Bator continued, "In the executive branch we've shot the bolt today. From now on we just have to work on Congress. If these guys get us all out of Vietnam in 90 days, we'll have the biggest crow dinner-and we'll all vote for Richard Nixon in 1972." Nervous laughter all around.
Bater flew out the door with a cheery "Goodbye, Gentlemen." Others followed, including Schelling, who instructed Neustadt to take care of the bill, saying they would straighten out the finances Monday. Yarmolinsky left for the church.
Neustadt and Lipset relaxed briefly over strawberries and cream.
"You know," Neustadt said, "one of the most remarkable developments of going public like this-this is the first time in years that I've come to Washington and stayed at the Hay-Adams and had to pay the bill out of my own pocket."
He continued, "Eliot Richardson told us this afternoon, 'I'm still a rational man.' I wanted to say, 'But so was McGeorge Bundy.'
"Many of us will now have to decide whether we will resign from all our consulting positions with the government. It's sort of silly. I have some on which I haven't been consulted for two years. But it's hard after a thing like today to keep operating in the executive branch. Doris Kearns [assistant professor of Government, who taught Neustadt's course on the Presidency this year], who's been down here with Everett Mendelsohn's group, resigned today from the White House Fellows Commission, despite the fact that final selections are this weekend and she had considered her appointment a great honor. People whose advise was being asked on a number of issues have now cut themselves off by announcing that they're going to the Hill to lobby. But there's so much disaffection within government that us academics resigning will be no big deal. That's why we put so much emphasis today on those of us who were ex-officials of government. We were trying to distinguish ourselves-today at least-from those who are 'merely' professors."
Lipset said, "Packard today dismissed us as 'professors' and 'liberals' -same thing." He shrugged.
THEY asked me to call the CRIMSON to find out what was happening in Cambridge. I returned to report that a group of 500 had left the stadium meeting and had trashed the CFIA, and was now heading for the Square.
Lipset, a CFIA associate, sighed. "I don't leave anything important there anymore. I just hope Schelling remembered to take his stuff out before he came down here yesterday."
They paid their bill, and caught a cab to the Cleveland Park Congregational Church, to continue the fight against the war in the best way they know how.