boisterous charges, and the unusually watchful eyes of Secret Service agents posted at the second-story windows of
The Residence recorded a normal dispersement at the end of the school day.
The usual daytime neighborhood passersby, those familiar to the T-men assigned to The Residence, detected nothing unusual
in the delivery of so many steel boxes at the Nixon home. They had more important things on their minds. The blasé quality
of life in New York, and especially that of Manhattan’s fabled Upper East Side, was the strongest factor in Richard Nixon’s
decision to leave California, where “La Casa Pacifica” had become an intolerable loneliness surrounded by rubber-necking tourists.
In Manhattan, Nixon could be in the midst of a crowded city and yet virtually ignored as a minor light in a community of more
genuine luminaries, or at least more lovable luminaries.
Occasionally, a group of wide-eyed out-of-towners, dressed in garments they assumed to bb fashionable in the better districts
of places like Omaha and Shreveport, would stop outside The Residence and point, shaking their heads in disbelief at the surprising
smallness of a New York townhouse. One of the group would remember the shocking $750,000 price tag announced in the press,
and they would cluck about that fact while grouped in front for an Instamatic photograph.
A group stopped now, performed the routine seen so often by the Secret Service agents, and then assembled for picture-taking.
This time, as the Instamatics clicked, so, too, did the larger, hidden cameras fitted through the slats of the yellow shutters
on the second-floor windows. Someone among the T-men remembered how John Hinckley had stopped for an Instamatic photo in front
of the White House only a few days before taking a shot at President Reagan.
One of the men who had arrived in the station wagon returned from the townhouse and locked up the car. He chatted briefly
with one of the Secret Service men permanently attached to The Residence duty, then went back inside, leaving the T-man to
watch the tourists.
FAIRMONT, West Virginia
Slayton could see the telltale line of smoke rising beyond the hills. He began his descent, knowing by long experience as
a flyer in Vietnam, that the smoke visibility was an able guide to altitude adjustments in preparation for landing in a troubled
spot.
He nosed the small U.S. Army helicopter he had managed to commandeer at Andrews Air Force Base toward the last ridge of blue-green
pines he would have to pass before reaching Fairmont. He was low enough now so that he could watch the shadow his craft made
on the forested hills; he could see the birds and the deer scampering down below at the dreaded sound of muffled rotor blades.
And then he saw the city of Fairmont—the source of the smoke that was his beacon.
Below him, the city was a barely controlled pandemonium of traffic congestion, arson, and angry, moving lines of people, some
moving against one another, some fleeing, some devouring commercial buildings and homes in the same way Slayton had seen Africa’s
terrifying army ants decimate a remote village by eating every living thing.
Even so, it appeared to Slayton, from his lofty vantage point, that the military would not have to be called in. Local police,
with state help, seemed to be managing. But what of the trauma to come after the fires were out and the ashes swept?
Slayton had seen this sort of public insanity before, in the uncivilized and so-called “civilized” world. Each time, townspeople
were left with the chilly realization that at any time of extraordinary circumstances there were those who would use the opportunity
for utter destruction, that there was no clue as to who they should watch.
What was that line from Menninger, Slayton wondered?
“We know that in the unconscious we are all mad, all capable of a madness which threatens constantly to emerge—sometimes does
emerge, only
The Residence recorded a normal dispersement at the end of the school day.
The usual daytime neighborhood passersby, those familiar to the T-men assigned to The Residence, detected nothing unusual
in the delivery of so many steel boxes at the Nixon home. They had more important things on their minds. The blasé quality
of life in New York, and especially that of Manhattan’s fabled Upper East Side, was the strongest factor in Richard Nixon’s
decision to leave California, where “La Casa Pacifica” had become an intolerable loneliness surrounded by rubber-necking tourists.
In Manhattan, Nixon could be in the midst of a crowded city and yet virtually ignored as a minor light in a community of more
genuine luminaries, or at least more lovable luminaries.
Occasionally, a group of wide-eyed out-of-towners, dressed in garments they assumed to bb fashionable in the better districts
of places like Omaha and Shreveport, would stop outside The Residence and point, shaking their heads in disbelief at the surprising
smallness of a New York townhouse. One of the group would remember the shocking $750,000 price tag announced in the press,
and they would cluck about that fact while grouped in front for an Instamatic photograph.
A group stopped now, performed the routine seen so often by the Secret Service agents, and then assembled for picture-taking.
This time, as the Instamatics clicked, so, too, did the larger, hidden cameras fitted through the slats of the yellow shutters
on the second-floor windows. Someone among the T-men remembered how John Hinckley had stopped for an Instamatic photo in front
of the White House only a few days before taking a shot at President Reagan.
One of the men who had arrived in the station wagon returned from the townhouse and locked up the car. He chatted briefly
with one of the Secret Service men permanently attached to The Residence duty, then went back inside, leaving the T-man to
watch the tourists.
FAIRMONT, West Virginia
Slayton could see the telltale line of smoke rising beyond the hills. He began his descent, knowing by long experience as
a flyer in Vietnam, that the smoke visibility was an able guide to altitude adjustments in preparation for landing in a troubled
spot.
He nosed the small U.S. Army helicopter he had managed to commandeer at Andrews Air Force Base toward the last ridge of blue-green
pines he would have to pass before reaching Fairmont. He was low enough now so that he could watch the shadow his craft made
on the forested hills; he could see the birds and the deer scampering down below at the dreaded sound of muffled rotor blades.
And then he saw the city of Fairmont—the source of the smoke that was his beacon.
Below him, the city was a barely controlled pandemonium of traffic congestion, arson, and angry, moving lines of people, some
moving against one another, some fleeing, some devouring commercial buildings and homes in the same way Slayton had seen Africa’s
terrifying army ants decimate a remote village by eating every living thing.
Even so, it appeared to Slayton, from his lofty vantage point, that the military would not have to be called in. Local police,
with state help, seemed to be managing. But what of the trauma to come after the fires were out and the ashes swept?
Slayton had seen this sort of public insanity before, in the uncivilized and so-called “civilized” world. Each time, townspeople
were left with the chilly realization that at any time of extraordinary circumstances there were those who would use the opportunity
for utter destruction, that there was no clue as to who they should watch.
What was that line from Menninger, Slayton wondered?
“We know that in the unconscious we are all mad, all capable of a madness which threatens constantly to emerge—sometimes does
emerge, only
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