Thomas Bell walked directly to the stage and stood behind a wooden podium adorned with the seal of the United States Armed Forces. The large expanse of wall behind him was covered with large maps of Central and Eastern Europe, overlaid with transparent plastic sheets that bore many tactical markings in red, blue, and black.
General Bell wished his audience a good morning and instructed them to be seated. Holding a long stick, the General addressed them.
“The Red enemy has apparently decided to test our nerves, and I’m not sure that it really wants to test us. The enemy has been pushing vast amounts of armor westward for the past three days. In the next few hours, the Supreme Command will up the alert for all the United States Armed Forces, wherever they are, to DEFCON 3. It will require each of you to ensure that all your units, on land and at sea and in the air, open their operations files, examine and revise their details and memorize all battle orders. At this stage — and I emphasize: at this stage — training will continue as usual. We will now hear an intelligence update.”
General Bell walked to his seat in the first row, and his place at the podium was taken by a representative of Military Intelligence, a Colonel wearing light khaki camouflage fatigues.
“Good morning, everyone.”
A few officers murmured a greeting.
“For three nights now the Red Army has been transferring, mainly by rail, very large forces, mostly armored forces, into Western Poland, close to the border with Eastern Germany. So far, in our estimation, about eight thousand tanks and some two thousand armored personnel carriers have been transported, and the flow of vehicles and materials is continuing.”
Whispers were heard throughout the room. The Colonel paused for several seconds until silence was restored in the hall.
“I wish to make it clear, so that you understand, that such a scope of troop deployment has never been seen before. This is the size of more than forty armored divisions! Just for a sense of scale, in 1968, when the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia, they only deployed about two thousand tanks. According to radio communications that we’ve intercepted, more tanks will continue to be moved westwards tonight. The scope of activity is so vast that no Polish civilian trains run at night. One can say that all railroads have been seized for the Russian military trains.
“On the diplomatic front, our President received tonight an urgent letter from the General Secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. In this letter, Secretary Yermolov explains that this is an internal problem of the Warsaw Pact. The letter is quite uncharacteristic, as it lacks the traditional threats of ‘do not interfere and if you do interfere, be prepared to suffer the consequences’ etc. etc. I must confess that our experts are quite confounded by this letter. Some of them claim that the conciliatory and nonthreatening language is meant to lull us into a false sense of security regarding an operation that could exceed the limits of repressing the insurrection in the German Democratic Republic.”
General Bell interrupted the Colonel.
“I agree with that”, he called out from his seat for everyone to hear. “It makes a lot of sense. They don’t need so many forces just to suppress civil disobedience in Eastern Germany.”
A young officer entered the room, saluted, and handed the Colonel on the stage a piece of paper seemed to have been torn off a teleprinter roll. The Colonel glanced at the paper and placed it on the podium before him.
“Actually, tonight is extremely critical. If we see that the transfer of forces continues at the same rate tonight, and I don’t want to even think about the next nights, then we will face a serious problem with them. There are several elements that we call preparatory threat indicators, which point to later belligerent actions, if the intention is indeed for Soviet forces to cross East Germany and continue westward toward our territory in West Germany.
“These indicators would include the transfer to the front of large engineering corps and many artillery batteries; in addition, deployment of fighter jet and helicopter squadrons west of the front. It goes without saying that they will have to advance anti-aircraft missile batteries. We have enough means at our disposal to detect their movements almost in real time, regardless of the weather. It is important to emphasize that at this moment, we are not there yet. Without the added elements that I mentioned before, they will have the capacity, albeit excessive and exaggerated, to suppress the uprising in Eastern Germany. However, they will not have enough to engage our forces. Of course, this is the complete opposite of their usual tactics, namely, to push forward without the close support of attack aircraft and an anti-aircraft missile umbrella.”
The Colonel picked up the message he had received a few minutes before and read it again. He looked at Gerald Bell across from him.
“Precisely on this subject of preparatory threat indicators that must be present before war, our intelligence teams have intercepted an interesting conversation. The conversation was made from the base of an artillery battalion stationed several hundred kilometers southwest of Moscow. All the details of that conversation are here, and the people there are talking about preparations for redeployment, and also about loading onto a train. It may be innocent, but it may also be the first of those indicators which I noted before, now being realized.”
The Colonel completed his briefing, and General Bell took his place behind the podium.
“We have heard, with great concern, worrying figures that must trouble every one of us. I’ll start with the letter that was sent to our President. This is not typical of the Red enemy as I know it, and I know it at least as well as our intelligence people. In my opinion, this letter has only one purpose: lulling us into complacency. If they continue their unprecedented use of the trains tonight, and haul more tanks into Poland, then by tomorrow the situation as I see it will not have changed, and I will explicitly recommend to Washington, by virtue of my rank, to raise our alertness to DEFCON 2. When this happens, you must halt all training activities throughout your units. All our units will leave their bases for their battle deployment areas and positions and complete their preparations for engaging the enemy.”
General Bill waved his finger to the General in charge of the Air Force sitting across from him. The Air Force General sat up in his chair.
“You know that our forces are numerically inferior to the enemy’s, in everything to do with tanks and artillery pieces. This is your opportunity to prove to the sages at the Pentagon that they were right to shower you and your friends with so many billions of dollars instead of procuring more tanks and guns for us. You’d better not disappoint me. I expect to raise the alert to number two tomorrow, and then all your aircraft will be there ready on the tarmac, fully loaded for a thirty- minute notice to take off.”
General Bell then turned to the Intelligence Colonel.
“I want to say a few more things, especially to you, Colonel, and please forward this to your commanding officers. We all agree that the forces that the enemy has concentrated for entry into Eastern Germany are exaggerated and unreasonable. I’ll tell you even more. This force is now exaggerated by any scale, not just for suppressing civil disobedience there, but also for a scenario where the East German Armed Forces resist the invader and fight him on the battlefield. Now I want to ask you a question. I’m sure you know that every unit larger than a battalion in the East German military has Soviet officers attached. The enemy certainly knows and recognizes his own officers, that he himself sent there. Do you really think that the Communist East German military will fight them? Please answer me.”