'I'm aware of the polls, George,' the President said. 'Let's leave them out of this for the moment — '
'It's not just politics, sir. Korea was not a popular war in 1950, and it won't be popular with the people now.'
'Popular!' General Caldwell scowled. 'Since when are issues like this settled because of their popularity?'
Ronald Hemminger, the Secretary of Defense, smiled. 'You haven't worked inside the Beltway long, have you, General?' There were subdued chuckles from around the table. General Caldwell was new to the position, having received his appointment to the JCS after his predecessor's recent retirement. His intolerance for Washington politics was well known.
'But he's right, you know,' the CIA Director said. The bantering was gone from his tone now. 'We let the Koreans get away with Pueblo in '68. They held our people… what? Eleven months? We let the Iranians get away with the embassy seizure, and they kept things boiling for four hundred forty-four days! This is a chance for P'yongyang to dirty our faces on every front page in the world.'
'Hell, you're just pissed that they snatched your spook ship,' Schellenberg said.
'That has nothing to do with it. They've snatched close to two hundred Americans! You want to see them paraded on the evening news every night for the next year or two? You want another Lebanon? Mark my words: we let them get away with this, they'll be all over us. A military option is our only option here!'
The President looked at the Secretary of Defense. 'Ron, what do you think?'
Hemminger looked unhappy. 'Protest at Panmunjom won't win us a damned thing, Mr. President. Hell, every year or two some KorCom border guard kills one of our people on the DMZ. We protest, they counter-protest, we take it up with the Military Armistice Commission, and nothing gets done. This'll be the same goddamned thing. But a military assault… Shit, we're gonna have to cover our asses until we know how the Russkies are gonna react.'
Phillip Buchalter, the President's National Security Advisor, shrugged. 'What are we gonna do, hit North Korea with trade sanctions?'
No one bothered to laugh. The United States already had no direct contact with North Korea at all.
'There are ways of dealing with them,' Schellenberg said. 'Ways short of starting a war. We could approach them through a third party which has diplomatic relations with P'yongyang. The People's Republic of China, for instance.'
'That'll look just great in the Washington Post,' the DCI said. He turned to face the President. 'You wanted options, Mr. President. Well, you've got plenty of them, soft to hard.' He began ticking points off on the fingers of his left hand. 'We bring the matter up at the next MAC meeting at Panmunjom. We put through a formal diplomatic protest through another government… the PRC, or a clear neutral like India or Sweden. We hit 'em with carrier air strikes at selected targets, try to shake 'em up. B-52 raids mounted out of the ROK, same thing. Covert ops… use Delta or someone to go in and bring our people out.' He held up a sixth finger on his other hand. 'We send in the Marines.' He opened all of the fingers on both hands. 'Or we hit 'em with every goddamned thing we have. Full invasion.'
'Hell, Vic,' Schellenberg said. 'Why'd you leave out nuking the bastards?'
'Be serious.'
'No, you be serious! Good God, what do you want, a new Korean War?'
'I wasn't aware that the old one was over,' said Grimes.
'We go in full-scale and we'll never be free of it! And the Russians, man, the Russians! We have half a dozen new trade or disarmament treaties on the line right this minute, and they'll all be up for grabs if something like this blows up!'
'Speaking of treaties, we could have some real trouble with Tokyo over this,' Buchalter pointed out. 'Our basing agreements with them clearly prohibit our launching offensive missions from their territory.'
'Wonderful,' the defense secretary said. 'Three squadrons of Falcons in Japan, and we can't use 'em.'
'There's always South Korea,' Marlowe said. 'They won't mind rubbing North Korean noses in it.'
'You really do want a war over there, don't you?' Schellenberg said wonderingly. 'Haven't you guys at Langley heard? The Cold War's over!'
'And haven't you people at Foggy Bottom heard there are American lives at stake here? I'd like to get our people back, damn it, and talking Kim II-Sung and his cronies to death is not going to do it!'
The battle positions around the table were being drawn along predictable lines. The DCI wanted Chimera back and wanted to avoid the sort of intelligence tar-pit they'd been trapped in during the Iran crisis. State wanted a political settlement. There were disarmament treaties and foreign obligations which would be jeopardized by a fresh round of military saber rattling. Defense was worried about the Russians. The Navy wanted to use the carrier group they already had in the area. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs wanted a full invasion with combined arms.
The President was himself an old Navy man, and his own, deep-down gut feeling was to send in the carrier group. The threat of carrier-borne air-strikes against North Korean targets ? fuel tank farms, military bases, airfields ? might be enough to make them back down.
'Here's the way we'll play it,' he said at last. The bickering around the table ceased at once, each head turning to face the President. He looked at the Director of Central Intelligence. 'Vic, we can't go into this blind. I'll want you people to step it up with the intel. We have to know where our people are being held and what the North Koreans are up to.'
'Yes, sir.'
He turned to the Defense Secretary. 'Ron, I think we can raise the alert status for all our bases over there without stirring up the Russians much. Or the Japanese.'
'The Russians will up their status too, sir, but… I guess that's all we can do.'
'Not quite.' The President looked at the CNO. 'Fletch, I want you to cut orders for the Jefferson. I want them and the Marines in position to do something ASAP. What have we got in the way of covert capability out there?'
'We could have a SEAL team on board the Jefferson in eighteen hours.'
'Mr. President,' General Caldwell said, 'under the circumstances, wouldn't it be prudent to put the entire military on alert, sort of start things rolling?'
The President sighed. 'I want to avoid an all-out invasion, Amos,' he said. 'You're right, of course. At least you can put the 82nd on alert, start getting ready to go in if we have to. But I think I want to gamble on the Navy for this one. They're there, and they're ready. If they can't handle it, we'll have to work some other angle.'
Schellenberg started to say something, but the President held up his hand. 'All of this is just in case, gentlemen. I won't mind at all being all dressed up with no place to go on this one… but I sure as hell don't want to be caught naked if the doorbell rings.'
As the Security Council meeting broke up, it struck the President just how much was riding on the carrier group commander. That poor SOB may just find himself on the point of the spear, the President thought. And I thought my job was a bitch.
DAY TWO
CHAPTER 6
The briefing room was called Civic. The name was a Navy contortion of CVIC, CV being the designation for carrier, and IC standing for Intelligence Center. It was a long room aft of Flag Plot with the ever-present grays and off-greens of Navy-painted steel bulkheads relieved by an oil painting of the U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson at one end.
