Free Ultimatum by Matthew Glass Page B

want to do. You talked before about having a voice within the administration. Well, that person will have a voice. He’ll have his chance in the debate, he’ll have his chance to persuade me—he’ll always have that chance—but after that, he’s going to have to execute the policy I agree with. Now, that may not sound great, but if I was in your shoes, it would seem like a pretty good deal to me. The only way you could get more is if you ran for president yourself. So what you have to ask yourself, Dr. Olsen, is do you want to spend the rest of your life talking about the things on that to-do list you’ve got in your head—or do you want to actually start doing some of them? Not everything, but something. Do you want to get out on the park, or would you rather stay in the dugout?”
     
    Olsen stared at him. “What are you saying, Senator?”
     
    Joe Benton hesitated. He had agreed to this meeting only because John Eales had pretty much insisted on it. Privately, he had thought it would be a waste of time. He had expected to have a conversation with Larry Olsen and then call up Steve Naylor and tell him he was offering State to Al Graham. Yet in forty-five minutes, Olsen had demonstrated a more crisp and cogent approach to foreign affairs than Benton had had from any other advisor. It was also more challenging, provoking, and demanding of his attention. And that, paradoxically, was the most important reason Joe Benton said what he proceeded to say next.
     
    “Dr. Olsen, let me be clear about this. If you do come in as secretary of state, you come in for at least one term. You don’t sit there for six months and decide you don’t like it. And on critical issues, you execute the policy I authorize. But I’ve promised you I’ll always hear what you’ve got to say, and I’ll protect your ability within the administration to say it. Now, if I was you, I’d be asking myself whether Yale’s a more attractive proposition.”
     
    Olsen shook his head slowly.
     
    “If you find this a little hard to believe,” said Joe Benton, “that makes two of us.”
     
    “Does Alan Ball know about this?”
     
    “No,” said Benton. He wondered again if what he was doing was completely insane. Olsen’s views and style couldn’t have been more opposed to Ball’s. It almost made him wince to think what might happen if he brought them together at the same table.
     
    “Can I have some time to think about it?” said Olsen.
     
    “How much do you want?”
     
    “A couple of days.”
     
    “Take until Friday.”
     
    Olsen nodded. “Senator, you’d better think about this as well.”
     
    ~ * ~
     

Thursday, December 9
     
    CBS Webcasting Center, New Jersey
     
     
     
    The journalists around the table had fallen silent. They were staring at Ben Lacey, a correspondent who had covered a good portion of the Benton campaign. Lacey couldn’t keep the smirk off his face.
     
    “Say that again,” said Fran O’Lachlan. She was editor in chief of the CBS politics stream, a sharp, energetic woman in her fifties who had built a reputation as a shrewd political analyst, and it was her daily editorial meeting that Lacey had just brought to a halt with his announcement.
     
    A week previously, President-elect Benton had presented the nominees for his economic team. Paul Sellers, Benton’s nominee for secretary of commerce was the only surprise. He was a moderate Republican congressman who had served as deputy U.S. trade representative under Bill Shawcross, and it was widely seen as a smart move by Benton to get a cross-party figure on the team. Hugo Montera, whom Benton had persuaded to join the administration, was named as his choice for labor secretary. And what Lacey had just said was that there was dirt on Montera
     
    He explained. Two years previously, Montera’s law firm, where Hugo Montera was a senior partner, had been sued by an employee who claimed he had been unfairly dismissed. The case had been settled out of