‘I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over,’ said Stevenson.
Bobby Kennedy’s aides cheered. At last, America was giving them what for!
Then Stevenson said: ‘And I’m also prepared to present the evidence in this room.’
George said: ‘Yes!’ and punched the air.
‘If you will indulge me for a moment,’ Stevenson went on, ‘we will set up an easel here at the back of the room where I hope it will be visible to everyone.’
The camera moved in to focus on half a dozen men in suits who were swiftly mounting a display of large blow-up photographs.
‘Now we’ve got the bastards!’ said George.
Stevenson’s voice continued measured and dry, but somehow infused with aggression. ‘The first of these exhibits shows an area north of the village of Candelaria, near San Cristobal, south-west of Havana. The first photograph shows the area in late August 1962; it was then only peaceful countryside.’
Delegates and others were crowding around the easel, trying to see what Stevenson was referring to.
‘The second photograph shows the same area one day last week. A few tents and vehicles had come into the area, new spur roads had appeared, and the main road had been improved.’
Stevenson paused, and the room was quiet. ‘The third photograph, taken only twenty-four hours later, shows facilities for a medium-range missile battalion,’ he said.
Exclamations from the delegates combined into a hum of surprise.
Stevenson went on. More photographs were put up. Until this moment some national leaders had believed the Soviet ambassador’s denial. Now everyone knew the truth.
Zorin sat stone-faced, saying nothing.
George glanced up from the TV to see Larry Mawhinney enter the room. George looked askance at him: the one time they had talked, Larry had got angry with him. But now he seemed friendly. ‘Hi, George,’ he said, as if they had never exchanged harsh words.
George said neutrally: ‘What’s the news from the Pentagon?’
‘I came to warn you that we’re going to board a Soviet ship,’ Larry said. ‘The President took the decision a few minutes ago.’
George’s heartbeat quickened. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Just when I thought things might be calming down.’
Mawhinney went on: ‘Apparently, he thinks the quarantine means nothing if we don’t intercept and inspect at least one suspicious vessel. He’s already getting flak because we let an oil tanker through.’
‘What kind of ship are we going to arrest?’
‘The
Marucla
, a Lebanese freighter with a Greek crew, under charter to the Soviet government. She left from Riga, ostensibly carrying paper, sulphur and spare parts for Soviet trucks.’
‘I can’t imagine the Soviets entrusting their missiles to a Greek crew.’
‘If you’re right, there’ll be no trouble.’
George looked at his watch. ‘When will it happen?’
‘It’s dark in the Atlantic now. They’ll have to wait until morning.’
Larry left, and George wondered how dangerous this was. It was hard to know. If the
Marucla
was as innocent as she pretended to be, perhaps the interception would go off without violence. But if she were carrying nuclear weapons, what would happen? President Kennedy had taken another knife-edge decision.
And he had seduced Maria Summers.
George was not very surprised that Kennedy was having an affair with a black girl. If half the gossip were true, the President was not in any way picky about his women. Quite the contrary: he liked mature women and teenagers, blondes and brunettes, socialites who were his equal and empty-headed typists.
George wondered for a moment whether Maria had any idea that she was one among so many.
President Kennedy had no strong feelings about race, always considering it as a purely political issue. Although he had not wanted to be photographed with Percy Marquand and Babe Lee, fearing it would lose him votes, George had seen him cheerfully shaking hands with black men and women, chatting and laughing, relaxed and comfortable. George had also been told that Kennedy attended parties where there were prostitutes of all colours, though he did not know whether those rumours were true.
But the President’s callousness had shocked George. It was not the procedure she had undergone – though that was unpleasant enough – but the fact that she had been alone. The man who made her pregnant should have picked her up after the operation and driven her home and stayed with her until he was sure she was okay. A phone call was not enough. His being President was not a sufficient excuse. Jack Kennedy had fallen a long way in George’s estimation.
Just as he was thinking about men who irresponsibly get girls pregnant, his own father walked in.
George was startled. Greg had never before visited this office.
‘Hello, George,’ he said, and they shook hands just as if they were not father and son. Greg was wearing a rumpled suit made of a soft blue pinstripe fabric that looked as if it had some cashmere in the mix. If I could afford a suit like that, George thought, I’d keep it pressed. He often thought that when he looked at Greg.
George said: ‘This is unexpected. How are you?’
‘I was just passing your door. Do you want to get a cup of coffee?’
They went to the cafeteria. Greg ordered tea and George got a bottle of Coke and a straw. As they sat down, George said: ‘Someone was asking after you the other day. A lady in the press office.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Nell something. I’m trying to remember. Nelly Ford?’
‘Nelly Fordham.’ Greg looked into the distance, his expression showing nostalgia for half-forgotten delights.
George was amused. ‘A girlfriend, evidently.’
‘More than that. We were engaged.’
‘But you didn’t get married.’
‘She broke it off.’
George hesitated. ‘This may be none of my business, but why?’
‘Well, if you want to know the truth, she found out about you, and she said she didn’t want to marry a man who already had a family.’
George was fascinated. His father rarely opened up about those days.
Greg looked thoughtful. ‘Nelly was probably right,’ he said: ‘You and your mother were my family. But I couldn’t marry your mom – I couldn’t have a career in politics and a black wife. So I chose the career. I can’t say it’s made me happy.’
‘You’ve never talked to me about this.’
‘I know. It’s taken the threat of World War Three to make me tell you the truth. How do you think things are going, anyway?’
‘Wait a minute. Was it ever really on the cards that you might marry Mom?’
‘When I was fifteen I wanted to, more than anything else in the world. But my father made damn sure it didn’t happen. I had another chance, a decade later, but at that point I was old enough to see what a crazy idea it was. Listen, mixed-race couples have a hard enough time of it now, in the sixties. Imagine what it would have been like in the forties. All three of us would probably have been miserable.’ He looked sad. ‘Besides, I didn’t have the guts – and
that’s
the truth. Now tell me about the crisis.’
With an effort, George turned his mind to the Cuban missiles. ‘An hour ago I was beginning to believe we might get through this – but now the President has ordered the navy to intercept a Soviet ship tomorrow morning.’ He told Greg about the
Marucla.
Greg said: ‘If she’s genuine, there should be no problem.’
‘Correct. Our people will go aboard and look at the cargo, then give out some candy bars and leave.’
‘Candy?’
‘Each interception vessel has been allocated two hundred dollars for “people-to-people materials” – that means candy, magazines, and cheap cigarette lighters.’
‘God bless America. But—’
‘But if the crew are Soviet military and the cargo is nuclear warheads, the ship probably won’t stop when requested. Then the shooting starts.’
‘I’d better let you get back to saving the world.’
They got up and left the cafeteria. In the hall they shook hands again. Greg said: ‘The reason I came by . . .’
George waited.
‘We may all die this weekend, and before we do there’s something I want you to know.’
‘Okay.’ George wondered what was coming.
‘You are the best thing that ever happened to me.’
‘Wow,’ George said quietly.
‘I haven’t been much of a father, and I wasn’t kind to your mother, and . . . you know all that. But I’m proud of you, George. I don’t deserve any credit, I know, but, my God, I’m proud.’ He had tears in his eyes.
George had had no idea Greg felt so strongly. He was stunned. He did not know what to say in response to such unexpected emotions. In the end he just said: ‘Thank you.’
‘Goodbye, George.’
‘Goodbye.’
‘God bless and keep you,’ said Greg, and he walked away.
* * *
Early Friday morning George went to the White House Situation Room.
President Kennedy had created this suite in the West Wing basement where previously there had been a bowling alley. Its ostensible purpose was to speed communications in a crisis. The truth was that Kennedy believed the military had kept information from him during the Bay of Pigs crisis, and he wanted to make sure they never got another chance to do that.
This morning, the walls were covered with large-scale maps of Cuba and its sea approaches. The teletype machines chattered like cicadas on a warm night. Pentagon telegrams were copied here. The President could listen in to military communications. The quarantine operation was being run from a room in the Pentagon known as Navy Flag Plot, but radio conversations between that room and the ships could be overheard here.
The military hated the Situation Room.
George sat on an uncomfortable modern chair at a cheap dining table and listened. He was still mulling over last night’s conversation with Greg. Had Greg expected George to throw his arms around him and cry: ‘Daddy!’? Probably not. Greg seemed comfortable with his avuncular role. George had no wish to change that. At the age of twenty-six, he could not suddenly start treating Greg like a regular father. All the same, George
was
kind of happy about what Greg had said. My father loves me, he thought; that can’t be bad.
The USS
Joseph P. Kennedy
hailed the
Marucla
at dawn.
The
Kennedy
was a 2,400-ton destroyer armed with eight missiles, an anti-submarine rocket launcher, six torpedo tubes, and twin five-inch gun mounts. It also had nuclear depth-charge capability.
The
Marucla
immediately cut its engines, and George breathed more easily.
The
Kennedy
lowered a boat and six men crossed to the
Marucla.
The sea was rough, but the crew of the
Marucla
obligingly threw a rope ladder over the side. All the same, the chop made it difficult to board. The officer in charge did not want to look ridiculous by falling into the water, but eventually he took a chance, leaped for the ladder, and boarded the ship. His men followed.
The Greek crew offered them coffee.
They were delighted to open the hatches for the Americans to inspect their cargo, which was pretty much what they had said. There was a tense moment when the Americans insisted on opening a crate labelled ‘Scientific Instruments’, but it turned out to contain laboratory equipment no more sophisticated than what might be found in a high school.
The Americans left and the
Marucla
resumed course for Havana.
George reported the good news to Bobby Kennedy by phone then hopped into a cab.
He told the driver to take him to the corner of Fifth and K Streets, in one of the city’s worst slum neighbourhoods. Here, above a car showroom, was the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center. George wanted to understand this art and had asked for a special briefing and, since he worked for Bobby, he got it. He picked his way across a sidewalk littered with beer bottles, entered the building, and passed through a security turnstile; then he was escorted to the fourth floor.
He was shown around by a grey-haired photo interpreter called Claud Henry who had learned his trade in the Second World War, analysing aerial photographs of bomb damage from Germany.
Claud told George: ‘Yesterday the navy sent Crusader jets over Cuba, so we now have low-level photographs, much easier to read.’
George did not find it so easy. To him the photos pinned up around Claud’s room still looked like abstract art, meaningless shapes arranged in a random pattern. ‘This is a Soviet military base,’ Claud said, pointing at a photo.
‘How do you know?’
‘Here’s a soccer pitch. Cuban soldiers don’t play soccer. If it was a Cuban camp it would have a baseball diamond.’
George nodded. Clever, he thought.
‘Here’s a row of T-54 tanks.’
They just looked like dark squares to George.
‘These tents are missile shelters,’ Claud said. ‘According to our tentologists.’
‘Tentologists?’
‘Yes. I’m actually a cratologist. I wrote the CIA handbook on crates.’
George smiled. ‘You’re not kidding, are you?’
‘When the Soviets are shipping very large items such as fighter aircraft, they have to be carried on deck. They disguise them by putting them in crates. But we can usually work out the dimensions of the crate. And a MiG-15 comes in a different-size crate to a MiG-21.’
‘Tell me something,’ said George. ‘Do the Soviets have this kind of expertise?’
‘We don’t think so. Consider this. They shot down a U-2 plane, so they know we have high-altitude planes with cameras. Yet they thought they could send missiles to Cuba without us finding out. They were still denying the existence of the missiles until yesterday, when we showed them the photos. So, they know about the spy planes and they know about the cameras, but until now they didn’t know we could see their missiles from the stratosphere. That leads me to think they’re behind us in photo interpretation.’
‘That sounds right.’
‘But here’s last night’s big revelation.’ Claud pointed to an object with fins in one of the photos. ‘My boss will be briefing the President about this within the hour. It’s thirty-five feet long. We call it a Frog, for Free Rocket Over Ground. It’s a short-range missile, intended for battlefield situations.’