"Howard Waldrop - Ike At The Mike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

got back here."

Pratt laughed. He was eighty years old, far past retirement age, but still
bouncing around like a man of sixty. He had alternately quit and had every
British P.M. since Churchill call him out of retirement to patch up relations
with this or that nation.

Presley was thirty-three, the youngest senator in the country for a long time.
The United States was in bad shape, and he was one of the symbols of the new
hope. There was talk of revolution, several cities had been burned, there was
a war on in South America (again). Social change, life-style readjustment,
call it what they would. The people of Mississippi had elected Presley senator
after he had served five years as a representative. It was a sign of renewed
hope. At the same time they had passed a tough new wiretap act and had turned
out for massive Christian revivalist meetings.

1968 looked to be the toughest year yet for America.

But there were still things that made it all worth living. Nights like
tonight. A huge appreciation dinner, with the absolute cream of Washington
society turned out in its gaudiness. Most of Congress, President Kennedy, Vice
President Shriver. Plus the usual hangers-on.

Presley watched them. Old Dick Nixon, once a senator from California. He came
back to Washington to be near the action, though he'd lost his last election
in Fifty-eight.

The President was there, of course, looking as young as he had when he was
reelected in 1964, the first two term president since Huey "Kingfish" Long,
blessed of Southern memory. Say whatever else you could of Joe Kennedy, Jr.,
Presley thought, he was a hell of a good man in his Yankee way. His three
young brothers were in the audience somewhere, representatives from two
states.

Waiters hustled in and out of the huge banquet room. Presley watched the
sequined gowns and the feathers on the women; the spectacular pumpkin-blaze of
a neon orange suit of some hotshot Washington lawyer. The lady across the
table had engaged Pratt in conversation about Wales. The ambassador was
explaining that he had seen Wales once, back in 1923 on holiday, but that he
didn't think it had changed much since then.

E. Aaron studied the table where the guests of honor sat-the President and
First Lady, the Veep and his wife, and Armstrong and Eisenhower, with their
spouses.

Armstrong and Eisenhower. Two of the finest citizens in the land. Armstrong,
the younger, in his sixty-eighth year, getting a little jowly. Born with the
century, Presley thought. Symbol of his race and of his time. A man deserving
of honor and respect.