trapped between two opposing fears, two extremes of government in its
relation to the military. On the one hand, there was a tendency by the
government, by the various bureaucracies in particular, to waffle this
way and that on any given foreign policy question. As a result, all too
often a crisis best met either by a decisive application of military
force or no military force at all was met instead by half measures and
tokens. Then, when American boys had already died, the powers-that-be
in Washington frequently lost a clear vision of where they were
going–if they’d ever had one in the first place–and either froze or
changed their mind. Magruder was continually haunted by the possibility
that the carrier battle force already at Bear Station might be
sacrificed, with anything it might have won thrown away by inaction,
indecision, or incompetence. The best example Magruder could think of
was the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in
1983.
On the other hand, there was a constant tendency by Washington to
micromanage, to second-guess commanders in the field while attempting to
run military operations from W3, an in-joking reference to the White
House West Wing. Carter’s step-by-step control of the failed Iran
hostage rescue mission in 1980 was an example of this opposite extreme.
The temptation toward this end of the military management spectrum was
especially strong with the advent of technology such as the DIDS screen
he was studying now. Real-time satellite photography and high-altitude
Aurora transmissions, computer links with the NSA and with diplomatic
stations around the globe, the sense of you-are-there immediacy provided
by CNN, ACN, and the various other news networks all contributed to a
feeling of almost Godlike power, anchored, somehow, in this building.
If Matt and the rest were to have any chance at all, the people in this
room had to steer a careful course between the two extremes of not
paying enough attention to the Kola crisis … and of paying it too
much.
“At the moment,” Admiral Scott was saying, “much of our attention is
focused here, at the edge of the Arctic ice pack.” The symbols marking
the SSN Galveston and the Typhoon it had been tracking flashed
obligingly on the DIDS. “The Russian sub appears to be running through
a ballistic-missile launch drill, which in itself is provocative enough.
Galveston’s skipper was originally ordered to stick close, and to open
fire if it appeared that the Typhoon was actually going to launch.
There’s a certain amount of guesswork involved, of course, and-”
At the back of the room, tall, double doors boomed open and an aide
walked in, his footsteps echoing slightly in the high-ceilinged
emptiness.
The man made his way swiftly to Robert Heideman’s side, spoke to the
Secretary in urgent whispers, then handed him a manila folder.
After glancing through the contents of the folder, the Secretary of
State rose, his long face made longer by some ominous news.
“Mr. Secretary?” Scott said from the podium. “You look like a man with
something important to say. You have news, sir?”
“Bad news, I’m afraid.” He gestured with the paper in his hands. “I
have here a translation of a speech just delivered by Marshal
Krasilnikov at the Kremlin. My people are printing up copies for each
of you, but I can summarize it now.” Briefly, tersely, he told them of
Krasilnikov’s ultimatum, of the threat to destroy a rebel city within
the hour if Leonov was not surrendered.
“Clearly,” Heideman concluded, “the situation has changed, becoming more
urgent. We cannot allow the Russians to launch that missile.”
“Why not?” the White House Chief of Staff asked. “If it’s just Russian
against Russian …”
“Bob’s right,” Secretary of Defense Vane said. “If the civil war over
there goes nuclear, we’re going to have serious problems containing it.”
“I might also point out something else,” Duvall, the CIA head, said. “A
nuclear war is going to affect everyone on this planet, not just the
people fighting it.”
“Nuclear winter?” someone asked.
“Possibly. And you’ll recall that after the nuclear plant disaster at
Chernobyl, radioactivity was detected in cow’s milk as far away as
Sweden.
There’s also going to be the problem of vastly increased numbers of