Promise of Joy Read Online Free

destroy America both at home and abroad if it cannot be checked.
    Well, he tells himself abruptly: well. Grim lines come about the firm, emphatic lips. He intends to check the pack and, by God, he will, both at home and abroad. And if Ted Jason and his friends don’t like it, they can lump it. He will have the power and he will use it. They will have met not only their match but their master.
    And as abruptly his mood changes, to be succeeded by an instant ironic bitterness as he surveys the world he wants so much to run. What will he have confronting him if he finally achieves his long-held ambition to sit behind the desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
    Gorotoland, strategic key to the heart of Africa, in flames as its U.S.-supported hereditary ruler, flamboyant “Terrible Terry”—His Royal Highness Terence Wolowo Ajkaje, 137th M’Bulu of Mbuele—battles desperately to hold his throne against the onslaught of his equally flamboyant cousin, Communist-backed Prince Obifumatta.
    Panama, in flames as the Communist-backed People’s Liberation Movement of Ted’s former brother-in-law, Felix Labaiya-Sofra, attempts to overturn the U.S.-backed government of the old oligarchy and seize the Canal.
    In both countries, overt support for the revolutionaries, from both the Soviet Union and mainland China.
    In both countries, commitments of U.S. forces by Harley Hudson that placed his immediate successor, William Abbott, in a most difficult position both in the eyes of the world and in practical fact—commitments that will put upon Bill Abbott’s successor the obligation to end both conflicts and get out as fast as possible, with honor if he can manage it, without honor if he can’t.
    And domestically, all the anti-war turmoil, recently spilled over into a violence with sinister undertones that lead many to suspect that the excuse of foreign involvement is being used as the fulcrum for domestic revolution.
    This lovely picture, full of so many potentially fatal pitfalls for the next American Chief Executive, is what confronts him now. It is, he suspects, the main reason why Bill Abbott has held firm to his decision to serve until January and then return to the House and the Speakership he has held for so many years.
    Why in the hell would any sane man want the responsibility?
    But, then, of course Orrin Knox knows why, for it is the same reason that motivates Ted, the same that has motivated every aspirant to the Presidency in recent years. Because he— in this case Orrin—believes he knows best. Because he thinks he has the answers—or, at least, some of them. Because, though he may not know exactly how he will go about it, he does know that he desperately wants to achieve world peace and restore domestic tranquility, and he honestly believes that he is more sincere and more determined about this than all his competitors.
    Power is the great desideratum of all who rise above a certain level in American politics. But for the best—and they are many—it is not a completely selfish desire. Power to do something constructive for the country and the world is the name of the game, for the most earnest, the most idealistic, the most dedicated and the most sincere. Orrin feels—as all who achieve the highest office have had to feel, to survive all the scars of getting there—that he possesses these qualities in greater measure than anybody. Otherwise, why would he have been permitted to come so far and rise so high?
    Just as he reaches this flight of self-righteousness—and just as his innate Knox self-skepticism and sense of balance starts to come to his rescue to keep him from going entirely overboard in self-congratulation—the door to the bedroom opens and the other half of the famous Illinois team of “Orrin and Beth” comes in.
    “I know that look,” Beth says with a chuckle. “You’re telling yourself that nobody, but nobody, has more answers to anything than Orrin Knox does.”
    “Hank,” he says blandly, using