“I can’t get away with that here for twenty-odd people, and you know it.”
“Are you humoring me, or do you really want to know what I would do?”
“I want to know, but that’s not saying I’ll do anything but snort.”
“We have a little clandestine jump school here, let them make five jumps out of a Beaver and a Huey—”
“I don’t have the authority to issue orders putting them on jump status,” Hanrahan repeated. “And I don’t want to pin wings on these guys only to have to tell them to take them off.”
“All you have to do here is pin the wings on,” Lunsford said. “Quietly, at Mackall.”
“And the orders designating them Army parachutists?”
“I issue them in Africa,” Lunsford said. “Classified Secret. ‘The exigencies of the service having made it necessary for the following officers and men to participate in parachute operations in connection with a classified assignment, and having done so a minimum of five times, they are hereby designated Army parachutists. ’ You get a copy of the order, declassify so much of it as pertains to designation as Army parachutists, and direct that it be confirmed and made a matter of record.”
“You’d need a microscope to see the line between what you’re suggesting and knowingly and willingly issuing and/or uttering a false document.”
“These guys want to be on the team,” Lunsford said. “Why not prove to them we think of them that way? What about ‘The Good of the Service’?”
“My God, Father!” Hanrahan said, and slumped back in his chair for a full sixty seconds.
“Do it,” he said finally.
Lunsford rose to his feet and came to attention.
“Yes, sir. Does the major have the general’s permission to withdraw?”
“The major has my permission to go fuck himself,” Hanrahan replied. “If one of these guys so much as sprains an ankle, Father, I’ll break both of your legs.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Major Lunsford executed a perfect about-face movement and marched out of the office.
XVII
[ ONE ]
SECRET
Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia
FROM: Assistant Director For Administration
FROM: 13 February 1965 0810 GMT
SUBJECT : Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #56.)
TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter
Counselor To The President
Room 637, The Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C.
By Courier
In compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: “Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara,” dated 14 December 1964, the following information is furnished:
(Reliability Scale Three) (From CIA, Johannesburg, South Africa) SUBJECT believed to have arrived from unknown departure point, possibly Peking, in China aboard Air France Flight 811 0805 Zulu 12 February 1965. SUBJECT did not pass through South African passport facilities, and departed Johannesburg 1250 Zulu 12 February 1965 on UTA Flight 2332, probable destination Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
(Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) SUBJECT arrived Dar Es Salaam 1645 Zulu 12 February aboard UTA Flight 2332 from Johannesburg, South Africa.
(Reliability Scale Three) (From CIA Dar es Salaam) SUBJECT is to meet with President Julius Kambarage Nyerere, despite official government denials that SUBJECT is in, or expected in, Tanzania.
Howard W. O’Connor
HOWARD W. O’CONNOR
SECRET
[TWO]
Camp Mackall, North Carolina
1205 19 February 1965
The Bell HU-1D “Huey” fluttered down to the crude Mackall airstrip as luncheon was being served to what was now—as of the day before yesterday—officially known as Special Forces Detachment 17.
When an army unit is activated, even down to company-sized units, there is almost always an activation ceremony. A band plays, and a senior officer presents the unit’s colors to the sergeant major, and makes appropriate remarks. The new commander then makes appropriate remarks. The newly activated unit, in class A uniform then marches past a reviewing stand.
This did not happen with Detachment 17.
Master Sergeant William “Doubting” Thomas stood up in the mess at the evening meal and thumped on a stainless-steel water pitcher with a knife until he had everyone’s attention.
“You will all be doubtless thrilled to know that as of yesterday, the Army has a new unit, Special Forces Detachment 17, and all you clowns are in it. Any questions?”
There was a chorus of voices, all asking essentially the same question, with variations of colorful profanity: “When the [expletive deleted] do we get out of this [expletive deleted] place?”
“The major says he hopes to have something about that tomorrow, ” Master Sergeant Thomas said, to be greeted by moans of disbelief.
The interim Table of Organization & Equipment under which Detachment 17 was formed called for six officers and thirty-five enlisted men. The officers were Major G. W. Lunsford, Commanding; Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig, Executive Officer; Captain Darrell J. Smythe, Aviation Officer; Captain J. Kenneth Williams, M.C., Surgeon; and three other Army aviators, one of whom was Lieutenant Jacques Portet, and the other two the first Morning Report stated were not yet joined.
Seniority would normally have dictated that Captain Smythe be the executive officer, but his only combat experience had been as an aviator. Geoff Craig was only a lieutenant, but Geoff had combat experience as a Green Beret and had been in the Congo during the Simba uprising. Experience, rather than regulations, counted.
Similarly, it was pointed out to Dr. Williams that he had zero experience in treating traumatic injury caused by gunfire—Dr. Williams was a parasitologist recruited from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center—and Sergeant First Class Amos T. Tyler, a Green Beret medic in Vietnam, had a hell of a lot of experience in that area. Dr. Williams was made to understand that, unless asked for his assistance by Sergeant Tyler, he would confine his services to keeping Detachment 17 as free as possible from tropical diseases and parasites.
The enlisted strength of Detachment 17 consisted of the original fourteen Green Berets, the twelve ASA communications technicians, and the nine aircraft mechanics and avionics technicians.
Major Lunsford did not—surprising nobody at all—show up first thing the next morning to inform the members of Detachment 17 when they could expect to leave the comforts of Camp Mackall.
But just as Detachment 17 was sitting down for the noon meal, when the Huey fluttered down onto the rather primitive landing strip near the tarpaper-covered frame shack that was the mess hall, the first passenger to get off was Major George Washington Lunsford. He was wearing camouflage fatigues.
“And there’s General Hanrahan,” someone said.
“And two other guys . . . officers,” someone else said.
“What is that, beer?”
“That’s what it is, and I’ll be goddamned if that little guy carrying two cases isn’t a full fucking bird colonel!”
A moment later, Major Lunsford, a case of beer under each arm, kicked the mess hall door open and bellowed, “At-ten-hut!”
Two seconds later, before anyone could fully rise from the plank benches, General Hanrahan, in fatigues and carrying one case of beer, marched in and ordered, “As you were.”
He followed Major Lunsford to the serving line area of the mess, and when Lunsford had put his two cases of beer on the counter, set his beside it.
“Everybody here, Thomas?” General Hanrahan inquired.
“Everybody is presented or accounted for, sir,” Master Sergeant Thomas replied.
“That’s not what I asked, Thomas,” General Hanrahan said.
“I sent Peters into Fayetteville, General,” Major Lunsford offered. “He needed some stuff from Radio Shack.”
Peters was Specialist Seven William D. Peters, the senior of the ASA communications experts
.
“I said I wanted everybody here,” Hanrahan said, a tone of annoyance in his voice. “Colonel Felter wanted to see him.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know,” Lunsford said.
Hanrahan let it ride; there wasn’t much else he could do. But he really wished that Spec7 Peters were here.
The other two officers—Colonel Sanford T. Felter and Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell, both in Class A uniforms, both cradling two cases of beer in their arms, went to the serving line and laid the beer on the floor.
General Hanrahan faced the officers and men of Special Forces Detachment 17.
“The officers with me today have been in this business since the beginning,” he said. “We served together in Greece, and in other places. The taller is Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell. The other is Colonel Sanford T. Felter, General Staff Corps, Counselor to the President of the United States, and Action Officer, Operation Earnest.”
Felter stepped onto one of the two-high stacks of beer cases. Even so, his head was lower than General Hanrahan’s.
He put his hands on his hips and let his eyes slowly sweep the faces of Detachment 17, looking each man in the eye for a long moment.
He was formidable. His uniform was heavily laden with ribbons and qualification badges and patches. Topping the five rows of ribbons was one representing the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor. Above that were the star and crest wings of a Master Parachutist, and above that the Combat Infantry Badge, with a star indicating the second award of the badge. There were clusters on his Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart medals, indicating more than one award of each. He wore a Ranger tab on his sleeve, and his other breast pocket carried the insignia of the General Staff Corps and an array of parachutist’s wings issued by half a dozen foreign governments.
By the time he had finished his visual sweep of the men of Detachment 17, the mess hall was absolutely quiet.
“By the power vested in me by God, the Commander-in-Chief, and General Hanrahan,” Felter began sternly, “and largely because General Hanrahan tells me that you’re all mentally retarded and deserve a little pity, I herewith declare a pardon for all of you, effective immediately.”
It took a good fifteen seconds before the troops came to comprehension of what the little colonel with all those fucking medals and wings had just said. There were first a few nervous chuckles, and these grew to guffaws. They were now hanging on his every word.
“So far, you have been told you have volunteered for, and have been trained for, important and hazardous duty on the African continent,” Felter went on. “Today, Colonel Lowell is going to tell you where you’re going on the African continent and when and why. That information is highly classified, specifically, as Top Secret Earnest. That’s not a joke. One loose mouth—one— can blow this whole operation out of the water. What you’ll be doing is of great importance to our country, and is being carried out on the personal orders of President Johnson.
“As of midnight tomorrow night, you’re all on a ten-day pre-embarkation leave. Anyone who can rise early tomorrow can leave then, but your leave will not start until midnight tomorrow night. So when you’re home, resist the temptation to tell anyone what you’re about to do. Anyone includes your wife, or whoever else you’re sharing your bed with. If you think you can get away with it, tell people you’re going to be a military adviser to the South African Army. But don’t even hint about where you’re really going and why.
“President Johnson has asked me to convey to you his thanks for volunteering for this operation, and to wish you godspeed and good luck.
“As a young officer serving under then-Lieutenant Colonel Hanrahan in a war most people don’t even know we had, I learned an important truth about Special Operations people. If you want them to pay attention during a briefing, make sure they have a beer in their hands. Your show, Colonel Lowell.”
He stepped off the beer cases, ripped a case open, and signaled with his fingers for one of the sergeants to start passing out the beer.
When Lowell began the briefing, Felter looked around the room, pointed to Lunsford, Portet, and Thomas, and looked around for someone he couldn’t find. Then he took a bottle of beer from a case and signaled for them to go to the rear of the mess hall. Hanrahan followed.
“Where’s Bill Peters?” Felter asked.
“I sent him into Fayetteville,” Lunsford said.
“I really wanted to see him,” Felter said. “Why did you send him into town? I sent word I wanted everybody here.”
Lunsford exhaled audibly.
“It is hard for someone named George Washington to tell a lie,” Lunsford said. “The truth, Colonel, is that Peters is temporarily hors de combat, and we didn’t want General Hanrahan to know.”
“Why not?” Hanrahan challenged.
“Sir, the general will probably remember telling the major that he would break both of the major’s legs if one of them so much as sprained his ankle.”
“How bad is he?” Hanrahan asked, shaking his head.
“Nothing’s broken,” Lunsford said. “Tyler had his leg x-rayed. And it’s not really sprained, but he took a hell of a whack on the horizontal stabilizer going out of the door of an L-20. Tyler thought it would be best if he put a cast on it.”
“You’re not telling me Peters was jumping from an L-20 when this happened?” Felter asked incredulously.
“Yes, sir,” Lunsford said.
“Why was he jumping from an L-20, Father?” Felter asked softly.
“He didn’t want to be a leg anymore, sir,” Lunsford said. “None of them did.”
“I knew there was something out of place,” Felter said. He looked at the serving line end of the mess hall. “All those new Corcoran jump boots. Everybody’s wearing jump boots, aren’t they? Except Doctor Whatsisname.”
“Sir, I brought Dr. Williams’s jump boots with me on the Huey,” Lunsford said. “He made his fifth, qualifying, jump last night.”
“Everybody did this?” Felter asked incredulously.
“Yes, sir.”
“When?”
“Well, sir, once they got the aircraft crated, and the communications up and running, there wasn’t a hell of a lot for them to do—” Lunsford said.
“They all volunteered?” Felter said.
“To a man, sir,” Lunsford said firmly.
Felter looked at Hanrahan.
“And DCSOPS gave you authority to conduct a jump school?”
“I’m afraid that’s what some IG is going to ask me, Mouse,” Hanrahan said.
“You can pin wings on them, I suppose,” Felter said. “But how are you going to get it on their records so they can draw jump pay?”
“Major Lunsford has some very interesting ideas on how to do that, Colonel,” Hanrahan said, looking at Lunsford.
“Well, if Major Lunsford’s interesting ideas don’t work, come to me. I think it was a good idea.”
“Father sold me on the idea for team spirit,” Hanrahan said.
“That, too, I suppose,” Felter said thoughtfully, “but I was thinking of Mobutu and Colonel Supo,” Felter said. “The brotherhood of those who jump out of airplanes.” He smiled. “Can Peters travel?” he asked Lunsford.
“Tyler says he’ll take the cast off in a week or ten days,” Lunsford said.
“I mean right now?”
“Well, sir, he’s on crutches,” Lunsford said.
Felter took a sheet of paper from his inside pocket and handed it to Hanrahan, who read it, then passed it to Lunsford, who passed it to Portet.
SECRET
Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia
FROM : Assistant Director For Administration
FROM: 18 February 1965 1805 GMT
SUBJECT : Guevara, Ernesto (Memorandum #58.)
TO: Mr. Sanford T. Felter
Counselor To The President
Room 637, The Executive Office Building
Wash
ington, D.C.
By Courier
In compliance with Presidential Memorandum to The Director, Subject: “Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara,” dated 14 December 1964, the following information is furnished:
(Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Dar es Salaam Tanzania) SUBJECT met with Demo KABILA, Tanzanian Foreign Minister and offered 30 (thirty) Cuban instructors and “appropriate arms” to “wage war against U.S. imperialism.” KABILA accepted.
(Reliability Scale Five) (From CIA Dar es Salaam) In Dar es Salaam interview 16 February 1965 by Spanish language newspaper, Prensa Latina, SUBJECT was quoted as saying, “I am convinced that it is possible to create a common front of struggle against colonialism, imperialism and neocolonialism. ”
Howard W. O’Connor
HOWARD W. O’CONNOR
SECRET
“There seems to be no question that Guevara’s going over there,” Felter said. “The only question now is when, and in what strength. I’m afraid we’re going to have to play the old Army game of hurry up and wait. I want to send Father, Portet, Thomas, and Johnny Oliver’s friend. . . . What’s his name?”
“Captain Darrell J. Smythe,” Lunsford furnished. “Aunt Jemima.”
Felter nodded. “Smythe,” he said. “He jumped too?”
“Yes, sir,” Lunsford said.
“. . . over there as soon as possible. I don’t want to give Mobutu a chance to change his mind, for one thing, and I want to get Thomas together with Colonel Supo.”
He turned to Jack Portet.
“I spoke with your father on the way down here this morning,” he said. “He apparently put the Intercontinental Air 707 through a 100-hour check, and found some things that have to be repaired. But he’ll have the airplane ready by the time the team comes back from leave. On reflection, it made more sense to fly everybody and everything over there at once, rather than infiltrate the men a few at a time and rely on the Air Force to get the equipment to us when they can find the space. I’d rather save our priority until we need it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you charm Mobutu, decide where you want the 707, et cetera. You’ll be the advance party, so to speak.”
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