Seven Days in May

Lyman lovers!

Give me a hand! Give me a hand!

Come on, break it up! Hey, break it up!

Push him in.

When it comes to jurisdictional strikes

like this...

...the administration's job is quite clear.

The 0-day cooling off period

will be observed.

And if industry is so hell bent

to invoke Taft-Hartley...

...any support they get from me

will have to get flogged out.

Underline and exclamation point.

How many men involved there?

By next Tuesday, they figure the entire

industry from San Diego to Seattle.

I'm not through yet.

You stick one more thing in me, Horace,

and I'll take up faith healing.

You've been at it an hour.

Your pressure's risen three points

for every letter you've dictated.

Your predecessors would go to the clinic.

My predecessors didn't have a riot

going on outside the White House.

They were at least sufficiently popular

to get their faces on stamps.

"Gallup Poll."

Twenty-nine percent of the people

of the United States approve of what I do.

Twenty-nine percent.

When that thing reaches

stroke proportions, put it out as a bulletin.

It's probably the one thing

that'll make Labor Management...

...and the Pentagon join hands

and declare a national holiday.

When did you have your last vacation?

When I was six months old,

back in Cleveland, Ohio.

I believe it. Don't forget

the CIA appointment at 2:00.

Phone Liberman.

Tell him to meet me here.

Assuming I'll be alive after lunch.

The White House physician makes

no such assumption.

Your blood pressure's up again,

and I don't like it one little bit.

Now this is an order.

Not just medical advice.

You're to go away for at least two weeks.

Two weeks?

And you can have damn few phone calls.

How about a compromise, Horace?

I'll take a quick swim in my pool.

Can I squeeze that in, Paul?

People from West Virginia are waiting for

the crowning of the Rhododendron Queen.

Have the Secretary of the Interior handle it.

How are you, Horace?

What's new in fee splitting?

That's quite a mob scene you got outside.

Why in God's name do

we elect a man president...

...and then try to see how fast

we can kill him?

The Vice-President showed a vast amount

of discretion over valor...

...to go goodwilling when he did.

Pity you didn't join him, Jordie.

I envy Mr. Gianelli his Chianti

and Italian sunshine.

My own diet for the next several days

will be crow and bitters.

- Goodbye, Horace.

- Doctor.

Come on, Ray. You can watch me

do the Lyman crawl.

Thank you.

In a half hour I'm due at a meeting

with the illustrious Senator Prentice.

To hear him tell it,

you're a third-grade idiot with clay arches.

But the Chair of the Joint Chiefs...

...one General James Mattoon Scott,

who'll be in front of the committees...

...he is the reincarnation of Washington

who could walk on that water.

That Gallup Poll shake you up?

Well, let's say I've felt more popular

in my time.

Don't get your nanny up.

You knew there'd be some dislocations.

You can't gear a country's economy

for war for 20 years...

...then slam on the brakes

and expect the transition...

...to go like grease through a goose.

Doesn't work out like that.

Think of how the psychology of the thing

has been screwed up from the outset.

We've been hating the Russians

for a quarter of a century.

Suddenly we sign a treaty saying

in two months...

...they're to dismantle their bombs,

we're to dismantle ours...

...and we all ride to a peaceful glory.

The country will probably live as if peace

were just as big a threat as war.

Damn it, Ray.

We could have had our paradise.

Yes, by God, we could have had

full employment...

...whopping gross national product...

...nice, cushy feeling that we got a bomb

for every one of theirs.

But as sure as God made the State

of Georgia, there'd have come one day...

...when they'd have blown us up,

or we'd have blown them up.

And the good doctor worries

about my blood pressure.

You know who that gentleman is

with the black box?

There are five.

You know that one of them sits

outside my bedroom at night?

You know what he carries in that box?

The codes.

The codes by which I, Jordan Lyman...

...can give the order sending us

into a nuclear war.

Instead of my blood pressure...

...I think Horace should worry

about my sanity.

You want to know something, Jordie?

Riots and unemployment notwithstanding,

you're an exceptionally fine president.

But 25-year friendship aside,

the day may yet come...

...when the name Jordan Lyman

and "sanity" will come out as one word.

Mention that to General James Scott

when he's up in front of you this morning.

I hear you.

And try tea sometime, too, huh?

I'll give it a taste now and then.

I personally visited the President.

I presented him with a documented case

listing the reasons for concern.

Three weeks before the treaty

was ratified...

...three of us sat in this same committee

and urged its re-evaluation.

Only last week in Pravda...

Excuse me, General. Sorry to interrupt.

As I understand it...

...you feel the signing of this pact

has been detrimental to our security.

If my colleague from Georgia

could confine his comments...

...not only to appropriate business

at hand...

...but to observe some of the basic rules

of parliamentary procedure.

In my boorish way, I'm only suggesting

that if you two gentlemen...

...continue to work from a script

with cues and stage directions...

...these proceedings take on all the dignity

of a very bad Gilbert and Sullivan.

Senator, I'd like to hear

what General Scott has to say.

- Thank you.

- So would I.

The audience has spoken, General,

and I beg forgiveness.

I'll make the point again, Senator.

I think signing a nuclear disarmament pact

with the Soviet Union...

...and at worst

an insupportable negligence.

We've stayed alive because we built up

an arsenal and we've kept the peace...

...because we've dealt with an enemy

who knew we would use that arsenal.

Now we're asked to believe

that a piece of paper...

...will take the place of missile sites

and Polaris submarines...

...and that an enemy who hasn't honored

one solemn treaty in its existence...

...will now, for our convenience,

do precisely that.

I have strong doubts.

Hear! That's what I say...

Senator Prentice,

if you would indulge me, sir.

If you would indulge me for a moment, sir.

From the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff I would welcome and respect...

...any judgement having to do specifically

with military considerations...

...but insofar as his political attitudes

are concerned...

...these, I'm sure we could dispense with.

Senator, we're talking about the survival

of the United States.

Is my uniform a disqualification

in that area?

I presume, General,

that an alternative to the treaty...

...that would meet with your approval

would be continuing to build bombs.

Bigger bombs, better bombs, more bombs.

Until at some given instant,

a trigger-happy idiot presses the button...

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes