In the background the voice of the President changed pitch, warning the highly attuned ears of the listeners in the Cabinet Room that he was about to move past purposeless conjecture, forget scoring cheap political points and hopefully, remember that he was actually supposed to be a leader and a statesman.
“However,” Jack Kennedy said with a solemnity that might not have been wholly false, “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 self-deprecatory hesitation, presumably to allow him to flash a boyish grin at the American people, “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.”
“Unlawful!” Margaret Thatcher scoffed softly.
“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.”
Tom Harding-Grayson was frowning.
The President was explaining to the American people what a good egg he was and reassuring the New York Stock Exchange that nothing he’d just said was likely to impinge upon business as usual. And if it did then Uncle Sam would ensure nobody was out of pocket.
“What is it Tom?” James Callaghan asked quietly.
“JFK has just suspended a whole raft of measures designed to give the Portuguese colonies in Southern Africa exemption from US import and export tariffs. The value of the Portuguese escudo will fall like a stone against the dollar. Salazar’s already got a guerrilla war spreading across Angola. As for Mozambique,” the Foreign Secretary shook his head. “Salazar’s bound to turn to the South Africans for help in Mozambique…”
The problem with this wasn’t immediately apparent to the others in the room. Realising as much, Tom Harding-Grayson tried to explain.
“Southern Africa is like a house of cards. If one card falls the contagion could easily spread to the next, and so on. Several of the guerrilla movements in the region were essentially Soviet backed nationalist entities. However, just because the Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore it doesn’t mean there aren’t still Soviet advisors and weapons on the ground, or that the movements themselves have melted away. For example, the African National Congress was never a Soviet tool. Most of its leaders were sheltered and many were educated, in Britain…”
Everybody was suddenly listening to the President of the United States of America.
“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…”
“And in the North Atlantic!” The Angry Widow hissed.
“I will say this once, and once only,” John Fitzgerald Kennedy asserted, his voice quivering with emotion. The sermon was reaching its crescendo; demanding a leap of faith. “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.”
The Prime Minister exhaled a long slow reflective breath.
“He’s started speaking off the cuff,” he remarked. The others in the Cabinet Room knew how meticulously Edward Heath prepared his every public utterance. As befitted a Balliol man and a former President of the Oxford Union few men in the UKIEA understood better how to construct a coherent, consistent and entertaining speech. He might not be the most riveting of orators but he was always good value for money and by the time he sat down and put away his notes, everybody knew exactly where he stood. Not so the President of the Unites States of America. “I think somebody’s slipping new, revised notes in front of him as he goes along. He’s extemporising off the cuff.” The very idea of it appalled the Prime Minister. The idea that a man could sit down to talk to his nation about peace and war, and then half-way through start making it up as he went along beggared belief. The possibilities for disaster were almost limitless…
“As I speak I am aware that there may be American servicemen in the hands of the British authorities. I solemnly vow to the American people that I will not attend a peace summit while our boys are held captive overseas…”
“He’s just added that,” Tom Harding-Grayson gasped. “What’s wrong with the man? Is he drunk, or something?”
A thing once publicly promised to tens of millions of one’s own people cannot be taken back again except at huge personal and political cost. There was a short pause as the President contemplated the folly of what he’d just said.
“I know this will not be an insurmountable problem because in my heart I choose to believe that the vital national interests of both the United States and the old country remain indivisible, one and the same thing and that when good friends differ, the spirit of friendship and reconciliation can conquer all things!”
Chapter 24
Jack Kennedy’s hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t hold the tumbler of neat Bourbon his younger brother had tried to press into his hands. After the broadcast had ended he’d stared into the middle distance, ignoring everybody in the room. He’d have said something but he was out of words; the most loquacious man since FDR to sit in the Oval Office had run out of words to express the stark dissonance of his thoughts.