Under Fire

by Griffin, W. E. B.

  Patricia Foster Pickering and Ernestine Sage McCoy walked into the room, trailed by four bellmen carrying luggage and cardboard boxes from Brooks Brothers. Both women looked around the mess in the room, and the four Marines, all of whom had their field scarves pulled down, their collars unbuttoned, and their sleeves rolled up.

  “I hope we’re not interrupting anything,” Patricia Pickering said, lightly sarcastic.

  “We were getting worried,” Pickering said.

  “I’m sure you were,” Patricia Pickering said, now seriously sarcastic. “If there’s any scotch left, I really would like a drink.”

  Her husband scurried to get her a drink.

  McCoy went to his wife and kissed her.

  “How many have you had?” Ernie asked.

  “A couple,” he confessed.

  “There is a difference between a couple, which is two, and several, which is any number three or greater.”

  “Several,” McCoy said.

  Ernie laughed. “Aunt Pat, I told you. They can’t be trusted alone, but they don’t lie.”

  “What’s in the boxes?” McCoy asked.

  “We went by Brooks Brothers and got you some uniforms, ” Ernie said.

  “Good little camp followers that we are,” Patricia said. She went to Ed Banning. “I see that you—smell that you— can’t be trusted out of Milla’s sight, either.”

  But she kissed his cheek nevertheless, and then Zimmerman’s.

  “And for lunch we had a hot dog with sauerkraut and a Coke on the sidewalk outside Brooks Brothers,” Patricia said. “It was good, but it wasn’t enough. Plan on an earlier dinner, boys.”

  Pickering handed his wife a drink.

  “Here you go, sweetheart,” he said.

  “You don’t have one?”

  “On the coffee table.”

  “Make it last,” she said. “That’s your last. I didn’t fly across the country in the middle of the night, and then spend the morning in Brooks Brothers and the afternoon driving here from Manhattan just for the privilege of watching you snore in an armchair.”

  “Yes, dear,” Pickering said, mockingly. He was more amused than annoyed, and certainly didn’t appear chastised.

  Patricia turned to McCoy.

  “Say, ‘thank you, Ernie, for coming and going to Brooks Brothers for me.’ ”

  “Thank you, honey, for coming and going to Brooks Brothers for me,” McCoy said, with a smile.

  “You’re welcome,” Ernie said.

  The telephone rang.

  Banning answered it, then extended it to Pickering.

  “Senator Fowler, sir,” he said.

  Mrs. Pickering looked annoyed.

  Pickering took the phone.

  “Hello, Dick,” he said. “Come down the corridor and have a drink with us. Patricia just walked in the door.”

  Fowler’s end of the conversation could not be heard by Patricia Pickering, although she tried hard.

  “Dick, I really don’t want to do that. Patricia is in one of her fire-breathing moods. . . .

  “Hey, don’t you listen? I said I didn’t want to.

  “Oh, goddamn it, Dick. All right. We’ll be there in a minute.” He put the phone down and looked at his wife. “Our senator wants to see me for a minute. Ken and me. He says it’s important.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “I owe him a couple of favors,” he said.

  “Like him getting you back into your goddamn Marine Corps?”

  They locked eyes for a moment, and then Pickering said, rather firmly, “Patricia, we’ll only be a few minutes. Why don’t you order dinner?”

  He motioned for McCoy to follow him, and they left the room.

  “ ‘Goddamn Marine Corps,’ Aunt Pat?” Ernie said.

  “Goddamn Marine Corps,” Patricia Pickering confirmed. “He’s too old—he’s fifty, for God’s sake—to go rushing off . . .”

  She stopped, looked at Ernie, and started for the door. “I know him and Richardson Fowler. And he’s already had enough to drink. You coming?”

  Ernie considered this a moment, then shook her head, “no.”

  “Suit yourself,” Patricia Pickering said, and walked into the corridor. After a moment, Ernie followed her.

  “We’ll be right back,” she said.

  “ ‘Goddamn Marine Corps’?” Ernie Zimmerman quoted. “She sounds just like Mae-Su.”

  “If the Marine Corps wanted you to have a wife, Gunner Zimmerman,” Banning replied, delighted at his own wit, “they would have issued you one.”

  “Luddy’s not pissed?”

  “Actually, she’s not. She would really like me to go over there and start killing Communists,” Banning said.

  A muscular man in a gray suit stepped in front of Patricia Pickering.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said. “May I ask where you’re going?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m going to see Senator Fowler.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible just now, ma’am,” he said. “Could you come back in, say, thirty minutes?”

  “Not possible? What do you mean not possible? Get out of my way!”

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you pass.”

  “You can’t let me pass?” Mrs. Pickering asked in outrage. “I own this hotel—no one tells me I ‘can’t pass.’ ”

  Another muscular man walked quickly up as the first Secret Service agent was taking his credentials from his suit jacket pocket, and then the door of Senator Fowler’s suite opened.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ, Patricia,” Fleming Pickering said to her, then turned to someone in the room. “It’s my wife.”

  “Let her in,” a voice came from inside the room, and then President Truman appeared in the open door. “Let the lady pass.”

  “Ladies,” Ernie said from behind the second Secret Service agent. “I’m with her.”

  “Ladies,” the President agreed, smiling.

  “Good evening, Mr. President,” Patricia Pickering said.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Pickering,” Truman said. “I apologize for this. Won’t you come in for a minute?”

  He offered his hand to Ernie McCoy.

  “Admiral Hillenkoetter told me Captain McCoy was married to a very beautiful young woman. How do you do? You are Mrs. McCoy?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. President,” Ernie said.

  “Hello, Patricia,” Senator Fowler said.

  “I suspected that my overage adolescent was going to crawl into a bottle with you, Dick, and I see I was right.”

  “Mrs. Pickering, Mrs. McCoy,” the President said, “this is Major General Ralph Howe, an old friend of mine.”

  “How do you do, ladies?” General Howe said, in a twangy Maine accent. He seemed to be amused.

  “How do you do, General?” Patricia said, as she shook his hand.

  “I think what we have here, Harry,” General Howe said, smiling broadly, “is proof of the adage that behind every great man there really is a beautiful woman.”

  Truman chuckled.

  “Mrs. Pickering,” the President said. “I wanted a few minutes with General Howe, your husband, and Captain McCoy. A few private minutes that no one would know about. That’s why I imposed on Senator Fowler’s hospitality. . . .”

  “No imposition at all, Mr. President,” Fowler said.

  “Can I have them for ten minutes, ladies?” the President asked. “They’ll tell you what this is all about later.”

  “Of course, Mr. President,” Patricia Pickering said. “I suppose I have made a flaming ass of myself, haven’t I?”

  “I suspect my wife would have done exactly what you did,” the President said. “Bess suspects that all my friends are always plying me with liquor.”

  She found herself at the door.

  “Again, my apologies, ladies,” the President said, and they went through the door.

  “And my apologies, Mr. President,” Pickering said when the door was closed. “The main reason she’s
on a tear is that she thinks I volunteered to go back in the Corps, and that Dick Fowler arranged it as a favor.”

  “If you’d like, I can straighten her out on that,” the President said.

  “I would be grateful, Mr. President.”

  “Formidable lady, General,” General Howe said.

  “I don’t think a shrinking violet could run the Foster Hotel chain the way she runs it,” the President said. “Now, where were we?”

  “I was about to offer Fleming a drink,” Fowler said. “Now I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

  “I think it is,” Pickering said.

  “I’ll make them,” Fowler said. “The usual?”

  “Yes.”

  “For you, too, Ken?” Fowler asked.

  “Yes, sir, please,” McCoy said.

  “To get right to the heart of this,” the President said. “When Admiral Hillenkoetter first brought your name up, General, he said that you had first gone to the Pacific as the private eyes of Navy Secretary Knox, and that that had evolved into your being the private eyes of President Roosevelt. ”

  “Yes, sir, that accurately describes what happened.”

  “I found that fascinating,” Truman said. “Although I didn’t say anything to the admiral.”

  “Sir?”

  “Until that moment, I thought I had the bright idea all on my own,” Truman said. “That if you really want to know what’s going on around the military, send someone who considers his primary loyalty is to the President, not the military establishment. General Howe and I go back to France—we were both captains in France. Then we saw one another over the years in the National Guard. In War Two, when I was in the Senate, he went back into the Army, and rose to major general. When this Korean thing broke, he was about the first person I knew I was going to need, and I called him to active duty—to be my eyes in this war.”

  “I see,” Pickering said.

  “And when he came down from Maine, I told him about you, about Captain McCoy’s assessment, and the trouble he had with it, and we are agreed that your talents in this sort of thing should not be allowed to lay fallow.”

  “Mr. President, I’m afraid you’re overestimating my talents, ” Pickering said.

  “You can do one thing I can’t, General,” Howe said. “You can talk to MacArthur, maybe even ask him questions no one else would dare ask him.”

  “Wow!” Pickering said, as Fowler handed him a drink.

  “Would you be willing to take on such an assignment?”

  “Sir, I’m at your orders,” Pickering said.

  “Take a look at this,” the President said, handing Pickering a squarish envelope. “And tell me if it’s all right.”

  THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON, D. C.

  JULY 1, 1950

  GENERAL OF THE ARMY DOUGLAS MACARTHUR THE DAI ICHI BUILDING TOKYO, JAPAN

  BY OFFICER COURIER

  DEAR GENERAL MACARTHUR:

  THERE IS ONE SMALL PIECE OF GOOD NEWS IN WHAT FRANKLY LOOKS TO ME LIKE A DARK SITUATION, AND WHICH I WANTED TO GET IN YOUR HANDS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

  ADMIRAL HILLENKOETTER, THE DIRECTOR OF THE CIA, HAS ASKED ME TO RECALL TO ACTIVE DUTY YOUR FRIEND BRIGADIER GENERAL FLEMING PICKERING, USMCR, AND I HAVE DONE SO. AT ADMIRAL HILLENKOETTER’ S RECOMMENDATION, I HAVE NAMED GENERAL PICKERING ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE CIA FOR ASIA, A POSITION MUCH LIKE THE ONE HE HELD DURING WORLD WAR II, WHERE HE WAS SO VALUABLE TO YOURSELF, OSS DIRECTOR DONOVAN, AND PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.

  HE WILL BE COMING TO THE FAR EAST IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE, AND I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT HE ENJOYS MY EVERY CONFIDENCE AND THAT YOU MAY FEEL FREE TO SAY ANYTHING TO HIM THAT YOU WOULD SAY TO ME.

  SINCERELY,

  Harry S. Truman

  HARRY S. TRUMAN

  PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMED FORCES

  Pickering raised his eyes from the letter to the President.

  “Is that about the way President Roosevelt handled it?” Truman asked.

  “He referred to the general as ‘my dear Douglas,’ ” Pickering said.

  “He knew MacArthur,” Truman said. “I don’t. And I don’t think I want to know the sonofabitch.”

  “Harry!” General Howe cautioned.

  “He’s an officer in the U.S. Army,” Truman said. “Not the Viceroy of Japan, but I don’t think he knows that, and if he does, he doesn’t want to admit it. And I want you to know how I feel about him, General.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “How do you feel about him?” Truman asked.

  “He’s a brilliant man—possibly, probably, the best general of our era, Mr. President.”

  “Better than Eisenhower? Bradley?”

  “I never had the opportunity to watch General Eisenhower at work, Mr. President. But I have watched General MacArthur. The word ‘genius’ is not out of place. But he sometimes manifests traits of character that are disturbing to me personally. He can be petty, for example.”

  “For example?”

  “Every unit on Corregidor but the 4th Marines was given the Presidential Unit Citation. General MacArthur said the Marines had enough medals.”

  “That’s all?”

  “His blind loyalty to the Bataan Gang disturbs me, Mr. President.”

  “That’s why you didn’t take McCoy’s assessment to him?”

  “I think his support of General Willoughby would have been irrational, and that very likely would have caused McCoy more trouble than he was already in, Mr. President. ”

  “All I expect him to do is not disobey orders,” Truman said. “If he does, I want to know about it. Would that be a problem for you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Okay. This will go out tonight,” Truman said. “I want you to work closely with Ralph here, but you both have the authority to communicate directly with me. If there’s a disagreement between you, I want to hear both sides, and I’ll decide. Clear?”

  “Clear,” General Howe said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “General Howe wants to pick your brain, Captain McCoy, ” the President said. “I want you to tell him everything you know.”

  “Yes, sir,” McCoy said.

  “McCoy gave us a briefing tonight you might find fascinating yourself, Mr. President—”

  “Us? Who’s us?” the President interrupted sharply. “Who else have you let in on McCoy’s assessment?”

  “Sir, when you ordered my recall, General Cates assigned two officers to me, officers who had been with me in the OSS in War Two. Colonel Ed Banning and Marine Gunner Zimmerman.”

  “That was very obliging of the Commandant,” the President said.

  It was a question. Pickering decided he could let it pass, but decided not to.

  Is that a courageous decision, or is the Famous Grouse talking?

  “Mr. President, General Cates is afraid that when the Marine Corps can’t perform the miracle everyone will expect it to, it will reflect badly on the Corps.”

  “What miracle won’t it be able to perform? And how will the assignment of these two officers to you keep that from reflecting badly on the Marine Corps?”

  “General Cates hopes that whenever I have the opportunity I will inject ‘the First Marine Division is at half wartime strength.’ ”

  “Half wartime strength?” General Howe asked incredulously.

  “Half strength,” Pickering repeated. “And in the entire Marine Corps, there are only about eighty thousand officers and men, plus twice that many in the reserve.”

  “God, I knew there had been reductions, but I didn’t know it was that bad!” Howe said.

  “It’s that bad,” Pickering said.

  “It would appear General Cates got what he wanted, wouldn’t it?” the President said. “I’ll keep that unhappy statistic in mind, along with many others.”

  Neither Howe nor Pickering replied.

  “McCoy gave a briefing to these two officers?” Truman asked.

  “And to m
e, sir. I thought it was brilliant.”

  “I’d like to hear it,” Howe said. “Can you do that for me, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir,” McCoy said.

  “Not tonight,” Truman said. “We have other things to talk about tonight, Ralph.”

  “Where can I find you in the morning, McCoy? Say about eight?” Howe asked.

  “I’m here in the hotel, sir. But if you’ll tell me where—”

  “The hotel’s fine. I’m staying here myself. Where are you? With General Pickering?”

  “No, sir. I’m in the American Personal Pharmaceuticals suite.”

  “The American Personal Pharmaceuticals suite?” Howe asked, with a smile.

  “He’s like you, Ralph, he doesn’t need the job, he just likes the uniform,” Truman said, and immediately added: “I shouldn’t have said that, I suppose. I meant it admiringly. ”

  “I’ll call you at eight, Captain,” General Howe said.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Ralph, why don’t you walk down the corridor with General Pickering, and deliver a message from me to Mrs. Pickering?”

  “What message, Harry?”

  “His recall to active duty was my idea, not his.”

  “I’ll be happy to.”

  “Thank you both,” the President said. “I hope there will be a chance to see you both again before you go over there.”

  He went to the door and shook the hands of both men as they went through it.

  VII

  [ONE]

  OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY COMMANDING GENERAL CAMP PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA 1130 5 JULY 1950

  Brigadier General Clyde W. Dawkins, USMC, was annoyed—and his face showed it—when the telephone on his desk buzzed. He was in conference with Brigadier General Edward A. Craig, USMC, who until two days before had been Deputy Commanding General, 1st Marine Division, and was now Commanding General, 1st Marine Provisional Brigade, and he had, he thought, made it clear to Captain Arthur McGowan, USMC, his aide-de-camp, that he didn’t want to be disturbed.

  “Sorry,” he said to Craig, a tall, lean officer beside him, a tanned man in his early fifties who wore his thick silver hair in a crew cut, and reached for the telephone.

  “Sir, it’s the Commandant,” Captain McGowan announced.

  “General Dawkins, sir.”