Lyndon Baines Johnson nodded. The trouble with most officers and gentlemen was that they never answered a straight question with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Nevertheless, McDonald came recommended by everybody who had ever had anything to do with him and he had been pencilled in for the CNO job before he got his fourth star. Perhaps, if McDonald had been CNO last year they’d have saved themselves a lot of unnecessary grief. Still, there was no point crying over spilt milk.
The President and Jackie were off on the stump in the Midwest and Bobby Kennedy was trying to quieten down the situation in Atlanta, Georgia. The two most charismatic members of the Administration would be living on jetliners for the next few days attempting to hold what was left of the Union together; LBJ was minding the store in Philadelphia while Robert McNamara, the one-time whizz kid boss of the Ford Motor Company, was methodically unravelling the nightmare reorganisation and relocation of the Pentagon with one hand, and with the other acting as the provisional military governor of the nation’s sorely ravaged capital. To say that the situation was a mess was to understate the problem by a factor of scores and hundreds but at least Curtis LeMay had — in the last week — finally managed locked down all of Strategic Air Command’s nuclear assets.
“Where are we with the SSBN inventory, Admiral McDonald?” The Vice-President asked bluntly.
“All Polaris ballistic missile armed boats are in port, sir,” the CNO reported. “Inventory checks are ongoing but all fully generated warheads and launch systems are accounted for and locked down at this time. All nuclear-capable surface units have returned to port and are off-loading munitions to secure facilities on land with the exception of the carriers Enterprise, Kitty Hawk and Independence. Enterprise is currently in transit to Norfolk, Kitty Hawk is docked at Kobe, Japan, and the Independence is on a homeward transit via the Cape of Good Hope. I am prepared to personally vouch for the loyalty of the commanding officers of those ships, Mister Vice-President.”
Each of the big carriers routinely operated with up to forty nuclear warheads stashed in their magazines. In retrospect, scattering ‘nuclear assets’ around every theatre of war and every ocean of the World had been madness. That said nobody in Washington had foreseen a situation in which the political leadership could not trust its military with the custody of such dangerous toys; until it was too late.
What might have happened if the insurgents had got their hands on an atomic bomb during the Battle of Washington?
LBJ shuddered at the very thought of it.
“The British think the lid’s going to blow in the Mediterranean,” the Vice-President growled. “We have fragmentary intelligence about fighting in and around Istanbul and there’s a lot of new traffic in the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. The trouble is neither of us have any eyes on the ground any more. The CIA is screaming for the spy satellite program to be reactivated but realistically we’re not going to have cameras back in orbit for six to twelve months. We made a whole lot of bad decisions last year,” he admitted, keen to clear the air with the newly-appointed Chief of Naval Operations. “We know something is happened over there but we don’t know what.”
“Red Dawn?” Admiral McDonald asked. “My staff report there is a big increase in radio chatter from formerly ‘quiet’ areas around the Black Sea. Presumably the CIA is talking to the British about this stuff?”
LBJ scowled. If one was looking for a litmus test of the disarray after the Battle of Washington it was that the CIA was much more likely to be talking to the Brits than it was to the high command of the United States military.
“That whole area was pretty badly chewed up during the October War,” he observed sourly. “The Soviets couldn’t get at us so they took their revenge on the Turks. It was a miracle Istanbul got away untouched. What with the destruction of most of the major centres of population in Anatolia, Bulgaria and the military coups across what was left of the Balkans we’re blind in that part of the World. Romania is the only half-way functioning member of the Warsaw Pact in that part of the World and they’ve been putting out diplomatic feelers via the Scandinavians. CIA and the State Department don’t know what they want, or care. The way things are Bucharest is bound to be awash with refugees from the surrounding countries and I don’t see the regime in Romania being any kind of ally in the near future. The whole area is a mess; that was the rationale behind trying to retain contact with the Italians. We’ve still got U-2s operating out of Aviano but you can only see so much from sixty or seventy thousand feet…”
The Chief of Naval Operations sucked his teeth.
“The latest CIA papers coming across my desk paint a bad picture.”
“Spooks like to scare-monger.”
“My planners are working on the basis of a worst case scenario, Mister Vice-President. Judging by their fleet redeployment the British are also planning on the worst,” he ran a hand through his thinning fair hair, “and like us, hoping for the best.”
Lyndon Baines Johnson nodded, wishing he felt a little more presidential and a little less, worried…
“Tell me about the worst case?”
“The worst case is what the British sources predicted,” the CNO retorted dryly, “A horde out of the East falls upon either the British possessions in the Mediterranean; or the Balkans and the Italian peninsula, or pours into the Levant and down the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers all the way to the Persian Gulf. The last option is the most immediately disastrous for our own World position, but both of the first two options are terrifying. If Red Dawn is capable of mobilising the survivors of the Soviet forces in the Ukraine, the Crimea, the Caucasus, say,” the CNO continued grimly, “and amalgamates that force with the remaining resources of the Turkish state we’ve got nothing short of nuclear strikes to stop it.”
“That is not an option Admiral.”
“No?”
“There’s no point saving the World if it ends up being so goddam radioactive we all glow in the goddam dark!”
The Chief of Naval Operations let this unscientific remark go uncontested.
“Okay, worst case scenario. Red Dawn might strike west across the Balkans, or down through the Aegean. Taking Crete would isolate the British in Cyprus and potentially threaten the security of the pre-October War atomic weapon storage facility at Akrotiri. Or Red Dawn might strike south towards the Gulf oil fields. The bottom line is if they’ve got any kind of surface combat capability — barges with guns on them would be enough — and any kind of air force,” the Chief of Naval Operations shrugged, “they’ll roll right over whatever is in front of them on Cyprus.”
“If Red Dawn strikes into the Middle East they’ll have to get past the Israelis?” The Vice-President objected.
“Yes, and the Jordanians, the Iraqis, the Iranians, the Egyptians, and the Iranians,” Admiral McDonald agreed. “But it isn’t very likely the existing military forces in the region will actually co-ordinate, let alone combine against a common threat like Red Dawn. Likewise, none of the above would contemplate diversionary or spoiling attacks by any elements of their armed forces to support the British.” The Chief of Naval Operations reconsidered. “Well, the Jordanians might, I suppose. But I doubt if any of the others would lift a finger to help the British until or unless they feel themselves to be directly threatened by Red Dawn.”
“You talked about the vulnerability of the Italian peninsula?”
“Yes, that’s just as big a problem, in the long term a much bigger problem, for us than losing the Gulf oil fields. If Italy falls to Red Dawn, or anybody else as apparently inimical to the USA as Red Dawn, we eventually lose access to the Mediterranean and sooner or later the rest of whatever is left of Central and Western Europe probably falls with it. The worst case scenario is that we — the United States of America — find ourselves with no friends in the half of the World from whence most of our fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers came from, sir.”