by James Philip
The President had wanted to hear all about HMS Talavera’s part in the Battle of Malta.
‘That’s a heck of thing!’ He had sighed several times as Peter had self-effacingly recounted his tale. ‘Heck of a thing!’
The younger man had summoned the temerity to ask his host about his own wartime exploits in the Pacific. Jack Kennedy had been reticent.
‘We had some close shaves and I got my boat rammed by a Japanese destroyer,’ he had drawled. ‘I still don’t know how we got ashore without being eaten by the sharks!’
Peter was at pains not to parry Lord Franks’s earnest questions.
“To be honest I just think the President and the First Lady were grateful for the opportunity to spend a little time with people who aren’t,” he had shrugged, “political.”
“Don’t under-estimate yourself or Lady Marija,” the British Ambassador had countered ruefully. “If you stood for parliament you’d walk into any constituency in the land. As for your charming wife, Lady Marija is the nearest thing the Maltese people have to a princess!”
“Yes, but were not political,” Peter had insisted. “We’re patriotic, obviously and we both understand our duty, and so forth but we aren’t politicians and we aren’t about to start behaving like politicians.”
Oliver Franks was too wise a man to believe that for a moment.
Photographs of Marija Christopher and Jackie Kennedy with the President’s offspring were splashed across every newspaper. The Administration’s publicity machine was churning out stories and by-lines about Jack Kennedy’s “natural affinity” with the hero of the Battle of Malta, and the complimentary asides that Peter had voiced about the US Navy’s part in the latter stages of that engagement had been seized on by every newsman in the country. Both husband and wife had offered humble and moving tributes to the ‘brave American sailors’ who had dived into cold oily waters of the Mediterranean to save badly wounded Talaveras when the old destroyer’s back had broken. After the President and his wife the Christophers were the most famous and recognisable couple in the country at present and it was only to be expected that the Administration would exploit the fact.
Likewise, the fact that every time either Peter or Marija opened their mouths or smiled in public, American hearts melted a little towards the old country seemed to be a fair exchange for whatever credit the Kennedy Administration garnered from the exercise.
“The President invited me to go sailing with him during the conference,” Peter explained. “I said I’d love to, exigencies of the Service permitting.”
Their hosts had provided a plush limousine to carry them from Otis Air National Guard Base to Hyannis Port. The two men stared out at the verdant landscape slipping past the windows, every now and then glimpsing the sea. In this part of New England one was never far from the sea or of reminders from where the majority of its original settlers had hailed. They were being driven east along Falmouth Road and there were road signs pointing to Yarmouth, Barnstable and Chatham.
“I don’t know much about the Summer White House,” Peter admitted.
Oliver Franks chortled.
“As long ago as 1926 Joseph Kennedy, the President’s late father, rented a place in Hyannis port for the summer. In the way of wealthy men from time immemorial, liking what he found he bought the biggest house in the street a couple of years later. These days the family compound comprises three houses set along six acres of seafront overlooking Nantucket Sound. Jack and Bobby Kennedy own the two adjacent properties to the original big house acquired in 1928. Given the wealth of the Kennedy family people are often a little surprised by how unremarkable the three houses are. They’re all white-framed constructions in the clapboard style popular in these parts. The main house has splendid porches, a living, TV, sun room and dining room on the ground floor and a dozen or so bedrooms and suchlike on the first. Old Joe Kennedy installed a movie cinema in the basement, a wine cellar built to resemble the inside of a wooden ship’s hull and a so-called “sipping” room. Basically, the compound must have been a pretty convivial place from which to organise a Presidential campaign back in 1960.”
Peter Christopher was still digesting this when the Ambassador asked him a question that took him completely by surprise.
“What is your personal impression – man to man, I mean - of the President?”
The younger man still had not got used to the idea that people in authority actually gave a damn what he thought about such things, and therefore had no pre-prepared or remotely organised answer poised on the tip of his tongue.
He did not reply for some seconds.
“Honestly, I think he wishes he was still back onboard PT107, sir.”
“What about America First?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had to make the sort of terrible decisions he has had to take.”
“No, what about taking on the whole Red Navy single handed?”
Peter felt the heat flush his face.
“That was different, sir.”
“How so?”
“I was just doing my duty, sir.”
“Okay, how do you think President Kennedy feels about letting us down in the Persian Gulf?”
“Isn’t it the first duty of a politician in a democracy to get himself elected, sir?”
Oliver Franks smiled.
“I thought you said you weren’t a politician, Sir Peter?”
The younger man brushed this aside.
“Once you get used to the idea that one has a duty to one’s people, Queen or whatever, I suppose that makes the hard decisions easier. I think he knows that we’re natural allies. He probably feels awful about standing aside in the Gulf but honestly, if he wants to be President in November what is the man supposed to do, sir?”
The Ambassador was silent.
“Every time,” Peter went on lowly, “I pick up a paper or hear one or other of the men who want to be the next President, that dreadful man Wallace in Alabama, Cabot Lodge, or Nixon or Rockefeller, or even the other Democrats, I mean, apart from that Hubert Humphrey fellow they all seem horribly bigoted, anti-British, ineffectual, irrelevant or just plain barking. Honestly, sir,” he sighed, “at least with President Kennedy we all know in our heart of hearts that he probably has his heart in the right place.”
Oliver Franks shook his head.
“Now you’re even talking like a politician, Sir Peter.”
Later the two men stood on the lawn in front of the “main house” with their backs to Nantucket Sound. Although it was a bright, balmy early summer day the wind was biting and both men were grateful for their coats. The President’s Chief of Staff, Marvin Watson had sent ahead his own representative to liaise with the State Department’s “protocol people” just to “smooth things out”.
Marvin Watson’s man, a crew cut Texan in his thirties with coat hanger shoulders and a military bearing had walked the two visitors through the house, explained the prospective layout of the “meeting rooms” and the “commissary arrangements” for the principals and their staffers.
There would be a photo call on the lawn tomorrow morning and then the press and the cameramen would be escorted outside the two mile “security zone” around the compound.
Oliver Franks had handed over a suggested draft agenda.
The US Navy had stationed a destroyer, the USS Southerland (DD-743) in Nantucket Sound. Her long low menacing silhouette visually augmented the impression conveyed from the constant thrumming of the rotors of the helicopter gunships patrolling the landward perimeter of the “secure zone”. Closer inshore smaller patrol boats cruised beyond the surf line.
“The Secretary of State is due to be landing at Otis ANGB shortly, sir,” the White House staffer had explained. “I’ll make sure he has this draft document in good time for your scheduled meeting this evening.”
“Are you able to confirm that the Treasury Secretary will be able to join our deliberations?”
“Yes, sir.”
Oliver F
ranks checked his watch.
“We need to return to Otis in time to greet the Prime Minister’s party,” he decided. The Secret Service men kept a respectful distance, always watchful. Their nervousness, the destroyer patrolling out in Nantucket Sound and the constant distant thrumming of the rotors of the circling Bell UH-1 Iroquois Hueys spoke to the deeply trouble land in which the two Englishmen now walked. If even here in this relatively calm corner of the Atlantic north east nowhere was safe; where was any man safe in America?
“Diplomacy is a funny old thing, Peter,” the older man observed professorially. “In the next few days I rather fear we will be plumbing the depths, exploring as it were, the nadir of Anglo-American relations. In amongst all the recriminations it is likely that we will forget all the things that tie us together, the countless things large and small which make us more alike than unalike. We forget at our peril that we have many, many vital interests in common. Not to put too fine a point on it I believe that we and the United States are inestimably stronger together than we are apart.”
That made a lot of sense to the younger man.
After the Battle of Malta he would have drowned if the commanding officer of the USS Berkeley had not risked his ship by coming alongside Talavera when she was obviously sinking. That officer had known Talavera, already on fire could have turned turtle or even, blown up, at any moment and yet he had still unhesitatingly conned his ship alongside. Thereupon, crewmen from the Berkeley had jumped onto the decks of his sinking ship without a care for their own lives, and soon afterwards when Talavera went down other Americans had dived into the oily, flotsam-fouled waters to save wounded British seamen. Two of those brave Americans had died in the rescue but many of Talavera’s badly injured survivors were alive today only because of the selfless bravery and sacrifice of those brave Americans. As long as he lived Peter Christopher would be in the debt of those courageous men from the United States Navy.
“I’d have drowned two months ago if an American captain had not put his ship in peril to come to Talavera’s aid, sir.”
Oliver Franks nodded.
He halted and met Peter Christopher’s gaze.
“You were sent to America as a propaganda stunt,” he said. “You and your lovely wife, Lady Marija, and the Hannays have done a marvellous job flying the flag and fighting the battle for hearts and minds; but it may be that the lasting fruits of your time in America will be in the contacts and friendships you are able to establish.” He sighed. “To that end I have recommended, with the endorsement of the Foreign Secretary, to the Prime Minister that we give you a “proper job” and a “proper diplomatic role” for the rest of your “tour” in the United States.”
Peter was not sure he was very keen on this development; although for the while he kept his reservations to himself.
“The reason we – as a nation – honestly and truly do not know where we stand with America anymore,” Lord Franks explained, “is that the United States does not know where it stands in the World, or even whether it is still united. The Kennedy Administration, the House of Representatives, State Governors are at odds not just for the Hell of it but because everybody suddenly has their own idea of what the Union means to him. Before the October War the United States was a continental empire bound together by the Constitution and a sense of oneness; nowadays the Constitution has become a thing to beat one’s foes over the head with and an awful lot of people are looking for somebody to blame for everything which has gone wrong. Whoever wins the next Presidential election will inherit a Union that has probably never been more disunited since the Civil War. That said, it will still be in our British national interests to exert as much influence as possible on the new Administration employing every lever at our disposal. For that reason we are currently investigating the practicalities of setting up diplomatic missions – officially somewhat beefed up “consular” establishments – in several of the most populous states. The most important of the first tranche of upgraded consular offices will be in California. We propose to style it “the United Kingdom Consulate to the West Coast Federation of States”, covering California, Oregon and Washington State. Our mission, which will have offices in Los Angeles and San-Francisco or ideally Sacramento, and in Portland Oregon, and Olympia Washington will require a high profile Consul with proven leadership and public relations skills.”
The younger man was fascinated by what he was being told.
Right up until, that was, he worked out why he was being told what he was being told; and then his troubled expression exactly mirrored the sudden alarmed perturbation of his thoughts.
“I’m just a junior naval officer, sir,” he protested.
“No, you’re not,” Lord Franks reminded him. “You are the youngest Post Captain in the Navy and, notwithstanding your relatively tender age, pretty much the most highly decorated and by far and away the Royal Navy’s most famous living hero.”
The older man paused briefly to let this sink in.
“Coincidentally, you happened to be married to a highly intelligent, utterly charming, and highly photogenic young woman with equally, if not more, heroic credentials, who the American people are desperate to take to their hearts.”
Peter could not take issue with any of that no matter how hard he tried.
“I’m awfully flattered and all that, but...”
“I envisage the West Coast Consulate to be, in effect, the West Coast Embassy second in precedence among our diplomatic missions in America only to the Embassy in Philadelphia.” Lord Franks took pity on Peter. “Whatever happens in the Middle East in the next few days and weeks we need to make friends wherever we can, and to build bridges. Besides, once you get out to California it will be like having your own independent command again. Isn’t that what you really want?”
Chapter 50
Tuesday 2nd June 1964
Khorramshahr, Iran
Lieutenant-General Michael Carver had driven up from his headquarters on Abadan Island that morning to establish if, and or what assistance the British and Commonwealth garrison could offer his Iranian allies. Now and then a speculative long-range artillery shell smashed down into the desert to the east and in the distance columns of black smoke merged into a shimmering mirage-like haze in the blazing afternoon heat.
He had found Brigadier Mirza Hasan Mostofi al-Mamaleki covered in dust, having only recently returned from a flying visit to his forward units. His friend’s dark eyes glowed with angry violence.
“That bastard Zahedi ordered me to report to him in Bandr Mahshahr this morning at about the time he began shelling my Divisional perimeter!” He reported disgustedly. “Then half-an-hour later the fucking idiot sent a couple of regiments of armour and mechanised infantry to probe my lines. My anti-tank gunners and a couple of hull down Centurions turned the attacks back inside ten minutes. My boys probably brewed up a dozen M-48s and as many APCs; you’d have thought that would have been enough for that fat-headed imbecile! But, no! On the stroke of mid-day there was a general assault all long my north-eastern sector, M-48s and a few Mark I Centurions driving straight onto my guns!”
Michael Carver absorbed this, his emotions significantly less sanguine than his stern, stoical outer mask.
“I have two Hunters loitering at thirty thousand feet over Bandr Mahshahr,” he informed the dusty Iranian officer, “and four other fighters and two Canberras on QRA. Before I left my HQ I alerted 2nd Royal Tanks to fire up their Centurions, and 3 Para and two troops of twenty-five pounders to get ready to move at one hour’s notice.”
Al-Mamaleki nodded, his breath slowing.
2nd Royal Tank Regiment’s eighteen Centurion Mark IIs, the six hundred men of the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, and the guns of the Royal Artillery constituted a substantial part of the ‘mobile reserve’ of the British and Commonwealth garrison of Abadan Island.
“That is good to know, my friend.”
Although the two men had instructed their respective staffs to plan fo
r the worst some days ago, neither man had actually expected the Provisional Government in Isfahan to move so precipitously against either al-Mamaleki’s 3rd Imperial Armoured Division, or to directly threaten the defences of Abadan this early, or without at least some kind of warning preamble in the form of threats or demands for ‘talks’.
It seemed that the Military Governor of Khuzestan Province, General Jafar Sharif-Zahedi – an unimaginative, corpulent man who owed his rank to the unseated Pahlavi dynasty rather than any military credentials – was as stupid as he was greedy.
Michael Carver had feared the early morning attacks on al-Mamaleki’s rearward-facing defences was the prelude, a diversion, presaging a major assault on Abadan across the desert south of the Shedegan Lake and the marshes which blocked any landward approach to the north eastern end of the Island. However, when no reports had come in from the SAS patrols operating on the eastern bank of the Bahmanshir River he had begun to suspect that whatever else he was up against, General Sharif-Zahedi was no second Napoleon. Any man who was so ill-advised as to sent armour against prepared defences manned by men equipped with 120-millimetre recoilless ant-tank guns and the 105-millimetre precision rifles of hull-down Centurions, across country previously ‘zeroed in’ by al-Mamaleki’s Divisional artillery was not so much incompetent, he was criminally negligent.
The columns of smoke rising on the eastern horizon graphically illustrated the width of the killing ground now littered with the wrecks of burning tanks, shattered APCs and miscellaneous thin-skinned, unarmoured vehicles. Zahedi had obviously thrown a significant proportion of his entire mobile combat strength at al-Mamaleki’s force; after expending assets on such a profligate scale, it greatly reduced the fool’s options when it came to mounting a similar attack on the formidable defences – augmented by the not inconsiderable eastern river barrier of the Bahmanshir – of Abadan Island.
What troubled the British general was not the ineptitude of the attack but that such an operation could be contemplated in the first place, let alone carried out. It was madness, sheer unadulterated madness! The Red Army occupied the mountains of Iran, there was little to stop its tanks motoring south from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf; within weeks there might be a Soviet tank army immediately to the west of Abadan Island, or coiled ready to surge across the Arvand River through the Khorramshahr gap into southern Iran. Yet it seemed General Jafar Sharif-Zahedi, the Military Governor of a large part of south western Iran, was preoccupied with waging war on a formation of his own Iranian Army that would not bow to his personal will.