Show of Force (30 page)

I
find that very hard to believe." Sam Carter shook his head, in dismay as much as sheer wonder that such a statement could be made by one of the most powerful people in the world, "On the contrary, Sam. He vacillates from one side to the other when you least expect it. At one time, I thought it was caused by the latest opinion polls, but that theory didn't work either." Secretary Jasperson wiped his brow in exasperation, then used the same handkerchief to clean his glasses. "When he asked just who in the hell ever authorized that damn fool island in the first place, his sidekick, the one who hires and fires, gave him the high sign. Then, after they talked for a few minutes, he requested a detailed report of the entire plans for Islas Piedras from its inception to ensure he had been given full access to all information prior to giving his approval."

Carter shook his head again, sadly this time. “You told me a few minutes ago you were taking me into your deepest confidence, Tom, which I appreciate. But I thought you probably-had received some earthshaking decision.” He smiled wistfully. “You don't have to worry about my confidence. If any of my staff heard that story, I'd have a hell of a time keeping them from going over to the other side.” He put his hand to his mouth. “My lips are sealed. No doubt about that.”

The Secretary of State had come back to Carter's office, where they had established their command post, in a high state of anxiety. Never in his brilliant public career had he been so shocked. When things got tough in Washington, crises were usually met head on by strong people, each contributing their special talents to see the country through a time of stress. Personal and party suspicions usually took a back seat to problem solving. Not so in this administration.

Jasperson had described the meeting in the Oval Office in detail. The President had spent most of the time sitting behind his desk, almost as if it were a barrier between him and the problems they mutually faced. Occasionally he got up to pace back and forth behind the desk, sometimes stopping to look out on the south lawn and the gardens. Perhaps, the Secretary of State interjected, it was the only peaceful vantage point the President had, and he was a man of peace, little able to conceive of the responsibilities of confrontation.

It was the man's hands that Jasperson noticed most. They were in constant contact with each other, wringing, folding, picking, squeezing. Whenever they let go of each other, they were in motion in the wrong place, wiping his brow, scratching, fingers drumming on the desk, scratching again. His nerves were nonexistent at this point. He had lost control of the most important visual aspect of a President, the ability to exude calm before his underlings. Each man knew it. Nothing was said.

The President was very tired. His eyes showed it. The sagging, non-smiling face showed it. But most of all, the hands radiated that loss of confidence. At such a .time, he had determined to surround himself with his closest advisers from his earlier political days, the ones that had helped him to the top and now were not about to be dislodged from the good life they had worked for. Bright men, they had known how to bring their man along in politics, package him properly and deliver his liberal ethic to the people. The voters sent him to the highest office of the land. When he got there, he found his cohorts were unable to readapt to the realities of a world grown much smaller, one that hadn't affected them in their halcyon days at the local level.

Now the man, a decent man, was caught in the middle. His own people were trying to tell him the easy way out, the one that would get him elected again, the one that would keep their jobs. The Chief of Naval Operations told him that his Navy could put the Russians in their place and he would stay beside the President. The CNO had high ambitions after this final tour of duty. The Ambassador to the United Nations was scared to death of the situation and openly preached giving in. The other members of the cabinet had ambitions of their own and offered advice that neither confirmed or denied their personal opinions, but left them open to agreeing with the President if his decisions later proved correct.

The Secretary of State laid his cards on the table and told the President exactly what the odds were for each situation. He explained how Islas Piedras had been conceived, by whom, and what the purposes were at the time. He backed up the logic of the situation with hard facts. Secretary Jasperson left the Oval Office as the closet leader of the country, though he had already known that when he had stepped into the room.

The President did not want to accept the severity of the situation, and his advisers were looking for someone to blame. Their leader's initial reaction had been to pick up the hot line to Moscow. He said he was ready to negotiate before one more American life was lost, especially since history would hold him responsible. At that point, Jasperson had been able to take aside the President's adviser for international affairs and explain what he felt would happen if the red phone were used. The Secretary understood and respected the adviser and knew it wouldn't be hard to convince him of what would follow.

Jasperson, noting that the news media already had wind of something, outlined what he and Sam Carter had planned, and asked only for twenty-four more hours before the President admitted defeat and used the hot line to open negotiations.

“Did you show him the aerial photographs?”

“And the estimated casualty lists, Sam. Regardless of his strengths or weaknesses, he has to know everything.”

“What did he say about the ship losses?”

“They were all stunned, Sam. The thing that got to your boss the most was the loss of the
Virginia.
It just didn't seem possible to him that it could blow up. The U.S. has never lost an atomic-powered ship in battle before, and a nuclear cruiser just astounded him.”

“He was her first CO, Tom. He got his first star right after that and was golden boy from then on. But give him a tittle bit of credit. Sea commands are like mistresses. You always have a special place in your heart for them.”

“Oh, I know he's nobody's fool, Sam. He knows how to play politics, and he just hasn't made up his mind which side he wants to join yet. He knows exactly the state of construction on Islas Piedras, and he knows it's not quite a viable weapon yet. If he finally makes up his mind that we can't hold it, he wants to make sure the President remembers it was the CNO who told him when to throw in the towel.”

Carter laughed, a full hearty laugh. “I suppose that's why he told me I'd reached my pinnacle in the Navy. One evening when we were discussing the facts of life in Washington, he jumped on almost everything I said. He told me that I couldn't decide just to be a naval officer once I'd reached this position, that I had to be a politician just as well. I told him I didn't think I'd know where to start, and that it didn't sit well with my oath. I think I said something about the military handling the military and the civilian sector overseeing the military. That convinced him that I should never replace him.” Carter's eyes twinkled. “Now I suppose if he makes himself look good this time, he'll be looking for a cabinet post or maybe he'll even want to run for senator.”

"Don't be too surprised, Sam. Crazier things have happened. Anyway, you should have seen the look on the President's face when he saw the picture of the
John Paul Jones
being torpedoed by our own ships the first day. By that time, he could tell the difference between ours and theirs and he was really upset to see us sinking our own ship. We showed him closeups to explain why Admiral Charles probably had to order it sunk, and I think that's when I felt a little sorry for him. It really hurt him to see that ship with that grand name reduced to a smoking, twisted hulk.

“I think he wanted to be a President of peace. He didn't want any of these confrontations. The loss of all those men is really hurting him.”

“Christ, it hurts all of us!” answered Carter. “Agreed, but you're trained to accept a certain loss to achieve a goal. He's a man of ideas. He, and so many people like him, believe sincerely that their academic theories will succeed in the real world even though their enemies have been operating for centuries on just the opposite. When they see reality, it hurts. Because there was fighting, I really think it was hard for him to accept the fact that an order he gave a few years ago has finally led to something of this magnitude. He still hasn't, and maybe never will, accept the fact that he has to fight for an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean to preserve a way of life in the United States.”

“Better there than here!” Carter spit the words out. “Spoken like a true military man, Sam.” The Secretary raised his eyebrows, acknowledging Carter's earlier point, “You said, yourself, you weren't a politician.” His face changed completely then. "That's why you and I have to work this out together, Sam. My whole life, other than a few mistakes of running for office, has been playing the middle man, and your boss in one of his apolitical moments assured me you were the man to work with. So he'll come out smelling like a rose anyway, and you and I are going to have to play games for a little longer."

Carter nodded, looking at his watch. “It looks to me like we have a little more than twenty hours to play that game.”

“Less than that. We have to show results in that time, not plans. As long as that man's President, he's going to make decisions on what he sees, not what we project. He doesn't give a damn how many Russian ships your David Charles sinks. He cares about how many American lives are lost. So we've either got to have a striking change in affairs in a very little while or else have secure communications with the task force.”

“We're sure as hell not going to have secure communications by then, at least not by satellite. In forty-eight hours maybe, but not less than twenty-four.”

“We should try the land line to Moscow again, Sam.”

“No problem. We can use the onetime codes. You're familiar with it now. Personally, Tom, I believe, it's more important to get through to Moscow. Admiral Charles is simply following orders to fight a holding situation until we can achieve a political victory. The important part is to get to Bob Collier. He'll be bending Gorenko's ear.”

Jasperson's face took on a hurt look. “Don't say that to the President, please. He doesn't see things that way. It's his ambassador who's supposed to be negotiating. Remember?”

“Right.” Carter paused thoughtfully for a moment. “The one thing I haven't been able to pick up here,” he gestured around his Pentagon office, “is world opinion about the Chairman's speech. You have people who spend all their time assessing opinion, I'm sure. What do they say?”

“That is one of the aspects that scared hell out of the President. Everyone has an opinion, almost none of them on our side.” He paused, putting his ideas in order before continuing. Then he moved over to the large map on the Admiral's wall. “If you want to be remembered as a popular President on an international level, you have a lot of people around the Indian Ocean to please. Start here at the tip of Africa.” His finger was on Capetown. “You have here one of the last of the really conservative governments in the world. Most everyone has it in for them.” He half-smiled. "Good place to start because they're one of the only ones to support us, for good reason. Then take yourself north. Most of the countries you pass through are pretty tenuous as far as their stability is concerned, Third World if you will. (Heavy Russian influence. Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia—Malagasy Republic, out here getting more valuable to whoever maintains influence—then the Arabian Sea leads into more goddamn oil than you can shake a stick at, and a must source to support our conventional ships out there."

He then pointed to the Gulf of Oman. "And here is what the Soviets want the most. The key to Iran and its oil. And if they can complete that takeover, then they've finally completed their charge through Afghanistan and Iran to a southern ocean port. That's probably got something to do with that damn submarine of theirs that's just sitting there in the Straits.

“Then you've got India and the Pakistans, Third World again.” He turned to point with his other hand so that Sam Carter would have a better view of the Southeast Asian countries that he had been covering. “Each of these countries is Communist of its Own making, but the Russians don't want the Chinese to get any more foothold than they already have.” In almost an aside to himself, he said, "They'd probably rather have us get them than the Chinese.

“These island nations”—his hand was sweeping down the archipelago of the Malay peninsula to the Indonesian island— “are so rich in minerals, oil, and what-have-you that the winner isn't going to have to worry about imports into the next century. And last but not least, our old ally Australia, who loves us.” He shrugged, "They're on our side, too, but I think they'd stick with us even if we invaded Perth.

“Now, the most important point, Sam, is that not one of those other countries or just about any others in the world will come out and support us now. We didn't take them into our confidence earlier about Islas Piedras, and their only information at this point is that speech from Moscow. They can only believe what they're told, and they got a bellyful about aggression, oceanic hegemony, capitalism, Soviet love of the Third and Fourth Worlds, and a lot of the standard bullshit, too.”

“No choice,” Sam interjected.

“If you were to listen to the President, you'd believe they were all correct in their initial reaction,” exploded the Secretary of State. Then, more quietly, “No, they really don't have any other choice at this point. They've got to stick with a winner, and right now they think the Russians have us by the balls. You remember our position over Cuba. We were talking about it not too long back?”

“Too well.”

“Remember, right was on our side. We invoked the Monroe Doctrine, God, everything Kennedy and his boys could think of, and laid it out nice and neat for the world to look at before Khrushchev had a chance to respond. Made him look like an asshole, too,” he added with a smile in an un-Secretarylike way. “I was there, too, at the time. Too junior to do much but listen in awe in the corridors of power, so to speak. Well, now that's where we are, Sam. Hardly a friend in the world.”