Eyeball to Eyeball (Final Failure)

by Douglas Niles

  “No.” Alex waved the remark away. His hand was unsteady, but his voice was firm. “It’s going to be Berlin where the shit hits the fan. And hit the fan it will. I know our military will be ready. I just hope the man in Washington is up to the task. I’m afraid he’s going to fuck it up…fuck up everything.”

  Stella winced. Her father rarely used profanity in front of her, and she knew it was an effect of his intoxication. She and Derek escorted him from the club, and though her father walked steadily enough, she thought she felt the eyes of all the officers, their wives, and the club staff, boring into them as they went out to the porch and down the stairs. She hoped it was just her imagination.

  Derek drove the jeep back to the base commanders’ bungalow, leaving his father at his bedroom door with Alex brusquely brushing off any attempt at further assistance. The two siblings sat on the veranda, watching the moonlight reflect off the still ocean water.

  “You can’t report about what he said, you know,” Derek said finally. “Those rumors maybe aren’t classified, but he doesn’t really know what’s going on down there in Cuba. No American does.”

  “Of course!” she answered. “I know that.”

  And she was telling the truth: nothing her father had said would find its way into her reporting. But she couldn’t help thinking that he had given her some valuable insight into the potential for trouble, just ninety miles south of this little island. She remembered his account of fighters scrambling to chase away patrolling MiGs, and she knew that in a matter of days her brother would be piloting an aircraft of his own, not too far from here. Enterprise was based in the Caribbean—it was a matter of public record.

  “Derek, be careful,” she said quietly, then kissed him goodnight before heading to her father’s guestroom.

  The pilot, who would sleep on the couch, tried to brush off her concern with an easy grin. But he stayed there on the porch, watching the waves, for a long time after his father and sister had gone to bed.

  09 October 1962

  0700 hours (Tuesday morning)

  Headquarters, United States Air Force Command

  Pentagon, Washington D.C.

  “Goddammit! Don’t tell me the weather is still socked in!” barked Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay.

  “I’m sorry, General,” replied the colonel on the other end of the telephone line, no doubt relieved that his angry commanding officer was hundreds of miles away. “We’ve had almost unbroken cloud cover over the whole island for the last ten days.”

  “Shit! Well, let me know if you see any sign of a break. We’ve got to get some pictures of that place!”

  “I understand, Sir. Of course, I will let you know immediately if there’s any change in the outlook.”

  The meteorology officer, based at MacDill AFB in Florida, signed off with, to his credit, no audible sigh of relief. LeMay slammed down the phone and puffed on his cigar, glaring at the phone as if it was personally responsible for his frustrations. After a moment he got up and stalked around the spacious office—one of the premium locations on the elite “E” ring of the Pentagon.

  One entire wall was covered by a map of the globe, with a series of blue icons representing bomber and missile bases for the United States Air Force, notably the Strategic Air Command. Another series of icons, in red, marked missile sites, airbases, and industrial complexes within the vast swath, something like half the land mass of the earth, representing the communist countries. The map was an accurate depiction of an oft-quoted capsule of LeMay’s view of the world: The planet earth was divided between SAC assets and SAC targets.

  Though the United States Navy, with its nuclear submarines and their arsenals of Polaris missiles, comprised one element of the American nuclear strike force, to LeMay the next war was going to be an Air Force show. He had under his command some 3,000 nuclear warheads, nearly all of them fifty or a hundred times more powerful than the atomic bombs men under LeMay’s command had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945.

  He had B-47 bombers based in Europe, capable of carrying multiple bombs directly to the USSR and the other Bloc nations west of Asia. Here in the United States, he had multiple wings of fast, modern B-52 bombers, planes that could fly over the North Pole and then spread out to hit hundreds of targets across the Soviet Union. He had whole fleets of refueling tankers, capable of keeping his bombers airborne for a theoretically unlimited amount of time and distance. And that didn’t even account for the Minuteman, Titan, and Atlas missiles secure in their silos in Nebraska, Kansas, and much of the heartland of the United States. Many of these lethal weapons could be launched within ten minutes of a “fire” order and would carry their payloads to the other side of the planet in a mere half an hour or so.

  At first, all of these weapons had been locked into a single, tightly planned, carefully coordinated scheme for a mass launch: SIOP 62. Under SIOP 62, SAC would have eliminated every communist nation in the world as a military threat, in one convulsive sweep of destruction. It would leave every major city, from East Germany and Yugoslavia in the west, to China and North Korea in the east, a smoldering, radioactive wasteland. Military airbases and missile installations would be turned to glass, seaports reduced to water craters, and the lethal threat of world communism would be eliminated forever.

  LeMay took another furious puff as he remembered the political interference that had watered down his magnificent plan. Just this past summer, on President Kennedy’s orders, SAC had been forced to refine the SIOP plan into a series of—in LeMay’s opinion—half-assed staged attacks. Phase one was limited to Soviet missile sites, bomber bases, and submarine installations. Phase two authorized targets that were still removed from cities, such as army bases and antiaircraft centers. It was not until Phase five that the full annihilation attack could be launched. By then, of course, it might be too late.

  Why did the politicians have so much trouble seeing the obvious truth: Right now the United States had a tremendous strategic advantage. In a year, or at most two, that advantage would seriously erode, as the Soviets introduced more and better ICBMs to their arsenal. America had a current advantage of at least ten to one, probably much more, in long-range nuclear strike capability. But the enemy was catching up.

  LeMay turned from his world map to a smaller image, recently mounted on a second wall. This one displayed the island of Cuba, with major cities and geographical features highlighted. Known airfields and coastal ports were shown, but the vast center of the country was a cipher. In the general’s mind, that blank area could be teeming with rocket and fighter bases, bomber airfields, and fortified military camps. If he found the targets, he could destroy them.

  After a long political wrangle, he had finally gained control of the U2 spyplane program, ripping the machines from the CIA’s clutching grasp. He had pilots trained to use the unique aircraft, and he knew each U2 had an array of cameras that could definitely unlock the secrets concealed on Castro’s isle.

  How dare, then, that a mere layer of cloud should have the audacity to interfere with his plans?

  1850 hours (Tuesday evening)

  Headquarters, Soviet Military Mission to Cuba

  El Chico, Matanzas Province

  The headquarters compound for all the Soviet troops of Operation Anadyr had once been a reform school for wayward boys. Now, the sprawling complex of buildings, with its dormitories, classrooms, and sports fields, had been turned into the headquarters for the vast array of Soviet military power that had secretly been shipped to Cuba under the guise of Operation Anadyr. One splendid building, the former headmaster’s villa, served as a residence and headquarters for Fidel when he visited.

  Colonel Tukov arrived at the compound just before sundown, his driver having made the two-hour trip from his missile base near San Cristobal at the maximum speed possible. Fortunately, they’d been able to follow one of the few good highways in Cuba for most of the way, since Tukov’s missiles were the closest to Havana of any of the sites, an
d El Chico was only a dozen miles or so southwest of the Cuban capital.

  The rocket officer had been surprised by the summons to headquarters and, no stranger to the workings of the USSR, a little worried. He had previously met General Pliyev, the commanding officer of Operation Anadyr, but did not know him well. Yet the venerable cavalryman had a reputation as a no-nonsense soldier of the old school. Earlier this year, he had commanded the troops that broke up a workers’ strike in Novocherkassk, an intervention that had resulted in the deaths of many workers. He would brook no resistance, no foolishness.

  Tukov wasted no time making his way to the headquarters, which was located in the administration building of the former school.

  “Comrade General, Lieutenant Colonel Tukov reporting as ordered!” he barked, snapping a smart salute.

  General Pliyev looked up from the map he’d been consulting, blinked a moment as if trying to remember Tukov. “Ah yes, Tukov—in command of the San Cristobal battery. Of the 539th Regiment. Come in.”

  Tukov saw that Pliyev had been studying a map of western Cuba. His own battery was clearly marked, as well as the six SAM sites surrounding it. Not too far north of him was the camp of one of the Motorized Rifle Regiments, a powerful unit of the Red Army equipped with tanks, artillery, and tactical nuclear weapons.

  “I understand that Comrade Fidel has paid a visit to your battery. Is this correct?” the general asked bluntly.

  “Yes it is, sir. He came with Comrade Guevera and asked for a tour of the site. I showed him around. I hope that is acceptable.”

  “Not that you could have stopped him” Pliyev said with the shrug. “But I wonder: Why did he select your unit for his only personal inspection?”

  “I’m not sure I can say, Comrade General. Perhaps because we are the closest battery to Havana. It may be that he was informed that I speak Spanish. He seemed to want to confirm this fact for himself.”

  “Ah, yes. Those years in Madrid, fighting Franco. I understand you did some good work there.”

  “Thank you, General. We tried, but we lacked the strength to prevail.”

  “And now, Colonel, we have some strength here, do we not? In your battery alone you have enough power to destroy six large American cities. What do you think of that?” Pliyev sounded like he could barely believe that fact himself.

  “I will follow my orders until death, Sir,” Tukov replied, hoping that was an acceptable answer to the odd question.

  “How is security?”

  “We are very well guarded, and the local population has been moved out. Security, I think, is excellent, sir.”

  Pliyev scowled, and shook his head. “Maybe it is on the ground,” he replied. “But what about the air? These missile batteries need too much space, have too much equipment, to stay hidden. Do you know that the initial reports of our advance team suggested that we’d be able to hide our batteries in coconut groves?”

  “That would seem to be inaccurate, Comrade,” Tukov replied diplomatically.

  “And if our bases are spotted, that would blow the lid off this entire operation, this entire island.”

  “Can we use the SAMs to destroy American surveillance planes?” the battery officer asked.

  “We have not been authorized to fire, as of yet,” the general declared in frustration.

  “Well, we’ve avoided discovery so far,” Tukov suggested. “Perhaps the Americans will hesitate to fly over us merely out of fear of those SAMs.”

  Pliyev waved away the assurance. “Perhaps, but remember this: an American spy plane could fly overhead and take pictures any day. And those pictures could blow this whole crazy operation to pieces.”

  Two: Mission 3101

  “I think I know what you guys think they are, and [if] we are both right we are sitting on the biggest story of our time.”

  Arthur Lundahl

  Director, National Photographic Interpretation Center

  October 15, 1962

  13 October 1962

  2050 hours (Saturday night)

  4080th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing

  Edwards Air Force Base

  California, USA

  They called it by a name that seemed like it came from some science-fiction story: a “high-protein, low residue” meal. United States Air Force Major Richard Heyser preferred to describe it as “steak and eggs.” For what it was worth, as he sat down at the private mess table to tuck in to the large plate of hot food, he would also call it “delicious.”

  An airman had awakened him only twenty minutes before, after Heyser had slept most of the day away in a darkened bunkroom. After a quick shower, he donned his fatigue uniform and ate the meal that the cooks had specially prepared for him. Not only did he like the food, but he appreciated the “low-residue” element. Once he got into his flight suit, it would be a very long time before he’d be able to get to a bathroom.

  It was already dark here in the California desert as he was given a short jeep ride from the barracks to the ready room. Entering the small building a half mile from the hangar area, he donned the protective gear required to fly his unique airplane. The U2 would carry him up to 70,000 feet in the air, where the atmosphere was too thin to sustain life. As a result, the pilot’s suit was more like astronaut’s than an aircraft pilot’s. Leaving his helmet off for now, he walked into a small airtight chamber and sat down in a comfortable chair. He spent the next hour breathing pure oxygen, slowly leeching all of the nitrogen from his blood. He didn’t begrudge the time—he knew that, in the event of a suit failure at high altitude, condensed nitrogen would quickly inflate into bubbles in his veins and arteries, clogging his bloodstream, to cause the painful and possibly fatal condition deep sea divers had long known as “the bends.” An hour of O2 would make sure that didn’t happen.

  While he was breathing the cool, dry air, he took the time to go over his briefing sheets, which had been updated just the previous evening. He knew that his would be the first spyplane mission over Cuba in several months. Now he read that, according to classified sources, a Soviet-style air-defense system, which had been under construction all summer, had been activated just a couple of days before. This meant that he ran the risk of an attack by the lethal SA-2 antiaircraft missile, the same type of “SAM” that had shot down Francis Gary Powers’ U2 over Russia in 1960. Just a few weeks earlier, another U2—one operated by the Nationalist Chinese out of Taiwan—had been shot down by a SAM while conducting an operation over Red China. He filed the information away without trepidation: he knew he was a great pilot, and that—in his opinion—would trump any threat from ground-based missiles.

  He also read that the early weather reports from the Caribbean predicted skies would remain clear over the island of Cuba for at least the next few days. This mission had been authorized for more than a week now, but on each previous day, cloud cover over the island had forced a postponement—usually before he had even been awakened, and always before he’d made it to the oxygen chamber. This report of clear skies was the news that the 4080th SRW had been waiting for, and it meant that the mission today was probably a go. Heyser knew that other aircraft from a different USAF recon wing, RB-47 Stratojets, had already deployed to Florida. They would soon be in the air, standing off of the island but confirming the forecast as soon as dawn brightened the tropical skies.

  After he’d spent a little more than an hour breathing the oxygen, another pair of airmen came to drive him out to the aircraft in an Air Force van. Heyser wore a mask attached to a portable O2 tank in order to maintain the gas’s saturation in his blood. As the vehicle approached and illuminated the U2 with its headlights, Heyser looked through the windshield and admired the sleek lines, the graceful and slender shape, of an airplane that was like no other machine in the world. He felt the usual thrill of pride in knowing that he was one of a very, very small group of men who could fly that plane. And of them all, he’d been selected for this, perhaps the most important aerial reconnaissance flight ever undertaken.


  Heyser, and his Air Force colleague Major Rudy Anderson, had not been directly involved in the squabbling between the CIA and the USAF over the U2 program, but he knew the background. He’s learned that the plane, a product of the Lockheed “Skunk Works,” had initially been commissioned by the intelligence agency, after the Air Force had sought heavier, more military looking designs, in the early ’50s. The intervening years had shown that none of the other recon planes had the flight characteristics, neither the range nor the ceiling, of the U2, so it wasn’t long before the USAF had contracted for a U2 fleet of its own.

  But in the meantime, the CIA’s U2s had been upgraded with improved engines, which allowed them to attain the almost inconceivable altitude of nearly 14 miles above the ground. In the end, it had been politics that pushed the program into the USAF’s eager hands: in some cases, such as this mission, the U2 would be required to intrude into the airspace of a potentially hostile state, and the powers-that-be had determined that the man who flew such a mission had better be a commissioned military officer, rather than a civilian spy. Further wrangling had resulted in the CIA grudgingly handing over some of its high-performance U2s to the Air Force.