On April 13, radio announcers reported Manhattan’s weather as ‘overcast’; dark gray skies above, a slight hint of sunshine occasionally cutting through, hinting at spring. Stevenson stood by his window at the United Nations building in Manhattan’s Turtle Bay area, peering down at pedestrians strolling East 42nd Street. Most were at best only vaguely aware of international problems raised within this stately building, constructed some thirteen years earlier. How deeply he cared about such people!
And how fiercely he wanted to believe the current president felt for those ordinary, naïve, decent folks as he did.
“We in Washington have an inkling,” Barnes stated, seated and gazing at Stevenson’s back, “that a considerable number of Cuban democrats will attempt to retake their country. Some reports suggest it could occur in days. We don’t know that for certain. Some of us, myself included, believe it will. If so, my guess is, this will begin late Friday or early Saturday and be all over by Monday. At that time, Castro will be dead.”
Momentarily, Stevenson stood as still as the proverbial statue. Barnes worried this man he had patently lied to—lied by omitting that CIA agents would direct the mission while the sea-to-land invasion would be launched from U.S. Naval vessels—might suffer a major stroke. Barnes was about to hurry over, sincerely concerned, when the silver-haired ambassador suddenly spun around.
To Barnes’ shock, Stevenson looked to have been crying. “Tell me precisely what it is you want of me,” he gasped.
“Mr. Stevenson, please.” Not incapable of empathy, Barnes’ heart went out, touched by this man’s vulnerable appearance and his threatened tone of voice. “You sound as if I’m Old Scratch himself, here to steal away your immortal soul.”
“Ha!” Not the sort to laugh out loud, Adlai shocked Barnes with his unexpected outburst. “You nailed that one.”
“Oh, Mr. Ambassador. Please ...”
Barnes cautiously rose and stepped forward. He’d had some brief contacts with this man in the past and respected him.
“Please, what?”
“Mr. Ambassador, please keep in mind that, though there will be blood, all of this—if in fact it does happen—will absolutely lead to a greater good for everyone.”
“Sir, I do not doubt the nobility of your intentions.”
“Thank you! So—”
“Who claimed that the road to hell is lined with them?”
“I ... can’t recall.”
“No matter, only that it was said.”
“Sir. We must do what we think is right—”
“Don’t tell me!” Incredible, but Adlai actually appeared angry, an emotion he had not seemed capable of. “I know. Because you ... me ... we ... are ‘the good guys.’”
Without hesitation, Barnes replied: “Precisely.”
“But you see,” Stevenson continued, abruptly turning away, “I’m not certain I believe in good guys anymore. Or bad-guys. I did once. Back during the war. Surely, Hitler was the monster. We, in ending his reign of terror, qualified as dragon-slayer.”
“Even as Castro is now. White Knights are needed again.”
Stevenson‘s eyebrows rose high, his mouth pursing. “Do you think so? Make no mistake about it, I’d love to believe what you say. And that by opposing the bad qualifies us as good. But ... let me be honest here ... lately, I do have my doubts.”
What pitiable eyes this man has, Barnes thought. The opposite of JFK’s. JFK reduces you to rubble with a glance. This poor bastard? His eyes offer a wide-open window into the world of his soul.
Barnes honestly regretted what he had to do next. Still, he did his job. “No question Castro spells bad news for the U.S.”
“Perhaps because we made him that way?”
“I can’t answer that, Mr. Ambassador. In all honesty, I really don’t know that you’re wrong there.”
“So ...”
“What I do know: What’s past, right or wrong, is past—”
“Don’t tell me,” Adlai interrupted. “That was then; this, now. God, how I hate that expression.”
“People use it all the time these days.”
“I wish they wouldn’t. It sets aside any commitment to authentic, meaningful, ongoing standards.”
“Still, we live in the present tense. We are Americans. Like any nation, we must put our own survival first.”
“Which means bringing down Castro?”
“That’s a bit harsh. Let’s say, rather, we will stand aside and allow our Cuban allies, those who love us and hate him, to accomplish that task for us. Do you have a problem with that?”
What followed marked the longest pause in the conversation. “I ... do not. I know people will die. But that’s the way of the world. If the Cubans can accomplish this by themselves—”
“Wonderful! That’s all I need to—”
“I wasn’t finished! Will you give me your assurance, your absolute word of honor, that the United States will not, through either military or para-military units, assume any active role?”
“I absolutely promise you we will not,” Barnes lied.
Fuck! This is one rough job. But somebody has to do it.
Stevenson stared hard into Barnes’s eyes, trying to grasp whether the man were telling the truth. “You are here, I assume, as a representative of the president, the State Department, and the CIA?” he asked.
“That is correct.”
“As a member of that organization, can you swear to me, and in so doing imply the honor of Dulles—John and Allen, for that matter—and the president, that this ‘operation’ as you call it will be entirely managed and carried out by anti-Castro Cubans?”
Barnes was too savvy to hesitate: “I can tell you that is absolutely the case,” he lied. Not wanting any slack in the exchange to allow Stevenson a moment to reconsider, Barnes continued his barrage. Cubans would fly from abandoned airfields. No U.S. representatives would be involved. We would do nothing but wish them luck. If they fail. Too bad. But if they should win, so much the better.
Stevenson had to curb a desire to snicker, though cynicism was not a natural emotion for such a man of integrity. “What’s a man to do?” he suddenly asked, shaking.
“The right thing.”
“Ah. But how do we know what that is?”
Out of respect for Stevenson, Barnes could manipulate him no more. He replied: “That, as they say on TV, Mr. Ambassador, is the 64,000 dollar question.”
A minute later Barnes was gone, leaving Adlai alone in his office, sobbing. The ambassador prayed he’d been told the truth.
If he gained any inkling that was not the case, he’d remain loyal to his basic values despite whatever the next days might bring. He rolled this whole thing over in his mind, returning to the conversation he’d had with Kennedy three months earlier.
*
JFK had segued back to where their discussion began; Ike and his beloved Zane Grey novels, those potboiler Westerns lowbrows read. Mostly, as JFK had mentioned offhand, these centered around a cowboy named ‘Lassiter.’ The man with one name. A foreboding stranger who rides into town and cleans it up, then drifts on to his next bold act.
“Funny, how heroes come and go. Today, I’d imagine only older people, from Ike’s generation, reach for those books.” JFK opened his desk drawer and pulled out a paperback, tossing it to his guest. “Have you read this?”
Confused, Adlai perused the cover. Casino Royale, its title announced. Below that, the image of a menacing looking man—suave, surly, self-possessed—cradled a Baretta. This threatening character wore a perfectly tailored suit. On either side stood a beautiful woman, both in skimpy bikinis. One blonde, the other brunette. Each leggy lady assumed a stance at once regal and servile, a pair of queens conquered.
All three were situated on a beach in Bermuda or perhaps the Cayman Islands. On the cover’s bottom, the author’s name appeared in blood red type: Ian Fleming. Adlai flipped to the first page, where the headline read: “licensed to kill!”
JFK
chuckled. “No, I don’t imagine you have. Anyway, I enjoy them. I believe this, or maybe one of the others in the series—they’ve become extremely popular during the last year, though written some time ago—will soon become a major film.”
“From what I can see it looks a bit risqué for Hollywood.”
“My guess? What they can and can’t do in movies is about to change. The thing is: this James Bond chap, in my mind, rates as the contemporary equivalent of the old-timers like Lassiter. Instead of plodding along through sagebrush on a horse, he zips across the continent in an Aston Martin. Kills not in a fair gunfight but without compunction. Or mercy. Enjoys lovely women, without feeling any need to make a serious commitment.”
My God, the president is describing himself. JFK gets his notion of who he is from such books. Or already had a vision of a Playboy President and, when he came in contact with this Fleming fellow’s novels, crystallized his own self-image.
Either way, James Bond and Jack Kennedy are one and the same. And he’s the most powerful man in the world ...
“Take the book with you. Read it. Tell me what you think.”
*
They had not spoken since, either in person or over the phone. But Stevenson had read the novel while waiting at the airport for his shuttle. What he encountered horrified him even as it must have earlier enthralled the president. Here was an entirely amoral saga about a nasty sadist, not only willing but eager to inflict death. And, before death, considerable pain on any enemies. These included many of the women he bedded.
“Oh, I’ve been meaning to read that!”
Stevenson had been drawn out of his cerebral reverie by a young stewardesses standing nearby. Pert and pretty in a fresh new uniform, the girl embodied her profession as presented in TV advertisements: “Come fly with me!” a fresh blonde sky-girl suggestively beckoned to viewers in airline commercials.
“You look too sweet,” Stevenson mumbled, knowing she had no idea who he was, “to indulge in such trash.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she winked. “I like to be a little daring, at least when I’m at home reading. Or at the movies.”
A beautiful woman is one you notice. A charmer is one who notices you. This girl is a charmer.
Doubtless she’d go see that film JFK had mentioned when released. She and millions like her. And, as movies always do to the masses, the James Bond film would condition this girl, and others in the audience, to think that operating as a reckless airborne cowboy, utterly amoral, in the early Sixties, has recently become acceptable.
“Here, you’re welcome to this copy.”
He handed her the book. Might as well save her thirty-five cents. What would she say if he told her this was the very copy that our sexy young president read? Doubtless she voted for him, whatever her political allegiances. Because JFK rated as cool.
Suddenly, Adlai Stevenson felt very old and very tired.
*
In New York City, Dr. Jose Miro Cardona, head of the Cuban Revolutionary Council (despite its title, a fervently pro-U.S. group) called a press conference to offer a statement. In exalted language, Cardona praised what had been referred to as a three-man-defection, the words that the Cuban who had flown from Nicaragua to Miami had employed, as a “heroic blow for Cuban freedom.” He explained that he’d known about the scheme for some time.
“The Council has been in contact with these brave pilots” daily, offering advice as to the upcoming event, he insisted.
Further, Cardona claimed, he had days earlier suggested to the flyers that if anything untoward occurred, they ought to consider Miami as their alternative destination.
This address was carried over the radio, allowing Bissell to breathe a sigh of relief and, momentarily, relax in his D.C. office, feet up on the desk, praying for more good news.
Instead, the voice on his radio reported that, shortly after the bombing of Havana subsided, Castro summoned Sergei M. Kudryavstsev, Soviet ambassador to Cuba, to his offices. Two armed Cuban guards arrived at Kudryavstev’s residence, escorting him to a waiting military car. Once Kudryavstev, known to be a KGB member, arrived at headquarters, he and Castro jumped on the hot-line to Moscow to learn what information might already be available from that world capital. Once they listened to the Russians’ report, the Beard contacted his Foreign Ministry.
Officials sent word to members of the foreign press corps stationed in Havana, as well as a handful of international reporters, to assemble. A spokesman announced that Cuba now had proof positive that, while members of the United States air force hadn’t been aboard the planes which carried out those bombings, the strikes had been planned, orchestrated, “directed” (Castro’s term) by the U.S. as if this were an action movie.
As millions of Americans listened, Stevenson included from his office, the radio reported Castro had as a result ordered Cuba’s delegation to the United Nations to “directly accuse the U.S. government of aggression.” A sudden sickening sensation, worse than an attack of flu, overcome Adlai as he heard the words from Havana, ricocheting and echoing all over the world.
Castro insisted that his “country, on a war basis, will resist” the ongoing attempt at American imperialism.
Desperate as to what he should do and say when his turn came to speak, Adlai reached for the phone and rang the Naval Air Station at Boca Chica. An operator answered. Grasping for some means of handling this in the minutes left to him, Adlai introduced himself as a ‘reporter from a daily newspaper.’ That was easy to pull off; in his youth, he had worked as one.
A five minute delay. Then, a gruff, hurried male voice answered: “Rear Admiral Rhodam Y. McElroy here.”
“Hello, Admiral. I’m calling about what took place there earlier. Of course, we also wish to know more about the flyer who landed in Miami—”
“We’re playing host to a passle of pro-American Cubans today!” Admiral McElroy chuckled. “Well, God love ‘em.”
“Yes, sir. Anyway, I was hoping you’d make a definitive statement about precisely what happened in Boca Chica.”
“You can quote me: ‘One of the stolen B-26s involved in those blasts against Havana this morning landed here.’”
“You are absolutely certain, sir, the plane took off from Cuba? And, after being hit, proceeded to your post?”
A long pause, the Admiral apparently mulling Adlai’s words over and over again. Then: “I don’t get your drift.”
“I wanted to confirm: Are you certain?”
A longer pause. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Well, with all due respect, why should you?”
Another pause, longer still, more awkward. “Because he told me so,” McElroy snarled at the faux journalist.
“That’s what I was driving at, Admiral. All we have to go on is that the man said so? No collaborating evidence?”
“No, what?” A string of raw expletives followed. “Let’s just say, this guy strikes me as a good egg. How’s that?”
“Well, I was listening to Fidel Castro’s speech on Radio Havana. He claims that in actuality all the planes flew in from Nicaragua, departing there with full American cooperation.”
Admiral McElroy’s voice took on the quality of an angry John Wayne in some old World War II film. “Let me ask you a question: Who would you believe? Me, or Fidel Castro?”
With that, McElroy slammed down his phone.
*
An ugly debate, initiated by Ron Roa’s spirited speech, raged throughout the United Nations that afternoon. An hour earlier, Roa had attempted to interrupt a General Assembly meeting to decry America’s purported involvement. He’d been cut off by the man in charge, Ireland’s Frederick H. Boland, who insisted that such a discussion couldn’t proceed. The incident in Cuba did not appear on the morning’s official printed agenda. Roa had to be quieted, removed if necessary by guards, so that the proper order of scheduled business might proceed.
At that point, Valerian Zorin of the Soviet Union rose, requesting a special meeting o
n the issue this very afternoon. Though Boland argued against this, the assembled body flipped out of control. Delegates howled that such a crisis was precisely why the U.N. had been created and that it ought to take precedence over the minutiae of everyday affairs, that Boland, visibly intimidated by the extreme response, had to agree.
All but shrieking, Roa called what had happened a “cowardly surprise attack” on his homeland, carried out by Cuban-born “mercenaries,” assembled by the American government, trained in Miami “and Guatemala by experts working at the Pentagon and by members of the Central Intelligence Agency.” Though Roa had to be considered an enemy of the United States, Adlai, listening in, sensed the absolute sincerity in this man’s voice.
Roa then explained that the U.S. had added insult to injury by not only launching an attack but “cynically” offering a bold-faced lie that those bombs had been dropped by defectors. Roa tore into a fury about Dr. Cardona, insisting that he knowingly dissembled when claiming to have earlier been in contact with the defectors by phone. Roa added that even if Cardona told the truth here, his very speech violated U.S. neutrality laws.
At that moment, a brief recess was called to allow Adlai Stevenson time to reach the meeting hall. His long legs nearly failing him, the U.N. ambassador nervously headed down the corridor.
My moment of truth has arrived. And I still don’t know what I will say, or not say. I won’t, until I begin speaking ...
Honest Adlai. Even Republicans who opposed all the liberal values Stevenson and Kennedy stood for agreed that there was no question the former always spoke the truth as he saw it.
Do I serve the good of the country or my own reputation?
Listening intently in his own D.C. office, Bissell noted a hesitancy in Stevenson’s voice he’d never noticed there before. Yes, two aircraft did land at Florida airports earlier, Adlai began, his phrasing uncharacteristically awkward.
Patsy! : The Life and Times of Lee Harvey Oswald Page 36
