All the Way with JFK: An Alternate History of 1964

by F. C. Schaefer

  The old Bolshevik’s protests fell on deaf ears, and when KGB head Vladimir Semichastny reminded him that the continued good health of Nina Khrushchev depended upon his cooperation, Nikita reluctantly complied.

  So while Washington’s attention was wholly focused on Cuba, the Kremlin, with great stealth, made its own plans. It would be one of the greatest intelligence failures in American history.

  Teheran is eight and a half hours ahead of Washington, so it was late at night when the first hazy reports from our embassy there reached us concerning possible explosions at the airport; I was still busy reading cables and intelligence reports trying to discern the Russian’s strategy, but in the moment, I knew I was hearing the sound of the other shoe hitting the floor.

  In the predawn darkness, units of the 103rd Guards Airborne Division parachuted in and took control of the terminal buildings and tower in less than thirty minutes; they fired less than a dozen shots, all of them fatal to the Iranian police officers summarily executed on the spot. By sunrise on April 30th, the Russians had complete control of the airport in Teheran, by noon, military transports were landing one after the other, unloading the rest of the crack troops of not only the 103rd but the 7th Guards Division as well; by late afternoon, all the key government buildings in the Iranian capitol were in their hands, while important bridges and intersections were seized and the American and British embassies surrounded. As this was happening, the 73rd Rifle Division and the 4th Tank Army crossed the border and began making their way south through the mountains, opening a way for the rest of the Red Army. Soviet bombers came in over the Caspian Sea and began air strikes on other Iranian cities. The Iranian government was decapitated, fourteen of the Shah’s generals were killed outright on the first day, while most of the rest were captured; the casualty rate among the ruling council was even greater, a third of them killed on the first day, a third captured, and the rest disappearing into the sea of refugees fleeing the city. As for the Shah himself, he and his family drove in a limo to a secluded airfield and flew out of the country on a private jet; he landed in Paris as the Russians were mopping up back in Teheran.

  Not much of this was known in the West at the time as our best intelligence assets were lost with the capture of Teheran; while the CIA teams in the country there to gather information on the Soviets, were promptly rounded up by the KGB. The Agency’s station chief in Beirut was able to smuggle in some agents by driving in through Syria and Jordan, then slipping by boat across the Persian Gulf, but what intelligence they provided was of limited value.

  Khrushchev’s speech was broadcast on the morning of the attack, to the entire world it appeared as if the Soviet leader had caught the West napping; the invasion was justified as a preemptive move against the United States to keep them from using Iran as a base from which to launch offensive actions against the Motherland. We felt the sting of an apparent Soviet triumph most keenly, and the inclination was to hit back immediately; on the first day of the invasion, the Pentagon issued orders diverting warships from the Atlantic and Pacific to the Indian ocean, while an extra fighter wing was moved to Turkey. NATO went all out to pivot from defending against an attack from the Warsaw Pact to offensive operations in the Middle East. Unlike Cuba, our European allies had large investments in Iran, both the British and French were adamant the Russian aggression not be allowed to stand. But a successful military operation in that part of the world would take weeks, if not months of logistical planning and troop movements to pull off, it was hard for us professional warriors to admit that while we were in up to our waists in Cuba, we were in no position to get in up to our necks in Iran. Nevertheless, the Joint Chiefs came to the President two days after the Soviet invasion and presented him with a plan for a bombing campaign and the insertion of NATO forces - primarily American - into southern Iran in order to prevent the Soviets from capturing the Persian Gulf ports; the plan stated that there was a small risk the Soviets would use battlefield nukes as part of a response.

  President Kennedy heard listened to his military commanders and then gave them his answer. “Gentlemen,” the President said when we were done, “this is a serious crisis, but it is not Armageddon. Think of how much direr the circumstances would be if the Soviets had made a move in Europe; if that were the case, I have no doubt we would be seriously talking about the nuclear option at this very moment. Iran is a big country - over 70 million people - and when you look at the big picture, the Soviets have taken only a small portion of it. I think they have bitten off more than they can chew. We are right in the middle of a military operation in Cuba and the one being proposed in Iran carries serious risks, not the least of which is the risk of unintended consequences once a shooting war develops between American and Russian forces. I believe we should hold our fire for the time being and I am willing to take the risk in doing so.”

  The President went on to make the point that Americans and Russians were not killing each other anywhere in the world at the moment, and the situation required them to do whatever it took to keep it that way across Europe and Asia. There was a line that had not been crossed yet, even though General Howze was reporting how the Soviets at Camaguey were giving arms to Castro’s resistance.

  I must admit to not being in total agreement with the President’s thinking; the British and French foreign ministers were floating the idea of mining the Iranian ports on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman before the Soviet forces took control of them while their navies established an intimidating presence there. I thought such a plan was the least we could do. But the President did not agree, he really believed the best course of action was to hold our fire for the time being; many in the Pentagon and Langley were quite unhappy, there was talk behind closed doors of mass resignations, that General Taylor had to talk some of his best officers out of it, something I did not learn about until later.

  As I’ve said, I am a good Marine and I know my duty, and looking back, I will gladly concede that John F. Kennedy knew what he was talking about when he said the Soviets had bitten off more than they could chew. Only days after he spoke those words an advancing Soviet rifle brigade was ambushed outside the holy Muslim city of Qom by a homegrown Iranian militia twenty thousand strong made up of volunteers and surviving units of the Iranian military; they decimated the Soviet brigade so bad that only a hundred survivors escaped, the wounded left behind were shot where they lay by the Iranians, many of whom were armed with nothing more than 19th Century British long guns. We didn’t learn of this Soviet defeat until a month later.

  I will admit to being wrong, we absolutely should not have jumped into a war in the Middle East in the days after the Soviet invasion, it would have fatally tied our hands at the wrong time; others were watching these developments from Peking, the Korean Peninsula and the jungle of Southeast Asia and were making their own plans, plans which would be acted upon with stunning swiftness soon enough.

  Wade L. Harbinson

  March - May 1964

  I must admit to being quite impressed with Mr. Vance Harlow upon our first meeting, after spending no more than five minutes with him in the back room of the Carousel Club in Dallas, it was clear to me he was the kind of man who got things done. We were there in that low-rent strip joint at his insistence, telling me during our first phone conversation, when I loosely explained my proposal for him, that we needed to meet face to face in a place where the owner and the employees could be counted on to have total discretion.

  My proposal was simple, I was going to elect Barry Goldwater President and was willing to pay good money for him to get the dirt on the Kennedys and bring it to me - providing said dirt could be documented and would hold up in the court of public opinion.

  Mr. Harlow asked me how much good money I was willing to pay and I told him a figure in the low six figures. “Damn you Texans are tight,” was Harlow’s reply, “you want to buy the Presidency, not a shopping center in downtown Houston. It can’t be done for less than a half million, if you don’t
want to pony up then get on the phone to some of your Big Oil buddies, they hate Kennedy like poison.” He went on to explain how this was not an amateur operation I was asking to be done. What Harlow was willing to do was make the right phone calls to the right people who would be willing to do whatever it took to bring me the kind of information I desired. It would cost me a cool one hundred thousand just for him to make those calls, and the people picking up on the other end of the line were not angels or choirboys, not by a long shot. They would be taking big risks and possibly breaking confidences and trusts, and they would not be willing to do such unless there was the certainty of being well compensated. There was no reason to continue our discussion if I wasn’t willing to meet the price.

  In for a penny, in for a pound, without hesitation I told Harlow the money would be there, I guaranteed it, so he’d better start making those calls.

  “I like doing business with people who know what they want and were willing to open their wallets to get it.” That was Harlow’s comment as we shook hands in the back room of the Carousel Club; he stayed for the show, I did not.

  I had no knowledge of the people Harlow would be talking with, nor did I want to know, this is how business is done when one wants to find an edge. I had no doubt the little bastard Bobby Kennedy would be using whatever means necessary to document every incident of Senator Goldwater jaywalking and I had no guilt for what I was doing.

  If it put Goldwater in the White House, thus saving the United States of America, then it would be worth it all.

  Let me also add, at no time in any of my conversations with Vance Harlow did we discuss committing any criminal acts, nor did we discuss monetary compensation as an inducement for either Harlow or any third party to commit any criminal act nor a monetary reward for anyone who might commit a criminal act as a result of any conversation I might have had with one Vance Harlow.

  My Daddy might have raised a fool for a son, but it wasn’t this son.

  In the following weeks, the Goldwater campaign rolled ahead amidst a continuing national crisis as the Kennedy Administration made a hash out of the confrontation with Cuba, they’d wasted months trying to negotiate with that wretched Communist murderer who’d snuck agents across the Rio Grande to commit an act of war on American soil. Then this courageous General Almeida stood up to free his people, and Kennedy sits on his ass when the 82nd Airborne should have landed in Havana to support these brave rebels the next day.

  It was enough to make me puke.

  And it was enough to make a lot of good Americans puke as well. On the second Sunday in April, Senator Goldwater made it plain where he stood in an appearance on Meet the Press when asked by Robert Novak on how his policy in Cuba would differ from the President’s. “If I were in the White House now,” he said with conviction, “instead of the current incumbent, Juan Almeida would be in charge in Havana and Fidel Castro would be facing a Cuban firing squad; and there would be no desperate refugees washing up on the beaches in Florida because the full force of all three branches of the American military would have been standing behind General Almeida on Day One.”

  It was the kind of talk that couldn’t be matched by Ambassador Lodge and Governor Rockefeller, both of whom would not criticize the President once the fighting in Cuba began. It was a fatal move for their campaigns as Republicans began flocking to the Goldwater banner in even greater numbers. Two days after the Meet the Press appearance, the Senator flew to California and in a speech in San Diego laid into Kennedy:

  “I reject the notion that we must always be mindful of what the men in the Kremlin will think and do when conducting our American foreign policy; instead, let them always be mindful of what the men in Washington are thinking and doing when they plot their crimes. It’s not that way now with our present Administration, but it will be when I’m elected, so help me God.” The crowd went wild when Barry spoke those words.

  GOLDWATER WOULD CONFRONT SOVIETS was the headline in the New York Times as the eastern elites reacted with horror at the notion America was about to elect this bellicose blowhard President. Barry was taking off the gloves, and millions loved it, we had twice the number expected show up at district conventions in Tennessee; the same thing happened at a dozen state conventions during April and May, allowing us to amass more than half the total needed to secure the nomination on the first ballot.

  Clif White’s plan was coming together and the success brought a level of harmony to the inner circle of the campaign, the Arizona Mafia - Dean Burch and Richard Kleindienst - and the true believers like Clif White, Bill Rusher and I managed to put aside our differences and work together for a common goal. It became a well-oiled machine, although I never forgot that if we’d listened to Burch and company, Barry Goldwater would have gone down in flaming defeat. I will give them credit for hiring a former Miss Idaho to handle the press briefings; it never hurts to have pretty gal out front in any operation.

  The other thing which brought so many to our cause was Kennedy’s so-called Civil Rights Act passing the House - this really put the fear of God into our brethren below the Mason-Dixon line and they knew where Barry stood; he’d made it clear for years that he didn’t think it any of his business what the good people of Alabama and Mississippi did inside the confines of their sovereign states. The Democratic Party used to stand on the same principle, but I’m sorry to say it was now taking orders from that charlatan, Martin Luther King. During the second World War, I had the privilege of serving with some fine Negroes, brave men who didn’t turn rabbit at the sound of enemy gunfire, and this Communist witch doctor King could not so much as stand in their shadow.

  Then the Russians went into Iran and the Civil Rights Act was forgotten in the wake of another Kennedy disaster. In the days after the attack on Iran, my phone rang off the hook as millions of American, convinced that the Third World War was breaking out, donated more than a half-million dollars in an effort to make their country come out on the winning side. But the one call I didn’t get during this time was from Vance Harlow, but I wasn’t concerned, things like what I wanted done took time and had to be done right. Kennedy still led in the polls and many Americans still fell for his huckster’s charms; which is why I was willing to wait and pay for whatever it took to put him down once and for all.

  All things come to he who waits. That was another thing my Daddy used to say.

  Lt. Colonel Martin Maddox

  May - June 1964

  I was an absentee father during the month of May 1964, as I slept in the basement office most nights, only going home to take a shower and change uniforms; I spent many years making it up to Betty and the kids. The President put in some long hours too, but all he had to do was leave the West Wing and go up to the family quarters.

  There were reports on an ever changing battlefront coming in every hour from Cuba and Iran. Havana was still held by Castro loyalists two weeks after the first American troops landed on the island, reinforcements from the 1st Infantry Division were making a difference as Santiago was finally secured as we began to make a push eastward; Castro’s army was still in the fight and well-armed as those AK-47’s took their toll - 3,000 dead by the third week and 5,000 wounded. It was sobering to see those flag-draped coffins come home and the coverage of the funerals at Arlington, although the stories of coffins coming home to a small town in Kansas or a neighborhood in Queens where whole communities showed up to support a grieving family were the saddest. The President insisted on looking at the KIA list every day; it’s a testament to his skills as a Commander in Chief that the sorrow he must have felt in private never appeared in public.

  Getting any kind of good intelligence out of Iran was a problem at first, the British had better luck getting operatives into the country, and they had a lot of native sources in the Middle East to draw upon. The Teheran airport had Red Army troop transports landing every hour, while mechanized divisions opened the roads in the north for the heavy armor which would give them a big advantage in the open country
in the south. The Red Army’s occupation of the country would be complete by the third week of May, or so the Pentagon estimated. On the 6th, there was another meeting with the Joint Chiefs where they again made another push for an extended air campaign against Soviet military targets and supply lines in Iran using long-range bombers based in the Mediterranean and the western Pacific.

  While the President heard them out, he calmly declined to sign on yet again. “If we go down this route, we’ll not only be taking resources from NATO that will be badly needed if there is a sudden crisis in Europe or elsewhere, but a counterattack might be exactly what the Kremlin wants, then we’ll be involved in two major military operations at the same time, while they’re tied up in only one, which for them can be won through the simple application of overwhelming numbers. And it would leave a Goddamn million Red Army infantrymen free to make a move against NATO, which might just be their objective all along.”

  The President concluded by saying we needed to wrap up Cuba as fast as possible so our hands would be free to deal more effectively with greater challenges. To their credit, the Chiefs saluted and followed orders, even General LeMay, who frowned but said nothing. The President would be vindicated, and soon, though that outcome was far from clear during those days in early May.

  We were way beyond Op Plan 365 by this point; I cannot say we were making it up as we went along; it was more like finishing up what had already been put in motion. The flow of men and materiel into the Southern Command continued at an ever greater volume, with heavy emphasis on armor. Whatever was needed to get the job done and done soon was our mission. Two days after the May 6th meeting with the Joint Chiefs, the big push to take Havana got underway, and the preliminary estimates put it at six days minimum to secure the city. But that didn’t take into account General Abrams’s history with Patton and the lessons he learned fighting the Germans; relying heavily on tanks and personnel carriers, he was able to get the 1st Armored Division into the center of the city a little more than thirty-six hours after the attack commenced, even though they had to plow through massive barricades made up of overturned Chevys and Fords and city buses erected by bitter end defenders. The capture of the National Assembly building was a big morale booster at the White House, that along with the securing the Havana airport by the Marines.