Sincerely,
ElIwood P. Doudt
Major General
Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Army
Of the two acts, betraying a subordinate officer by screwing his wife, or making the chief of Rotary Wing Special Missions back down from the lethal efficiency report rather than make it public knowledge that Phyllis had dallied in his bed, the latter made Lowell feel more ashamed of himself. That was really conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
It made him more than a little ashamed of himself, for he was guilty as charged, and he was afraid that he hadn't seen the last of the chief of Rotary Wing Special Missions. If he was ever assigned under him (or even near him), he would get an efficiency report he couldn't protest.
His orders came a month after the letter from the Special
Assistant to the Secretary of the Army.
MAJOR CRAIG w. LOWELL 0439067 ARMOR RELVD OFC ML ATTACHE
US CONSULATE GEN ALGIERS ALGERIA TRF AND WP vIA
MIL OR COMMERCIAL AIR TRAN FT LEAVENWORTH KANS RUAT
CG US ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLLEGE NOT LATER
THAN 2400 HRS 6 JAN 1957 PURP AlTENDING USACGSC COURSE NO.
57-I. OFF WILL kEPT OFC OF MIL LIAISON. THE PENT WASH DC ENROUTE NLT 1200 HRS 29 DEC 1956. PCS. OFFICER AUTH TRANS PERSONAL
AUTO AND HOUSEHOLD GOODS. NO REPEAT NO DELAY ENROUTE LEAVE AUTHORIZED BECAUSE OF TIME UMITATIONS.
FOR THE ADJUTANT GENERAL:
STANLEY G. MILLER
COLONEL, AGC
It was more than he had dared hope for. The year-long
"Long" Course at the Command and General Staff College. If he ever was to get promoted before being "passed over" twice by a promotion board and thrown out of the army, or if he was ever to be given any kind of command or even a responsible job on a staff, he had to have C&GSC. Now that he had been given C&GSC, he realized that he had refused to think about his chances of a meaningful career. He had been living day to day.
He wondered why C&GSC had come through now. He suspected that it had something to do with his protesting the efficiency report. Maybe they had asked questions about him, unofficially, a telephone call here and there. He decided that that was probably it, and that he had been lucky, that the telephone calls had been directed to people, Paul Jiggs, for example, who would go to bat for him.
He had no idea what the OFC OF MIL LIAISON he was supposed to report to was. He had never heard of it.
Colonel Lemes asked what he intended to do with the Jaguar.
Impulsively, Lowell offered to sell it to him and quoted a price las later found out was far below the market value. Colonel
Lemes snapped it up. Lowell later wondered whether the Colonel was just taking advantage of a bargain or whether he considered it a favor, tit for tat, a Jaguar at a bargain basement price in return for a salvaged career.
(No)
Washington, D.C.
29 Dec 19S6
Lowell flew home via Paris on his first transcontinental jet.
He spent the night at Broadlawns in Glen Cove and took the first flight he could catch to Washington the next morning. Just to stick the needle in, he telephoned. his cousin Porter Craig and told him that he was going to decide, after discussing his future assignment in Washington, whether or not to stay in the amy. Then he thought about that, and afraid that Porter would make another telephone call to the senator, called him back and took him off the hook.
The Office of MIL LIAISON turned out to be a small, threeroom suite in the next-to-the-inner of the five rings of Pentagon offices. They were waiting for him and had a shiny staff car ready to take him back across the Potomac into Washington.
The car went into the basement garage of a huge, monolithic building, where a squeaky clean young man in civilian clothes ritually offered his hand, identified himself as Captain Somebody, and took him in an elevator into a conference room on the fifth floor for what he said would be a "routine debriefing."
The squeaky clean young captain had a looseleaf notebook stuffed with paper. When they were joined by a secretary using a court reporter's stenotype machine, he opened the notebook and began to ask questions. Lowell was astonished at the amount of information the questions represented. They knew not only the names of most of the French officers with whom he had had contact, but a good deal about them as well.
Once the questions had been asked and answered, the lights were dimmed and a slide projector introduced. The slides had been made from the miles of film Sergeant Bill Franklin had made of French Army (in particular, the Foreign Legion's and
HQ DEPT OF THE ARMY 16 DEC 1956
MILITARY ATrACHE
US CONSULATE GENERAL
ALGIERS, ALGERIA the parachutists') actions against the Algerian insurgents. Each slide represented a question the film had left unanswered.
During the slide show, someone else came into the room, sat against the door, and watched without speaking. When the lights were finally turned back on, Lowell turned and saw the newcomer was Sandy Felter. He was in civilian clothing.
"Are you through with him, Captain?" Felter asked.
"Yes, sir," the captain said. There was something in the calflain's demeanor, something in his tone of voice, that told
Lowell he was paying Sandy Felter far more than the ritual courtesy paid by a captain to a major.
"Then I guess I'll take him home with me and feed him,"
Sandy said, walking over and putting out his hand.
"I didn't know you knew the major, sir," the captain said.
"Oh, yes," Felter said. "Major Lowell and I are old friends."
In Sandy's Volkswagen, on the way to the far reaches of
Alexandria, Sandy said: "My neighbors don't know I'm in the army. In case it comes up."
"Super Spook, huh?"
"Nothing like that," Sandy said. And then changed the subject to ask about P.P.
Sharon laid out a full dinner; that meant she had known he was coming. That meant that Sandy had known he was coming.
What the hell was he doing?
"Where did you get my film?" he asked. "I sent it to Bill
Roberts."
"We asked Roberts for it and copied it," Sandy replied. That asked more questions than it answered.
There were two kids now, and Sharon was as big as a house with her third. She told him, after hearing about Elizabeth, that he had done the right thing to leave P.P. in Germany with her.
He spent the night on the Felter's couch, which unfolded into a bed. In the morning, Sandy drove him by his hotel where he changed into a fresh uniform and then over to the huge building again. Sandy parked the Volkswagen in a reserved spot near the elevator.
That meant he was important around here, Lowell realized, and then laughed at himself. He was becoming a spook himself,
noticing details and reaching conclusions.
He wasn't in the building long. Overnight, what the stenotypist had taken down had been transcribed. He was asked to go over it, and make sure that the transcription and his answers were correct. Afterward, Felter appeared again and apologized for not being able to take him to the airport. He told him that when he got his feet on the ground at Leavenworth, he should plan to come to Washington and spend some time with them.
And then, almost idly, Felter asked if Lowell had had any thoughts about his replacement in Algiers.
Lowell was surprised at the question. What was Felter doing involved in officer assignments?
"I thought they had a school for attache types," Lowell said.
"I don't want an attache type," Felter said. "I want someone like you over there, who won't regard the assignment as a twoyear cocktail party tour. I want somebody who'll really report on how the French are fighting that war. I suspect we're going to have one of our own to worry about pretty soon."
"You've answered your own question, Mouse," Lowell said.
"You need a chopper jockey who's not afraid to get shot at.
One who speaks French. Most important, one that nobody else wants."
Felter smiled at him.
"What business is that of yours, anyway?" Lowell asked.
"What business do you have, asking me what business I have?" Felter responded with a smile.
"Screw you, Mouse," Lowell said, affectionately. Then he hugged Felter and got into a plain (but obviously government owned)
Chevrolet and was driven to Washington National Airport.
Sandy Felter returned to his office.
The reason Lowell had done so well with the French was that he was a gutsy combat type who spoke French fluently.
Felter knew another gutsy combat type who also flew choppers and spoke French. Who was an honorary member of the 3rd
Rigiment Parachutiste de Legion Etranger.
He didn't know if the soldier could get a Top Secret clearance, and he was only a warrant officer, which wouldn't do.
But a commission would be easy enough to arrange.
He called the office of Military Liaison in the Pentagon and told them he wanted the service record of WOJG Edward C.
Greer on his desk within the hour.
(Three)
Kansas City, Missouri
15 January 1957
The sales manager of Twin-City Aviation, serving Kansas
City, Missouri, and its twin across the river, Kansas City,
Kansas, was three-quarters convinced that he was wasting his time with his present "up," a walk-in customer who was making inquiries about either renting or buying an airplane.
He had walked in the door at half past eight in the morning, half an hour before Twin-City Aviation officially opened. He was, well, a little flashily dressed (there were not many people who had the balls to wear a silk foulard in an open-collared dress shirt around KC) and had announced that since he would be in the area for the next ten months or so, he had been thinking about either renting or buying an airplane to "get around."
The sales manager told him that he had certainly come to the right place, and just what sort of airplane did he have in mind?
The guy with the foulard and the tweed jacket with leather patches on the sleeves said he wasn't sure, that the whole idea had just occurred to him.
"You are a pilot, of course?"
"Yes," he said.
The sales manager looked out the window to see what kind of a car he was driving. A four-door Chevy. A new one. Did that mean anything?
It meant that he was a possible customer for a Cessna 172, a very nice little single-engine four-seater, with a complete set of Narco navigation equipment. Cruised out at 120 knots, burned about six gallons an hour.
"Be happy to take you up for a little spin," the sales manager said. "Now, I'm not trying to talk you into anything you don't want to do, but if you're going to be flying regular, renting is going to eat you up. We have to charge, you understand, for time you'd be sitting on the ground somewhere, in addition to the flight hours, which on a long term, regular basis, would run you $17.50 an hour.
"I've never flown a 172," the man said.
"Easiest airplane in the world to fly," the sales manager said. "You make a mistake, it gives you ten minutes to think it over."
"All right, let's try it," the man said.
They flew for fifteen minutes up the river to Leavenworth, and that was when the sales manager learned that the guy was in the army, at the school the army ran at Leavenworth for people they thought might be full colonels and generals.
"There's a fleet of H-13s and L-19s there," the guy said,
"for proficiency flying. But I'm the junior aviator, which means
I would have to get my proficiency time in from three to six on Sunday mornings."
"Oh, you're in the army, are you?"
"I'm a major. One of two in my class. Everybody else is a light bird"
Well, there goes the sale of this sonofabitch, the sales manager decided. There was no way a soldier could come up with the down payment on a 172, much less the payments, and no way he could afford the insurance and the maintenance. Not on army pay.
Well, what the hell, he'd probably spring for maybe ten hours of rental before he decided he'd better do his flying free, even if that meantŽwhat was it he had saidŽ"from three to six on Sunday mornings."
"Had about enough?" the sales manager asked, already making a 180 degree turn back toward KC.
"Yeah, this isn't going to do it."
"Look," the sales manager said. "There's a couple of Pipers around I could let you have, if you agreed to take, say, fifty hours over six montlJs, for about $12.50 an hour. Nice little airplanes."
"That wouldn't do it either, I'm afraid," the major said.
They got back on the ground and parked the Cessna 172.
The stailed walking back to the office.
"What's that?" the man said, turning to peer in the plexiglass window of an aircraft.
"That's an Aero Commander," the sales manager said. "Just got it in."
"Beautiful," Major Craig W. Lowell said. He had never seen one before. It was a sleek-looking, high-winged, twin- engined aircraft that looked, and probably was, fast. The one he was looking at was painted a high gloss white, with red trim.
"Gorgeous," the sales manager said. "That's a classy airptane."
"You say it's yours?"
"Until I can sell it, it belongs to me and the First National
Bank of KC," the sales manager said.
"How about taking me up in this?" Lowell asked.
Jesus, the nerve of some people!
"If I had it as a rental ship, out for rent, which I don't, I'd have to charge a hundred an hour. You're looking at a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of airplane, Major."
The major reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded wad of bills, and peeled off a hundred dollar bill.
"If you don't have anything else to do," he said. "I'd really like to take a ride in that."
What the hell, the sales manager thought. Why not? That way the morning won't be a complete loss.
"I'll get the key," he said, and pocketed the hundred dollar bill.
"It feels as if you're dragging your ass on the ground, doesn't it?" the major said, when they were taking off.
He didn't ask to fly the airplane, and the sales manager didn't offer to let him fly until the hour (well, forty-five minutes, who was looking at a clock?) was just about over.
He let the major land the airplane. He had a little trouble getting it on the ground. The Aero Commander's fuselage was eighteen inches off the ground, and that took some getting used to. For the first couple of landings, it was like you were going to fly right through the runway.
When they had it back in line and the engines were shut down, the sales manager could see the major was really reluctant to get out. He turned around in the copilot's seat and looked at the passenger compartment, with its elegant paneling, and ran his hand almost lovingly over the closest of the four glove- leather upholstered seats.
"This is a very fine airplane," he said.
"It sure is," the sales manager said.
"And frankly, I like the panel," the major said, turning to point at the instrument panel, which had a full array of the latest Aircraft Radio Corporation communication and navigation equipment.
That's very gracious of you, Mac, the sales manager thought, as he heaved himself out of the pilot's seat and then walked down the aisle to the door.
The major stayed another two minutes, which seemed a lot longer, before he got out of the copilot's seat and reluctantly got out of the airplane.
"What did you say it's worth?"
"It lists out, with all the equipment, at $129,480," the sales manager said.
"But you would take $125,000 cash, right?" the major asked, jokingly.
"Right," the sales manager replied, with a smile.
"How about $120,000, even?" the major said.
"As a special favor to you, I'd take $120,000 cash,"
the sales manager said. He was feeling pretty good. The bottom line was that he'd gotten nearly an hour in the Commander, which was a jewel to fly, and this guy had paid for it.
W E B Griffin - BoW 03 - The Majors Page 25