“The Director will be here any minute now. Do you want to start in? No, let’s wait. How are you? Sit down, Blackford.”
“Well, among other things I’m anxious to know what’s been going on. You can imagine how much news I was able to pick up in Cuba. There’s a lot I understand now about the Cuban revolution. What’s happening on the international front?”
Rufus told him that he would find the last several issues of Time magazine in his bedroom, and, of course, Blackford’s beloved National Review. That as far as Cuba was concerned, the exchanges continued: the hostility of Castro for the United States was pronounced, and his ardor for things Soviet seemed to grow. David Lawrence had got hold of a State Department document and published its content in his newspaper column in the Herald Tribune. And he got it right. It said there were over three hundred Russian and Czech military technicians in Cuba.
“How did State know that?”
“From us. We’re not without assets in Cuba, as you know. Even though you don’t know who they are. And won’t.”
“I’ve got a report for you on that, by the way. If a lot of our assets to whom you were communicating via the Swiss ambassador have been strangely silent, you will know why when I’m through briefing you.”
Rufus paused. And then went on. “At the OAS conference of foreign ministers at Punta del Este just a couple of weeks ago we picked up word that as many as one hundred MIG fighters may be in Cuba right now and that a lot more of that kind of thing is coming in. The National Observer—and I don’t know where they got this—reported that twenty-five to thirty Soviet-bloc vessels per month are steaming into Havana bringing arms.”
“So things are warming up?”
“That’s what makes the success of your mission increasingly improbable.”
It was at this point that the Director came in.
And it was two hours after that that Rufus and Blackford went out for a late dinner, talking as old friends and confederates. And then, the next morning, the Director called Blackford’s number at the safe house and told him he would be picked up by a driver at 11:52, that he was to accompany the driver, who would say only, “Good morning. It is warm for November.”
Between 12:05 and 12:55 Blackford was in the Situation Room of the White House with the Director, Rufus, the National Security Adviser, and the President.
After Blackford and Rufus had left the White House with the National Security Adviser the President was silent, rocking back and forth in his chair. He didn’t feel like talking, but he wanted the Director to stay in the room. The Director caught the mood and said nothing, leafing through a notebook. Finally the President spoke.
“What’ve we got to lose? Maybe we should—just slightly—deinstitutionalize the thing. You know what I mean?”
“Withdraw the presidential mandate?”
“Can’t go that far, I shouldn’t think. That would torpedo the whole thing. We’d lose Guevara.”
Again he stopped and thought. Then stood up.
“Send him back. We’ll figure out something. Maybe have it both ways. That’s the best way, it seems to me, having it both ways. Let me think about it. Anyway, go ahead and send him back. Wait a few days—never a bad idea. But let’s plan to have him back in Havana in, say, one week. That Velasco thing is fascinating. Bobby will like that.”
“The Attorney General knows?”
“The Attorney General knows everything. Shouldn’t an Attorney General know everything? After all, John, he may have to prosecute you over this business, one of these days. That would be an awful shame, with your fine record. I’ll slip him the word, if that happens, to find a nice, low-security penitentiary for you, John. With a private chapel.” He waved his hand at him. “Let’s agree. Top top security on this business.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Good day, John.”
Most awfully long day this has been, with conferences, God how many conferences you need to have around this place, though I like very much the conference that plotted a very long trip away from Washington for Lyndon. God, Washington is a reposeful place without Lyndon underfoot. Reposeful place—What a stuffy phrase. Wonder, come to think of it, if the word “reposeful” exists. Well, if I use it, it will exist ex officio. Call the Librarian of Congress, what’s-his-name, tell him: From now on, reposeful is a word. That comes from the highest quarters. What are the highest quarters? Well, the highest quarters are so high, ma’am, we can’t identify them. But take my word for it, the word reposeful now exists, highest quarters.
Oakes has a real case on Guevara. Wonder what he’s like. What’s going on there, between him and Castro? Could they really just be raising the ante? It’s possible. I like Oakes’s suggestion about the shopping list. Nice idea—ask Che what exactly he would want from us if the big deal went through. Interesting. Oakes never lets you doubt he knows where the authority is but he does his own thinking. I like that.
I’ll let it go forward. But careful at this end. That’s the problem. Give Oakes “authority” to go ahead and explore his hunch. But at this end what we don’t want is a Read All About It/JFK Secret Commission to Castro to Discuss Economic Aid and Full Recognition—maybe ten minutes after Castro has dynamited the Panama Canal or something. It’s a question of making that rug under Oakes’s feet real slippery. I gotta have a little tug-line. Just in case.
Wonder if Oakes has any extracurricular interests in Havana. I mean, it wouldn’t be normal if he didn’t have. At thirty-whatever he is, he couldn’t have sown all his wild oats. I bet he manufactures them faster than our GNP growth, which reminds me, Dillon wants that nudged a bit, why not? Next November isn’t the ideal time to find us in a recession. Bright fellow, Dillon.
Hell yes, let Oakes go, see what happens. But we’ll see. We’ll see-ee/In Glo-cca Mor--ra. No, that’s not how it goes. But it is reposeful. We’ll see-ee/In Glocca Mor--ra.
Twenty-seven
Blackford’s route to Havana took him, as before, through Guantánamo, but he flew rather than going by boat as that idiot at Operations had specified on the first passage. The same old aircraft took him to Havana, but this time he arrived in the late afternoon, and found his heart beating as the driver approached the Walden-Hilton. He did not bother to take his own bag out of the jeep—the driver could damn well bring it in. He was dogtrotting when he got around to the back of the cottage, and on spotting Alejandro his spirits soared. If Alejandro was there, so would Cecilio be there. He shook Alejandro’s hand and went in. The sitting room was empty. He went to Velasco’s bedroom and knocked.
“Pase.”
Velasco was lying in bed, propped up on two pillows. His face broke into as wide a smile as his damaged muscles could manage. Blackford went to the bed and grabbed Velasco’s hand, lifting his lit cigarette out of Velasco’s mouth and perching it on the ashtray. He took the bedside lamp and trained it on Velasco’s face. The bruises were everywhere, but they were mending, had become brownish in color with striations of blue. The left eye was fully open, the right eye still half closed. Blackford reached for a chair and drew it to the bedside.
“They gave it to you, eh, Cecilio?”
Velasco pointed to the portable radio on the bedside table. Blackford flicked it on, fished out a local chachacha station, turned up the volume, came closer to Velasco and lowered his voice. “Is the rest of you as bad as your face?”
Velasco managed his smile, and lowered the sheet to his waist. They hadn’t neglected his body. Blackford pointed to the crotch. “There too?”
“There especially.”
Blackford sighed. “I guess you’re going to have to go a little easier on the next code clerk. Which reminds me, I wonder whether de Keller got himself another mole?”
“I think I was able to see to that.”
“How?”
“Before they got me, I was able to contact one of our—assets. Someone I happened to know. Gave him the word—to get to de Keller and tell him Nogales had been done in by a re
sistance Cuban who had discovered Nogales was a double agent. De Keller raised hell, apparently Berne raised hell. They’ve insisted on sending an old-timer right from Berne to take over the communications job. Nogales’s successor will be okay.”
“Well, that’s good. We’re going to be using that link a lot, I’d guess, in the next few days, or weeks, or months, or however long this damn thing is going to take. Can you walk?”
“Yes. Slowly.”
“Well, good, viejo. It’s cocktail time and I think we ought to resume our convention and have our drinks on the beach. Come to think of it, I could use a swim.”
He helped Cecilio Velasco up, brought him his bathrobe, put on his own after getting into his swimming trunks. He wondered whether it would be possible to transport to the beach in a single trip two chairs, a bottle of rum, a can of orange juice, ice, a towel, the radio, and Velasco. But he gave up. He went with Velasco and a single chair to the beachfront, then returned for the second chair, the radio, and the refreshments. Alejandro kept his distance and Blackford poured the drinks, dived into the sea, came back, sat down, and told Velasco everything that had happened.
Twenty-eight
It was July.
Blackford Oakes had kept count. He had been with Ernesto “Che” Guevara thirty-five times during the nine-month negotiation. Sometimes the meetings were brief, at the cottage. Sometimes he traveled with Che. (“I find I have most spare time when I am away from Havana. We can talk without interruption in the evenings, and sometimes in the late afternoons.”) Blackford had accepted the custom that Velasco would stay on in Havana, but always Catalina was with them, as interpreter when Blackford and Che did not understand each other but, increasingly, also as collaborator.
And sometimes they met elsewhere in Havana, at one of Che’s many offices. On such occasions there was usually a specialist or two at hand to help with what was turning out to be almost endless paperwork. Late in April, in part for the hell of it, in part to make it easier to get about, Blackford grew a beard. His Nordic eyes and features and the strains of blond in his hair had made him conspicuously a foreigner. When his beard was full he found he could walk about, as often as not, without attracting attention. He was not surprised that on Day 4, Che had commented that Caimán was evidently a postulant revolutionary, but that his beard had a long way to travel before he might consider himself baptized into socialism. But on Day 14 Che suggested that perhaps a religious ceremony was now appropriate, to which Blackford had replied that he did not attend black masses, causing Che to reply that he did not attend masses whether black or white or technicolored. “What do you call those things they do in front of Lenin’s tomb?” Blackford asked. “Orgies,” said Che, cutting off the exchange.
He was given freedom of movement, but always with an escort. Joe Bustamente was his constant companion. But Bustamente was a worldly man, and when Blackford visited with Catalina would discreetly disappear at the door of the apartment house, inquiring approximately when Blackford would be ready to return to the cottage, which as often as not was the following morning. Blackford kept Joe supplied with fresh ten-dollar bills “to buy presents for your children.” Always, on the next day, Blackford would receive two penciled letters of thanks on lined paper in childish hand. These rituals were unaffected by Velasco’s quietly informing Blackford one day that in fact Joe Bustamente had no children. What it meant, of course, was that in fact Blackford had the freedom of the city, provided he chose to confine it to walking the thirty-block distance to Catalina’s apartment on Calle Línea. He was careful not to abuse this. When he visited with Catalina he stayed in her apartment until he was ready to return to the cottage, with Joe waiting in the lobby.
The paperwork began when, shortly after his return from Washington, Blackford asked Che to come forward with a list of the purchases the “Cuban Acuerdo”—as they had settled on calling the proposed accords—would anticipate. How many tractors, spare parts, generators—the whole bit. Blackford had been gratified to see the light in the eye of the Minister of Industry at the very thought of such a shopping list.
It took two weeks before a working list was drawn up. Then another two weeks on the matter of financing. Che had asked whether payment in the form of sugar futures would be satisfactory, and all of this bounced about. From the Director there were cables reflecting the reactions of the President: pleased that work was being done, steadily more impatient at the slowness of the negotiations. And, as was to be expected, as Che desired more and more assurances at the economic level, Washington wanted more and harder assurances on the character of the projected shift away from Moscow. Such a shift, as the weeks went by, during which Soviet-Cuban relations became more ardent every hour, appeared more and more remote.
Here Che tended to confine himself to elaborating the inhibitions the Castro government might find acceptable in the matter of ideological evangelizing in the rest of Latin America. Once again, in early May, Blackford traveled to Washington. Again he met with the President, who stressed his growing skepticism. But Blackford was passionate in his insistence on the sincerity of Che Guevara, and the CIA had no reports to the effect that Che’s intimacy with or influence on Castro was in any way strained. The President asked Blackford how in the hell Che could continue these talks in the face of mounting Soviet military involvement in Cuba, to which Blackford replied that it was simply too much to hope for that Castro would turn down any offers of Soviet weaponry, any more than Nasser would turn these down, but that their importation into Cuba was no reason to turn down a Cuban Acuerdo, provided the weapons were defensive.
And, always, there was the question that tended to put the quietus on further discussion—namely, What was there to lose?
“I mean, Mr. President, apart from my own time?” Kennedy had liked that. “Oakes’s time!” he remarked to the Director. “He treats it like a fucking national asset. On the other hand, that’s probably exactly what it is.”
The blow came little more than one month later. On the first of July.
Joe Bustamente informed Blackford that a cable awaited him at the Swiss Embassy. Blackford sent Velasco there, as he had been doing with some regularity, two or three times a week.
An hour later Velasco was back. He entered the sitting room where Blackford was going over figures on existing Cuban “diplomatic” representation in Latin-American countries. Velasco put the cable in front of Blackford. It read:
“THE DECISION HAS BEEN MADE TO TERMINATE EXISTING OPERATION. YOU AND VELASCO SHOULD RETURN TO WASHINGTON IMMEDIATELY. MCCONE.”
Blackford shot up from his chair. He looked down at Velasco. “But why? Why? What in the hell, as of July first, makes everything we’ve been slaving over suddenly pointless?…” He stood up and closed his eyes. Then, “Let’s go to the beach.”
They took out their chairs and for the thousandth time Alejandro, reading the tabloid Hoy and his collection of comic books, could be seen sitting on his beach chair, carbine on his lap, the conventional twenty-five yards behind the two men on the beach chairs: the little, spare Spaniard in his sixties wearing the wide-brimmed sun hat he had begun to use in March as the sun got hotter, his torso protected by shirts, bandanas, and towels, his chair a couple of feet from that on which the tall, tanned, finely proportioned American, with his blond beard, sat, his legs stretched out, his toes playing with the sand.
They talked more than usual. At one point, in speculating on the motives of the President, Blackford conceded, “Of course, Cecilio, getting so little news we can’t know what the political pressures are. Maybe he’s afraid of the political effect of its getting out that he has a little delegation in Havana talking recognition and aid—that’s what they’d call it—to Castro.” The speculation went on. But when they came in for lunch there was nothing said, and both men ate sparingly, without appetite. Then, listlessly, as he stirred his coffee Blackford said suddenly that he must see Guevara.
Bustamente was called, the telephone plugged in. Blackford dia
led the requisite number. His Spanish was, by now, serviceable, and he spoke in Spanish with the woman at headquarters who answered, by now familiar with him. “Rosaria, it is Caimán. I must see the Comandante. There or here. This is very urgent.”
Che Guevara was there at six.
Blackford had debated whether to show him the actual text of the cable, decided against doing so, and said simply that he had been called back to Washington, that the operation was terminated.
“But why?” Guevara asked.
“I do not know.”
“Did they not say?”
“No. On the other hand, Che, we can do our own surmising: We are approaching the anniversary of your initiative to Goodwin on the Cuban Acuerdo. All that has definitely happened during this past year is an increasing intimacy at every level between your government and the Soviet Union.”
“But isn’t that all the more reason to work out the Acuerdo, to try to refine it? To try a truly spectacular demarche?”
They talked on for almost an hour, but nothing was said that changed significantly the inflections of the initial exchange.
Finally Che Guevara said that he requested only that Blackford should delay his departure for two days. Castro was touring the eastern provinces but was scheduled back in Havana the next evening. Che would talk with him then, and report the results to Blackford. “We could,” he paused, tugging on his little beard, “without any difficulty find that, for just two days, there was, unfortunately, no airplane standing by to fly you to Guantánamo.” He winked. Blackford smiled, shaking his head over it all. He found himself colluding with Ernesto Che Guevara in a dissimulation aimed to deceive his own government. The thought amused him.
He turned to Velasco first and read the expression on his face. And then said to Che, “Okay.”
See You Later, Alligator Page 19
