Ask Not Of Your Country (Timeline 10/27/62 - USA Book 4)

by James Philip

  What Curtis LeMay actually had ‘in play’ was one carrier division and theoretically, several B-52 wings based thousands of miles away in North America. There was no such thing as Turkey any more, and the only remotely friendly troops on the ground were British and Australasian; whom the Administration regarded as being part of the problem not the solution.

  Operation Mobile Bay had started out being about the projection of crushing American military might anywhere in the World where US interests were threatened by Soviet aggression.

  Operation Mobile Bay – lacking two-thirds of its naval strength, and without any kind of presence on the ground – was now entirely dependent upon Carrier Division Seven somehow interposing itself between the warring parties half-way around the World from Philadelphia.

  Nobody at Camp David had actually been able to satisfactorily describe to Curtis LeMay what that looked like in practice.

  Heck, if the CO of Carrier Division Seven made a bad move everybody would end up at war with everybody else!

  LeMay was still trying to get his head around the Commander-in-Chief’s injunction to prep a Bombardment Wing for operations in the Middle East flung out of Soviet air bases!

  Who in God’s name was the man planning to bomb?

  The conference room in the blockhouse between the Naval Air Station and the sprawling dockyards and storehouses was crowded with aides from the entourages that accompanied each of the Chiefs wherever they went. Silence fell as LeMay marched in and clunked his attaché case on the table.

  LeMay shook hands with each of his fellow Chiefs.

  “The Chiefs and I need the room!” He announced gruffly, with the grim purpose he had demonstrated dispatching his fleets of B-29s to fire bomb the ancient cities of Japan in 1945.

  Le May pulled a small batch of envelopes out of his case and pushed them towards his fellow Chiefs.

  “I didn’t believe what I was hearing this morning, gentlemen. I didn’t think you’d believe it either so I requested the President to put it in writing. You’ve each got a copy. YOUR EYES ONLY until the President says otherwise.”

  A highly polished oval table had been positioned in the middle of the floor for the five members of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, and rows of chairs arranged for the members of the supporting cast.

  “I’ll give you all a few minutes to read the Commander-in-Chief’s directive. Then we’ll talk.”

  LeMay settled into his chair, began to fulminate as he tried to fathom the inscrutable faces of his colleagues.

  Admiral David Lamar McDonald, the tall, fair-haired, fifty-seven year old, was the straight-dealing Georgian-born Chief of Naval Operations. He was a naval aviator who had commanded the USS Coral Sea, later Sixth Fleet, and been deputy CNO responsible for implementing the Navy’s contribution to the ‘peace dividend’ before his elevation to his present post.

  Fifty-nine year old David Monroe Shoup, the bespectacled stern-faced Commandant of the Marine Corps and Military Governor of the District of Columbia; was Marine Corps legend. The hero of Tarawa had led the defense of the Pentagon last December and subsequently been invited to be a permanent member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee by the President.

  General George Henry Decker, the re-called Chief of Staff of the US Army’s cool, unruffled demeanor gave no clue to the fact he had only flown in from Illinois that morning where he had been personally overseeing ‘fire fighting operations’. LeMay had half-suspected the old soldier had taken direct personal charge because he was worried that without the strongest possible leadership parts of the Chicago Front might collapse.

  Fifty-six year old Arkansan John Paul McConnell had replaced LeMay as Chief of Staff of the Air Force that spring. Until the uprising in Washington in December the role of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had been filled by one of the service heads; since then President Kennedy had demanded the Chairman should be the full-time professional head of all the US Armed Forces.

  In respect of the military organization of the US it was the last sensible decision the Commander-in-Chief had made…

  One by one the other Chiefs raised their eyes from the documents lying dangerously on the table before them and met LeMay’s gaze.

  Curtis LeMay had a reputation for being a drama queen, for never knowingly underselling an order but inter-service rivalries apart the Chiefs had rowed in behind him in recent months. When it came to charismatic leadership they deferred to the master, a task made easier because they appreciated how little Old Iron Pants or his staffers attempted to meddle in their individual service’s business.

  “All the crap we’ve been hearing about bringing ‘our boys’ home and never getting drawn into somebody else’s wars,” LeMay continued sourly, “all that bullshit about America First, well,” he sighed angrily, “that’s the way it’s going to be in future!”

  Nobody said a word.

  “We’re cutting Europe adrift,” LeMay said with a melodramatic sarcasm. By the fall the Sixth Fleet will pull out of Malta and the bomber and fighter wings we’ve got based in Spain will come home. The CIA can keep their people in Ireland, Madrid and England, but embassy security details apart everything is to be repatriated to ‘the Americas’, which henceforth along with South East Asia and the Pacific Rim Countries, Japan and South Korea mainly, will be The US’s only strategic focus.”

  Still, nobody else said a word.

  “That’s the Fulbright Doctrine. We rebuild out military and diplomatic clout at home. We don’t get involved in overseas wars. We don’t put grunts on the ground, aircraft in the air or ships on the water in places where they’re liable to be drawn into ‘local regional conflicts’ where no US vital interest is involved. The Middle East falls into this ‘non vital’ category; the Administration has had studies carried out which conclude that we don’t need Arabian oil. Apparently, there’s plenty of the black stuff under the North American continent, in Canada – although nobody’s asked the Canucks about how they feel about Standard Oil taking over the country - and up in Alaska, so along with South American and Indonesian oil we’ll be just fine.” He shook his head in derision. “Leastways, for the next couple of election cycles!”

  The other chiefs had seen those reports; and by and large discounted them because unexploited reserves under the ground did not count. It took years to develop oilfields in forested regions, longer to economically exploit reserves under mountainous regions or tropical jungles, coastal extraction was still ruinously costly and how the Hell was anybody going to extract oil from beneath the frozen wildernesses of Alaska?

  McDonald, the Chief of Naval Operations shook his head.

  “That must be why every ton of bunker oil costs the Navy eighty percent more than it did before the Battle of Washington,” he observed dryly.

  LeMay cleared his throat.

  “The Administration’s medium term thinking is to apply pressure to the Brits to abandon their nuclear weapons, and if that fails to impose commercially and financially sanctions on them until they see sense. In the meantime the President believes the surviving powers – and the geography and religious tensions in the Middle East - will an ‘adequate medium-term buffer against further Soviet aggression’.”

  “That’s crazy,” John McConnell observed dispassionately. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force was wearing a perplexed, irritated frown. “Every intelligence report we’ve got from the Iraq theatre of operations indicates that unless the British ‘go nuclear’ they’re going to get kicked out of Abadan. How long do we think the Soviets will permit free navigation in the Persian Gulf after they’ve seized Umm Qasr, Basra and Abadan?”

  The Chief of Naval Operations was staring at the table top.

  “You knew about this, David?” George Decker inquired softly.

  “Yes,” David McDonald confessed. He glanced to Curtis LeMay for leave to elaborate. “The Chairman,” he nodded to LeMay, “gave me a heads up on the way things were going several days ago in the light of pre-existing deployment schedule of Carri
er Division Seven. The President has since ordered me to prepare to aggressively deploy CD Seven inside the Persian Gulf. He believes that the presence of the Kitty Hawk in the Gulf will deter the British from ‘going nuclear’, and in the event that this fails, will deter the Soviets from retaliating. He also feels that Kitty Hawk’s presence will be sufficient to uphold our legitimate strategic military and commercial interests in the region without necessitating the commitment of ground troops in Arabia.”

  David Shoup stirred. The Marine’s expression was thunderous.

  “What exactly is Carrier Division Seven supposed to do if the Brits use nukes, Admiral?” He demanded lowly.

  McDonald hesitated, looked to LeMay.

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs shook his head.

  “In that event Admiral Bringle,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said wearily, “the commander of Carrier Division Seven will be authorized to take whatever steps he deems necessary to neutralize British air, sea and ground operations in the northern Gulf. For example, he has discretion to place his ships and aircraft between those of the British and the Soviets.”

  “We hope and pray it won’t come to that,” McDonald added fervently.

  John McConnell was horrified.

  “We could end up in a shooting war with the British,” the Chief of Staff of the Air Force protested.

  “Gentlemen!” Curtis LeMay barked. “The background to this discussion is that Your President, My President is in the process of locking the Soviets into a non-aggression pact. Our side of the deal is that we ‘manage’ the British in the Gulf; that is the price of peace. Does any man around this table doubt that we need peace overseas? Does any man around this table want to go through what we went through on October 27th sixty-two again? How many more American lives are we prepared to put on the table to do what all of us around this table think is the right thing?”

  Left to their own devices the Chiefs would have poured men and aircraft into the Gulf; B-52s would already have been pummeling the Red Army, and F-4 Phantoms clearing the skies of Iraq of MiGs; but then left to their own devices none of the men around the table would have chosen to wage war on the Chicago Front with their hands tied behind their backs and one foot chained to a stake in the ground!

  “I don’t know Bringle?” McConnell admitted, turning to the Chief of Naval Operations. “Is he up to this?”

  The other Chiefs were giving the CNO thoughtful looks. None of the men in the room would have willingly placed a man like William Bringle, the commander of Carrier Division Seven, in a position where a single misjudgment, or the slightest miscalculation, could easily start World War IV.

  David McDonald nodded.

  “Bringle’s a good man. I plan to fly out to India to brief him personally in the next thirty-six hours. Kitty Hawk is paying a goodwill visit to Bombay.”

  Chapter 24

  Monday 15th June 1964

  Berkeley, California

  ‘You’ve done good work, Doctor,’ Curtis LeMay had said to Caroline Konstantis at Luke Air Force Base just five days ago. ‘But all good things come to an end sooner or later.’

  They had been standing on the balcony of the disused control tower of the abandoned airfield at Glendale, outside Phoenix. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had stuck out his arm and pointed into the hazy distance to where a very big, virtually featureless blockhouse shimmered in the dusty haze.

  ‘The Air Force spent billions of dollars building air defense centers like that one before the Cuban Missiles War. That one wasn’t up and running that night but most of the others were; we shot down a whole slew of bombers but we couldn’t do a damned thing about the ICBMs coming in over the North Pole. Nobody told the American people that, although I think more of them figured it out than the politicians give credit.’ The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee had been dressed in a dirty boiler suit and his hands were ingrained with oil and grease. ‘The time is coming when being too close to The Big Cigar isn’t going to be a good thing. I’ll be fine. But this is the last time you and I will do business. Expect to get a call from the Air Force Office of Manpower Management before the end of the month. They’ll ask you to account for Project Homeward Bound; you just tell them whatever you want to tell them. They’ll take my boys out of your hands whatever you do, so don’t fight it. I know there’s nothing left for you up in Chicago but what you don’t know about combat fatigue and all its related stress disorders ain’t worth a mess of beans. The Air Force is changing. You and me both will be better out of it.’

  She had left Phoenix in a daze with a letter in her hand, over LeMay’s signature granting her an honorable discharge with the substantive rank of Colonel, and for about a day she had not known what to do with the rest of her life.

  Home had been a claustrophobic billet in a prefabricated Officers’ Accommodation Hut at Ent Air Force Base at Colorado Springs, where she also had an office. She had briefly contemplated going back to Ent; if only to ensure that her files were properly accounted for but if LeMay was right those files had, or were about to cease to be her files and any attempt to review them one last time might later be cited as evidence that she had something to hide.

  She had no real friends in Colorado and her ‘team’ of counselors, military and civilian had been wasting away in recent months.

  Going back to the West Coast had seemed like the obvious thing to do; that was not to say she honestly believed it was for the best.

  Nevertheless, here she was back in Berkeley.

  It would probably have been a little less scary if she had had the courage to wire ahead to Nathan Zabriski; although only a little less scary. Her last visit to Berkeley had left her confused, battered and mistrustful of her instincts and renewing contact with a man young enough to be her son was...reckless. Stupid also, possibly the manifestation of some desperate middle-aged existential crisis; exactly the sort of thing she would once have despised in another woman of a certain age.

  Now as the cab drove away down Hearst Avenue she stood beside her big, clumsy case on the sidewalk in front of Nathan’s house asking herself if she was about to be completely humiliated. It was no consolation to know that if she ended up looking foolish, not to mention very sad, it would be absolutely her own fault. The October War had neatly bookended one phase of her life; and last week’s surreal meeting with Curtis LeMay another.

  In retrospect she know realized the work on which she had been engaged since the October War must obviously have been some kind of off the record ‘command initiative’, one of LeMay’s private projects which was unlikely to bear close scrutiny when the commander in question moved on so he had, like the shrewd operator he was – notwithstanding his gung ho public image – started cleaning house before the axe fell. A lesser man would have left her – and presumably, many others serving in similar ‘less than wholly official’ roles – hanging; but not all great men were callous bastards. Even Curtis LeMay’s enemies had never accused him of failing to look after his boys, and it now seemed, his girls.

  Fifty-one years of age, divorced, no job.

  This was what starting over again must be like!

  If it was daunting it was also actually...liberating.

  If nothing else she was her own person again, and while the world might not exactly be her oyster she was free of practically every professional shackle which until a few days ago had dragged at her feet. Even if she had not been obsessed; no, that was wrong, she was preoccupied not obsessed with Nathan, she would have come back to California.

  Apart from anything else if she had not come back she would always have wondered...

  The war had changed California; how could it not have changed the state? That was a given. Every time she had swung through it in the last year she had tasted hope and optimism in the air, an absence of the angst and bitterness that was rife everywhere else and besides, there were big, prestigious schools of medicine in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. As soon as she found someplace to p
ark her suitcase she planned to start paying house calls.

  “Caro!”

  The woman started with alarm.

  “Is that you?”

  The breathless call had come from behind her, some way down the street.

  She swung around.

  Nathan Zabriski had been running; he was dressed in shorts, a sweat-soaked t-shirt, his face was red and blotchy and he was gasping for breath as he eased down to a stop just out of arm’s length from her.

  “I got sacked,” she explained ruefully. “Well, retired, anyhow. General LeMay as good as told me to make myself scarce. There are people I know at the San Francisco School of Medicine, former students and colleagues. I thought I’d start my job hunting in the Bay Area.”

  The man was more out of puff than he had imagined.

  He sucked in air, held up an apologetic hand.

  Caroline Konstantis knew that before the October War Nathan had been a middle distance runner in the Air Force, not quite Olympic standard because of the demands of his ‘day job’ but capable of running a mile in around four minutes ten seconds. He had let that go after the war, only got back into training that spring.

  Nathan had bent over and rested his hands on his knees while he recovered.

  Having measured a street circuit that was, give or take a hundred yards, three miles he tried to run it a dozen times a week, mixing short sprints with long punishing sections where he focused on maintaining his stride length. Running efficiently, racing was the name of the game. Enrolled as a pre-college night student he had started training at Berkeley a couple of days a week and had put his name down for the fifteen hundred meters qualifying event on Wednesday, ahead of the main Track and Field Meet on Saturday. It was over three years since he had raced in anger, he felt strong and quick, although when he pushed himself it hurt more than he recollected from before; and the thing about actual racing was that you never actually knew how you matched up with the others until the starter’s gun went off.