Chapter 46
Nobody had gone home. One or two of the men were nursing bottles of lukewarm beer, there were coffee cups everywhere and the atmosphere was heavy with cigarette smoke. Ben Bradlee, Newsweek’s Washington Bureau Chief forced himself to stand still — the urge to pace like an expectant father was almost overwhelming — and listen to the President of the United States of America. The television set had been wheeled into the main office but for some reason the picture was jumpy and the speakers crackled now and then with sudden static. Radio shows had also been afflicted with the same erratic interference during the afternoon, and several of the Bureau Chief’s associates had complained about it. In the back of his mind the bursts of static reminded Ben Bradlee of an effect he had observed, now and then, during his time in the Navy.
That had been down to interference generated by the rotating dishes of adjacent radars on other ships in the fleet…
Bradlee had been a communications officer on the USS Philip (DD-498), a Fletcher class destroyer. He had fought in most of the island hopping campaigns of the Pacific War, starting at the tail end of the Guadalcanal battles. Under certain atmospheric conditions he recollected that the ship’s own radars could cut across the TBS — talk between ships — channels and cause random character loss in given messages, albeit only isolated digits or letters which were easily identified. The effect was always most pronounced when the USS Philip was manuevering close to a big ship, a cruiser, a battlewagon or a carrier.
In the last few days Bradlee had been thinking about the 1945 war a lot; the October War had come and gone overnight and most Americans had heard about it later, but if the present crisis went bad every American would know about it in a hurry and it would not be over in a day, days or probably in weeks or months. Perhaps, that was why he was thinking about the Second World War because he was struggling to reference a more relevant historical analogy? Or maybe it was just that as an old Navy communications man the interference to TV and radio signals bugged him more than it ought to?
The President was doing his best but he was tired, and Bradlee suspected, sick at heart, constantly reliving the nightmare of thirteen months ago as he looked into the abyss once again.
“In asking Chief Justice Warren to Chair this Commission into the Cuban Missiles War I do so in full confidence that he will unravel the conspiracy that plunged this great country into the darkest hours in its history…”
There were scoffs of disbelief around the Newsweek Bureau Chief.
“Wait for the catch!” Two male voices said, almost in chorus.
“However,” Jack Kennedy went on solemnly, “in the context of the affairs of man there is truth in the recognition that words are only words, and that our fears and hopes can only be addressed by actions. I am content to leave the judgement on my part in the momentous events of the last thirteen months to Chief Justice Warren,” a momentary hesitation in which he looked the American people in the eye, “and to the battalions of historians that will surely study our age with limitless intellectual energy and forensic analysis for as long as human beings continue to walk this Earth. To me, as your President in a time of renewed international crisis, the sacred duty falls upon me to ensure the survival of the American people and of our way of life. Even as I speak Secretary of State Dean Rusk is speeding a proposal to our British ‘friends’ that we hold a face to face, leader to leader summit at which our current problems can be discussed and resolved. In so doing we disregard the fact that the United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration unilaterally broke off diplomatic relations three days ago; and that thus far our diplomats have not been granted safe passage to return to the United States. Moreover, as a token of our peaceful intentions towards the United Kingdom, our staunchest allies in the Cuban Missiles War of October last year, I have ordered the US Navy to immediately comply with all the provisions of the unlawful Total Exclusion Zone declared by the UKIEA which comes into effect in less than three days time.”
Ben Bradlee wondered if Ted Sorenson, the man who had written the scripts which Jack Kennedy had read throughout his inexorable journey to the White House, had had a hand in this speech. Sorenson, like McGeorge ‘Mac’ Bundy had been struck down by the killer influenza — the ‘Washington plague’ — which had carried off so many of the old, young and infirm last winter and spring but a few weeks ago Bradlee had heard he was back in DC. Tonight’s State of the Union Address had one or two of the rhetorical flourishes of a Ted Sorenson peroration but seemed to lack focus. That could be because JFK was not sticking to the original script but that was unlikely. A Sorenson speech built and built, pointed to where it was going yet in delivering its final denouement still retained the capacity to surprise, and to occasionally astonish and awe the listener. This speech lacked the living, breathing sense of inevitable purpose of Sorenson’s best work.
“Further to this concession I wish to restate the United States’ unchanged view of the legitimacy of the governments of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Sicily, and of Corsica and Sardinia. It is the view of my Administration that the declarations of independence by the latter island nations, of Corsica and Sardinia, by separate self-appointed military juntas are illegal under international law. Sardinia is rightly an integral part of the polity of Italy; Corsica likewise, is a part of France, notwithstanding the somewhat chaotic governance of that troubled land at this time. The United States of America recognises but does not in any way support or endorse the right-wing, authoritarian regime of the Tuscan League whose writ runs the length of the Italian Peninsula, and to a lesser extent, throughout Sicily. I reiterate that the US Government regards the dictatorships of General Franco in Spain, and of António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal as affronts to the democratic principles enshrined by our founding fathers in our constitution. I have issued an executive order to all arms of the United States Government that all existing bilateral and multi-lateral defence and economic agreements and undertakings with and to Spain, Portugal and Italy are, as of ten o’clock Eastern Standard Time, suspended for a period of twenty-eight days.”
No, that was not Ted Sorenson’s work!
Sorenson would have logically, persuasively laid the foundation for wherever the President was headed.
“You will have read disturbing reports about United States Air Force participation in attacks against British interests and warships in the Central and Western Mediterranean Sea…”
Ben Bradlee was not alone in sighing with muted despair.
Ted Sorenson would never have let JFK go down this road.
This was going to be positively artless…
“I will say this once, and once only,” John Fitzgerald Kennedy asserted, his voice quivering with dangerous emotion. “Not one of these actions was ordered by, or sanctioned by my Administration and anybody who is found to have knowingly participated in, either by deed or commission, in inducing American servicemen to take part in, and in many cases, die, in the course of those actions will be pursued by my Administration and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
“This is like he’s missed out a page of the speech!” Somebody complained from behind Ben Bradlee’s shoulder.
“What’s he fucking talking about?” Asked another man disgustedly.