Hillenkoetter didn't reply; he didn't trust himself to speak.
Who does this arrogant sonofabitch think he is, coming into my office and telling me to turn off my recorder?
"Franklin Roosevelt had the Oval Office wired to record interesting conversations," Fowler went on, amiably, rea-sonably. "I have no reason to believe Harry Truman had it removed. If I were in your shoes, I'd have such a device. I suspect you do, and I'm asking you to turn it off. There are some things that should not be recorded for posterity."
Hillenkoetter felt his temper rise.
Like a senator pressuring me to give his buddy a job, for example?
Who does he think he is?
He thinks he's a power in the Senate. He knows he's a power in the Senate. Ergo sum, one of the most powerful men in the country.
Hillenkoetter pressed a lever on his intercom box.
"Mrs. Warburg, would you please turn off the recording device?"
"Yes, sir," Mrs. Warburg replied.
Her surprise was evident in her voice. One of the rea-sons the admiral had kept Senator Fowler waiting was to make sure the recorder was working.
One did not let one's guard down when a senator-any senator, much less Richardson K. Fowler (R., Cal.)-called one at one's home and asked for a meeting at your earliest convenience, say, nine o `clock tomorrow morning.
"Thank you," Fowler said.
Hillenkoetter didn't reply.
Fowler looked at Pickering and made a give it to me mo-tion with his index finger.
Pickering took a fat business-size envelope from his in-terior jacket pocket and handed it to Fowler. Fowler handed it to Hillenkoetter.
`Take a look at that, Admiral, if you would, please," Fowler said.
Hillenkoetter opened the envelope and took out the sheaf of paper.
"What is this?"
"Before we talk about it, Admiral," Fowler said, "it might be a good idea for you to have some idea of what we're talking about."
Hillenkoetter's lips tightened, but he didn't reply. It took him three minutes to read the document.
"This would appear to be an intelligence assessment," he said finally. "But there's no heading, no transmission letter. Where did this come from?"
"I had my secretary excerpt the pertinent data from the original," Pickering said.
"From the original official document?"
Pickering nodded.
"Such a document would be classified," Hillenkoetter said, thinking out loud. "Secret, at least. How did you come into possession of the original?"
"The original document was prepared by an officer who worked for me during the war," Pickering said. "I believe what he says in that assessment."
"I've seen nothing from our people there, or from Gen-eral MacArthur's intelligence people, that suggests any-thing like this," Hillenkoetter said.
"That assessment was given to General Willoughby," Pickering said. "Who not only ordered it destroyed, but had the officer who prepared it ordered from Japan."
"That sounds like an accusation, General," Hillenkoetter said.
"It's a statement of fact," Pickering said.
"Why would he do something like that?"
"God only knows," Pickering said. "The fact is, he did."
"And the officer who prepared it, rather than destroying it, gave it to you? Is that about it?"
"That's it," Pickering said.
"General Willoughby is not only a fine officer, but I would say the most experienced intelligence officer in the Far East," Hillenkoetter said.
"Does the name Wendell Fertig mean anything to you, Admiral?" Pickering asked.
Hillenkoetter searched his mind.
"The guerrilla in the Philippines?" He smiled, and added, "The reservist who promoted himself to general?"
"The guerrilla in the Philippines who, when the Army fi-nally got back to Mindanao, had thirty thousand armed, uniformed, and organized troops under his command waiting for them," Pickering said. "During the war, he forced the Japanese to divert a quarter of a million men to dealing with him."
Hillenkoetter, his face showing surprise at the coldly an-gry intensity of Pickering's response, looked at him and waited for him to continue.
"Before, at President Roosevelt's direction, I sent a team of agents into Mindanao to establish contact with General Fertig, General Willoughby, speaking for MacArthur, stated flatly that there was no possibility of meaningful guerrilla operations in the Pacific."
Hillenkoetter took a moment to digest that.
"I gather your relationship with General MacArthur was difficult?" he asked.
"Anyone's relationship with General MacArthur is diffi-cult," Pickering said. "But if you are asking what I think you are, our personal relationship was-is-just fine. I had dinner with him and Mrs. MacArthur last week."
"And did you bring this... this assessment up to him?"
"General MacArthur's loyalty to his staff, especially those who were with him in the Philippines, is legendary," Pickering said. "I know Douglas MacArthur well enough to know that it would have been a waste of time."
"And, I daresay, he might have asked the uncomfortable question, how you came to be in possession of the assess-ment in the first place?"
Pickering didn't reply.
"The officer who gave you this assessment should not have done so," Hillenkoetter said.
"Is that going to be your reaction to this, Admiral?" Pickering asked, coldly. "Someone dared to go out of channels, and therefore what he had to say is not relevant?"
"Easy, Flem," Senator Fowler said.
"I didn't say that, General," Hillenkoetter said.
"That was the implication," Pickering said.
"I'll need the officer's name," Hillenkoetter said.
"I'm not going to give it to you," Pickering said, flatly.
"I can get it," Hillenkoetter flared.
"If you did that, Admiral, this whole thing would prob-ably wind up in the newspapers," Senator Fowler said. "I don't think you want that any more than we do."
Hillenkoetter, while waiting to hear that the recording sys-tem was functioning, had gone over the CIA's most recent "informal biography" of Fowler, Richardson K. (R., Cal.) and was thus freshly reminded that the senator owned the San Francisco Courier-Herald, nine smaller newspapers, six radio stations, and five television stations, including one ra-dio station and one television station in Washington, D.C.
"This is a matter of national security, Senator," Hil-lenkoetter said, and immediately regretted it.
"That's why we're here, Admiral," Pickering said.
Hillenkoetter glared at him, realized he was doing so, and turned to Fowler.
"What is it you would like me to do, Senator?" he asked.
"At the very least, light a fire under your people in Japan and Hong Kong and Formosa and see why they haven't come up with an assessment like this," Pickering said.
"I was asking the senator, General," Hillenkoetter said.
"What General Pickering suggests seems like a good first step," Fowler said. "Followed closely by step two, which would be keeping me advised, on a daily basis, of what your people develop."
"Senator, my channel to the Senate is via the Senate Oversight Committee on Intelligence. I'm not sure I'm au-thorized to do that."
"Well, I certainly wouldn't want you to do anything you're not authorized to do," Fowler said, reasonably. "So what I'm apparently going to have to do is go to Senator Driggs, whom I had appointed to the chairmanship of the Oversight Committee, and ask him to give you permission to give me what I want. I think Jack Driggs would want to know why I'm interested."