telephone to all command posts open, and his military assistants busy at the easel on which they sketched and simplified tactical problems for him, as well as the strange wall clock depicting time zones in defense areas (“For Cincpac-Subtract 6”) constantly in view. So much might come through that office today.
Dilman picked up the telephone. “Yes, this is the President.”
“Mr. President, Steinbrenner here. I have just heard from General Rice in Baraza City. His aerial reconnaissance has delivered-no more than an hour old-film showing highly intensified Communist movement on the Barazan frontier, in fact, throughout the enemy perimeter. All equipment is being mobilized. There is no question but that they have decided to move. General Rice believes it a strategic necessity that our advance rocketry units, now positioned, hit first. He thinks an enormous advantage can be gained. I don’t feel empowered to make such a decision. He is standing by in Baraza City for the go-ahead. I’m ready to give it, but not on my own responsibility. I’m passing the buck, Mr. President. Do you want to give us the green light?”
Dilman’s palm was warm on the hand telephone. He thought of Harry Truman: the buck stops here, here in this Oval Office, not in the more ornate office of the Secretary of Defense.
It was a difficult decision to make. If he gave the word, the Dragon Flies would strike, perhaps topple the enemy in a lightning stroke, perhaps gain an advantage, perhaps save countless lives. Yet he would have committed the United States to an action of offense, not defense. He would have betrayed America’s entire historic philosophy of peace for a possible military advantage.
He hesitated, momentarily troubled by the man in the Pentagon with the command line and easel and zone clock and maps, and then he heeded his instinct.
“I don’t want to be the aggressor, no matter what is going on,” Dilman said. “You order the General to continue to keep a close watch on their movements, but only shoot when shot at.”
He heard Steinbrenner’s snort. “If that’s it, then I’ll pass it on. But if it is defense we’re thinking of, we’ve got to anticipate the worst, we’ve got to anticipate the conflict’s broadening, and the possibility of an attack by Russia. I feel it is important to consider putting our defense forces on second-strike standby alert.” There was a pause, and then Steinbrenner said, “Mr. President, what about going on DEFCON ONE?”
Again Dilman hesitated. The official order to set in operation DEFCON ONE would poise the entire United States, its military and civilian forces, on an all-out war alert. Dilman tried to visualize this alert: The screens of the DEW and BMEWS radar network would be under double surveillance, and fingers would creep closer to buttons that could order the North American Defense Command to activate 720 different Warning Points. The triple blockhouses stationed throughout the world would begin electronically elevating the fixed Minuteman ICBMs from their concrete casings. The secret trains carrying their mobile Minuteman missiles and squadrons would speed to preassigned positions. The Polaris submarines, each with twenty nuclear weapons, would rise from the ocean bottoms. Beneath the yellow clay of Nebraska, from the concrete command center of SAC, special world would send the B-70 jets and their hydrogen-bomb loads hurtling aloft in greater number. And just as his own Marine helicopter would be readied nearby to spirit him away to the subterranean second White House burrowed deep in a Virginia hillside, Dilman knew that fallout shelters across the nation would be manned for the ultimate signal of war imminent. There would be consternation, fear, even panic. Yet there would be preparedness.
A precautionary measure, this DEFCON ONE, Dilman thought, a drastic measure; perhaps a necessary one, as Steinbrenner was suggesting. Still, it was a hazardous choice. For, Dilman realized, DEFCON ONE could not go unnoticed by the world and the enemies of America in the world. Not many city blocks away, the Soviet Embassy would be informing Moscow of the highly charged activity-the canceling of all military leaves, the bustling in the Pentagon-and the Soviet radar units in the Arctic and on picket ships in the Atlantic would be reporting to Moscow the unusual movements of the United States surface and underseas fleets and its aircraft in the skies. How would the suspicious Kasatkin and his nervous Presidium react to this? Would they look upon this defensive preparation as a maneuver for aggression far beyond the provocation of the Dragon Flies in Africa? Would the concrete walls of Russian mountains then open wide to disgorge Soviet nuclear missiles-perhaps even the Gigaton Bomb that Kasatkin had so often boasted about-all building toward a forty-day assault that could snuff out the lives of 180 million of the United States’ 230 million people? Or were the Soviets doing all of this anyway, without the provocation of DEFCON ONE?
There was a pounding behind Dilman’s temples. His head ached. Then, suddenly, there was the relief of decision. The defensive value of DEFCON ONE was obliterated by the horrifying danger it invited-that of hastening the triggering of the first shot against the United States itself.
“No,” said Dilman, “too soon.”
The Secretary of Defense was worried. “They
He was sure. “For an hour, anyway, Secretary Steinbrenner. Stay in close touch with me.”
After he hung up, Dilman remained standing behind his desk. Shuffling the papers lying on his blotter to be signed, he told Nat Abrahams what was happening.
Before Abrahams could reply, there was a sharp knocking on the door leading to engagement secretary Lucas’ office, and then, without waiting for an invitation to enter, General Leo Jaskawich broke into the room.
Gone was the astronaut’s normally reassuring expression. Anxiety was written across his swarthy features.
“Sorry to bust in on you, Mr. President, but I think the fat’s in the fire,” Jaskawich blurted out. “Just heard from the Soviet Russian Embassy. They asked for an immediate appointment for Ambassador Leonid Rudenko, and before I could hang up and get to you, the southeast gate called in to say Rudenko’s car had just passed through. He’s coming straight in without an appointment. I guess there must be-”
“Looks like this is the showdown,” said Dilman.
“I can stall him,” said Jaskawich.
“To hell with protocol,” said Dilman. “Let’s get it over with. Get out to the South Portico, General, and bring him right in here.”
Jaskawich tugged down the brim of his officer’s cap and rushed past the President’s desk, and then through the French door.
Dilman was still on his feet behind his desk. He felt oddly calm, almost fatalistically calm. He saw Abrahams rise.
“Maybe I should get out of here,” Abrahams said.
“You stay where you are,” said Dilman. Abrahams nodded, and moved to the shabby Revels chair and sat. Dilman wet his lips with his tongue. “Well, they’re not only moving in Baraza,” he said, almost to himself, “they’re moving in Moscow, too. I guess it is one and the same.”
He looked off. He could see Jaskawich snappily leading the Russian Ambassador along the colonnaded walk, followed by two Secret Service men.
Jaskawich held open the screen door, and Ambassador Leonid Rudenko entered the Oval Office while the astronaut closed the French door and hung back in front of it.
Ambassador Rudenko was a small, muscular, middle-aged Russian with a perpetually glowering, unsmiling, pimpled face. He was the antithesis of the international diplomat. His English was exact and uncolloquial, his choice of words often sharp and uncivil, and he was famous for his use of a vituperative tongue in public.
He was unsmiling and gloomy this minute. He had removed his dark fedora as he advanced to the President’s desk, but he had not touched his maroon woolen scarf or mountainous overcoat. Under his arm he carried a wafer-thin attache case.
“Mr. President Dilman,” he said, but did not offer his hand. “I requested my Embassy to telephone, but on the assumption that a matter of such urgency-”
“Never mind,” said Dilman. “Sit down.”
Dilman lowered himself into the high-backed leather swivel chair, but either Ambassador Rudenko had not heard him or was too preoccupied to accept hospitality, for he remained standing before the desk, pulling off his kidskin gloves, then unzipping his attache case. He extracted three blue sheets of paper, laid his case on the desk, knocking over several pieces of miniature statuary, and then fixed his eyes on Dilman.
“Mr. President, I have received, as of twenty minutes ago, an urgent communique directly from Premier Nikolai Kasatkin in Moscow. I have been ordered to read it to you in person.”
“Go ahead,” said Dilman. His face was expressionless as he tensely waited.
Ambassador Rudenko cleared his throat and began to read the diplomatic note aloud.
