Jack Kennedy ought to have been articulating a new American dream, talking reconstruction and rebirth; instead he was locked in a death grip fighting for the dominion of the lowest, dirtiest ground in American politics.
When a man like Jack Kennedy started talking himself out of doing the right thing it was hardly surprising that so many of the party faithful were looking to jump ship.
Lyndon Johns raised his glass to his lips.
“When the news gets out about the Moon Program,” he sniffed, “Alabama, Florida and Texas, and most likely California, New Mexico and Nevada will go south so fast those boys in Massachusetts won’t know they’ve lost their pants until they’re standing on Main Street with their dicks flapping in the wind!”
The billions of dollars associated with NASA, the Air Force and a dozen prestigious universities— Manna from Heaven promised for many years to come — had been all that was tying the fragmenting Southern Democratic homelands to the Administration. Much of the renewed military spending was concentrated in the north, huge swaths of the strife-torn old Deep South already felt forgotten and neglected, despised by the Philadelphia elite.
Claude Betancourt held his peace.
“Do your people have any idea what’s going to happen when the rest of the country finds out how bad things are in the Midwest?” The Vice President asked him bluntly.
The older man was impassive.
“Or,” LBJ grunted sarcastically, “what will happen when the price of gas doesn’t just keep going up every week but the pumps start running dry?”
Claude Betancourt did not think the pumps were going to run dry any time soon. The United States had built up massive strategic crude oil reserves in the last year, and over half the surviving big refineries in the World were on American soil. But in eighteen months, perhaps a couple of years time if the Red Army closed the Persian Gulf? Well, that was another kettle of fish…
As for the escalating price of gas at the pump…
Heck, rising prices were simply a reflection of the fact that in the present weakened state of the Federal Government the big oil companies knew they could virtually get away with murder. JFK was fighting for his political — and probably, his temporal life also — and the last thing he was about to do was go to war with the all-powerful, mendacious and utterly ruthless cartel that former Administrations and the madness of the October War had immovably entrenched. The so-called Seven Sisters might have emerged reduced in number from World War III but the cartel still controlled — albeit nominally — eighty percent of the World’s oil reserves and trade; and the men who ran Gulf Oil, Standard Oil of California (SoCal), Standard Oil of New Jersey (ESSO), Standard Oil of New York (Mobil), and Texaco, had already given up on John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
What use was a President who would not, or could not defend the vast oilfields of the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco), which was one hundred percent owned by four of the five surviving ‘Sisters’. It was an even sadder state of affairs when a government’s writ, by virtue of military incompetence and administrative enfeeblement no longer ran across every state in the union; and when that same government proved self-evidently incapable or just plain unwilling to protect the key assets of major American companies abroad the situation became intolerable.
The Seven Sisters had prospered in the post-World War II American Empire. The chaotic retreat from that short-lived empire, most notably in Arabia and the rest of the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and the writing off of practically all their Western European ‘property’, had not yet been — nor was likely to be any time soon — materially offset by new ventures and ‘opportunities’ which had opened up in South America, Canada, and Asia. In fact, the Kennedy Administration’s casual alienation of Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and latterly the Spanish and Portuguese was beginning to have a range of painfully limiting, and most unwelcome impacts on the post-war balance sheets of practically all of the surviving ‘Sisters’. Much to the consternation of a Wall Street establishment built on the rock of the US oil industry.
“It is my understanding that the President,” Claude Betancourt sighed, “entertains robust plans to impose a peace on the warring parties in the Persian Gulf.”
“Curtis LeMay told those boys he needed two bomb groups of B-52s, and two hundred thousand troops on the ground,” Lyndon Johnson scoffed derisively. “What we’ve got is the Kitty Hawk and half-a-dozen ships. We might as well be pissing in the wind. If anything goes wrong — anything at all — we’re liable to get ourselves into a shooting war with the Brits, the Russians and God knows who else seven thousand fucking miles from home!”
This approximately matched Claude Betancourt’s own analysis of the situation.
“My sources say that we had nothing to do with the coup against Nasser?” He checked, thinking aloud.
“CIA thinks it was the Russians. Or the Brits. Probably the Russians,” the Vice President decided. “Nasser was preparing to send two armored divisions to the Gulf. The Russians wouldn’t have wanted that.”
Having gone off at a tangent Claude Betancourt came directly back to the heart of the matter.
“There are two scenarios,” he suggested. “Either the President carries a divided party at the Atlantic City convention in August and goes forward critically wounded into a general Election campaign he cannot possibly win. Or he stands down before the convention and leaves the field open for a safe pair of hands to pick up the pieces ahead of the convention.”
Johnson viewed his visitor with hard, thoughtful eyes which betrayed no whisper of any of the emotions roiling behind them.
He had advised his President to throw the British a bone at Hyannis Port; a big, preferably juicy bone. JFK, his inner circle having convinced him that if he took a ‘strong line’ that Prime Minister Thatcher would probably be ousted from power by a cabal in England much more willing to do the Administration’s bidding, had ignored his advice.
The President had made a disastrous miscalculation.
Margaret Thatcher was still Prime Minister and under her leadership the British had — if such a thing was possible — significantly hardened their line on the War in South Atlantic with the Argentine (still supposedly a key US regional ally), and done what they could to reinforce their forces in the Persian Gulf.
The woman had told JFK that she had drawn a line in the sand; her line was Abadan Island, Jack Kennedy’s was on the beach in front of his father’s house at Hyannis Port. If and when that lady got used to the idea that she had been betrayed — again — she was going to kick back like her life depended on it and then there would be all Hell to pay.
“You know I’m not going to make a direct play for the nomination, Claude,” Johnson said coyly.
“Quite,” the older man confirmed. “But if the moment arose?”
“Yeah, well,” the tall Texan guffawed, levering himself to his feet. “I ain’t going any place any time soon. Those damned doctors and Lady Bird say I need to be ‘in retreat’ or some such for a week or month or two. Maybe, they’re right. Either way, you old boys will know where to find me if you need me!”
Claude Betancourt sipped his bourbon.
“Respectfully, sir,” he decided, slowly rising to his feet, “if you entertain ambitions of being the President I strongly suggest you return to Philadelphia in time to assume your rightful place on the steps of City Hall on 4th July.”
Johnson’s right eyebrow arched momentarily.