by James Philip
The Vice-President wasn’t in Washington and that was a problem. Jack Kennedy and LBJ might be different kinds of men – they were certainly different kinds of politicians – who’d never be friends, let alone trust each other unless the chips were down and they had no other choice, but right now the youngest man to ever be elected to the Presidency - Theodore Roosevelt had been nine months younger when he assumed the role following William McKinley’s assassination in 1901 – badly needed the guile and the feral cunning of the man he’d beaten to the Democratic Presidential ticket in 1960.
Jack Kennedy settled cautiously into the firmly upholstered, high backed chair at the apex of the semi-circle of armchairs and sofas and waved for everybody to sit down.
“We will consider the question of why we don’t know what’s going on another time,” he declared in a flat, unmelodic monotone that conveyed to the men who’d been awaiting his arrival some small measure of the violently seething displeasure he felt for them all. Even Bobby. While he’d been in his sick bed they’d watched the shit hitting the fan and they’d done precisely nothing about it. Except, he suspected, bust their collective guts keeping LBJ out of the picture. He scowled at Dean Rusk.
His Secretary of State pursed his lips but for the moment, did not speak.
The President’s eye fell across other faces before settling on the taciturn, greying features of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“What does the CIA have for me, John?” The younger man asked in a tone which suggested that what he was actually asking was: What has the CIA been keeping from me?
John McCone didn’t care for the younger man’s implied criticism. The former industrialist who had, notwithstanding the niggling post-war accusations of war profiteering back in the 1940s been one of the men responsible for providing the steel and guns with which the United States had won the Second World War, regarded himself as a deeply patriotic man who’d unselfishly devoted his life to public service. The President could hardly – frankly, he didn’t want to – imagine the problems he was having rooting out Allen Dulles’s hard cases at Langley. His predecessor had run the agency like a state within a state, a law unto itself. Much in the same way Edgar Hoover still ran the FBI.
John McCone cleared his throat.
“What the CIA have got, Mr President,” he replied, respectfully cool, “will make a little more sense to you once Dean’s briefed you on the British note.”
Jack Kennedy’s attention snapped back to Dean Rusk.
“What note, Dean?”
Out of the corner of his eye the President had seen his younger brother, Bobby, and General Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff edge forward in their chairs.
“Things have been,” Dean Rusk prefaced, running a hand across his balding pate in a gesture of mild irritation, “tense, lately. Not helped by having a placeman like LB Westheimer in place over there as Ambassador.” He’d wanted a professional diplomat installed in England, somebody who understood their old allies. “Nevertheless, at State we took the view that so long as we let the British get on with things, you know, Operation Manna and their independent survey, diplomatic and political expeditions in the north European sphere that sooner or later we, and they, would return to something like a normal, business as usual footing. With this in mind State was, of course, opposed to initiatives like the building of the CIA compound outside Dublin and, as you recollect, against the pro-active re-establishment of military lines of supply and communication with the regimes in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, all of which were likely, sooner or later, to impinge upon the vital strategic interests of our allies, or rather, our former allies, the British in areas which traditionally, they have regarded their rightful sphere of influence. The British note is confirmation that the ill-judged meddling of our military and intelligence communities in matters of economic policy and post-war diplomacy has now created a situation where, for all I know, we are effectively at war with the United Kingdom and possibly, several of its Commonwealth allies. The South African, the Australian and the New Zealand Governments have delivered notes to the State Department in the last forty-eight hours protesting about the trading practices of US companies on their soil, and reaffirmed two hundred mile territorial limits around their coasts...”
Jack Kennedy stared at the mild looking man in the armchair six feet away as if his Secretary of State had just proposed the slaying of all new born children. While he registered the words; their meaning completely eluded him in that awful moment when he realised that his worst fears were as nothing to the nightmare that was about to envelope his country. In desperation he turned to John McCone.
“The Dublin compound was supposed to show the Irish we hadn’t forgotten about them. A way to get humanitarian and industrial development funding past Congress. Surely the British knew that all along?”
“The Brits are paranoid about this kind of stuff, Jack,” Bobby Kennedy declared before he’d given his brain a chance to digest what Dean Rusk had just told the meeting. Unlike his elder brother he’d never shaken off his inherited mistrust of British motives and never questioned the perfidy of all British governments through history towards the downtrodden Irish.
The President’s stare slashed through the air.
“They lost over twelve million people in the October War, Bobby!” He rasped angrily. “Don’t you think they’ve got a right to be paranoid?”
“Well, yes, but...”
“The British, specifically the United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration led by Premier Heath,” Dean Rusk announced, rejoining the fray feeling more confident now that the braying of the Attorney General had been briefly stilled. Practically everybody in DC thought Bobby Kennedy had too much influence over his brother. Dean Rusk wasn’t alone in thinking that lately, Bobby Kennedy had forgotten that the war had only happened because he’d failed to broker a deal with the Soviets over Cuba. The Secretary of State wasn’t the only Cabinet member irked by the fact that, scarcely more than a year on from the cataclysm, the Attorney General had recovered much of his pre-war confidence and his arrogance and started again undercutting each and every other senior member of the Administration. That was a Kennedy thing, something in their blood. None of them could stop themselves interfering. “The British,” Dean Rusk continued, daring Bobby Kennedy to interrupt, “think that organs of the US Government were involved in the assassination attempt on the lives of the Royal Family in Scotland...”
Jack Kennedy exploded.
“What the fuck are you talking about Dean?” He demanded. Around the Oval Office eyes studied the carpet.
“Four Royal Air Force fighter bombers attacked Queen Elizabeth’s official residence in Scotland at Balmoral. At the time of the attack Premier Heath and several senior members of the UKIEA were also present. The Queen’s youngest son, Prince Andrew was killed, as was the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home. There were also heavy casualties among the troops defending the castle...”
The President waited until John McCone braved his blazing glare.
“Were we involved, Mr Director?”
“I don’t know,” the older man returned. “The Brits might be right. I don’t know. My people don’t have hundred percent oversight over the Irish compound. If you remember, Mister President,” the older man growled, “it was set up to placate certain Irish-American Democratic Party interest groups as a joint CIA, Pentagon and National Security Council project to hide the audit trail from prying Congressional eyes.”
Jack Kennedy didn’t like being reminded that he’d been warned the ‘whole thing will probably end in tears’ any more than the next man. He scowled at the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Dean Rusk hadn’t finished.
“The British also believe we are behind the recent bellicose foreign policy initiatives of the Franco regime in Spain...”
“Bellicose!” John McCone scoffed. “Mr President,” the Director of the Central Intell
igence Agency said, aware for the first time exactly how disastrously out of contact the most powerful man in the free world had become in the last ten days. Pausing only to hurl an angry glance at the Attorney General, he went on: “Are we to assume that you’ve not received a full briefing on international developments for some days?”
Bobby Kennedy protested.
“The situation was under control. There was no need to...”
It was President Kennedy, not ‘Jack’ who silenced his younger brother with a single dismissive wave of his right hand.
“The Spanish mined the approaches to Gibraltar,” John McCone reported grimly. “A British carrier was badly damaged and a destroyer sunk. The Spanish have also shelled the runway of the airport at Gibraltar and moved troops up to the border with the colony. The British retaliated by shelling Santander and Cadiz, and,” he hesitated, “cratered the runways of the three air bases we share with the Spanish Air Force.”
The President’s eyes must have been as wide as saucers.
General Wheeler, who’d thus far patiently observed the proceedings with a respectful aloofness, cleared his throat.
“No US personnel or assets were harmed in the British raids. Our preliminary assessment is that they were very careful about that. When I was informed of events in the Iberian Peninsula I conferred with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Lemay and informed him that until such time as I received a direct order to the contrary from the Commander-in-Chief, United States forces based in Spain should immediately stand down and cease to offer tactical and technical support to the Spanish authorities. I asked General LeMay to confirm to me that he understood this order to mean that all US aircraft in Spain were grounded during the current emergency and he confirmed that this was indeed, his understanding of matters.”
The President read between the lines, knew that the worst news was yet to come.
“Following the attack on Balmoral Castle and developments at Gibraltar the United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration,” Dean Rusk interjected with an uncharacteristic tetchiness, “sent a diplomatic note informing us that it was breaking off all military and diplomatic links with us. The note also gives warning of a maritime and air exclusion zone around the United Kingdom. As of midnight last night our Ambassador and all his accredited staff in England were declared persona non grata, Mr President.”
Jack Kennedy wondered if this was all just a bad dream. Some kind of drug-fuelled hallucination brought on by the cocktail of painkillers, barbiturates and amphetamines his doctors had injected into him to get him back on his feet. He was tempted to pinch himself, or to ask somebody to slap him. Just to be sure.
Bob McNamara had been writing notes in a hard-backed notebook.
He shut the book.
Jack Kennedy’s Secretary of Defence had wearied of the charade. It was clear that none of his colleagues had a grip on the situation; and that they were each as stunned as each other. It was also blindingly obvious that relatively senior members of the nation’s intelligence and military communities were conspiring to plunge the country into a new war. Moreover, it was likely that whatever anybody in the Oval Office did now it would probably be too late to turn back the tide towards another disastrous conflict.
“I am concerned that you haven’t been briefed on the current situation, sir,” he announced, his quiet, coolly precise voice breaking through the atmosphere of near panic in the Oval Office. The country had been drifting towards this or a similar crisis since the spring. In the immediate aftermath of the war massive Federal resources had been thrown, unavailingly, at the bomb-damaged cites of the Pacific North-West and the Great Lakes, in New York State, Boston and Houston. In the beginning the shock of the war had been a great force for national unity. It hadn’t lasted. When it became apparent that rebuilding would a long and impossibly expensive business, other priorities and vested interests had come to the fore; pork-barrel politics had resumed – with a cut-throat vengeance - by the early summer and the lawlessness in and around the blasted cities had spread like some terrible, creeping blight upon the land. While in Washington bitter battles raged over which constituencies got the largest slice of the multi-billion dollar Federal Treasury-busting – Reconstruction and Renewal Program – grants, the warring Democrats and Republicans had filibustered the legislative processes of both the Congress and the Senate to a standstill, frustrating the Administration’s ability to offer vital succour not only to millions of its own people, but to hard-pressed former overseas allies like the British. The massive ‘peace dividend’ he’d delivered – or rather, was in the process of delivering - by savagely slashing the size of the armed forces had been seized upon by other Government Departments like ravening wolves upon a dying buffalo. He personally doubted that a single dollar of the massive savings freed up by his bitter infighting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff had gone to the parts of the country that needed it most. Millions of Americans and former allies alike were starving while the Administration was propping up citrus fruit growers in California, ranchers and oil men in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico, and was proposing to throw untold treasure at the Space Program! Farmers in the mid-west were being subsidised to grow bumper grain crops which the idiots in Congress wouldn’t allow to be exported ‘in case of future national need’; the Government was buying thousands of tons of grain it didn’t need at inflated prices and letting it rot in silos when the survivors of the war were hungry! And now the jackasses around the Commander-in-Chief were trying to ‘protect him’ from the truth! The country would soon be bankrupt at this rate; the Administration was already morally bankrupt. It was a national disgrace and he was seriously asking himself how much longer he could, in conscience, remain a party to it. He took off his glasses, cleaned them with a pale yellow cloth. “No, that’s not true,” he corrected himself, “I am appalled that you have not been briefed on the current situation.”
Jack Kennedy thought he detected contempt behind his Secretary of Defence’s myopic eyes.
“Will somebody please tell me what is going on?” He demanded, his temper fraying.
Dean Rusk coughed.
“Yesterday evening, some hours before the British diplomatic note was received and digested by State, two Royal Navy warships were attacked off the Spanish Coast west of Ferrol. One is believed to have sunk, the fate of the other is uncertain. Shortly after the attack one of the ships, HMS Talavera, began broadcasting in the ‘clear’ that the attack had been carried out by four A-4 Skyhawks taking advantage of a decoy demonstration by Spanish aircraft which had enabled them to approach within less than a minute’s flying time of their targets without being detected.”
Jack Kennedy knew this had to be a nightmare.
His habitual poise cracked, his jaw literally dropped.
No, no, no...
“At approximately the same time at least a dozen US-supplied aircraft bearing the markings of the Italian Regia Aeronautica mounted a surprise attack on British shipping and other military targets on Malta.” Bob McNamara turned stone-faced to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “You can tell the President the rest, Earle.”
General Wheeler swallowed hard.
“We have no confirmation for this, sir,” he warned, unhappily, unwilling to look his President in the eye. “But Radio Malta is reporting that during the attack Royal Air Force fighters shot down four B-52s which had been dropping large ‘ground-penetrating earthquake’ bombs and what sounds like at least one experimental fuel-air device on key command and control facilities across the Maltese Archipelago.”
Jack Kennedy hadn’t been this horrified when he’d received the first reports of the Cuban missile strike on Galveston on 27th October 1962. At least that event had been in some way, explicable. This was...insane.
“B-52s?” He asked, wide-eyed.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s not possible!”
“That’s what my peo
ple said when the reports came in,” General Wheeler agreed, his face downcast. “But the Maltese are claiming that one of the B-52s crashed on the island of Gozo, sir,” he went on, almost but not quite choking on the admission.
Chapter 4
Saturday 7th December 1963
Cambridge Barracks, Tigne, Malta
The woman was in her late fifties or early sixties, sun-tanned and sinewy with a bird-like sudden sharpness of movement. Her head turned at the sound of another helicopter swooping down onto the makeshift landing platform almost on top of the hastily erected tents of the emergency casualty clearing station. She saw the angular figure of the base medical officer, whom to her surprise she’d found to be a more than competent surgical registrar, striding purposefully towards the pad situated between the crumbling wreckage of the nineteenth century gun pits of the Cambridge Battery.
Six Royal Marines - she could tell by their fair skins and how they sweated under the weight of combat fatigues designed for a north European winter, and webbing festooned with all manner of containers and ammunition pouches, that they were newly arrived from England – watched over the new Commander-in-Chief. Each man, even their officer, carried a Browning pistol holstered at his waist and cradled a Sterling submachine gun his hands. The Marines had flinty, suspicious eyes that never stopped quartering their surroundings.