The Colonels, page 25
part #4 of Brotherhood of War Series
“I was wondering what happened to you,” Antoinette said, going to her.
“I was delayed at my mother’s,” Melody said.
“Don’t apologize,” Phil Parker said. “If Jean-Philippe hadn’t brought it up, you wouldn’t have even been invited.”
“Phil, for God’s sake,” Toni said. “If you can’t handle it, don’t drink!”
Lowell glanced at Roxy. She was looking at him. It was evident that both of them had just realized that Melody Dutton Greer would be Lowell’s neighbor…more specifically Jean-Philippe Jannier’s neighbor, when he and Lowell moved into 227 Melody Lane.
(Two)
The Situation Room
The White House
Washington, D.C.
1430 Hours, 19 January 1959
The meeting to combine and coordinate differing intelligence information about Russian shipments to Cuba was chaired by the Deputy Director, Analysis, the CIA. Major Sanford T. Felter was present officially as an observer, in his role as the President’s personal liaison to the intelligence community. In fact, he was responsible for the meeting.
Earlier that day, two Top Secret reports, both marked FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE PRESIDENT, had been delivered by courier to the White House and then to Felter. Among his other duties, Felter was responsible for preparing a one-paragraph synopsis of intelligence reports directed to the President. Both of the reports laid on his desk dealt with the same subject, Soviet military shipments to Cuba. One had been prepared by the CIA, the other by the Office of the Chief of Naval Intelligence. They differed in the assessments of what had already been shipped and what they believed was about to be shipped. They also differed in their assessment of Soviet sealift capabilities. Felter had just finished typing out the one-paragraph synopsis (indicating in these that there was a difference of opinion between the two), when a third report arrived, this one from the State Department. It, too, dealt with Soviet military shipments—actual and projected—to Castro’s Cuba.
Felter had then telephoned the Deputy Director, Analysis, of the CIA and told him about the other two reports.
“Goddamn it, Felter, they are supposed to route that stuff through me.”
“Sir, what would you like me to do about it?”
“I want that material in the President’s hands today,” the Deputy Director said. “And I suppose that means another goddamned meeting. Will you set one up, Felter? Situation Room at two?”
“Yes, sir,” Felter had said.
He had telephoned the State Deparment (who dispatched an Under Secretary of State for Intelligence) and the Navy (who sent the Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence). Then he had called the Army, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (DCSINTEL). He told all of them a meeting was taking place at 1400 in the Situation Room concerning Soviet arms shipments to Cuba.
He had passed the President in the corridor leading from his personal (as opposed to Oval) office. The President had asked if he had anything for him.
“Sometime this afternoon, Mr. President, there will be a report of Soviet arms shipments, actual and projected, to Cuba. The CIA’s making a brief of everybody’s report at 1400 in the Situation Room.”
“OK,” the President had said.
When the President walked into the Situation Room at 1405, he gestured with his hand for the Deputy Director, Analysis, of the CIA to keep his seat, and slipped into one of the chairs along the side of the table.
The President, chain-smoking and sipping from a china coffee cup, heard out the differences of opinion between the CIA and the Navy and the State Department without comment. But then, interrupting a discussion involving the Soviet oil tanker capability, he asked DCSINTEL a question that had nothing to do with Soviet sealift capability. He asked DCSINTEL what the Army could offer in the way of unconventional forces—Special Forces in other words—to tie down Cuba’s army if an invasion should become necessary.
The Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, very embarrassed, was forced to confess he simply didn’t know.
“If we have to do this,” the President said, “the less brute force we have to use, the better.”
“I’ll get the information for you, Mr. President,” the DCSINTEL said.
“No,” the President said, “you have other things to do.” He looked down to the end of the table. “Felter, look into that for me, will you, please?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And while you’re at it, Felter, get me a report on the availability of those whirlybird tank killers, too.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Felter repeated.
“It seems to me that if we don’t have the sealift capability to get our tanks to Cuba without requisitioning the Staten Island ferry, then the next best thing we can do is come up with tank-killing helicopters,” the President said. “I saw a demonstration on the TV a couple of weeks ago that looked very impressive.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Felter said.
“The way things have been going,” the President went on, “I should be very surprised to find that we have these assets in place. When you’re asking questions, Felter, see if something—I suppose I mean funding—would speed things up.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Felter said, again.
The meeting then passed on to other things. When the meeting was over, Felter went to his office, and typing furiously, prepared two extracts of the reports that had just been discussed. One went two and a half pages, and the other was the single-paragraph synopsis the President demanded.
Then he called the Pentagon, and asked General E. Z. Black’s executive officer, a full colonel, for an appointment. He hoped, futilely, that Black would be free that afternoon. But the colonel told him he could “slip him in” for half an hour at 1430 tomorrow.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Felter said, “but it’s necessary that I see the general right away. I’ll leave for the Pentagon now. Please make the necessary arrangements.”
He was still on the phone to the White House motor pool when one of the other buttons on the telephone lit up. When he was finished with the motor pool dispatcher, he punched it.
“Felter.”
“Black,” the familiar voice said.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“I understand you insist on seeing me right away.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay where you are, Major,” Black said, and hung up.
Felter called the motor pool back and cancelled the car. Then he walked upstairs and down the corridor and gave the President’s secretary a large manila envelope with the Soviet war material reports in it.
Then he walked back to his office and waited.
Twenty minutes later, the guard shack called. General E. Z. Black was at the gate. Was he expected?
“Pass him in.”
He was furious with his stupidity. He had presumed that Black had a White House pass. Obviously he didn’t. Would Black think that he had known all along, and had had him stopped at the gate to show his own importance?
Black was shown into Felter’s small office a few minutes later.
Felter stood up.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said.
“Thank you for seeing me, Major,” Black said. He handed Felter a large manila envelope. “I believe this is what you’re after,” he said.
“May I offer the general some coffee?” Felter said.
“That’s very kind of you, Major. Thank you,” General Black said.
“General,” Felter said, “I was instructed by the President to get some information for him. It was necessary that I insist…”
“I believe the information you seek is there,” Black said, indicating the envelope.
DCSINTEL, Felter realized, had lost no time in reporting what had happened at the meeting.
Felter pushed a button on his intercom.
“Coffee, please, for two,” he said.
“Very interesting,” General Black said. “Rumor has it, Felter, that you have one of the ultimate status symbols around here.”
“What would that be, General?” Felter asked.
“A telephone that puts you right through to the President.”
Felter didn’t reply. He opened the envelope.
It contained two memoranda from Black, both addressed to the Chief of Staff. One had HELICOPTERS, ROCKET-ARMED, ANTITANK in the “Subject” block, and the other, SPECIAL-FORCES, AUGMENTATION OF W/SPANISH-SPEAKING PERSONNEL. Both were dated 3 January 1959, two days after Fidel Castro had rolled triumphantly into Havana in his jeep.
“The memoranda are apparently being studied,” General Black said. “I don’t believe the Chief of Staff has had the opportunity to make his decision.”
Felter read the helicopter memorandum quickly but carefully. Black had recommended that a provisional company of twenty rocket-armed helicopters be immediately formed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. H-19 aircraft were to be obtained by levy upon those posts and organizations that had them, and pilots and maintenance crews were to come from Fort Rucker, Alabama, and Fort Knox. It recommended the immediate allocation of $2 million for immediate expenses.
The Special Forces memorandum recommended the immediate augmentation of the Special Warfare School with such equipment and funds as were considered necessary to train and equip four companies—each of 214 officers and men—of Spanish-speaking personnel for possible use in the Caribbean area. It would authorize the commandant of the Special Warfare School to recruit such personnel in the Zone of the Interior, and would direct the Adjutant General to order the transfer of such personnel without regard to any objections that might be raised by their present units. It was recommended that $10 million be made available immediately.
“I think the President will be glad to hear this,” Felter said. And then he added, “General, I would have been happy to come get this from you. You didn’t…”
He stopped in midsentence. He now understood why General Black had come to the White House. And what General Black wanted from him.
He looked at General Black for a moment, and then he picked up his telephone. There was a row of buttons on its base. The extreme right button was protected with a cover against inadvertent use. Felter pushed the cover out of the way and punched the button.
“Yes?”
“Felter, Mr. President. I have the information regarding the rocket helicopters and the Green Berets.”
“Good,” the President said, obviously puzzled that Felter had telephoned him about it.
“General Black is here, sir,” Felter said. “In case you would like to ask him something specific.”
There was a pause.
“Bring him up, Felter,” the President said, finally. “You have five minutes.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Felter said.
The President’s Chief of Staff was visibly annoyed when Felter appeared with General Black.
“You’re fouling up the schedule,” he said. “You know that.”
“I’m sorry,” Felter said.
“Is General Black out there?” the President’s voice came over the intercom. “And Felter? Send them in.”
Black marched into the office and saluted. Felter saw that the President’s Chief of Staff had followed them into the room.
“How are you, E. Z.?” the President asked. “Good to see you.”
“Very well, Mr. President, thank you,” General Black said.
“You have the answers the DCSINTEL didn’t have?”
“Yes, sir,” Black said, and handed him the memoranda.
“What do they say, Felter?” the President asked.
“General Black, on 3 January, recommended that a provisional company of rocket-armed helicopters be formed at Fort Knox, at initial funding of $2 million, and that four companies of Spanish-speaking Special Forces troops be recruited for training at the Special Warfare School. The money there is $10 million.”
“That much money?” the President asked.
“More will be needed, Mr. President,” General Black said. “I have sent subsequent memoranda to the Chief of Staff as figures became available to me.”
“But you have this money?”
“No, sir,” Black said. “Apparently the Chief of Staff has the matter under study.”
“In other words, he’s sitting on it?” the President asked.
“I didn’t say that, sir,” General Black said.
“No, but that’s why you’re here,” the President said. “What’s the fight, still over who gets to run Special Forces? Or over you putting the rocket choppers under armor?”
“I have not discussed the matter with the Chief of Staff, sir,” Black said, uncomfortably.
“I knew it was bad between you two,” the President said, not kindly, “but I didn’t know you weren’t talking.”
The President reached into his pocket and took out a plastic ball-point pen. He wrote, “Approved, DDE,” on both memoranda.
“Did I ever tell you you sometimes remind me very much of Georgie Patton, E.Z.?”
“I’m flattered, Mr. President.”
“Don’t be,” the President said. “It wasn’t intended that way. In the end, you’ll remember, I had to relieve him. When he caused more trouble than he was doing good.”
“Mr. President,” the President’s Chief of Staff said, “we’re getting way behind schedule…”
(Three)
Bachelor Officer’s Quarters No. T-2215
Division Area
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
0245 Hours, 21 January 1959
They had begun playing at shortly after noon, with chips. The chief warrant officer who organized the game served as the banker. The white chips were worth a quarter, the red chips worth fifty cents, and the blue chips a dollar. Everybody bought chips, and the chief warrant officer put the money in the cardboard box that had held the chips, weighting it down with an electrician’s and carpenter’s pocket knife that he had had since he was a staff sergeant.
At the time everyone antied up he took a blue chip from each player’s pot and put it in the box. He had a refrigerator full of beer, and there were bottles of Jack Daniel’s whiskey and Dewar’s White Label scotch. When they sent out for food from the PX snack bar, he would pay for that, too. In the course of an evening, the value of the blue chips taken from the pots would be worth maybe fifty or seventy dollars more than what the booze and chow had cost, but it was understood that the profit was his because he had organized the game, and it was going to be his ass if the MPs or the officer of the day came into his room and accused him of running a gambling operation—or in the quaint language of the Manual for Courts-Martial, “of maintaining gaming tables,” which was an offense against good military order and discipline.
There were six men at the table now. Earlier there had been as few as three and as many as seven. The chief warrant officer was now out of the game. It had grown too serious for him. And although there were still chips on the table, mostly greenbacks were in the pots now—fives and tens.
The chief warrant officer was surprised that the game had gotten too rich for his blood, because they were three weeks into the month. On payday, he would not have been surprised at today’s stakes. Now he was.
With the exception of the kid, the officers hunched over the blanket-covered table were mostly older people. There was another chief warrant officer (the assistant S-4 of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment); a captain of the Medical Service Corps (in charge of administering the 82nd’s dispensaries); an artillery captain from Division Artillery; a senior lieutenant of the Adjutant General’s Corps (the 505th’s assistant adjutant); the chief warrant who had organized the game (he was OIC of the 505th’s parachute riggers), and the kid. The kid was a shiny new shavetail, fresh from OCS, who had a platoon in one of the line companies.
It had been the chief’s matter-of-fact belief that the kid was about to lose his ass when he’d joined the game. These people knew how to play poker, and the kid was obviously out of his class. The chief had felt no pity for him. Learning when to play poker—or more importantly, when not to play poker—was an important part of a young officer’s education; and the only way to learn that was to get into a game over your head and lose your ass.
But the kid hadn’t lost. He was a lot more cautious than the chief thought he would be, and he’d won steadily. Not much at once, no spectacular hands, but the pile of chips in front of him had continued to grow. He was at least smart enough not to try to drink hard stuff in the company of these people. He’d had a couple of beers, was all. And when they’d brought in the fried chicken from the PX snack bar, he’d gotten out of the game instead of eating while he played, and he’d eaten more chicken and french fries and cole slaw than you’d think would go in him.
Then he’d gotten back in the game.
The others didn’t like it much. They had figured that they’d take the kid’s money in a couple of hours, and he’d leave the game, and then they could play the way they usually did. The way they usually played (they were all pretty well matched) was that nobody ever won or lost more than a hundred bucks—most often something on the order of fifty or sixty.
But there was that much money in each pot now. When the stakes had gone up, it hadn’t frightened the kid. He’d stayed right in there, folding usually when somebody opened for ten bucks, but sometimes staying and sometimes winning, and winning enough so that the stack of chips he was using to hold down the folding money looked like it was about to fall over.
“Five games,” the kid announced, as he watched the Medical Service Corps captain rake in a pot worth maybe sixty-five bucks.
“Huh?” the artillery captain asked.
“Five games,” the kid repeated. “In five games I quit. I’ve got a field training exercise at 0400.”
“Quit now, if you want,” the artillery captain said.
“I’ll give you five more chances to get your money back,” the kid said. “Then I quit.”
“Quit now, for all I care,” the artillery captain said.
The first hand, the kid folded his cards after looking at them.
The second hand, he stayed until the second raise, but folded after the artillery captain raised the AGC lieutenant twenty bucks.
