Chapter 10: Does anybody here talk to anybody?

Tuesday, September 18

When we sat down, I shared my frustration. “Today’s Central Intelligence Bulletin, a still TS/SCI extract of the President’s Daily Brief, made the first general report of a coastal defense missile. Nuclear capability was not mentioned. Can anyone think of a way to get this threat considered more seriously?”

Lois did not have the detailed bureaucratic memories of the defense establishment that were mine, but after years of teaching, she sympathized about bureaucracy. I was not sadistic enough to tell her how much worse educational administration would get.

Vivian, who was rapidly becoming a most insightful analyst, took me more literally. “You could, I suppose, play one of your trump cards, sending a mailed message with code words, especially to someone whose existence isn’t known to the outside. My recommendation would be to wait until later. While I don’t yet have the overall sense, things that you’ve said make me think that the most dangerous period is perhaps a month or more away. When you play a trump then, you can warn of multiple threats. My intuition tells me that there are threats or confusion that you haven’t yet told us about.”

Damn. She was good. She was guessing things that I had been holding back. I was very glad that I mentally assigned Vivian and Terry to special roles, along with Lois, because they were figuring out more than the Others wanted them to know.

Also on this day, but unknown to any of the US decisionmakers, the Red Navy sent a plan to Khrushchev. It was to start in October and go into the new year.

Wednesday, September 19th

“For tonight’s sharing, I have learned over the last two nights, what appear to be MRBMs were driven, in convoy, to the site at San Cristobal. The intelligence community did not, however, believe that these were definitely missiles.

that the Joint Strategic Survey Council has recommended blockade rather than attack. Their argument is that it would be ‘less dramatic, require smaller resources, cause fewer casualties, and be more plausibly related to upholding the Monroe Doctrine.’”

I paused. “The less frequently used term quarantine is better than blockade. A blockade stops all commerce, while a quarantine only stops specific goods. Further, blockades, in international law, generally are considered acts of war, although that definition is soft. Any observations?”

Shelley, who happened to be next to me today. mentioned “I’ve had a fair number of Naval people in my family, and actually learned a lot. Could a quarantine not necessarily require inspection? For example, if the quarantine was against large missiles, and we encountered a well-known oil tanker, could we accept that the tanker couldn’t carry the missiles and let it go without boarding?”

“Absolutely.”

{note}

That’s exactly what happened in the real Cuban Crisis: the first ship stopped, deliberately selected to make the point, was a tanker. After verifying its identity, it proceeded without being boarded. Ships that we believed to be carrying contraband stopped at first, and then turned back. The main Soviet decisionmakers no more wanted a nuclear confrontation than we did.

{/note}

“With concern, though, the JSSC did say that if offensive weapons, such as MRBMs or Cuba-based submarines, were deployed, everything changed. At that point, they recommended invasion as fast as possible, before the Soviets’ critical strategic issues would seem threatened. They estimated that the Soviets would not take extreme countermeasures, certainly not nuclear attack but also such things as invading West Berlin.

“I don’t agree. I think that an invasion could very well get at least a tactical nuclear response, and the US could not tolerate losing thousands of troops in a fireball. If that happened, we would retaliate.” I realized that I was close to the limit of what I could say without revealing foreknowledge. In his public speech in the middle of the Crisis, Kennedy would explicitly say that a nuclear explosion anywhere in the hemisphere would be treated as a Soviet nuclear attack on the US mainland, to which we would give a full response. We’ll have to deal with that in several weeks.”

Reaching around, I hugged Shelley. By magic I didn’t quite understand, she caused her waist-length hair to cover us, which called for energetic and wet kisses.

Thursday, September 20th

On the 20th, the Senate voted an authorization to use force. While this gave the President more options, it also opened him up to Republican pressures that he was afraid to use force. Keating, Tower, and Capehart led the Republican opposition.

From my perspective, Kennedy had superb judgment in national security, although very different judgments in different parts of his life.

John Kennedy, and probably his brothers, used women around him, although they often enjoyed the experience. Some of his most regular partners, such as the two secretaries, Fiddle and Faddle, were simply “political junkies” of a type familiar to those of us who have spent time around politics. It was quite enough for them to know they had played with movers and shakers, but they weren’t interested in affecting policy.
If some of our beauties got to him, I wasn’t sure how they would react if they did bring up policy issues. In general, I suspected they’d have more effect if they worked on staff.

“I’ve remembered a theory that JFK was basing his decisions on some extremely tightly held information. It’s entirely possible that no more than three or so people knew it besides the President, such as the NSA or CIA Directors, the National Security Assistant, and a couple of analysts.

“Sometime during early July, the president had been apprised of Khrushchev’s plan and the decisions resulting from Raul Castro’s visit to Moscow. He did not share this knowledge with most of his closest advisers, and moved forcefully to restrict its use by the American intelligence community.

“What was it? The sensitivity suggests human intelligence, or, perhaps less likely, COMINT. We do know that an important spy, a senior officer of Soviet military intelligence (GRU), was reporting up to September, when Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was arrested and later executed. We know that the general code word for his reporting was IRONBARK. In my past research, it was clear that Penkovsky provided technical details of the missiles themselves, but, as opposed to the suggestions of some writers, it is less clear that he knew of the deployment to Cuba. That would not have been consistent with his responsibilities, which were focused on obtaining technical intelligence from the West. He had a great deal of access to Soviet technology so he could compare theirs with ours.

“We know that early in the preparations and deployment, the key information moved by courier or personal visits, so COMINT could not have intercepted it. There was no radio or telephone link, until very late, from the Soviet embassy in Havana, but almost certainly, General Issa Pliyev, commanding Operation ANADYR -- that was the Soviet code name for the Cuban operation -- would have had communications. In general, though, Soviet communications at the highest level used unbreakable one-time ciphers. ANADYR is a river in the cold north of Russia, not something one would associate with the Caribbean.

“Whenever you think about Soviet plans and operation, remember that their General Staff Academy emphasizes maskirovka as part of every operation. We tend to translate that as “deception” or “camouflage”, but it’s much more than that. They tend to have decoy and diversionary concepts covering any complex operation, far more than they do.

“Another theory comes back to a spy; whose code name was TOP HAT. Oddly, the Soviet newspaper, Pravda, was the first to reveal his arrest and execution. Of course, it is said of the two major Soviet papers, when translating their names, there is no “truth” in Pravda and no “news” in Izvestia. The New York Times said that a review of Soviet diplomatic records shows that he is a senior Soviet Army officer, Lieutenant General Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov. As a stray comment, a Soviet lieutenant general, like the German practice, is equal to an American or British two-star major general, not a three-star.

He was important enough to show up in Defense Department listings of Soviet officers. Polyakov last served in air defense, probably the more tactical air defense of the Red Army rather than the national-level PVO air defense branch. It’s quite plausible that he might have been consulted about planning Cuban air defenses.

The legendary U.S. head of CIA counterespionage, James Jesus Angleton, is known to have believed that both TOP HAT and a contemporary FBI source recruited at the FBI, FEDORA, were both Soviet double agents. Angleton, however, was eventually dismissed when his suspicions fell everywhere, paralyzing American and to some extent British intelligence. Paranoia is an occupational hazard of counterespionage.

Field trip ... how normal from a school

Through Martha, Lois had set up a field trip to the Senate for Greta, Arlene, Vivian, Shelley, and a few other trusted students. Officially, they were chaperoned by Terry and another colleague of Lois’s, Margaret Smith. Margaret taught math and science, and quite well, but was best known in the school for an incident in which one of the students brought her a juvenile hamster, giving it to her between classes. Margaret didn’t have an immediate place to put the rodent, but improvised, and put it into a pocket of her blouse. The hamster quickly went to sleep, and Margaret forgot it.

In class, however, the forgotten creature awakened and started moving around. Margaret, a classic tall English beauty, with pale rosy skin, deep chestnut hair, and blue eyes, was disconcerted, not helped when one student stage-whispered to another, “Must be one of those living bras.” Lois introduced Margaret to Terry, and they became friends and Margaret was exploring at least part-time RC status.

On the Hill

As planned, however, the group made sure that some Senate staff noticed them, getting a lunchtime invitation to a private dining room. The women wore outfits that went in a definitely provocative direction, but nothing that would be seen as inappropriate clubwear. For example, Greta, Shelley, and Arlene wore skirts that were definitely mini, but covered opaque hose of the same color.

They made sure to let hems rise while sitting, and when they had the opportunity, loosen a few buttons. Their day ended with a list of phone numbers.

Lois and Arlene had used telempathy to encourage some staffers to do a bit of touching, with the promise of more. With Greta and Arlene, that went beyond nonverbal suggestion to fairly clear propositioning. The Others told me “ We are giving everyone who was telempathetic, as well as our beginner members, the ability to geas someone from discussing a topic with others, except as specified. The first thing to geas is the source of the information. Even if the subject gets secret information, could they easily disclose it without mentioning a source? If they can, they are at a high level and we want the contact.“

Our evening news

While Margaret was not yet fully bonded, she was under geas, and greatly trusted, and had a letch for, Lois. Vivian had a letch for Margaret, not yet discovered. We’d work on the bonding, beginning with sexual energies, but could trust her at the evening discussion.

I had Lois sit next to Margaret, with Vivian, most similar in build, sitting on her other side. Arlene and Shelley were with me. Before we sat down, I told the two, “Be sure to give some nice upskirt views and winning smiles to Margaret. I’m sure she will bond with us, but sexuality is always a nice part of that. Lois will sit next to her and won’t need any guidance.”

Unknown to me, Lois told Vivian, “Think about your long legs intertwined with those of Margaret. Seduction isn’t a bad word if it leads to joining.” Vivian, applying her usual analytic skills, glanced at Margaret’s outfit, went back to her room, and matched it as closely as possible. Both Vivian and Margaret were now in quite professional dark blue suits, both of which happened to be Evan Piccone, although Vivian’s skirt was substantially shorter. Margaret would wear four-inch heels when she would spend a good deal of her teaching day seated at her desk, although they were a bit much if she lectured all day while standing.