New and unpleasant ingredient has been added to this already unsavory stew.
—JOURNAL, OCT. 15, 1992
“You know that scene in The Longest Day,” said the President, “where the two Germans in the bunker look out and see the whole horizon covered with ships? I want it like that.”
Admiral Boyd, sullen from four years of defense-budget cutting, replied, “I don’t know if we have enough Navy left to cover the horizon.”
“Then use tankers or whatever and paint them gray. I want him to look out his window in the morning and shit in his pants.”
The Admiral pointed out that in order to be visible from M’duku’s bedroom window, the Task Force would have to situate itself on top of a coral reef.
“Then put them so he can see them from his dining-room window.”
Surveillance photographs were consulted, revealing that his dining-room windows looked out on his garden. The President declared that he wanted the garden defoliated.
We were in the Situation Room. It was past four in the morning and I was very tired, but there was a lot to do. Feeley had taken on martial airs—from having spent so much time with admirals and Marine generals—and had taken to walking around with his telescoping display-chart pointer in the manner of an English colonel. He kept repeating the phrase “Americans love a crisis.” It was a sort of mantra he had devised for the occasion.
Throughout the night there had been discussion of sending in an “extraction team” from Fort Bragg to rescue Marvin and the hapless Cromattie and Baum. But there was no consensus on the point. M-and-M was disputing our charge that he was holding them hostage, saying that since it was impossible to get through to the airfield—which his troops were besieging—they would remain his “honored guests” at People’s House for the duration of the “unpleasantries.” Every so often the former Cedric Pudlington in Makopo M’duku bubbled to the surface.
The phones, of course, were down—cut by “elite Imperial American commandos,” as BUPI claimed—so there was no communicating with Marvin, but Clanahan’s “assets” were reporting that People’s House resembled a fortress more than a governor’s residence.
It was uncertain whether a rescue raid would aggravate or alleviate the situation.
There were some who wanted to leave Marvin where he was. General Gilhooley kept saying, “Well, if he’s their guest …” Feeley began laughing. When the President asked him what was so funny, Feeley said it was the thought of Marvin having his toenails pulled out one by one. Everyone in the room denies having laughed at this, but the truth of the matter is that only Lleland did not. But then he never laughed.
It was then the President decided to approve the extraction mission, code-named Desperate Molar. It is possible that Feeley’s joke was inadvertently responsible for that approval. I think that, despite everything, the President was disturbed by the thought of Marvin’s toenails being pulled out.
Emissaries from Secretary of State Holt continued to arrive. The Secretary had determined that the Middle East might survive another week or so without his constant attention and had deigned to give the impending war in the North Atlantic some of his time. He, of course, was opposed to doing anything about it. “There are no instant solutions,” he told the President. For a moment I thought there might be a scene, but then the President said in a quiet voice, “Thank you, Darius,” and resumed questioning the Admiral about how many Rangers could be parachuted into the town of Hamilton.
Toward five a.m. all the elements of the “land-sea interface”—as the Admiral referred to it—were finalized. Boyd told the President the operation would involve over 30,000 men. “About all we have left,” he mumbled.
“Thank you, Admiral,” said the President. “I’ll try to return them to you in good condition.”
The Pentagon had code-named the operation Certain Fury, but the President preferred Extreme Displeasure—he thought it more understated, yet just as emphatic. He had also dropped his insistence on defoliating M’duku’s garden. “I don’t want to appear vindictive,” he said. “You have to think about history.”
With that, the session adjourned. I looked at the clock over the door. It read 5:45 a.m. I was filled with a sense of history, but I also had a slight headache.
After a few hours’ sleep on my couch I dragged myself to my desk and spent most of the morning going over Charlie’s draft of the President’s address to the nation that evening. It needed toning down. Charlie had worked himself into a lather. There was one too many quotes from Henry V’s “Once more unto the breach” speech; and anyway the President’s tongue did not curl easily around Shakespeare. I also asked Charlie to beef up the supportive references to Marvin. His first draft had not even mentioned him by name, referring only to “U.S. personnel.”
Charlie did not take well to my speech suggestions. The problem was that I knew more than he did about the TOP SECRET/TYPHOON-classified Extreme Displeasure than he, but was not at liberty to discuss it. After we had barked at each other for fifteen minutes or half an hour, I solved the problem by informing him I was no longer “suggesting” the changes.
He called me a “wimp.”
I was not in the mood to be spoken to this way by a speechwriter. I reminded him of what John Ehrlichman had told one of Nixon’s speechwriters: “You writer types are a dime a dozen.”
“So were Nixon’s speeches,” he snarled. “At least Ehrlichman had balls.”
“Now, Charlie—”
“Go on, give it to Peterson. He’ll give it that nice, simpering touch you like.”
I made a note to look into Charlie’s medication. I didn’t think they were giving him enough of the pills that calmed him down.
At 3:10 p.m. I got a call from Clay Clanahan. “Something’s just come up,” he said. “I don’t want to be the one to tell him.”
I knew it must be bad.
“Guess who’s in Bermuda,” he said.
I hadn’t a clue.
“First Brother.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell the President either. Dan Tucker had arrived on the vexed island—by boat.
Clanahan’s people had him under surveillance. Apparently he had gone straight to the Chancery building on Front Street that was serving as the Political Office of BUPI. Clay didn’t know what he was doing in there, but he had a few ideas.
The President was briefing Speaker of the House Ferraro and the congressional leadership on Extreme Displeasure when I slipped into the Oval to give him the news.
From the look on Ms. Ferraro’s face, the briefing was not going well. I managed to catch the President’s eye and convey to him that I had something important for him.
“Well?” he said after they’d left.
I told him. He walked over to his desk and didn’t say anything for a few moments.
“Remind me, Herb, is he still a Muslim?”
“No, sir. He’s been living in Michigan with the Bhagwan.”
“Oh, yes,” he sighed. “That’s right. He sent me some of their cheese for Christmas. It wasn’t bad, actually. Little lumpy. Card said they make it from beans.”
I felt badly for him.