Lewis looked at the old man seated across from him and felt contempt for him and what he was trying to do. With a tone that barely hid his contempt, Lewis told Bateman that the answer was not only no but hell no.
The smile on Bateman's face disappeared. Uncrossing his legs and leaning forward toward Lewis, Bateman dropped any attempt to be subtle or friendly and went instead right into the attack. "Now you look here, mister. Believe it or not, I really know where you're coming from, and in principle I agree with you." Bateman paused and sat back on the sofa, throwing his right hand up for emphasis as he continued. "Hell, Ed, if I thought that this mess could be resolved by simply pulling our troops out, I'd be running up and down the halls of this building promoting it myself. Unfortunately, there's more than just the protecting our people. There's the Russians. Or have you forgotten them?"
Angry, Lewis got up and began to pace behind his desk, fighting back the urge to choke the shit out of the old fart sitting across from him. "The Russians, the Russians! Every time this administration gets into trouble, they yell, 'The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!' Christ, it reminds me of the Chicken Little story." Lewis stopped his pacing and pointed a finger at Bateman. "Well, my friend, I'm here to tell you I don't buy that line anymore. That same bullshit got us into Korea in '50, Vietnam in '64, and Iran two years ago. I for one believe that what the Soviet premier is doing is an honest and sincere effort to resolve our differences and make this world a safer place."
Bateman again leaned forward. "In the first place, young man, your grasp of world history and politics appears to be quite selective. The communist attack of South Korea was the result of a misunderstanding, a belief by the communists that the U.S. had no interest in Korea and would do nothing to aid that government. The Soviets crushed the Hungarian revolution in '56 with tanks and jets because they knew we would do nothing. Ditto the Prague spring in '68, Ethiopia in '77, Afghanistan in '79, and Iran. Before you buy a used car from the premier, I recommend you think hard about the consequences this resolution could have."
Despite the fact that he was upset at being lectured at like an undergrad, Lewis pulled his horns back in and settled himself before he continued. When he did, he spoke with a deep, steady tone that left no doubt of his resolve. "I have considered what the results will be if we don't act. If we do nothing, young Americans will be thrown into battle, again, in a foreign country. I cannot believe that you, or any other responsible official, could condone such a thought."
Bateman felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. His patience was at an end. Still, he mustered the strength to keep himself in check and hold his voice down. "And I, sir, cannot believe that a man of your background and education, as well as being a former soldier yourself, does not understand the implications of what the withdrawal of our troops will mean. The question is no longer whether they should have been there in the first place or not. Right now that's a moot point. The fact is that they are there, in Egypt, and the Russians are in Libya. To pull our troops out without some type of similar move by the other people can only be viewed as a retreat. The world, and the Russians, will believe that we are abandoning a friendly nation to her fate in her greatest time of need. Even more dangerous, such a move will give the Russians a free hand. Once our people are gone, the other people will be able to act freely, without any possibility of us responding in kind at the same level."
"Congressman Bateman, I am going to do what I believe is right. I believe that the Russians will see our move for what it is, an effort to defuse the crisis. Furthermore, they will respond in kind. The Soviet premier has on many occasions shown that he is a man of peace, willing to do whatever is necessary to make the world a safer place. I, sir, am willing to bet my political career on that."
Seeing there was no hope of stopping Lewis, Bateman turned and walked to the door. Just before he exited, he stopped and faced Lewis. "You may be willing to gamble with your political career, but remember, if you're wrong, the soldiers who will have to sort out our mistakes are going to lose a lot more than a career." With that, he turned and left.
In the operations center for the North African Front, a collapsible camp stool sat two meters from the situation map where Soviet staff officers posted the current situation. It was the general's stool, a relic that he had carried with him from his earliest days. It had once belonged to his father, a regimental commander of the 32nd Guards Tank Regiment, in the Great Patriotic War. According to the legend his father told him when he passed the stool on to his newly commissioned son, the stool had once been the property of a German division commander. The 32nd Guards, after crossing a river that was supposed to be unfordable and advancing all night, came upon the headquarters for a German division and promptly overran it. In the process of rounding up the prisoners, Uvarov's father walked into the operations center and found the division commander sitting on the stool, alone, his face in his hands, crying. When Uvarov's father came up to him, the German general looked up at him and, tears streaming down his cheeks, pointed to the map: "This is impossible! You can't be here. You're supposed to be on the other side of the river!" Uvarov relieved the German of the stool and kept it. Now it was his son's. His only words when he passed it to the young officer were, "You can use it when you're thinking, but don't ever think that you can command from it."
Uvarov had remembered those words and lived by them. Doing so, however, occasionally had dire consequences. More than once in Iran he had found himself in the middle of a fire fight, crawling around in the dirt with his soldiers. At one point in the Iranian war, when the situation was fluid, Uvarov and his small command group became lost as they were headed back to their division CP in the dark. Coming up to a road intersection manned by military police, Uvarov stopped and asked the soldier on duty where they were. Instead of answering, the soldier on the ground turned and ran, yelling in English as he went, "Jesus Christ! The Russians are here!"
Since being in Libya, Uvarov had already had two run-ins with death. Though he survived both, the one that afternoon had cost his aide his life. As he sat on his stool that evening, sipping tea and pondering the large map on the wall, he thought about how fickle luck was. Here he was, a man who had found himself in life-threatening situations, in peace as well as in war, and he had never had so much as a scratch. On the other hand, his young aide, exposed to war for the first time, was killed by a stray round. Though he knew that a good commander had to be technically and tactically proficient, he understood that the commander also needed a large measure of luck. His father had often told him, "A commander killed while bravely leading his men in battle may provide a good heroic story, but he wins fewer battles than a live commander."