Chapter 6: Reflecting on our learning

When we spent time with the Hilsmans, even though the sexual contact wasn’t intense, from across the room, I could feel something like our learning rapport from Roger, Lorna, and Lois. While it was just Eleanor and myself on this couch, there was also a surge of energies. Four feline forms supervised.

Never forgetting that this was a 14-year-old body with the appropriate set of hormones, I certainly reacted to Eleanor. Eye contact with her was hotter than full body contact with some women. That which she transmitted was a growing calm and confidence.

No one tried to control or mentally dominate one another. We did become confident that Roger had a sensible view of Southeast Asia and the United States, above all based on working with realities there rather than trying to impose an external system.

Rather regretfully, Roger said “Much as I would like to get more physical, I’d like things to settle in a bit. By all means, then, let’s share physically. There are more in your group than in mine, although I am working on developing some relationships. Shall we visit you soon?

February: Our first review

After the Battle of Ap Bac, this was a month of recovery rather than major field operations. The battles were bureaucratic, while the defenses often were against perception both by the American public and politicians, and by Diem against news media.

For today’s review meeting, I chose to emphasize my Clan role, wearing one of the informal military kilts with which I had been gifted. The kilt, and my turtleneck sweater, were of an amazingly soft Highland wool, in military shades: kilt of dark blue and green Black Watch tartan, and tan sweater.

With a grin, Lois flashed her stocking tops, enough to reveal that she wore a corset, and inquired, “And what is worn under your kilt?”

There was a classic answer: “Nothing is worn under the kilt. It is all in perfect working order.”

To my pleased surprise, as we met, Dorothy sat solidly on one of the couches. “I’m taking this opportunity to come out, as it were, in the sort of nurse uniform about which I’ve been fantasizing! No, not a fetish nurse, but one that someone actually could wear if they didn’t mind turning on patients and staff.” The white skirt hit her above mid-thigh. While she was not huge-busted, hers were warm, soft, with cleavage visible through the low-unbuttoned top. It wasn’t clear if she was wearing an uplift bra or a corset, but white lace definitely complemented her boobs.

“Harold, on or across my lap, please.”

Frankie, my Companion of the day, laughed. “Dorothy, I’m bigger and stronger than you are. I’ll sit first. You sit next to me, although by all means drape your legs over me. Harold, you snuggle between both of us.” Today, she was in a cheerleader-derived look with low-cut white sweater, flaring green cheer skirt, and athletic shoes with a 4” stacked heel. With a different shoe, it worked when she led exercise classes. When she came in this morning, I had wondered if she were to be in a Jackie Kennedy look that she wore when seducing outside, or would simply be creative.

Dorothy flushed slightly, while meeting Frankie’s admiring gaze. “Frankie, do help an old broad who has thought about women but has done not much beyond that.”

“Old? Old? Well, MILF. Anyway, I want to feel that nice warm butt of yours on my lap or legs. Harold, you can then sit on Dorothy. Everybody wiggle until someone falls off, until someone climaxes, or Harold starts a formal meeting. Even then, cuddle. Given my skirt length, I expect one or more hands on my legs. Of course, Dorothy, I’ll hold yours just to be sure you don’t fall off.”

“Dorothy, I love it. Not everyone knows that while I’m not fetishistic about body parts, I tend to be more turned on by legs than boobs. Happily, everyone in the Clan who has great boobs also has great legs, so they don’t feel rejected.” She slid my hand onto her stockinged thigh, and then to the hot bare skin above it. I was happy, but knew I’d have to refocus my attention on serious matters.

“Let me get started, and then call in several of you to elaborate: Terry for American politics, Lorna for the Vietnamese situation, and then comments from anyone who has something to add.

“COL Daniel Boone Porter, the senior adviser to the most involved ARVN corps headquarters. was Vann’s boss, and was not amused by progress. Porter would tell GEN Harkins that that “In many operations against areas of hamlets which are considered to be hard-core VC [Viet Cong] strongholds, all possibility of surprise is lost by prolonged air strikes and artillery bombardments prior to the landing or movement of troops into the area The innocent women, children and old people bear the brunt of such bombardments.” Harkins, however, did not push this concern to Washington.

“Perhaps the most important short-term communication to Washington, however, was a Memorandum to the President, prepared by Michael Forrestal, a senior member of the National Security Council staff. Forrestal’s report was optimistic, and spoke highly of the Strategic Hamlet Program. The Hamlets are in the Saigon area, or in the Mekong Delta. He also spoke of the programs to organize the Montagnard tribesmen, who are not ethnic Vietnamese, in the Central Highlands, further north.

American decisionmaking

Terry also had prepared for a formal presentation. She was in her lawyerly coatdress, which, if in her usual style, had very little underneath. She even enhanced the image by pulling her notes from a briefcase. “There’s a lot in the Forrestal report, so I neither want to go through it page by page, nor even discuss it all day. It’s a good idea to remind ourselves of the context. Before we get into Forrestal’s recommendation, Terry, would you give your read on the U.S. political situation vis-à-vis Vietnam?”

“I see at least three policy influencing group in the US government, separate from the President. There are the Joint Chiefs other than Chairman Taylor, who just seem to see hardline military. Of those, Chief of Staff of the Army Wheeler is probably closest to the President, while there’s bad blood left over, with the others, from the Cuban crisis.

Harkins, the Vietnam commander, is a JCS man. I shouldn’t forget that while he’s of much lower rank, Lansdale is a rather autonomous force within the JCS organization.

“There’s General Taylor, who likes flexible and limited response. He also likes General Taylor and believes that he’s smarter than everyone else, which is an interesting attitude when he and McNamara are in the same room -- I think they cancel one another. In many situations, the two are the smartest men in the room.

“Other times, however, other people just as smart may be involved. There’s the less interventionist group that might look at counterinsurgency, like George Ball and Roger Hilsman. JFK told George, “You’re crazier than hell,” referring to a Communist takeover. “That will never happen.”

“Add to that a fanatically anti-Communist group, a subset of which is conservative Catholic as with Cardinal Spellman. They reflexively support Diem and his brothers, especially the Archbishop of Hue. At one time, JFK was part of that group.”

“What happened?”

“He could afford to cater to Catholic interest groups while in the Senate, but in the Presidential race, he essentially disavowed the Vatican.

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”

“I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”

“I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition, to judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress, on my declared stands against an ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have attended myself)— instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948, which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.”

“Before he became President, however, Kennedy was a supporter of Diem and associated with Catholic anti-communist politicians, led by Cardinal Francis Spellman. Diem, who is an anti-communist nationalist, a member of the Catholic minority of a Buddhist majority nation. Opposed by both the French and the Communists, he left Vietnam at his own choice in 1950, going to America, to try for support. His brother, Ngo Dinh Thuc, was a conservative archbishop with strong ties to the Vatican. Thuc introduced his younger brother to the most powerful American cardinal, Francis Spellman. Spellman got Diem audiences with Pope Pius XII, and then with U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, another reflexive anti-Communist.

“Acheson was enthusiastic enough to prompt Diem to stay in the US to campaign, basing himself at Spellman’s seminary. Diem travelled across the nation, speaking at universities and getting an appointment at Michigan State University. Three Senators, John McCormack, Mike Mansfield, and future President John F. Kennedy gave him public support.

“After the French defeat in 1954, Emperor Bao Dai became interim head of state of South Vietnam, and appointed Diem as Prime Minister. In 1955, however, Diem took Bao Dai’s place as head of state, in a referendum generally believed to be rigged.

“Much of the power of Diem and his allies came from the anti-communist fervor of the Cold War. Citing security necessity, he refused to hold national reunification elections scheduled in 1956, and asserted that Ho would rig the ballots in the north, although he had done so himself in deposing Bao Dai.

“Diem is most concerned with the continuation of his rule, and makes foreign policy decisions with that as his top priority. Beyond that, he wants to defeat Communism in the two Vietnams, but isn’t very concerned with anti-Communism, and broader U.S. policy, in the region. He hasn’t been cooperative with us in Laos and Cambodia, and rarely thinks of his actions in terms of how they affect the reality r perceptions of the United States.