Under Fire

by Griffin, W. E. B.

McCoy nodded back and started to walk. He did not think he was being abducted by gypsies to be held for ransom. 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.

  Their “car” was a black Chevrolet Suburban, with several shortwave antennae mounted on it. They loaded him into the rear, and he heard the door lock click after he got in.

  And he knew Washington, so when they headed toward it on Highway 4, which turned into Pennsylvania Avenue before the District Line, he became more convinced that they were headed to the CIA office, which was in the 2400 block of E Street.

  They stayed on Pennsylvania Avenue, and when he saw the White House through the windshield, he turned on his seat for a better look.

  He didn’t get one. The Suburban made a sudden turn to the right, and then before he could orient himself, a turn left into an alley, and then another left and then a right.

  And then it stopped, and he heard the click as the rear door was unlocked. The door opened, and the larger of the “Secret Service” agents motioned him to get out.

  They were in a courtyard of a house.

  “Where are we?” McCoy asked. “What’s this?”

  “If you’ll follow Agent Taylor, please, Captain?” the smaller agent said, and pointed. McCoy followed Taylor through a ground-floor steel door, down a corridor, then up a flight of carpeted stairs, and finally into a small room furnished with a small leather armchair, a small desk, a chair for that, and, on a table against the wall, a telephone.

  “Please wait here, Captain,” Agent Taylor said. “We’ll be just outside.”

  By now, McCoy was convinced he was in the hands of the CIA, because the two clowns with Secret Service badges were behaving much like the OSS clowns—most of whom, in the beginning, had never seen a Jap or heard a weapon fired in anger—had behaved, copying their cloak-and -dagger behavior from watching spy movies.

  He walked to the desk, rested his buttocks and his hands on it, and waited for Spy Movie, Act Two.

  The door opened.

  The President of the United States walked in.

  It took McCoy a moment to believe what his eyes saw, and then he popped to attention.

  “Stand at ease, Captain,” the President said, offering his hand. “What did they do, sneak you in the back door?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How was the flight?” the President asked.

  “Very interesting, sir,” McCoy replied, truthfully. “It’s hard to believe you’re moving that fast.” And then he had another thought. “Mr. President, my uniform’s a mess. . . .”

  “There were many occasions, Captain McCoy, when it was Captain Truman of Battery B, that my uniform was, with good reason, a mess.”

  McCoy didn’t reply.

  “I’ve seen your assessment of war in Korea in ninety days, Captain,” the President said. “I wanted to have a look at you.”

  “Yes, sir,” McCoy said.

  “I don’t want you to think before you answer these questions, Captain. I want you to say the first thing that comes to your mind. Understand?”

  "Yes, sir.”

  "Do you think General MacArthur has seen your assessment? ”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think he would have called me in, if he’d seen it.”

  “Why do you think he hasn’t seen it?”

  “General Willoughby didn’t want him to see it; didn’t give it to him.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can only guess, sir.”

  “Guess.”

  “He had only recently given MacArthur an everything-is -peachy assessment.”

  “And that’s why he ordered it destroyed?”

  “I think that’s the reason, sir.”

  “And you were aware you were defying your orders when you kept a copy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you customarily disobey your orders?”

  “Not often, sir.”

  “This was not the first time?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why, in this case?”

  “I knew I had to do something with it, sir.”

  “You saw it as your duty?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And that’s why you gave it to General Pickering? You saw that as your duty?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And if he had not conveniently been in Tokyo, then what?”

  “I would have given it to him in San Francisco, sir.”

  “Two things,” the President said. “First—you’re getting this from the Commander-in-Chief—you did the right thing. Secondly, General Pickering is concerned that you’ll be in hot water if what you did ever gets out. I hope to ensure that it never gets out, but if it does, you will not be in any trouble. You understand that?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The President extended his hand. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Captain McCoy. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw one another again.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The President went to the door, opened it, and stepped through it.

  “Take Captain McCoy wherever he wants to go,” McCoy heard the President order. “And take him out the front door.”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” he heard the shorter Secret Service agent say.

  By the time McCoy was led to the front door of Blair House and walked down the flight of stairs, the Chevrolet Suburban was at the curb.

  He was again installed in the backseat and heard the door lock click.

  “Where to, Captain?” the larger Secret Service agent asked.

  McCoy fished in his short pocket and came with the three-by-five card General Dawkins had given him at Camp Pendleton.

  “Twenty-four thirty E Street,” he read from it. “The East Building.”

  “The CIA compound?”

  “If that’s what’s there,” McCoy said.

  They were now driving down Pennsylvania Avenue past the White House. McCoy had a change of heart.

  “No,” he ordered. “Drop me at the Foster Lafayette.”

  “You’re sure? That place is about as expensive as it gets.”

  “I’m sure,” McCoy said.

  He was a Marine. He had been a Marine since he was seventeen. Marines do not appear in public in mussed, sweaty uniforms, much less report for duty that way. The Foster Lafayette Hotel had a splendid—more important, very fast—valet service. And he thought he could avail himself of it.

  The doorman of the Foster Lafayette was visibly surprised when a Chevrolet Suburban made an illegal U-turn in front of the marquee and a Marine captain in mussed and sweat-stained tropical worsteds got out.

  “Thanks for the ride,” McCoy said, and walked past the doorman into the lobby of the hotel, and then across the lobby to the desk.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” said the desk clerk, who was wearing a gray frock coat with a rose in the lapel, striped trousers, and a formal foulard.

  “My name is McCoy,” he said.

  “I thought you might be Captain McCoy, sir. We’ve been expecting you, sir.”

  “You have?”

  “We have a small problem, Captain. General Pickering left word that if he somehow missed you, we were to put you in the Pickering suite. And Mrs. McCoy called and said that when you arrived, you were to be put up in the American Personal Pharmaceuticals suite. Which would you prefer, sir?”

  McCoy thought it ove
r for a moment.

  “In the final analysis, I suppose it’s safer to ignore a general than your wife,” he said. “And I’m going to need some instant valet service for this uniform.”

  The desk clerk snapped his fingers. A bellman appeared. “Take Captain McCoy to the American Personal Pharmaceuticals suite,” he ordered. “And send the floor waiter to the suite.”

  [THREE]

  THE FOSTER LAFAYETTE HOTEL WASHINGTON, D.C. 1730 30 JUNE 1950

  The door chimes sounded, and Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, attired in a T-shirt and shorts—from the Foster Lafayette’s Men’s Shop, and for which he had paid, he noticed, as he signed the bill, five times as much as he had paid for essentially identical items in the Tokyo PX—went to answer it, expecting to find the floor waiter with his freshly cleaned uniform.

  He found, instead, General Fleming Pickering, USMCR, standing there in civilian clothing.

  “The manager of the establishment tells me you ignored another order of mine, Captain, but if you will pour me a stiff drink, I’ll let it pass,” Pickering said, putting out his hand.

  “Ernie called ahead,” McCoy said, “and told them to let me stay here. I don’t have any money, and I thought it would be better to charge things to my father-in-law, who doesn’t like me anyhow, than to you, sir.”

  “You can put a hell of a lot in one sentence,” Pickering said, as he walked into the suite. “First things first, where does your father-in-law—who does, by the way, think very highly of you—keep the booze?”

  “In here,” McCoy said, leading him to a room off the sitting room that held a small, but fully stocked, bar.

  Pickering rummaged through an array of bottles, finally triumphantly holding up a bottle of Famous Grouse.

  “I have just been paid a left-handed compliment by a Navy doctor I don’t think is as old as you,” he said, as he found glasses. “ ‘For someone of your age, General, you’re in remarkably good condition.’ ”

  McCoy chuckled, and took the glass of straight Scots whiskey Pickering handed him.

  “Cheers,” Pickering said, and they touched glasses.

  The door chime went off again.

  “My uniform, probably,” Ken said, and walked to the door. Pickering followed him.

  This time it was the floor waiter, holding a freshly cleaned uniform on a hanger. He extended the bill for McCoy to sign.

  “Do you know who I am?” Pickering asked.

  “Yes, sir, of course.”

  “Are you aware there is a standing order in this inn that Captain McCoy’s money is no good?”

  “Jesus . . .” McCoy said.

  Pickering held up his hand to silence him.

  “. . . issued by the dragon lady of the Foster chain, my wife, herself?”

  “No, sir,” the floor waiter said, smiling.

  “Trust me, and be good enough to inform the manager.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Pickering,” the floor waiter said, chuckling.

  “And, truth being stranger than fiction, you may start referring to me as ’General,’ ” Pickering said.

  “Yes, sir,” the floor waiter said.

  “You might be interested to know, further, that for someone of my age, I have been adjudged to be in remarkably good shape.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, General,” the floor waiter said, smiling. “It’s good to have you in the inn again, General.”

  “Thank you,” Pickering said.

  “I wish you hadn’t done that, General,” McCoy said when the floor waiter had left.

  “One, you said you had no money, and, two, since, having just passed my recall to active duty physical, I am again a general, I will remind you that captains are not permitted to argue with generals.”

  “Yes, sir,” McCoy said. “You’ve been recalled?”

  “By the President himself,” Pickering said. “I did not volunteer. He just called the Commandant and told him to issue the orders. When I told the dragon lady, it caused her to shift into her highly-pissed-off mode. She thinks I volunteered, and then lied about it.”

  “I never heard you call her that before,” McCoy said.

  “The kindest thing she said—on the phone just now, before I came down the corridor to find a friendly face—was that I was a ‘selfish adolescent who thinks of nothing but his own personal gratification.’ ”

  “Ouch,” McCoy said.

  “What makes it worse is that I am about as welcome as syphilis at the CIA. Calling me to active duty was not Admiral Hillenkoetter’s idea.” He paused. “I went to him with your assessment, Ken.”

  “The President told me he’d seen it; he didn’t say how he’d gotten it,” McCoy said.

  “The President told you he’d seen it?”

  “They flew me here—from Miramar—in an Air Force jet, a two-seater fighter. When we landed at Andrews, two guys from the Secret Service met me. They took me to a house—just down the street from here—and put me in a little office and told me to wait. The door opened, and President Truman walked in.”

  “Blair House,” Pickering furnished. “They’re redoing the White House from the walls in. That’s where he lives, for the time being. What did he have to say?”

  “Not much. He asked if I thought MacArthur had seen the assessment, and then—when I told him no, that Willoughby hadn’t given it to him—asked why I thought he’d done that. I told him it was only a guess, but I suspected Willoughby had just given him an assessment that said there wouldn’t be trouble in Korea. Then he told me that I had done the right thing in giving it to you; that you were concerned I’d be in trouble, and he said I wouldn’t. Then he said he wouldn’t be surprised if we saw each other again, and left. The whole thing didn’t last three minutes.”

  “Sequence of events: I went, with Senator Fowler, to Hillenkoetter with a sanitized version of the assessment—your name wasn’t on it—as soon as I got back from Japan. He said he’d look into it. He asked for your name, and I wouldn’t give it to him. The next thing I heard was a telephone call from the President. He said that he knew of my ‘visit’ to Hillenkoetter, and asked if I would come to Washington; he wanted to meet with Fowler and me. I said yes. He also asked where you were. I said I didn’t know where you were, except en route to Camp Pendleton. Two hours later I was in an F-94, and the next morning the President came here, to Fowler’s apartment, asked Fowler to keep the assessment, the warning, from the press. Fowler agreed.”

  “Where’d they get my name?”

  “I don’t suppose that was hard, Ken,” Pickering said. “I also told the President that I didn’t want you to get in trouble, and he asked if I meant I thought you needed friends in high places, and the next thing, he’s on the phone to the Commandant—personally—telling him to cut active-duty orders on me, effective immediately.”

  “Because I need a protector?”

  “I spent forty minutes with General Cates this morning. He told me that—he implied; he’s both too much a gentleman and too smart to spell it out in so many words—that there is some dissatisfaction with Hillenkoetter and that it wouldn’t surprise him if Truman had me in mind as a replacement. ”

  McCoy visibly thought that announcement over, but his face did not register surprise.

  “You were a deputy director of the OSS,” McCoy said.

  “Who is, and you know this as well as I do, absolutely unqualified to be head of the CIA.”

  “You couldn’t do any worse than this admiral. He should have known this was coming.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to do any better.”

  “Yes, you would,” McCoy said, simply.

  “Maybe Hillenkoetter’s heard the same thing,” Pickering said. “That would explain the ice-cold reception I got over there.”

  “What are you going to do over there?” McCoy asked.

  “We have an office in the East Building—that’s where Hillenkoetter’s office is—four rooms, sparsely furnished.”

  “In which we are going to do what?”<
br />
  “I think they’ll probably want to pick your brains about the North Korean/Chinese order of battle, but I have no idea what I’ll be doing except that Ed Banning and Zimmerman are on their way here to help me to do it.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “That was the Commandant’s idea. He painted a pretty bleak picture of the readiness of the Corps to fight a war—”

  “The First Marine Division,” McCoy interrupted. “The First Marine Division, Reinforced, at Pendleton, has less than 8,000 men.”

  Pickering was at first surprised that McCoy knew that figure, but on reflection, was not. McCoy had always been a cornucopia of data; he learned something once, then never forgot it.

  “—and is concerned that when the Corps can’t pull off a miracle, as it will be expected to do, it will be ammunition for those who think we don’t need a Marine Corps.”

  “How are you and Ed Banning supposed to help about that?”

  Pickering thought that over, then said what had first come into his mind.

  “Every time somebody says, ‘First Marine Division,’ we interject, ‘which is at less than half wartime strength.’ ”

  McCoy chuckled.

  The telephone rang.

  It was Ernie.

  “Good,” she said. “You’re there.”

  “And so is the General,” Ken said.

  “Aunt Patricia told me. She is something less than thrilled.”

  “Where did you see her?”

  “I’m in San Francisco. With her. I’m on what they call the ‘red-eye special,’ a midnight flight on TWA to New York. It gets there at seven in the morning. I’ll take the train to Washington. Are you going to be there when I get there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Put Uncle Flem on the phone,” she ordered, and he heard her say, “Talk to him, Aunt Pat.”

  He handed the phone to Pickering.

  “Your wife,” he said.

  Pickering raised his eyebrows as he took the phone.

  “Selfish adolescent speaking,” he said. “Honey, honest to God, I didn’t volunteer.”

  “Whatever you are, you’re not a liar,” McCoy heard Patricia Fleming reply. “If I get on the plane with Ernie, are you going to be there, too?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”