Peter Jennings, ABC’s anchorman in London, was reporting a demonstration by Saudi Arabian Islamic extremists outside Buckingham Palace demanding the return of King Fahd to face trial in Riyadh. And NBC’s Gavin Uckley was reporting on the anti-American demonstrations by Libyan students outside the besieged United States Embassy in Tripoli.
The floor manager looked over his shoulder at the director and shrugged. The President had still to be made up and he would want to read his script through a couple of times, they always did. They hadn’t even got the auto-cue script yet. Presidents had run late before, but never like this. Network master-control always insisted that Presidents were in their chair, ready to go, five minutes to insert time. The floor manager checked his watch with the director. They were on in two minutes and forty-five seconds. Over his intercom he could hear the master-controller in New York screaming abuse at the White House director, which was where the buck stopped. He knew well enough that to cue the President of the United States live into the Network was a coronary risk. To cue a President who wasn’t there would cause national hysteria and a million heart attacks.
There were eighteen technicians and seven production assistants in the room and everyone of them now realized, with one minute and forty-five seconds to go, that such a thing was suddenly a probability.
The tension would not help the President. Tension was infectious, it even affected the pro’s who did it live every night. He would look anxious on the screen, he would peer at the auto-cue and fluff his lines and people wouldn’t remember anything he had said, just the dismal way he had said it. The floor manager bit his lip and smiled at the camera operator and the lighting man and his production assistant who stared blankly back. Ninety-five seconds. There was sweat on the top of his nose and he took off his headphones and wiped the moisture from the pads. Network master- control was now threatening to pull out. The director screamed abuse back.
The floor manager pulled out the plug on the intercom cable and began speaking quietly to himself. ‘There’s going to be cosmic disaster, millions sitting out there, waiting to see the President, and then they don’t. They’d know it was assassination just like the other two, Christ!’
‘Lights back on . . .’
‘Fuck your lights,’ he shouted and looked up into the face of the President.
‘Evening, gentlemen—how long have we got?’
‘Fifteen seconds, sir. Jesus!’
But the President was already in his chair with make-up girls dabbing his face with powder puffs as he adjusted the tiny earpiece of the pocket tape recorder.
‘Five seconds.’ The floor manager held up his hands. ‘Quiet please. Three, two, one . . .’
‘Good evening. You will have seen on the television news, you will have read in your newspapers and you will have heard on the radio reports from the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh of what has happened to that country in the past forty-eight hours. You will also know how Americans working out there for the Government and for private corporations have just been evacuated by the US Air Force and who, with the co-operation of the Egyptian government and President Mubarak, are on their way home.
‘You will also know that the Revolutionary Council in Riyadh has closed down the oilfields and has placed a moratorium on oil supplies to the West for at least one year. Tonight I want to tell you what the consequences of that decision will be for the United States and the free world.
‘The problem that faces us now is as grave as any America has faced since World War Two. It poses a national security threat of such scope, of such complexity, that it threatens to radically transform our economy, our political consensus, our accepted way of life. Jeremiahs are already speaking of an inflation-plagued recessionist economy for a generation to come, with drastic fuel shortages that will stake city against suburb, farmers against truckers, East against West, North against South, in a regional, racial and economic divisiveness not seen since slavery and secession.
‘This country, the greatest and most powerful nation in the history of the world, runs on oil. That was never a problem when we had plenty, but since the first oil embargoes in 1973, our problem has been our dependence on an uncertain monopoly source, a dependence on that thin line of oil tankers stretching from the Persian Gulf, one of the world’s most politically volatile regions. And as you well know since the Shah of Iran was deposed and Iranian oil denied us, that dependence and that uncertainty has rapidly grown.
‘Now, with the benefit of hindsight always available to us too late, we realize that we should not have depended so much on such people. That years ago we should have served notice on the Arab oil producers that we, the world’s biggest oil consumer, were no longer willing to soak up their production at any price on any condition. But we didn’t and that failure has cost America a terrible price.
‘Let me now tell you just how much. In the last ten years, the nation’s bill for Arab oil has risen from three billion dollars a year to nearly fifty billion. That’s an increase of at least fifteen hundred per cent. To pay this price, there has been a massive taxation on your consuming power which in turn has reduced economic growth, spurred inflation, sent the balance of payments deficit into orbit and subjected the US dollar to regular and humiliating depreciation. Until yesterday we were importing just over four million barrels of Arab crude every day, an unbelievably staggering five million dollars an hour, twenty-four hours a day—three hundred and sixty-five days a year. The Arabs have had us on the rack and little by little they’ve been tightening the screws, selfish little people who would clip the wings of the American Eagle to feather their own nests. Tonight I address myself on your behalf to them and say Enough! We will not be made fools of any longer.
‘This evening I’ve been given the list of twenty-seven American dead who were murdered by mobs as they were driving out of Riyadh. Men, women and children, innocent non-combatants, shot down by savages pretending to be disciples of Mohammed. American families who had gone to that land to help build a better and more prosperous life. Tonight those families are on their way home in coffins.
‘I have also, within the hour, received a signal from one of our ships at present in the Persian Gulf. I want to read it to you: “Tonight at 18h30 Greenwich mean time twenty-two Soviet vessels sighted by radar proceeding northwards towards Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf. Speed constant at seventeen knots.” That was sent by the Captain of the USS Okinawa and it confirms our satellite surveillance reports which has identified them as warships of the Soviet Seventh Fleet. The Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk and the assault ship Ivan Rogov are in that fleet. Both those warships have vertical take-off aircraft, both are equipped with missiles, both carry combat troops and helicopters to carry them to land. Furthermore, we have established by satellite observation and from our intelligence sources that this fleet, which was conducting operational training exercises a hundred miles south, received their new orders two days ago to enter the Persian Gulf. That was before the Saudi Arabian coup. Our conclusion is that Moscow knew what was about to happen there—indeed may have been directly instrumental in its success.
‘Further reports from our Embassy and Military personnel in Saudi Arabia confirm that the weapons to overthrow King Fahd were Soviet built and were used by Marxist Palestinians and Marxist South Yemenis.
‘Now, according to my advisers, Rahbar, former Crown Prince Abdullah, abhors Communism as much as we do. I’m told that his coup against the King succeeded because of the Saudi people’s faith in him and their belief that Islam was being contaminated by the West. But I say this. Whoever is now in charge of that country, whatever the religious credentials of the Islamic People’s Democratic Republic, Communist ambition will attempt sooner or later to take it for itself. Because it is the Soviet’s economic and military strategy to deny the United States Saudi oil. They know in Moscow what so many of us here in the United States refuse to face up to, the harsh and unpleasant
fact that American oilfields are dying. They are running dry.
‘You should know that according to all the specialist data available to us from the Department of Energy, the American Petroleum Institute, Data Resources and others, our oil will run out in less than ten years’ time at the present rate of our consumption. And when the last barrel is filled, the United States will be entirely dependent on imported oil. From Venezuela. From Nigeria. From Mexico. From the Arabs. Is it hard then to understand why the Soviet Union should do everything in their power to prevent us getting it? Without that oil the American Eagle is crippled. It will not fly again.
‘But there is another reason for the sudden Soviet activity in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. It is this. Moscow needs that oil as much as we do.
‘The Soviet Union is the biggest oil producer in the world. Once it was pumping six hundred million tons every year, but in the last two years its production has fallen by half and it is now buying all that Libya and Iraq and other pro-Soviet Arab states can provide. It has cut its own oil exports to dependent Soviet block Comecon states in Europe to conserve stocks. But despite this, its industry has been reduced to a three-day working week because of fuel shortages and the Soviet government has been forced to introduce severe petrol and diesel rationing.
‘Moscow has read the writing on the wall. It must have more oil, for its factories, for its farms, for its ever-expanding war machine. Arab oil has become as essential to the Soviet Union’s survival as it has to ours.
‘It is for these reasons that I believe the Soviet Seventh Fleet is now sailing towards the Persian Gulf. It is for these reasons that we in the United States, as leaders of the free world, must be prepared to act.
‘As your President, I believe that it is not our power but our will that is being tested. And the question all Americans must ask and answer tonight is: does the strongest nation in the history of the world have the character to meet a direct challenge by people who ignore our warnings, trample on agreements and violate innocent people? If, when the chips are down, this powerful nation acts like a pitiful helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten us and all free nations throughout the world. If we fail to meet this challenge, all other nations will be on notice that, despite its overwhelming power, when the real crisis came the United States was found wanting.
‘But tonight, let it be known that the United States will no longer tolerate deception or offence from any nation, large or small.
‘Events now force a change, and I quote, with respect to his memory, the words of John F. Kennedy. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.” I will not be made impotent. I will not sit back when our oil supplies are cut off and watch Soviet warships sail into the Persian Gulf to lay claim to it.’
‘Fellow Americans, tonight I have sent a message to Rahbar, leader of the Islamic People’s Democratic Republic, telling him that the United States is resolved to preserve peace. I have also told him of our resolution to have the oilfields reopened and oil supplies to the United States resumed forthwith, and that contracts regarding those supplies signed in good faith by American corporations shall be honoured, notwithstanding the new political situation that now exists. And I have told him that my Government expects full and early reparation for all damage to American property sustained during the fighting there.
‘I have also expressed alarm at the prospect of a Soviet war fleet in the Persian Gulf, I consider it an obstacle to peace in the area, and for this last reason I have, as your President, tonight sent an urgent appeal to the Secretary General of the United Nations, asking for an immediate meeting of the Security Council. I am proposing that the entire Persian Gulf, from latitude 26 degrees North be declared an International Zone under United Nations’ administration, policed by a UN peacekeeping force.
‘As President of the United States, I give notice to all parties concerned that I will stand by here at the White house, ready to offer counsel and material aid should it be asked for. I will wait twenty-four hours as of this time. If there is no positive response to my appeals by that deadline, I will do whatever I consider to be right and proper in the best interests of my country. The choice of the alternatives available will be mine. The timing of that choice will be mine. The responsibility for any American initiative will be mine and mine alone.
‘Let our position be made absolutely clear. Any attempt by outside forces to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America. And such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. To make this warning more credible I have asked Congress to authorize the registration of young Americans for the draft.
‘The path we have chosen is full of hazard, as all paths are, but it is one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation. Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right; not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom. God wiling, we’ll achieve it.’
THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
‘We’re on the march’
Captain Edward Hanks had stood in his corner of the bridge of the USS Okinawa and heard the President’s speech live at 0510 hours local time, via the Satellite Communications link that connects all US Navy ships at sea directly and at all times with Navy Command at the Pentagon.
The Captain had ordered all the six hundred and nine officers and men aboard to stop all but essential duties and be out of their beds so that they should hear what their Commander-in-Chief had to say.
Captain Hanks, just as soon as the President’s broadcast had ended, did the most extraordinary and uncharacteristic thing. He was never a man who needed much sleep, often boasting that he could manage on three hours in every twenty-four. But, the Washington speech over, he ordered the officer on deck to reduce the Okinawa’s cruising speed of eighteen knots to four, just enough to keep her manageable. Then he went to his cabin and, fully dressed, lay down and slept like a child.
When he woke he felt reborn. He casually showered, shaved, put on newly-laundered shirt and trousers and lunched on tuna fish salad. Then he called up the bridge and ordered full speed ahead on bearing 042 degrees, which the officer on watch, Lt Vaduz, knew was the course that would take them to the Straits of Hormuz at the southern end of the Persian Gulf.
After his light lunch Captain Hanks sat at his table, staring at the row of books on the shelf above the rack which held his logs and charts. The President’s voice still echoed, his words and phrases still exploding in a speech that perfectly captured the spirit of all those things American Captain Hanks thought had long been ridiculed into oblivion by the new generation of Americans, those children who mocked everything and to whom nothing was sacred. And yet here was a man of that same generation, and a Democrat, resurrecting what Hanks was certain had long fallen and been lost—the spirit of America past. He sat there, his hands in his lap, staring but seeing nothing. He was trying to grasp what was happening around him, physically around him, here in the Persian Gulf. He had heard the President quoting the signal he, in command of the Okinawa, had sent. He had heard the President’s own reaction to that signal, the President of the United States publicly responding to the warning that Soviets were about to barge their way into the Gulf and take it the way they took everything. How closely in tune he suddenly felt with this young man seven thousand miles away, his President, his Commander-in-Chief, who now promised to restore to all Americans their pride and dignity.
Quickly, like a mushroom spore pushing its way through black peat, the psyche of Captain Hanks began to assume a new situation and a new ambition. A state of war or something like it now existed around him. Russian warships were now sailing towards him, approaching the narrow sea corridor that would bring them into the
Persian Gulf and the oilfields. But the President of the United States had suddenly and unexpectedly said no! He had said enough! He had issued an ultimatum, just as John F. Kennedy had done—the last time, as Captain Hanks remembered it, an American leader had shown spunk. He knew it because he had heard his President say so.
A band of sweat had formed across his forehead, darkening the grey hairline, and his jaw muscles hardened, flexing the powerful bunches of sinew at the sides of his face. He reached across the desk and from an ashtray in which there had never been a cigarette, he picked up a squash ball and began to turn it in his right hand, kneading the hard black rubber with his short, stubby, powerful fingers.
The brass ship’s clock above the bookshelf clicked as the minute hand went past the half hour and the Captain’s right eyelid twitched in response, though he heard nothing. He was suspended in excitement, relief, anticipation. He was on the move again and there was no going back, not for him, not now, not after such a speech promising so much so earnestly. No land duties, no early retirement, no scrapyard, no twenty and more years of loneliness. He was back in the business he was best at. Back at war.
He began to grind his teeth, crunching the molars sideways, contorting the jaw muscles and twisting the skin at his temples so that the beads of sweat collecting there formed tiny rivulets and ran down the hairline of his grey sideburns, across his chin, through the folds of loose skin on his neck and on to the open collar of his khaki shirt.
December Ultimatum Page 11