MASH 06 MASH Goes to Morocco

by Richard Hooker

  The consulate of the United States of America in Casablanca is a large villa in the Anfa section, on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Anfa bears a rather striking resemblance to Southern California generally and to Beverly Hills specifically. There are just as many large houses, about as many glistening Mercedes-Benzes and Rolls-Royces and about as many palm trees and tennis courts. Beverly Hills has slightly more people, however, walking about in the ankle-length Moroccan garments known as caftans than does Anfa, because the residents of Anfa affect Western dress more than Moroccan dress (except when the King is in town, whereupon Anfa looks like Beverly Hills in the midst of having an Arabian masquerade block party).

  There really isn’t much for the American Consul to do, diplomacy-wise, since the United States of America maintains an Ambassador and a full-fledged embassy in Rabat, which is the city where the Moroccans maintain a King and a full-fledged palace. An occasional American will stroll in to have his passport renewed; or the Moroccan authorities will telephone to politely inform the Consul that they have an American sailor in the slammer, and will the Consul please come get him when it is convenient?

  But consulates and consuls are part of the diplomatic game, and it’s nice to have a pleasant place to send a diplomat not needed at the moment or whose presence elsewhere is just a wee-bit awkward. No serious thought has ever been given to closing the American Consulate in Casablanca.

  So it was when Foreign Service Officer Grade-Seven Penelope Quattlebaum was posted to the Kingdom of Morocco for such duty the Ambassador might assign. F.S.O. Quattlebaum had, according to the personnel records, been graduated from college and, cum laude, from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She had completed the basic language course in Arabic. Her qualifications, in other words, were about average for a brand-new Foreign Service Officer. But the cold truth of the matter was that Miss Quattlebaum was not a welcome addition to the staff of the U.S. Embassy, Rabat. As a matter of fact, the Ambassador had worn out two code machines in the process of bitterly protesting her assignment. His protests had risen as far in the State Department hierarchy as the desk of the Secretary himself. The Secretary ruled against him; Miss Quattlebaum’s assignment to Morocco stood. And now, with the Teletype message from the Secretary’s secretary, the Ambassador knew why.

  Faced with, so to speak, the fait accompli, the Ambassador called in his senior staff, swore them to secrecy and then asked them for solutions to Le Probleme Quatlebaum, as it had become known.

  The ultimate solution was simplicity itself. The incumbent American Consul in Casablanca was ordered sobered up (forcibly, if necessary) and loaded on a plane home. If Tubby was going to hand him a hot potato and tell him it was his problem to handle, the Ambassador had no compunctions whatever about sending Tubby a lush to keep sober.

  The shining ambassadorial Cadillac limousine, curtains drawn, went to the Rabat airport to meet Penelope Quatdebaum’s plane. A radio message to her, in the air, had ordered the new diplomat to deplane last on arrival. The Deputy Chief of Mission himself went aboard the plane to make sure Quattlebaum obeyed the order, and she was not permitted to get off until all the others were long gone.

  The Ambassador timidly peeked out of the back seat of the Cadillac, pushing the drawn curtains aside no more than half an inch, to get his first look at Miss Quattlebaum as the foreign service officer finally deplaned.

  It was worse than he had expected. Penelope Quattlebaum was indeed, as the diplomatic scuttlebutt had phrased it, “stacked like a brick outhouse.” Her long legs (almost all of which were visible under the skirt she wore a good eight inches above her knees) were shapely and tanned. Long blonde hair cascaded from her shoulders, framing a tanned face with brilliant-white teeth and sparkling, blue eyes. Her midsection, a good deal of which was not left to the imagination by her low-cut blouse, seemed more than ample for nature’s intended purposes. The Deputy Chief of Mission, who had gone aboard the plane to escort her to the limousine, was a dignified gentleman in his middle fifties known behind his back as “Old Lemon Face.” Old Lemon Face was now grinning from ear to ear, and his normally pasty skin was flushed red.

  The Ambassador got out of the limousine.

  “Miss Quattlebaum,” he said, “I trust you had a pleasant flight?”

  “Very nice, thank you, Mr. Ambassador,” she said. “The pilot came back and sat with me most of the flight.”

  “We have been anxiously awaiting your arrival,” the Ambassador said, bowing her into the limousine.

  “And I have been anxious to begin my assignment,” she said, “to join your team.”

  The Marine chauffeur, who had just happened to idly, and innocently, drop his eyes in the general direction of Foreign Service Officer Quattlebaum’s decolletage as she stooped to enter the limousine, slammed the door on his thumb.

  “Oh, you poor boy,” she said. “I hope you haven’t hurt yourself!”

  “Nothing at all,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  She patted his cheek. The combination of the thumb-flattening and his reaction to the cheek-patting obviously rendered him unfit to take the wheel, so the Deputy Chief of Mission drove. Before he started off, he carefully adjusted the rear-view mirror to give himself a view of the back seat.

  “Mr. Ambassador,” Penelope Quattlebaum said, leaning across the seat and innocently laying a hand on his knee, “may I speak to you as one foreign service officer to another?”

  “Why, of course you may, my dear,” he said.

  “I’d like to ask a favor of you, Mr. Ambassador,” she said. The rear of the limousine was now filled with the smell of her perfume. The Ambassador wondered if he was about to have a heart attack.

  “Certainly, my dear,” the Ambassador said. He was staring, rigidly, straight ahead. When he looked at her, his eyes, moving with a will of their own, seemed irresistibly drawn to her décolletage.

  “I want you to think of me as just one of the boys,” Penelope said. “Can you do that?”

  The Marine chauffeur in the front seat groaned.

  The Ambassador, who, after all, had long years of experience in both dealing with delicate situations and controlling himself under stress, managed, not without difficulty, to regain complete control of himself.

  “Foreign Service Officer Grade-Seven Quattlebaum,” he began, using precisely the same tone with which he had told a Russian counterpart that the next time a MIG-17 buzzed the Pan American flight to Berlin, war would follow, “after some thought and discussions with my staff, I have decided upon an assignment for you, which is in keeping with your experience and education and the cultural mores of the host country.”

  “Oh,” she breathed, “I’m sure I’m going to like it.”

  “You are herewith and henceforth, from this moment and until further notice,” the Ambassador solemnly intoned, “appointed Under Secretary of this embassy for Abzugian Affairs, with duty station and additional duty as Consul at the United States Consulate, Casablanca.”

  Penelope surprised him. As if she had flipped a switch on a personal computer, she began to recite: “Abzug, Sheikhdom of. Approximately 15,000 square miles of desert and mountainous terrain bordering on the Sahara. Population, estimated 1920 (last estimate), 757,350. Form of government, absolute monarchy. Present head of government, Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug. Economy, agriculture.”

  “That’s right,” the Ambassador said, impressed.

  “One teensy-weensy little question, Mr. Ambassador,” Penelope said.

  “Feel free to ask me anything, my dear,” the Ambassador said.

  “Am I really to be in charge of Abzugian Affairs, and Consul at Casablanca, or is this some filthy-rotten, male-chauvinist trick to get me out of the way?”

  The Marine chauffeur in the front seat groaned again.

  “My dear Foreign Service Officer Grade-Seven Quattlebaum,” the Ambassador said, “put your mind at rest. You will be in complete charge, reporting only to me. You will be, in fact, the o
nly foreign service officer with such duties.”

  “I knew you’d understand how I feel about things,” Penelope cooed. “And when am I to assume my duties?”

  “Immediately,” he said. “The limousine will drop me and the Deputy Chief of Mission at the embassy and then drive you on to Casablanca, immediately.”

  “And when will I present my credentials to Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug?”

  “Just as soon as His Highness sends the word,” the Ambassador said. “His Highness is presently in Europe.”

  “I see,” she said. “I will, of course, notify you of any action I take.”

  “I would be grateful,” the Ambassador said. “And if I may offer a small word of advice, my dear, it would be to suggest that you do not, under any circumstances, attempt to present your credentials until His Highness’s Chief of Protocol sends for you. They are sensitive in matters of this nature.”

  “I understand completely,” Penelope said.

  After she had left for Casablanca, the Ambassador and the Deputy Chief of Mission revived themselves with a little bourbon and branch to cut the dust, and then congratulated themselves. Once Penelope Quattlebaum was in Casablanca, her major problem would be fighting off the attention of every male between the ages of sixteen and sixty-six. He would drop her a little memo over the teleprinter reminding her that an important part of her duty was socializing with her diplomatic counterparts. She would be so busy with luncheons and les this and les cocktails and les diners and the other means by which the diplomatic community whiled away its idle hours on foreign shores that she wouldn’t have time to get into trouble.

  Keeping her in Rabat, of course, was out of the question. To any Arab, a blonde-headed, blue-eyed infidel dressed in not quite enough clothing to blow her nose was obviously a member of a profession somewhat older but not quite as respectable as diplomacy.

  And insofar as the Sheikhdom of Abzug was concerned, that posed no problem at all. He would, of course, notify Sheikh Abdullah ben Abzug’s Chef de Protocol that Miss Penelope Quattlebaum, a female-lady member of the gentle sex had been appointed the official United States representative to His Islamic Majesty. There would be a towering forest of Sequoia trees in the middle of the Sahara before the Abzugian Chef de Protocol sent word for a female diplomat to present her credentials.

  Le Probldme Quattlebaum was neatly solved. The Ambassador’s only regret was that he wasn’t forty years younger. Foreign Service Officer Grade-Seven Quattlebaum was the most attractive diplomat he had ever seen, as well as the first one in a skirt.

  How long the problem would have remained solved, however, will never be known.

  The Ambassador and the Deputy Chief of Mission barely had time to start their third drink when there was another three-bell signal from the Teletype machine in the message center down the corridor. It announced the arrival of a very important message and roused the message-center clerk from his sleep for the second time.

  URGENT

  FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON

  TO U.S. EMBASSY, RABAT, MOROCCO

  ATTN.: UNDER SECRETARY FOR ABZUGIAN AFFAIRS

  1. THE SECRETARY OF STATE HAS LEARNED FROM UNUSUALLY RELIABLE VATICAN SOURCES THAT THE SHEIKH OF ABZUG HAS GRANTED, IN A SURPRISE MOVE UNANTICIPATED BY THE NORTH AFRICAN DESK, PERMISSION FOR EXPLOITATION OF OIL RIGHTS IN THE SHEIKHDOM OF ABZUG. THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY ADVISES THAT THE SIZE OF THESE DEPOSITS RIVALS THOSE OF SAUDI ARABIA AND ARE AS LARGE AS THOSE OF THE SHEIKHDOM OF HUSSID.

  2. FROM THE SAME SOURCE, THE SECRETARY OF STATE HAS LEARNED THAT THE ACTUAL EXPLORATION WILL BE CONDUCTED BY THE CHEVAUX PETROLEUM CORPORATION, UNDER THE PERSONAL SUPER VISION OF JEAN-PIERRE DE LA CHEVAUX, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD. MR. DE LA CHEVAUX AND HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE HASSAN AD KAYAM OF THE HUSSID SHEIKHDOM HAVE HAD PREVIOUS JOINT OIL VENTURES AND ARE BELIEVED TO BE PERSONAL FRIENDS, WHICH TENDS TO INCREASE CREDIBILITY OF VATICAN SOURCE.

  3. YOUR ATTENTION IS DIRECTED TO THE ABZUGIAN CODE OF CONDUCT FOR INFIDEL BASTARDS VISITING ABZUG—SPECIFICALLY TO THOSE MAKING REFERENCE TO THE DEATH PENALTY, THE PRESCRIBED MEANS OF EXECUTION, AND THE APPOINTMENT OF A SHEIKH PRO TEMPORE FOR FOREIGNERS WHO WILL BE EXECUTED FIRST SHOULD A VIOLATION BY ANY MEMBER OF A FOREIGN MINORITY TAKE PLACE.

  4. THE HON. EDWARDS L. JACKSON, FARMER-FREE SILVER, ARKANSAS, HAS BEEN NAMED SHEIKH PRO TEMPORE BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY AND WILL SOON BE EN ROUTE TO ABZUG.

  5. NOTWITHSTANDING THE IDENTITY OF THE SHEIKH PROTEMPORE NAMED IN PARAGRAPH THREE ABOVE, EVERY EFFORT WILL BE MADE TO PRESERVE AMERICAN LIFE. THE FOLLOWING PRIORITIES ARE established:

  A. COMPLETION OF A FIRM AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE ABZUGIAN AND UNITED STATES GOVERNMENTS PROVIDING DELIVERY OF ABZUGIAN OIL PRODUCTS TO THE UNITED STATES

  B. PRESERVATION OF THE LIFE OF EMPLOYEES OF THE CHEVAUX PETROLEUM CORPORATION

  C. PRESERVATION OF THE LIFE OF SHEIKH PRO TEMPORE EDWARDS L. JACKSON

  6. THE FOLLOWING FACTS BEARING ON THE PROBLEM ARE FURNISHED FOR YOUR PLANNING PURPOSES:

  A. PRELIMINARY EXPLORATION CREW OF CHEVAUX PETROLEUM TECHNICIANS AND CERTAIN BASIC EQUIPMENT ARE EXPECTED TO DEPART FOR ABZUG VIA CHEVAUX DOUGLAS 747 AIRCRAFT FROM THE UNITED STATES WITHIN HOURS.

  B. JEAN-PIERRE DE LA CHEVAUX WILL BE ABOARD AIRCRAFT. ACCOMPANYING THEM AS SPIRITUAL ADVISER IS THE REV. MOTHER EMERITUS MARGARET HOULIHAN WACHAUF WILSON, R.N., LIEUT. COL., U.S. ARMY, RETIRED, OF THE GOD IS LOVE IN ALL FORMS CHRISTIAN CHURCH, INC.

  C. IT IS TO BE ANTICIPATED THAT HIS HIGHNESS SHEIKH ABDULLAH BEN ABZUG WILL RETURN FROM EUROPE PRIOR TO ARRIVAL OF CHEVAUX AIRCRAFT. HE WILL PROBABLY BE ACCOMPANIED BY HIS HIGHNESS PRINCE HASSAN AD KAYAM OF HUSSID.

  D. PRINCE HASSAN AD KAYAM IS FREQUENTLY IN THE COMPANY OF BORIS ALEXANDROVICH KORSKY-RIMSAKOV, THE OPERA SINGER. MR. KORSKY-RIMSAKOV IS PRESENTLY IN NEW YORK, BUT THE POSSIBILITY THAT HE MAY TURN UP IN MOROCCO AND/OR ABZUG CANNOT BE IGNORED. THIS MESSAGE IS PERMISSION FOR YOU TO REVOKE HIS PASSPORT AND TAKE WHATEVER OTHER MEASURES ARE NECESSARY TO KEEP HIM OUT OF ABZUG.

  E. THE SECRETARY OF STATE HAS SECURED THE SERVICES OF THE ONLY TWO PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO ARE ABLE TO OFFER ADVICE TO MR. CHEVAUX WHICH HE WILL FOLLOW AGAINST HIS WISHES. DRS. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PIERCE AND JOHN FRANCIS XAVIER MCINTYRE WILL DEPART NEW YORK THIS AFTERNOON ABOARD A SPECIAL AIR FORCE AIR CRAFT FOR CASABLANCA. THEY WILL BE AC COMPANIED BY Q. ELWOOD POTTER, III, DEPUTY ASSISTANT UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR NORTH AFRICAN AFFAIRS, WHO WILL ASSUME COMMAND OF THIS OPERATION, WHICH HAS BEEN DESIGNATED “OPERATION LATENT VESUVIUS,” ON HIS ARRIVAL. UNFORTUNATELY, DRS. PIERCE AND MCINTYRE MAY NOT BE CONSIDERED WILLING PARTICIPANTS ON THE TEAM, AND SHOULD BE WATCHED ACCORDINGLY. IN THIS CONNECTION, THEY ARE SOMETIMES, BUT NOT ALWAYS, RECEPTIVE TO SUGGESTIONS FROM THE REVEREND MOTHER EMERITUS. FURTHER, IN THIS CONNECTION, DO NOT, REPEAT DO NOT, EVER REFER OR PERMIT OTHERS TO REFER TO THE REVEREND MOTHER EMERITUS AS QUOTE HOT LIPS UNQUOTE.

  7. WHILE THE SECRETARY OF STATE PERSONALLY HAS THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE CONFIDENCE IN THE ABILITY OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY IN MOROCCO TO DEAL WITH THIS PROBLEM EFFECTIVELY, IT SHOULD BE KEPT IN MIND THAT THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE PERIODICALLY REVIEWS AFTER ACTION REPORTS WITH AN EYE TO CUTTING THE DEADWOOD.

  END MESSAGE. DESTROY AFTER READING.

  And while they were reading that rather lengthy epistle from the nation’s capital, the Teletypewriter bell rang again, this time only twice, signifying a message of more than unusual importance but not a real wall shaker.

  FROM DEPT. OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

  STATE DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON

  TO: U.S. EMBASSY, RABAT

  1. DON RHOTTEN, AMALGAMATED BROADCASTING SYSTEM TELEVISION JOURNALIST, ANNOUNCED ON HIS PROGRAM LAST EVENING THAT HE WAS IMMEDIATELY FLYING DIRECTLY TO ABZUG TO INVESTIGATE REPORTS OF SECRET U.S. AID TO SHEIKH OF ABZUG.

  2. SINCE THE OPERATIONS DIVISION OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT ASSURE US THAT THE UNITED STATES IS NOT AIDING ABZUG, SECRETLY OR OTHER WISE, THE PUBLIC-RELATIONS DEPARTMENT BELIEVES THAT MR. RHOTTEN IS, IN THE SLANG OF THE TRADE, QUOTE CHASING ANOTHER WILD GOOSE
UNQUOTE. IT WILL BE RECALLED THAT LAST MONTH MR. RHOTTEN ANNOUNCED EXCLUSIVELY THAT THE SECRETARY OF STATE HAD SOLD ALASKA TO JAPANESE INTERESTS. FURTHERMORE, THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY ADVISES THAT THERE IS NO AIRFIELD IN ABZUG.

  3. IT IS POSSIBLE, HOWEVER, THAT MR. RHOTTEN AND HIS STAFF WILL APPEAR IN MOROCCO. IN THIS EVENTUALITY, YOU ARE DIRECTED TO PROVIDE HIM WITH ALL COURTESIES, BEARING IN MIND THAT MR. RHOTTEN, WHO HAS SOME 11,345,213 VIEWERS, HAS BEEN KNOWN IN THE PAST TO MAKE UP HIS OWN STORIES WHEN HIS JOURNALISTIC EFFORTS TO FIND A SUITABLE STORY HAVE BEEN UNSUCCESSFUL.

  4. THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IS TO BE KEPT FULLY ADVISED OF DEVELOPMENTS.

  HARRY J. WHELAN

  DEPUTY ASSISTANT UNDER SECRETARY

  OF STATE FOR PUBLIC RELATIONS

  The Deputy Chief of Mission was rather upset by the Teletype messages—not so the Ambassador. He had labored long years on alien shores in his nation’s service, and he had long ago evolved a strategy for dealing with imminent diplomatic disasters.

  The basic principle of this strategy was to separate oneself just as far as possible from the site of a disaster.

  “As I understand all this,” he said to the Deputy Chief of the Mission, “the Deputy Assistant Under Secretary of State for North African Affairs and the two doctors with him are going to Casablanca. Congressman Jackson will come here, as will this Rhotten television person …”

  “I believe that’s pronounced Row-ten, Mr. Ambassador,” the Deputy Chief of Mission said.

  “Row-ten, then,” the Ambassador went on impatiently, “and the oil exploration team. Once they find there is no airfield in Abzug, they will naturally seek out their embassy and their Ambassador for guidance, advice and assistance.”