and California's Guard simply melted away.
In the deep southern states, aggressive action was also contemplated. That no fighting took place was largely the result of more moderate, even centrist, states like Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia whose collective reaction to both sides might well be summed up as, 'Oh, no, you don't. Not again.'
The first peacekeeping call is reported to have come from Utah to Governor Garrison of New Mexico and Governor Seguin of Texas. The substance of that conversation has never been reported. Yet, the very next day Utah's legislature—at her governor's behest—adopted what had come to be called 'the Texas Program.' The governor also called for a constitutional convention, a request heartily endorsed by his legislature.
Within the week that call for a convention had become general. From Alaska to Alabama, Mississippi to Maryland, New Hampshire to New Mexico—forty-one states demanded a new Constitution or at least substantial revisions to the old one. Only four of the six New England states, plus New York, Minnesota, California, Oregon and Hawaii, refused to join it. Elsewhere, the sentiment—or the scent of blood in the water—became overwhelming.
The popular reaction was more severe. Federal agents and bureaucrats were hounded, burned in effigy . . . sometimes beaten and in a few cases killed. Nor would local authorities protect them. The media, that group—ever so 'ready to feed the masses on the carrion of events'—the same group for whom Rottemeyer had once been as near a goddess as one might hope to find on Earth, turned—if anything—more rabidly anti-federal than the national norm for the day. 'Project Ogilvie' had soured more than a few in the industry on the federal goverment.
It was said, possibly truthfully, that—in any one day of the next three weeks after the defection of 3rd Corps and its beginning to fan out to the north—more Americans sought refuge in Canada than had done so during the entire Vietnam war.
It was whispered too, perhaps unkindly if not entirely untruthfully, that some fleeing the fall of the Rottemeyer presidency had also fled the call to Vietnam.
These numbers picked up noticeably when states' troops began assembling along the political and philosophical boundaries between north and south, urban and rural, conservative and liberal.
When the Marine expeditionary forces in the Gulf of Mexico steamed back through the Panama Canal, this time without any strikes by Canal workers, even Hawaii decided to send a representative to the constitutional convention . . . even as that state's population began to drop from the many, many chartered flights to Vancouver, British Columbia.
The City of Washington would have come under siege, one suspects, except that the 3
Rottemeyer herself, along with key staff, left via a Marine helicopter for New York City.
It was perhaps significant that the crew of that helicopter refused to fly until cleared to do so by the Commandant of the Corps. Possibly of greater significance, the commandant, signally, failed to consult with— allegedly refused to consult with—General McCreavy's replacement.
But if anyone believed that a constitutional convention was going to solve all of the problems of the United States, those persons were to be sorely disappointed. . . .
Chapter Twenty
From the transcript at trial: Commonwealth of
Virginia v. Alvin Scheer
DIRECT EXAMINATION, CONTINUED
BY MR. STENNINGS:
Q. So, Alvin, were you taken by surprise when things turned around so fast?
A. Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Stennings. I never thought for a second that the whole . . . well, nearly the whole, I reckon . . . of the military would turn on Washington the way they did.
Q. And you saw your chance then, exactly when, Alvin?
A. Well . . . with them soldiers in the blue dress uniforms guarding Washington, I was no better off than I was before . . . not so far as getting close to my target went, anyhow. But I heard that all the governors were getting together in Virginia Beach and I figured, under the circumstances, that eventually the President would have to go there too. So I packed my bag and my rifle and I headed south. . . .
* * *
Washington, DC
A cynic might have scoffed at smoke-filled back rooms. The cynic would, of course, have been years—decades—out of date. There was no smoke.
Other than that, though, the back room was much the same. In it assembled the real movers and shakers on the national political scene. One party's worth, anyway.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' began Carroll, 'our fortunes have definitely headed south.'
'Is there no hope then, James?' asked the party chairman.
'None with Willi, no, sir. She's burned more bridges than the Texans blew up. Worse, she tied a whole bunch of the rest of us to railings on those bridges and . . . man . . . I tell you . . . the fire's gettin' hot.'
The chairman lifted an eyebrow, inquisitorially. 'All of us?'
'Yes, sir. I mean, we know her close confidants are going down. Vega . . . well, hell . . . the whole Cabinet. Maybe that cunt McCreavy might have gotten out in time. And don't think for a minute McCreavy won't be testifyin' against us, too. The rest'll be singin' like birds inside half a month.'
'Willi can't control them, then?'
Carroll shook his head emphatically. 'No way. She's going to be spillin' her guts, too . . . and likely it won't take her as long. She's a lot smarter than most; more ruthless, too.'
