Cliff grunted.
Ostrander went on. "I've also read the various press releases, manifestoes and so forth that your assistants have been compiling."
"We know," Homer said. "We haven't put any obstacles in your way. We haven't any particular secrets, Mr. Ostrander."
"You disguise the fact that you are an American," the C.I.A. man said accusingly.
Homer said slowly, "Only because El Hassan is not an American, Mr. Ostrander. He is an African with African solutions to African problems. That is what he must be if he is to accomplish his task."
Ostrander seemed to switch subjects. "See here, Crawford, the State Department is not completely opposed to the goal of uniting North Africa. It would solve many problems, both African and international."
Kenny Ballalou laughed softly. "You mean, you're on our side?"
Ostrander turned to him, for once not incensed at being needled. "Possibly more than you'd think," he rapped. He turned back again to Homer Crawford. "The question becomes, why do you think that you are the man for the job? Who gave you the go-ahead?"
Bey, who had settled down into a folding camp chair, now came to his feet, his tired face angry.
But Homer waved him to silence. "Hold it," he said. Then to Ostrander. "It doesn't work that way. It's not something you decide to do because you're thirsty for power, or greedy for money. You're pushed into it. Do you think Washington, a retired Virginian planter wrapped up in his estate and his family, wanted to spend years leading the revolutionary armies through the wilderness that was America in those days? He was thrust into the job, there was no one else more competent to take it. Men make the times, Ostrander, but the times also make the men. Look at Lenin and Trotsky. Three months before the October Revolution, Lenin wrote that he never expected to see in his lifetime the Bolsheviks come to power. Within those months he was at the head of government and Trotsky, a former bookworm who had never fired a gun in his life, was head of the Red Army and being proclaimed a military genius."