MACARTHUR’S—IN MY OPINION—COGENT AND BRILLIANT EXPLANATION OF WHY INCHON WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO, SHERMAN HAD COME AROUND TO AT LEAST PARTIAL APPROVAL OF THE INCHON OPERATION. HE SAID NOTHING TO THIS EFFECT, BUT THE QUESTIONS HE ASKED OF MACARTHUR INDICATED HE DID NOT THINK INCHON IS AS HAREBRAINED AS COLLINS MADE CLEAR HE THINKS IT IS.
COLLINS VERY SKILLFULLY GAVE MACARTHUR THE OPPORTUNITY TO LAY THE BLAME FOR OUR INITIAL REVERSES ON GENERAL WALKER. MACARTHUR STATED VERY CLEARLY THAT HE BELIEVED WALKER “HAD DONE AND IS DOING A REMARKABLE JOB, GIVEN WHAT HE HAS BEEN FACING AND WHAT HE HAS TO FACE IT WITH.”
IF IT WAS COLLINS’S INTENTION TO HAVE MACARTHUR ACQUIESCE IN THE RELIEF OF WALKER, EITHER BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THAT WALKER HASN’T MEASURED UP, OR BECAUSE HIS RELIEF WOULD ALLOW HIM TO GIVE RIDGWAY, OR SOMEONE ELSE OF HIS LIKING, THE JOB, HE FAILED.
VERY EARLY THIS MORNING, GENERAL HOWE CALLED ME FROM KOREA ON A LINE THAT WE SUSPECTED WAS NOT AS SECURE AS WE WOULD HAVE LIKED. HE SAID THAT HE WOULD COMMUNICATE HIS THOUGHTS ON HIS MISSION THERE TO YOU AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, BUT THAT, IF I SHOULD COMMUNICATE WITH YOU BEFORE HE WAS ABLE TO, I SHOULD GIVE YOU THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE:
“FROM WHAT I SEE, A CHANGE OF LEADERSHIP AT THIS TIME WOULD BE UNJUSTIFIED AND ILL-ADVISED.”
IT IS MY OPINION, MR. PRESIDENT, THAT, ABSENT SPECIFIC ORDERS NOT TO DO SO FROM YOURSELF AND/OR THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, MACARTHUR WILL PROCEED WITH HIS INTENTION TO LAND WITH TWO DIVISIONS AT INCHON ON 15 SEPTEMBER. IT IS ALSO MY OPINION THAT COLLINS WILL MAKE A STRONG CASE BEFORE THE JCS, AND PERHAPS TO YOU PERSONALLY, TO FORBID INCHON, BUT THAT HE WILL NOT HAVE AS STRONG AN ALLY IN THIS IN SHERMAN AS HE PROBABLY HOPED HE WOULD.
CAPTAIN MCCOY AND LIEUTENANT TAYLOR RETURNED FROM THE ISLAND WE HOLD IN THE FLYING FISH CHANNEL THIS MORNING. HE WILL RETURN THERE SHORTLY, AND IS PREPARED TO LAUNCH HIS OPERATION WITHIN A WEEK. CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRED THAT BRIG GEN THOMAS CUSHMAN, USMC, ASSISTANT COMMANDER, 1ST MARINE AIR WING, BE INFORMED OF THAT MISSION, AND OF THE MISSIONS OF GENERAL HOWE AND MYSELF.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
F. PICKERING, BRIG GEN USMCR
TOP SECRET/WHITE HOUSE
“This looks fine to me, Captain,” Keller said.
“Go with him, George, will you?” McCoy ordered. “Now I’m going to have my coffee.” He handed him more typewriter paper, torn in half. “This gets burned and shredded with the clean copy.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the version with the typos, before I retyped it,” McCoy said. He sat down at the table and reached for the coffeepot.
“Ernie,” a female voice cried, “did that husband of yours tell you what he did to me?”
His head snapped to the door.
Miss Jeanette Priestly of the Chicago Tribune was coming through the door, trailed by Lieutenant (j.g.) David Taylor, USNR.
“Well, Jeanette,” Ernie said, rising to the occasion. “How nice to see you again.”
“I didn’t expect you’d beat us here,” Taylor said to McCoy.
“Long story. I’ll tell you later.”
“What’s this all about?”
“This would have been here sooner,” Jeanette said, flashing McCoy a dazzling smile. “But this had to freshen up a little. And this must say that you look a lot better than the last time this saw you.”
McCoy realized he was smiling.
The last time he had seen her, just before midnight at the Evening Star Hotel in Tongnae, she had been wearing U.S. Army fatigues and combat boots. She hadn’t been near soap or running water for a week, and had spent all but an hour of the previous two and a half days on a junk running through some often rough water in the Yellow Sea. There had been a visible layer of dried saltwater spray all over her face, hands, and hair.
She was now clean, wearing makeup, an elegantly simple black dress, high heels, and enough perfume so that McCoy could smell it across the room.
The only thing that was the same about her was the Leica camera in its battered case hanging around her neck.
“She insisted on coming here,” Taylor said. “I didn’t know what to do. . . .”
Taylor was wearing one of his well-worn, but clean, khaki uniforms.
“It’s all right,” General Pickering said. McCoy looked at him and saw he was smiling. “Hello, Miss Priestly.”
He got a dazzling smile.
“How nice to see you again, General,” she said.
“Zimmerman’s on the air,” McCoy said.
“That was quick,” Taylor said, surprised. “That’s damned good news.”
“I’ll want to know, in detail, exactly how you managed that,” Jeanette