Miller paused, surveyed his listeners, and then he said:

“We assemble here as warriors enlisted in the holy cause of the United States Constitution. Despotism has cast its black shadow across our fair land. As warriors of righteousness, we have heard the imperative command, and now, at any cost, we shall obey it.

“Honorable gentlemen and impartial judges, fellow warriors in this crusade, what are the charges we bring against the despot reigning in the White House? Are these four Articles of Impeachment, approved so overwhelmingly by your colleagues in the House, merely vindictive paper charges, indictments created out of envy, pique, spitefulness, and based on hearsay and conjecture? No! One thousand times no, and no again! The case of the People versus Douglass Dilman, President, motivated by patriotism and Americanism and nothing less, nay, motivated by a loftier purpose, motivated by duty to flag and country-this case is firmly based on the bedrock of truth and fact. Hear me-truth and fact!

“Let us proceed to examine the Articles of indictment one by one, and permit me to elaborate upon their fuller meaning, upon their intent, and upon the support of evidence we are prepared to give to each.”

Miller’s hand had gone into his pocket, extracted a rolled wad of notes bound by a rubber band. With deliberation, he removed the rubber band and spread out the notes.

“Article I,” he read, and then looked up. “Indictment number one arising from the heinous and treasonable behavior of the respondent…”

Nat Abrahams settled back, tightly crossing his arms over his chest, prepared to hear the outline of the prosecution’s case. There was no need for him to make notes. The pencils of Tuttle, Priest, and Hart would be busy. The stenotype beneath Leach’s fingers would capture it all for later reference. For Abrahams, it was enough to hear and weigh the slant and direction of the speech, so that he could make a final judgment about his own opening remarks.

Attentively, he listened.

Slurring the words, Miller hastily read Article I. Then, at a more deliberate pace, with greater care, he defined the indictment. The charge was treason. President Dilman was in possession of the nation’s topmost defense secrets. He was also possessor of a lady’s affection, and this lady, this Miss Wanda Gibson, who had once been tutored by, mesmerized by, employed by a professor of leftist leanings, had naturally gravitated to other employers who were of leftist persuasion. For five years she had worked as a confidential executive secretary for a Soviet Russian spy, who had since fled the country, and she had accepted a high salary, Judas money, from him and from his Vaduz Exporters, a secret Communist Front organization. Subsequently, from the President of the United States, who had perhaps been seduced by her beauty and proffered love, who had either innocently trusted her or deliberately sought to help her hold and improve her position, whose tongue had been loosened by a brain befogged by drink, Miss Gibson had acquired precious military secrets. Then, either because of her desire to impress her Soviet Communist employer or because of her long indoctrination in socialistic beliefs, she had passed on the American President’s confidences to Franz Gar, who had in turn speedily relayed them to Premier Kasatkin in Russia. Thus, knowing the secrets of our then current policy and strength, the U.S.S.R. had been in a position to anticipate and best us in divided Berlin, in India, in Brazil, and elsewhere.

In the immediate days ahead, Miller went on to explain, the House managers would fill in the details of this traitorous design. They would provide witnesses, from Vaduz employees to White House employees, to prove-to prove beyond a shadow of doubt-that the President of the United States had this close relationship with Miss Gibson. They would bring to the stand the President’s own personal secretary, and enter a diary she had kept as Exhibit A, and they would bring to the stand the President’s own social secretary, to prove his extramarital liaison with Miss Gibson. They would bring forth subpoenaed witnesses, ranging from the leftist-minded professor who had taught Miss Gibson at the University of West Virginia, to the Director of the FBI, to prove that the President’s indiscretions had opened every file in the Pentagon, in SAC, in Cape Kennedy, to the Premier of Russia.

Now Miller read Article II, and in his explanation of it, gave it little elaboration. Because the President had placed a blood relationship above his oath of office, because of “a natural and unfortunately understandable passion for a member of a minority race and a desire to help militant members of that race,” the President had been in secret collusion with the infamous Turnerite Group and its condemned and soon-to-be-executed leader, Jefferson Hurley. There would be ample evidence to convince the eminent Senate members of the President’s criminality. There would be entered into the record Exhibit B, a letter in the hand of Julian Dilman, confessing his intent to become a secret member of the Turnerites. There would be subpoenaed witnesses who had seen the President and his son holding their surreptitious and questionable meetings in the White House and at Trafford University. There would be read an affidavit signed by the Attorney General of the United States himself, to reveal by what means the President had obstructed the Department of Justice in his effort to protect the Turnerites, and thereby protect his son. And because of this prejudiced interference, it would be shown how the President was as responsible as the murderer Hurley for the death of a noble and selfless Southern magistrate, namely, Judge Everett Gage, now in his Mississippi grave, a martyr to executive selfishness and conspiracy.

With the lip-smacking, leering delight of a young boy slowly turning the pages of a nudist periodical, Representative Zeke Miller fluently rolled out the charges specified in omnibus Article III.

“We are grown men, men of the world, and we know that Babylon has existed, and that weak men are weak in the flesh,” said Miller, his words winking out across the Chamber. “Seduction of the innocent, the fair, the frail, lechery imposed upon other men’s daughters and wives and widows, exists. However”-and his high-pitched voice rose several decibels, like a Confederate bugle, until its shrillness knifed across every portion of the auditorium-“when the leader of our democratic and spiritual renaissance, through wicked and sinful behavior, profanes the sacred sanctum where once slept the illustrious Abe Lincoln, profanes the hallowed halls of the President’s House where the tread of Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson, and both Roosevelts was once heard, it is a time not for revulsion but for retribution.”

The President, said Miller, grown coarse and intemperate in his long years of solitary bachelorhood, often inflamed by drink, had become disrespectful of the opposite sex. One extramarital love affair, with one of his own race, had not been enough to satiate him. He had sought out and hired the sweet and innocent daughter of one of the nation’s most respected and beloved legislators. He had brought close to him this young lady, little qualified though she was for the position he had offered her, baiting her with it for no other purpose than ultimately to satisfy his carnal needs. Yes, he had degraded his office, and his manhood, and his race, by attempting to force himself upon Miss Sally Watson while intoxicated, seduce her, and only through the grace of the Lord had she escaped. In due time, the victim herself, agonizing as reliving the experience would be for her, would recount the details of the horrifying episode. Photographs of her injuries, taken immediately after the terrible experience, would be entered into the record as Exhibit C by the managers of the House.