“Sold many tickets?” It was almost as if Ehrlichman could read Cam’s mind over the phone.

Cam was caught in his deception and could not backtrack. “A few more to go and we’ll be sold out.” With luck, Ehrlichman would never know.

Then Ehrlichman dropped his bombshell. “I’ll be in San Francisco tomorrow, so I’ll come along.”

“Great!” said Cam, his heart sinking.

“See you then.”

That afternoon, after a class on Dostoevsky, Cam and Jamie stayed in the lecture theater and scratched their heads. Where could they find two hundred Republican students?

“They don’t have to be real students,” Cam said.

“We don’t want the press saying the meeting was packed with stooges,” Jamie said anxiously.

“Not stooges. Just Republicans who don’t happen to be students.”

“I still think it’s risky.”

“I know. But better than a flop.”

“Where are we going to get the bodies?”

“Do you have a number for the Oakland Young Republicans?”

“I do.”

They went to a pay phone and Cam called. “I need two hundred people just to make the event look like a success,” he confessed.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the man said.

“Tell them not to speak to reporters, though. We don’t want the press finding out that Berkeley Students for Nixon consists mainly of people who aren’t students.”

After Cam hung up, Jamie said: “Isn’t this kind of dishonest?”

“What do you mean?” Cam knew exactly what he meant, but he was not going to admit it. He was not willing to jeopardize his big chance with Ehrlichman just for the sake of a petty lie.

Jamie said: “Well, we’re telling people that Berkeley students support Nixon, but we’re faking it.”

“But we can’t back out now!” Cameron was scared that Jamie would want to cancel the whole thing.

“I guess not,” Jamie said dubiously.

Cam was in suspense all the next morning. At half past twelve there were only seven people in the hall. When the speakers arrived Cam took them to a side room and offered them coffee and cookies baked by Jamie’s mother. At a quarter to one the place was still almost deserted. But then at ten to one, people started to trickle in. By one the room was almost full, and Cam breathed a little easier.

He invited Ehrlichman to chair the meeting. “No,” said Ehrlichman. “It looks better if a student does it.”

Cam introduced the speakers but hardly heard what they said. His meeting was a success, and Ehrlichman was impressed—but it could still go wrong.

At the end he summed up and said that the popularity of the meeting was a sign of a student backlash against demonstrations, liberalism, and drugs. He got an enthusiastic round of applause.

When it was over he could hardly wait to get them all out the door.

The reporter Sharon McIsaac was there. She had a crusading look, reminding him of Evie Williams, who had spurned his adolescent love. Sharon was approaching students. A couple declined to speak to her; then, to Cam’s relief, she buttonholed one of the few genuine Berkeley Republicans. By the time the interview was over, everyone else had left.