The Phantom’s deeds
To gain some time for his spies, the Phantom “sends his terrorists in Malaya and French Indochina, and his tanks into East Berlin”. The T-34s “come clattering in over the cobblestones, rocking and snarling”. They wager “their big 85-mm guns about like magic wands”. Frightened people don’t know what to do. “Some run, some stand, some die, many are glad they stayed at home”. This imagery is supposed to show the spread of Red thereat.
The crowd in the Cloakroom
The Cloakroom is packed. Even more, “it’s a real fucking carnival down there”. The whole place is “wired up with klieg lights and microphones, reporters and photographers everywhere”. They are “crawling under the tables, on their knees in from of Joe’s table”. They are also “perched up on windowsills”. There is something strange going on. This imagery is supposed to help a reader to feel atmosphere of the White House.
Struggling
Vice President Nixon “was sitting on the floor of my inner office, surrounded by every scrap of information I could find on the Rosenberg case”. He felt “scruffy and tired, dejected, lost in a surfeit of detail and further from a final position on the issue than ever”. It was “late, goddamn late”. He “desperately wanted to get rid of this atom-spy affair”. This imagery is supposed to show how tired Nixon was, how the Rosenberg case was draining him.
