a press release. All over the world, the firm but understanding voice of Martin Beckman was heard. Matters of great moment for the Third World, and indeed the survival of a free world, without war, were debated long and hard.
They tackled the most vexing subjects of the previous decade. The crippling burden of Third World debt, which, at the turn of the millennium meant that every single person in the Third World owed a total of $400 to the Western banks. For three years now there had been suggestions that the Third World must ultimately be forgiven those debts, in some way, because most of them simply could not pay. Not if they were also to run their countries. There were penniless African nations whose repayments each year added up to more than their GNP.
Naturally the question of corruption came up, how these African dictators were running around in Rolls Royces, stealing Western aid, and hiding it away in Swiss banks. But Martin Beckman stood up in his seat for the only time in the conference and made the most impassioned plea, almost begging the nations to require their banks to forgive at least half of the debt. He ended his speech with words that were heard around the world.
He got his way, too. All of the delegates agreed to recommend that their governments attack the problem, forcing banks to listen to reason: that it was not all the fault of the poor nations. Much of the problem could be laid at the door of the banks themselves, for making highly injudicious loans to those who plainly could not repay, worse, did not understand the terms correctly. Martin Beckman was on the verge of making himself a significant piece of modern financial history.
They also worked on the burgeoning grain mountains, examining ways to ship the vast tonnage of surplus cereals from Europe and the United States to the Third World. They hammered out a rota system that other nations would contribute the shipping and freight costs to match the contributions of the governments that supplied the wheat, oats, and barley.
They tackled the world oil-distribution problems. At least they tried to. But there was a certain reserve about the Middle Eastern nations, most of whom had recently mortgaged years of “futures” in order to buy warships and aircraft. China, whose voracious appetite for automobile fuel was reaching gluttonous proportions, stayed out of this discussion, despite Martin Beckman’s assertion that they were currently using more refined oil than the U.S.A.
Nonetheless it was tacitly agreed that all nations at the conference would resolve to ensure that the world’s tanker routes would remain open for free trade, for the greater good. Iran, the nation that strategically controlled the Strait of Hormuz, voted yes for this only after Martin Beckman made another speech suggesting that any blockade of the Gulf would cause untold hardship to the sick and the elderly and the children of the poorer European nations.
“This is a conference about humanity, for humanity,” he said. “I am quite certain that all the nations here would wish to proceed in that spirit…I do not think anyone in this room would approve any nation making oblique threats to cause hardship for any of our fellow men. Not here, Iran. This is a forum for peaceful coexistence among nations…and I defy you to vote against a resolution for the peaceful trade routes of the world’s principal fuel.”
Thus the guardians of the Strait were shamed into joining the unanimous vote for free and open tanker routes, wherever the tides ebb and flow on the planet earth. Martin Beckman arrived in London a hero of the Left. As he prepared to depart for Washington on Sunday morning February 26 he was a hero of the people. And not just the people of Great Britain and the U.S.A. He was a hero of the people of the world. His was the voice of decency and reason, a man whose clearly defined basic goodness came through to all the delegates who dealt with him.
Certainly the world leaders present recognized that he spoke with enormous authority, as the Vice President of the most powerful of nations. But Martin Beckman never mentioned what his nation might or might not do. He came to the conference with an air of modesty, and, despite being lauded by the international press on an almost hourly basis, he departed with the same humility. Which was a considerable achievement, because it seemed that every member of the crowd that had thronged the eastern edge of Hyde Park to see him arrive, thronged into the precincts of London’s airport to see him depart.
The security was massive as the American delegation arrived at Terminal Four, but thousands and thousands of students still packed the viewing galleries and the fences along the perimeter to watch the gleaming new Boeing of the U.S. Presidency take off for Washington. And as it did so, above the roar of the four giant Pratt and Whitney engines, there could still be heard the anthem of the Doves, swelling out across the airport. The unforgettable words of the slain John Lennon rose into the winter sky, lilting, beseeching, over and over, turning the commercial sprawl of Heathrow Airport into a sacred cathedral on this cloudless Sunday morning. “
HMS
The crew raised the big communications mast and sucked down the critical message from the satellite.
TARGET 3. AIR FORCE THREE VP-U.S. ABOARD. ETD/LHR 1100GMT. EN ROUTE WASHINGTON DIRECT, GCR,VIA WAY POINTS BRAVO, GOLF, KILO, NOVEMBER, PAPA, QUEBEC, AND X-RAY. SQUAWKING IFF CODE THREE, 2471.
The Sunday morning air traffic was busy, but not so busy as on a weekday. Transatlantic jetliners were using four of the northerly routes across the ocean, stacked four high. This meant that a big passenger aircraft from one of the European capital cities was passing overhead every nine minutes, flying at around 420 knots at 33,000 feet minimum. Sometime after 1210(GMT)
The time passed slowly in the black submarine, but it came back to periscope depth and went to full alert shortly after 1200 (GMT). At 1233 they saw her IFF code on the radar screen, their first detection.
“
At 1235: “
The submarine drove down under the Atlantic waves leaving no mark on the choppy surface. The planesman leveled off at 150 feet; then
At 1245 the Americans caught her, picked her up on SOSUS, the great underwater electronic network that scans the oceans on behalf of the United States. It was a quiet day at the U.S. listening station at Keflavik, way out on Iceland’s southwestern peninsula, and the urgency in the voice of the young operator was surprising.
“I’m getting something, sir, not engine lines, but it’s a noise source of some kind…probably flow noise. I don’t think it’s weather.”
His supervisor moved swiftly over to check it out. There were still no machine-originated lines coming up, but it was a very definite noise. And it was not a fish. That left the only other fast-moving creature under the sea.
The supervisor strained his eyes for five minutes, searching for a clue. Shaft count? Blade count? Not a whisper. No telltale pattern came up on the screen.
At 1256 (GMT) the marks faded, then died altogether, as HMS
The supervisor moved away, told the operator to stay sharp, and immediately sent a signal to Fort Meade, Maryland.
ELEVEN-MINUTE TRANSIENT UNDERWATER CONTACT AT1245GMT. POSITION 50N, 20W — ACCURACY
