W E B Griffin - Corp 09 - Under Fire

by Under Fire(Lit)

  TOKYO, JAPAN 0625 GREENWICH 10 AUGUST 1950

  VIA SPECIAL CHANNEL EYES ONLY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

  IT IS NOW ABOUT 3 PM TOKYO TIME. I HAVE JUST COME FROM THE DAI-ICHI BUILDING WHERE I ATTENDED THE MEETING BETWEEN GENERAL OF THE ARMY DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, GENERAL JOSEPH C. COLLINS, USA, AND AD-MIRAL FORREST SHERMAN, USN, AND OTHER SENIOR MEMBERS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE STAFFS. GENERAL HOWE IS IN KOREA, BUT I FEEL SURE, HAD HE BEEN PRESENT, HE WOULD CONCUR WITH THE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN HEREIN.

  THE BASIC PURPOSE OF THE MEETING WAS TO GIVE GENERAL MACARTHUR THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPLAIN HIS PLAN TO MAKE THE AM-PHIBIOUS LANDING AT INCHON, SCHEDULED AT THE MOMENT FOR 15 SEPTEMBER 1950.

  I HAD THE FEELING THAT BOTH COLLINS AND SHERMAN ENTERED THE MEETING STRONGLY OPPOSED ESPECIALLY TO THE IN-CHON LANDING (THE TIDES ARGUMENT, WITH WHICH YOU ARE FAMILIAR), AND GENERALLY OPPOSED TO ANY AMPHIBIOUS OPERATION UNTIL THE SITUATION IN THE PUSAN PERIMETER IS STABILIZED, PRIMARILY BE-CAUSE THE INCHON INVASION WILL REQUIRE THE USE OF THE MARINES NOW FIGHTING IN THE PUSAN PERIMETER.

  I ALSO FELT THAT WHILE COLLINS LEFT THE MEETING UNSWAYED BY MACARTHUR'S-IN MY OPINION-COGENT AND BRILLIANT EXPLA-NATION OF WHY INCHON WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, SHERMAN HAD COME AROUND TO AT LEAST PARTIAL APPROVAL OF THE INCHON OPERATION. HE SAID NOTHING TO THIS EFFECT, BUT THE QUESTIONS HE ASKED OF MACARTHUR INDICATED HE DID NOT THINK INCHON IS AS HAREBRAINED AS COLLINS MADE CLEAR HE THINKS IT IS.

  COLLINS VERY SKILLFULLY GAVE MACARTHUR THE OPPORTUNITY TO LAY THE BLAME FOR OUR INITIAL REVERSES ON GENERAL WALKER. MACARTHUR STATED VERY CLEARLY THAT HE BELIEVED WALKER "HAD DONE AND IS DOING A REMARKABLE JOB, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS BEEN FACING AND WHAT HE HAS TO FACE IT WITH."

  IF IT WAS COLLINS'S INTENTION TO HAVE MACARTHUR ACQUIESCE IN THE RELIEF OF WALKER, EITHER BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THAT WALKER HASN'T MEASURED UP, OR BE-CAUSE HIS RELIEF WOULD ALLOW HIM TO GIVE RIDGWAY, OR SOMEONE ELSE OF HIS LIKING, THE JOB, HE FAILED.

  VERY EARLY THIS MORNING, GENERAL HOWE CALLED ME FROM KOREA ON A LINE THAT WE SUSPECTED WAS NOT AS SECURE AS WE WOULD HAVE LIKED. HE SAID THAT HE WOULD COMMUNICATE HIS THOUGHTS ON HIS MISSION THERE TO YOU AS SOON AS POSSI-BLE, BUT THAT, IF I SHOULD COMMUNICATE WITH YOU BEFORE HE WAS ABLE TO, I SHOULD GIVE YOU THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE:

  "FROM WHAT I SEE, A CHANGE OF LEADER-SHIP AT THIS TIME WOULD BE UNJUSTIFIED AND ILL-ADVISED."

  IT IS MY OPINION, MR. PRESIDENT, THAT, ABSENT SPECIFIC ORDERS NOT TO DO SO FROM YOURSELF AND/OR THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, MACARTHUR WILL PROCEED WITH HIS INTENTION TO LAND WITH TWO DIVI-SIONS AT INCHON ON 15 SEPTEMBER. IT IS ALSO MY OPINION THAT COLLINS WILL MAKE A STRONG CASE BEFORE THE JCS, AND PER-HAPS TO YOU PERSONALLY, TO FORBID IN-CHON, BUT THAT HE WILL NOT HAVE AS strong an ally in this in sherman as he probably hoped he would.

  captain mccoy and lieutenant taylor re-turned from the island we hold in the flying fish channel this morning. he will return there shortly, and is pre-PARED TO LAUNCH HIS OPERATION WITHIN A WEEK. CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRED THAT BRIG GEN THOMAS CUSHMAN, USMC, ASSISTANT COMMANDER, 1ST MARINE AIR WING, BE IN-FORMED OF THAT MISSION, AND OF THE MIS-SIONS OF GENERAL HOWE AND MYSELF.

  RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

  F. PICKERING, BRIG GEN USMCR

  TOP SECRET/WHITE HOUSE

  "This looks fine to me, Captain," Keller said.

  "Go with him, George, will you?" McCoy ordered. "Now I'm going to have my coffee." He handed him more typewriter paper, torn in half. "This gets burned and shred-ded with the clean copy."

  "What is it?"

  "It's the version with the typos, before I retyped it," Mc-Coy said. He sat down at the table and reached for the cof-feepot.

  "Ernie," a female voice cried, "did that husband of yours tell you what he did to me?"

  His head snapped to the door.

  Miss Jeanette Priestly of the Chicago Tribune was com-ing through the door, trailed by Lieutenant (j.g.) David Taylor, USNR.

  "Well, Jeanette," Ernie said, rising to the occasion. "How nice to see you again."

  "I didn't expect you'd beat us here," Taylor said to Mc-Coy.

  "Long story. I'll tell you later."

  "What's this all about?"

  "This would have been here sooner," Jeanette said, flashing McCoy a dazzling smile. "But this had to freshen up a little. And this must say that you look a lot better than the last time this saw you."

  McCoy realized he was smiling.

  The last time he had seen her, just before midnight at the Evening Star Hotel in Tongnae, she had been wearing U.S. Army fatigues and combat boots. She hadn't been near soap or running water for a week, and had spent all but an hour of the previous two and a half days on a junk running through some often rough water in the Yellow Sea. There had been a visible layer of dried saltwater spray all over her face, hands, and hair.

  She was now clean, wearing makeup, an elegantly sim-ple black dress, high heels, and enough perfume so that McCoy could smell it across the room.

  The only thing that was the same about her was the Leica camera in its battered case hanging around her neck.

  "She insisted on coming here," Taylor said. "I didn't know what to do...."

  Taylor was wearing one of his well-worn, but clean, khaki uniforms. `

  "It's all right," General Pickering said. McCoy looked at him and saw he was smiling. "Hello, Miss Priestly."

  He got a dazzling smile.

  "How nice to see you again, General," she said.

  "Zimmerman's on the air," McCoy said.

  "That was quick," Taylor said, surprised. "That's damned good news."

  "I'll want to know, in detail, exactly how you managed that," Jeanette said.

  "Later," McCoy said.

  "What can we do for you, Miss Priestly?" Pickering asked.

  "Didn't Captain McCoy tell you?" she asked. "In ex-change for me not writing one story, he promised he would give me an exclusive story about something else I'm afraid to mention, not knowing how many secrets McCoy shares with his wife. No offense, Ernie."

  General Pickering chuckled.

  "I don't think Captain McCoy has any secrets from his wife," he said. "How was the cruise, Miss Priestly?"

  "It was absolutely awful, frankly," she said. "Anyway, until what happens happens, I'm going to stick to these two"-she indicated McCoy and Taylor-"like glue."

  "Fair enough," Pickering said.

  "And I also wondered if there was any news about Pick."

  Pickering signaled McCoy with his eyes not to mention the photographs McCoy had gotten from Dunn.

  "Unfortunately, no," Pickering said.

  "Damn," she said.

  "Where's the film you shot on the Wind of Good For-tune?" McCoy asked.

  "In here," she said, tapping her purse.

  "I forgot to impound it," McCoy said. "Or to tell Taylor to. May I have it, please?"

  "You still don't trust me?"

  "Let's say I'm cautious by nature," McCoy said.

  "Give them to me, please, Miss Priestly," Pickering said. "You have my word you'll get them back."

  She shrugged, opened her purse, and took from it a rub-berized bag and handed it to Pickering.

  "Thank you," he said.

  "Is it really all right to talk?" she asked.

  Pickering nodded.

  "How are you coming with the boats?" she asked McCoy.

  "What boats?" Pickering asked.

  "Do you suppose I could have that roll?" Jeanette asked, pointing at one on Pickering's bread plate. "I'm really starved."

  "Of course," Pickering said.

  "You didn't eat?" McCoy said.

  "We had some powdered eggs at K-l about 0500," Tay-lor said.

  "Nothing here?" McCoy asked.

  "I told you," Jeanette said. "This couldn't come here looking like this did when this got off the Queen Mary. That took a little time."

  "You didn't eat either?" McCoy asked Taylor, smiling.

  "You told me to sit on her," Taylor said, not amused. "I sat on her. I sat in her room in
the Press Club while she had a bath, and the rest of it, and then I took her to my room while I had a quick shower. No, I didn't eat either."

  "We can fix that," Ernie McCoy said, and walked to the telephone, picked it up, and, in Japanese, asked for room service.

  "What boats?" General Pickering asked again.

  "Didn't Ken tell you?" Jeanette said. "We're going to need a couple of boats to move the men from Tokchok-kundo to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do. We can't use the Wind of Good Fortune. Not only can't we count on having enough water under the rudder, but a junk makes a lousy landing craft."

  " `We're going to need a couple of boats'?" Pickering parroted.

  "You weren't listening, General, when I said I wasn't going to let Captain Bligh and Jean Lafitte out of my sight until this operation is over. That means when they go to Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do, the Chicago Tribune is go-ing to be there."

  "Which one is Captain Bligh?" Pickering asked, smiling.

  She pointed at Taylor.

  "And it fits, too," she said. `Taylor told me Bligh was re-ally the good guy, and Fletcher Christian a mutineer who should have been hung."

  Pickering chuckled.

  "That's true," he said. "Bligh was also a hell of a sailor. He sailed the longboat from the Bounty a hell of a long way, after they put him over the side. Okay, Captain Bligh, tell me about the boats."

  "She said it, sir," Taylor said. "We're going to need a couple of boats. Maybe small lifeboats. Just large enough to carry eight, ten, men and their equipment. It would be better if they had small engines, maybe even outboards- it's a long row from Tokchok-kundo to either Taemuui-do or Yonghung-do. But in a pinch we can make do with just oars."

  "The first thing I thought was `no problem,'" Pickering said. "We'll see if P&FE here can't come up with a couple of boats. But that doesn't answer the question of how to get them to Tokchok-kundo, and quickly and quietly, does it?"

  "No, sir," McCoy said. "And if we go to the Navy, they'd want to know what we want them for."

  "And even if we could talk our way around that, we still would have to get them to Tokchok-kundo," Pickering said.

  "Yes, sir."

  "I just thought of a long shot," Pickering said. `Taylor, do you know who Admiral Matthews is?"

  "The Englishman?"

  Pickering nodded.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Is there anybody you could call at the Dai-Ichi Build-ing and get his number, without it getting around that you asked for it?"

  "Is he in town, sir?"

  "He was at the meeting this morning," Pickering said.

  "Who is he?" McCoy asked.

  "He commands the UN fleet blockading the west coast of Korea," Pickering said.

  Five minutes later, Taylor had the telephone number of Ad-miral William G. Matthews, and three minutes after that, the Admiral came on the line.

  "Yes, of course, I remember you, Pickering. You were one of the very few people in that room this morning who seemed to understand that tides rise as well as fall."

  "Admiral, could I have a few minutes of your time?"

  "I was about to leave for Sasebo, but yes, certainly, if you could come here right away. You know where I am?"

  "Yes, sir. And I will leave right away."

  "I'll even buy you a drink. God knows we earned one in that bloody roomful of fools this morning."

  "Thank you, sir," Pickering said, and hung up.

  He turned to the others.

  "We may just have gotten lucky," he said. "And no, Miss Priestly, you may not go. But you have my word that I will bring Captain Bligh and... who was it, Bluebeard the Pi-rate?... back to you."

  "Jean Lafitte, sir," McCoy said.

  [FOUR]

  THE OFFICE OF THE NAVAL ATTACHE

  HM DELEGATION TO THE SUPREME COMMAND,

  ALLIED POWERS IN JAPAN

  TOKYO, JAPAN

  1605 10 AUGUST 1950

  "Ah, Pickering!" Admiral Sir William G. Matthews, RN, said, getting to his feet as Pickering was shown in. Then he saw Taylor and McCoy, and added: "I didn't know you were bringing these gentlemen with you. Now I will have to mind my manners. And my mouth."

  "I apologize, sir."

  "It doesn't matter," Matthews said. "I am so glad to be out of that bloody room that I'll give them a drink, too."

  "Very kind of you, sir," Pickering said. "And please feel free to say anything you like. Both Captain McCoy and Lieutenant Taylor know how I feel about that bloody meet-ing, too."

  Matthews growled.

  A Japanese in a white coat appeared and took drink or-ders. Matthews waited until he had finished, then ordered another double for himself.

  "I was just telling Fitzwater here," he said, pointing to a very slim, very tall Royal Navy captain, "that I'd finally found a Marine who'd actually been to sea. God, I had trouble keeping my temper when that Army general started lecturing me on the hazards of tides."

  "Actually, sir," Pickering said, "I'm more of a seaman than a Marine."

  "How's that?"

  "I was about to tell Sir William, sir," Captain Fitzwater said, "that unless I was mistaken, you are connected with Pacific and Far East Shipping. Was I correct?"

  "So far as I know," Pickering said, "I am the only P&FE master who has run his vessel aground on the Inchon mud-flats."

  "Really?" Admiral Matthews asked. "How did that hap-pen?"

  "I was a little younger at the time," Pickering said. "And thus far more impressed with myself as a mariner than the facts warranted."

  "So what the hell were you doing dressed up in a Ma-rine's uniform in that bloody room?"

  "Admiral, I'm the Assistant Director of the CIA for Asia," Pickering said.

  "Ah!!" the admiral said.

  "I was hoping you would offer that information, Gen-eral," Captain Fitzwater said. "Otherwise, I would have had to whisper it in Sir William's ear."

  "And are these two spies as well?" the admiral asked. "That one looks like a sailor."

  "Lieutenant Taylor, sir," Taylor said.

  "Actually, he's a hell of a sailor," Pickering said. "He just returned from sailing a junk in the Yellow Sea."

  "Really? What was that about? A junk, you say?"

  "I'd love to tell you, Sir William," Pickering said, stop-ping when the steward handed him his drink.

  "Cheers!" Admiral Matthews said when he had raised his fresh drink. "And you would love to tell me, but?"

  "I would hate to have it get back to anyone in that bloody room. For that matter, to leave this room."

  "Ah, the plot darkens," the admiral said, and thought over what Pickering was clearly asking. "You have my word, sir."

  "Would you prefer that I..." Captain Fitzwater asked.

  "No," Pickering said, "but if you could give me your word?"

  "Of course," Fitzwater said.

  Pickering had decided it made more sense to have Fitzwater on his honor not to repeat what he heard than to really arouse his curiosity by asking him to leave. Picker-ing thought he was obviously some sort of intelligence of-ficer-he had known about P&FE and the CIA-and he would go snooping, with no restrictions on disseminating what he found out. And Pickering was pleased when he saw approval on McCoy's face.

  "Lieutenant Taylor just sailed the junk Wind of Good Fortune to Tokchok-kundo Island," Pickering said. "Aboard were four Marines, in addition to Captain McCoy, and eight South Korean national policemen."

  "How interesting," the admiral said.

  "With which Captain McCoy and Lieutenant Taylor plan, just as soon as they can, to occupy Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do Islands, and thus deny the North Koreans a platform from which to fire upon vessels navigating the Flying Fish Channel."

  "You know the plan calls for the neutralization of those islands on D Minus One?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "You got them to change their minds about that?"

  "No, sir. They do not know about this operation."

  "Ah!" Admiral Sir William Matthews said.
/>   "And what about the lighthouse?" Captain Fitzwater asked.

  "On the night of 13-14 September," Taylor said. "Pre-suming we can take Taemuui-do and Yonghung-do without attracting too much North Korean attention, we'll take that, too."