Conspiracy

143

Shadowing the president was a revelation for Dean. He’d never imagined that so many people would want— need—to talk to Marcke in the course of an hour, let alone twenty-four. Aides constantly vied for attention. There were phone calls and e-mail messages, forwarded BlackBerry alerts.

Briefing papers piled up; summaries and reports were passed from assistant to assistant. Ted Cohen, the chief of staff, had two telephones constantly pressed to his ear, and more often than not was speaking to someone nearby as well.

Marcke seemed unfazed by it all. He seemed to give whomever he was speaking to at the moment his undivided attention, and it was only after they had moved on that Dean realized the President must have been thinking about a dozen other things. If anything, Marcke seemed to want more to do: in his few moments of peace he fidgeted, habitually bending paper clips with his fingers and spinning them into knots and odd shapes. He ordered the car stopped several times, and, to the visible discomfort of the Secret Service detail, insisted on shaking the hands of some of what ever bystanders happened to be there.

Every so often, President Marcke glanced over and found Dean. Marcke smirked at him, as if they were co-conspirators on a private joke.

“So, Mr. Dean, enjoying yourself?” asked the President as they rode to his next stop, a new biology lab four miles south of the city.

“It’s interesting.”

“Boring as hell, huh?” Marcke smiled at him. “George Hadash used to call these sorts of swings ‘orchestrated time chewers.’ He hated traveling with me, but he did have a way with words.”

“Yup.”

“You never took one of his classes, did you?”

“No, sir.” Dean had met Hadash in Vietnam when he’d been detailed to give the then-congressional aide a “ground— level” view of Vietnam. Hadash had impressed him not so much because he insisted on going into the field — plenty of civilian suits from the States did that — but because he actually listened to what Dean said.

“He was a good teacher. And a friend. I miss him.” The President paused. “He was working on a new theory of the Vietnam War when he died, you know. He was writing a book. He thought the war was due a reevaluation. He was going to call the book A Necessary War. ”

“Really?” Dean had never heard anyone say that Vietnam was anything but a waste.

“He thought if it hadn’t been for Vietnam, the rapproche-ment with China would have been delayed at least ten years.

And he believed there would have been another armed clash between the Soviets and ourselves, perhaps in the Middle East. We might never have become involved in helping the Afghan rebels, which at least indirectly led to the end of the Soviet Union. I doubt I’m doing his ideas justice,” added the President. “They were quite extensive.” Dean nodded.

“What do you think, Mr. Dean?”

“A lot of good people died,” said Dean.

“True. It’s a difficult thing, sending people to die. But that’s not really the question.”

“Vietnam shaped my life,” said Dean. It was a statement he wouldn’t have made before going back, as true as it was, because he hadn’t realized it.

“It shaped mine as well,” said Marcke. “But again, that wasn’t the question.”

The car stopped. The Secret Service agents began to swarm outside.

“I think it was an important event,” said Dean. “But I don’t know if it was necessary. Most things that happen, we don’t have the luxury of knowing if they’re necessary or not.

Even for ourselves.”

“Well put, Mr. Dean,” said the President, pulling himself out of the car.