Before the October War the President and the First Lady had often brought their children to Camp David to escape the watching eyes at the Kennedy family’s Hyannis Port compound, to ride and to enjoy the quietness of the mountains. In those days other senior members of the Administration had regularly retreated to Camp David, it had become the playground of White House insiders.
Nick Katzenbach watched how the President’s new Appointments Secretary, Marvin Watson, was adapting to his introduction to the inner circle of the Administration. Calmly, almost coolly, he decided but then no man who had been as close to Lyndon Baines Johnson for as many years as Watson — he had watched LBJ’s back during a raft of elections and been his most loyal ‘independent’ advisor throughout — was going to be in any way unprepared for his debut in the major leagues.
“Gentlemen,” Jack Kennedy said, turning to business. He glanced to his younger brother who looked exactly like any man in the early stages of recovering from a serious gunshot wound requiring two recent surgeries had every right to look; pale, a little gaunt and subdued from the effect of the powerful anti-inflammatory and pain-killing drugs coursing through his body. “Bobby is here because while he’s recovering from his ‘little flesh wound’ Ethel is convinced that only the Marine Corps can make him obey his doctor’s orders!”
All the men in the room cracked broad, sympathetic smiles and guffawed spontaneously. Jackie Kennedy might always put her sister-in-law in the shade but Ethel Kennedy was one of those women who honestly and truly did not overly care about it. However, the fact that she ‘cared’ about her husband was legendary; and likewise despite his periodic philandering her loyalty to him was unwavering. The men in the cabin had no trouble believing — not for a single minute — that Ethel had been on the phone to President and laid down the law demanding that he guarantee that her husband rest.
Bobby Kennedy caught the mood.
“Ethel indicated that General Shoup’s men were to shoot me in the event I attempt to run before I can walk,” he confessed jokily. He slumped back into his cushions but not before he had winked conspiratorially at Nick Katzenbach.
“In that event it would be justifiable homicide,” he offered.
Jack Kennedy sipped his coffee.
“Several of our friends and colleagues, all good men who will be sorely missed have been lost to us in the last week,” he prefaced. “Following discussions with Vice-President Johnson, Secretary McNamara, Chief Justice Earl Warren, senior surviving members of Congress, and General Curtis LeMay, whom I have appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, steps are being taken to fill the gaps in our ranks and to ensure that our rapprochement with our old — our natural — Trans-Atlantic allies is, insofar as it is possible at this early stage, should be set in stone.”
The President nodded to David Shoup, the unyielding rock upon which the rebel assault on the Pentagon had faltered, broken and eventually been thrown back in confusion. The Commandant of the Marine Corps returned his Commander-in-Chief’s acknowledgement.
“You will be aware that I have appointed General Shoup Military Governor of the District of Columbia for a period of ninety days pending Congressional sanction. I have also invited General Shoup to join the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a permanent member with immediate effect.”
Previously Shoup and his predecessors had ‘guested’ on the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee only at the invitation of its Chairman.
“With regard to the organisation of the high command of the American military,” the President continued, “the Chief of Naval Operations has resigned and I have appointed his deputy, Admiral McDonald to fill that position. General Westmoreland will continue in his current role as Special Military Advisor to the Secretary of Defense, however,” Jack Kennedy paused, not wanting his next caveat to be lost on his listeners, “Westy is clearly a coming man and I have warned Bob McNamara that I reserve the right to employ him elsewhere at need at short notice.”
The President’s expression became severe.
“The Vice-President, General LeMay and I have discussed how best to proceed with regard to those officers and units of the United States armed forces which failed to play their part in putting down the recent rebellion.” He looked to the Governors of Maryland and Virginia. “We take the view that those units which failed to obey orders can no longer be trusted; those units will therefore, be stood down, disarmed and disbanded with immediate effect. The officers and senior NCOs of those units will be arrested and their conduct investigated by the Department of Defense. Several National Guard Army and Air Force units in Maryland and Virginia will be subject to this exercise. I must request your unambiguous personal co-operation in this matter.”
Fifty-six year old Albertis Sydney Harrison was the first Governor of Virginia to be born in the twentieth century but this had not stopped him fighting, tooth and nail, against the de-segregation of his state’s education system. He was a ‘Byrd Democrat’; loyal to that Southern Democrat wing of the Party which was in the thrall of the senior Senator from Virginia, Harry F. Byrd, the former Governor whose ambition and formidable political machine had dominated Virginia politics for decades. ‘Byrd Democrats’ shared the title ‘democrats’ with the Kennedy faction of the Party but practically nothing else; it had not come as a huge shock that Virginia Army and Air Force National Guard units had ‘balked at the jump’ at the height of the Battle of Washington, and played little or no part in actively ‘putting down the rebellion’. In the end it had been units rushed from West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey and from as far away as Ohio which, following pulverising air strikes by Curtis LeMay’s Skyraiders had decisively turned the tide.
Governor Harrison ought not to have been surprised that the Administration’s response to what amounted to Virginian ‘neutrality’ in the recent bloodshed was arbitrary. However, the ‘Byrd Democratic’ caucus of the Commonwealth of Virginia was not, and never had been, the most sensitive, or the most perceptive of political weather vanes and for this reason the President’s words touched a surprised, and very exposed raw nerve.
“I will not be threatened, sir,” Governor Harrison retorted, effecting a strain air of old-world grace as befitted a man who truly believed himself to be above the fray. He was after all a direct descendent of the Benjamin Harrison who had signed the Declaration of Independence, and to William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison, respectively the ninth and twenty-third Presidents of the Republic. He and his supporters in Virginia had never really had much time for Irish upstarts like the Kennedy boys. “If you threaten the Old Dominion,” Virginians had always taken perverse pride from being the first English colony in the New World, “I must warn you that you will be taking the first step down a very rocky road, sir!”
Bobby Kennedy roused himself.
“Why?” He asked impatiently.
Harrison looked at the President’s younger brother with haughty, positively aristocratic disdain, his lips a thin white line.
The wounded United States Attorney General frowned.
“Why?” He repeated. “What are you going to do, Governor?” This he asked acidly. “Secede?”
The Virginian opened his mouth to protest but the younger man had not finished.
“I recollect that the Commonwealth of Virginia tried that a hundred and two years ago, Governor Harrison. That didn’t work out too well for the ‘Old Dominion’ then. You don’t honestly think seceding will work out any better this time round? Do you?”