Free Capable of Honor by Allen Drury Page B

Washington now, Walter is there, his sturdy figure trudging down the corridors of State Department or Senate, emerging from inside closed committee hearings and secret international conferences (“Now, how the hell did Walter get in there?” his exasperated colleagues demand of one another, but only a secret little smile around his lips betrays his knowledge at their consternation and his satisfaction at having caused it), getting exclusive interviews with visiting heads of state, standing at the President’s elbow as he delivers his latest pronouncement on the crises of a disintegrating world. Walter is there because he is Walter Dobius, friend of the mighty, just as he was there in school days because he was Walter Dobius, friend of the mighty. But he is also there, and always has been, because he is Walter Dobius, magnificent and indefatigable reporter.
    It is the foundation of his fame and the true basis of his power; and it is the element which perhaps more than any other gives his words the weight they have.
    “Walter is a pompous, patronizing, insufferable sh.…owoff,” one of his most famous colleagues remarked thoughtfully one night in the Press Club bar, “but he does go to the source.”
    And the sources go to Walter and together—or so he tells himself with a secret pleasure he would be inhuman not to feel—they run the world.
    (Nowadays the claim is not far from the truth. Two or three times a year in London, for instance, the phone will ring at No. 10 Downing Street and the familiarly casual, heavy voice will say, “Reggie?” (or “Harold?”) “I’m just in town for a day or two. I wonder if we could have lunch?” And Harold—or Reggie—will obediently drop everything and oblige, aware that behind the voice lie 436 newspapers, an international reputation, and—perhaps—the key to swaying the opinions of a baffling and erratic ally. Similarly from Moscow or Peking, Paris or New Delhi, there will come from time to time the impossible-to-get interview, the exclusive revelation, handed down by men who find in Walter the surest road to the world’s front pages, the most effective channel through which to disclose their purposes and threaten, or cajole, the hearts and minds of men.)
    Out of the high school editorship, however, out of Yale after editing the Daily , something suddenly seemed to go wrong. There followed a dark period of several years during which the future sage somehow failed to find his place. It was the only time in his life when he came close to doubting himself.
    He began with a good job on the Hartford Courant . At once he ran into trouble. Possibly, as he long ago became convinced, it was the difficult personalities of his fellow workers that started their immediate mistrust and misunderstanding. Possibly, as one of them indicated years later in a witty and quickly discredited article in National Review entitled, “I Remember Walter,” it was his own personality which was at fault.
    In any event, a clash was immediate. Somehow his colleagues got the unjust and unwarranted idea that Walter was after their jobs—not anyone’s in particular, just that of whoever happened to be in his way. Actually, it was just that Walter, in his usual hard-working fashion, seemed to get there first on every good assignment. This went on for some eight months, until the day when the paper’s top political reporter, arriving ten minutes late for an interview with the governor, found Walter already deep in earnest conversation with him behind closed doors and got the unfortunate impression that Walter was after his job. An ultimatum to the editor followed, and with a mixture of reluctance, because he recognized Walter’s abilities, and compliance, because he recognized his all-consuming drive for power, the editor suggested that Walter might prefer a larger arena for his talents. The editor murmured vaguely of New York and Washington, confident that in those competitive jungles Walter would