by W. T. Tyler
She’d also brought with them a routing slip from Colonel Selvey’s office which she believed had been attached to the six reports but had fallen free. The routing slip was from Major Miles, the army attaché, to Colonel Selvey, but the handwriting was barely legible: “Re Major Lutete: we’ve been [indecipherable] this guy for ten months. Can Les help out? We need more stuff.”
“This still doesn’t make sense to me,” Reddish complained now. “Are you sure this buck slip was attached to these reports?”
“Positive.” She put down the watering can and crossed to his desk, looking at it again. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Then what the hell’s it say?”
She studied the handwriting again, frowning as she brought it closer. “We’ve been—” She stopped and began again. “We’ve been … avoiding this guy for ten months. Can Les help out? We need more stuff.”
“Avoiding?” Reddish asked dubiously, taking back the slip. “Avoiding?”
“I’m sure that’s what it says.”
“I don’t read that as an a.”
“It’s a very poor a, but the whole thing is a terrible scrawl anyway. What difference does it make?”
“Can Les help out? How could Haversham help out if they were avoiding this guy Lutete?” He looked up at her, waiting.
“I don’t know. Major Miles wanted Selvey to ask Haversham to help with Major Lutete, whoever he is. Who is he?”
“Major Lutete? Some jerk up at GHQ, I think.”
“Didn’t Haversham mention it to you?”
“No.” He continued to study the routing slip. “I don’t think that’s what it says. I don’t think ‘avoiding’ is the right word.”
“Maybe your eyesight would be improved if you got rid of those ridiculous glasses.”
“Yeah, and maybe my disposition would be better if I knew what the hell was going on around here.”
“Probably Haversham didn’t want to bother you with it,” she suggested. “It’s a military matter anyway.”
“Are you sure this routing slip was attached to these six reports?”
“You’re never satisfied, are you?” She left his office and returned a minute later with Haversham’s reading file, which she spread on the desk in front of him. A few paper clips lay in the seam, fallen free from the documents within. “The six reports and the routing slip were right here, behind these letters.”
“Maybe the slip was attached to the letters.”
She turned over the letters on the other leaf of the folder. One was a typewritten note from Sylvia Haversham to the GSO asking for new drapes for the sewing room, the other a note from Sylvia to the commissary complaining about weevils in the flour. Haversham hadn’t forwarded either of them.
“I guess that makes it official,” Reddish conceded, giving her back the folder. “‘Weevils in the flour.’ That’s bad. Maybe Sylvia Haversham did it.”
“Did what?”
But Reddish didn’t answer, gazing thoughtfully out the window, as if something had just occurred to him.
The country team meeting, twice postponed the previous day, was scheduled for eleven o’clock. Reddish was ten minutes late as he crossed the sunny silence of the interior courtyard, where a set of outside steps climbed to the ambassador’s suite and conference room on the second floor. In the APO mail room he’d found a letter from his daughter awaiting him, postmarked from the New England village near her school. He stopped as he read the first sentences:
Dear Daddy:
Don’t get excited, I’m OK. I’m writing this in the library which is pretty creepy this time of nite, trying to write a stupid paper on Thucydides and the war between Athens and Sparta.
“Hey, Mr. Reddish, sir,” called the Marine receptionist from the doorway behind him, “they’re looking for you upstairs. Miss Browning’s been calling all over.”
He moved on. In the center of the courtyard a jet of water splashed into a dark pool where a few plastic water lilies lay. An egret with soiled plumage stood at the edge of the pool, his black eyes fixed on the gassy silence about him. No fish or algae were in the pool, whose recirculated waters were kept clear with swimming pool compound following the ambassador’s secretary’s complaints about swamp odors in the courtyard. The egret had great difficulty balancing himself on one leg. His wings had been clipped by his proprietor, the general services officer, who managed the housekeeping staff, courted the senior officers, and lavished upon them the patronage he withheld from the nondiplomatic staff, like most of the third-floor communicators.
At the top of the steps, Reddish paused again over the letter:
I started looking through old National Geographics, finding the places we’d been, like Palmyra, Damascus, and everyplace else. I remembered the picnics we used to have, the way the sunlight was, our Arab cooks and drivers, and everyone else I loved when we were all together, you and mommy and me, and then I started to cry right here in the library with everyone looking at me like I was having a nervous breakdown or something—
“You’re late,” Miss Browning murmured without looking up from her typewriter. Taggert sat nearby, freshly groomed, each red hair in place as he guarded the door to the ambassador’s conference room. Miss Browning, substituting briefly for the ambassador’s secretary, had adopted the latter’s imperious ways. The older woman disapproved of Reddish, but her instincts were social, not professional. He was never included on the ambassador’s dinner or luncheon lists, seldom summoned to the privacy of his office, and was never the recipient of his telephone calls. In the absence of the ambassador’s favor, she saw no reason to confer her own; Miss Browning was of the same disposition.
Taggert’s duty at the outside door was normally that of one of the Marines; he would have been inside with the others except for the humiliation of the midnight dousing in the club pool, still fresh in his memory, even fresher in the memories of a few inside.
Reddish went in without waiting for the ceremonial door opening. He didn’t care much for country team meetings and avoided them when he could, but Haversham’s absence now made that impossible. For him, virtuosity in a crowded committee room meant little in the grayer world beyond, where clever answers weren’t necessarily correct simply because they sounded brilliant around a board-room table.
The ambassador sat at the far end of the table, flanked by Becker and Lowenthal. The economic counselor and AID director sat farther along. Colonel Selvey slouched in the middle opposite a red-faced General Leggard, the newly arrived chief of the US military mission. The chairs along the walls were crowded with those of lesser rank, all invited guests on this solemn occasion, like freshmen at a graduate school colloquium.
Reddish took Haversham’s vacant chair at the front of the table. To his right sat the administrative counselor, to his left Dick Franz, the USIS public affairs officer. He had once been a radio announcer and European stringer for a major news network. Wisdom and authority were present in the resonance of his voice, but without someone’s prepared text he was an actor without a script, his sonority dribbling into clever quips and cleverer gossip.
Franz passed him a copy of the draft telegram that Becker was now explaining. Becker and Lowenthal had worked on it most of the morning, describing for Washington the events that had led to the fall of the old regime. Reddish skimmed through it quickly, searching for conclusions. They were identical to those of the national radio bulletin announcing the fall: the military had seized power when the President, paralyzed by cabinet and parliamentary discord, had failed to meet the challenge of the radical left armed with foreign-made guns.
Reddish wasn’t surprised by the analysis, which was plausible, if premature; but only diplomats like them could have written it, and only fellow careerists back in Washington could have believed it. They had no time to believe anything else. Like most country team meetings, the cable was diverting theater but dismal history. Those around the table were often convinced of the guile and duplicity of foreign political motivation, b
ut they had little insight into their own.
“… we think it reasonably accurate to say that a coup d’etat has taken place and that it was led by the military,” Lowenthal was saying. “In the classical sense it should undoubtedly be called a countercoup, since there is undeniable evidence that foreign-made arms were introduced into the capital on Sunday, if not earlier, with the intent of mobilizing the communes and overthrowing the regime. The military struck only when it was convinced of the likelihood of success by the rebels. Quite obviously, they saw the possibility of a radical takeover.…”
Reddish looked again at the cable as Lowenthal droned on.
“… we’ve known for some time about the paramilitary camp at Mundi,” Lowenthal observed as an addendum to the cable was being passed out, “although we didn’t deduce its specific purpose at the time. You’ll recall we did a cable on the subject a few months back.”
Reddish remembered that Lowenthal had gotten excited about the AID officer’s report on the Marxists-Leninists at Mundi and had cribbed the most colorful passages for his own cable to Washington, reporting a paramilitary brigade in the making at the agricultural camp. He also knew that few would recall.
“What cable?” he broke in carelessly.
Lowenthal gave him an injured stare: “The workers party camp at Mundi. You remember. We discussed it in draft.”
“I don’t remember anything about guns. Did you say anything about guns at Mundi?” He wanted to slow the momentum.
“Not at the time, no.”
“So no one reported anything about guns at Mundi.”
“No, not guns,” Lowenthal replied, surprised now. “But certainly everything else.”
Colonel Selvey stirred restlessly in his chair; Bondurant peered at Reddish, troubled. Becker lifted a cable from the file folder in front of him: “The cable’s here if you want to look at it. Go ahead, Simon.”
“Your sciatica acting up?” Selvey grumbled as he slid the cable toward Reddish. Reddish studied it without interest as Lowenthal described the party’s radical ties, Masakita’s background, and the ten Komsomol scholarships.
“… on the other hand there was nothing ambiguous about the origin of the weapons identified in Malunga. Every eyewitness tells us pretty much the same. The French and Belgian accounts are congruent with our own. So what we know certainly suggests Soviet involvement in one form or another, as the announcement over national radio hinted last night.”
Reddish looked up quickly. “Was that the hint?”
“Sorry?” Lowenthal turned blankly.
“The radio said ‘radical elements,’ not Soviet involvement. Was that the hint?”
“Which?”
“That the Sovs were behind it.”
“We’ve been through all that, Andy,” Becker intruded. “We’ve discussed precisely what the radio announcement did and didn’t say. Dick has the transcripts if you’re interested.”
Franz pushed a wad of wireless reports in front of Reddish.
“Let’s let Simon finish,” Bondurant ruled.
Lowenthal took an additional ten minutes. “I think that just about sums it up,” he concluded. “If I’ve left something out, we can pick it up in discussion.”
Becker sat back, beginning to poll the table. The economic counselor contributed a few comments. Deliberate, slow-witted, he was a man no one wished ill, but he was usually ignored in executive policy sessions. Becker and Lowenthal had ignored him that morning, and now he drew their attention to their omissions: rising prices, two devaluations, the student and transit strikes of the previous spring, all evidence of growing popular discontent with the regime.
Reddish listened as the voice rumbled on like a coal train past a crossing: IMF statistics, external debt financing, cost-of-living indices, commodity prices.… Lowenthal began to fidget, pencil dropped aside.
Throw him a sop, Reddish thought, teeth on edge. Get him on board, for God’s sake.
“If we didn’t go into those details, it was because we believed them implicit,” Lowenthal said consolingly. “We’ve reported a great deal on the subject over the past several months.”
Almost as if you knew, Reddish’s gaze seemed to say as it traveled to Lowenthal.
The economic counselor nodded, not convinced.
“We were also concerned about brevity,” Becker conceded sympathetically, “but you may be right. Why don’t you give us some language, a paragraph or two. Don’t you think that would do it?”
“Oh certainly, that would do it.” He turned to the two economic officers sitting against the wall behind him. Their pencils began to move.
“Concluding that the workers party knew far better than most the economic malaise in Malunga,” Lowenthal suggested. “After all, they helped organize the transit strike.”
“Something like that,” Becker murmured with a libertarian’s vagueness. “General Leggard?”
Newly arrived from Germany and the First Infantry Division at Göppingen, the general had a soldier’s sense of the battle zone, bright colors on bright maps with plastic overlays. He’d spent two days in battle dress during the Czech crisis, which had taught him a thing or two, Reddish remembered: the Russians were Nazis with atomic artillery and Fishbed fighters.
“You say here a low-risk opportunity for the Sovs,” the general began, remembering his strategic intelligence brief at Frankfurt six months earlier—shipping lanes, strategic minerals, overflight and landing rights. “I’m not so sure about that. It seems to me the stakes are pretty high—the strategic stakes I’m talking about. This is the high ground in Africa. If this country goes, then everything south of here will go too in time. So I’m not sure I’d agree with that—a low-risk opportunity for the Russians.”
“I meant opportunity, General, not the stakes,” Becker replied soothingly. “A low-risk opportunity for Moscow. If these rebels succeeded, well and good. If not, then they’d lost nothing for the time being. The Soviets have been shut out locally, as you know. Since they weren’t directly involved with the shoot-up in Malunga, it was a low-risk opportunity. I agree with you completely about the stakes. They were very high indeed.”
Reddish found the language in the cable he was searching for and underlined it. “Soviet and Cuban involvement seems clear.”
“Anything else?” Becker queried cheerfully.
“Yeah,” Reddish said, sitting up. “Now that we’ve got your conclusions straight, why don’t we talk about the evidence.”
“I was under the impression that was what we’d been discussing.”
“You just told the general that the Soviets weren’t directly involved, but the cable reads ‘Soviet and Cuban involvement seems clear.’ So which sheet of music are we singing from? Do you know something I don’t?”
“What we meant was that the Soviets weren’t directly involved,” Lowenthal put in. “Physically involved, I mean. Certainly it’s not as if they fired the guns themselves. The rebels did. No one’s accusing them of that.”
Bondurant’s frown deepened.
“But then they never are,” Becker quickly added, smelling an impasse.
“You mean it’s not Czechoslovakia,” Reddish said immediately.
“Not precisely that, no.” Becker smiled.
“Precisely what, then? You’re saying the jeunesse were Soviet surrogates, Russian stooges.”
“Is that a question?” Becker asked, still smiling, like a tutor coaxing an errant pupil.
“No, not a question. You’re saying that the jeunesse were Soviet stooges.”
Becker frowned theatrically, gazing at the ceiling. “No,” he replied finally. “No, that’s too blatant.”
“For the cable or for the Soviets?” Reddish said recklessly.
“Come on, Andy,” Selvey growled, suddenly uncomfortable.
Irritated, Becker said, “I think I agree with Abner. We aren’t playing with words. We all know precisely what we mean.”
“I don’t,” Reddish retorted. “I don�
�t know what you mean at all. You’ve tied the Russians to the shoot-up in Malunga. How? That’s all I want to know. How? What do you know that I don’t?”
“You mean you don’t agree about Soviet involvement?” Lowenthal asked weakly, hurt.
“Exactly. I don’t agree at all.”
“I take it then you don’t think the weapons came from Brazza,” Becker resumed.
“I think I’d agree they probably came from Brazza.”
“But you disagree about Soviet and Cuban involvement?”
“I think it’s a mistake to lump the Soviets and the Cubans on this issue. Their interests don’t automatically coincide.”
“Agreed, but it’s naive to assume the guns could come from Brazza without Soviet and Cuban knowledge. Would you agree with that?”
“Probably,” Reddish said, “but knowledge doesn’t mean complicity. Sanction either. I assume the Russians might have known, but it’s only an assumption. What I know is that there’s no hard evidence to support this statement in the cable about Cuban and Russian involvement.”
“What we know is that the jeunesse had Soviet guns,” Lowenthal insisted.
“We’re going around in circles,” Selvey muttered, looking toward Bondurant, who sat motionless, listening.
“I agree,” Becker added, throwing down his pencil. “I agree completely.”
Reddish said, “If we’re going around in circles, it’s because you always come back to the guns, and the guns don’t prove a goddamned thing. Why can’t you face up to it? Abner knows that as well as anyone else. A year ago there was an attempted coup in Brazza. Some of you remember. Afterwards they shot the plotters and put US-made M-14s on display at the stadium. They claimed we supplied them. We didn’t, but it didn’t matter. They had the guns. Abner got the serial numbers from the French military attaché and we tracked them to a 1954 shipment to the Greeks. They had our guns all right. They came out of DOD inventories, but they didn’t get them from us and it wasn’t our coup. We were clean, but they had our guns.”