Chapter 168

Monday I left early for the White House - good bye was a little harder this time. But at least I had no more visible hickeys, although there were one or two more. They were coming over Wednesday for another fund raiser. This one was in Kentucky.

I went through the normal updates looking for anything unusual. Things in the Middle East kept bouncing around as always.

For Russia the first shipment of frozen beef and pork had been delivered on Saturday. It was delivered to the Russian markets on Sunday to lines of waiting old Russian ladies. Another hundred tons was being delivered tomorrow.

So far the joint basing had few problems. The bombers had made two mock runs towards the China border, unnerving the Chinese. Their ambassador tried to get into the White House on Sunday to see me. He did meet with State Department Director Dean.

I had a meeting with Dean at 1400 to hear the grievance and demands.

I had a lunch meeting with the Secretary of the Navy and the DOD representative from Newport News Ship Building. My salad was just placed on my desk when General Ingram brought them in.

‘‘I’m pleased to be able to tell you that the USS Thomas is going out for final shakedown exercises tomorrow, repairs and modifications are done from the first shakedown. It should be smooth sailing.’’

‘‘It will be joined with the USS Fordson - the engineers have given up on correcting the problems at the dock. At the dock most things worked perfectly, but at sea everything seems to have a mind of its own. Every engineer that has any part in this fiasco is going,’’ the Chief of Naval Operations said.

‘‘The USS Stennis is going on the first post overhaul shakedown run at the same time,’’ he added.

‘‘We were wondering if you would like to go along,’’ the Chief of Naval Operations asked.

‘‘It would be too much of a distraction for me to be on the Fordson. Too many engineers would be getting their asses kicked or walking the plank off the stern,’’ I said.

‘‘I will go on the Thomas, is the air group going to be aboard and doing launches?’’ I asked.

‘‘Part of the air group will be flown aboard and launched as a final test on the catapults and arresting systems. The Navy will fly you back to Norfolk and the ship will continue to work on various skill drills,’’ the Chief of Naval Operations said.

‘‘The ship will leave the dock at 0800,’’ he said.

‘‘Who is the Captain and the Rear Admiral on the Thomas?’’ I asked.

‘‘The Rear Admiral is Montgomery Scott and the Captain is Leonard McCoy - two excellent men with great records,’’ the Chief of Naval Operations said.

‘‘I’ll have the Secret Service and the press office make the necessary arrangements,’’ I said.

Secretary of State Dean was standing at the door as we finished.

He handed me a translated letter from the Chinese government and read out loud his copy for emphasis as I read along. They were demanding we remove our ships from Russian naval base and the planes from the Russian air base. Having our ships and planes there would severely damage our international relations and could greatly affect trade.

Their presence would affect the stability of the region and could affect stability of international decorum. They also announced that an official complaint would be lodged at the UN and a motion to condemn the military move and the treaties that were negotiated in Washington.

The letter continued - the Arctic treaty was in violation of international code of ethics and international well being because the treaty was negotiated outside the influence of the UN. It was also a violation because the bounty of the Arctic region was not shared worldwide.

‘‘What happened to sharing the bounty of the South China Sea with the nations that bordered the sea? You claimed every damn inch of it and tried to strip every nation of any claim,’’ I thought.

The United States actions were meddling in Asia proper; that could lead to regional war, the letter continued.

That was an interesting statement considering the US and Russia both had veto power, so the threats of any UN action were a nonstarter.

Secretary Dean and I talked for an hour and formed a letter that told them diplomatically that the United States and Russia were capable and had written treaties that we were both committed to and didn’t need the UN or anyone else to do it for us. On the other items the US and Russia would work together as often as was necessary. Regional stability was assured with our joint cooperation on many matters. We diplomatically told them to go fuck themselves.