Part 40 (1/2)
TO COMMANDER IN CHIEF PACIFIC.
EYES ONLY ADMIRAL RADFORDPLEASE INSURE FOLLOWING MESSAGE FROM CHIEF PRESIDENTIAL MISSION TO FAR EAST TO THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF CLa.s.sIFIED TOP SECRET/PRESIDENTIAL IS DELIVERED TO THE PRESIDENT ONLY REPEAT TO THE PRESIDENT ONLY ON ARRIVAL AT BARBERS POINTBEST PERSONAL REGARDSGEORGE C MARSHALLBEGIN PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM MAJOR GENERAL HOWE1235 TOKYO TIME 13OCTOBER1950DEAR HARRYWONSAN ON EAST COAST OF KOREA FELL TO CAPITAL ROK DIVISION SEVERAL HOURS AGOMACARTHUR NEVERTHELESS INTENDS TO CONTINUE WITH PLAN TO MOVE X CORPS BY SEA TO WONSAN AND TOLD ME THAT DESPITE QUOTE BRILLIANT PERFORMANCE ENDQUOTE OF ROKS THEY DO NOT HAVE THE NECESSARY TRANSPORT AND HEAVY ARTILLERY HE FEELS IS NECESSARY TO SUPPORT RAPID MOVEMENT TOWARD CHINESE BORDER AT YALU RIVERIN MY OPINION HE IS CORRECT AS ROK FORCES ARE STILL EQUIPPED MOSTLY WITH HAND-ME-DOWNSI ALSO HAVE THE FEELING THAT HE WANTS A STRONG AMERICAN PRESENCE THERE TO INSURE (A) THE CAPTURE OF PYONGYANG AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (B) THE ROKS DO NOT GO ANY FARTHER THAN THE YALU AND (C) THE ROKS PAY MORE ATTENTION TO THE GENEVA CONVENTION THAN THEY PROBABLY WOULD IF AMERICANS WERE NOT AROUNDWHAT THE NORTH KOREANS DID TO THE SOUTH KOREANS DEFIES DESCRIPTION AND THEY WILL CERTAINLY SEEK VENGEANCE UNLESS HE SITS ON THEMMACARTHUR ALSO SAID HE IS QUOTE THINKING ABOUT ENDQUOTE TRYING TO FORM AN ARMORED COLUMN TO TAKE PYONGYANG EVEN SOONER THAN X CORPS COULD GET THEREHE SAYS HE IS REASONABLY CONFIDENT ORGANIZED RESISTANCE WILL END BY THANKSGIVING AND THAT HE HAS QUOTE REASONABLE HOPES ENDQUOTE OF BEING ABLE TO WITHDRAW EIGHTH ARMY TO KOREA BY CHRISTMASTHE REPORTS OF AGENTS INSERTED BY CIA (MAJOR MCCOY)IN THE EAST AND LTCOL VANDENBURG IN THE WEST IN WHICH I PLACE MORE FAITH THAN INTEL MACARTHUR IS GETTING FROM HIS SOURCES ALL REPORT (A) BREAKDOWN OF NORTH KOREAN EFFECTIVENESS (B) THAT NORTH KOREANS MADE STRONG EFFORT TO TAKE OUR POWS WITH THEMVANDENBURG TELLS ME HE THINKS RESCUE OF GENERAL DEAN BECOMES MORE UNLIKELY BY THE DAY ALTHOUGH HE AND MCCOY ARE PREPARED TO STAGE RAID USING HELICOPTERS IF HE CAN BE LOCATEDMCCOY INSISTS NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS ABOUT PICKERING'S SONI CAN ONLY HOPE HE'S RIGHTMCCOY SAYS HE IS GETTING QUOTE UNCONFIRMED AND THUS UNRELIABLEENDQUOTE REPORTS OF EXTENSIVE MOVEMENT OF CHINESE TROOPS TOWARD YALUREMEMBERING HOW RIGHT MCCOY WAS THE LAST TIME I CAN ONLY HOPE HE WILL BE WRONG NOWGENERAL WILLOUGHBY AND MACARTHUR FEEL INTERVENTION IS NOT EVEN A REMOTE POSSIBILITYI STILL THINK PICKERING WOULD HAVE BEEN BEST CHOICE TO STRAIGHTEN OUT THE CIA BUT I UNDERSTAND YOUR CHOICE OF BEDELL SMITH WHO VERY MUCH IMPRESSED ME THE FEW TIMES I MET HIMRESPECTFULLYRALPHEND PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM GENERAL HOWETOP SECRET/PRESIDENTIAL Pickering read it and handed it back to the President.
”Anything in there you don't agree with?” the President asked.
”I don't think General Howe is right about me and the CIA, Mr. President.”
Truman smiled.
”Anything else?”
”No, sir.”
”I'm sorry there's no better news about your son, General, ” the President said. ”But I'm one of those people who believe that the opera isn't over until the fat lady sings.”
”I've heard that, Mr. President,” Pickering said.
”That'll be all, General,” the President said. ”Would you ask one of the sergeants to ask General Bradley to come up here?”
”Yes, sir.”
X.
[ONE].
NO. 7 SAKU-TUN DENENCHOFU, TOKYO, j.a.pAN 0915 14 OCTOBER 1950.
Clad only in underpants and bra.s.siere, Miss Jeanette Priestly, of the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune, bent over a bed while stuffing an Army-issue rucksack. She looked up as Mrs. Ernestine Sage McCoy-whose exquisitely embroidered kimono almost but not quite concealed the evidence of her advanced pregnancy-came into the bedroom. bent over a bed while stuffing an Army-issue rucksack. She looked up as Mrs. Ernestine Sage McCoy-whose exquisitely embroidered kimono almost but not quite concealed the evidence of her advanced pregnancy-came into the bedroom.
Jeanette smiled as Ernie carefully lowered herself onto the foot of the mattress.
”I used to have one of those,” Ernie said.
”A rucksack?” Jeanette replied, surprised. ”You were a Girl Scout?”
”I meant a flat belly, with a cute little navel that used to drive the boys wild when I wore a bikini,” Ernie said. ”Now look at me!” She patted her stomach. ”I look like a boa constrictor that just swallowed a whole pig.”
Jeanette laughed. ”Not quite that bad,” she said.
”Bad enough,” Ernie said.
Jeanette's tone turned serious. ”Can I offer a word of advice?”
”No,” Ernie replied sharply, then softened the edge. ”Thank you, but no. I know what you're going to say: Go home and have the baby.”
”I feel like a s.h.i.+t leaving you alone in your condition,” Jeanette said.
”I'm not due until the middle of December,” Ernie said. ”You'll be back before then, right?”
”I'll be back in a week,” Jeanette said. ”But I don't want to walk in here a week from now and . . . hear something unpleasant.”
”You want to be here when something unpleasant happens, right?”
”That's not what I meant, and you know it,” Jeanette said. ”But yeah, if something does go wrong-and so far you have a lousy record of going all the way through the childbearing process-I'd like to be here.”
”What'll happen will happen,” Ernie said. ”I'm doing everything the doctor told me to do, which really means not doing anything on a long list of things I'm not supposed to do. I'll be all right.”
”If I say, rea.s.suringly, 'Certainly, you'll be all right,' you'll use that as an excuse not to go home. If I say-”
”Jeanette, this is is home. This is the first house Ken and I have ever owned.” home. This is the first house Ken and I have ever owned.”
”A fact-you told me-you carefully concealed from him until very recently.”
”I thought of it as my house, our house,” Ernie said. ”You know why I couldn't tell him. He was trying to be a good Marine officer.”
”And for being a very good Marine officer, they started to kick him out of the Marine Corps. There's a moral in there somewhere.”
Ernie exhaled audibly.
”So what happens to him when this war is over?” Jeanette asked. ”Which it may be by the time I get to Korea, from what they're saying at the Dai Ichi Building.”
”I wish I knew,” Ernie said. ”He doesn't say anything- good Marine officers don't criticize the sacred Marine Corps-but he has to be bitter about what they did to him.”
”What would you like to happen?”
”What almost did,” Ernie said. ”When we thought he was being 'involuntarily released,' which is the euphemism for getting kicked out, we went to see Colonel Ed Banning and his wife, and the Zimmermans, in Charleston. . . .”
”Who's Banning?”
”He and Ken and Ernie go all the way back to the 4th Marines in Shanghai. He's the one who sent Ken to Officer Candidate School. They were together all through World War Two. Anyway, before this G.o.dd.a.m.n war came along, Banning-who was about to retire-and Zimmerman were going to develop an island. . . .”
”Develop an island?” Jeanette parroted.
”You know, build houses on it and sell them. Their idea was to sell them to retired Marines. But I saw the island, and I think they could sell them to just about anybody. The island is just off the coast, and it's just beautiful. Anyway-”
”Where are they going to get the money to do something like that?” Jeanette interrupted.
”Banning owns the island; he has money,” Ernie replied. ”A lot of money. He was Ken's role model for living on Marine pay, but he doesn't have to play poor when he retires. And Ernie's wife has the King Midas touch. They own a half-dozen businesses outside Parris Island. Anyway, they asked Ken to go in with them. He seemed to think it was a good idea. But that was when his choices were going back to being a sergeant or the island. Now . . . now they gave him his golden major's oak leaf back. I don't know what he'll do.”
”You want to do this island-building thing?”
”Oh, yeah, I want to do the island-building thing.”
”Then tell him, 'I've been chasing you around for all this time, now it's your turn to do what I want for a while.' ”
”He would, but it's not that easy. As you're about to find out.”