AFTERTHOUGHT
Word from Dullsville
JOHN GRAHAM
Washington—A boastful Persian told me this story, so it may very well not be true. It concerns a Persian and a Texan. And the Texan tells the Persian that what he really likes about Texas is the speed with which things get done. 'Why,' he said, 'I can start a riot in five minutes here, just by leaning out of 'my office window and firing my re- volver in the air.' The Persian asked him what he meant, and the Texan answered that everyone else would then lean out of their windows firing their revolvers, and the town would be in an uproar within minutes.
The Persian considered this, solemnly. After a moment he said, very quietly: 'I can start a riot in my home town by going home for lunch.' How so?' asked the Texan. 'Well.' said the Persian, 'if I go home from
the office for lunch, the lover who has been with my wife will have to leave in a hurry by the back door. He will run down the garden and jump over the-wall. He will then go back to his house, where the lover who has been with his wife will have to race out into his garden and over his garden wall, and so on. In a short while, everyone will be jumping over walls, and the town will be in an uproar.'
I have always treasured this picture of a bustling oriental town, the weary cuckolds going home for lunch and the air filled with acrobatic and frustrated paramours. Alas, the town probably does not exist, even though my boastful Persian swore that it did and that it was called .Rasht, and that the Rashtis (of whom he was one) were well- known to be the sexiest people in the land.
Maybe he is right. But right or wrong, that town is not Washington. I just can't see many American politicians jumping over walls somehow; they fit the Texan mould better, wildly firing verbal six-shooters in the air until the place is in uproar. And this is a pity, in a sense, because Washington would rather enjoy a dash of sex scandal at the moment. It would take everyone's mind off the heat, off the dismal practice of pol- itics and the even drearier problems of econ- omics, off the hatreds and the oppression that have sprung up in the last few years. It might even give Nixon and company some style.
But we won't be so lucky. In this shifting town, where almost anything can happen and some of the most powerful men in the world do unspeakable things to each other and treat each other with the basest treachery, the one certainty is that there will be no great sex scandal. One might think that with so much money and power around, there would be just a teeny bit of the demi-monde, espec. ially in these slow, hazy, humid days of summer. But no, the crew-cut- advertising men in power are an epicene lot, and there isn't a Messalina for miles.
The fact is that in Washington, sex has been largely sublimated into politics. The most famous women in this town are those with the political connections, not those with the feminine charms. They are ladies like Margaret Smith, the senator from Maine: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Pre- sident Teddy Roosevelt; Anna Chennault. widow of the hero-general of the Pacific; Martha Mitchell, wife of the Attorney-Gen- eral. All these ladies do have charm. But two of them are exceedingly old and none of them is exactly a chicken.
What the Washington woman wants is. firstly, political knowledge, inside informa- tion and so on, and secondly—if she can arrange it—political influence. A woman here will lean over and tell you some piece of political gossip with the same sort of coquet- tish slyness that a European would use to suggest an affair. It is their way of saying: 'Look, I'm sexy.' This attitude extends tc their view of men, naturally; witness the extraordinary popularity of Dr Kissinger. who is without question the most eligible guest on the social circuit. He is considered the White House's chief 'swinger,' yet, gran- ted that he is witty, cultivated (by the stand- ards surrounding him) and unmarried, he cannot by any stretch of the imagination be properly described as a swinger.
There just are no courtesans, and precious few vamps. No Delilah (you're not allowed to wear long hafr in the White House, any- way), no Medici to keep us on our toes, no Borgia to liven things up, if...you'll pardon the expression (American food is so bland, my dear . .).
It may be the relative drabness of the social scene and the absence of any memor- able women that have provoked the current outburst of feminism. The Congress is even now being forced into passing a women's rights' amendment to the constitution that may create untold hawk. At the least, it would probably force the government to con- script women equally with men. So certain are the women of America that they are getting a raw deal, that they are planning a women's strike. And all this in a country where the extent of the matriarchy takes one's breath away.
The irony is indeed complete. Aristoph- anes's women went on strike because they didn't want their men to go to war. Amer- ica's women are going to strike because the laws make it harder for them, among other things, to go to war. At dinner tonight, the air crackling with tedium, I expect some lady will lean over to me with a wink and try to arouse me to an unbearable pitch of excitement by telling me what someone in the Budget Bureau said to the research direc- tor at the Federal Reserve. When is the next plane to Persia?
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