Memorial Bridge

by James Carroll

"Under by two hundred thousand?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And what happened as a result?"

  "General Westmoreland's intelligence chief was replaced."

  "But not you?"

  "I serve at the pleasure, jointly, of the secretary and the Joint Chiefs, General."

  Bradley nodded. "You're harder to replace."

  "General Bradley, I must say that if I was certain General Westmoreland was wrong, I would have resigned. You of all people, sir, understand the importance attached to the views of the commander of armies in the field. Those views are properly regarded as having near absolute authority, and as it happened, sir, the hard numbers that might have alerted us to the reality continually eluded us—all of us. We had intuitions and fears. Some of us went outside channels to try to get reliable figures. But we couldn't. Numbers were ambiguous because the very definition of the enemy in this war is ambiguous. Do we count children as members of the VC battle order when they throw grenades at our soldiers? Do we count old women who plant punji sticks? We decided to restrict our count to uniformed soldiers subject to military command. Even at that, we suspected the enemy was being undercounted, but we finally decided the prudent thing to do was to go with what we could verify."

  "What you could verify?" It was Randall Crocker's voice, angry and shrill, cutting through the tense air like electricity. Dillon slowly turned toward him. "Wasn't it instead that you went with what your seniors wanted to hear?"

  "As it happened, yes, sir. We went with estimates that confirmed the commanders in decisions they had already taken."

  "Like Khe Sanh. You told Westmoreland what he wanted to hear."

  Dillon did not answer at first, because in his mind at that moment he could not reconstruct it. Was this true? Had he become just another sycophant? In the chain of sycophants that went right up to Johnson? He said at last, because he had thought it was the fact and now hoped it was, "Our estimates, at every point, were as honest as we could make them."

  "And now you know that they were wrong."

  "We do indeed, sir. But if I might add, speaking personally, I reject any suggestion that our numbers were arrived at with a view toward pleasing those up the chain of command. My concern always, sir"—Dillon's voice shot up in pitch and volume—"was with those down the chain, with soldiers in the field. I was supplying them with numbers, and to have done so falsely would have amounted to murder, the murder of our own—"

  "General, General," Acheson soothed, "no one's talking about murder here."

  Dillon fell silent, embarrassed at his own display. He waited.

  "General?" Randall Crocker leaned back in his chair wearily. Dillon looked at him again. How tired Crocker seemed, how shrunken, how much older, even, than when they'd been together in New York. "We have been told that, despite the reaction of the Walter Cronkites and the Eugene McCarthys, Tet was a grievous defeat for the Communist side, not ours." Crocker's eyes floated around the ceiling, measuring its rosette of molded plaster. Perhaps he intended to be taken for a cagey cross-examiner, but his manner seemed wildly inappropriate.

  "Yes, sir," Dillon said carefully. "I am familiar with the CIA analysis."

  "That's right. CIA. Senior CIA people tell us we actually beat them at Tet. Except in Hué, the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese, despite initial successes, were thrown back rather quickly pretty much everywhere. Your own numbers agree with CIA—that half of the ninety thousand attacking Communists were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. That does sound like a defeat, doesn't it?"

  "Yes, sir. And more importantly, the Communists were expecting a popular uprising in the South. They thought the mass of peasants and refugees would join them in their moment of victory, but the population did no such thing."

  "So you agree, the Communists failed at Tet."

  "They did not accomplish what they hoped for."

  "General Westmoreland says now that the enemy is vulnerable. He wants two hundred thousand more troops, and full Reserve call-ups. He says now he can win. What do you say?"

  "That question is out of my purview, sir."

  "Out of your purview, General?" Crocker's face flashed with sarcasm. Dillon had once watched him use sarcasm to humiliate martinet bomber generals. "I thought you were the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Is it out of your purview to tell this panel whether you think we can win this war or not?"

  "I have my opinion on the strategic question, sir. But that's all it is."

  "State it," Crocker said, a direct order meanly given. His fellow panel members looked at him uneasily.

  "If Tet was a failure for the Communists," Dillon answered carefully, "it still exposed our failure, and that is what the Cronkites see so clearly. Tet demonstrates that our entire effort of interdiction of troops and supplies is a failure. The bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, including the defoliation of the jungle canopy, the napalming of suspected staging areas, the obliteration of obscure targets along three hundred miles of remote mountainous terrain—that bombing, which has been under way for three years this month, is useless. And if it is useless, it is inhumane and should be halted. Tet means the United States cannot stop the movement of armies from North to South. North Vietnam still has at home a population of more than a million young men of combat age. Tet means the United States can do nothing to stop them from coming South. Tet means the United States cannot prevent North Vietnam from dominating South Vietnam. Therefore, the alternatives facing us now should not include a stepped-up continuation of what we are already doing in the South—Westmoreland's proposal. The alternatives are clear: either an immediate and complete American withdrawal, defeat; or a massive, full offensive against North Vietnam itself."

  One of the panel members slammed back in his chair, muttering audibly, "Oh, Christ."

  But Crocker was the one who bore into Dillon. "A massive offensive? Including atomic weapons?"

  "Not at first. A massive but conventional air war against every major industrial, communications, transport and supply target in the North. The immediate mining of Haiphong Harbor. A total blockade of the entire country. Shut it off. In that case it would be sufficient to hold nuclear weapons in reserve."

  Randall Crocker slammed his hand down on the table, startling those around him. "Sean! Listen to yourself! That's Russia! That's China! That's World War Three you're proposing! What have you become?"

  Crocker's red eyes snapped, and the blood color spilled into his face, swelling it alarmingly.

  Dillon stifled the instinctive concern he felt for his old friend, and he said firmly, "I have become what you first asked me to be, an American military officer. As such, my role is to help win the wars that others in our government decide to fight. I am convinced we can bring Hanoi to negotiation quickly, simply by indicating our resolve at this crucial point. Resolve is the issue. You asked me if we can still win in Vietnam, and I answer yes and indicate how. You have not asked me should we win, or whether the political risks of an expanded conflict are worth taking. That question does not belong to me." Dillon glanced along the table. The dozen distinguished men seemed confused suddenly, and also frightened. "In fact, gentiemen, given the commission you have from the President, I'd say the question belongs to you. I am a man in uniform. I have a narrow view."

  "It's a narrow view that has ruined us in Vietnam!" The man next to Crocker put his hand on Crocker's arm, but Crocker shook him off. "Now you want atomic weapons! Have you no morality, sir?"

  Sean Dillon was not capable of being provoked by Randall Crocker in that obvious state of distress. Such a question from anyone else would have generated a fierce reaction, but toward Crocker at that moment what he felt was, well, grief.

  Have you no morality? He heard the echo of Joseph Welch's famous question to Senator McCarthy: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?"

  Dillon recalled that he had watched the fateful encounter between the army counsel and the Red-baiting senator on the television in
Crocker's office in the Pentagon. Together they had cheered Welch, then Crocker had called him.

  Morality. The word echoed inside Dillon. In his view it had become a cheap word, banalized by the critics of the war, and by simpletons like his own sad son. Morality ad bello, he thought, remembering his Aquinas. Morality in.

  He said quietly, "The immorality I am most aware of right now, Mr. Crocker, is the wasting of lives, American and Vietnamese both, for no purpose. A halfway war that has no chance of success is what is immoral. The VC and NVA offensives at Tet demonstrated that what has been immoral for three years is our refusal to engage Vietnam fully. To keep faith with the twenty thousand Americans who have died there, we should engage Vietnam fully now."

  Crocker lurched out of his chair, knocking his walker over noisily. The gold chain of his watch fob, clutched in his fist, whipped in the air. "You want more dead? What about Richard? Think about your son!"

  "My job," Dillon replied, "is to think about everyone's son."

  "You have no—!"

  The slam of the gavel cut Crocker off.

  He blinked down the row of his oldest friends, toward Acheson. The expression on Crocker's face was of a man rudely awakened. The panel members stared back at him with a full range of worry on their faces. Finally they seemed to have noticed that something was wrong with Crocker. Very wrong.

  Dean Acheson declared the session adjourned without a word of acknowledgment to Dillon, who gathered his papers and, with a baleful final glance toward Crocker, quickly left.

  At Dillon's office in the Pentagon, Michael Packard was waiting.

  "Good Lord, General, Randall Crocker—"

  Dillon shook his head, brushing past his assistant. "It was awful. You wouldn't believe how he behaved—"

  "No, I mean, they just called from the EOB. Mr. Crocker has had a stroke, a serious stroke. They've rushed him to the hospital."

  Martin Luther King was assassinated little more than a month later, on Holy Thursday. By the middle of Good Friday afternoon, rampages of arson, looting and street warfare had broken out in more than a hundred American cities, and the worst violence of all struck Washington. More than seven hundred fires were set there, and even by Sunday afternoon, Easter, the sky above the nation's capital was still marked by numerous faint ocher columns. The fires had been concentrated along Fourteenth Street Northwest, the quarter just above the White House, but black neighborhoods in Southeast, near Boiling, had been hit too. The air everywhere was sour and from most vantages in the city there was a view, at least, of smoke.

  Sean and Cass, after Mass, had gone to the Officers' Club for brunch. The club steward had laid on a festive spread, but thoughtlessly, for he had set up the lavish buffet outside on the terrace, which was famous for its commanding view of the Potomac and, in the distance, of the capital skyline. The officers and their wives moved through the buffet line and took their tables quietly, uncheered by the idea of Easter or by the glorious spring weather, for just beyond the railing the view of Washington was of its shroud. The monument was in a fog of smoke. More than one of the officers felt as though he were stationed back at Tan Son Nhut or Bien Hoa. They were in an enclave of privilege and safety while, outside fences along which airmen in combat gear had been posted, a city was staggering under the effects of war. An American city! Washington!

  Moving among the tables, pouring water and serving butter and rolls, were stoical black waiters. Cass, for one, felt like grabbing the sleeve of every colored person she saw and apologizing. She ate her omelet and potatoes listlessly, as little inclined to talk as Sean.

  It was he who said finally, "After Washington, they say Chicago has been the worst."

  Cass nodded. "I read that. There were fires 'back of the yards.' Strange they still call Canaryville that, since the yards are gone. Do you ever think of the yards?"

  Sean shook his head, but he gazed toward the city as he did. Was he thinking of the yards now? Because of the smoke, the stench in the air? It was the single great triumph of his life that he'd left the slaughterhouses behind, but the feeling now was, Had he? He stared across the distance, trying to ignore the knot of pure fear twisting in his stomach. Fifteen thousand troops had been deployed in Washington. Machine-gun nests had been set up on the top steps of the Capitol and at the Supreme Court and inside the gates of the White House.

  Cass said, "I also read what Mayor Daley said, about shooting looters. Shoot to kill, he said." She shivered with disgust.

  Sean brought his face sharply back to his wife. "Actually, the order was shoot to kill arsonists, Cass. Not looters. A responsible order, in my view. These fires are killing people. An eleven-month-old burned to death in his crib in Chicago. I'd have shot that arsonist myself, if I'd had the chance."

  Cass put her fork down, touched her napkin quickly to her mouth. "Oh, Sean, you're so..."

  "So what? What?"

  She only shook her head.

  "Cass, do you understand how close to chaos we are in this country?" Sean bunched his own napkin and threw it on the plate in front of him. "Look, look at that. That's Washington! That's our Washington! And our Chicago is just as bad!"

  "Is the answer to all that just shooting them? Is that really what you think?"

  "Shooting arsonists, Cass. Arsonists!"

  "Negroes is what Mayor Daley means, whatever you say he says. Shooting Negroes is what he means. My only thought is that we've shot enough of them now."

  "Oh, Christ, Cass."

  "No, really." Cass looked quickly around, shocked to realize they were arguing in public. They had not actually raised their voices, but crushed napkins sat on both their plates, and beside those plates their fists were clenched. Cass noted with relief that the subdued diners around them seemed intent on their meals, as uninterested either in speaking or listening as Sean and Cass themselves had been only moments before.

  Sean leaned back abruptly to break their mood. He took out his cigarettes and lit up. Cass joined him in a rare smoke of her own.

  He said quietly, wanting to disarm her, "I admit to being afraid for our country."

  "I was just thinking of you." She leaned across to him, to touch his hand. "I think you are making things worse on yourself than they need be."

  "What are you talking about?" He was sure that she was going to say Richard.

  She said, "Mr. Crocker, I'm talking about Mr. Crocker."

  He looked away.

  "I want you to come with me, Sean. You should come with me."

  Dillon inhaled his cigarette, then raised a finger at a waiter for the check.

  "Sean, it's been more than a month. His condition is worsening. He would recognize you, Sean. He recognizes me, I'm sure of it. It would mean—"

  "Cass, please, Cass. Take my word for it, Randall Crocker does not want to see me. It would be no kindness to him."

  "But I've told you what the doctor said. His behavior toward you was almost certainly part of the effect of the undetected strokes he'd been having for months, the lashing out, the hostility, the paranoia. His brain was affected. Men in his law firm had their troubles with him too. You're wrong to take it personally, or to think that now—"

  "It is not a matter of my taking it personally," he said, irritated. "We have a seriously divided government. I am totally identified with one side, he was—"

  "Sean, he's sick." Cass leaned toward him again, but for the control it gave her. If she was speaking in a whisper, it was a venomous one. "And now he's alone. No one visits him but me. He has no family, Sean. He has no friends, not here anyway, this damn, heartless city."

  "I'm glad you go to see him, Cass."

  "His eyes move, Sean. When I read to him he nods at what he likes. I've been reading James Bond novels to him, Sean. You should be doing that, not me. You owe him more than I do."

  "Maybe we owe him, both of us, more than you think."

  His bitterness tipped her. "You can't blame him for Richard. Stop blaming Mr. Crocker for that. Richard made h
is own choices, and if he found someone he could talk them over with in Mr. Crocker, that's all the more we owe him."

  "I don't see it that way."

  "You don't see anything anymore. You make a judgment and then refuse to change it."

  "Once you admired that in me. Once, Mr. Crocker did."

  "I'm not talking about gangsters in Chicago or Raymond Buckley—"

  She stopped. Suddenly her hands fluttered with nervousness. It was the first time either of them had mentioned Buckley in years. The name hung between them in the air like some foul word, some curse.

  Dillon could not look at her. He dropped his eyes to her hands, which, as if independent of her, were compulsively twisting around each other. He noticed that her hands were not beautiful any longer. Rheumatism had knotted her long, tapering fingers.

  "I just mean," she continued, "that now you might be wrong in your judgment, Sean. The judgment you want to stick by. You might be wrong about everything. Has that occurred to you?"

  "Everything?" he asked, and waited with gathering intensity for her to answer. When she said nothing, he repeated, "Everything?"

  She clamped her hands together, stopping them.

  "You mean the war, don't you?"

  She was startled by his accusation and her face showed it.

  "You mean the war," he repeated. "Are you going to start in on the war? Is that your point? Now you can join the line of experts on Vietnam. Everybody in this town knows what to do in Vietnam except those of us charged with doing it. Including you. Well, yes, Cass, it has occurred to me that I'm wrong. I've been wrong. And boys have died as a result! Is that your point?"

  "I didn't mean the war," she said, but in a detached, impersonal tone. The war, like the riots in Washington, was an agony beyond her.

  But Sean went on as if he hadn't heard. "But what if I am mistaken? I still have to act. Don't you understand that? I still have responsibility."

  Cass shook her head. "I know nothing of that, Sean. But I do know this"—she indicated the two of them, their family—"and from what I see, you do not act, and you do not accept responsibility, and for all I know, it's the same in the Pentagon. What I see is a man who is only waiting, waiting for something awful to happen. Like your son to reject what you stand for, or your oldest, dearest friend to do that too. To me, you're like Mayor Daley, just wanting to strike out! Once you hated men like him. Now you defend him. Shoot to kill—that's not responsibility, and if that's all we're doing in Vietnam now, well then..." Her antagonism shocked even her, and she had to stop. With a shift back to the impersonal, she said, "I don't know anything about Vietnam. I deliberately refuse to think about it. But I know about you. And what I see from beginning to end when I look at you now is a man who has become paralyzed. You're stuck, Sean. You're as paralyzed in your way as Mr. Crocker is in his. But at least when he moves his eyes or squeezes my hand I get the feeling that he's still alive inside. I'm not sure if that's true of you anymore, Sean. I'm really not."