By rights I should not have been. I was not a professional military man when World War II broke out, and when Congress passed the draft law I drew a high number, high enough to keep me out of the army long enough to die of old age.
Not that very many died of old age that generation!
But I was the newly appointed secretary to a freshman congressman; I had been his campaign manager and my former job had left me. By profession, I was a high-school teacher of economics and sociology — school boards don't like teachers of social subjects actually to deal with social problems — and my contract was not renewed. I jumped at the chance to go to Washington.
My congressman was named Manning. Yes, the Manning, Colonel Clyde C. Manning, U.S. Army retired — Mr. Commissioner Manning. What you may not know about him is that he was one of the Army's No. 1 experts in chemical warfare before a leaky heart put him on the shelf. I had picked him, with the help of a group of my political associates, to run against the two-bit chiseler who was the incumbent in our district. We needed a strong liberal candidate and Manning was tailor-made for the job. He had served one term in the grand jury, which cut his political eye teeth, and had stayed active in civic matters thereafter.
Being a retired army officer was a political advantage in vote-getting among the more conservative and well-to-do citizens, and his record was O.K. for the other side of the fence. I'm not primarily concerned with vote-getting; what I liked about him was that, though he was liberal, he was tough-minded, which most liberals aren't. Most liberals believe that water runs downhill, but, praise God, it'll never reach the bottom.
Manning was not like that. He could see a logical necessity and act on it, no matter how unpleasant it might be.
* * *
We were in Manning's suite in the House Office Building, taking a little blow from that stormy first session of the Seventy-eighth Congress and trying to catch up on a mountain of correspondence, when the War Department called. Manning answered it himself.
I had to overhear, but then I was his secretary. "Yes," he said, "speaking. Very well, put him on. Oh… hello, General… Fine, thanks. Yourself?" Then there was a long silence. Presently, Manning said, "But I can't do that, General, I've got this job to take care of…. What's that?… Yes, who is to do my committee work and represent my district?… I think so." He glanced at his wrist watch. "I'll be right over."
He put down the phone, turned to me, and said, "Get your hat, John. We are going over to the War Department."