and I have been informed that no one in SCAP, including the Supreme Commander, has such a clearance. Is that clear?”
This time the two said “Yes, sir” almost in unison.
“Okay. Early tomorrow morning, Ambassador W. Averell Harriman and General Matthew B. Ridgway are going to get on an airplane in Washington to fly here. Ambassador Harriman is going to inform General MacArthur, in his role as Supreme Allied Powers—and now UN Command—Commander that the President does not wish General MacArthur to employ in any shape or manner Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Chinese troops. Ambassador Harriman will report to the President his assessment of how General MacArthur receives this order, and probably what he thinks MacArthur will do. I think it highly probable that after receiving the Ambassador’s report, the President will wish to comment on it, and perhaps give the Ambassador supplemental orders.
“Obviously, neither the President nor Ambassador Harriman wants anyone to be privy to this interchange of information. If the customary cryptographic channels were used, SCAP cryptographers would have to read the exchange. The possibility of a leak is there. That’s where you come in, Sergeant Keller. In Sergeant Rogers’s briefcase, there is a special code that will be used solely for the communications between the Ambassador and the President. Getting the picture?”
“Yes, sir,” Keller said. “There’s a story going around that the President used a system like this at Potsdam, sir.”
“You crypto people gossip, do you?”
“Only about techniques, sir, not message content.”
“I’ll give you the benefit of a large doubt on that, Keller. But no, the President did not use this system at Potsdam. I was there with him. He started using it after Potsdam, when he suspected that his ‘eyes only’ messages to and from Potsdam had been read by a large number of senior military and State Department officers who knew how to cajole—or intimidate—crypto people into sharing information with them.”
“You were at Potsdam, Ralph?” Pickering asked.
“Lovely place,” Howe said. “Even right after the war. It’s now in the Russian zone.”
He turned to Keller.
“This one you don’t gossip about, clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“General Ridgway is going to confer with General MacArthur about Inchon,” Howe went on. “That’s where you come in, Lieutenant Taylor. Both General Pickering and I have been charged by the President to come up with opinions—independent opinions—of whether MacArthur—who is now using the phrase ‘when I land at Inchon’—can really carry that off.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing at SCAP, General,” Taylor said. “Working on that plan. They pulled me off my LST right after this war started, and put me to work on that.”
“Gut feeling, Mr. Taylor? Is it possible?” Pickering asked.
“Gut feeling, sir: It’s a hell of a gamble.”
“I’d never even heard of the place a month ago,” Howe said, “and aside from what General Pickering has told me, I still know virtually nothing about it.”
General Pickering told you? What the hell does a Marine general know about Inchon? was written all over Taylor’s face, and both Howe and Pickering saw his confusion.
“I was a sailor, a long time ago,” Pickering said. “I told you.” He chuckled, and added: “Who once ran the Pacific Wanderer aground at Inchon.”
Pacific Wanderer? That’s a P&FE freighter. This general was master of a P&FE freighter?
Oh, Jesus Christ. This guy’s name is Pickering. P&FE is owned by the Pickering family. There has to be a connection. So what’s he doing in a Marine general’s uniform?
“You look as if you have a question, Mr. Taylor,” Pickering said.
“Ran aground, sir? Or got caught by the tides?” Taylor asked.
“Caught by the tides,” Pickering said. “The effect is the same. The question is, how is MacArthur’s invasion fleet going to deal with Inchon’s infamous tidal mudflats?”
“Let’s start with that,” Howe said. “What mudflats? What are we talking about? Show me. Charley, have we got that map?”
Master Sergeant Rogers took a map from his briefcase and laid it on the table.
“You tell us, Taylor,” Howe ordered. “Remembering that you and General Pickering are the only sailors in the room. Keep it simple.”
“Yes, sir,” Taylor said.
He took a lead pencil from his pocket and used it as a pointer.
“Here’s Seoul,” he said. “And here’s Inchon. This is the Yellow Sea. The channel into Inchon from the Yellow Sea—it’s called the Flying Fish Channel—starts here, about thirty air miles from Inchon, at this group of little islands, called the Tokchok. There’s a lighthouse there on a little island called Samni.
“Flying Fish meanders along through here. The distance by water is about forty-five nautical miles from the lighthouse