knew that if you didn’t come back from one of your Korean commutes, I knew I was going to have to be the one to tell her,” Pickering said. “Now you’re going to have to tell her about Pick.”
“Come out to the house anyway,” McCoy said.
“Thank you, but I don’t have the time right now. Later, maybe.”
“Sir?”
“General Howe and I are going to meet with MacArthur; he’s going to tell us all about his Inchon landing. I don’t want to miss that.”
McCoy nodded but didn’t reply.
“Best possible pissing-in-the-wind scenario,” Pickering went on. “Phase one: Pick survived the crash in reasonably good shape . . .”
“And we will shortly hear that he’s been spotted by the Air Force, or one of the Marine helicopters . . .”
“More likely he was captured. With a little luck, the North Koreans decide to keep him alive—he’s a Marine major, and I’m sure they would like to learn as much about the Marines and Marine aviation as they can. Any officer would know that and keep him alive.”
McCoy nodded his agreement.
“Phase two of the pissing-in-the-wind scenario,” Pickering went on. "MacArthur’s generally believed-to-be-insane notion of a Corps-strength amphibious landing at Inchon goes off without a hitch. We cut the peninsula in half and— the word is ‘envelop’—envelop North Korean forces in the south, including their POW enclosures. In one of which we find Pick.”
“Is that what you think, sir? Inchon’s an ‘insane notion’? ”
“No. I just asked myself that question. And I was aware that my emotions would probably cloud my judgment. But no, I don’t think it’s insane. Whatever else can be said about Douglas MacArthur, he is a military genius. I’ve seen him in action, Ken. When ordinary mortals look at a projected military operation, it’s like—trying to shave in a steam-clouded mirror. For him, there’s no steam on the glass. He sees things, things the rest of us can’t see, and he sees them clearly. He proved that time and again in War Two. If he thinks Inchon’s the answer, I’ll go with him.”
“Is that what you’re going to tell the President?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m going to tell the President.”
“And what’s General Howe going to tell him?”
“In the message he’s writing right now, I’m sure he’s going to use a phrase like ‘insane notion.’ But he’s never had a personal meeting like this with MacArthur. MacArthur can sell iceboxes to Eskimos. I think that will happen this afternoon. I hope it does.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“If, as a result of what Howe tells the President, or for any other reason, MacArthur is forbidden to do the Inchon operation, there’s a good chance he’ll quit.”
“Quit?” McCoy asked, more than a little surprised. “What the hell would he do if he wasn’t El Supremo?”
“Run for commander-in-chief,” Pickering said.
“Jesus! You really think so?”
“This goes no further, Ken,” Pickering said. “Not even to Ernie.”
McCoy nodded his agreement.
“Senator Fowler tells me either Eisenhower or MacArthur can have the Republican nomination if they want it.”
“Not both,” McCoy thought aloud.
“No. Whoever acts first. Try this on. Truman kills the Inchon landing. MacArthur resigns, very publicly, saying he cannot in good conscience serve under a president who is soft on communism, and doesn’t recognize the threat it poses. He’d probably believe that, too.”
“Truman’s not soft on communism,” McCoy argued. “He sent the Army to Greece, and now this. . . .”
“I agree, but the Republicans keep accusing him of it. Anyway, MacArthur knows that unless he acts to get the nomination, it will go to Eisenhower. El Supremo has described Eisenhower as the best clerk he ever had. In his mind, it would be his duty to become President, to get Truman out of office, and to keep Eisenhower from getting it.”
“Jesus!”
“I think he really believes the Inchon landing will end this war. The flip side of that is that if there is no Inchon landing, there will be a long war to take South Korea back. MacArthur believes that, and so do I, as a matter of fact.
“So the election is held, and we’re still fighting here, and MacArthur will make it clear that if Truman had had the good sense to let him—the experienced general who won World War Two in the Pacific—invade Inchon, it would be over. And as soon as he’s President, he will end the war. Who do you think would win?”
“I don’t like the idea of him being President,” McCoy thought aloud.
“Neither do I,” Pickering said. “But it could happen.”
McCoy could think of nothing to say.
“So