ADMIRAL SCOTT DUNSMORE HAD BEEN AN OFFICER IN the U.S. Navy for nearly forty years. He had served in warships all over the globe. His last command was of a Nimitz-Class carrier in the Gulf War, facing the missiles of Saddam Hussein.
He occupied his present position as the professional head of the Navy with the utmost distinction. The son of an illustrious Boston banking family, he was regarded as the successor to the present Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Yet nothing, in all of his years as a warship and fleet commander, nothing in all of his years of examinations, degrees, and diplomas, nothing in all of his recent years rubbing shoulders with America’s most eminent politicians, had prepared Admiral Dunsmore to grasp the enormity of the words being uttered to him by Admiral Gene Sadowski…“All six thousand men on board appear to have perished.”
For ten seconds, maybe twenty, he said nothing, and tried to assemble his thoughts. The silence was so prolonged, Admiral Sadowski thought it might be another line of communication down. Dunsmore cleared his throat, searched for words, and just then there was a sharp tap on the door to his office and his senior assistant, a young lieutenant commander, burst in. “Admiral, I got NSA in Fort Meade on the line—Morgan in person—we got one big problem in the Arabian Sea. I have to talk with you. You want me to transfer that call to someone else?”
“Not for the moment,” replied the admiral. “Tell Admiral Morgan we’ll call him back as soon as I finish with this.” And then he addressed Admiral Sadowski for the first time. “Do you have a degree of certainty on that, Admiral?”
“I would not have called unless it was 100 percent, sir. One of our guided missile cruisers, Arkansas, has entered the area around the last known position of the carrier.
“He did so because his Combat Information Center was observing five contacts on the radar screen when there should have been six. He came alongside the five ships, all of which had sustained damage in an obvious nuclear explosion. There’s a lot of radioactive fallout.
“Captain Barry’s Arkansas has already compared his findings with other ships in the Battle Group. Their findings are identical. The Thomas Jefferson has vanished, in an area heavily contaminated with nuclear fallout. No one has seen any sign of wreckage, but the sonar operators were extremely concerned by the impact of an explosion, which took place at 2103. We have further loss of life, sir, possibly twenty to thirty men. But nothing comparable to the catastrophe involving the aircraft carrier.”
“So. Into the valley of death rode the six thousand,” intoned the admiral, an edge of disdain in his voice, suggesting he held CINCPAC responsible for the entire outrage.
Gene Sadowski betrayed no irritation. He fought back his sorrow at the loss of several personal friends, and replied, “Yessir. I suppose they did.”
Admiral Dunsmore was not able to discern the shock in his voice, for the two men were strangers, and their priorities were different. The Washington-based Naval Chief now faced one of the most onerous tasks ever visited upon a peacetime commander—within thirty minutes he must face the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and then, possibly, the President of the United States. To each of them he would be required to explain how his Navy had managed to lose more than twice as many serving officers and men as had been killed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
“Thank you, Admiral,” he said. “I’m grateful for the promptness and the privacy of your call. Please stand by for further instructions. Inform the Battle Group to close down all communication circuits except within the fleet, and to Pearl Harbor HQ. And thank you once more for the clarity of your call.”
“Holy shit!” he shouted as he replaced the receiver.
The admiral pressed the button to summon Lieutenant Commander Jay Bamberg back into his office. The young officer moved faster than the admiral had ever witnessed before. He cleared the big room in two bounds and blurted out the chilling but four-minute old news that Admiral Morgan, over at the National Security Agency, was “damn near certain we’ve lost a big warship in a nuclear explosion somewhere in the northern half of the Arabian Sea.”
Jay Bamberg was visibly shaken. He was too well trained to allow his sentences to become confused, but he kept talking. “Morgan has evidence on the satellite, sir,” added the CNO’s assistant. “They picked it up on one of the KH-11’s which was still photographing all of the approaches to the Gulf after that last panic. They have a clear picture of an obvious rise in temperature in the water, consistent only with a nuclear test, right in the middle of the Battle Group surrounding the Thomas Jefferson. He thinks we may have lost the carrier. Says he cannot think of any other solution to such a major explosion. Wants you to call him right back. He’s hoping to have more for you. Jesus Christ! Can you believe this!…er…sorry, sir.”
Admiral Dunsmore shook his head and said resignedly, “That last call was from CINCPAC. We’ve lost the carrier, almost certainly in a nuclear accident. They believe there are no survivors.”
“Good God, sir.”
“Yes. Good God…Now let’s touch base with Admiral Morgan…then with CINCPAC. Tell NSA we do know, and find out if they have anything significant I should hear. Then suggest Admiral Morgan contact CINCPAC directly, and meanwhile please arrange for me to meet the Chairman in the next ten minutes as a matter of the highest possible priority.”
Lieutenant Commander Bamberg left the room, and Admiral Dunsmore tried to prevent his mind from conjuring up a picture of a U.S. aircraft carrier containing six thousand of the finest men in the nation being instantly vaporized ten thousand miles from home. It was always fatal to focus on individuals, but for the moment he could not believe he would never see Zack Carson again, and the death of Jack Baldridge was almost more than he could cope with.
He stood up and walked across the room, put on his jacket, and paced back and forth for a few minutes. Then there was a tap on the door and Jay Bamberg put his head around the corner and said quietly, “The Chairman will see you immediately.”
Scott Dunsmore had rarely, if ever, looked forward less to a meeting. “Come down with me,” he said, and the two men strode out into corridor seven, turned left, past the salute of the young Naval guard, and onto E Ring, the great circular outer throughway of the Pentagon, where the High Commands of all three services operated, the Army on the third floor, the Navy and Air Force on the fourth. The office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was located on the second floor, immediately below that of the Secretary of Defense. Each of the five outer corridors which traverse the Pentagon, on all five upper levels, was over three hundred yards long. The world’s largest office building contained more than seventeen miles of passageway, and was three times bigger than the Empire State Building.
It is said that no two points in this monstrous military labyrinth are more than seven minutes apart. As far as Admiral Dunsmore was concerned, seven hours would have been much better. The short journey down the elevator and into the office of the senior military figure in America seemed to him as if it took only seven seconds before he stood in the outer office of the beefy five-star general who ran the place, fifty-five-year-old Joshua R. Paul of New York, Vietnam veteran, Gulf War tank commander, possibly the best running back ever to play football for West Point.
“I am not,” muttered Admiral Dunsmore, in the general direction of Jay Bamberg, “terribly looking forward to this. Wait here, will you? I may need assistance.”
“Morning, CNO,” said the Chairman. “Siddown. Wanna cup of coffee? I’m having some.” He grinned cheerfully, his bright blue eyes peering over the top of his half-spectacles, noticing instantly the look of undisguised concern on the normally composed face of the tall, patrician Chief of the Navy. “What’s up?”
“Well, sir, first of all, I might recommend we both give serious consideration to the possibility of a bottle of brandy rather than a couple of mugs of coffee.”
“Oh shit. Trouble?”
“Very, very big trouble, sir. I am almost certain we have lost an aircraft carrier.”
“Well I suggest you get your guys to find it, real quick.”
“Nossir. I am talking about the total destruction of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, along with all six thousand men on board. Nuclear accident in the Arabian Sea.”
General Josh Paul sucked his breath in, hissing through his teeth. “Jesus Christ! Tell me you’re kidding me. You could not be serious. You are sitting there telling me that we somehow have to deal with the biggest single peacetime crisis in American history? You sure that as Joint Chiefs we’re not having some kind of a Joint Dream?”
“Do I look as if I’m dreaming, sir?”
“No, Scott,” he said gently. “No you don’t. You look as if you have just seen a fucking ghost.”
“Six thousand of them, actually, sir.”
“Jesus Christ! Okay. Now give it to me slowly and carefully.”
“Right, sir. The one-hundred-thousand-ton carrier Thomas Jefferson is on station in the Arabian Sea about four hundred miles southeast of the Strait of Hormuz.
“She is loosely surrounded by her Battle Group, you know, cruisers, destroyers, half a dozen frigates, a couple of SSN’s. Not to mention her entire air force on deck and in the hangars. ’Bout eighty-four aircraft.
“Around twenty-five miles away, they see a sudden flash, sonar operators all over the fleet would have had their ears blown out but for the audio cut-off system. A series of damn great waves come through and almost sink four ships, the wind from the blast causes some damage, all communications go out, and within twenty minutes or a half hour it becomes obvious to a couple of the big outer warships that the carrier has vanished.
“There’s no communication. And when the radar systems start working again, she’s definitely vanished. And the entire downwind area is covered by radioactive particles. CINCPAC hears from Captain Barry on board Arkansas. He’s the senior captain. He searched the last known area of the carrier personally, and has now assumed command. He gives his degree of certainty as 100 percent. Admiral Morgan over at NSA has a satellite picture showing the kind of increase in water temperature consistent only with a nuclear test.”
“I guess I don’t need to ask whether the carrier was carrying substantial nuclear missiles, do I?”
“No, sir. You do not.”
“Okay. You get back upstairs and begin compiling in the next ten minutes all the information we can get. I’ll contact the White House, and request a personal, immediate meeting with the President. He can decide if anyone else sits in. My instinct is the less people who know about this for the next two hours the better. Get back down here fifteen minutes from now; we’ll go down in my elevator, and I’ll have the car waiting for us.”
“You want me to come as well, sir?” asked Admiral Dunsmore somewhat lamely.
“You don’t think I’m gonna deal with this one on my own,” replied the Chairman wryly. “Besides, the President is probably going to hit the ceiling. I’d prefer he was furious with both of us, than just me.”
“Yes, I do see that of course,” said the admiral. “He will have to broadcast to the nation. Which he is not going to love. How long before you announce it to the press?”
“Well, we’ll liaise with the White House on precisely what time you are going to announce it to the press.”
“I was rather afraid you might mention that, sir.”
“There is a certain kind of real heavy tackle I have always taken great care to avoid. Brace yourself, Admiral. We’re heading for the roughest seas either of us has ever seen.”
The somewhat bludgeoning nature of the conversation had the effect of shifting the admiral’s mind into a higher gear. The entire hideous scenario was moving rapidly from a grim, distant, unreal accident into a stark and immediate nightmare which required urgent, drastic attention. He must bring clarity to the disaster, he must find a way to lay this out before the President of the United States in a form which was lucid, reasonable, and above all manageable. Everything is manageable to the full-sized intellect, he was telling himself.
“But God help me if I’m not up to it,” he said aloud. “Because if I screw it up, the President will hang me up by the thumbs, or worse. Within about six minutes of this announcement there will be people demanding that the Navy never be permitted to drive around the world armed with such shocking, self-destructive weapons.”
The CNO and Lieutenant Commander Bamberg headed back to the fourth floor, carrying with them the gargantuan secret which all too soon would cause the media to ask the kind of dread questions service chiefs detest….
“Was this accident avoidable?” “Should big-deck aircraft carriers be carrying these kinds of weapons?” “Should anyone be carrying these kinds of weapons?” “With the nuclear threat of Russia now diminished, why are we doing this?” “Isn’t this what the anti-nuclear lobby has been warning us about for thirty years?” “Did it take the death of so many young Americans to finally show you what the liberal Democrats have known for years?” “Are you a fit person to be running this country?” “Should the Pentagon be abolished since everyone in it is plainly crazy?”
The real question was one he was not yet ready to face.
The admiral did not look forward to the forthcoming press briefing, which would almost certainly be staged at the White House. But he knew the President himself would be in for a far rougher ride this evening.
Back in his office he ordered Jay Bamberg to reopen the line to Admiral Sadowski, and he called back Admiral Morgan at NSA. The intelligence chief was steady and controlled, and advised that the CNO make a public announcement very quickly. He had already fielded a call from the Russian Naval intelligence commander and feigned ignorance. In his opinion something needed saying officially, inside the next ninety minutes, or someone else would break the news for them.
The CNO wound up the call swiftly and spoke briefly to CINCPAC. The news was sparse. It was still pitch-dark and the weather was worsening. The frigates felt it dangerous to reenter the contaminated “last known” position. There could be no further doubt about the fate of the Thomas Jefferson. The great ship had gone, in a nuclear fireball, made less blinding by the low clouds, fog, and rain which annually blanketed the Arabian Sea during July and August when the southwest monsoon swept in.
Scott Dunsmore gathered up his final reserves of self-control, and instructed Lieutenant Commander Bamberg to speak once more to CINCPAC and inform Admiral Sadowski that in his opinion the remainder of the Thomas Jefferson Battle Group should return to Diego Garcia, regroup, make temporary repairs, and head as soon as possible for their home port of San Diego.
Then he walked back out into the wide corridor of E Ring and set off for the meeting which had the potential, in his opinion, to begin an insidious political reduction in U.S. Navy firepower—firepower which had grown relentlessly from the early days of the Polaris submarines to the modern era of Trident and the carrier Battle Groups. No one walking along E Ring noticed him brushing the forearm of his dark blue suit across his weather-beaten face.
Dunsmore joined General Paul in the second-floor office and the two Chiefs, accompanied by two military aides, made their way down in the elevator to the subterranean Pentagon garage. The staff car was parked four strides from the door. Only General Paul and Admiral Dunsmore embarked, and the Army driver, briefed in the urgency of the journey, drove swiftly out into the sweltering humidity of a Washington summer afternoon, air-conditioning at full blast, right foot ready to hit the gas pedal as they headed for I-395.
“Did you tell the President what has happened?” asked the admiral.
“No. I interrupted some meeting in the cabinet room and told him I was on my way to see him on a matter of such grave consequences, I would not even trust the White House switchboard to overhear the conversation.
“You know how quick he is? He just said, ‘Fine. Get over here. I’ll be waiting. Do I cancel appointments?’
“I told him in my view he ought to clear his schedule for at least two hours. If I’d been completely honest I probably shoulda said two months, or years.”
“You go through the White House Chief of Staff for this kind of appointment?”
“No. With this President, there’s a direct line between CJC and the Chief Executive. Someone else answered the call and I said: ‘This is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs speaking from the Pentagon. I need to speak to the President on a matter of extreme urgency. Right now.’ That’s all it takes. He was on the line in seven seconds.”
The staff car sped across the Potomac, and the tires squealed as they swung off 395 at the Maine Avenue exit, heading west along the waterfront, and then hard right, straight up the short wide highway which cleaves across the top end of the Mall, past the Washington Monument and onto Constitution Avenue.
As they threaded their way up through the government buildings, Admiral Dunsmore asked two questions: “Will he be alone? And who speaks first?”
“Yes, to the first. At least initially. I do, to the second. Then I’m passing the ball right into your safe hands.”
“Where are you going to be during my explanation?”
“I am afraid to say, right next to you.”
“West Executive Avenue entrance coming up, sir,” announced the driver as he hit the brakes. And it was already clear they were expected. The guard waved them straight through, and at the door they were both instantly issued security passes handed to them by Secret Service agents.
Two of them escorted the military Chiefs straight into the West Wing, directly to the southeast corner, to the Oval Office. The senior agent tapped just once and opened the door. He and his colleague walked through first, beckoning the general and the admiral to follow. The President stood up, nodded to the agents to wait outside, shook hands gravely with his visitors—both of whom he knew well—and asked them to sit down in the two sturdy wooden armchairs set before his desk.
The admiral glanced briefly at the portrait of General Washington, admired the beautifully scalloped arch above the bookshelves, and stared out onto the sunlit southern lawn of the White House. He could hear General Paul speaking.
“Mr. President, it is my very sad duty to inform you that we have lost a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in some kind of a nuclear accident in the Arabian Sea, about three hours ago. There were six thousand men on board and you may assume there are no survivors.”
The President hesitated, grappling with the immensity of the words. “I may assume there is absolutely no possibility of a mistake, General?”
“You may, sir.”
“God Almighty! Six thousand dead? Six thousand American servicemen dead? How could such a thing possibly happen?”
“Mr. President, I just wish I knew. But we were all ten thousand miles away from the Arabian Sea. There’s never been anyone killed in a nuclear accident. I just cannot offer any explanation. But Admiral Dunsmore may be able to clarify the situation a little better than I.”
“Okay. Okay. Now let’s just stay calm, despite the fact that the United States is about to earn both the ridicule and the sympathy of the entire world during the next twenty-four hours. Come on, Scott, any clues? Any excuses? Any ray of light? Can you give me a rough outline of what transpired? I guess we’ll have to announce something real quick. But talk me through it first. Then I’ll call in some help.”
The admiral ran swiftly through the facts—the position of the Thomas Jefferson and the Battle Group, the sudden underwater eruption, the huge waves, the nuclear fallout, the lack of sonar confirmation of a big ship breaking up. The sudden, inexplicable disappearance of the carrier. The devastating, irrevocable conclusion that the USS Thomas Jefferson had been vaporized in some kind of a nuclear holocaust.
The big Oklahoman behind the presidential desk was still for a moment, resting his chin upon his hands. Then he asked suddenly, “Who was the Flag officer?”
“Zack Carson, sir.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” he said. “He and I are from the same part of the world.”
Both the military Chiefs already knew that. Everyone in America was acquainted with the President’s rural background in the Oklahoma Panhandle, close to the Kansas border, where his family’s cattle ranch was well known. He later had a dazzling academic career at Harvard Law School.
“Sir, I think the announcement should be made from here, given the scale of a national disaster. I would recommend that the CNO makes a formal statement to the White House Press Corps in the next forty-five minutes. Then you should address the nation at around 2100 this evening. Or before.”
“I agree with that,” replied the President. “But I have one question. You sure this was an accident?”
Admiral Dunsmore looked up sharply, surprised by the directness of the question he knew must be asked sooner or later. He paused for a moment, staring past the President at the flags of the Marines, Navy, and Air Force which flanked the tall windows. Then he answered, “No, sir. I cannot be sure of that. At this stage no one can. We cannot rule out an attack from an unknown enemy. Nor can we rule out some act of sabotage. However, until we have some kind of suggestion to that effect, sir, I see no reason to cause that kind of alarm to the public.”
The President looked thoughtful. “It’s kinda hard to know which way to swing,” he said. “An accident makes the Navy look incompetent, which I would dearly like to avoid. A successful attack on an American aircraft carrier, possibly by some guy essentially dressed in a sheet, would spread great consternation, possibly even panic. The fucking liberal press would absolutely love it. I guess we are talking about the lesser of two evils. And either way the Navy looks bad.”
“The way I see it,” said General Paul, interrupting the Navy-Presidential conference, “is this. If that ship was attacked, then I guess we’ll find out in the end. But I see no need, at this stage, to suggest the possibility to the press or the public. As things stand, we must deal with a huge outpouring of grief, recrimination, scorn, and derision. There is no need to add public fear to an already lousy equation.”
“I agree,” said Admiral Dunsmore. “Let’s not add to our woes. At this point, despite some natural reservations, I think we should announce a shocking accident on one of our carriers. There is no advantage whatsoever in suggesting a U.S. Battle Group came under attack and a $4 billion carrier was obliterated by foreign persons unknown. My God, if you’re not safe in a carrier, protected by a private strike/attack air force, guided missile cruisers, and two nuclear submarines, how on earth can anyone, anywhere, ever feel safe?”
“My thoughts precisely, gentlemen,” said the President. Then, smiling wryly, “And I trust you will forgive me for bringing up the unthinkable?”
Scott Dunsmore nodded courteously. But he was thinking, “Every time I meet you, I understand better why you are sitting in that chair. If you’d been in the Navy, you’da been sitting in mine. Or more likely the General’s.”
In the next thirty minutes, the White House staff geared up for the press conference. The two military Chiefs adjourned to President Reagan’s old Situation Room in the West Wing basement, with the Press Secretary, Dick Stafford, and two writers.
The general sat in on the statement, while Admiral Dunsmore sat in the corner with an open line to the Pentagon, summoning top Navy brass to a conference on the fourth floor, E Ring, which would begin at 2200 right after the President’s address to the nation.
He placed his number two, the Vice CNO, Admiral Freddy Roberts, in charge of this, and a Navy jet was already refueling out at the San Diego Navy base in readiness for the flight to Washington. On board would be the C-in-C Pacific Fleet, and the Commander of the Naval Surface Fleet in the Pacific. The Commander of the U.S. Naval Forces (Central Command and Middle East), who was visiting San Diego, would also be on board. The Commander of Space and Naval Warfare Systems was being traced on a visit to an electronics corporation in Dallas and would be scooped up by the same aircraft.
Admiral Dunsmore also requested the presence at the meeting of Admiral Morgan, and of a young lieutenant commander from Naval Intelligence, Bill Baldridge, the best nuclear weapons man in the service, whose brother had been lost on the carrier. As the monstrous Naval crisis began to take shape in the White House, he was gunning his 1991 Ford Mustang up the Suitland Parkway at around 87 mph, chatting on his mobile phone to the raven-haired wife of a notoriously uninteresting Midwestern senator. “Yeah, I don’t know what it’s about yet, but we don’t start till 10 P.M. I could be at the Watergate by 2:30. I still got my key. Yeah, I knew he was in Hawaii, read it in the paper.”
Meanwhile the President was in conference in the Oval Office with his National Security Adviser, Sam Haynes, his White House Chief of Staff, Louis Fallon, and the Secretary of Defense, who had just arrived by helicopter from Norfolk, Virginia. The problem was how to distance the President from any kind of responsibility, protect the Navy, and make political capital from being seen to be concerned to the point of distraction.
By now Dick Stafford was shuttling between the Situation Room and the Oval Office, trying to mastermind the confident phrases which would allay the terrible damage the press were about to inflict on the U.S. Navy and the Presidency.
The one being written for Admiral Dunsmore was much the easier of the two, and at 4.30 P.M. he stood before the packed White House press briefing room and read his prepared statement. “It is my sad and unfortunate duty to announce the loss of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Thomas Jefferson,” he began. The statement concluded with the words: “There were six thousand men on board, and there are no survivors.”
For perhaps ten seconds there was a stunned, disbelieving silence in the room, as if no one wanted to accept the paralyzing news as real. But when pandemonium finally broke out, it very nearly registered on the Richter Scale. It seemed that every journalist in the room, all two hundred of them, leapt to their feet at the same time waving notebooks and microphones, yelling for information.
Admiral Scott Dunsmore wisely refrained from answering the questions which rained down on him from all areas of the room.
“When exactly did it happen?”
“When do we get a list of the dead?”
“How do you know there were no survivors?”
“Is this the biggest peacetime disaster in U.S. military history?”
“Will the Chief of the Navy resign?”
White House aides moved instantly to the admiral’s side, the press secretary appealed for order…“Gentlemen…gentlemen! This is a day of great tragedy…please! Try to act in a dignified manner!”
Too late. This was beyond a press conference. This was a feeding frenzy; the sharks of the media scented blood. Anyone’s blood. And they were circling Scott Dunsmore as if he were Adolf Hitler come back to life. Flashbulbs lit up the room, cameramen fought for position, trying to photograph the devastated CNO. No one could be heard clearly above the frenzy, which eased only marginally as the wire service men from UPI, Associated Press, and Reuters dived for quiet corners, mobile phones vibrating with the sheer magnitude of the story they were imparting to their city desks.
The White House Chief of Staff ordered the Marine guards to move forward between the front row and the dais and the press secretary ordered the room cleared.
Even as Admiral Dunsmore was being escorted from the room by four U.S. Marines, tomorrow’s tabloid headlines were already being drafted…“6,000 U.S. SERVICEMEN DIE—NAVY NUKES ITSELF”…“NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST ON U.S. CARRIER”…“U.S. FLATTOP SELF-DESTRUCTS”…“NAVY NUKES 6,000 AMERICANS.”
It would be up to the President to check the balance, to try to convince a by-then hysterical public that the U.S. Navy was not in fact being run by a group of homicidal maniacs. He had about four hours to perfect his words. Dinner for the ten participants involved in the drafting process—which included Scott Dunsmore and Josh Paul—consisted of ham sandwiches and coffee. By the time the last sandwich had gone, the American public was being blitzed by news, news of death and destruction in a faraway ocean, news of massive incompetence by the U.S. Navy, news of evasion by service Chiefs, news implying a cover-up, news designed to spread consternation, uneasiness, and, above all else, news to make the public want more. Much more.
Meanwhile, the two service Chiefs left for the Pentagon at 8:30 P.M. At just about the same time the Navy jet from San Diego and Dallas touched down at Andrews Air Force Base. There was a Navy helicopter on the runway, waiting to fly them in, direct to the Pentagon.
Twenty-five minutes later, the President, wearing a perfectly cut dark blue suit and a jet-black silk tie, left the Oval Office with Dick Stafford, and walked down the long corridor to face the media; Stafford for the second time that day, the President for the first time in six weeks. His mood was one of wary contempt. His party might dominate the Senate, but it did not dominate the awaiting pack. He would have to face them alone, with all of his formidable intellect, and all of his renowned rattlesnake cunning under pressure.
Stafford announced there might be a limited “questions and answers” at the conclusion of the speech. But too little was yet known by the Navy’s investigating professionals. There would however be a major briefing at the Pentagon at 1100 hours tomorrow morning. Then he requested silence for the President of the United States, who walked steadily to the dais and stood before hundreds of microphones. The cameras whirred. The lighting was dazzling, the mood pseudo-reverential.
The President spoke carefully, in the thoughtful tones that unfailingly mesmerized a big audience. And right now he had one of the biggest television audiences in history. Maybe the biggest.
“My fellow Americans,” he began,
I address you this evening on one of the truly saddest days in the entire history of the United States—a day when we have lost several thousand of our finest men in what appears to have been a freak accident, a one-in-a-billion chance, which is baffling our most senior military scientists.
There has never been a nuclear accident in our armed forces—and the sheer scale of this one, which this afternoon devastated the great aircraft carrier, the Thomas Jefferson, has brought to each one of us a sense of shock; of grief for the anguished families of the men who served in her; of sorrow for colleagues and friends.
This most appalling event will in the coming days touch every corner of our country, because the scale of this disaster will spread its sorrow into communities for which death has usually been of intimate local importance, brushing only those lives which came close to a lost friend or relative.
The bereavement we all face now is of another dimension. I too had friends serving on board the Thomas Jefferson. And I am all too aware of the sadness their deaths will bring to lonely farming communities in the High Plains of the state of Kansas. One of them was a beloved senior admiral, another a first-class captain, destined for the very highest office in the service.
I know there will be personal sorrow too in little towns along the coast of Maine, in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Carolinas…the traditional recruiting grounds for some of our finest Navy commanders.
In Georgia and Florida, too. In the South and the Midwest, and perhaps most of all, up and down the coast of California…in particular in the great port of San Diego, which was home to the Thomas Jefferson, and to so many of those who sailed in her.
At this time I would ask your forbearance in what I am about to say. For I come only to praise them, these finest of American patriots, who have made the final sacrifice of their calling in the most unforeseen way. But death to them, in the split-second unconscious heart stop of a nuclear fireball, was not quite what a similar death might have been to us—we, whose risks are so minimal, whose lives are mostly led without fear and ever-present tension.
For these men who died on the Thomas Jefferson, death, and its unseen threat, was a perpetual companion.
Because peacetime to us did not mean peacetime to them. We have a perception of peacetime only because of them. They were not part of its blessing. They were the cause of it; they were its guardian and its savior. No more in life than in death. They were not ordinary men. They were men who went down to the sea in ships; who patrolled the world’s oceans beneath the flag of this great nation. They were men who demanded peace. Pax Americana—peace on the terms laid down by the great steadying hand of the United States of America. Peace because we say there’s going to be peace, because we say the world’s free trade must always be permitted…in peaceful waters. Peace because we say so.
How many times, in moments of international strife, have you read the words: ‘The United States has warned…’? The United States can issue warnings only because of the men who died on the Thomas Jefferson. They were not like other men. They even have a joke about facing death in battle: ‘You shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke.’ The words of our military men down the ages.
Each man who sailed in the great warship knew that deep in her bowels there were weapons of destruction that did not merely pack sufficient punch to blow up any enemy; they formed the barricade behind which all of the free world lives in peace. The men on the Thomas Jefferson knew that. As they gazed out at the awesome fighter/attack bombers that flew from her decks they saw the fire and the fury we could use against any aggressor. They knew that.
But these men had joined the United States Navy. And they knew something else. They also knew that in their most dangerous calling they might be asked to make the final sacrifice, in war, or in peace, at any time. They always knew that. For them, few days passed without reminders of the proximity of death. For their workplace was lethal—filled with mach-one fighter aircraft screaming in over the stern of the carrier; with guided missiles; with great Navy guns and bombs; with nuclear submarines. These men, the men of the Thomas Jefferson Battle Group, knew the frightening responsibilities of their profession. And they knew the great honor that profession bestowed upon them, and all of their families—every day of their lives. They died with suddenness, all of them in the prime of their being…these were the men for whom we sing, ‘For those in peril on the sea…’—the sailor’s hymn.
Which brings me, as it brought many other occupants of this office, to the lines written by the English poet Laurence Binyon:
They shall grow not old,
as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun
and in the morning
We will remember them.
And now I would like to ask each one of you to reflect, in the memory of these men, upon an issue which each one of them held dear until the end. Should the United States continue to police the world’s oceans? Is the danger, the shocking danger of it all, just too much to ask? I know my answer, and I believe I know the answer we would have received from the admiral who commanded the Thomas Jefferson—down all six thousand men, to the most junior rating, to the youngest of the missile officers. Is it worth it? That the USA should take on such onerous obligations and risks in order that we as a nation, and most of the world, may live without fear from any enemy?
Is it worth it? Is it right? Should we go on doing it? Each time in the future, whenever that question is asked, the beloved memories of the men of the Thomas Jefferson will stand before us all.
And each time we should consider what their answer would have been, the answer of those six thousand men. Fellow Americans, these were military men. These were the greatest of Americans. Patriots. Men of honor. Men of duty. They were not ordinary men. And their answer would have come without hesitation. Is it right? Yes. It would always have been, yes.
And so, in this darkest of our nights, let us harbor no betrayal of their ideals. Let us not even consider that they died in vain. Let us consider only that they died for us, in the course of their most dangerous duties—duties that they loved and, above all, believed in.
Let me ask, most humbly, for your prayers for them, and for their families, on this most terrible night. Let me assure the bereaved that no one is alone this evening. For tonight we all stand together. As we always have. For what it is worth, the prayers of my family, and of course my own, are with you not only now, but for all of my days in this place.
May I now wish all of you whatever peace there may be tonight—and pray that a new dawn will bring a ray of light and hope, to everyone who loved and admired the Americans who served in the Thomas Jefferson.
His voice finally broke as he spoke. And he said quietly: “I am afraid I am not up to questions.” And he walked from the dais, with immense dignity, leaving the world’s media, and much of the nation, awestruck by his words.
By the time Dick Stafford reached the lectern to declare the Presidential address formally over, the White House switchboard, which fields forty-eight thousand calls a day, was literally jammed with thousands more, as were the switchboards of all the network television stations. Thousands of ordinary Americans were calling, not only to express overwhelming support for the U.S. military but also to inquire about where donations and wreaths should be sent.
Dick Stafford, an old Harvard buddy of the President’s, hurried back to the Oval Office. He spoke in the dialect of Nebraska, for he originated from Valentine, up there in the gigantic sprawl of Cherry County, north of the Snake River. “Mr. President,” he said, “considering the circumstances, I thought that went reasonably well.”
The reply came out of deep, northwest Oklahoma. “Dick, thanks. I’m grateful for your help. I just wish I could have announced something for the families,” said the President.
“Not yet. Not yet. We have to pace this. I know what you want. And I believe you are correct in all of your instincts. But you must trust mine. Give it at least four days, then make another announcement. Let the inquiry get under way. Let the Navy take the flack until the weekend. Then we’ll have some time at Camp David to plan three new, separate Presidential initiatives, the special pensions for the families, the day of National Mourning, and a Presidential edict that will require all U.S. Navy ships and shore bases to hold an annual service and wardroom dinner in memory of the Jefferson—for all time. People will speak of attending the Jefferson dinner, like the Royal Navy over in Britain has always held a Trafalgar Night dinner in all of its warships and bases.”
“Hey, I like that. Hope I get invited. You don’t think it matters that Trafalgar was a huge victory for the Brits, whereas the Jefferson was not a triumph for us?”
“No, I do not. Gallantry is gallantry. Dying in the service of your country has a glory of its own. And I feel very certain that the American people understand that, and appreciate what our armed forces do. I actually think the liberal press and all liberal Democrats have been wrong in their dismissal of the military for years. Remember President Reagan, from this very office, increased our military spending by damn nearly 40 percent and was reelected in one of the biggest political landslides in our history.
“We should remember, too, that Reagan’s big military spending ultimately shut down the Soviet Union as a serious military opponent for us—smashed the Iron Curtain. I happen to believe that the ordinary common sense of the people tells ’em the U.S. Armed Forces are always on the right track, and ought not to be tampered with, not by left-wing assholes.”
The President smiled at his short, stocky press secretary. His combination of Harvard intellect and shameless use of words like “assholes” were irresistibly appealing to him. And clarity. He loved Dick Stafford’s crystalline clarity.
“What now?” asked the press secretary.
“Well, I think we should let Admiral Dunsmore get his act together for the next hour, then I think you and I and Sam Haynes should ride over to the Pentagon and sit in on the meeting for a while. We need to follow this thing every step of the way. Let ’em know we’ll be there around midnight.”
General Paul decided that the forthcoming debriefing scheduled for 2200 hours should be held in the heavily guarded private conference room used by the Chiefs of Staff for their weekly discussions with the Defense Secretary. Situated off the ninth corridor of the second-floor E Ring, this inner sanctum of the U.S. military was big enough and grand enough to accommodate all of the Navy senior management. It would also be a suitable high-security room for the President and his closest advisers should they put in an appearance. Both Admiral Dunsmore and General Paul believed this was a distinct possibility.
Awaiting the President would be five four-star admirals, two vice admirals, and one rear admiral. In addition there were two lieutenant commanders, one from Admiral Morgan’s National Security office, plus Bill Baldridge from Navy Intelligence. General Paul had requested Scott Dunsmore chair the meeting, and at the far end of the table six armchairs had been placed for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the President, the Secretary of Defense, and senior White House staff members.
The Committee of Inquiry had already been formed by the time the President arrived. It would be based in San Diego while the preliminary data were established and damage to other ships was assessed. The C-in-C Pacific Fleet would be its chairman and he had already asked that Captain Art Barry be flown home to California at the earliest possible time from Diego Garcia. Captain Barry had replied via the satellite and requested that he bring his Watch Officer with him, since he had witnessed most of what little there was to see. All such requests were given an immediate go-ahead.
The President was briefly introduced to those around the table, and he took considerable care to greet everyone he knew by name. When he was introduced to Lieutenant Commander Baldridge he walked right around the table and clasped the hand of the young nuclear weapons expert. “My God, Bill, I can’t tell you how upset I was to hear about your brother. I guess you know our parents have known each other for many years…please remember to pass on my deepest sympathy to everyone.”
Baldridge was keeping his emotions under iron control. This was without doubt the most important gathering he had ever attended. Probably the most important he ever would attend, and he was trying to concentrate while haunted by the fact that he would never see Jack again.
He was listening to Admiral Dunsmore explain how far they had come. New information trickling in from the Middle East was confirming what was already suspected. More nuclear particles detected on the ships, no detection of sound on the sonars of any impact, or of a ship breaking up or sinking. Just the great muffled thunder of an underwater eruption. Everything pointed to the fact that the source of the explosion was inside the great ship, somewhere deep below the waterline where the big nuclear warheads and missiles were stored. One weapons storage area right above the keel was about a hundred feet for’ard from the twenty-two-foot-high propeller. It was five stories high, the size of a large apartment house.
“If one of the warheads in there went off, that would be sufficient to vaporize the entire carrier,” said Admiral Dunsmore. “I’m inclined to think that our accident occurred in that particular part of the ship.”
“What could make a nuclear warhead explode like that?” asked the President, suddenly. “How do these damn things work?”
“I think Lieutenant Commander Baldridge might be the best person to answer that,” Admiral Dunsmore replied.
“Well, sir, it takes some kind of an electrical impulse. The parameters for impulse need to be set deliberately. The simplest of them work on a timing device with a small, rather sophisticated clock. They are not designed to detonate on impact, not like a regular bomb.
“For instance, a nuclear warhead used in a torpedo would be set to explode at a certain time, precalculated from the torpedo director’s best predictions of the position of the weapon and its target. All intended to ensure the warhead goes off in the approximate direction of its quarry.
“Quite honestly, sir, I have a real hard time trying to think of a way one of them could ever explode without some very heavy man-made assistance.”
“Does this bring us to the possibility of sabotage?” asked the President quickly.
“Well, sir,” replied Baldridge, assuming the question was still directed at him, “I have an even harder time dealing with that. Those weapons are under the most unbelievable strict guard. Even to get into the area you need a special pass signed by God knows how many people. Then you have to get past the two Marines who guard the entrance, and then you would be escorted into the area you are visiting by about three ordnance men, including one officer. Anyone tried to get in there illegally, well, my guess is those two Marines would shoot you down like a prairie dog. No questions asked.”
“Does anyone have access to go in there alone?” asked the President.
Admiral Arnold Morgan interjected. “Nossir, no one may enter alone, ever. It would be unheard-of for anyone, the captain, the admiral, whoever, to visit the ordnance area without at least one, or maybe even more, accompanying officers who are formally cleared for access. It would be like you wandering around the boiler room in the White House by yourself.
“Kind of too bizarre to contemplate. And anyway it would require two real experts to prime a warhead, and they would need signed passes. Unless there was a lunatic conspiracy among the top brass of the ship to blow themselves and all of their colleagues to pieces, I would personally regard the entire notion of sabotage as out of the question.”
“So would I,” said Admiral Dunsmore. And there was a murmur of agreement from all around the table.
“There is no evidence of anything really,” added Dunsmore. “Just the deep eruption and the disappearance. I do not think we need pursue the sabotage theory. But I suppose we should consider the possibility that the ship was hit by an unknown enemy.”
The table went completely silent, until, after twenty seconds, Lieutenant Commander Baldridge broke it. “Well, we know the carrier was sunk by nuclear forces, of a magnitude that produced so much heat, the atoms of the ship just vaporized, leaving very possibly no trace. So if you would like to deliberate that theory it might be wise to work out just how that warhead arrived.”
“There are only three ways it could have arrived,” said Admiral Dunsmore. “In a guided missile delivered from an aircraft; in a seaskimming guided missile delivered from a ship; in a torpedo delivered from a submarine.”
Admiral Albie Lambert, C-in-C Pacific Fleet, himself a former Carrier Battle Group commander, now stepped into the discussion, somewhat to the relief of the CNO. “I would consider it impossible that a missile could have come in from an aircraft, and utterly unlikely that it could have come in from a surface ship or a submarine.
“To blow the aircraft theory out of the water, as it were, we need only to know that there were at least five guided missile warships sweeping the skies with their radar at the time, and three and a half hours before, Hawkeye had reported nothing within three hundred miles in any direction. No one can hide from him. In the event of an incoming long-distance missile, the ships could not have missed it. They would have taken it out in thirty seconds. Besides, who could have fired it? No one in that part of the world has such a capability.”
“I actually think the likelihood of a ship-to-ship missile is even more out of the question,” said Admiral Dunsmore.
“We know there was not another warship within hundreds of miles of the group. If there had been, Zack Carson and Jack Baldridge would have warned it off. Even if it had been completely invisible, they would have spotted an incoming missile on five different screens. Those guys detect seagulls, never mind nuclear warheads.”
“Well,” said the President. “What about a submarine?”
“Bill?” said Admiral Dunsmore, referring to the lieutenant commander, who he knew had spent all of his early career as weapons officer in a nuclear subsurface boat.
“Possible, but highly unlikely unless you have been trained here, or in Britain,” said Baldridge. “Torpedoes are famous for their stupidity. They are very hard to program and it is not that easy to fit them up with nuclear warheads. When you do, you have a great chance of missing the target. You have to prime them, make a real accurate guess as to when it is going to arrive at the target, then set the clock for the exact correct time. You’ve gotta get in close for accuracy, real close, around five thousand yards, but no closer because you have a very good chance of blowing yourself up as well.
“In my judgment it’s near to impossible to get it right, unless you are very highly trained. The issue is getting an attacking submarine in close enough to the Battle Group without being seen. I’d say about a million to one, but there will be gentlemen at this table far better qualified than I am to talk about the likelihood of getting in that close. I wouldn’t want to try it myself.”
“As an ex–Battle Group commander,” said Admiral Albie Lambert, “I believe the carrier to be just about impregnable. She is surrounded by so much detection, surveillance, and radar. And yet we do know of instances of other boats, during exercises, getting in much closer than we would have thought possible. I once knew a Royal Navy submarine admiral who told me one night he could get into the defenses of a U.S. Battle Group. And probably sink the carrier.
“Actually he was the same chap who bamboozled a Carrier Battle Group in the Arabian Sea by pretending to be a goddamned Indian. He was commanding a surface ship then. But I believe he was the best submariner the Royal Navy ever had. Ended up in charge of Her Majesty’s submarine service. Just shows though. Nothing’s impossible.”
“I think for the purpose of this meeting,” said the CNO, “we should reserve judgment on the possibility of a nuclear hit against us until we receive the full surveillance reports from the other ships in the group. We should get the damage report of the other ships first thing in the morning. I suggest we reconvene at 1400, right here if the Chairman agrees. And meanwhile we continue to pursue the most likely, and by far the most convenient, theory, both politically and professionally, that we are dealing with a major nuclear accident, the cause of which our top scientists are still deliberating.”
The President looked up and nodded his assent. Dick Stafford leaned over and said, “Let’s not encourage these guys to look for anything sinister when there probably is nothing. One leak of such a discussion would send the media berserk.”
The President nodded again, and added, “Right now we don’t even have a serious enemy. I’m glad Scott wants to stay with the accident scenario.”
And so the meeting dispersed. Cars awaited the visiting brass ready to whisk them to hotels. Bill Baldridge glanced at his watch before heading to the garage, and then set off along the endless corridor accompanied by Dick Stafford, the President, and Sam Haynes. The President fell into step with the younger scientist from Kansas. “Well, Bill, as accidents go I consider that one about as bad as any of us will ever know,” he said.
“Matter of fact, sir, I consider the accident theory to be pure, copper-bottomed bullshit.”
“You what?” said the President, startled, stopping in his tracks.
“That warship was hit, by a big missile with a nuclear warhead,” he said. “Nuclear weapons don’t go off bang all by themselves, by accident. That is not just unlikely, sir. That is impossible. Someone, somehow, hit your ship, Mr. President. No doubt in my mind.”