For how can you compete
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours' eyes?

-- From "To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing," by William Butler Yeats

Last week, two very different places were linked by the random tides of history in a way that casts a clear light on both. The first was the chamber of the United States Senate, with every senator stuck to a desk during the closing arguments in the impeachment of the president. Because the public was uninterested in watching the slow death of a strangled proceeding, the galleries were half empty. And yet unfolding below was the kind of extraordinary scene you can see in paintings in the National Gallery down the hill: a great and colorful crowd gathered in silvery light for the contemplation of a struggle with a tragic end. There on the floor, at long tables as if in a Renaissance fresco of the Last Supper, were the House managers and the president's counsel.

Of the managers, more later. Of the president's lawyers, honor is theirs for having fought well from an unspeakable position. Afterward, as they filed through the nether regions of the Capitol, their expressions told their story. This has hardly been a faceless drama. Think of how, as time goes on, Sidney Blumenthal looks more and more like the emperor Hirohito in the war years, and James Carville has come to resemble something that someone brought in from the desert for Georgia O'Keeffe to paint. Charles Ruff's countenance, however, seems to say that for him this is perhaps a morally difficult time, and in David Kendall's eyes one can see a good man with the misfortune of being a lawyer.

The senators, of course, are always the most interesting, ranging as they do from the sublime to the absurd, with all their faults and virtues exaggerated by rank and position. To anyone interested in the interpretation of manner and mien, watching them as they simmer together in the broth of their monstrously inflated self-regard is better than a day at the circus. But though some are clearly nothing more than half-wits, schoolyard bullies, or hair-conscious fops who sport what look like the wigs of ancient Spanish grandees, others, the anchors of the Senate, are brilliant and good, trustworthy and wise.

It is they who are the most disturbing, for despite their great qualities they have been missing in action not only during the impeachment proceedings but for the whole of the president's dishonest tenure. Though they have taken to the airwaves like bees swarming in a hot wind, not a single senator, Republican or Democrat, or for that matter a governor, former president, or presidential candidate, has risen to speak solely in honor of the truth. Not one has made the spare and unassailable assertion that such things even as have been admitted by the president's defenders are simply unacceptable, and that to rationalize them in any way will in the light of history be perceived as cowardice and sin.

Of the Democrats who refused to convict, nothing need be said, and of Republicans, less. But what of the Republicans who, though later taking refuge in refusal to acquit, crippled the proceedings so badly that only a Salvador Dali might have envisioned conviction? The trial was rigged so that the prosecution had no witnesses, the summation came first, the jurors gave interviews, and all but the managers were obsequiously devoted to what in saner times used to be called a rush to judgment. These conditions, we are told, are the incontestable prerogatives of the Senate. That may be, but it is also incontestable that similar conditions were at one time the prerogatives of the Supreme Soviet and like bodies with a predilection for distorting trials to flatter nonsensical verdicts.

T.E. Lawrence wrote of his campaigns in Arabia what the House managers might think about the impeachment: "The old men came out again and took from us our victory, and remade it in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep." Then, as now, the elders had no magic but rather experience and compelling arguments. Now, as then, they say that they are accommodating the facts and moving as far as they can within their confines. Even if no jury in its right mind would have failed to convict a man so obviously guilty, the country has never supported the impeachment of this president, and, indeed, is livid in reaction to it.

Peace, prosperity, and growing incomes have combined with the perceived triviality of the case to preclude the pressures that otherwise might have forced the president's party to abandon him. In the absence of any chance of success, the best policy is to cut one's losses and get the troops off the beach so that they might live to fight again. This analogy to Dunkirk surfaced in the Republican caucus. Some senators of great ability and judgment are convinced of it, and have acted in good conscience and with the highest integrity to save their party and do their best for the nation.

But are they right? No, they are not. For this there are many proofs, but consider one that is accidental. The day after the closing arguments, a unit of Air Force cadets in a Virginia auditorium far less elegant than the chamber of the Senate was gathered for instruction in the problems of the airworthiness of an F-16 asymmetrically loaded with external ordnance. It may seem that nothing could be further removed from the previous day's events, but this is only partly true. These were splendid young people who were making a start into life with faith, trust, and innocence. Although they had no idea and could not have been expected to know, their future may have been wrought in the Senate the day before. How?

China wants a free hand in Asia, but is checked by American nuclear predominance and naval superiority. To overcome these it must build a blue-water navy, which it is doing, and augment its nuclear forces to the point where they are powerful and survivable enough to neutralize even far greater American capabilities. To do so, they must keep missiles at sea in relatively invulnerable extended bastions within range of the entire U.S. And for this they must have multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) so they can triple the power of their arsenal and make economical the portage of missiles in submarines.

Although they cannot do it themselves, to succeed they must miniaturize their warheads to pack them into sea-launched missiles, they must master the complicated carry-and-release system known as the bus, and they must have the machine tools to craft such things and the knowledge of composites and ceramics to design nose cones to shield them. As they are signatories of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, they must rely upon supercomputers for the design and simulation testing of their miniaturized warheads. President Clinton overruled various agencies and allowed the Chinese these computers, as he allowed them previously restricted machine tools from a defunct McDonnell Douglas production line in St. Louis, and as he intervened to protect the provision of American instruction in launching multiple communications satellites on one rocket: i.e. transferring the fundamentals of MIRVing and bus design.

To help the Chinese check our main advantages over them is to set the stage for their challenge to us in Asia directly or through surrogates -- a situation in which the young Air Force cadets, when they are somewhat older, may find themselves in circumstances that we are pledged as a nation to help them avoid. It does not take a great deal of imagination to understand that their future has been betrayed. Were it simply bad policy, it would be unforgivable but it would not be impeachable. But the president of the United States, his party, and his campaigns -- prior to, during, and after these decisions -- have taken in a great deal of money from agents of the very same People's Republic of China. The network is well developed. It leads through Chinese Intelligence to the People's Liberation Army and presumably the gerontocracy in Peking, and it is not a right-wing hallucination, but has been described in detail on the front page of the Washington Post and in hearings before the Thompson committee of the United States Senate, and is based upon classified signals intelligence intercepts.

Next to such enormity the Lewinsky affair pales in significance and, though in itself should have been sufficient for the removal of a president, must have been seen by this president as a magnificent distraction and the answer to his prayers. The Senate showed its characteristic resolve in killing the Thompson committee and taking no offense at being stiffed by scores of witnesses, which is strange for an assembly so conscious of its own dignity. Whether or not this is related to the fact that Republicans have been drawing from the wells of Taiwan since the days of Chiang Kai-shek is irrelevant. What is relevant is that the Republican majority, never mind the Democrats, failed in its duty to the country.

And that is where Dunkirk comes in once again. Churchill had been prime minister for three weeks before the fighting retreat at Dunkirk. He was the author of the fighting, and Neville Chamberlain the author of the retreat. Had Churchill's skills and aggressive instincts been applied earlier there would have been no Dunkirk and there may have been no war. The British need not have been driven from France and the fighting disastrously prolonged. They need not have almost lost the war itself. The question was of generalship. What good are generals if they will not fight? Had Republicans not cowered behind every marble column, had they called out the president on such things as China and stood fast, they would have won the battle of public opinion over which all they have done is despair.

In this, the House managers, with whom the Senate elders are so cross, can be likened to the soldiers of Calais. To block a German assault from the west upon the Dunkirk beaches, Churchill asked of the 30th Brigade in Calais that it would neither withdraw nor surrender, and it didn't. Commanded by a Brigadier Nicholson, units such as the Second King's Royal Rifles, the First Queen Victoria's Rifles, and the Sixth Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders waged a fierce and losing battle. They had little equipment and less ammunition. Their officers fought while wounded, until they died, in a chaos of bombing, armored attack, burning vehicles, shattered glass, artillery fire, and the bodies of the dead.

The Germans arrogantly and accurately held out the alternatives of surrender or death, and though he knew their backs were to the sea and they were never to be relieved, Nicholson's reply was, "The answer is no as it is the British Army's duty to fight as well as it is the German's." To quote Gregory Blaxland, the historian of this great episode, "All that is certain is that there was no depression. The men were uplifted by that strange grandeur of spirit which defies rational explanation and can carry men above despair."

The loss of the 30th Brigade was near total, but, in Churchill's testimony, "Calais was the crux." Without "the three days gained by the defence of Calais . . . all would have been cut off and lost." These men died, but they did their duty. They were lucky to have had Churchill at the helm to exploit and appreciate the gift of their sacrifice. The House managers have died a political death, with no such luck or appreciation. They did not have Mr. Churchill, they had Trent Lott and other such allies who carefully preserved themselves so that they could live on to be sure not to fight another battle. One can say in regard to the Senate that never have so many owed so little to so few. Their declaration: We shall flag and we shall fail. We shall not go on to the end. We shall not defend our position, whatever the cost may be. We shall surrender in the cloakrooms, on the chat shows, and on the floor of the Senate itself, so that, if the United States lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour?"

In service of evanescent public sentiment the Senate has failed in its obligation to find truth and do justice, and so enabled the president to compel a lie and forced the country to live a lie. This will resound in America's future and in the fate of the cadets who were oblivious of what the Senate had been doing the day before they went to learn about the F-16, who were betrayed by their elders for want of courage, and who, someday, may have to fight like the 30th Brigade, and may God protect them.

It is they, and the House managers, and ordinary people who do not rise very far, who by their sacrifices, their willingness to risk, and their assumption of danger, are the real senators of this country. Though the Democrats have been reduced immeasurably in the eyes of history, the Republicans have lost the day. Is it not time, then, for the Republicans to replace leaders who won't with leaders who will, leaders who can't with leaders who can? Is it not time for the Chamberlains to give way to the Churchills, who are willing to contest important battles without reference to their own position or fate? Of course the answer is yes. It is appropriate now as always to turn to those with the courage of the soldiers of Calais, who, though they lived short lives, lived great lives, and who, though they fell in battle, never knew what it was like to walk on their knees.

Mr. Helprin, a novelist, is a contributing editor of the Wall Street Journal.