W E B Griffin - Corp 09 - Under Fire

by Under Fire(Lit)

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then, considering the hour, Captain, I suggest you get moving."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "At the risk of repeating myself, Killer, I don't know what you're up to now, I don't care what you're up to now. But it's damned good to see you."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Chapter Six

  Q: Mr. President, everybody is asking in this country, are we or are we not at war? The President: We are not at war. The members of the United Nations are going to the relief of the Korean republic to suppress a bandit raid on the Republic of Korea.

  Q: Would it be correct under your explanation to call this "a police action under the United Na-tions"?

  The President: Yes, that is exactly what it amounts to.

  EXCERPT FROM PRESIDENTIAL PRESS CONFERENCE,

  BLAIR HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  30 JUNE I95O

  [ONE]

  OFFICE OF THE COMMANDANT, USMC

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  1430 30 JUNE 1950

  "The Commandant will see you now, sir," the master gun-nery sergeant said to Fleming Pickering, as he walked to the double doors of the Commandant's office. He knocked, but didn't wait for a reply before opening the door. "Mr. Pickering, sir."

  The Commandant was standing just inside his office.

  "That's General Pickering, Gunny," General Clifton Cates said, in a soft southern accent. "You might want to make a note of that."

  Cates was a tall, sharply featured man with an aristo-cratic air about him.

  "Come on in, Flem," Cates went on. "It's good to see you."

  "Thank you for seeing me without an appointment," Pickering said, as he took Cates's extended hand. He chuckled. "I was trying to decide whether or not to salute."

  "Not indoors, Flem, or while in civilian attire," Cates said, smiling.

  "I went to the officers' sales store at Marine Barracks yesterday, to buy uniforms," Pickering said. "No ID card; they wouldn't sell them to me."

  Cates chuckled.

  "I think the captain there thought he was dealing with a crazy old coot who thought he was a Marine general," Pickering went on. "Later, I realized he was right."

  Cates laughed, then stepped around Pickering and opened his office door.

  "Gunny," he ordered. "General Pickering's going to need an ID card, and while I think of it, a physical. Set it up to get him an ID card right away, and then call Bethesda and make an immediate appointment for the physical." He paused. "But only after you get us some coffee."

  He closed the door, waved Pickering to a red leather couch, and sat down beside him.

  "Frankly, I sort of hoped I would hear from you, Flem," Cates said. "Can you tell me what's going on? Right now, I'm just a Marine officer who's obeying his orders and not asking questions about them."

  "I hardly know where to start, sir," Pickering said. "This is probably the best place."

  Pickering opened his briefcase, took from it a manila en-velope, and handed it to Cates.

  Cates opened the envelope and started to read. His eye-brows went up and he pursed his lips.

  A staff sergeant came into the office carrying a tray with two china mugs of coffee, placed it on the coffee table by the couch, and then left.

  "Where'd this come from?" Cates asked, not lifting his eyes from the assessment.

  "It was written by a Marine officer then on the staff of Naval Element, SCAP, in Tokyo," Pickering said.

  "McCoy, right?" Cates asked. "What do they call him? `Killer'?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I have been advised by Clyde Dawkins-you remem-ber him from Guadalcanal? He had Marine Air Group 21."

  "Yes, sir. My son was in VMF-229 in MAG-21."

  "Clyde's now Deputy CG at Pendleton. He sent me a TWX saying McCoy left Miramar at 0800 this morning in an Air Force two-seater fighter for here."

  "Yes, sir. I had a telephone call from Mrs. McCoy telling me that."

  "Now that I think of it, you were supposed to get a copy of the TWX," Cates said, then went off at a tangent: "This thing isn't signed?"

  "The original was signed and submitted to MacArthur's G-2, who ordered it destroyed," Pickering said. "The Pres-ident doesn't want that to get out."

  "Then why did you tell me?"

  "I thought you should know, sir."

  Cates considered that, nodded, and said, "Thank you. That detail will go no further."

  "Thank you, sir," Pickering said.

  "But I'd like to have this."

  "I thought you should have it, sir. That's why I asked to see you," Pickering said, then went on: "What happened was that I was in Tokyo, went to see McCoy, and he gave me that assessment. And told me he was being involuntar-ily released from active duty. When I got back to the States, I went to see Admiral Hillenkoetter at the CIA, and gave it to him."

  "Things are beginning to make sense," Cates said.

  "Apparently, after the North Koreans came across the 38th parallel, Hillenkoetter told the President about the as-sessment. The President called me, and asked me to come here. I got here on the twenty-sixth. The President came to Senator Fowler's apartment for breakfast, got Fowler's as-surance that the... rejection of the early warning would not get into the press, and then ordered me to active duty."

  "Why?"

  "I'm not sure," Pickering said. "Possibly to make sure I keep my mouth shut."

  "There has to be more to it than that," Cates said. "Out of school, there is some dissatisfaction with Hillenkoetter's CIA. And you were a deputy director of the OSS, weren't you?"

  "I don't think... Jesus Christ, I hope not. I'm wholly unqualified to run the CIA."

  "As I remember it, I thought you were wholly unquali-fied to be the First Division G-2. And you proved me dead wrong."

  Pickering didn't reply.

  "Of course, that was when I thought you were a sailor," Cates went on, smiling. "Before Jack NMI Stecker... I re-member this clearly; we were in General Vandegrift's con-ference tent, and I had just referred to you as `that sailor G-2 of ours,' or perhaps that `swabbie G-2' when Jack stood up, and `Begging the colonel's pardon, when you and I were at Belleau Wood, so was Pickering. He was a Marine then, and he's a Marine now.'"

  Pickering met Cates's eyes for a moment, then said, firmly, "I'm unqualified to run the CIA, period."

  "How about to be a new broom in the Pacific, sweeping out the incompetents we apparently have there?"

  "That, either," Pickering said.

  Cates went off on another tangent. "Let me tell you what shape the Corps is in," he said. "I was going over the numbers before you came in." He got off the couch and went and sat behind his desk, and began to read from a folder on his desk.

  "Total regular establishment strength, as of today, 74,279 officers and men..." "That's all?" Pickering blurted.

  "Broken down into 40,364 officers and men in the oper-ating forces," Cates read on, "24,452 in the support forces, and 3,871 in other duties... embassy guards, afloat, that sort of thing."

  "My God, I had no idea how much the Corps had been cut back," Pickering said.

  "In Fleet Marine Force, Pacific-in Camp Pendleton, mostly-we have 7,779 officers and men in the First Ma-rine Division-"

  "Only seven thousand men in the First Marine Divi-sion?" Pickering asked, incredulously.

  "The First Marine Division (Reinforced)," Cates con-firmed, a tone of sarcasm in his voice. "You're used to a war-strength division, Flem, of 1,079 officers and 20,131 men."

  Pickering shook his head in disbelief.

  "In addition to the First Marine Division, we have 3,733 officers and men in the First Marine Aircraft Wing. That's roughly half the men called for in peacetime. A wartime wing calls for about 12,000 men."

  "My God!"

  "Roughly, the regular Marine Corps is about one-third of the Marine Corps," Cates went on. "There are 128,959 officers and men in the reserve components. There's some 39,867 people in the organized reserves, ground and air, and another 90,444
in what we call `the volunteer re-serve'-individual reservists, in other words; we don't like to think of them as `unorganized.'"

  "Pick, my son, is in the organized reserve."

  "I know," Cates said. "I saw his name in the paper a cou-ple of weeks ago, when he set the San Francisco-to-Tokyo speed record, and I was curious enough to check."

  "I was on the plane," Pickering said.

  "He ever discuss with you why he's in the reserve?" Cates asked.

  "I don't think you'll like the answer," Pickering said.

  "Go ahead."

  "He said all he has to do is show up at El Toro and the benevolent Marine Corps gives him expensive toys to play with," Pickering said. "He really loves flying the Corsair."

  Cates chuckled. "I suspect mat motivates many of the aviation reservists," he said. "We don't have recruiting problems with the organized aviation reserve; and it's at ninety-four percent of its authorized strength. The ground elements-despite a good deal of recruiting effort-are at seventy-seven percent. Buzzing Camp Pendleton at four hundred knots in a Corsair is a lot more fun on a weekend than crawling through it on your stomach."

  "And is the reserve going to be mobilized?" Pickering asked.

  Cates nodded. "I would be very surprised if that doesn't happen. That was my motive for filling you in with all this data."

  "Sir?"

  "Sometime in the next few days, or weeks, someone at the upper echelons of government is going to say, `Call in the Marines.' That's our job, of course, and we'll go. But someone in the upper echelons of government should be aware that there are not that many Marines available to go. I suspect you'll be in a position to make that point, Flem, and I think it should be made."

  "General, I really have no idea what I'll be doing at the CIA."

  "Nevertheless, I think it's in the interests of the Corps to make sure you're prepared for whatever that turns out to be."

  "I'm not sure I understand," Pickering said.

  "Ed Banning worked for you all through the war, didn't he?"

  "Yes, he did."

  "When I had the 4th Marines in Shanghai, until May 1940, Ed was my intelligence officer," Cates said.

  "I didn't know you knew him," Pickering said.

  "He now commands Marine Barracks, Charleston, and teaches at the Citadel," Cates said. "Do you think he would be useful to you in the CIA?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "He's yours. Anyone else?"

  "There's a master gunner at Parris Island, also ex-4th Marines, also ex-OSS. Ernie... Ernest W. Zimmerman. He speaks Japanese and two kinds of Chinese. I don't know about Korean, but it wouldn't surprise me."

  "Spelled the way it sounds?" Cates asked, his pencil poised.

  "Yes, sir," Pickering said. "General, I'm a little uncom-fortable with this. I may have no responsibilities at all at the CIA and-"

  "On the other hand, you may have great responsibility," Cates cut him off. "Let me tell you, between two old Belleau Woods Marines, my greatest concern right now is for the Corps. First, of course, is the beating we're going to take when we go to war understrength and under-equipped. Right on the heels of that primary concern are A and B. A: We'll be sent to Korea, and, once we get there, will be unable, because of the cuts-though-the-bone economies of Mr. Johnson, to do what people expect the Marine Corps to do." Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, a Truman crony, had proudly announced he had "cut mili-tary excess and waste to the bone." "And B: When that happens, when the Corps can't do the impossible, it will prove what a lot of people-including our Commander-in-Chief-have been saying, that the United States doesn't need a Marine Corps."

  `Truman said that?" Pickering asked, surprised.

  "Words to that effect," Cates said. "And unfortunately, I think he really believes the Marine Corps is not needed."

  "It's not a pretty picture, is it?" Pickering asked.

  "I have faith the Corps will come through," Cates said. "But if I can raise the odds slightly in our favor by assign-ing three people to you..."

  "Frankly, I think the best help I could provide will be to talk to Senator Fowler, give him these figures..."

  "He knows the figures. I think he agrees with Truman."

  "He never suggested anything like... putting the Corps out of business to me," Pickering protested loyally.

  "He's a politician," Cates said. "Politicians never say anything to people that they suspect might be offensive."

  Pickering didn't reply.

  Cates rose from behind his desk and put out his hand.

  "Flem, I have a meeting. They've prepared a draft order to organize a Marine Brigade at Pendleton, and I want to go over it."

  "Of course," Pickering said.

  "Stay in touch, please," Cates said.

  "Aye, aye, sir," Pickering said.

  The Commandant's gunnery sergeant was waiting for him in the outer office.

  "If you'll come with me, please, General, they're wait-ing to take your photo for the ID card. And whenever you get to the hospital at Anacostia, they're waiting for you to take your physical. Have you got wheels, General, or should I get you a car?"

  "I've got wheels, Gunny, thank you," Pickering said.

  [TWO]

  ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  1305 30 JUNE 1950

  "Air Force Eight Eight Three, take taxiway three right to the Base Operations tarmac. You will be met."

  "Understand taxiway three right. Do you mean a follow-me?"

  "Eight three, negative. Your passenger will be met."

  "Got it," the pilot of USAF F-94, tail number 490883, said, then switched to intercom. "You hear that, Captain?"

  "I heard it. I don't know what it means," McCoy said.

  The F-94 was met at Base Operations by a ground crew, who signaled for it to stop on the tarmac itself, rather than in the VIP parking area, and then rolled a ladder up to the side of the aircraft.

  "Thanks for the ride," McCoy said.

  "I loved it," the pilot replied. "That was the first cross-country I made in a long time without being ordered to watch my fuel consumption."

  Not without some difficulty, McCoy unplugged the con-nections to his helmet, unfastened his shoulder harness, then the parachute connections, and then crawled some-what ungracefully out of the rear seat and down the ladder.

  Two muscular young men in gray suits were waiting for him on the ground.

  "Captain McCoy?" the shorter of the two asked.

  McCoy nodded.

  "Will you come with us, please, Captain?"

  "Who are you? Come with you where?"

  The shorter man held out a leather credentials wallet for McCoy to see.

  "We're Secret Service, Captain."

  "You couldn't give me a better look at that badge, could you?"

  Visibly displeased with the request, the Secret Service agent again displayed his credentials.

  "Okay?" he asked.

  "Fine. Now, where are we going?" McCoy asked.

  "The car is over here," the Secret Service agent replied. "You have any luggage?"

  "It's in the trunk," McCoy said, sarcastically. "And I think the driver's going to want this back."

  He started unzipping the high-altitude flight suit.

  The pilot came down the ladder and helped him, then climbed back up the ladder carrying the suit with him.

  McCoy saw that the ground crew had hooked up a heavy cable to the fuselage. The Secret Service man touched Mc-Coy's arm, and when McCoy looked at him, nodded to-ward the Base Operations building.

  McCoy nodded back and started to walk. He did not think he was being abducted by gypsies to be held for ran-som. The Secret Service credentials looked legitimate, and probably were, but that was not the same thing as saying he was in the hands of the Secret Service. When he had been first with the Office of Management Analysis and later the OSS, he had had bona fide credentials as an agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence and as a U.S. Marshal, and had never been either.


  These two guys were probably CIA agents with Secret Service credentials. So far as he knew, the Secret Service was responsible for chasing counterfeiters of money and protecting the President. He didn't have any phony money, and he couldn't imagine anyone suspecting him of being a threat to the President.