When he’d finished the first page of the Korea report, he pressed the button for his national security adviser, Harry Schuman, to come in, and kept reading with a growing sense of alarm. The most disturbing of the Pentagon’s “facts” was that if the American tanks could not hold the line and “substantial U.S. reserves” were not committed “immediately,” Korea could be lost within weeks — faster than it had taken Hitler’s Panzers to overrun Poland in ‘39. If this happened, warned the combined chiefs of staff, U.S. treaty obligations and guarantees throughout the world would be considered worthless, of no more use than Chamberlain’s piece of paper. And the temptation of the Soviet-Warsaw Pact nations in eastern Europe, particularly East Germany, pushing to reabsorb and effect the “reunification” of East and West Germany might prove irresistible. Mayne simply did not believe the latter; Moscow, no matter its posturing in the post-Gorbachev era, would not endorse such a move in the GDR. The Kremlin, as much as anyone else, wanted to avoid another war — conventional, nuclear, biochemical, whatever.
Harry Schuman, a bushy-eyebrowed southerner whom the White House staff called “Kentucky Fried,” entered the office, and wordlessly Mayne handed him the first sheet of the report as he continued pondering the second. The Pentagon in his view was overplaying the concern about NATO versus the Soviet-Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. But they were correct, he believed, about a victory for North Korea weakening confidence abroad, particularly right next door in Central America and in China, where Beijing coveted Taiwan as theirs because of all the mainland Chinese who had gone over with “Cash My Check” in ‘49 when the Kuomintang had fled the victorious Mao. Most of all, if there was any serious weakening of confidence in America in the Middle East, Iran would be “licking its chops,” as Trainor was apt to put it, and Israel, always surrounded, could be attacked yet again. And if Iraq used chemical weapons, as she’d done against Iran in the ‘79-’88 war, it could well spark a string of firecrackers from the Gulf to the Bering Strait. Mayne picked up the phone to Gen. Ernest Gray, head of the combined chiefs of staff. “General.”
“Mr. President?”
“Your people are telling me that if I don’t commit more forces to Korea immediately, we’re in serious trouble.”
“We’ll lose Korea, Mr. President.”
“The Koreans will lose it, Ernest. We’ll be kicked out.” Mayne felt uncomfortable with calling the general “Ernest”— didn’t sound right — yet “Ernie” invited a familiarity that he didn’t like to encourage with the military as their commander in chief. “What I want to know,” continued the president, “and this is no reflection on your colleagues, but — are we overreacting?” Mayne had seen the television shots of a few of the bridges going, but TV had a way of making a dormitory riot seem like a whole university was on fire when, as he remembered from his own days as a freshman, most students didn’t even know where the dorm was, let alone a riot.
“I support General Cahill’s decision to take out the bridges, sir,” said Gray. “I know it didn’t go down well on the six-o’clock news, but militarily speaking—”
“I have no problem with that, General — awful as it is — but your people worked overtime on the Hill to get more M-1 tanks in Europe so that we could spare several companies for Korea’s DMZ. The M-1s would be the ‘bulwark,’ you said — if I remember correctly — against any possible incursion by the North. Now we have the incursion and I’m not hearing anything about the ‘bulwark.’ “
“Ah, Mr. President — there’s a coded update coming in now. It might be—”
“Fine. Call me right back.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
At the Pentagon General Gray and his aides were in a quandary. On the one hand, to admit that the battle of tanks shaping up south of Uijongbu had not been decided was to admit the Pentagon might indeed have been overreacting about losing the peninsula. On the other hand, to paint too gloomy a picture would be to undermine confidence right down the line. What the Pentagon was really doing was hedging their bet — angling for reserves to be in place in the unlikely event that the M-1s could not hold the line.
The decoded message was reporting the attack on a guided missile frigate, the Blaine. This had already been noted from satellite photos, but when Gray rang the president back, he used it as ammunition for the Pentagon’s overall argument. “What we’re saying, Mr. President, is that the stakes, not just for the Koreans but for the United States, are enormous here. On top of Vietnam any hint of defeat in Korea could undercut confidence not only among our allies but in our, ah—”
“You mean my administration?” Mayne cut in.
“To put it bluntly, sir, yes.”
“Bluntly is what I get paid for, General, but I’ve been talking this over with Harry Schuman. The fact that we can’t hold so far with forty thousand U.S. troops and the ROK forces might be just as bad a signal to send. If confidence has been undermined, then it’s been undermined — I don’t want to send any more boys in there if we’re going to lose the place anyway.”
“All I can say, Mr. President, is that General Cahill and ROK command concur with the JCS assessment. It’s a very tenuous situation, sir.”
Harry Schuman scribbled a note and pushed it across the desk as Mayne asked General Gray what precisely had happened to American air cover. As he answered, Gray could tell from the echoing quality of his voice that the president had put him on “conference,” Harry Schuman sitting in. As far as Gray was concerned, Schuman should stay in his office in Foggy Bottom for all the help he was to the military. Always prevaricating.
“General,” put in Schuman, peering over his bifocals as they switched to visual conferencing, “it’s my understanding that we have the Seventh Fleet moving in off—” he turned to look at the stand map of Korea next to the president “—Pohang?”
“Yes, sir, but their planes aren’t in range yet for air cover over the Uijongbu corridor. In any case, we’ll have to clear the area of MiGs before our navy choppers and what few A-10s we have left can go tank hunting up there. And the point is, sir, no matter how much air cover we can provide, the battle’s ultimately going to be decided on the ground. Our tanks and theirs’ll be too close to—”
“All right, General. But keep me informed half-hourly. Sooner if necessary. Meanwhile I’ll authorize reinforcements from Japan. What I want to avoid right now is sending any troops from the United States. Everyone knows Japan’s our reserve base for Southeast Asia — so we can do that without causing undue panic.”
“Fine, Mr. President, but if you’ll permit me, sir, I need to know whether the reinforcements can be deployed immediately.” Mayne glanced across at Schuman to see if he had any advice.
“General,” put in Schuman, “it’ll be twenty-four hours before they reach Korea. I think it’d be a good idea to leave that question open for now.”
“Sir,” answered the general, “we’re going to need marines or airborne if we’re to secure a landing zone. NKA infiltrators have effectively cut off—”