Lyndon Baines Johnson felt oddly presidential when he asked the obvious question: “What do the Brits need from us?”
“The old Sixth Fleet would be a good start, Mister Vice-President.”
“And?”
“If we’re talking worst case scenario,” the CNO obfuscated for a few precious seconds. “A Marine Expeditionary Corps, a lot of grunts to put boots on any ground we hold. Air, lots of it. Air, every kind you can think of, sir.”
“What can we send them now?”
There had been ten fleet carriers in service at the time of the October War including five of the eight huge modern Kitty Hawk and Constellation Class ships. In addition, the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise had just finished working up and was about to join the fleet. The arbitrary mothballing of over two-thirds of the surface fleet had left the Navy with three operational carrier battle groups. The Kitty Hawk wasn’t likely to be fit for sea again for at least two months; the Independence was currently in the Indian Ocean heading home for a six month refit; and the Enterprise was working up in the North Atlantic — assimilating a new command team subsequent to the summary removal of her previous flag officer and most of his staff, and several key members of the nuclear-powered carrier’s operations team — in the aftermath of the ‘Dreadnought Incident’.
The reactivation of other major surface assets had not started; nor would it for some weeks and none of the mothballed big carriers could be returned to service before the autumn at the earliest. The only part of the fleet which hadn’t been completely hamstrung by the ‘Peace Dividend’ exercise was the Submarine Division. It had got away with mothballing all the conventional, old-fashioned diesel-electric boats, halted the ballistic missile submarine building program, and made superficial adjustments to the scheduled rate at which it was building the next generation of nuclear-powered hunter killers.
“We can send the Enterprise and her escorts to the Mediterranean,” the Chief of Naval Operations stated unequivocally. However, he immediately added a caveat. “Enterprise is not fully combat ready. Her command team has not had time to bed in and most of her original air group was rotated after the events of last month.”
“Can she fight?” The Vice-President inquired softly.
“Yes, sir. She can fight.”
“What else can we send?”
“Three, maybe four SSNs can be warned for departure or diverted to the Mediterranean in the next forty-eight hours.” McDonald wasn’t a man who went in for hand wringing. “As to the surface fleet,” he informed the Vice-President, “the way so many ships were taking out of service and so many key personnel were sent ashore in so short a period has damaged the esprit de corps of the whole service, sir. That’s going to make it hard to reverse the cutback programs still in effect. Before we can get parts of the Fleet back to sea we need to stop the ongoing mothballing. Another issue is that a lot of officers have resigned their commissions. Some by way of a protest, I suppose. But others because they are afraid they’ll get caught in the FBI’s dragnet. If you want the Navy back at sea as fast as possible somebody is going to have to call off the witch hunt. Either way, we’re eighteen months to two years away from restoring the Fleet to its pre-war fighting strength.”
After the CNO had gone Lyndon Baines Johnson went to his desk.
The Administration could move the pieces around on the chess board; but Congress could kick over the board whenever it wanted. He was still picking up exactly the same sort of isolationist, ‘let the Brits pick up their own shit’ messages that had bedevilled Anglo-American relations in the last year. In the current emergency the President was ruling by executive orders. That was a short-term, very temporary arrangement. Ultimately, unless the United States of America was under attack, or threatened with imminent attack, only Congress had the power to send American soldiers, sailors and airmen upon ‘foreign adventures’. There were many in both Houses of Congress who wanted the President impeached for the bombing of Malta and the attack on the two British destroyers off Cape Finisterre; and more who wanted the captain of HMS Dreadnought hung by the neck until dead from a Pennsylvania Avenue lamp post. When the truth about the loss of the Scorpion came out, as it would when the first courts martial commenced at Norfolk sometime next month — hopefully, later if he had anything to do with it — the shit would really hit the fan.
That bastard Edgar J. Hoover was already leaking titbits of information to his lap dogs in the Senate; and the CIA was retaliating by doing the same thing to their own clients in the House in a concerted attempt to undermine the old faggot.
At the very moment America needed its Navy the most the service was about to be embroiled in the greatest conspiracy theory of the age, its reputation dragged through the mire of history. The Air Force was no less culpable in recent disasters; but unlike the Navy, there were no headline culprits and whereas people in the SAC chain of command had clearly questioned their unlawful orders; the Navy had been so all fired up mad keen to sink a British submarine going about its lawful business in international waters that they’d inadvertently torpedoed one of their own!
Chapter 14
Sir Thomas Harding-Grayson waved nonchalantly to his old friend, the Cabinet Secretary as he entered the Common Room. He wasn’t convinced he liked having to chase around the country to speak to the Prime Minister but then politics was a messy business and although he wasn’t really involved in the nitty-gritty of the political game; the woman he worked for most certainly was!
He didn’t know when it had happened. It had crept up on him in much the same way it must have for most of the others. However, before he left Washington he had awakened one morning and realised — known for a fact, actually — that he had ceased to be a simple public servant and become Margaret Thatcher’s liege man. It was an almost feudal thing. The Angry Widow had picked up the standard they’d all known was lying, half-forgotten in the mud and waved it so violently that the whole World had seen it flying, proudly once again. And he’d known that wherever she led and that wherever she led the country, he had to follow.
“There appear to be warships anchored off the Golden Horn!” The Prime Minister scowled as hands were shaken. “And an RAF fighter intercepted and turned back a Soviet reconnaissance aircraft north-east of Cyprus yesterday afternoon!”
The Foreign Secretary paused for thought, a little surprised that the RAF hadn’t simply shot down the interloper.
He smiled.
“You look well, Prime Minister.”
“Thank you, Tom. It is very kind of you to say so.”
“What news from the lost colonies?” Sir Henry Tomlinson, the Cabinet Secretary inquired urbanely.
“The US Navy is readying the USS Enterprise and her escorting vessels to depart for the Western Mediterranean. Several nuclear submarines are also being warned to sail for the region in the next few days.” Tom Harding-Grayson raised an apologetic hand of caution. “We shouldn’t get our hopes up. Congress may put the kybosh on this at any time. And even if these ships and submarines ever reach the Mediterranean any kind of formal, pre-arranged line of command is extremely unlikely.” He sobered somewhat, and carried on his abbreviated summary of the latest international developments. “Spain has formally, as opposed it informally, denied the US Air Force and Navy access to its airfields and ports. The tin pot dictators in Corsica and Sardinia are now making noises about shooting down any ‘foreign pirate’ who ‘desecrates’ their air space. The Italian fascists are getting nervous also. Nobody has any idea how much longer they’ll permit U-2 aircraft or KC-135 tankers to operate out of Aviano. Sicily,” he sighed phlegmatically, “well, the Sicilian authorities seem to have gone quiet. They probably don’t want to do anything to upset the Fighting Admiral.”