asked if I would come to Washington; he wanted to meet with Fowler and me. I said yes. He also asked where you were. I said I didn’t know where you were, except en route to Camp Pendleton. Two hours later I was in an F-94, and the next morning the President came here, to Fowler’s apartment, asked Fowler to keep the assessment, the warning, from the press. Fowler agreed.”
“Where’d they get my name?”
“I don’t suppose that was hard, Ken,” Pickering said. “I also told the President that I didn’t want you to get in trouble, and he asked if I meant I thought you needed friends in high places, and the next thing, he’s on the phone to the Commandant—personally—telling him to cut active-duty orders on me, effective immediately.”
“Because I need a protector?”
“I spent forty minutes with General Cates this morning. He told me that—he implied; he’s both too much a gentleman and too smart to spell it out in so many words—that there is some dissatisfaction with Hillenkoetter and that it wouldn’t surprise him if Truman had me in mind as a replacement. ”
McCoy visibly thought that announcement over, but his face did not register surprise.
“You were a deputy director of the OSS,” McCoy said.
“Who is, and you know this as well as I do, absolutely unqualified to be head of the CIA.”
“You couldn’t do any worse than this admiral. He should have known this was coming.”
“I wouldn’t know how to do any better.”
“Yes, you would,” McCoy said, simply.
“Maybe Hillenkoetter’s heard the same thing,” Pickering said. “That would explain the ice-cold reception I got over there.”
“What are you going to do over there?” McCoy asked.
“We have an office in the East Building—that’s where Hillenkoetter’s office is—four rooms, sparsely furnished.”
“In which we are going to do what?”
“I think they’ll probably want to pick your brains about the North Korean/Chinese order of battle, but I have no idea what I’ll be doing except that Ed Banning and Zimmerman are on their way here to help me to do it.”
“How did that happen?”
“That was the Commandant’s idea. He painted a pretty bleak picture of the readiness of the Corps to fight a war—”
“The First Marine Division,” McCoy interrupted. “The First Marine Division, Reinforced, at Pendleton, has less than 8,000 men.”
Pickering was at first surprised that McCoy knew that figure, but on reflection, was not. McCoy had always been a cornucopia of data; he learned something once, then never forgot it.
“—and is concerned that when the Corps can’t pull off a miracle, as it will be expected to do, it will be ammunition for those who think we don’t need a Marine Corps.”
“How are you and Ed Banning supposed to help about that?”
Pickering thought that over, then said what had first come into his mind.
“Every time somebody says, ‘First Marine Division,’ we interject, ‘which is at less than half wartime strength.’ ”
McCoy chuckled.
The telephone rang.
It was Ernie.
“Good,” she said. “You’re there.”
“And so is the General,” Ken said.
“Aunt Patricia told me. She is something less than thrilled.”
“Where did you see her?”
“I’m in San Francisco. With her. I’m on what they call the ‘red-eye special,’ a midnight flight on TWA to New York. It gets there at seven in the morning. I’ll take the train to Washington. Are you going to be there when I get there?”
“Yes.”
“Put Uncle Flem on the phone,” she ordered, and he heard her say, “Talk to him, Aunt Pat.”
He handed the phone to Pickering.
“Your wife,” he said.
Pickering raised his eyebrows as he took the phone.
“Selfish adolescent speaking,” he said. “Honey, honest to God, I didn’t volunteer.”
“Whatever you are, you’re not a liar,” McCoy heard Patricia Fleming reply. “If I get on the plane with Ernie, are you going to be there, too?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “Will you still fit in your uniforms?”
“A young Navy doctor told me that I’m in remarkably good shape for my age. Where are my uniforms?”
“I found a couple here in the apartment. Shall I bring them?”
“Please, sweetheart. Thank you.”
“How in the world did a couple of nice girls like Ernie and me wind up as Marine Corps camp followers?”
“You have very good taste, maybe?”
McCoy heard Patricia Fleming laugh, and then she hung up without saying anything else.
[FOUR]
HEADQUARTERS BEAUFORT USMC AIR STATION BEAUFORT, SOUTH CAROLINA 0830 1 JULY 1950
Colonel Edward J. Banning, USMC, in a fresh but already sweat-stained tropical worsted uniform, and carrying a canvas Valv-Pak, walked into the headquarters building and got his hand up in time to keep