“Yes.”
“He’s certainly getting high marks from the public. I don’t want to sound too cynical here, Bruce, but does the White House’s support of Freeman have anything to do with the polls showing the American public is over seventy percent in favor of Freeman making a preemptive strike in Laos?”
“Well, first of all, Larry, there’s been no preemptive strike as yet. As I mentioned earlier, it’s basically a reconnaissance patrol. We’ve no reports of combat in the area. About the polls, Larry — I think you
King smiled. “Comes with the territory, Bruce.”
Ellman smiled. “I understand, but to answer your question about the widespread public support for Freeman. That has no bearing, quite frankly, on how the administration views General Freeman’s action. This administration doesn’t govern by poll. The President was elected to exercise leadership.”
“Fine, but you can’t deny, Bruce, that the widespread support for the President can’t do any harm in an election year?”
Ellman shrugged as if the comment were irrelevant. “Perhaps, but the President supports General Freeman because he thinks the general has handled a delicate situation well.”
“What’s delicate about it?”
“Well, Larry, General Freeman had several options at his disposal. He could have called on the Air Force to spray defoliants on the border crossings the Khmer-led guerrillas are using.”
“You mean using herbicides — something like Agent Orange — to denude the border crossings so they could be monitored, what — by satellite?”
“Exactly, Larry. It wouldn’t be Agent Orange. There are other less toxic herbicides we could use, but we think General Freeman has shown both a great deal of concern for the people of Laos and great respect for the habitat. I don’t know if the public’s aware—”
“Wait a minute, what public are we talking about here? Laotian or the U.S.?”
“The U.S.”
“Okay — sorry. Go on.”
“Well, what I’m saying, Larry, is that General Freeman is extremely sensitive about the habitat. We made some awful mistakes during the Vietnam War using herbicides, and he doesn’t want to repeat them. And because of the thoughtless, greedy slash-and-burn tactics practiced by those in the region, deforestation, and the loss of rare species of mammals and birds, is horrendous. In Vietnam alone more than a thousand square miles of deforestation takes place every year. On top of that, the Khmer Rouge-led guerrillas are constantly raiding Vietnamese forests for teakwood, for which there’s a high demand. And all the time—”
“Got to take a break,” King cut in, turning to the camera. “We’ll be right back. Don’t go ‘way!”
After the intense barrage of commercials, King asked Bruce Ellman to take up where he’d left off on the topic of environmental protection.
“I was going to say, Larry, that it isn’t just the destruction of over 240 species of mammals — deer, leopard, rhinos, et cetera — or the threat to the more than seven hundred species of birds that we’re concerned about, but the fact that deforestation has a terrible side effect on the people of the region, and here I’m talking about massive erosion on hillsides, massive soil erosion, destruction of water tables, with consequent flooding and the resulting —”
“Hold on a minute, Bruce, you’re losing me. You say Freeman had all this in mind when he sent in troops rather than sending in machines — bombers, et cetera — to clear the area?’
“Larry, you don’t have to believe me, just read the transcript of General Freeman’s press conference last night in Phu Lang Thuong.”
King held up his hands in surrender. “Okay — and I ain’t gonna even try to pronounce that — what was it — Phu…?”
“Lang Thuong.”
“If you say so,” King joked, then, looking into the camera, he told his millions of viewers that after the break he’d be taking “your phone calls.”
The first was from Tucson, Arizona, a young man, by the sound of him, telling Larry how much he loved the show, how he’d been trying for months and this was the first time he’d gotten through.
“What’s your question?”
“Ah, it’s for Mr. Ellison.”
“Ellman,” King corrected him.
“Yeah, Ellman. What are you gonna do about the French?”
King and Ellman looked at each other, King’s lower jaw coming unstuck. “What d’you mean ‘about the French’?”
“Well, it was on some news report or other. Some French guy blew the whistle — you know—”
“Oh,” King interjected, “you mean the—” King snapped his fingers, trying to recall the name. “You mean the guy who broke the news about Freeman sending the Special Forces in?”
“Yeah…”
“LaSalle! Pierre LaSalle, right?”
“Yeah, some name like that. Well, aren’t the French in this USVUN force? I mean—”
“No,” Ellman cut in. “They’re not.”
“Well,” the caller said, “that guy put our guys behind the eight ball — know what I mean? And I think we should do something about it. Teach ‘em a lesson.”
King shrugged. “What do you want us to do — bomb Paris?”
“It’d be a start.” King switched him off. “He has a point, though, Bruce, doesn’t he? I mean that was a pretty scurrilous thing to do. Putting our guys and the British in jeopardy. Now the Chinese have to know where Freeman’s force is.”
“We’ve already sent a note to the French ambassador here in Washington.”
The next caller said, “What we oughta do is stop buying champagne. That’d show the sons—”
Larry switched him off, ad libbing, “We stopped buying champagne around here, the embassy circuit’d come to a dead stop, wouldn’t it, Bruce?”
Ellman grinned. He was feeling great. The questioners’ talking about the French news blowing the Special Forces operation was taking all the heat off the White House. He hoped it’d keep up. But the next question was from a Greenpeacer from “London, Ontario, Canada.”
“I never thought I’d be congratulating the military, but I have to tell you that finally we’ve got a general who’s using his head. Instead of blasting away with bombs and herbicides, attacking the environment, he’s sending in men — I mean military personnel — to assess the situation. I’ve read the reports of General Freeman’s press conference, and he’s the only military person I know of who’s concerned about the destruction of the habitat.”
King pursed his lips, nodding. “He’s right, isn’t he, Bruce? Freeman’s the only one — I mean general — concerned about the environment, I mean putting it as a policy over and above purely military considerations.”
Ellman politely disagreed. “No, Norman Schwarzkopf showed the same kind of concern over the oil fires in Kuwait.”
“Yeah,” King said, “but I mean that happened after the Iraqi War had started. Here Freeman apparently took habitat damage into consideration before he sent in his special force. Next caller — Amsterdam. Hello.”
It was a heavily accented Dutch voice. “Hello. I think it’s disgraceful, Larry, that the Americans and British are making war at all. This dispute between the Chinese and Vietnamese should have been settled peacefully.”
“Well, sir,” King began, “that was tried in the U.N. Didn’t work. So now we have a U.N. mandate for USVUN to step in and protect Vietnamese sovereignty.”
The caller was adamant. “There must be a way to settle it peacefully and—”
King cut in. “So you believe everything can be settled peacefully?”
“Yes.”
“I wish you were right, caller, but sometimes — however unpalatable it is — we have to get out the strap.”
The last caller was a quiet-spoken woman whose phone number, showing up on the producer’s console, identified her as a previous caller, a Mrs. Mellin, but the producer, recognizing her soft, hesitant voice, let it through.
