Castro's bomb Page 5

  Even Guevara had to laugh. "Your point is well made. We will wait."

  Ortega nodded. "And if the Americans appear alarmed, I may cancel the attacks, although, at a point, it will be impossible to inform all the field commanders. Simply put, at two in the morning, my officers will receive the go-ahead to attack or the order to abort. At four a.m. they will attack. Once they start moving they cannot be stopped."

  Guevara smiled nervously. "Then we will wait until four."

  Che also smiled inwardly. Poor Ortega. He had no idea that he was only one part of Fidel's plans for Cuba and the world. Just one small part.

  President Kennedy stared at the baffling array of phones and speakers on the table in the Cabinet Room, the place where he preferred to hold his staff meetings. His engineers had told him that all of the parties would be able to speak with him and with each other. He had his doubts. In his experience, technology never worked the way the technicians said it would.

  Two o'clock in the afternoon came. One by one, key members of the Executive Committee, ExComm, came on line. Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson acknowledged first, and then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Maxwell Taylor followed along with his service chiefs, Curtis LeMay of the Air Force, Admiral George Anderson of the Navy, and General David Shoup of the Marine Corps. Technically, Shoup was not a member of the Joint Chiefs, but participated when matters pertaining to the Corps were discussed, and Guantanamo's defenses were largely manned by marines.

  The only absentee was Army General Earl Wheeler. An apologetic voice identified himself as Lieutenant General Josiah Bunting, and informed Kennedy that Wheeler was out of touch and probably driving to a family gathering and would be reached in about an hour. Bunting also informed the president that he was the senior army officer at the Pentagon. The president didn't care who represented the army, just so long as someone did and that the damned phones worked.

  Kennedy was well aware that the generals didn't have much confidence in him, even though the rest of the world thought he'd forced the Soviets to back down last October. The generals considered him too young, too inexperienced, and too much of a skirt-chasing dilettante to be an effective Commander in Chief of what they felt was the world's most powerful nation. He'd heard rumors that some senior military officers felt that his naval experience in the Solomons in World War II had been minimal and they even joked that he'd gotten a medal for losing his ship when he should have been court-martialed. Sometimes he thought they were right. Men had died under his command and it might just be happening again.

  Unlike his dealings with McCone and Rusk, JFK often felt intimated by the military brass who had far more experience than he. Since becoming president, he had worked hard and studied harder to find out all there was to know about foreign affairs. He felt he was far more knowledgeable than he had been, but still had a long ways to go.

  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Maxwell Taylor, had not only commanded the 101st Airborne in World War II where he’d made a combat jump, but had commanded the Eighth Army in Korea. He was now Kennedy's advisor on the possibility of increasing America's role in Viet Nam. He could be a very intimidating character, although he and Bobby Kennedy seemed to have struck up a rapport.

  The Air Force's Curtis LeMay had extensive command and combat experience, and had been the man who'd firebombed Japan during World War II. He'd also commanded the group that had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was fiery, belligerent and short-tempered.

  Marine Commandant David Shoup had been awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle for Tarawa.

  Admiral Anderson had served on a carrier in World War II and had been awarded the Bronze Star.

  Only the army's chief, General Earl Wheeler, had not had extensive combat experience.

  JFK took a deep breath. The hell with the generals and admirals and their experience, there was a job to do. The United States had just had its nose tweaked by Fidel Castro, a lawyer turned revolutionary in his mid-thirties, and something had to be done about it.

  In terse language, he informed them of the situation and the possibility that Cuban forces would launch a massive and overwhelmingly strong attack at Guantanamo Bay within the next twenty-four hours. There were growls of anger. Predictably, the loudest coming from Lyndon Johnson and Curtis LeMay.

  Kennedy ignored the outbursts. "Simply put, gentlemen, I want to know what our military options are, keeping in mind that the Cubans haven't done anything yet and may not ever do anything. The information the CIA has could be wrong, planted, or the action simply cancelled if they think we are aware of it. Thus, we simply cannot go bombing Havana or anywhere else, without provocation."

  That comment was largely directed at the Air Force's Chief of Staff, General Curtis LeMay.

  LeMay's response was a growl. "Bombing the bastards would be my first choice and we could easily do it within twenty four hours, sir. I'd have Havana glowing in the dark for the next hundred years if you'd let me. However, I do see your point. Would you permit flights by bombers and fighters over Havana and Gitmo? It'd be one way of letting them know we're onto their little game."

  Kennedy thought it over. "Not without provocation first. It's Cuban air space and there are still many thousands of Russians in Cuba and we might initiate a military response from the Soviets who might not understand what we're up to. What about spy satellites to provide confirmation?"

  "We can do it," LeMay answered, “but it will take time before the satellite now over Havana watching the Russians can be repositioned. Then the pictures have to be parachuted down, developed, and interpreted. If the Cuban forces by Gitmo do exist, they'll all be scattered and camouflaged. Remember, the Chinese managed to hide hundreds of thousands of men in the barren mountains of Korea in 1950 and we never suspected a thing and we were over-flying them all the time."

  "What about a U-2 flight?" Bobby asked. "That would provide quicker data." He was the only other member of ExComm actually with JFK in the White House. His presence would raise no eyebrows in the press.

  "Again, it would take time to set up," LeMay said, "and it might piss off the Russians since we agreed not to do it anymore."

  "All right," Kennedy said. He was getting frustrated. "Admiral Anderson, what about a navy response? Where's the fleet?"

  Admiral George W. Anderson was the Chief of Naval Operations. "We have one Fletcher Class Destroyer, the Wallace, actually in Gitmo. Otherwise nothing that could be there within twenty-four hours and there are no carriers nearby, although we do have a couple of transports at Gitmo that could be used to take off civilians if necessary. We can and will direct other ships to head towards Cuba since they won't be visible and won't upset anyone as long as they stay outside the twelve mile limit, and even the closest ships won't reach that for a while."

  Fletcher Class destroyers had been workhorses of the fleet in World War II and JFK remembered them as formidable warships. At twenty-five hundred tons, they carried five-inch guns, and a score of anti-aircraft guns. He wondered if this ship, the Wallace, had been modernized with better guns and radar. It didn't matter. Ready or not, she was what they had. Admiral Anderson said that her five inch guns could raise hell with an armored column and her anti-aircraft guns could chew up infantry attacks.

  "However," the admiral continued, "the destroyer is not heavily armored and will not be able to stand up to Cuban artillery or tanks, and, in case of an air attack, she is in confined waters and would be unable to maneuver."

  "Damn," Kennedy said. Destroyers weren't called tin cans for nothing. Their hulls had little armor, hence the name.

  "Stuck in Guantanamo Bay, she'd be a sitting duck,” Anderson said. “If the Cubans do attack, her orders would be to make for open water as quickly as she could."

  "Wonderful," Kennedy muttered. "General Shoup, what can the Marine garrison do?"

  The anger in the much decorated Commandant of the Marine Corps voice came through loud and
clear. "Sir, our men will fight with everything they have."

  "I don't doubt that," said Kennedy, "but how many men do you have at Gitmo?"

  Shoup hesitated. "Maybe a battalion, sir. We reinforced the place heavily during the Crisis, but we've scaled back down to normal and with so many people on leave, it'll likely be a lot less than that. It'd be a couple of days before we could assemble and fly a decent sized contingent down there. We could use a few hundred sailors now at Gitmo as infantry, like we did during the last Crisis, and before the Marine reinforcements got there. Seriously, the sailors will try their best but they won't be very good."

  Kennedy tapped nervously on the desk. "I'm detecting a pattern here. General Bunning?"

  "Sir, it's Bunting, but there isn't much we can do here, either. The most obvious answers are the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, but too many of their men are scattered on long overdue leave just like everybody else. The only thing I can even remotely suggest is reconstituting an ad hoc airborne scratch force we started to put together to reinforce Gitmo during the Crisis. It was called Task Force Roman and it was never implemented."

  "What good would that do?" Bobby asked.

  "Sir, it would show we are serious and would act as a tripwire," Bunting replied.

  JFK was puzzled. "How come this ad hoc group can get together but two airborne divisions can't?"

  "No guarantee they can either," Bunting answered, "but they are a much smaller group consisting of people already at Fort Benning, so maybe they can accomplish something."

  "Work on it, General Bunting." The president said, and, like the politician he was, emphasized the correct pronunciation of the general's name.

  Kennedy rose and leaned over the table. "General LeMay, Admiral Anderson, you both have bases in Florida and other southern states, how soon can we get warplanes over Cuba."

  Anderson responded. "You give the word and we'll call an alert and get some planes overhead in a matter of hours. Otherwise, I doubt that we have half a dozen fighters in the air and I think General LeMay will concur."

  LeMay did and added that his bombers were all facing north, towards a possible Russian assault from over the Arctic Circle.

  "I don't want a general alert," Kennedy said, anger creeping into his voice. How could all our defenses be pointed in the wrong direction? Jesus, how would he explain this debacle?

  "Gentlemen," the president continued, "we are all going to be crucified because we weren't ready. How do we explain this to the American public if we are indeed attacked?"

  Someone snorted. He recognized General Shoup. "Mister President, we are ready at every place where we felt we were in harm's way. Our forces in Korea, Germany, and even Taiwan, are always on high alert. But, in the United States and that includes Cuba, there is no danger of a surprise attack from either the Russians or the Chinese. Hell, sir, there are no Red armies and navies off our coasts. As a result, maybe more than half of our stateside personnel are at home with their families. For all intents and purposes, a number of our bases are virtually shut down. In short, if the Cubans do come, we are well and truly fucked."

  Kennedy sighed and acknowledged the reality of what Shoup had said. "Gentlemen, if the report is correct, this is as bad as it can be. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. We cannot attack a nation that has not yet done anything to us and yet may not, and we have no way of deterring them by reinforcing our base. The next twenty-four hours will be critical."

  Shoup interrupted. "Sir, we may not have twenty-four hours. It's now mid-afternoon and that's a lousy time for infantry and armor to attack. If they do come at us, it'll more than likely be just before dawn and that gives us only a little more than twelve hours to get ready."

  "Are we increasing our alert status?" LeMay added. It was currently at DefCon 4. DefCon 5 was blissful peace and DefCon 1 was total war. Four represented an alert status well short of actual combat.

  The president took a deep breath. "No. If we increase to DefCon 3 it'll mean recalling troops and alerting bases. No way in hell we could keep a lid on it if we did, and, from what you're telling me, it wouldn't get troops or planes down there any sooner no matter how hard we try."

  Finally, it was agreed that a small number of both Air Force and Navy fighters would be prepared and configured to fly to Cuba if hostilities commenced. Their job would be to protect the ground forces at Gitmo and shoot down any Cuban planes. Pilots and ground crew would be called to their bases in Florida and along the coast in response to a call from a fictitious ship in distress. Only when they arrived would their planes be armed and the men informed of the threat to Gitmo. They would have to wait until the Cubans actually attacked before taking off. Both Anderson and LeMay concurred that, under the circumstances, only a literal handful of planes would likely be ready to take off before dawn and by then it might be far too late.

  Kennedy ended the calls with directions for the others to be ready to come to the White House at a moment's notice and to otherwise stay near their phones. He thanked Bunting for filling in for General Wheeler and hoped that the Army Chief of Staff would be located shortly. Bunting said he sincerely hoped so too, and Kennedy laughed. There wasn't much else to laugh about this day.

  The president looked at his brother. There was dismay on both men's faces. This could easily be the greatest test in the first term of a Kennedy presidency and, if mishandled, could easily result in there not being a second term. If the Cubans attacked and the base was overwhelmed, then he would be blamed, and rightly so. If he cried wolf and nothing happened, he'd be taken for a fool. Either way and barring a miracle, there was a good chance that he was looking at being a one term president.

  That is, if he wasn't impeached for criminal negligence.

  Chapter Four

  Andrew Ross was sound asleep when he was awakened by Gunnery Sergeant Cullen's none too gentle shaking. "Better get up pretty quick, sir. We just got word from on high that the base has been warned to look out for Cuban saboteurs and they think they are coming tonight and maybe down this road."

  Andrew got up and re-oriented himself. He'd been sleeping on a bunk outside one of the tents where it was marginally cooler. A mosquito net had kept the bugs at bay. He had an erection and hoped Cullen didn't see it. He gratefully took a cup of coffee from Cullen and took a sip. Typical military coffee — it tasted like tar. "What do you suggest, gunny?"

  "First, lieutenant, I think we should change the sleep rotation. I think we should go with half and half, one man awake while another rests, until the threat or the weekend is over."

  "Good."

  "Then I suggest we send a couple of men up the road a few hundred yards to see if they can spot anybody before any saboteurs get too close. The way the road bends, we don't have great line of sight to the border."

  "Let's do it," Andrew said and wondered why he hadn't thought of the ideas himself. Perhaps because he wasn't a good Marine, he thought sadly. He checked his watch. It was after midnight. Merry Christmas and ho-ho-ho.

  A few minutes later, Andrew and Cullen watched through a firing slit as the two Marines who'd been volunteered for the listening post, Hollis and Ward, moved up the road as quietly as they could. In the stillness of the night, Ross thought they were very loud and that he could hear them breathing. They were cognizant that the area to either side of the road had been mined, which meant they had to stay on the exposed road itself. The weather was partly cloudy which meant the darkness did not help hide them.

  Their orders were not to go farther than the line of barbed wire that marked the end of the base. Everything beyond the wire belonged to Cuba and trespassing was not allowed. Their job was to listen and, if they heard anything, identify it if they could and scoot back as quickly as possible.

  Andrew was nervous. "You were in combat, weren't you Gunny?"

  Cullen laughed. "Yeah, if you can call it that. After boot camp and advanced training I got to Korea and spent a few days in a front-line trench before the shooting ended.
I heard artillery in the distance and no one shot at me. If pushed I will admit to being scared. It hardly makes me a combat vet."

  Andrew thought that over. He'd been hoping Cullen had more experience if it came to actual shooting since he had none whatsoever.

  "And what about the men? How good are they?"

  "I have no idea, lieutenant. This is a scratch group made up of guys who either got unlucky enough to have to pull guard duty on Christmas, or got paid to do it so somebody else could have a nice holiday. Some of them are, like me, in Lieutenant Hannigan's platoon, but half of them don't even know each other, and the only reason I know their names is because they're wearing name tags."

  Andrew chuckled. He only knew a couple of them and none of them very well. "Now I don't feel so bad."

  "But at least they're all Marines, lieutenant, which makes them a helluva lot better than anybody else, especially Castro's boys. If our guys were army and not marines, then we'd really be fucked."

  True enough, Andrew thought. "And what about me, gunny?"

  It was Cullen's turn to chuckle. "Word has it you're a decent guy and a pretty good marine for an accountant, or is it the other way around? Seriously, sir, it's common knowledge that you're playing out the string until your time's up and there's nothing wrong with that. Someday I'll be doing it, too. Still, there is no way this little mob can be mistaken for a hard-ass combat unit.”

  "One last comment, gunny. Do you believe what they're telling us about saboteurs?"

  "Uh, do you, sir?"

  "Nope. I believe that about as much as I believe in the tooth fairy. I think it's a bunch of bullshit and that something really big might be happening really soon and we're maybe at the pointy end of the stick. Lucky us, gunny."