Chapter 13
Johnny Withers came in. “Well, Mr. President. The word is out. There is a media feeding frenzy in the press room. They are clamoring for a statement. CNN and all the other channels are broadcasting live from different locations in Korea. It seems that CBS and NBC reporters headed south out of Seoul in a hurry, at the first flight of aircraft. CNN stayed in Seoul and is broadcasting from there. It looks pretty ugly over there.”
“Turn on the television, Johnny, CNN, but no volume; I just want to see the pictures, please.”
Withers picked up the remote control from the top of the television, turned on the digital TV, laid the remote on the President’s desk and walked out to the antechamber.
The intercom rang on the President’s desk; he answered it. It was Air Force Chief of Staff George Shelton. “Mr. President, we just received word that all the airports in Pusan are down. Their runways are sufficiently cratered that nothing can get in or out. This cuts the possibility of air delivery of reinforcements into Pusan until those runways are repaired. The air battle is see-sawing back and forth. No clear-cut picture as yet on that, Mr. President.”
“What are we talking about, in terms of getting those airfields repaired, General?”
“Well Mr. President, if the South Koreans are up to snuff, about eight hours. The North Koreans copied our catering bomblets munitions. The runways are filled with hundreds of holes that will tear the landing gear off any aircraft, landing or taking off. Unfortunately, with continued wave attacks, it becomes a battle between repair and destruction. I can’t predict who will win that one. I have no idea how much repair materials and manpower and equipment the South has dedicated to this function. If the North Korean ground attack aircraft take out the people and equipment, it is probably a done deal.”
“Anything else, developments of any kind that I should know about, General Shelton?”
“No, sir, nothing more at this time.”
“Thank you, General,” and Thornton hung up the phone.
Johnny Withers came in. “Mr. President, Roger has a prepared statement, very brief, acknowledging to the press that South Korea is under attack. Do you want to take a look at it?”
“No, Johnny, I’ll trust Roger. I am sure he has not identified what our response will be. Neither should he identify that we haven’t formulated one at this time. If he is that stupid, I’ll fire him, if I don’t wring his neck first. Let him rip.”
The President glanced over at the television, where a CNN reporter was standing inside the White House Press Room. Roger McCall, the White House Press Secretary, strode confidently to the podium. The President turned the volume up with his remote.
The phone on the President’s desk rang. He turned down the television volume. “Mr. President, Marge Talbott. I was just on the phone with our ambassador in London. Things don’t look good. Seems the Brits have been debating their role in this for a couple of hours now. The Labour government is deeply opposed to any kind of British participation at all. Near as our guy can figure out, there are a couple of things that the British find disturbing. They are afraid of terrorist retaliation on the home islands, by whom, I am not sure. Perhaps more importantly, they look at it as perhaps the final solution to the Korean problem. Let the peninsula be reunited under whomever and then deal with whichever government is the winner. They certainly aren’t going to commit any of their whopping three divisions to it, and they are even debating whether or not they should allow us to use Diego Garcia. As soon as the dust settles, our man will send us a secure fax.”
“Do you think a phone call from me to the Prime Minister would be of any benefit, particularly in regard to Diego Garcia?”
“I asked that question, and our man said right now their P.M. is engaged in a hot and heavy debate; maybe later today, but not now. He never was very friendly to us Americans. He is leaning against us on all fronts at the moment. He wants to see how the political wind is blowing with the natives first, at least that is what our man thinks.
“One more thing, Mr. President. The French Ambassador can hardly retain his glee at our dilemma. It seems the French want to see us get our comeuppance. I don’t think we will get any support at all out of the French, formally or informally.”
“Thanks, Marge. Keep me informed of anything of use that you hear, as I am sure you will. Oh, give our Russian friends a call at their embassy as a matter of courtesy. Ask them what their position is on the North Korean invasion this morning. Let’s see what their take is. Talk to you later.”
Jason Thornton turned the volume up on the television, just in time to hear NBC’s latest beautiful lady reporter ask Roger, “What will be the United State’s response to this invasion?”
Roger just smirked and said, “Do you think it would be wise to tell an extremely lethal and unpredictable enemy how you will react to his aggression? Don’t you think he might prepare for any response you would care to identify? Perhaps you would like to be part and parcel of whatever our response is? I am sure that the troops in one of our first response ground units, should we choose to militarily respond, would certainly be happy to have you embedded with them.” The double meaning was not lost on the reporter, and her blush was obvious on camera. Jason Thornton laughed to himself, glad he had selected Roger McCall. Neither of them had much use for antagonistic journalists, and Roger, obviously, could be just as sarcastic as the best of them.
By noon, a dozen or so demonstrators had gathered outside the White House. None of them were favorable to involvement. The placards they carried, obviously home made, carried various slogans: NO WAR! U.S. STAY HOME! NOT IN ASIA! KEEP US OUT! and so on. They were marching, circling peacefully under the watchful eye of a dozen Washington, D.C., and National Park police officers and some men in civilian clothes who had small radio receivers clipped to their ears.
The Vice President called from his office, just to let Thornton know that various Congressional Committees were meeting on Capitol Hill to discuss the invasion.
Margie Talbott called again. “Mr. President, I just spoke with the Japanese ambassador. He has received no guidance from the Japanese government. His personal opinion, however, is that a major re-alignment will result. Japanese forces are on alert, and their militia units have been put on stand-by notice. I’ll let you know as soon as he gets back to me with any formal response.
“The Taiwanese delegation was also here and just left. The Taiwanese have gone to full alert. They are concerned that China might use this as a cover for invasion. They are not taking any chances. Their ships of the line are putting out to sea in the Strait now. They have armed their missiles. We think they are going to establish an Aegis destroyer picket line. Our AWACs over the Strait haven’t picked up any indicators of unusual ship or military air activities.”
“Thanks, Marge. Talk to you later.” Thornton hung up the phone. Frigging great, Thornton thought to himself. If the Chinese do go for Taiwan, how in hell are we going to respond to both Korea and Taiwan?
Thornton dialed the war room. “Anything changing down there? Secretary Talbott just told me that Taiwan is on full alert and moving their ships into the Strait.”
“Admiral Stark here, Mr. President. Yes, sir, we are monitoring their movement into the Strait. They are scared. We are listening to their conversations in real time, and they are very unhappy campers.”
“Anything on any kind of movement or response from the Chinese?”
“No, Mr. President, nothing in terms of any movement. One of our naval attaches noticed, however, something a little odd. It seems that over the last month, a large number of Chinese freighters have been tied up in Chinese ports, big and little. Probably a hundred or more of these freighters have been pulled off the oceans and seem to be just sitting in ports.”
“Odd, what do you make of it?”
“We don’t have anything but wild guesses right now, Mr. President. We told one of our people over there to start sniffing around and see what he can find out. The Port Authority Traffic Management Office said, ‘We have noticed about a fifteen percent drop in Chinese ships coming into our ports on both coasts over the last five or six weeks.’ That would tie in with their ships staying in home ports, but why, they don’t know either.”
“Thanks, Admiral. For your information, the folks on the Hill are yakking at each other, and the protestors are already marching outside the gates up here. See you after lunch.” Jason Thornton hung up the phone.
At 11:30, Marge Talbott called again. “The South Korean ambassador just left my office. He hasn’t received any official word from Seoul yet, but on his own he is putting out feelers about possible military support from us. He fully realizes that our departure from South Korea was a mistake. Both the government and the people never dreamed the North would invade again. He has less of a clear picture than we do as to how the invasion is going.”
“What did you tell him, Marge?”
“Nothing concrete, that it is being discussed in the White House and Congress. I told him that the only immediate option was that if you used your authority under the War Powers Act there could be any kind of an immediate response. That immediate response wouldn’t come for several weeks at the earliest. It might require deliberation by Congress, with a vote to go to war to do it according to our Constitution. I told him I could not say what, when, or how it would go. He left a very disappointed and anxious man.”
“Good job, Marge. I don’t know myself how all of this will fall out. I am still troubled by Dr. Stearns’s concept. I’ll see you at our 14:00 hours meeting.” Thornton put down the phone and leaned back in his chair. “What in God’s name should our response be?”
14:00 Hours, White House War Room
At 13:45, the cars began arriving at the underground entrance to the White House as the Joint Chiefs began arriving from the Pentagon and the Department Secretaries who are members of the National Security Council from their offices. Everyone was seated by 13:55 when Jason Thornton came in. In previous meetings, the President indicated that no one should stand in these meetings when he entered. Jim Neville, the SECDEF, had arrived, having been briefed en route over a secure net by his staff.
“Ok, folks, let’s get started. Jim, what do you have from your end?”
