A hard rain september 19.., p.8
A Hard Rain: September 1962, page 8
Of course, this did not discourage his interrogators.
There was a question about supplying U-2 aircraft to nations other than the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan.
“No…we have no plans to sell any further ones or, grant any other export licenses.”
There was always a question about Berlin; today, it was because the Soviets had declared they planned to shelve further discussions over the city until after the mid-terms in November.
Bradlee’s friend brushed this aside, observing that policy on Berlin would not be affected by the results of the November election.
The Cuban situation had stirred unusual press interest in Latin American affairs that year. New questions gave the President the opportunity to speak of his concerns, particularly about the low standards of living of many people in the region; something his Administration wished to alleviate.
This was followed by a kidney punch jibe type inquiry about a party Pierre Salinger, JFK’s Press Secretary, had organised for the Democratic rival of Republican Congressman Joel Broyhill in Virginia.
The President brushed this aside, almost but not quite like a cat raking its claws lazily across glass.
The press conference got serious again.
“…Martin Luther King has telegraphed you asking for federal action against anti-Negro terrorism in the South…could you tell us whether you have answered Dr. King…can you give us a comment on the problem?”
Bradlee half-smiled, recognising something in the President’s manner that suggested he could hardly believe that in the latter half of the twentieth century that parts of his country were still locked in the last century’s tragedy.
“We are in contact with Dr. King…I don't know any more outrageous action which I have seen occur in this country in a good many months or years than the burning of a church, two churches, because of the effort made by the Negroes to be registered to vote. The United States Constitution provides for the freedom to vote, and this country must permit every man and woman to exercise their franchise. To shoot, as we saw in the case of Mississippi, two young people who were involved in an effort to register people, to burn churches as a reprisal…I consider both cowardly as well as outrageous.”
The United States had sent FBI agents to Mississippi to investigate, find the perpetrators and to bring them to justice. He added, unambiguously, that if the rights of all the citizens were compromised in that state that the Government would do everything in its power to protect ‘local’ communities and if necessary, take additional legislation to Congress.
Bradlee thought the rednecks would love that!
The issue of a labor strike on the railways of the Midwest was raised. It was tame fare in comparison with what had gone before.
Nuclear testing was also back on the agenda.
“Mister President, it was generally understood that the current test series would be over by now…it now appears that the atmospheric tests may continue on into November?”
JFK was sternly disappointed.
“…as you know, because of the blow-up at the pad at Johnson Island and because of the earlier failures of the communication system in the missile, we were not able to carry out tests which were among the most important, if not the most important, of the Dominic series. So, we are going to finish those.”
He went on to explain, concisely, briskly collegiate in his manner and language, that anomalies in the earlier tests had thrown up issues that need to be ‘proved out’ by further work.
“We have agreed to a limited number of tests in concluding the Dominic series.” It was the worst kept secret in DC that one of the Johnson Island tests had resulted in power outages, widespread electrical failures in Hawaii, the disruption of satellite-based communication in the Pacific, and almost certainly recklessly endangered the lives of American astronauts in orbit. The President promised: “We have taken…steps to prevent a repetition of the incident.”
Had JFK discussed the Cuban situation with General Eisenhower when he visited the White House?
“We discussed all problems, and, of course, that was one of them.”
No, he had not asked the former President to use his influence with the GOP to avoid Cuba becoming an election issue in November.
There was another question about the Russians wanting to make trouble over Cuba to influence the mid-terms. In response, the President was at pains not to give this notion credibility. After this there was a distracting query about the Congress-Senate tug of war over closing a number of tax loopholes; but then Cuba raised its head again.
“Mister President, the…Soviet statement which was mentioned earlier implied that the Soviet Union might intervene militarily on the side of Cuba in the event the United States was forced to take military action. Would this implied threat be a major factor in any decision you might be called upon to make?
Bradlee was a little taken aback by the categorical nature of his friend’s response to this.
“No, the United States will take whatever action the situation as I described it would require. As far as the threat, the United States has been living with threats for a good many years, and in a good many parts of the world. But the United States will not take any action that the situation does not require and will take whatever action the situation does require along the grounds which I indicated in my opening statement.”
Next the discourse turned to space; specifically, money, competition with the USSR, the Air Force’s Titan III project and, what would happen in the Soviets were the first to put hydrogen bombs in space?
JFK said he was not aware of that likelihood.
The press would not let go of this bone.
The President parried, restating that both sides had the capability of putting nuclear weapons into space but neither had, or so far as he knew had plans to do so.
It happened that the poet, Robert Frost had recently visited Moscow. Bradlee was aware that the Administration’s theory was that from the evidence of his rambling pronouncements that the old man had lost his marbles, not that one could come out and say a thing like that about a minor national treasure in a forum like this; even though Frost had come back, seduced headlong by Nikita Khrushchev’s bombast and lies.
Had Frost brought back a message to the President from Moscow?
“I have not received his message…I hope to see him shortly…”
And back to Cuba, again.
Did the President have the authority to act without the approval of Congress? And why if he thought it was necessary to recall reservists, did he not declare a national emergency and call up a million men?”
The President reminded his audience that his Administration was already increasing the size of the regular Army from 11 to 16 divisions. Presently, he did not think there was any cause to declare a national emergency. There was no crisis.”
The call up of 150,000 reservists was to address specific technical areas and manpower shortages, primarily to enhance the combat readiness of existing forces across all the armed services.
Ben Bradlee could tell the conference was starting to wind down, shifting to a lower gear and he had an appointment across town. The questions were trending towards the economy, labor disputes, and whose nose had been most badly put out of joint by not being invited to join the Presidential circus in Texas earlier in the week. So, he slipped out of the auditorium with at least five minutes of the event to go.
He asked himself if Cuba was really such a big deal?
Maybe the full text of the TASS announcement would be available back at the Bureau office, although he doubted it. The Soviets were full of crap.
You never knew what that guy Khrushchev was going to say, or threaten next; he had been acting that way for years and the Cold War was still a couple of degrees below zero.
That was just the way things were.
Chapter 14
Friday 14th September 1962
The Savoy Hotel
The Strand
Westminster
London, England
Pat Harding-Grayson had only ever persuaded her ex-husband to buy her tea at the Savoy a few times, and that had been in the early days of their courtship. Tom had probably humoured her because there had been no doubt whosoever that the hotel had possessed by far the ‘smartest’ bomb shelters in London at the time. Tom had always been uncomfortable in ‘glitzy’ places, he hated the Ritz, for example, mostly because he loathed being surrounded by chattering – ‘babbling’ he would say – wealthy people who in his opinion, and she had to admit, her own, were almost completely a waste of space. However, such watering holes as the Savoy and the Ritz, and other expensive throwbacks to a bygone era were, given Tom’s indifference verging on distaste for them, and had always been excellent places to arrange periodic diverting extramarital assignations. After all, it was not as if she ever pried into what he got up to at that dreadful old pile, the Athenaeum, or any of the other gentlemen’s clubs he used to frequent while she was off…having fun.
Granted, their marriage had been one conducted in a metaphorical glass house; a thing they both tacitly acknowledged in the beginning, but Tom forgot later on. She had been fully entitled to start throwing stones when she did, in fact in hindsight, she now realised she ought to have started a lot sooner!
In any event, now that word had got around town that she was back in circulation, she had not had a shortage of callers, or invitations, such as the one she was enjoying that afternoon.
“I thought you spent most of your time in the Antipodes these days, Stanley?” Pat remarked after she had offered her cheek to receive what, these days, was an entirely platonic kiss from her old lover.
She remembered those salad days, quite a long time ago now, fondly and had been looking forward to reconnecting again with the man she had not actually seen in the flesh – innocently – for nearly four years.
Her host must have read the worry in her eyes.
“I’m fine, dear lady,” he chuckled, belying the evidence he saw in the mirror every day. Once a broad, beefy man with a booming voice he was almost thin, a little stooped and when he spoke there was a hoarseness, a breathlessness which accentuated the greyness of his pallor, and the rheumy wateriness of his world-weary blue-grey eyes. He was a shadow of the formerly hearty energetic man, an archetypal captain of industry who never looked his age; today he wore every one of his 71 years like a cross on his back.
Pat tried not to seem overly sceptical about his bland reassurance.
“Champagne!” The mogul, once and probably still one of the richest men in what was left of the Empire, called to the hovering maître d'hôtel who had miraculously appeared as Pat had walked into the restaurant and stepped back, watchfully attentive, when she had been welcomed by her old conquest.
“Is this such a great event?” She inquired, allowing herself a saturnine half-smile.
“Oh, yes. Take me at my word when I say it is undoubtedly the highlight of today, tomorrow and probably the rest of my stay in this infernal city!” Sir Stanley Stanton, the – among other things – oil and mining colossus who was as respected, and in some parts of the globe feared as much as any politician.
Or at least, he had been; Pat had heard that in the last few years he had passed the torch to his son, Eric, who was nothing if not a chip off the old block as witnessed by his diversification into banking, shipbuilding in the Orient and steel-making in the Indian sub-continent, not to mention founding construction firms that were allegedly, presently negotiating to build several new and very, very tall skyscrapers in New York.
Nowadays, Stanley was mainly in the papers on account of his irrational unwillingness to give up the dream of one day, financing a successful British challenger to wrest the America’s Cup from the perfidious hands of the New York Yacht Club!
“Oh, dear,” Pat sighed sympathetically, “are things really that bad, Stanley?”
The old man laughed bronchially.
The Champagne arrived, the cork popped, the toast ‘to old friends’ was proposed and Pat was soon sipping chilled Bollinger.
Presently, she became aware that her companion was looking at her with ironic, smiling eyes.
“The boy,” he shrugged, a little amused, referring to his son and heir, “wouldn’t let up, so here I am back in London. The doctors in Boston are better, they say. But I never was one for asking the Yanks for favours. I got back last week; they want to cut me up at Bart’s. Presumably, to see if I’ve got a heart,” he chortled, pausing to take a gulp of Champagne.
Pat said nothing.
“After that,” he went on, “they’re sending me to a sanitorium in the West Country. I was rather hoping you’d see your way clear to visiting me, then at least I’d have something to look forward to. I’ve made it plain I don’t want any of my grasping nephews, nieces, or their greedy, idle offspring bothering me. Goodness, that’s why I went out to South Africa after Suez; the beggars followed me out there, you know, that’s why I settled in Sydney.”
“I’m sorry, I had not heard you were unwell,” Pat said, reaching out and touching his hand.
The mogul shrugged philosophically, a thing he would never have done in his prime.
“I’ve had a good innings. I’m lucky that I’ve got Eric, a rock-steady, safe pair of hands to hand on the torch to,” Stanley Stanton retorted mildly. “He was right, I was always going to have to come back to the City at some stage to settle my,” he paused, “the family’s affairs otherwise the bloody tax man was going to do his level best to eviscerate us.”
One thing Pat was sure of was that her old friend had settled his affairs rather more methodically, and successfully than she had by going to America and then returning without having resolved anything in the avaricious eyes of the Her Majesty’s Inland Revenue.
More fool me, she thought idly.
“Where in the West Country?” She inquired.
“Cheltenham or Bath, probably Cheltenham.”
“The spa water,” she mused.
“Quite. It tastes disgusting, I’m told. Do you think they’ll let me take it with a stiff whiskey and soda?”
Pat laughed.
She had read that Sandra, the mogul’s wife of over thirty years had died suddenly in Switzerland two or three years ago. The couple had been separated for many years, an arrangement that had suited them both admirably by all accounts.
Eric, their only son was the eldest of three children. The older daughter had married into old money, a baronet or some such in the North Riding of Yorkshire. The youngest, Samantha, had married an Argentine polo player and lived somewhere in Patagonia…
“I’ve had a few invitations to stay in the country,” Pat confessed. “But I shall certainly pay court to the great Stanley Stanton,” she promised mischievously, “wherever he washes up this autumn.”
She planned to spend a couple of weeks in Scotland with an old university friend and her family later that month, then, after a week or so in London, she was off to rural Shropshire. She loved the Welsh Marches as summer turned to autumn, the way the mornings became crisp and the air bracing. After the excitement of coming home, she was rather looking forward to having a little ‘quiet time’, alone, away from the noise and turmoil of the world, space in which she could stop, think, and hope to regain her mental equilibrium. There was much for her to think about. Tom, to name but one conundrum. And whether she ought to write her ‘American Diary’ as one publisher had already proposed. Or perhaps, she ought to travel on the continent, she had always wanted to visit Italy…
“Dammit,” Stanley Stanton groaned, “if I wasn’t such a lost cause I’d have another go at sweeping you off your feet, Pat!”
She blushed, pleasure suffusing her.
“No, you wouldn’t,” she scolded him with mock severity, “I’d have the whole Stanton clan after my head if I had let that happen!” She shook her head. “The Daily Mail would accuse me of being an elderly gold-digger the morning after the announcement, for goodness sakes!”
The man laughed, coughed again.
“It’s the thought that counts,” he wheezed.
“Yes,” Pat agreed, reaching out again to place her hand over his, while out of the corner of her eye she saw the maître d'hôtel, a tall, distinguished man of middle years was moving in again, intent on taking their order.
Chapter 15
Saturday 15th September 1962
British Military Hospital
Europa Road
Gibraltar
It was a while before Lieutenant Miles Jacob Weiss, RN, worked out who he was; and a lot, lot longer before he began to assimilate, through vision that blurred in and out of focus, his whitewashed, antiseptic-smelling surroundings. None of which made any sense to start with, because he could not remember how he had got to be lying, as weak as a baby and feeling just as helpless, on the hospital bed…
The last memory he dragged, fuzzily from his – mightily aching head – was of the…storm. Well, the remnants of a hurricane that had toyed with the Dominican Republic, skirted the Bahamas and veered, supposedly, harmlessly out into the Atlantic. The trouble was that the waves generated by that storm had an awfully long way to roll and propagate before they crashed onto the shores of the Iberian Peninsula, which, he had been reliably informed sometimes resulted in fifty- or sixty-foot-high surf off some beaches…
Or had he been imagining that?
He might have fretted had he not lost consciousness again, and again, eventually coming around when the room, which previously had been brightly sunlit was gloomy and somebody, a nurse he guessed, was leaning over him.
“They said you were back in the world of the living, Lieutenant,” a woman with a distinct Home Counties country set accent declared softly, ruefully giving Miles pause to wonder if he had been, in some way, a naughty boy...
He opened his mouth to speak.
No words emerged; his throat was as parched as desert sand.
A slim metallic tube was carefully placed between his lips. He sucked down cool liquid, water that tasted like a magical life-giving nectar.
