by James Philip
Lyndon Baines Johnson snorted a laugh.
“I don’t know about this year. Maybe not this week,” he retorted like a bear with a sore head. “I swear if I had a gun I’d use it on these guys!”
“When we talked yesterday we still didn’t know where we are with the reactivation program?” Jack Kennedy prompted.
“Up a creek without a paddle,” the Vice-President groaned. “Bobby’s people at Justice, well, Nick Katzenbach, leastways, says it is legal to make plans but not to actually implement them!”
The President mulled this for a few seconds. Nicholas deBelleville ‘Nick’ Katzenbach, the United States Deputy Attorney General had been the real power behind the throne at the Department of Justice ever since last summer when he had gone down to Alabama to confront Governor George Wallace. If Nick said something was ‘legal’ a man could bank it.
The majority of US Presidents through history had had this sort, or similar problems with the House of Representatives. His problems were, for example, nothing compared to the strife Lincoln had in his day. While he wanted to prepare his nation for a war he believed was imminent; Congress was not convinced that war was imminent, did not trust him to make the call in the first place, and lastly, really did not want to pay for it unless or until the myriad of pork-barrel sectional and factional vested interests in the two Houses had been satiated several times over. The normally sclerotic sinews of the Republic were further choked, in this instance, by a pathological disinclination among a sizable minority of representatives and senators to ever again risk getting involved in foreign ‘adventures’.
“And I thought I was the Commander-in-Chief!” Jack Kennedy snorted.
General Curtis LeMay, still the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because Congress had not yet scheduled confirmation hearings, shook his head with disgust.
“You are the Commander-in-Chief, Mister President.”
William Fulbright allowed himself a guffaw. “Oh, if only the US constitution was that concise, General!”
Curtis LeMay had not had that many run ins with the new Secretary of State. Fulbright remained – again because the House of Representatives could not get its collective arse in gear – Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. For the last two decades the Air Force General had been in the business of planning and making war on ‘foreigners’, not having ‘relations’ with them. That said, Fulbright was an impressive guy, not a glorified office manager like his predecessor, Dean Rusk.
“You’d know more about that than me, Mister Secretary.”
“Congress legislates, the Executive dispenses, and the Senate holds the ring between the two,” Fulbright grimaced. “That’s the balance of power designed by the authors of the Constitution.”
Curtis LeMay scowled. He was a man who had fervently believed all his life that that one lawyer in a room was way too many.
“The Brits have got a situation developing in the Eastern Mediterranean and we’re sitting over here with our thumbs up our arses, Mister Secretary,” the man who had won the October War in fourteen hours said testily.
“Quite, General,” William Fulbright retorted, never a man who cared to be reminded of the patently obvious. He sought the President’s eye. “It seems to me,” he decided, “that we have two choices. Either we renege on our undertakings to the United Kingdom, or we embark on a constitutional experiment.”
“Specifically, Bill?” Jack Kennedy asked, sipping his coffee. His coffee had not tasted the same since Edna Zabriski - one of his White House secretaries - had assassinated the British Prime Minister, Edward Heath in the Oval Office after the Battle of Washington. Say what you want about her but that woman had made a damned fine cup of coffee!
“General LeMay assures me that the high command of our military has been purged of elements not wholly empathetic to the Administration?”
“Godammed right,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff grunted.
“We’re not under attack, Bill,” Jack Kennedy remarked flatly.
“What was the Battle of Washington if it wasn’t an attack on the USA?” Fulbright inquired sternly. “Let me remind you that we’ve just re-initialled a copy of the 1958 US-UK Military Mutual Assistance Treaty which, strictly speaking, never lapsed. That Treaty was ratified by the House and nobody disputes that. Under that Treaty we didn’t just guarantee technical assistance, we reaffirmed our commitment to the defence of the United Kingdom...”
“But not of Malta or Cyprus in an environment where US troops had been expelled from one, and our diplomatic presence at the other terminated,” the fifth member of the cabal – Robert Francis ‘Bobby Kennedy, the Attorney General - who had flown into in Philadelphia a little less than an hour ago, offered unhappily. Since the Battle of Washington the President’s younger brother had visibly ceased to be his elder sibling’s most ‘special adviser’ and become instead, the next most high-profile proselytizer of the Administration’s radical change of direction. The Administration had not just decided to rebuild its fractured relationship with its oldest overseas ally; it had determined it was going to re-make its contract with the American people. All the peoples of America; white, black, Hispanic, European, native, Floridian, Midwestern, Southern, Californian, all and every American regardless of his or her political, religious or ethnological identities. It was only now after several weeks on the road that Bobby Kennedy was beginning to get a feel for the magnitude of the task, and the weight of history bearing down on his and his brother’s shoulders. A little of that heavy burden was reflected in his eyes. “We can’t ignore that.”
“Why are we worrying about it?” The Secretary of State asked bluntly. “We all know that there are significant military assets which we can move into position in the Mediterranean. Why don’t we just do it?”
Curtis LeMay was uncomfortable in his chair. He wanted to be roaming the room like a caged tiger looking for corners of carpet to chew.
“Because they’re the wrong assets and the logistics are a mess, Mister Secretary.”
The President put down his coffee.
“Tell me about the available assets, General.”
“The Enterprise and the Long Beach,” the US Navy’s unbelievably expensive giant trophy nuclear-powered super carrier and her nuclear-powered cruiser consort, “half-a-dozen escorts and several SSNs are exercising in the Eastern Atlantic. We have air assets, maybe fifty aircraft of all types in Spain and Italy. We have no idea how practical it will be to conduct operations from our bases in those countries. Spain basically want us out, we shouldn’t even be in Italy. If we didn’t have two battalions of Marines holding the perimeter the local mafia would steal everything we’ve got at Aviano. Other boots on the ground? As for allies in the region we can rely on? Nobody except the Brits.”
Jack Kennedy had come to the meeting direct from taking Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara’s conference call from Washington. The former Ford Motor Company man was overseeing the salvage and recovery operation in DC, and drawing up plans to use the recent disaster as a springboard to radically integrate the disparate arms of the giant American war machine. That, however, was a long term project. This morning their discussion had focused on short term ways and means.
“The British have the use of Portuguese ports and air bases,” the President pointed out. “They have a long runway on Malta, Pantelleria airport is probably going to be open again soon, and they’ve got RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. What’s the issue re-locating our air assets in the Mediterranean?”
“Congress,” Bobby Kennedy said glumly. The President’s younger brother had to speak as the Attorney General of the United States of America whether he liked it or not. “I doubt if the legal basis for the initial deployment of those aircraft to Spain and northern Italy was watertight to start with, Jack.”
“Fine,” the President grinned. “We’ll offer them to the British. Tell me about the Enterprise battle group?” He invited the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Curtis LeMay scowled.
“The Enterprise needs to be provisioned for a new deployment. So do her escorts. Obviously, bunker oil isn’t a problem for her and the Long Beach, but food, aviation fuel, bombs, bullets and everything else is.”
“Bob McNamara says the Independence Battle Group is in the South Atlantic heading back to Norfolk?”
“The Chief of Naval Operations says her fleet train will be seriously depleted by the time it gets back home. Besides, Independence has got a problem with her catapults.”
Jack Kennedy grunted.
“We can start the Enterprise on the way to Gibraltar,” the Commander-in-Chief decided. “The Independence can dock at Gibraltar and see if she can get her catapults fixed without having to come back to the East Coast. We can send specialists and parts out by air if necessary. Enterprise can take up position in the Eastern Mediterranean with Independence’s fleet train and as many combat ready escorts as possible. In the mean time, General LeMay,” he said, straightening in his chair, “find out if the British can accommodate our existing ‘in theatre’ air assets.”
“None of this will happen fast, Mister President,” Curtis LeMay cautioned. Because it was Curtis LeMay who said it nobody in the room was about to suggest he was sandbagging. “We’re talking fourteen to twenty-one days for the Enterprise to be on station. Ten days for the first SSNs to deploy. Moving air assets is faster but organising the ground crews and logistics isn’t going to be easy even if the Spanish and Italians don’t actively obstruct the redeployment.”
“Do what you can, General.”
Unready ships at sea, a handful of aircraft based in potential combat zones and a few hundred boots on the ground in foreign lands. That was what the Commander-in-Chief had at his personal command. The legislators and overseers of the House of Representatives held the purse strings to everything else. The President could ride roughshod over his political foes but only at an incalculable cost to the rule of law. Before the cataclysm of the Cuban Missiles War he might have acted with impunity, embarked on any crazy adventure he liked; for example, like the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He would have got a bad press but that was all. Now, whatever he did he risked new and damaging schisms whichever way he turned at the very time when American needed to be at its most united. The brutal reality was that even if there was war in the Mediterranean, or elsewhere, unless American blood was shed Congress would probably block any significant attempt to help the British.
Sometimes, Jack Kennedy was convinced that the American political class of 1964 was the most anti-British since 1776.
Chapter 31
Friday 31st January 1964
HMS Talavera, Sliema Creek, Malta
There was a crisp knock at Lieutenant-Commander Peter Christopher’s open door. Bright morning light poured into the cabin through two portholes, illuminating the desk where HMS Talavera’s acting commanding officer was attempting to come to terms with the administrative nightmare of commanding a damaged ship in harbour.
Petty Officer Jack Griffin’s bearded features were immobile.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” the newcomer said, “but there’s a civilian on the gangway who claims she’s a Surgeon Commander Seiffert of the United States Navy. She says she holds a reserve commission in the Maltese Defence Force, whatever that is,” the man sniffed derisively, “but she doesn’t have any papers or an ID card so the Master at Arms is, er, entertaining the lady. He ordered me to, er, let you know what was going on, sir.”
“Dr Margo Seiffert?” Peter Christopher demanded, rising to his feet and searching for his cap.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be on deck directly.”
Jack Griffin slid away.
Peter Christopher jammed his cap on his head, and assailed by a renewed surfeit of guilt, went to meet his visitor. He had arrived at Malta at the end of probably the worst week in Marija Calleja’s life and contemptibly, he had not yet contrived to go ashore to comfort her. He told himself it could not be helped, that there was nothing he could do about it. His dreams of watching for Marija on the quayside as his ship glided into harbour had come to nothing; just getting his damaged ship safely moored fore and aft in the confined waters of a strange anchorage had been a nightmare. What with one thing and another HMS Talavera’s arrival at Malta had not exactly gone to plan. The Lampedusa expedition had not gone to plan either, of course. He tried not to dwell overlong on the events of that dreadful night in the shallows off the small, unexpectedly dangerous island. He had had plenty of other things to think about. In all the fuss and bother being reunited with his father for the first time in years had not been as traumatic or well, downright unpleasant, as he had anticipated. The reality of the meeting – perhaps, because it was such a public affair – was that both men had behaved with restrained politeness and respect, playing up to the gallery. They had both understood their roles in the other night’s drama.
Margo Seiffert was talking animatedly with Chief Petty Officer Spider McCann, Talavera’s senior non-commissioned officer. The Master at Arms and the side party snapped to attention the instant they sighted their commanding officer on deck.
Big canvas awnings had been draped across the decks of the destroyer, both to hide her fresh wounds and to keep conditions below deck tolerable. Even at this season the Mediterranean sun beating down on the ship’s superstructure soon elevated temperatures below decks to uncomfortable levels.
“I do apologise for this,” Peter Christopher began. “If we’d known you planned to visit us...”
The tanned, lined, straw-haired small woman in her early sixties sighed, eying the young man with quick, grey eyes.
“The pictures in the Times of Malta add five years to you, Commander,” she said eventually.
“Oh, yes. Do they?” Peter remembered his manners. “Forgive me, should I call your Doctor, or Commander?”
“Margo,” the woman declared, flashing a harassed smile.
HMS Talavera’s acting Captain was painfully aware of the flapping ears in the immediate vicinity.
“Won’t you come below to my day cabin, er, Margo,” he suggested. “I’m sure we can rustle up some refreshments.”
Below deck Margo was impressed by the size of the Captain’s day cabin, where much of the business of the ship was normally conducted. This morning the desk normally occupied by the Captain’s Secretary was empty, its owner currently residing in the Royal Naval Hospital at Bighi with abdominal shrapnel wounds.
A wardroom steward looked around the door.
“Tea or coffee?” Peter asked his guest.
“Coffee if you’ve got it. Black.”
There was a couch and two easy chairs beneath the aft porthole.
“I know I should have been ashore before now,” the man apologised, feeling dreadful. “But we took a bit of a beating off Lampedusa and...”
“You don’t have to make excuses to me, Commander.”
“Peter, please,” he stammered in return.
“How is Captain Penberthy?” Margo asked, exploring the cabin, not interested in settling for the moment. Marija’s creased studio posed monochrome portrait was in a battered frame on the cluttered desk.
That was a good sign!
“Not so good. He lost his right foot when the shore battery opened up. Things were a bit of a shambles and he lost a lot of blood before the Surgeon got to him.”
Margo picked up Marija’s framed portrait on the desk. The print had obviously been folded and flattened several times. The photographer had caught the essence of Marija, the serenity and the mischief, and the hope recently half-extinguished.
“That portrait and I have been through a fair bit in the last couple of months,” the handsome young man said self-effacingly.
The steward knocked at the door and entered with a tray.
Presently, the man and woman faced each other, seated in the chairs beneath the open porthole.
“You’ve heard about what happened to Marija’s b
rother?” Margo asked flatly.
“Only what I read in the Times of Malta this morning. Marija must be horribly upset. It must be unbearable knowing your brother has been used and most likely murdered by terrorists...”
Margo Seiffert was looking at him oddly.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she murmured. “It isn’t that cut and dried. Marija’s father and younger brother were questioned by the Redcaps and virtually placed under house arrest for several days. People Sam Calleja was friendly with were among the terrorist s who committed suicide when the police closed in on their hideouts. The whole family feels,” she shrugged, “tainted by the whole thing. Quite apart from losing Sam. And it isn’t as if they’ve found his body yet.”
“I read that they think he was probably on HMS Torquay?”
“Yes. That’s what they think.”
“How is Marija?”
“She spends a lot of time with Rosa, Sam’s wife. The two of them couldn’t stand each other until this happened and now they are like ‘sisters’. The reason I came to meet you, Peter,” Margo explained feeling increasingly uncomfortable the longer the interview lasted, “was...”
“I should have tried to get ashore earlier,” the man blurted. “Marija must think I’m an absolute idiot!”
“No, she doesn’t think that. I’m sure she understands that you have responsibilities onboard your ship.”
“Oh, then...”
“What happened to Sam, and the death of Lieutenant Siddall,” Margo smiled tight-lipped, “who had always been sweet on Marija, isn’t quite as simple as the story in the papers. Things aren’t so clear cut, Peter. Marija is, ashamed, I suppose. She’s got this stupid idea that she’s become an embarrassment to you and to you father, whom she’s met several times. I’ve tried talking to her but she can be the most stubborn person I’ve ever known. That’s why I’m here and she’s not.”