidarity we have come to expect
of them in matters like this. No, I just can't see
where somebody is going to assassinate the
President for a sound policy decision such as this
one, and that even goes for a madman. No, he had
the mandate of the people here, lunatics included."
"And the mandate of the Congress as well?"
"Well, of course, as you know, there are unfortunately
a very few Congressmen and Senators -I
guess you could call them headline seekerswho will
go so far as to try to make political hay out of the
bombing of a little Godforsaken village out in the
middle of nowhere, some crossroads nobody has
ever heard of before and surely after the bombing
will never hear of again-so I leave it to you to
imagine what such
politicians are going to do with the nuclear de
struction of a place like Copenhagen. In their
behalf, however, let me say that even they would
not be so reckless as to assassinate the President
because of a difference of opinion over some
thing like bombing sites. I mean, nobody's
perfect. One President chooses this target, one
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 165
President chooses that target, but fortunately we
have in this country a political system that can
accommodate itself to that kind of disagreement,
without recourse to assassination. And by and large
I think you can say that in the end the mistakes in
judgment and so on shake themselves out, and we
pretty much destroy the places that need destroying.
It seems to me, in fact, that as regards the
destruction of Copenhagen, you'll find that even
among the President's staunchest critics in the
Senate, there was a sense that a decision of that
magnitude simply couldn't have been arrived at
lightly or arbitrarily. I think most of the truly
responsible members of the Congress feel as I do,
that having made a strong show of strength such as
this in Scandinavia now, we are not going to get
ourselves bogged down there later the way we did in
Southeast Asia."
"So you see no connection between the 'Something
is Rotten in Denmark' speech and the assassination?"
"No, no. Frankly I can't believe that the murder
of the President has to do with anything he has ever
said or done, including his courageous remarks in
behalf of the unborn and the sanctity of human life.
No, this is one of those wild, crazy acts, just as the
FBI describes it-the work of a madman, and, as the
First Lady suggests, a pretty ill-mannered madman,
at that. It seems to me that any attempt to find
some rational political motive in anything so bizarre
and boorish as stuffing the President of the United
States unclothed into a water-filled baggie in the
fetal position is so much wasted effort. It's an act of
violence and disrespect, utterly without rhyme or
reason, and cannot but arouse the righteous indignation
of reasonable and sensible men everywhere."
"-the hairy, the half-cocked if you know what I
mean, the hammer-and-sickle supporters, the
hard-core pornographers, the hedonists, the Hell's
Angels, those whom God won't help because they
won't help themselves, the hermaphrodites, the
highbrows, the hijackers, the hippies, the Hisses,
the homos, the hoodlums of all races, the heroin
pushers, the hypocrites-"
"Yes, the tribute has begun, the tribute to the
man they loved more than they knew. By trains
they come, by busses, by cars, by planes, by
wheelchairs, by feet. Come some on canes and
crutches, and some on artificial limbs. But come
undaunted they do, like pilgrims of yesteryear and
yore, to honor pay to him they loved more than
they knew. Reaped by the Grim Reaper before his
reaping was due, he brings us together at last, as he
promised he one day would do. And doing it he is.
For in they come, the ordinary
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 167
people, his people, barbers and butchers and
brokers and barkers, tycoons and taxidermists and
the taciturn who till the land. It is, I daresay, a
demonstration the likes of which he who has been
grimly reaped by the Grim Reaper did not, alas,
survive to witness. No, during his brief residence on
this planet Earth, and his three years in the White
House, they demonstrated not to honor him but to
humiliate him, not to pay him homage and respect
but to shout their obscenities at, and display their
disrespect toward, him. But these are not the
obscenity-shouters and the disrespect-displayers
gathering here tonight along the banks of the
Potomac-banks as old as the Republic itself-and
beneath the cherry blossoms he so loved, and in the
brooding grandeur of this the city which embodies
that which he who has been untimely reaped would
have himself willingly laid down his life for, had of
him it been asked instead of cruelly being stolen in
the night from him by an ill-mannered madman
with a baggie. Yet madmen there have been and
madmen there will be, and still this nation has
endured. And, I daresay, endure it will, while the
madmen pass through these corridors of power and
halls of justice and closets of virtue and
dumbwaiters of dignity and cellars of idealism,
leaving us in the end, if not stronger, wiser; and if
not wiser, stronger; and if, alas, not either,
168 OUR GANG
both. This is Erect Severehead with a cogent news
analysis from the nation's capital."
"This is Brad Bathos. I'm down here in the streets
of Washington now, and it is a moving and heartrending
sight I see. Ever since the news first broke
that the President had been found dead in a baggie
at Walter Reed Hospital, the people of this great
country, his people, have been pouring into the
capital from all over the nation. Thousands upon
thousands simply standing here in the streets
surrounding the White House, with heads bowed,
visibly shaken and moved. Many are crying openly,
not a few of them grown men. Here is a man seated
on the curbstone holding his head in his hands and
quietly sobbing. I'm going to ask him if he will tell
us where he comes from."
"I come from here, I come from Washington."
"You're sitting on the curbstone quietly sobbing
into your hands. Can you tell us why? Can you put it
into words?"
"Guilt."
"You mean you feel a personal sense of guilt?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I did it."
"You did it? You killed the President?"
"Yes."
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 169
"Well, look, this is important-have you told the
police?"
"I've told everyone. The police. The FBI. I even
tried to call Pitter Dixon to tell her. But all they kept
saying was that it was kind of me to think of them at
a time like this and Mrs. Dixon appreciated my
sympathy and thought it was in very good taste, and
then they hung up. Meanwhile, I should be arrested.
I should be in the papers-my picture, and a big
headline, DIXON'S MURDERER. But nobody will
believe me. Here, here's the notebooks where I've
been planning it for months. Here are tape
recordings of my own telephone conversations with
friends. Here, look at this: a signed confession! And
I wasn't even under duress when I wrote it. I was in
a hammock. I was fully aware of my constitutional
rights. My-lawyer was with me, as a matter of fact.
We were having a drink. Here-just read it, I give all
my reasons and everything."
"Sir, interesting as your story is, we have to move
on. We must move on through this immense crowd
. . . Here's a young attractive woman holding a
sleeping infant in her arms. She is just standing on
the sidewalk gazing blankly at the White House.
Heaven only knows how much anguish is concealed
in that gaze. Madam, will you tell the television
audience what you're thinking about as you look at
the White House?"
170 OUR GANG
"He's dead."
"You appear to be in a state of shock." "I
know. I didn't think I could do it." "Do
what?"
"Kill. Murder. He said, `Let me make one thing
perfectly-' and before he could say `clear,' I had him
in the baggie. You should have seen the look on his
face when I turned the little twister seal."
"The look on the President's face when you-?"
"Yes. I've never seen such rage in my life. I've
never seen such anger and fury. But then he realized
I was staring at him through the baggie, and
suddenly he looked just the way he does on
television, all seriousness and responsibility, and he
opened his mouth, I guess to say `clear,' and that
was it. I think he thought the whole thing was being
televised."
"And-well, was your baby with you, when you
allegedly-?"
"Oh yes, yes. Of course, she's too young to
remember exactly what happened. But I want her to
be able to grow up to say, `I was there when my
mother murdered Dixon.' Imagine itmy little girl is
going to grow up in a world where she'll never have
to hear anybody say he's going to make something
perfectly clear ever again! Or, `Let's make no
mistake about it!' Or, `I'm a Quaker and that's why I
hate war so
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 171
much-' Never never never never. And I did it. I
actually did it. I tell you, I still can't believe it. I
drowned him. In cold water. Me."
"And you, young man, let's move on to you.
You're just walking up and down here outside the
White House, very much as though you've lost
something. You seem confused and bewildered. Can
you tell us, in a few words, what it is you're
searching for?"
"A cop. A policeman."
"Why?"
"I want to turn myself in."
"This is Brad Bathos, from the streets of
Washington, where the mourners have come to
gather, to pray, to weep, to lament, and to hope.
Back to Erect Severehead."
"Erect, we're up here on top of the Washington
Monument with the Chief of the Washington Police
Force. Chief Shackles, how many people would you
say are down there right now?"
"Oh, just around the monument alone we've got
about twenty-five or thirty thousand; and I'd say
there are twice that many over by the White House.
And of course more are pouring in every hour."
"Can you describe these people? Are they the
usual sort of demonstrators you get here in
Washington?"
"Oh no, no. These people don't want to dis-
172 OUR GANG
rupt anything. I would say they are actually bending
over backwards to cooperate with the authorities.
So far, at any rate."
"What do you mean by so far?"
"Well, we haven't yet had to make any arrests.
We're under orders from the White House not to
arrest anyone under any conditions. As you can
imagine, this is putting something of a strain on my
men, particularly as just about everybody down
here seems to have come for the purpose of getting
himself arrested. I mean I've never seen anything
like it. _ A lot of them are down on their knees
begging to be taken in, and just about every Tom,
Dick and Harry seems to have documents or
photographs or fingerprints, proving that he is the
one who killed the President. Of course, none of it
is worth the paper it's written on. Some of it's kind
of laughable, in fact, it's so unprofessional and
obviously a slapdash last-minute job. But still and
all, you got to give them credit for, their fortitude.
They grab hold of my men just like they had the
goods on themselves, and actually try to handcuff
themselves to the officer with their own handcuffs
and get carted off to prison that way. We can't park
a squad car anywhere, without half a dozen of them
jumping into the back seat, and screaming, `Take
me to J. Edgar Heehaw-and step on it.' Now you
can't arrest anybody without taking the proper
procedural steps, but go try to explain
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 173
that to a crowd like this. We're sort of humoring
them, however, the best we can, and the ones who
just won't quit, we tell them to wait right where they
are and we'll round them up later. What we're
hoping for is a good thunderstorm during the night,
that'll sort of break the back of the whole thing.
Maybe if they stand around long enough in the rain
they'll get the idea that nobody is going to arrest
them no matter how much evidence they produce,
and they'll go home."
"But, Chief Shackles, suppose the rain doesn't
come-suppose they are still jamming the streets in
the morning. What about the workers trying to get
to government offices-?" .. "Well, they'll just have to
suffer a little inconvenience, I'm afraid. Because I
am not subjecting my men to the charge of false
arrest just so somebody can get to his office in time
for the morning coffee break. And then there are
these orders from the White House."
"Your assumption then is that all these people
here are innocent, each and every one?"
"Absolutely. If they were guilty, they would be
resisting arrest. They would be running away and so
on. They would be screaming about their lawyers
and their rights. I mean, that's how you can tell
they're guilty in the first place. But all these people
are saying is, `I did it, take me in.'
174 OUR GANG
What sort of law enforcement officer is going to
arrest a person for something like that?"
"This is Brad Bathos. Violence has erupted here
on Pennsylvania Avenue, directly outside the White
House gates where upwards of thirty thousand
mourners have already gathered to bid farewell to a
fallen leader. Even as Police Chief Shackles was
praising this crowd for their obedience to authority
and respect for the law, a free-for-all broke out
among a group of fifteen men in business suits.
Though police intervention was necessary, no
arrests were made. I have here beside me one of the
gentlemen who was involved in the violent episode,
and by all appearances he is still rather upset. Sir,
how did the violence begin?"
"Well, I was just standing here, minding my own
business, trying to confess to an officer about
murdering the President, when along comes this
very fancy guy in a limousine and wearing a flower
in his buttonhole, and he just steps in between me
and the officers and he says he did it. And then the
chauffeur gets out of the car and he starts pushing
me back and saying let his boss do the talking, his
boss really did it and he was a very busy man and so
on and so forth and who did I think I was, acting so
high and mighty. So then some colored guy comes
upand I don't have anything against colored guys,
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 1 ,
you know-but this one was real uppity and he starts
saying we're both full of it, he did it, and the
chauffeur tells him to get at the end of the line and
wait his turn, and that really starts the thing going,
and the next thing you know there are fifteen guys
all swinging at one another, claiming they all did it,
too. Well, if it wasn't for the officer, I'm not
kidding, somebody might have gotten hurt. It could
have been awful."
"So you have nothing but praise for the police?"
"Well, yes-up to a point. I mean he broke this
thing up one-two-three, but then when it was all
over he still wouldn't make any arrests. In fact, once
he'd separated us, he just disappeared, like the Lone
Ranger used to. I can't find him anywhere. Some of
the other guys want to find him, too. See, we gave
him these confessions and all this incriminating
evidence, and so onand you know what he did with
it? He just tore it up, even while he was running
away. Fortunately, I had my secretary xerox all this
stuff at my office, so I've got a copy at home, but a
lot of these guys were foolish enough to give him
the only copy of their confessions that they had.
About the only good thing to come out of this is the
possibility that because the fifteen of us were seen
all huddled together on the pavement here,
pounding each other's heads in, we might get picked
up as a conspiracy. That is, if we can find
176 OUR GANG
a cop. But go try to find even a plainclothesman
when you need one. Hey, you're not authorized to
make an arrest, are you, by your network or
something?"
"-and so in they continue to come. And now they
have told us why. They come not as they came to
Washington to mourn the death of President
Charisma. Nor do they come as came they did to
Atlanta, to follow behind the bier of the slain Martin
Luther King. Nor come do they as to the railroad
tracks they did, to wave farewell as the tragic train
that bore the body of the murdered Robert
Charisma carried to its final resting place, him. No,
the crowd that cometh to Washington tonighteth,
cometh not in innocence and bewilderment, like
little children berefteth of a father. Rather, cometh
they in guilt, cometh they to confesseth, cometh
they to say, `I too am guilty,' to the police and the
FBI. It is a sight, moving and profound, and
furnishes evidence surely, if evidence there need
surely be, of a nation that has cometh of age. For
what is maturity, in men or in nations, but the
willingness to bear the burden-and the dignity-of
responsibility? And surely responsible it is, mature it
is, when in its darkest hour, a nation can look deep
within its troubled and anguished blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah the guilt of all. Of course, those
there are who will seek a scapegoat, as
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 177
those there will always be, human nature being
what it is instead of what it should be. Those there
are who will self-righteously stand up and shout,
`Not me, not me.' For they are not guilty, they are
never guilty. It is always the other guy who is guilty:
Bundy and Kissinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Calley and
Capone, Manson and McNamara-yes, the list is
endless of those whom they would make
responsible for their own crimes. And that is what
makes this demonstration here in Washington of
collective guilt so blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah. The blah blah of the spirit and the blah
blah blah blah blah blah for which our sons have
died blah blah blah blah blah blah reason and
dignity blah blah blah blah blah dignity and reason.
No, blame not those who gather here in Washington
to confess to the murder of the President.
Ratber, praise them for their courage, their blah
blah blah, their blah and their blah blah blah, for
blah blah blah blah as are you and I. We are all
guilty. And only at the risk of blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah forget. This is Erect
Severehead from the nation's blah."
"-the masochists, the mainliners, the minorities
who think they are the majorities, the mashers, the
masturbators, the mental cases, the misanthropes,
the momma's boys, the much-adoaboutnothingites,
the milquetoasts-"
178 OUR GANG
"Gentlemen, because of the developing interest
around the nation in the situation here in
Washington, we have decided to move somewhat
faster than we had originally planned, and to release
to you tonight the x-ray of the other hip. We hope
that by releasing the x-rays of both of the
President's hips, the right virtually within a few
hours of the left, we will be able to restore some
perspective as regards this whole situation."
"You mean by that the assassination, Blurp?" "I
don't know if I want to use a highly
inflammatory word like that at a time like this.
It may not sell newspapers, but I'd just as soon,
for the sake of accuracy, stick to `the situation."' "In
other words, you are now admitting that
there is `a situation.'
"I don't think we ever denied that."
"What about the funeral, Blurb?"
"Let's deal with the situation first, then we'll
get to the funeral. Any other questions?" "Where
is the President's body right now?" "Resting
comfortably."
"Comfortably in the baggie or out of the
baggie?"
"Gentlemen, don't push me. He's resting comfortably.
That's the important thing."
"Will he be buried in the baggie, Blurb? One
report is that the First Lady has decided that given
his dedication to the rights of the unborn,
burial in the baggie would be fitting and proper.
Like King's body being pulled by a mule train."
"Whatever the First Lady decides, I'm sure it'll be
in good taste."
"Blurb, what about Mr. What's-his-name? He's
still back of the podium saying it didn't happen, that
it's a pack of lies. Do you have any idea what he's
talking about?"
"No comment."
"Blurb, is it true that the oath of office has
already been secretly administered to the Vice
President between speaking engagements, and that
he actually is the President at this very moment?"
"Why would we do a thing like that? Absolutely
not."
"Mr. President, can you tell us now why the oath
of office was administered to you secretly between
speaking engagements, so that actually you were the
new President even while you went around claiming
that the stories of President Dixon's assassination
were lies perpetrated by the enemies of this
country?"
"I think the answer to that is obvious enough,
gentlemen. You cannot have a country without a
President any more than you would want to have a
cackle-dooper without a predipitous, or, likewise, a
caloodian without a pre-pregoratory predention. Of
course, the dreedles, the drishakis and the dripnaps
would give their eyeteeth to have it otherwise, but
the sworn swaggatelle of this sirigible, and the
truncation of our truthfulness will not be trampled
and torn, so long as I, as President, vent such
vindictiveness as the avengers varp."
"President What's-his-name, there is an admittedly
ugly rumor to the effect that the reason you
denied any knowledge of the President's
assassination was because you were fearful that
otherwise the finger of suspicion might be pointed
at you. Do you have anything to say about that
admittedly ugly rumor?"
"Yes, I have this to say and I propose to say it so
that there is no doubt about my feelings on this
matter later. If the creeps and the cowards that
crucify the crelinion, crip after crip, and who
furthermore-and we have proof of thishave
crossbowed the cradalious ever since the first
crackadoes crusaded in the cause of caliphony, if
they think they can cajulate and castigate and get
away with it, there will be such a cacophony of cabs,
cassanings and crinoleum through the criss and
cratch of this country, that the crypto-callistans and
the quasi-clapperforms will quiver rather than coopt
the crokes."
"Sir, while we're on the subject of admittedly
ugly rumors, can you comment on one that suggests
that the reason you kept saying the President was
alive when you knew he was dead,
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 181
was because you were fearful that either a coup on
the part of the Cabinet, or an armed revolt by the
people, would have prevented you from taking
office, had you announced openly your intention to
do so? Were you frightened that they wouldn't let
you be President because you weren't qualified?"
"Far from fear, what I felt was a filarious
frostification at the far-reaching fistula into which
fate had feductively fastinguished me."
"Sir, will you comment on Mrs. Dixon's decision
to bury the President in his baggie at Prissier? Were
you consulted on this, and if so, does it mean that
your administration will be as committed as was his
to the rights of the unborn and the sanctity of
human life and so on?"
"Well, of course, not just me, but zillions and
zillions of our zircos, zaps of our zilpags and
zikons of our zikenites-"
"So the blah blah blah blah of state has been
passed. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah has
ended and the republic that blah blah blah.blah
reason blah blah blah blah. Heavy are our blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah corridors blah
blah blah that he loved. And the cherry blossoms.
Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah
blah blah blah blah lest we blah blah blah blah blah
our civilization with it. We can ill afford that. Blah
blah blah blah blah
182 OUR GANG
back to normal blah blah blah blah. Blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah
blah blah of America, from the humblest citizen
to the blah blah blah blah. Blah blah 1776 blah
blah? Blah. Blah blah 1812 blah blah blah? Blah
blah. Blah blah 1904-1907? Blah! Blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah reason and dignity. Blah blah
blah blah reason. Blah blah blah blah blah dignity.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah fulfillment of the
Ameriblah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah
blah one hundred years ago. Blah blah blah blah
of Galilee. And yet those would surrender hope
blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah
cherry blossoms. Blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah before him. Blah blah blah the
republic. Blah blah blah the people. Blah blah
blah blah blah nation's capital."
The Eulogy Over the Baggie
(As Delivered Live on Nationwide TV
by the Reverend Billy Cupcake)
Now today I want you to turn with me to page
853 in your dictionaries. Our eulogy is from the
letter "L," the twelfth letter of the
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 183
alphabet, and our word is the fifth down in the
left-hand column, directly below the word
"leaden." Our word is "leader." Now how does
Noah Webster define "leader"?
Well, Noah writes, "A leader is one who or one
that which leads." One who or one that which
leads. One who or that which leads.
Just the day before yesterday I read an article in a
current magazine by one of the top philosophers of
all time and be wrote, "Leaders are one of man's
top necessities." And in a recent Gallup Poll we've
been reading where more than ninetyeight percent
of the people of America believe in leadership. I
was in a European country last summer and one of
the top young people there told me that the
teenagers in his country want leadership more than
anything else. President Lincoln-before he was
killed-said the same thing. So did Newton-Sir Isaac'
Newton, the great scientist-when he was alive.
Now when Noah tells us that a leader is one who
or one that which leads, he is telling us what
"leader" means in the ordinary sense of the word.
But I wonder if be who lies here before us in this
baggie was a leader in the ordinary sense. I don't
think be was. And I'll tell you why. I talked to a
psychiatrist friend of mine only this morning and
be said, "He was not an ordinary leader." And one
of my friends, a distinguished surgeon who does
heart transplants at one of our
184 OUR GANG
great hospitals, wrote me a letter and said the same
thing: "He was not a leader in the ordinary sense of
the word."
Well, you say, what was he then, if he wasn't a
leader in the ordinary sense? He-and I repeat that-he
was a leader in the extraordinary sense of that word.
Now what does that mean, the extraordinary
sense of that word? Fortunately, Noah defines
"extraordinary" for us, too. You will find the
definition on page 428 in your dictionaries, in the
right-hand column, six words down, directly
beneath "extraneous." Extraordinary, Noah tells us,
means, "beyond what is ordinary; out of the regular
and established order." Beyond what is ordinary.
Out of the regular and established order.
Now what does that mean? I read only the week
before last in an Australian newspaper that I get in
my home a story about a fellow who made news
down there-and why did he make news down there?
Why do I know about him thousands and
thousands of miles away? Because he was
extraordinary in some way or another. He was that
rare thing among men. He was himself and no one
else. Himself and no one else.
And what does Noah tell us about "himself"?
"Himself," Noah says, "an emphatic form of him."
An emphatic form of him. Here then is
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 185
what was so extraordinary about the leader around
whose baggie we are gathered today. He was
emphatically himself and no one else.
You know. Let me repeat that. You know, I have
been to funerals of ordinary leaders the world
round, and I know you have too, by way of the
miracle of television. We all know the wonderful
things that are said on these sorrowful occasions.
But I think I have only to repeat the fine words that
are intoned over the graves of ordinary dead
dignitaries for you to see how truly extraordinary
was our own dear departed President, in and of
himself. In and of himself, which, you remember,
Noah tells us is the emphatic form of him.
Now I don't mean to disparage the ordinary
leaders of this great globe by this comparison. I read
a letter only three weeks ago Thursday that a radical
young person wrote to his girl friend disparaging
and scoffing and laughing at the leaders of this
world. Now he may laugh. They laughed at
Jeremiah, you know. They laughed at Lot. They
laughed at Amos. They laughed at- the Apostles. In
our own time they laughed at the Marx Brothers.
They laughed at the Ritz Brothers. They laughed at
the Three Stooges. Yet these people became our top
entertainers and earned the love and affection of
millions. There are always the laughers and the
scoffers. You know there used to be a top tune in all
the
186 OUR GANG
jukeboxes called "I'm Laughing on the Outside,
Crying on the Inside." And I read an article in a
news magazine only Sunday before last by one of
our top psychologists which says that eightyfive
percent-eighty-five percent!-of those who laugh on
the outside cry on the inside because of their
personal unhappiness.
I am not then trying to disparage the ordinary
leaders of the world by this comparison. I want
only to illustrate to you the extraordinary leadership
of the man who walked among us for a brief while
in a business suit, and now is gone. Only yesterday
morning at ten A.M., I overheard a lady in an
elevator of one of our top hotels, say to a young
person, "There has never been another like him in
history, there will never be another like him again."
Now. Let me repeat that. Now, when an ordinary
leader dies-and I mean by "ordinary" just what
Noah does, on page 853, the last word down in
column one: "of the usual kind" or "such as is
commonly met with"-when an ordinary leader dies,
there always seem to be words and phrases aplenty
with which to bury him. However, how ever, when
an extraordinary leader dies, a man who was
himself and no one else-what then do we say?
Let's try a scientific experiment. Now science
doesn't hold all the answers and many of my
scientific friends tell me that all the time.
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 187
Science, for instance, doesn't know what life is yet,
and in a recent Gallup Poll did you know that five
percent more Americans believe in life after death
now than they did some twenty years ago? So
science doesn't have all the answers, but it has
provided us with many wonderful breakthroughs.
Let's try this scientific experiment. Let's try the
phrases for an ordinary man on this extraordinary
man. And you tell me if you don't agree that as
applies to him who lies here in his baggie, they are
hollow to the ear and false to the heart, and vice
versa. Let's see if when this experiment is over, you
don't say to me, "Why, Billy, you're right, they don't
describe him at all. They describe one who or one
that which leads, but not him who was emphatically
himself and no other."
I'm going to ask that we bow our heads now.
Every head bowed and every eye closed, and listen.
They say of an ordinary leader, when and if he
dies, of course-he was a man of broad outlook;
Or, he was a man of great passion;
Or, he was a man of deep conviction;
Or, he was a defender of human rights;
Or, he was a soldier of humanity;
Or, he was scholarly, eloquent and wise;
188 OUR GANG
Or, he was a simple, peace-loving man, brave
and kind;
Or, he was a man who embodied the ideals of
his people;
Or, he was a man who fired the imagination of a
generation.
They say of an ordinary man, when and if he
dies, that the loss is incalculable to the nation and
the world.
They say of an ordinary man, when and if he
dies, that all will be better for his having passed
their way.
Need I go any further? There was an article in a
current magazine last month by a professor who is
an authority on human behavior, and he writes that
you can tell when a crowd of people is in agreement
with you. Well, the professor is correct. Because I
know that you are all saying to yourselves, "Why,
Billy, you're right-in vain do I listen for the words or
word that describes he who lies here in this baggie;
for these are phrases that summon up the image of
an ordinary leader, not the extraordinary leader we
have lost."
What word or words then will describe this
extraordinary man? I was in an African country one
year ago this July and I heard a top political expert
there call him "The President of the United States."
The President of the United States. In another
African country I heard about
THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 189
a teenage girl who called him "The Leader of the
Free World." The Leader of the Free World. And a
lawyer friend of mine, a well-known judge, who
lives in South America wrote me a letter not too
long ago and he had an interesting thing to say. He
said he heard a man in an elevator in a top hotel in
Buenos Aires, Argentina, call him "Commander-in-
Chief of the American Armed Forces. Commanderin-
Chief of the Armed Forces.
. Yet are these the words in which he lived in the
hearts of his fellow countrymen? Perhaps that is
what he was to the rest of the world. But to we who
knew him, nothing so majestic or formal could
begin to communicate the kind of man he was and
the esteem in which he was held. Because to us he
was not a leader in the ordinary sense-he was a
leader in the extraordinary sense. And that is why
we who knew him think of him by a name as
unpretentious and unceremonious as the name you
might give to your own pet, a name as homey and
familiar as you might bestow upon a little puppy.
I'm going to ask that we bow our heads again.
Every head bowed and every eye closed, while we
all share in the remembrance of the name by which
he was known to we who knew him best, the name
by which we called him in our hearts, even if we
were too shy or too timid to speak it with our lips
while he walked among
19o OUR GANG
us in a business suit. And how appropriate that it is
a name even a puppy could bear, for we all
remember as much as anything about him, the deep
reverence he had for dogs.
The name was a simple one, my friends. The
name was Tricky. Yes, to you, to me, and to all
Americans for generations to come, Tricky he was
and Tricky he shall be.
And now, all heads bowed and every eye closed,
let us pray. Oh God, who alone art ever merciful in
sparing of punishment, humbly we pray Thee on
behalf of Thy servant, a man called Tricky .. .
* 6
On the Comeback Trail;
or, Tricky in Hell
My fellow Fallen:
Let me say at the outset that I of course agree
with much of what Satan has said here tonight in his
opening statement. I know that Satan feels as deeply
as I do about what has to be done to make
Wickedness all that it can and should be in the
creation. For let there be no mistake about it: we are
engaged in a deadly competition with the Kingdom
of Righteousness. There isn't any question in my
mind but that the God of Peace is out, as He
Himself has said, "to crush" us "under His feet,"
and that He and His gang of angels will stop at
nothing to accomplish this end. I could not agree
more with Satan when he says that our goal is not
just to keep Wickedness for ourselves, but to extend
it to all creation, because that is Hell's destiny. To
extend it to all creation because the aim of the
Righteous is not just to hold their own, but to
extend Righteousness. But we cannot be victorious
over Righteousness with a strategy of simply
holding the line. My disagreement with Satan then is
not about the goals for Hell, but about the means to
reach those goals.
Now Satan has said that we are ahead in this
competition with Righteousness. I cannot agree
with that appraisal of the situation. As I look at Hell
today, I believe that we are following programs of
an outdated leadership. I believe we are following
programs many of which have not worked in the
past and will not work in the future. I say that the
programs and leadership that have failed under
Satan's administration are not the programs and the
leadership that Hell needs now. I say that the
damned and the doomed do not want to go back to
the policies of the Garden of Eden. I say that the
Sons and Daughters of Disobedience deserve a
Devil of consummate depravity, a Devil who will
devote himself not to old and worn-out iniquities,
but to bold new programs in Evil that will overturn
God's kingdom and plunge men into eternal death.
What we need down here is not just high hopes.
What we need is crafty wiles and untiring zeal. In
the field of executive leadership, I believe it is
essential that the Devil not only set the tone, but he
also must lead; he must act as he talks.
Frankly, I don't think this is the kind of leadership
we have been getting. Now since my arrival I
have traveled to the very edges of the outer
darkness. I have been down to the bottom of the
bottomless pit. I have been burned in the unquenchable
fire and have joined you in the comfortless
gloom. I have talked to sinners from all
walks of life. I have eaten with degenerates and
blasphemed with the impious. I have looked into
the eyes of the depraved and the malicious. I have
familiarized myself with viciousness and baseness of
all kinds. And one thing I have noted as I have
traveled from one end of Hell to the other is the
wonderful belief our people have in Wickedness. I
tell you, with great pride, that I have never seen
anything to equal our corruption. And that is why I
don't think we have to settle for second best. I don't
think we have to settle for anything less than a Devil
who is the very embodiment of malice. And I
humbly submit to you, the denizens of the greatest
infernal region in all creation, that if elected, I would
be that kind of Devil.
I was fortunate enough to hear an awful lot of
weeping and gnashing of teeth on my trip around
Hell, and I think the strongest impression I came
away with was this: that you lost souls out there are
just as sick and tired as I am
194 OUR GANG
of hearing the Devil downgraded and Hell itself
dismissed as "old-fashioned" and "out-of-date."
Well, maybe it is "old-fashioned" in some circles,
but to those of us who live here, Hell happens to be
home. And dating back as it does to the beginning
of time, it happens to have been home to some of
the most illustrious names in history. And I think
that with that kind of history and that kind of
record, it is high time we put Hell back on the map,
and high time the Devil was given his due.
Now I can only say, in this regard, that maybe
Satan is satisfied with the fact that at least one half
of the people presently on earth-and I know this
because I just came from there-at least one half of
those people no longer believe in the existence of
Hell, let alone its influence in world affairs. And
maybe Satan is satisfied that the Devil, the highest
official in the underworld, once the very symbol of
nefariousness to millions, is considered in the upper
regions to have absolutely no power at all over the
decisions made there by men. And maybe Satan is
satisfied when at least two thirds of the children in
the world go to bed at night without any fear of fire
or brimstone, or an undying worm gnawing at the
heart. Incidentally, in that connection, they don't
even fear the pitchfork. And maybe that's all right
with Satan, too. However, let me make my position
very clear. It's not all right with me.
Maybe Satan is satisfied with the status quo; well,
I'm not. I say that when Hell is nothing more than a
dirty word in the mouths of most people living
today, then something is wrong, and something has
to be done about it.
What has happened to "the Devil's net" we used
to hear so much about? My fellow Fallen, it is full of
holes.
What has happened to "the power of the Devil"
that used to terrify the hearts of men? My fellow
Fallen, it has run out of steam.
And when was the last time you heard the phrase
"the work of Satan"? Can you even remember?
Maybe that's because after all these millennia in
office, Satan is satisfied with the status quo.
But I'm not. I say the Devil's work is never done.
I say he has a responsibility to get up there among
the living and wage war against the forces of
Righteousness. I say he has a responsibility to the
denizens of Hell, and to all souls everywhere who
aspire to Wickedness, to oppose truth with
falsehood. I say he has a responsibility to obscure
light with darkness. I say he has a responsibility to
entangle men's minds in error. I say he has a
responsibility to stir up hatred. I say lie has a
responsibility to kindle contentions and combats.
And I say any Devil who does less than this is not
deserving of the title "Prince of Darkness," and
does serious harm to the power
196 OUR GANG
and prestige of Hell and to the security of the
Wicked everywhere.
Now you may answer, "That is all fine and
dandy, Mr. President, but what qualifications do
you bring with you to the job of being a responsible
Devil?"
I know as well as you do the claims my opponent
makes for his experience in office. I know what has
been written in grudging tribute of him, by no less
than our own adversaries in Heaven. "When Satan
lies," they say, "he speaks according to his own
nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies." And let
there be no mistake about my position on this issue:
I have the highest regard for his long and
distinguished record as a liar. I know that I, like so
many of you out there in the fires and down there in
the pit, owe a deep debt of gratitude to the example
of his never-say-die spirit, where lying is concerned.
To interject a personal note, you know I was
born an opportunist, out in California, and during
my years in public life I had the privilege of
wheeling and dealing with other opportunists as
well. And I think I speak for all opportunists when
I say that Satan has been a constant source of
inspiration to us from time immemorial, in good
times and in bad. Surely I would want it
understood throughout this campaign, that I respect
not only the tenacity with which he lies,
but his sincerity in lying. And of course I would
hope that he would agree that I am just as sincere in
my lying as he is in his.
But let me make one thing perfectly clear. Much
as I respect and admire his lies, I don't think that
lies are something to stand on. I think they are
something to build on. I don't think anyone, man or
demon, can ever rely upon the lies he has told in the
past, bold and audacious as they may have been at
the time, to distort today's realities. We live in an era
of rapid and dramatic change. My own experience
has shown that yesterday's lies are just not going to
confuse today's problems. You cannot expect to
mislead people next year the way you misled them a
year ago, let alone a million years ago. And that is
why, with all due respect to my opponent's experience,
I say we need a new administration in Hell, an
administration with new horns, new half-truths, new
horrors and new hypocrisies. I say we need a new
commitment to Evil, new stratagems and
contrivances to make our dream of a totally fallen
world a reality.
And now let me say a word to those who point
to my own record as President of the United States
and contend that it is less than it could have been,
as regards suffering and anguish for all of the
people, regardless of race, creed or color. Let me
remind these critics that I happen to have held that
high office for less than one term before I was
assassinated. Now not even Satan, I think, with the
support of all his legions, would claim that he could
bring a nation with a strong democratic tradition
and the highest standard of living in the world to
utter ruination in only a thousand days. Indeed,
despite my brief tenure in the "White" House, I
firmly believe that I was able to maintain and
perpetuate all that was evil in American life when I
came to power. Furthermore I think I can safely
say that I was able to lay the groundwork for new
oppressions and injustices and to sow seeds of
bitterness and hatred between the races, the
generations and the social classes that hopefully will
plague the American people for years to come.
Surely I did nothing whatsoever to decrease the
eventuality of a nuclear holocaust, but rather
continued to make progress in that direction by
maintaining policies of belligerence, aggression and
subversion around the globe. I think I might point
with particular pride to Southeast Asia, where I was
able to achieve considerable growth in just the sort
of human misery that the vengeful and vindictive
souls here in our great inferno would wish upon
the whole of mankind.
Now of course I do not claim sole responsibility
for the devastation and misery visited by my
country upon the Vietnamese, the Laotians and
ON THE COMEBACK TRAM 199
the Cambodians. In fact, I know that in the years to
come you are going to have the privilege of meeting
many of the men who were equally as devoted as
was I, and who worked long hard hours with great
dedication and selfsacrifice, as did I, to make life a
nightmare in that region for those Asian human
beings. I know when they get here they are going to
make a great contribution to Hell, and let me say in
that connection that if I am elected Devil, I will not
hesitate to avail myself of their counsel and advice
here, as I did there.
While it is true then that I was not the sole
author, leader and architect of this great program
for suffering launched by my country in Southeast
Asia, I will say this: when the opportunity to take
charge of our program was presented to me, I did
not stand pat on the butchery and carnage of my
predecessors. Because I know, as do you, that where
slaughter is concerned we cannot stand pat. We
cannot stand pat for the reason that we're in a race,
as I've indicated. We can't stand pat because it is
essential with the conflict that we have around the
globe that we not just hold our own, that we not
just keep suffering for ourselves, but that we extend
it to every last man, woman and child. And I am
confident that if you will look at the record, you will
see that this is just what I was able to accomplish
throughout Southeast Asia. I
200 OUR GANG
think you will agree that in the very brief time
allotted to me I managed to seize upon the opportunity
provided me by my predecessors and,
with the aid of the United States Air Force, I turned
that part of the globe into nothing less than Hell on
earth.
Now I realize, as you do, that despite my record
in Southeast Asia, there are still those who would
impugn my reputation by pointing to certain socalled
"humane" or "benevolent" actions that I
undertook while President of the United States.
Well, let me say, as regards these wholly unfounded
attacks upon my bad name, that I intend, after this
broadcast, to issue a black paper, showing that in
every single instance where they claim I was
"humane" or "benevolent," I was in actual fact
motivated solely by political self-interest, and acted
with utter indifference, if not outright contempt and
cynicism, for the welfare of anybody other than
myself. If and when any good whatsoever accrued
to anything but me and my career, it was-as I am
confident the black paper will make perfectly clearwholly
unintentional and inadvertent.
Now I am not saying that ignorance of benign
consequences is any excuse for a demon who
aspires to be your Devil. I am only admitting to you
that I was not so hideous on earth as I might have
been. But then I am sure that the great majority of
demons in Hell weren't either, and
ON THE COMEBACK TRAIL 201
that you share with me regrets about wasted
opportunities and pangs of conscience. But let there
be no mistake about it: I am no longer a man
burdened by all the limitations and weaknesses of
that condition, such as conscience, caution and
consideration for one's reputation. And I am no
longer the President of the United States, with all
the barriers and obstructions that stand between the
holder of that powerful office and his own capacity
for evil. I am at long last a citizen of Hell, and let
me tell you, that is a great challenge and a great
opportunity. And that is why I can assure you, my
fellow Fallen, that down here where no holds are
barred and nothing is sacred, you are going to see a
New Dixon, a Dixon such as I could only dream of
being while still an American human being, a Dixon
who humbly submits that he has what it takes in
experience and energy to be the kind of Devil all
you lost souls deserve.
Now in order that the four demons on tonight's
panel can proceed to questioning Satan and myselfand
let me say, I welcome their questions-I shall
now bring my opening statement to a close. But
before I do, I want to make one last thing
particularly clear to the denizens of Hell, and that is
this. In terms of eternity, I am a relative newcomer
to the Realm of Wickedness. But I am a student of
history
202 OUR GANG
also, and I must say that in reading through the
record of the current administration, and in particular
its relations with the Kingdom of Righteousness,
I have been shocked by a blatant example
of what I can only call an attitude of appeasementan
attitude, I am sorry to say, of outright submission
and surrender. I am talking, of course, of the
famous job case.
Now I know that in defense of his actions in that
case Satan has described to you in great detail all the
sufferings that he heaped upon this good man, Job.
And I am not going to say to you that he did not
torment him in the extreme. I am not going to try to
build myself up by downgrading the job he did on
job's sheep and his servants, and the loathsome
sores with which he afflicted him from head to foot.
There is no question but that the program of pain
and punishment' devised by Satan was the right one
in those circumstances.
Yet the question still remains, thousands of years
after the event, under whose auspices and in whose
behalf was that program devised? Under the
auspices of Hell? In behalf of the cause of
Wickedness?
My fellow Fallen, the answer is no. I am afraid
that if you read the record, as I have done, you will
find that it was under the auspices of Heaven, and
in behalf of Righteousness, that your own Devil
planned and executed job's pro
ON THE COMEBACK TRAIL 203
gram of P&P, a program by the way involving a
considerable expenditure of our resources. I am
afraid that if you read the record you will find your
own Devil taking his orders from none other than
the Lord God Himself. I am afraid you will find that
your own Devil did not so much as undertake one
Evil act without first obtaining the permission of
God. I am afraid that you will find that the reason
he exercised the patience of job was not to drive
him from obedience and destroy him, but to serve
God's justice-and, what is worse, to cause God's
righteousness to shine forth.
Now Satan has indicated on several occasions
during this campaign that I have been misrepresenting
his role in the job case. In order to set the
record straight once and for all, I am going to use
my remaining few minutes to read to you verbatim
from the minutes of the meeting that took place
between God and Satan at that time. And I leave it
to you, the degenerate and the debauched, the
dissolute and the depraved„ to judge whether the
charges I have made during the campaign, and that I
repeat here tonight on this broadcast, constitute "a
reckless distortion and deliberate misreading of
history." I leave it to you to judge whether Satan
was, as he claims, working "diabolically" and
"fiendishly" for the cause of Wickedness, or
whether he was, to put
204 OUR GANG
it in language everyone can understand, acting in
accordance with Divine Will.
This document I am holding in my claw is called
the Holy Scripture. It doesn't lie. That is why it is
nothing less than the Bible of our enemies. This is
their number-one best seller of all time. This is the
book with which they brainwash their children.
Contained here are all the truths with which they
intend to conquer the world. You can open it
anywhere and find enough wisdom and beauty on a
single page to disgust and outrage every loyal and
hardworking citizen of Hell.
Let me read to you from the secret conversation
between God and Satan, as documented in their
Bible:
THE LORD: Whence have you come?
SATAN: From going to and fro on the earth, and
from walking up and down on it.
THE LORD: Have you considered my servant job, that
there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and
upright man, who fears God and turns away from
evil?
SATAN: Does lot) fear God for naught? Fast thou not
put a hedge about him and his house and all that he
has, on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his
hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.
But [and I am still quoting here from Satan,] but
put forth thy
ON THE COMEBACK TRAIL 205
hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse
thee to thy face.
THE LORD: Behold, all that he has is in your power,
only upon himself do not put forth your hand.
That was the instruction given Satan by the Lord.
And what did Satan do? Exactly as God told him to.
Yes, my fellow Fallen, your own Devil became an
instrument of God's wrath.
Let me read to you now from the minutes of the
second secret meeting that took place in an
unspecified location between the Emperor of
Wickedness and the God of Peace. For the sake of
brevity I will read to you only the most pertinent
material.
THE LORD (speaking of job): He still holds fast to his
integrity.
SATAN:... Put forth thy hand now, and touch his bone
and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
THE LORD: Behold, he is in your power; only spare his
life.
And having received this second set of instructions,
what did Satan do? Let me read it to you, just
as it is written here in their Bible. "So Satan went
forth from the presence of the Lord, and afflicted
job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot
to the crown of his head."
And did Satan spare Job's life, as God in-
206 OUR GANG
structed him to? I am afraid the answer is yes, he did
that too.
We all remember, I am sure, the unhappy ending
to that story. Job's faith was not broken; it was
strengthened and increased. And the Lord, as the
record here states, "gave job twice as much as he
had before."
(Tricky closes Bible. Quickly wipes perspiration
from his scales with the back of his claw)
My fellow Fallen, I challenge Satan to refute these
charges that I have made here tonight. I challenge
Satan to deny his role in the job case. I challenge
him to deny that he acted willingly and knowingly in
behalf of the sworn enemies of Hell. I challenge him
to deny that if this was not an outright act of
treason, it was one so neglectful of the security
interests of the Wicked, that Satan might just as well
have been in the employ of the Righteous.
Now Satan may prefer to call these actions of his
"fiendish" and "diabolical." But I call what he has
done here surrender, and let me tell you something-
I think that's what the leaders in Heaven are calling
it, too. Because make no mistake about it-I know
the other side. I have met with their representatives.
I know the kind of ruthless and fanatical people
they are, and I can assure you, if you surrender to
their Will, if you think it will stop them to surrender
a single
ON THE COMEBACK TRAIL 207
soul to their Righteousness, you are sadly mistaken.
That will only whet their appetite for more.
Because this God of Peace does not just want Job.
He wants all the jobs. And if we do not stop him
each and every time, the day will come, my friends,
when he will be hammering here at the Gates of
Hell.
And that is why I say the time has come to stop
appeasing the God of Peace. That is why I say the
time has come to step up our own activities, and
launch a new offensive in this battle for the minds
and hearts and souls of men. For it is nothing less
than an ideological battle that we are fighting; and
that is why we need a Devil who is willing and able
to stand on his ideals. It isn't the size or the age of a
man's horns that countsit's what he's going to do
with them. It's our whole lives that you should be
judging here tonight. It's what we stand for. It's
what we believe. What I am trying to indicate to you
tonight is that the tide of history is on our side, and
that we can keep it on our side, because we're on
the right side, and that's the side of Evil. And let
there be no mistake about it: if I am elected Devil, I
intend to see Evil triumph in the end; I intend to
see that our children, and our children's children,
need never know the terrible scourge of
Righteousness and Peace.
Thank you.
THEN I SAW AN ANGEL COMING DOWN
FROM HEAVEN, HOLDING IN HIS HAND
THE KEY OF THE BOTTOMLESS PIT AND
A GREAT CHAIN. AND HE SEIZED THE
DRAGON, THAT ANCIENT SERPENT, WHO
IS THE DEVIL... AND BOUND HIM FOR A
THOUSAND YEARS, AND THREW HIM
INTO THE PIT, AND SHUT IT AND SEALED
IT OVER HIM, THAT HE SHOULD DECEIVE
THE NATIONS NO MORE...
THE BOOK OF REVELATION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PHILIP ROTH is the author of four previous books: the novella and
five stories entitled Goodbye, Columbus (1959), for which he
received the National Book Award for Fiction in 1960; and the
novels Letting Go (1962), When She Was Good (1967), and
Portnoy's Complaint (1969). His shorter fiction has been widely
reprinted in anthologies both in this country and abroad, and stories
have been reprinted in Martha Foley's annual collections The Best
American Short Stories, and in the O. Henry Prize Story annuals.
Mr. Roth has served as a visiting lecturer on the faculties of
several American universities, most recently Princeton, the State
University of New York at Stony Brook, and the University of
Pennsylvania.
In 1970, at the age of thirty-seven, he was elected a member of the
National Institute of Arts and Letters.