Marco Polo, If You Can
Page 24
Eisenhower, masking his rage with some difficulty, then read from his statement. He said what everyone expected him to say, that it was the responsibility of the United States to assure the safety of its people and of its allies from surprise attack. “As is well known,” he said unintentionally using the most conventional Communist locution for introducing a lie, “not only the United States but other countries are constantly the targets of elaborate and persistent espionage by the Soviet Union.” At that point Eisenhower interpolated his intention not to dispatch any further U-2S. De Gaulle meditated on the philosophical incompatibility of the two positions—i.e., that the U-2S were obligatory, and that they would not thenceforward be used.
To be sure, Eisenhower said slowly, his decision would not be binding on his successor.
Khrushchev banged his fist on the table, declaring the President’s statement inadmissible in that it conveyed no expression of regret, nor commitment to punish the guilty parties. At this point Macmillan attempted a word, but Eisenhower was also talking, and the interpreters’ voices rose in an effort to effect communication. It was a babble interrupted by President de Gaulle’s gaveling everyone to silence.
He turned to Khrushchev. As they sat there, observed De Gaulle, a Soviet Sputnik was overflying France at the rate of eighteen times per day. Who had granted the Soviet Union that permission? Perhaps there were cameras on the Sputnik?
“As God is my witness,” said Khrushchev, “our hands are clean and our soul is pure.” There was not now, he said, nor would there ever be, a camera on a Sputnik. In that case, said De Gaulle, how had the Soviet Union managed to get pictures of the dark side of the moon from a Sputnik?
Well, said Khrushchev, that one was different.
De Gaulle said that, in fact, he had no objection to anyone’s taking pictures of France. Khrushchev said De Gaulle obviously meant he had no objection to his allies; he, Khrushchev, had no objection to any of his allies taking pictures of the Soviet Union. Herter forced himself not to look at Defense Secretary Gates, seated at Eisenhower’s left.
Khrushchev seemed now quite out of control. He would not stop even to give the translators an opportunity to relay what he was saying. They were therefore driven to attempting simultaneous translation. Ambassador Bohlen, seated behind Eisenhower and conversant with Russian, attempted to translate for his principal, even as a French official attempted similar service for President de Gaulle. At this point Khrushchev said that the United States was engaged in trying to drive a wedge between the Soviet Union and its allies. Eisenhower blurted out that this was preposterous. Khrushchev, seated only a few feet from him, was now talking directly at Eisenhower. His hands trembling, Khrushchev reached over to General Malinovsky and snapped his fingers. General Malinovsky, face white, drew with visible reluctance a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. Khrushchev snatched them and caused general alarm in the room by standing up. He pounded the papers down in front of Eisenhower. “What,” he screamed, “do you call these? Look at them,” he shrieked. Eisenhower picked them up, scanned them, and tossed them back to Khrushchev.
“Obvious forgeries,” he commented.
Khrushchev retrieved the papers and, blanched with fury, thrust them back to Malinovsky and stormed out of the room, down the staircase, into his waiting car.
De Gaulle asked everyone in the room to leave save the principals and Colonel Vernon Walters, who would translate for all.
“Gentlemen,” said De Gaulle, “I do not know Khrushchev well enough to make a final determination, but it would appear to me that his agitation is genuine. He is not a stable man.”
Harold Macmillan, exhausted after the kind of scene he could not imagine had occurred in Great Britain since the death of Cromwell, looked dejected. He dropped all protocol. “Ike, pray, what were those papers?”
“They were headed: ‘The Marco Polo Protocols.’”
“How do you know they were forgeries?”
“Because we forged them.”
The meeting between the three allies lasted another two hours.
EPILOGUE
The Christmas tree at the corner of the living room twinkled its sleepy beneficence over the gaily wrapped gifts. The logs in the fireplace popped, and flames warmed the room. On the mantelpiece were Christmas cards Sally had received. On either side, capacious bookcases. Opposite, a large semicircular red couch on which four could sit, with reading lamps at either side, a coffee table in front. Sally poured a second glass of champagne and walked to the Christmas tree.
“While I fuss in the kitchen—it’s going to take me a while—you can look at one of your Christmas presents.” She handed Blackford, who had taken off his coat and was sitting comfortably on the couch, a large rectangular package. Blackford took it, looked inquisitively at the little note on the card by the red ribbon. “To darling Blacky, who thinks there’s only one spy in the (inchoate) family.” He looked up at her. She grinned with obvious delight and went off to the kitchen, closing the door.
Blackford removed the wrapping paper.
It was a picture frame, atlas-size. Framed fragments of newspaper clippings from recent months …
“… The Communist Chinese press reported that Khrushchev had spoken but made no mention of his subject.”
“… The Chinese-Soviet ideological rift had become evident with publication of conflicting theses in connection with observances of Lenin’s 90th birthday.”
“In a direct challenge to Khrushchev’s view that nuclear war could mean destruction for both camps, the Chinese article said …”
“The President said that the apparent divergence in Soviet and Chinese views …”
“Soviet Labor Delegates Denounce Chou En-lai Criticism.”
“Khrushchev Denies Dispute with China.”
“No Soviet Envoy at Red China Anniversary.”
“Pravda Denounces Red Chinese ‘Dogmatism.’”
And, across the bottom, a headline from that morning’s Washington Post: “Russian Advisers Reported Exiting China.”
And under it all, a composite headline, cannibalized from types of uneven and irregular size, and pasted together. His own name he recognized as clipped from the distinctive typeface of the 1951 Yale Classbook.
BLACKFORD OAKES, Prominent WASHINGTONIAN, APPOINTED Arbitrator in SOVIET-CHINA RIFT By Chairman KHRUSHCHEV, Chairman Mao.
He must, Blackford thought to himself, be sure to have his Christmas present on display next time he invited Rufus or Allen Dulles to dinner.
He got up, walked into the kitchen, and tweaked her behind as she ladled the sauce.
“You’re under arrest,” he growled.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to Operation Overflight, by (the late) Francis Gary Powers with Curt Gentry (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970) and to The U-2 Affair, by David Wise and Thomas B. Ross (Random House, 1962) for much of the descriptive material. All but the final words in the chapter on the summit conference in Paris were actually spoken by the principals. The news excerpts were taken from Facts on File, Volume 20. Once again I am indebted to Alfred Aya, Jr., of San Francisco. I asked him to design a Xerox “diverter,” and in due course received from him a multipage document, including charts and diagrams, which could not be improved on by the faculty of M.I.T. Anyone owning a Xerox Model 914 and desiring to install a diverter should apply to Mr. Aya. I learned that when he ate out as a child he would occasionally make a routine pre-dinner “inspection” trip of his hosts’ kitchen, whereafter the corn would turn up blue, the cauliflower yellow, and the mashed potatoes pink. He found this awfully funny, and I can only rejoice that he has dedicated his avocational life to perversity. I am grateful also to friends, professional and personal—and, in fact, no one in the first category is not also in the second—who read the manuscript, making suggestions, some of them positively transmutative. First and foremost, Samuel Vaughan, president of Double-day and Betty Prashker. And then, in rough chronological order: Alfred Aya, Jr. (of course), T
homas Wendel, Charles P. Wallen, Jr., Hugh Kenner, Sophie Wilkins, Marvin Liebman, Richard Clurman. My wife Patricia, brother Reid, sister Priscilla, son Christopher. And, in the office, Frances Bronson, Dorothy McCartney (whose research was invaluable), and Susan Stark. I am most grateful to Chaucy Bennetts of Doubleday for her highly discerning copy reading. As ever, I am also grateful to Joseph Isola for the copy editing.
Stamford, Connecticut
May 31, 1981
W.F.B.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1982 by William F. Buckley, Jr.
Cover design by Barbara Brown
Cover illustration by Karl Kotas
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1852-4
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