Chapter 27

Meanwhile, back in the Mideast...

U.S. troops from NATO bases were beginning to mass in Turkey and the first transports from the United States were just arriving. The atmosphere in Turkey was calm but tense in the wake of the failed Iranian-backed uprising. The invasion of Iran was still at least several weeks away, but the troops were psyched to avenge the treacherous attack on their government.

Military cargo planes and U.S. airliners that had been requisitioned to transport troops in the emergency had been arriving every five minutes since the evening before.

Four aircraft carrier groups were steaming toward Iran. Leaving the Nimitz to patrol the Mediterranean, the Enterprise, covered by an armada of U.S., Israeli, Egyptian and Saudi fighters, successfully traversed the Suez Canal without serious incident. The only excitement came when a small plane was able to get within twenty-five miles of the carrier. When the pilot refused to acknowledge the challenges of the F-15s, his plane was quickly dispatched with a Sparrow missile. The Enterprise was preparing to leave the Red Sea and enter the Arabian Sea before heading east toward the Ayatollah's Islamic Republic.

The Coral Sea had departed from the Sea of Japan and was approaching the Strait of Malacca, after which she would be in the Indian Ocean. Another few days and the jets on the Coral Sea would be within range of eastern Iran. The Saratoga had departed from south of the Philippines and would be within range of Iran within the next twelve hours. The John F. Kennedy, which had just left Pearl Harbor hours before the Capitol bombing, was still cruising across the Pacific and wouldn't arrive at the battle zone for another week.

The battleships Iowa and New Jersey, which had been at ports of call in Australia and New Zealand respectively, were enroute and were due within the next two to three days.

Reaction to the President's speech was generally positive, except from conservative fundamentalists, who denounced her drug plan as "rewarding those who take drugs" and "eroding the moral fabric of the country."

Most of the commentary centered on the new President's willingness to try new and different things in an attempt to shake the American people out of the stagnation that was stifling the country. Many commentators were starting to compare the first days of Kathleen Lehrer's administration to F.D.R. during the first 100 days of his administration in the depths of the Great Depression and how both of them were willing to experiment and try new things to shake the country out of its doldrums.

The commentators were remarking about the part of the President's speech that concerned Mexico when the reports of Jorge Guerrillero's speech at Teotihuacan and the assassination attempt on him there began reaching the United States. Guerrillero's statements about reinstituting government price supports for food, housing, clothing and medicine for the poor in defiance of I.M.F. conditions for further loans, as well as his comments about U.S. bankers, were not lost on the commentators, who began speculating about their meaning.

The consensus that developed among the "knowledgeable" commentators was that Guerrillero would not seriously consider default, but was using rhetoric to get more help from the developed countries for the ailing Mexican economy. They agreed that Mexico had too much to lose in the event of a default, so such a situation was very improbable, although not totally out of the question.

Reports also began to filter in about riots occurring in Belem in Brazil, another country that owed nearly $200 billion to foreign banks. These reports, unfortunately, became lost in the wake of the more earth shattering events that had been taking place over the previous two days, and their importance would not be realized until it was too late.