Chapter 14: The Man with the Cigar

Thursday, September 27th (continued)

At our evening review, missing Arlene and Vivian whom we hoped were having both fun and were affecting their target, I said “You probably should appreciate the situation in an among the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and with the President, to put the rest in context. I’ve alluded before that the Bay of Pigs caused Kennedy to lose confidence in the Joint Chiefs of the time, although I can easily argue that more of the blame was in the CIA, State Department, and even in the White House and with Kennedy himself.

“There’s an old saying, ‘when you shoot at a king, you must kill him.’ The CIA program that became the Bay of Pigs started under Eisenhower, who, as a former general, insisted on the highest military standards, but by the time it was executed in 1961, it wasn’t really a plan, but a recipe for disaster that should have been cancelled.

“In any event, the JCS were being replaced, most importantly with Maxwell Taylor, who had been a distinguished military thinker, combat leader, and Chief of Staff of the Army, retiring briefly, and then being called back to become Chairman. Kennedy was able to send the incumbent Chairman, General Lemnitzer, to the NATO/European Command, which is comparable in prestige to Chairman, and for which Lemnitzer was well qualified.

Taylor was, with respect to the other Chiefs, Kennedy’s man, although too militarily respected to be called a purely political general. The White House would also set up review groups outside of the Chiefs, as they had done for MONGOOSE, and then a Special Group of top-level officials, sometimes including Taylor but no other officers.

Of the other Chiefs, coming and going, Curtis LeMay of the Air Force was colorful, extremely smart, disciplined, and, increasingly, mutually despising the President. He just isn’t suited for Washington duty and the close work with top civilians. If there’s a revolt among the Chiefs, he’ll probably be at the center of it. We do not need such a revolt.

“Today, the planners at Tactical Air Command and Atlantic Commands will send detailed strike plans to prepare the battlespace for airborne and amphibious assaults against Cuba to LeMay, for his review. Knowing LeMay, that will be no paper exercise. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force had a forbidding demeanor, often, in the field, chomping a cigar. At the time, it was not known that his seemingly frozen face was not a lack of empathy, but a neurological problem, Bell’s Palsy.

There is little question that LeMay’s job included preparing alternatives for the President’s consideration. There is no question that LeMay was a superb operational planner, and, when he had the opportunity, combat leader. He was tough on airmen but also considerate, insisting on hobby shops being built on bases, and, not wearing his stars, happily mingling with airmen working on their cars or their ham radios.

To the surprise of many of his associates, a very liberal judge named his firstborn after LeMay, under whom he had served in Europe during WWII. He explained that had he not had the intensity of training demanded by LeMay, and the discipline in combat that LeMay also imposed, not infrequently flying tough missions, that it was far less likely that he would have lived to have the child.

“But he believed in utterly destroying a perceived enemy, and his perception sometimes differed from that of those who actually were supposed to be the civilians in control of the military. We have to do anything we can to avoid personal confrontations between LeMay and the President, especially if LeMay will escalate. I believe him to be overconfident in the Air Force’s ability to remove the threat without help from the other services, or at least just by Air Force and Navy airstrikes.

“Keep this in mind at all times. LeMay needs to be contained.

Friday, September 28th

Sharing time

“I need to give you the background that some of the intelligence bureaucracy are acting like little kids, while others actually are gaining insight. Let me speak of the good guys first, who are mostly at DIA. Colonel John Wright, and David Hughes, the photointerpretation expert for the DIA Director, are giving people a mental image based on trapezoids. First, NPIC photointerpreters have picked out a trapezoidal layout of SA-2 missiles, which is very much like the missile defenses of ballistic missile sites in the Soviet Union. This specifically was in Pinar del Rio province. A larger trapezoid, in the province, also can overlay a set of potential highly protected sites -- perhaps ballistic missiles -- in the province, bounded by the cities of San Cristobal, San Diego de los Baños, Consolaçion del Norte, and Las Pozas.

DIA will tell this to the Joint Staff today, and they will put it on the agenda to brief SECDEF and the Chiefs on the 1st.

“This is strongly suggestive, but doesn’t prove anything. The best confirmation will be U-2 photography, but those missions, flown by the Air Force but under significant CIA control, have been stopped. Part of the stop was State Department fear of aggravating the Cubans.

“While it normally would be the responsibility of the CIA people to request restarting the U-2 missions, CIA asked Wright, a working manager at DIA, to ask his leadership to request them. They argued that would avoid top policymaker egos, and “get [the CIA] out of the line of fire and let DIA take the lead” in getting overhead reconnaissance again.

I paused. “Yes, I know you can’t disclose things, but I’m nervous on kicking open yet another secret compartment. The U.S. has satellites that take pictures. As opposed to a U-2, they can’t be shot down. Their pictures, however, don’t have the fine detail of U-2 imagery. I have not heard of them being part of this, which puzzles me a bit -- they are good at picking out wide-area patterns.

Performance review?

“Greta, Arlene, how did it go last night?”

They both grinned. Greta said, “On the one hand, we briefed the principal staffer, and she was positively impressed.

Greta then rather ostentatiously sniffed her own hand. “This was in such interesting places that I didn’t really want to wash it.” She gave an evil laugh. “Never let it be said that honey traps can’t be one hell of a lot of fun for the bees. I had a fantastic time, and I think Arlene as well.” Arlene nodded emphatically. “Andy is a sweet guy and he just might be someone for our clan. Diane ... well, I needed to jill off a couple of times after I got home, thinking both of my actual play with her, and with a fantasy that she was suggesting and that I told her that we might set up. Lois and Shelley, it’s something that hits your ... um ... deep-seated urges. It can use other women, and, although he’ll get teased like hell at first, Harold.

“Could we try to do it on Saturday night? And would anyone be interested in some butt play to take my edge off today?”

Speaking of packages

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, and gestured to Terry and Lois -- you handle this. As we broke up, I said to Lois, “I had another ... um ... flash-forward. I had been reading Roger Hilsman’s book, To Move a Nation, and he mentioned that he, working with the National Photointerpretation Center, developed the discipline of “crateology”, or the signatures of the way the Soviets would create specific equipment for shipping. This seemed like a technique that should have remained classified.

“Anyway, on this day, maritime patrol aircraft started photographing oversize crates being carried as desk cargo on Soviet vessels. The initial identification, as I remember, were Il-28 light bombers.

“The ballistic missiles didn’t come in as deck cargo, but it was significant to observe a ship, normally used for transporting high-value lumber, that had oversized hatches and handling equipment for long, narrow objects.”

Lois smiled at me. “Is there anything much we can do about this, other than confirm your memories?”

“No, not really.”

“In that case, let’s explore other long, narrow, hard objects.” She reached into my waistband. “Maybe not so narrow.”

I panted a little. “Before we get completely diverted, if we leak knowledge, it might add credibility, at least in the intelligence community, that the analytical technique of crateology had been used.”

“Again to be serious just for a moment, I’m going shopping for photo equipment tomorrow, and I’m likely to meet some people that I think are in photointerpretation. Maybe I can drop hints.

“Harold, all of the girls have some telempathic powers. Do you, and the Others, think that it might be wise for us to have some ability to impose a geas, if we find a conversation seems to be getting into things that we don’t want shared?

I tried thinking that to James. “That seems like a pretty good idea. Will you take it to your leadership?”

Diane’s second phase

Arlene and Greta told Lois and Terry about Diane’s fantasy. “She doesn’t have it all worked out, but, aside from getting us mentally intimate with her, it sounds like fun.”

Terry reassured them, “Companions are experts at making fantasies happen. You might or might not have noticed that I have a pretty extensive wardrobe room, not just for me. The tights or pantyhose that she wants are no problem at all. I’ve got some pirate accessories as well. We definitely should get Harold into this, and it sounds like Andy as well.

“Here’s my thought. It should be something that gets everyone relaxed before we get into the scene. Let’s invite her and Andy for a scene tomorrow afternoon. We’ll have a light buffet. Andy and Harold should go off and get some sexual energies drained, so they won’t pressure any of the women later. I should get to know Andy, so I’ll ask Vivian and to join me me with the two guys. Margaret is kind of innocent, so she’ll fit in if Diane is still exploring. She can go between the rooms. You said Diane and Margaret look a bit alike?” They nodded. “That’s good. It tends to comfort people to have a lookalike. I’ll talk to her, and she’ll do the introductions when the group met.

“Meanwhile, we’ll have some girl time in the hot tub, with Diane, Lois and Shelley as the butt girls, and Arlene and Greta whom they know. I’m thinking of asking Vox, in case Diane might want a makeover or some hair touchup. The rest of you are adept at makeup.

“We’ll get dressed outside the tub and go over to the Blue Room to play. I’ll figure on our spending forty-five minutes or so, and then bringing over the two mixed pairs.”