Shaw said evenly, “I understand, and I’m rejecting your offer. As I said earlier… you haven’t a hope of succeeding in any event. You have no armies and you have no arms — oh, maybe a gun or two here and there, but you can’t conduct World War Three on the same lines as gang warfare, Tucker! Properly constituted armed forces aren’t impressed by Mafia tactics. If you think any different you ought to have been certified years ago.”
Tucker smiled coldly. “You will withdraw all that when you have heard what I have to say. I would advise you to reserve your decision for a while longer.” Moving his body back from the desk, he rested his elbows once again on the arms of his chair and put his finger-tips together. Resting his chin on his fingers he stared almost hypnotically at Shaw, his eyes perfectly steady and deadly serious. He went on, speaking slowly and with emphasis, “In three days from now, at 1400 hours Eastern Standard Time, the current President of the United States is scheduled to speak to the American nation, on a coast-to-coast television and sound hook-up from the White House. I take it you didn’t know this?”
“I did not.”
“Well, the information has not yet been released even in this country, but we have known for the past two weeks that it was under consideration, and so we were able to make our plans. Forty-eight hours ago our informant passed us the date. The President’s speech will be on the colour problem and he will urge both sides to exercise moderation and understanding and caution — the reason for his talk being, of course, the recent widespread rioting that has affected this country and yours. Now — whatever he may be fondly believing at this moment, the President will not in fact make that simultaneous telecast and broadcast. Shortly before he is due on the air, members of our movement will have seized control of the television centre at Little Canyon, which is only twenty miles from here, and at the same time, other armed groups composed of men thoroughly trained already in what they have to do, will seize control at all other television and broadcasting stations throughout all of the United States. Some of these men are television technicians who will already be at work in the studios and control-rooms—”
“Blacks?”
“Negroes mainly, yes — but we have our bought White members as well. Now — shortly after the President starts to speak, he will be faded from the screen by a command group of our people who will take over the White House itself from inside, and I shall appear in his place… making my telecast from the studio in Little Canyon, also broadcasting on sound radio at the same time. I shall announce myself as the first President of Black America and announce also that the Voice of Black America is on the air to stay. Then I shall indicate broadly what is happening. All this will go out to the world… the original television appearance by the President is intended to go out on world-wide links via the communications satellite system, and the sound broadcast will also be global. My announcement will in itself be the actual signal for the commencement of hostilities. By that time all our people will be well armed in readiness. At this very moment, throughout the United States and Britain and elsewhere, section leaders have stockpiles of arms in their homes — knives, revolvers, rifles and bayonets, automatic weapons with plenty of ammunition, grenades — we even have some M-79 grenade launchers, firing 40-mm. grenades up to 400 metres — stockpiles painstakingly stashed away over the years. These section leaders know precisely what they have to do and when I make my announcement they will do it — and keep in mind, please, our Chinese backing! I will quote you some further examples of the first stages of the take-over, if you are interested?”
“Go on.”
“The Pentagon,” Tucker said, “will be seized and all personnel arrested and if necessary, of course, shot down. In New York the United Nations building will be taken over, among others. The entire public communications system will be taken over throughout the country. There will be a purely symbolic seizing of the Statue of Liberty, over which our new national flag will be hoisted. In Britain similar things will happen… the chief targets being the B.B.C. and independent television studios, the Houses of Parliament, the Ministry of Defence building together with certain other Government buildings, and, again as a symbol, Buckingham Palace. But all this…” Tucker made an expansive gesture. “It is merely the froth, Commander, the icing on the cake.”
Shaw’s mouth had gone dry. “And the cake?” he asked.
“The cake,” Tucker told him, “will be delivered by China. While I am speaking to the world, Chinese aircraft will already have been airborne for some hours and will be flying out across the Pacific from bases in Hunan and Fukien provinces. They will come in at about the time I finish speaking to deliver a knockout nuclear blow at the United States Sixth Fleet, currently in harbour at the Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia. This will be simply a token force, and it will be expendable — it will be composed of old Russian Myasishchev intercontinental four-jet bombers accompanied by flight refuelling tanker aircraft — and if it should fail to penetrate the American defences, then I.C.B.M.s will be fired from the Chinese mainland into America. These will be aimed at military installations including the Early Warning Systems. Let me admit that in its way the destruction of the fleet is also part of the froth and the icing. Navies no longer inspire fear, nor do they provide effective deterrents or worthwhile targets — but they do still inspire a sentimental regard in their possessors, and the destruction of the fleet will react very badly on the morale of the American people. The fleet is not, however, considered vital enough to attract expensive I.C.B.M.s which may later be needed against more pressing targets. Now — immediately this initial stage has been achieved, I shall call on television for the surrender of the American people. In other countries, Britain included, Negro leaders will do the same—”
“They’ll be lucky!”
“Taking your words literally, I rather think they will, Commander! If the White leaders refuse to see sense, to accept the inevitable… why, then, do you see, the main Chinese attack will come at once on a saturation scale. It will come on world-wide fronts but will be directed chiefly against the United States, Britain and the U.S.S.R. Let me assure you, that attack will be delivered in strength against totally unprepared countries, and because of this element of complete surprise and shock it cannot fail. This whole thing is going to be perfect, Commander… straight down the line! Remember, the world is now a long way ahead of the day China exploded her first primitive nuclear device. Let me remind you of some words of Mao Tse-Tung’s. He is on record as saying that the mastery of nuclear weapons by China was a great encouragement to the revolutionary peoples of the world in their struggles… that even if half mankind died in an atomic war — and this he was prepared to accept — at least imperialism would be razed for ever to the ground and the whole world would become socialist. Mao always insisted on Lenin’s dictum that there is an international obligation upon Communist countries to support other people’s revolutionary struggles, as indeed China at any rate has in North Viet-Nam, and now China has the power—”
“And against this the American Secretary of Defence at the time stated categorically that the U.S. was capable of destroying both the Chinese and Russian societies simultaneously.”