Vortex

by Larry Bond

  “We’d still be giving aid to Marxist governments. The Republicans-“in this day and age being a Marxist isn’t a crime. It’s just stupid,”

  Perlman cut in. He looked thoughtful.

  “It’s a good dynamic. All of those countries are dirt-poor. Even if their governments are corrupt or Marxist or both, we can still show real need.”

  He grinned at Travers.

  “Yeah, Steve, I can see your speeches now. The

  Republicans, using ‘petty politics’ to decide whether or not kids get the food they need. We could do a lot with that. “

  Blackman looked faintly disgusted. The senator’s friend and longtime advisor always saw everything through a tightly focused political lens.

  Sometimes it seemed that simple right and wrong escaped his notice.

  And Blackman was sure that expanded aid to the front line states was right. South Africa had kept its neighbors weak and poor for far too long-locked into total dependence on the white regime’s industries, transportation system, and power supply. U.S. assistance that reduced that state of helplessness would be the surest way to strike at the Vorster government.

  Alvarez looked less certain.

  “And how much of any money we send over there is really going to get past these corrupt governments?”

  “Who cares?” Travers shrugged.

  “Once we’ve passed the dollars on to them, it’s out of our hands. We can find some villages where they’re unloading bags of food, or building roads. We’ll make a trip there, take some dramatic pictures. Should be good for a few TV spots. ” He winked at

  Perlman,

  Blackman ignored the crasser political implications. They were a necessary part of working in Washington.

  “I’d suggest going to

  Mozambique. They’ve been trying to build that railroad through to

  Zimbabwe for years, but South Africa’s pet guerrilla force, Renamo, keeps blowing it up. If we could help Mozambique finish that rail line

  .. .

  “

  Travers rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “Yeah. I like it.” He sat back in his chair and gazed up at the ceiling.

  “You know the more I think about this the more I like it. ” He rocked forward.

  “Here’s what I see. We put together a good sized package of civilian and military aid for the front line states, focusing on areas hit by South African-backed insurgencies. Say a five or six hundred million dollars’ worth. Enough to really sting Pretoria. I think I can get something like that through the committee without too much trouble. “

  Lewin frowned.

  “The Appropriations Committee’s going to be the big stumbling block. Where do we get the money?”

  Travers grinned.

  “Simple. We reprogram the bucks out of the defense budget. Hell, the administration’s already done that for Nicaragua and

  Panama. They’ve set the precedent. We’ll just follow their lead.”

  There were broad smiles around the room. It was perfect. Nobody could accuse them of being fiscally irresponsible or boosting the budget deficit. And besides, the defense budget

  was fair game these days. Everybody wanted a piece of that pie, and calls for still another slice wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows around

  Washington.

  Travers paused, considering.

  “One thing more. What can South Africa do to retaliate, if we put a major aid program in place?”

  “Against us? Nothing.” Blackman’s response was fast, almost automatic.

  There was silence for a moment as the rest considered the possibilities.

  “Ken’s right,” Perlman said.

  “As few dealings as we have with South

  Africa, they wouldn’t hurt us by cutting trade from their end.”

  “What about strategic minerals?” Alvarez asked.

  “The chromium, titanium, and the rest? They could chop sales of those. DoD and Commerce could come down hard about the national security risks from that.”

  “And cut their own throats? Not a chance, Harry. They need that foreign credit for the stuff they do buy abroad, especially oil. That’s about the only resource South Africa’s not loaded with.” Travers sighed.

  “The world’s treasure house, run by a bunch of political cavemen-“

  Blackman broke in.

  “The senator’s right. Vorster and his people can’t do squat about an aid bill. Oh, they’ll probably step up their covert activities in the region. More raids, more propaganda-all of which will cost them money and more goodwill. If they keep at it, and if the front line states ever get their act together, South Africa’s gonna be bordered by some powerful enemies.”

  Travers decided they had a consensus.

  “All right, let’s do it. I want you two to start drafting the specifics.” He pointed to Blackman and Lewin and then glanced at his watch.

  “I need an outline in an hour. in the meantime, I’m going to make some phone calls. George?” He looked over at his advisor.

  “I like it. Whether this bill passes or not, it’s a political win for us.

  I’ll do some calling as well. I’ll take care of the media and the national committee. I think most of the party will like the idea. We’ll give it a big push.” Perlman chuck led.

  “Another test of strength with the ‘no-vision’ administration. “

  They all smiled.

  AUGUST 6-NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING, THE WHITE HOUSE

  When the Vice President entered the room, all conversation ceased, both by custom and by design. NSC meetings were supposed to start on time and their participants didn’t like wasting precious minutes exchanging meaningless pleasantries. Those were reserved for Washington’s favorite indoor sport-the high-powered, late-evening cocktail party. Working hours were for work.

  Vice President James Malcolm Forrester shared that same driving dedication to the job. He strode briskly to the chair at the head of the table and sat down. Civil nods greeted him.

  After a somewhat rocky start, Forrester had come to be regarded by his administration colleagues as a solid team player and a firstrate organizer. He paid a lot of attention to his duties as the NSC’s chairman, which was appropriate, since it was his most important role.

  Attending foreign funerals and delivering speeches to an often endless round of political fund-raisers couldn’t compare with helping to decide serious questions of national security.

  The NSC reported directly to the President, recommending courses of action to him on any matters relating to war and peace. Its permanent members included the secretaries of state and defense, the national security advisor, and the director of the CIA. Other agency and department heads were asked to sit in or provide information as needed.

  In a very real sense, the NSC represented a focal point for every major intelligence, military, and diplomatic resource possessed by the United

  States. In a crisis, its frantic, fast-paced deliberations could result in the dispatch of urgent communi quis spy planes, carrier battle groups, or even divisions of ground troops to any point on the globe.

  But no imminent doom appeared to menace the United States or its allies, so the atmosphere was relaxed. This meeting was routine.

  So routine in fact that several of the NSC’s permanent members hadn’t bothered to attend. Instead, they’d sent a mixed bag of deputies to fill the seats around the meeting room’s large central table. Each was accompanied by an assistant ready to handle all the necessary briefing and background materials, and several stenographers waited to record every remark.

  Typed agendas rested in front of each person, and clear crystal pitchers of iced coffee and lemonade occupied the middle of the table. They would be empty by the time the meeting adjourned. Even this far below ground, the White House air-conditioning system couldn’t completely cool

  Washington’s sweltering late-summer air.

  The subbasement meeting room had an oddly colonial a
ppearance, with wooden wainscoting and elaborate molding on its low ceiling. The multimedia projection screen hung on one wall would have jarred an architect’s sensibilities, but this was a working space-not a tourist showcase. There would never be any photo opportunities here. The only decorations on its walls were maps of the world, the USA, and the Soviet

  Union.

  The Vice President flipped to the first page of his agenda and watched as the others followed suit.

  Forrester was not a tall man, something that was rarely noticed because he always seemed to be in motion. Trotting down airplane ramps in foreign countries. Striding into flag draped banquet halls. Or racing through a rapid-fire round of golf at the Congressional country club. He often joked that he was actually six foot eight, but had put the extra inches in escrow to avoid appearing taller than the President. It was a joke that reflected the all too bitter truth that the vice presidency was an office with too much ceremony and too little responsibility, but right now he had real work to do.

  He tapped the table gently, calling the meeting to order.

  “All right.

  Let’s get down to it.”

  He tossed the printed agenda back onto the table.

  “Un-3

  fortunately, the first item before us didn’t come up in time to make it onto the documents sent to you for review last night. South Africa popped up at my breakfast with the President this morning. He’s asked us to discuss a response to Pretoria’s latest actions-including this new troop call-up the wire services are reporting.”

  Some of the men sitting around the table looked momentarily blank. South

  Africa was a long way outside the boundaries of their ordinary day-to-day concerns. For most of their professional lives, the continuing

  U.S.-Soviet military and political tug-of-war had been the central reality. Some of them still found it difficult to adjust to a world where conflicts didn’t necessarily slide neatly into the usual East versus West pigeonhole.

  Besides, data on Africa’s internal affairs rarely made it through the screening process managed by each cabinet department’s and intelligence agency’s junior staffers. All too often it wound up occupying waste space on rarely punched up computer disks or gathering dust in rusting file drawers.

  Forrester hid a wry grin. For once, he had an advantage over most of the experts around this table. As a senator, he’d served on the Foreign

  Relations Committee and had spent a lot of time fencing with anti apartheid zealots on the Senate floor.

  He looked toward the end of the table, toward a dapper, bookish-looking little man whose narrow face bore a somewhat incongruous full beard and neatly trimmed mustache.

  “Look, Ed, why don’t you give us a quick rundown on our recent ‘relations’ with South Africa’s new government.” He didn’t bother to hide the irony in his voice.

  “Certainly, Mr. Vice President.” Edward Hurley, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, nodded politely. His presence at the meeting was the result of a hurried, early morning call by Forrester to the State Department.

  Hurley studied the faces around the table.

  “Essentially, our relations with the new government headed by President Vorster can best be summed up as ‘cold and barely correct. “

  He paused, took off his tortoiseshell glasses, and started cleaning the lenses with a rumpled handkerchief.

  “We had

  another indication of just what that means last week when our ambassador,

  Bill Kirk, visited Vorster for the first time since the Blue Train massacre.

  Bill had instructions from the secretary to find out just how far Pretoria plans to go in reintroducing strict apartheid.”

  Hurley smiled thinly and put his glasses back on.

  “Unfortunately,

  Ambassador Kirk never had the chance to ask. Instead, he was forced to sit through a half-hour-long lecture by Vorster on our foreign policy failures in the region. Shortly after that, Pretoria notified us that they were unilaterally reducing the number of our embassy staff personnel. And

  Vorster’s flatly refused all further attempts to meet with him. We’ve been shunted down to below the ministerial level. “

  Muttered disbelief rolled around the table. What the hell was South

  Africa’s new leader playing at? Political disagreements between Washington and Pretoria were common enough, but why the flagrant and apparently calculated discourtesy?

  The Vice President watched his colleagues closely, wondering how they’d react to the full version of Vorster’s snub. Just reading Kirk’s telexed summary of the meeting had raised his own blood pressure.

  Apparently Kirk hadn’t even been given the opportunity to say hello.

  Instead, Vorster had launched straight into a scathing diatribe full of contempt for what the South African called “America’s shameful and treacherous conduct.”

  “The man had gone on to accuse the U.S. of meddling in

  Pretoria’s internal affairs-of inciting “innocent blacks” to violence and disorder. Forrester assumed that was a reference to several recent State

  Department statements deploring the white regime’s police crackdown on the black townships. Hardly justification for what amounted to a full-fledged kick in the teeth.

  He eyed the ponderous, whitehaired man sitting to his immediate right.

  Forrester had long suspected that Christopher Nicholson, former federal judge and current director of the CIA, spent almost as much time developing sources inside the White House as he did administering the Agency’s far flung overseas intelligence-gathering. His presence at what had been expected to be a routine NSC meeting confirmed that suspicion.

  The Vice President decided to see just how thoroughly Nicholson had prepared.

  “Got any bio on this clown Vorster, Chris?”

  Forrester was a firm believer in knowing as much as possible about the world leaders he might have to deal with. Despite the reams of bloodless statistical analysis by legions of social scientists, economists, and other “experts,” world politics still all too often seemed to boil down to a question of personalities.

  To his credit, the CIA chief avoided looking smug.

  “Fortunately I do, Mr.

  Vice President. We’ve also run through the archives and come up with some photos of the gentleman in question.”

  Nicholson’s aide flipped through a thick sheaf of papers and handed several heavily underlined sheets to his boss. The CIA director took them and nodded politely toward a junior staffer standing near the door.

  “Anytime,

  Charlie.”

  The lights dimmed slowly and a slide projector whirred throwing a grainy, black-and-white photo onto the wall screen. The photo showed a much thinner, much younger Karl Vorster.

  “Karl Adriaan Vorster. Born 1928 in the northern Transvaal. Law degree from

  Witwatersrand University in 1950. Sociology degree from Stellenbosch

  University in 1956. Became a member of the Broederbond sometime in the early fifties, probably in 1953…”

  Forrester nodded to himself as Nicholson droned on, running through

  Vorster’s steady, if unspectacular, rise to power within the ruling

  National Party. As a young lawyer, the South African must have been in on the very beginnings of Pretoria’s efforts to codify racial segregation and white domination its policies of strict apartheid. His membership in the

  Broederbond, South Africa’s secretive ruling elite, made that a certainty.

  The slide projector clicked to another photo, this one showing Vorster climbing out of the back of an official car.

  “Right

  after he got his doctorate, he joined the government. Since then, he’s held a succession of increasingly senior posts in both the Bureau of State

  Security and Ministry of Law and Order. “

  Nicholson turned to face the Vice President.

  “Essentially, sir, this
man

  Vorster has been working to keep the black population in its place for over forty years.”

  Another photo. This time showing an older, more jowly Vorster standing beside a gaunt, balding man in a plain black cassock.

  “He’s also very religious, belongs to the Dutch Reformed Church, which is the mainstream religious denomination in South Africa. Sprinkles biblical references throughout virtually every speech or even conversation. Naturally, he’s an active member of a group opposing racial reform within the church.”

  Naturally. Forrester frowned.

  “What about the past few years? What’s he been up to?”

  The CIA chief flipped to the back page of his notes, then raised his eyebrows.

  “He’s been very active lately. He’s made a lot of statements and given a lot of speeches against reforming the apartheid system. While the rest of the National Party has slowly changed, he hasn’t budged an inch.”

  Nicholson’s pudgy forefinger settled on a paragraph near the bottom of the page, and his lips pursed into a soundless whistle.

  “In fact, back in 1986, when they abolished the law against interracial marriages, he said, quote, The mixing of the white and lower races can only result in a reversal of the evolutionary process. Unquote. “

  Nervous laughter rose from the rest of the group. The idea that anyone in this day and age, especially a head of state, could actually hold such a grotesque belief seemed impossible to accept. Nicholson’s black assistant grimaced.

  Forrester shook his head. “if he’s been so out of step with his own party, how’s he managed to stay in government so long? And why would he want to?”

  Hurley answered him.

  “The Haymans government probably kept him on as a sop to their own conservative wing. They’d been taking a lot of flak from the Herstige National Party and the rest of the right-wing splinter groups. I’d guess the thought was that Vorster’s continued presence in the cabinet might help dissuade more conservatives from jumping ship to the opposition. “

  Forrester nodded. He wasn’t a stranger to that kind of reasoning.

  “As for why he stayed on?” Hurley shrugged.

  “Probably figured he could get farther in the National Party, even if he agreed more with the radical right.”