by James Philip
Await further COMMAND DECISION.
In the meantime make preparations to implement either ALPHA or BETA operational directives.
OP ORDER ALPHA: patrol the Eastern Bering Sea and program the birds to over fly the Sea of Okhotsk to strike targets on Sakhalin Island and across Eastern Siberia.
OP ORDER BETA: transit Bering Strait at best speed, proceed under the Arctic ice cap to the Norwegian Sea to a position north of the Shetland Islands to strike targets in the British Isles...
Chapter 44
Monday 9th December 1963
Main State Building, 2201 C Street, Washington DC
Gretchen Betancourt did not like to be kept waiting. Not even by the United States Under Secretary of State George Ball. She had arrived in good time for her appointment, just early enough to have leisure to briefly study the outward architectural characteristics of the imposing Main State Building that she had so assiduously read up about that morning in a public library close to her Cathedral Avenue apartment. That morning there had been two kinds of people on the streets; those rushing around like the World was about to end, and those people who just wanted to get inside as fast as possible. A lot of people seemed to have left the city because getting a taxi that day had presented none of the usual problems.
The Washington Post had graphic descriptions of the bomb damage on Malta, pictures of the ships which had been sunk or damaged – in their former glory rather than their present bombed condition – and the editor of the Post had penned a long, rather more than moderately excoriating article speculating that the Spanish dictator, Franco, must have had a brainstorm picking a fight with the British over Gibraltar. It came as something of a surprise to Gretchen that the British Empire, in the form of small colonies and dependencies sprinkled around the world still actually existed. Gibraltar a little piece of England in the Mediterranean, and ‘gallant Malta’ were still firmly attached to the mother country by some invisible post-imperial uncut natal umbilical cord. There were also British outposts on Cyprus, all over the Middle East and in the South Atlantic. All of which was incidental to the ludicrously unlikely – positively slanderous and unpatriotic, un-American - claim in the Post, in other newspapers, on the radio, and less explicitly enunciated on television news broadcasts, that the Malta ‘atrocity’ had actually been perpetrated by US-supplied fighter-bombers, and US Air Force strategic bombers...
It was dreadful! You really could not trust anything you read in the papers or heard on the news! The printed media and the people who ran the networks were all closet Reds!
Except, if it was all lies, surely the Administration would have quashed them by now?
And where was the President?
Gretchen had dressed soberly for the meeting with the Under Secretary, and half considered wearing glasses – she kept a pair with plain lenses just in case – to make her seem older and a little dowdier. She had decided against it after a short mental tussle with her vanity. George Ball was not, from what she had learned, a man who was going to have his head turned by a flighty young thing. She could not help being pretty; ensuring that the Under Secretary took her seriously was the main thing.
The State Department Building was actually the old War Department Building completed in 1941. It only became the State Department Building after the military realised it was not big enough, and was inherited by ‘State’ in the late 1940s. This original structure, since supplemented between 1956 and 1960 by the ‘State Department Extension’ – civil servants had no imagination when they thought up names for things – was still officially called the ‘War Department Building’. It was all very confusing for a woman who was desperate to seem appropriately clewed up for her first meeting with her prospective new boss!
The original building had been designed in the Stripped Classical style, and incorporated a number of Art Moderne elements. In other words, the architect wanted it to look like it was inspired by something he had studied in France or Italy as a young man. Gretchen knew she was not without her faults but she had little time or patience for intellectual or cultural snobbery. Limestone-clad and steel-framed, the original State Department was eight stories high, with two underground levels and to facilitate future expansion – the military had got something right – designed with an asymmetrical footprint. Within the wings of the building there were courtyards and open spaces, and she conceded that the recently completed extension blended relatively harmoniously with the original design. Other than the Pentagon the complex was the biggest office block in DC.
The Executive Offices were on the fifth floor on the eastern side of the old building, and as befitted rooms presented to impress foreign visitors, emissaries and ambassadors, everything was very grand.
First, Gretchen’s appointment, scheduled for four-thirty was put back until six o’clock.
Then until seven.
Finally, she was told that the Under Secretary would be ‘back in the building after eight’.
This last advice turned out to be unduly pessimistic.
George Ball actually swept into his office suite at eight minutes to eight o’clock that evening.
Chapter 45
Monday 9th December 1963
Gretsky’s, Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles
Judy’s unborn son – or daughter, she did not think she was carrying twins even though she could not believe how huge she was every time she looked at herself in the mirror – started kicking as Sabrina was tuning the old valve radio in the cluttered living room of the big house. The President was delivering a ‘State of the Nation’ address at eight o’clock Washington DC time; six o’clock in California. Outside it was already dark.
Sam had gone off in Sabrina’s pickup about an hour ago. He was opening at the Troubadour later that evening before moving on to a late night club in Santa Monica. He had almost not gone but Judy had sworn she was fine and that she would know when she was ‘really close’. That was a lie but he would only have worried if she had started unloading her fears onto him. Besides, Sabrina was watching over her like the Glinda the Good Witch of the South transplanted directly out of the pages of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
What could possibly go wrong?
There was a rush of static.
Hail to the Chief swooped and plunged, attenuating from a mutter to a bellow before settling to a wobbling level. Judy smiled, thinking of the old sound box and amplifier Sam often fiddled with in the yard to amuse the neighbourhood kids. He had brought home an ancient Gibson electric guitar that looked like a truck had driven over it, tuned it up and plugged it into the box and started making noises just like Sabrina’s ancient radio while it was warming up.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the announcer in stentorian tones, “the President of the United States of America!”
Sabrina bounced up and saluted.
“Fascist!” She spat.
Judy shook her head.
She was no great fan of John Fitzgerald Kennedy but she found Sabrina’s visceral contempt for the President a little excessive. It was not as if the poor man had blown up the World because he wanted to. Leastways, she hoped he had not done it just for the Hell of it.
At that moment there was a very loud hammering at the front of Gretsky’s.
“Go away!” Sabrina yelled. Hammering on her front door was not the way to win either her friendship and or her approbation. “Whatever you’ve got we don’t want any of it!”
After a moment the hammering re-started.
This time the noise was so loud it sounded like whoever was on the porch actually had a hammer.
A very big hammer.
The unmistakable sound of wood splintering was accompanied by a distant shriek of alarm, followed by a woman’s scream froze the words forming on Sabrina’s pale lips.
Momentarily there were heavy, stamping, tramping feet in the house.
“Everybody stay where you are!”
“Keep your hands where we can see them!”
“Nobody mov
e!”
“Everybody get on the floor!”
Judy’s brain was operating in slow motion while events around her ran crazily out of control.
How do I ‘stay still’, and ‘get on the floor’, and not ‘move’?
Some of the men who had stormed into the room were wearing Los Angeles Police Department uniforms; all of the unwelcome visitors were brandishing hand guns or pump action shot guns.
How frightening could two women trying to listen to the radio be?
Especially when one of them was heavily pregnant?
“STAND UP!”
“Leave her alone, you bastards!” Sabrina screeched and flew towards the men who had roughly hauled Judy to her feet. Judy’s friend ran into one patrolman, and bounced half-way back across the room into the arms of a fat, sweating man in an incredibly badly fitting crumpled blue suit at least two sizes too small for his middle aged spread. Judy watched uncomprehendingly as the gorilla wrenched Sabrina to her feet by her hair and casually swiped her across the face with the back of his free hand.
It was as the cops cuffed Judy’s hands behind her back that her waters burst...
Chapter 46
Monday 9th December 1963
Newsweek Magazine Bureau, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC
Nobody had gone home. One or two of the men were nursing bottles of lukewarm beer, there were coffee cups everywhere and the atmosphere was heavy with cigarette smoke. Ben Bradlee, Newsweek’s Washington Bureau Chief forced himself to stand still – the urge to pace like an expectant father was almost overwhelming – and listen to the President of the United States of America. The television set had been wheeled into the main office but for some reason the picture was jumpy and the speakers crackled now and then with sudden static. Radio shows had also been afflicted with the same erratic interference during the afternoon, and several of the Bureau Chief’s associates had complained about it. In the back of his mind the bursts of static reminded Ben Bradlee of an effect he had observed, now and then, during his time in the Navy.
That had been down to interference generated by the rotating dishes of adjacent radars on other ships in the fleet...
Bradlee had been a communications officer on the USS Philip (DD-498), a Fletcher class destroyer. He had fought in most of the island hopping campaigns of the Pacific War, starting at the tail end of the Guadalcanal battles. Under certain atmospheric conditions he recollected that the ship’s own radars could cut across the TBS – talk between ships – channels and cause random character loss in given messages, albeit only isolated digits or letters which were easily identified. The effect was always most pronounced when the USS Philip was manuevering close to a big ship, a cruiser, a battlewagon or a carrier.
In the last few days Bradlee had been thinking about the 1945 war a lot; the October War had come and gone overnight and most Americans had heard about it later, but if the present crisis went bad every American would know about it in a hurry and it would not be over in a day, days or probably in weeks or months. Perhaps, that was why he was thinking about the Second World War because he was struggling to reference a more relevant historical analogy? Or maybe it was just that as an old Navy communications man the interference to TV and radio signals bugged him more than it ought to?
The President was doing his best but he was tired, and Bradlee suspected, sick at heart, constantly reliving the nightmare of thirteen months ago as he looked into the abyss once again.
“In asking Chief Justice Warren to Chair this Commission into the Cuban Missiles War I do so in full confidence that he will unravel the conspiracy that plunged this great country into the darkest hours in its history...”
There were scoffs of disbelief around the Newsweek Bureau Chief.
“Wait for the catch!” Two male voices said, almost in chorus.
“However,” Jack Kennedy went on solemnly, “in the context of the affairs of man there is truth in the recognition that words are only words, and that our fears and hopes can only be addressed by actions. I am content to leave the judgement on my part in the momentous events of the last thirteen months to Chief Justice Warren,” a momentary hesitation in which he looked the American people in the eye, “and to the battalions of historians that will surely study our age with limitless intellectual energy and forensic analysis for as long as human beings continue to walk this Earth. To me, as your President in a time of renewed international crisis, the sacred duty falls upon me to ensure the survival of the American people and of our way of life. Even as I speak Secretary of State Dean Rusk is speeding a proposal to our British ‘friends’ that we hold a face to face, leader to leader summit at which our current problems can be discussed and resolved. In so doing we disregard the fact that the United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration unilaterally broke off diplomatic relations three days ago; and that thus far our diplomats have not been granted safe passage to return to the United States. Moreover, as a token of our peaceful intentions towards the United Kingdom, our staunchest allies in the Cuban Missiles War of October last year, I have ordered the US Navy to immediately comply with all the provisions of the unlawful Total Exclusion Zone declared by the UKIEA which comes into effect in less than three days time.”
Ben Bradlee wondered if Ted Sorenson, the man who had written the scripts which Jack Kennedy had read throughout his inexorable journey to the White House, had had a hand in this speech. Sorenson, like McGeorge ‘Mac’ Bundy had been struck down by the killer influenza – the ‘Washington plague’ – which had carried off so many of the old, young and infirm last winter and spring but a few weeks ago Bradlee had heard he was back in DC. Tonight’s State of the Union Address had one or two of the rhetorical flourishes of a Ted Sorenson peroration but seemed to lack focus. That could be because JFK was not sticking to the original script but that was unlikely. A Sorenson speech built and built, pointed to where it was going yet in delivering its final denouement still retained the capacity to surprise, and to occasionally astonish and awe the listener. This speech lacked the living, breathing sense of inevitable purpose of Sorenson’s best work.
“Further to this concession I wish to restate the United States’ unchanged view of the legitimacy of the governments of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Sicily, and of Corsica and Sardinia. It is the view of my Administration that the declarations of independence by the latter island nations, of Corsica and Sardinia, by separate self-appointed military juntas are illegal under international law. Sardinia is rightly an integral part of the polity of Italy; Corsica likewise, is a part of France, notwithstanding the somewhat chaotic governance of that troubled land at this time. The United States of America recognises but does not in any way support or endorse the right-wing, authoritarian regime of the Tuscan League whose writ runs the length of the Italian Peninsula, and to a lesser extent, throughout Sicily. I reiterate that the US Government regards the dictatorships of General Franco in Spain, and of António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal as affronts to the democratic principles enshrined by our founding fathers in our constitution. I have issued an executive order to all arms of the United States Government that all existing bilateral and multi-lateral defence and economic agreements and undertakings with and to Spain, Portugal and Italy are, as of ten o’clock Eastern Standard Time, suspended for a period of twenty-eight days.”
No, that was not Ted Sorenson’s work!
Sorenson would have logically, persuasively laid the foundation for wherever the President was headed.
“You will have read disturbing reports about United States Air Force participation in attacks against British interests and warships in the Central and Western Mediterranean Sea...”
Ben Bradlee was not alone in sighing with muted despair.
Ted Sorenson would never have let JFK go down this road.
This was going to be positively artless...
“I will say this once, and once only,” John Fitzgerald Kennedy asserted, his voice quivering with dangerous emotion. “Not one of
these actions was ordered by, or sanctioned by my Administration and anybody who is found to have knowingly participated in, either by deed or commission, in inducing American servicemen to take part in, and in many cases, die, in the course of those actions will be pursued by my Administration and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
“This is like he’s missed out a page of the speech!” Somebody complained from behind Ben Bradlee’s shoulder.
“What’s he fucking talking about?” Asked another man disgustedly.
The Bureau Chief opened his mouth to defend his friend, the President of the United States of America. However, there were no words.
“As I speak I am aware that there may be American servicemen in the hands of the British authorities. I solemnly vow to the American people that I will not attend a peace summit while our boys are held captive overseas...”
There were gasps of disbelief in the room.
“LeMay’s bombers killed thousands of civilians on Malta and he hasn’t even had the guts to apologise!”
Ben Bradlee hardly dared think what the British were going to make of it. First American aircraft launch unprovoked ‘sneak’ attacks, and then the President of the United States starts making demands as if it was the Brits’ fault!
“I know this will not be an insurmountable problem because in my heart I choose to believe that the vital national interests of both the United States and the old country remain indivisible, one and the same thing and that when good friends differ, the spirit of friendship and reconciliation can conquer all things!”
“Yeah! When I was a kid I used to believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy!” One young man added contemptuously.
Chapter 47
Monday 9th December 1963
The Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles