CHAPTER NINETEEN

IN MY ASSESSMENT, THE Bay of Pigs defeat and our reneging on aid to the rebels led to the communist presumption that the United States might no longer possess the moral courage to honor its commitments to the Free World. Communist foreign policy was like a pig in a gunnysack—a push here, a push there, withdraw at one point, then kick a leg out over there—a missile-rattling strategy that kept the rest of the world on the edge of paranoid schizophrenia.

MAD—Mutual Assured Destruction—seemed an appropriate term to describe the nuclear protocol whereby if you attacked me I struck back and we destroyed each other. Vaporize humanity, if necessary, in the pursuit of victory. American culture developed an apocalyptic side. Nuclear air-raid drills conditioned schoolchildren to cringe underneath their desks. Suburbanites dug air-raid shelters in their backyards.

Brigade 2506 lost 120 men killed during the Bay of Pigs landing. Pepe San Roman and about fifty of his followers hid out in the Zapata Swamps for two weeks before hunger and thirst forced them to surrender. Castro announced the capture of 1,800 invaders, many of whom Che Guevara executed.

“We abandoned those poor fuckers to die when they depended on us,” Boehm protested.

The fiasco in Cuba was still in the headlines, along with a new crisis developing in partitioned Berlin, when I received orders to report to the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon as soon as possible. More than twenty thousand military and civilian employees worked in the U.S. Department of Defense. I had been to the Pentagon a few times and always before found the massive five-sided structure active with energy. This time, however, it seemed somber and bleak, under a dark cloud. Or perhaps I was merely transferring to it my own state of mind about Cuba.

I passed through Marine security at the main entrance and wended my way down the corridors to the office of the CNO, the most senior-ranking officer in the Department of Navy, where a sour-faced civilian receptionist showed me to Admiral Arleigh Burke’s office. His cluttered desk looked the size of my entire office at Little Creek.

Admiral Burke was sixty years old, fit looking, with a long Nordic face and a Marine Corps haircut with wide sidewalls. “Sit down, Commander,” he invited, gesturing. “I received your proposal outlining your plan to create a naval special forces unit.”

I submitted that proposal months ago. I thought it must have either been discarded or lost in the bureaucracy.

“Commander Hamilton, I hear scuttlebutt that you’ve already been training your UDT-21 men.”

“Yes, sir,” I admitted. “It seems needed. The Army has already done it.”

The admiral nodded and pressed his lips together. He lifted one eyebrow. “It appears a lot of other people may agree with you. Your proposal has been widely circulated. Commander, I may have a job for you.”

He handed me a copy of a letter that had not yet been signed or distributed. The subject line read, “Development of improved naval guerrilla/counter-guerrilla warfare capability.”

I looked up, not quite willing to believe it. Admiral Burke nodded and motioned for me to keep reading.

“… augment present naval capabilities in restricted waters and rivers with particular reference to the conduct and support of paramilitary operations. It is desirable to establish Special Operations Teams as separate components within Underwater Demolition Units One and Two.…”

I read it twice to make sure I understood. I felt dizzy with disbelief. Apparently, more military people than I imagined shared my vision. While I was occupied with training and preparing for the Cuban invasion, ideas expressed in my letter were secretly floating around within the Defense and Navy Departments. My proposals, I discovered, were the impetus needed to invigorate movements already under way.

The Unconventional Activities Working Group had been established back on September 13, 1960, in response to increasing insurgency challenges in Laos, South Vietnam, and Cuba. It was directed to investigate “naval unconventional activity methods, techniques and concepts, which may be employed effectively against Sino-Soviet interests under conditions of Cold War.”

Deputy CNO William Beakley suggested: “[T]he Underwater Demolition Teams and the Marine reconnaissance units are organizations capable of expansion into unconventional warfare.”

At the National Security Council meeting of February 1, 1961, less than a month after John Kennedy assumed the presidency, McGeorge Bundy, special assistant to the president for national security affairs, noted in a top secret memorandum that President Kennedy “requested the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with other interested agencies, examine means of placing more emphasis on the development of counter-guerrilla forces. Accordingly, it is requested that the Department of Defense take action … and inform this office promptly of the measures which it proposes to take.”

A month before the Bay of Pigs disaster, Rear Admiral William Gentner, director of the CNO’s Strategic Plans Division, approved a concept for “additional unconventional warfare capabilities within, or as an extension of, our amphibious forces.”

This latest concept by Admiral Gentner was based on the one I submitted. It was the reason I now sat across the desk from Admiral Burke. The admiral pushed back in his chair.

“While the United States concentrated on conventional warfare and nuclear global deterrence,” he said, “the unconventional has slowly outflanked the conventional. As Cuba proves, we have failed to deter low-intensity conflict while strategists tell us this is the most likely form of conflict for at least the rest of the century. That makes us well prepared for the least likely conflict and poorly prepared for the most likely. Now we’re playing catch-up.”

He paused to study me. I was literally on the edge of my chair.

“Commander, I want you to be instrumental in building a naval special warfare unit using the UDTs as the base. You will work with Captains Mort Prince and Sandy Warren in OP-343E until we find a relief for you at COMUDU-Two. In the meantime …”

I would continue to also occupy my other slots as skipper of UDT-21 and COMUDU-Two. My additional new title would be CNO Assistant Head of Special Support Operations, Strike Warfare Division, which also included membership in the Unconventional Activities Working Group.

“It’s a lot to ask of you, Commander.”

“I’ll take it,” I responded before the CNO changed his mind.

Burke smiled. “That’s why I picked you, Bone.”

The CNO promised me wide leeway in training and bringing the new unit online. Roy Boehm was waiting for me when I returned to Little Creek. I gave him a mysterious smile.

“Lieutenant Boehm, you and I have shared a vision.”

“Yes, sir. Go back and kick Castro’s butt.”

“Better than that, Roy. You’re my ops and training officer. Can you make commandos out of our people?”

“We’re almost there already, sir.”

“We’ve just received the Pentagon’s approval.”

Boehm stared. A grin slowly crossed his rugged face. “I’ll coordinate with the staff right away.”

“No. This is classified top secret. You will report directly to me. I want you to select and train men as a nucleus for a special operations force to be incorporated into Underwater Demolition Units. You will discuss the creation of this unit with no one except me. You will volunteer information on the purpose of training to no one, not even the men undergoing it. Is that clear?”

“Aye, aye, sir. I will build a team within a team and tell no one. What kind of mission do you have in mind?”

I leaned across the desk on my elbows. I felt excitement welling through the both of us.

“Roy, do you know what this means? We’ve been granted carte blanche to create the finest bunch of unconventional warriors in the world. President Kennedy has taken a lot of flak for the Bay of Pigs. He’s not going to let it happen again. Now, let’s get to work. We want night fighters who can successfully complete any mission anywhere in the world. Provide me your concept of operations, a mission profile, and a profile of the men we need. Get cracking.”

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy delivered a “Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs.” He enunciated his goal to land an American on the moon within the decade and to expand U.S. special operations forces.

“The great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe—Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East,” he said. “[Communist aggressors] have fired no missiles, and their troops are seldom seen. They send arms, agitators, aid, technicians, and propaganda to every trouble area. Where fighting is done, it is usually done by others—by guerrillas striking at night, by assassins striking alone—assassins who have taken the lives of thousands of civil officers in the last twelve months in Vietnam alone.…

“I am directing the Secretary of Defense to expand rapidly and substantially, in cooperation with our allies, the orientation of existing forces for the conduct of non-nuclear war, paramilitary operations and sub-limited or unconventional wars. In addition, our special forces and unconventional warfare units will be increased and reoriented.”