by James Philip
McNamara looked around at the pinched faces of the high command of the US military.
“I have to tell you, again, that the President, Secretary of State Rusk and I have no knowledge of any such talks, agreements, pacts, or understandings with the Spanish Government in this respect. Further, I reiterate that to the best of my knowledge no lawful orders have been issued to American servicemen authorising any offensive, or remotely aggressive, action directed at British forces whether in the air, on land or at sea.”
He did not believe he was going to say what he said next.
“Some doubt was expressed yesterday and overnight about the British claim to have shot down B-52s in the Mediterranean.” His sigh was more of a groan of incredulity. “I have to tell you that the RAF has gun camera footage from the Hawker Hunter interceptors that shot down four 100th Bomb Group B-52s during the attack on Malta on Friday night.”
He took a deep breath, everybody else had stopped breathing.
“The British Ambassador has passed the names of the survivors from the downed B-52s to Secretary Rusk. Eight of the prisoners of war in British custody on Malta are US Air Force personnel. It is unclear at this time whether or not the new British Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, Admiral Christopher, will exercise his right to have our people summarily executed as common criminals. The British Ambassador, Sir James Sykes, was at pains to remind Secretary Rusk that since there has been no declaration of war the normal protocols regarding the treatment of prisoners of war do not apply in this case.”
General McConnell cleared his throat.
“I spoke to General LeMay shortly before I came to this conference,” he explained flatly. “General LeMay is currently in flight to Barksdale Air Force Base. That is where the four missing B-52s were based.” His voice was quietly firm, warning the others in the room that whatever they might be thinking about Curtis LeMay, he did not personally believe that Old Iron Pants had gone rogue. The trouble was that nothing explained the bombing of the British destroyers and the bombing of Malta quite as neatly as a narrative which included the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force having taken it upon himself to start the next World War. McConnell knew it, and so did everybody else in the Flag Plot Room in the bowels of the Pentagon that Sunday afternoon in December. “In his absence,” he looked to McNamara, “do I have your permission to recall all SAC failsafe missions reinstated at zero-one-three-zero hours this day, and to stand down all aircraft on quick reaction alert status, Mr Secretary?”
Robert McNamara nodded curtly.
“Mr Secretary,” Admiral Anderson grunted, “is it wise to stand down our bombers at a moment of...”
Robert McNamara bit his tongue, waited until the red mist began to clear.
“It is not the policy of the Administration of which I am a member to prepare for, to threaten, or to make war on the United Kingdom, its land, sea or air forces, or upon any ally of that country. There will be no preparations for or contingency considered for making war against the British in any other circumstance excepting a direct attack by British forces on American military assets or upon targets located on American soil.”
The Secretary of Defence looked around the room.
“Is that clear, gentlemen?”
He waited for acknowledging nods.
“Somebody,” he continued, “circumvented the chain of command and sent four B-52s half-way around the World to attack our closest ally’s key strategic naval base in the Mediterranean, Admiral. What’s to stop that same somebody ordering more B-52s to bomb Washington DC or New York?”
Nobody spoke.
McNamara’s tone was grim as he addressed Admiral Anderson, returning to the CNO’s question.
“Admiral, I don’t know if it is wise to stand down SAC. But I do know that standing down a force over which we have lost control is the only rational option open to us.”
Anderson was trembling with rage.
“Sir, the Navy is under my command!”
McNamara realised he had driven the Chief of Naval Operations into a corner. However, even though he knew that sooner or later he had to let him out of that corner, something made him first tighten the screw another notch, and rattle the bars of the Admiral’s cage. He half-turned away, let his eyes rove across the symbols on the Flag Plot Table close to the southern tip of the Irish Republic. The US Navy’s latest and biggest carrier, the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise, screened by the most modern destroyers and frigates still in commission remained strewn across the path of the Operation Manna convoys steaming up from the south.
“The President,” he said slowly, “wants to know why the Enterprise is still operating in this area,” he said, jabbing a finger at the coast of southern Ireland. He fixed the Chief of Naval Operations with a steely gaze. The last commander of the US Atlantic Fleet, a man with a peerless record of service and professional accomplishment, had found himself on the beach after the October War. Somebody had had to take responsibility for the ‘Beale Incident’. “Can I rely on you to communicate directly with CINCLANT urgently, Admiral?”
The Chief of Naval Operations registered that his political master had carefully sidestepped giving him a humiliating order.
The trouble was he still felt like McNamara had told him to ‘get a grip!’
Admiral Anderson nodded curtly.
“Yes, Mr Secretary.”
Chapter 39
Sunday 8th December 1963
The Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC
“Things are a bit crazy,” admitted the United States Attorney General as he clambered out of the big limousine and joined Ben Bradlee, Newsweek Magazine’s Washington Bureau Chief on the steps of the monument. Bobby Kennedy’s coat collar was turned up, partially obscuring his face. A second car had drawn up and Secret Service men spread out around the two old friends as they began to walk up the steps to where old Abe sat immortalised in marble splendour for all time.
“What’s going on, Bobby?”
Washington remained calm, unnaturally so. It was a lull before the storm sort of tranquillity, edged around with nameless terrors. The papers were full of whispers of war, rumours, contradictory foreign reports frustrated by the fact that officially, the British, or rather the United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration had as yet still said very little publicly about the events of Friday evening and the ongoing skirmishes with the Spanish. Officially, the UKIEA’s position was that it did not comment on or, broadcast information which might be ‘of assistance to an enemy’. However, behind the scenes via diplomatic channels, the British Embassy and the Australian, New Zealand, South African and all of the Scandinavian legations, the UKIEA was crying MURDER!
“Our best guess is that this is all the work of some kind of communist conspiracy,” the President’s younger brother declared earnestly.
Ben Bradlee thought his friend was trying to be funny.
“That’s the Administration’s line?” He asked, incredulously.
“No, not yet. We need to harden up a few things.”
“A communist conspiracy? You’ve got to be kidding me, Bobby? Nobody’s going to believe that!”
“It looks like our guys in the Mediterranean thought they were obeying orders, Ben,” the Attorney General pleaded. “They may even have been falsely led to believe that the Brits had already nuked American cities.”
“That’s even less plausible than a communist conspiracy,” the journalist objected. “That bastard Hoover will have a field day if that’s half-true. You’ll never shake off the old faggot!”
This stung so sharply that the Attorney General recoiled and said something he realised instantly, he might later rue.
“Yeah, well,” he snapped, “whatever’s going on LeMay is still down in Louisiana playing with his toys!”
Bradlee gave the other man a hard look. He might be very close to the Kennedy brothers but he was also a hard-headed newsman and when a thing did not look or smell right it was usually wrong. Nothing
Bobby Kennedy was saying to him gave him any kind of confidence that somebody had got a grip of the situation. Okay, the missiles had not started flying again but that was not the same thing as achieving a meaningful reconciliation with an old ally. Nor was this the time to start rehashing the arguments about Curtis LeMay’s role in the October War. LeMay was a lot of things that were antipathetic to liberal DC sensitivities, but he was no communist stooge and he was, at least by his own lights, the most diehard of patriots.
The news that LeMay was in Louisiana was not news either. The White House might only just have heard about the Air Force Chief of Staff’s rampage down to Barksdale; everybody in the DC press corps had known all about it last night. Unlike the bureaucrats and dilettantes hanging around the Oval Office and shuffling haplessly around the corridors of the great buildings of state in the capital, LeMay and other senior members of the US military high command were actually trying very hard to find out what had gone so wrong with their country that its aircraft had attacked friendly ships and bases. It would have also probably have been helpful if the State Department had been as motivated to discover exactly why its diplomats had given the Spanish and the Italians the idea that attacking British ships and overseas territories had suddenly become such a good idea, rather than to carry on attempting to unload all the blame onto the Pentagon. Likewise, somebody ought to be asking what the Central Intelligence Agency had been doing the last year; because it beggared belief that somebody at Langley had failed to notice the changing mood music in Madrid and Rome.
The newsman bit back his contempt and tried to explain to his old friend how bad all this looked to everybody outside the Administration.
“You’re not even beginning to think this thing through, Bobby,” Ben Bradlee cautioned. “If the Chiefs of Staff were holding out on the Administration there would have been a coup by now. There would be tanks on the streets and F-4 Phantoms in the sky over the White House. Think about it. Italian A-4s and B-52s bomb Malta, US Air Force A-4s attack two British warships in the Atlantic, and what about the Navy’s problem with one of their Polaris boats last month?”
The Attorney General scowled.
Ben Bradlee started getting worried again.
He thinks I’m fishing for a story!
“What are you talking about?” Bobby Kennedy demanded. “The Navy hasn’t reported any problems...”
The two men exchanged thoughtful looks.
“The USS Sam Houston. But you didn’t hear it from me, Bobby.” Ben Bradlee had only heard the rumour himself in a bar last night from an old Navy buddy who had had one drink too many to contain his despair. “I’m just saying that this isn’t about just a few rogue officers trying to cause trouble. Whatever is going on is more complicated. If the Administration plans to write this off to a few irresponsible hotheads and some sort of communist conspiracy, I’ll tell you now a lot of people, me included, aren’t going to buy it.”
The United States Attorney General’s composure, like his silky charm, was fraying around the edges.
“The only problem we have with the Navy is that they’ve been trying to play goddammed war games with the Brits,” the President’s younger brother replied heatedly, electing to ignore practically everything his friend had just said to him.
“War games?”
“Jack’s put a stop to it now,” Bobby Kennedy assured Bradlee.
“Well, that’s one less thing to worry about,” the Newsweek Bureau Chief acknowledged with more irony than he meant. Hurriedly, he moved on to the object of the meeting. “So what is the Administration’s official line on this?”
“That a small number of disaffected junior officers misunderstood their orders and the general thrust of US foreign policy. Due to a lack of supervision, breaches of discipline and the influence of elements clearly sympathetic to the cause of the old Soviet Union, great harm has been done to our friends and allies in Britain. Which, obviously, the President deeply regrets...”
Ben Bradlee did not need to hear any more.
When, sometime in the next few hours his President and his inept advisors got him blown up by the British he intended to die with his professional journalistic reputation unsullied by this...
Horseshit!
“Presumably,” he retorted, “the President now also regrets cutting off aid shipments and lines of credit to the UKIEA, and the encouragement certain members of his Administration have given to American corporations to plunder former British colonial assets all around the World, Bobby?”
“Let’s not get into that debate again, Ben!”
The newsman held up his hands.
He understood the reasons why, immediately after the war, the Administration had chosen to concentrate on domestic issues, placate Congress and to attempt to maintain something resembling pre-war normality across as much of the country as possible. Notwithstanding, he had believed at the time that by signalling an America first, isolationist lurch to the right the Democratic Party was, in effect, betraying not just the United States’ overseas friends and allies, but selling its soul for short-term political advantage. But that was then and this was now, water under the bridge; they were where they were now.
“Who else are you talking to, Bobby?”
“The Post, the networks. Jack is working the phones at the moment. Our policy is to wait on developments. If we are attacked we will retaliate but so far the Brits seemed to have sucked up the pain.” Although he immediately thought better of that phrase it was too late to take it back. “Lines of communication are kind of screwy at the moment. The Brits have threatened to expel our Ambassador. They may already have done it. Our guy in England is a jerk. One of LBJ’s nominations.” He shrugged. “It is a mess. Dean Rusk is pulling out his hair, Ben. The President will hold off on addressing the nation until we’ve got a better handle on what is going on. There’s some talk of bringing in security teams, maybe even the FBI going into the Pentagon and the State Department to start a preliminary investigation into this...”
“You’d seriously consider letting Hoover’s people into the Pentagon?”
The two men were staring down the dull, dreary length of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool towards the distant Washington Monument. The sky was dark and ominous, the clouds low and threatening.
“Maybe,” the Attorney General confirmed. “We’re kind of running out of options, Ben.”
“You’re making a big mistake, Bobby. Well, the White House is, anyway. The country already believes the President and the Administration have covered up what really happened that day before the October War. Trying to hide the truth now will finish the Administration; the American people will never trust you, any of you, ever again.”
“The President just needs the papers and the networks to hold off for another day or two...”
“Not going to happen, Bobby,” Ben Bradlee groaned, sick at heart to be the one having to tell his friend that the music had stopped and he needed to sit down in a hurry. “You’re asking me to be a part of a cover up to conceal the self-evident failure and the moral and political bankruptcy your Administration. The American people might, one day, understand the reasons why we’re in this mess if you’re brave enough to level with them; but what they will never forgive you for is covering up the truth.”
The Attorney General viewed his friend thoughtfully, knowing that their friendship was on the line.
Then he said the second thing he was going to regret having said that grey afternoon on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, even though he fully understood how easily his words might come back to haunt him in future years.
“You’re either with us or against us, Ben.”
“Then I’m against you. Count me out of the cover up, Bobby.”
Chapter 40
Sunday 8th December 1963
The White House, Washington DC
The office of the White House Appointments Secretary - Kenny O’Donnell, the President’s de facto Chief of Staff - was crowded when the Uni
ted States Deputy Attorney General arrived. Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach had been in a 310th Bomb Group B-25 shot down over the Mediterranean in February 1943, one of the many men whose support work had made possible the ‘Great Escape’ from Stalag Luft III at Sagan in February 1944; so he immediately recognised the unmistakable stench of panic in the air.
Kenny O’Donnell was shouting at somebody on the phone, stalking behind his desk, two steps this way, two back trailing a cable to the black telephone base on his cluttered desk. Junior staffers and interns milled, chattering breathlessly. Every man’s tie was at half mast, several female secretaries and typists seemed to be jostling in the melee with either papers or fresh cups of black coffee in their hands. It was readily apparent that nobody was in control of anything in particular and given that this was the most important building in the Western World, that was a little frightening.
Out in the corridor leading down to the Oval Office ambassadors sat or gathered in pairs or small groups like worried brokers watching a Stock market crash, men in uniform came and went and in the background teleprinters and typewriters clattered ceaselessly. Not for the first time in its history the old mansion thrown up while John Adams - the 2nd President of the United States was in office - was demonstrably not the ideal command centre for the Government of the most powerful nation in Christendom. The White House had been rebuilt and modernised in Harry Truman’s day but the underground complex beneath it and in its grounds planned in Dwight Eisenhower’s days was as yet uncompleted, and its communications with the outside world woefully inadequate in the dangerous age of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Katzenbach was horrified to discover journalists roaming freely, and not one, but two television crews trailing thick, unwieldy cables and manoeuvring big, clumsy cameras more or less where they pleased. He pushed his way through the press of bodies towards Kenny O’Donnell’s desk.
