William Craig
The Tashkent Crisis
To my wife,
Eleanor,
and to my children,
Ann, Richard, William and Ellen
A NOTE TO THE READER
Because the events in this book span three continents, the reader should be aware of the precise differences in time zones.
Like the United States, the Soviet Union also has several time zones. Soviet Central Asia is three hours ahead of Moscow. Moscow is two hours ahead of Western European cities, such as London, Geneva, and Paris. Western Europe is six hours ahead of cities in the eastern time zone of the United States, such as Washington and New York.
For example, when it is 11:18 P.M. in Washington, it is 5:18 A.M. in Paris, 7:18 A.M. in Moscow, and 10:18 A.M. in Tashkent, Soviet Central Asia.
MOSCOW EXOR MSG6
TO THE PRESIDENT OP THE UNITED STATES:
WE HEREBY DEMAND THE UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER OF YOUR COUNTRY EFFECTIVE 72 HOURS FROM THIS TRANSMISSION. RESISTANCE TO THIS ULTIMATUM WOULD BE FOOLHARDY SINCE WE POSSESS A WEAPON OF UNUSUAL DESTRUCTIVE FORCE. FOR PROOF EXAMINE THE REMAINS OF THE ISRAELI ATOMIC RESEARCH CENTER WEST OF BEERSHEBA.
ANY OVERT MOVES AGAINST OUR COUNTRY WOULD RESULT IN THE NEEDLESS DEATHS OF MILLIONS OF YOUR PEOPLE.
THE SECRETARY OF THE PRAESIDIUM, UNION OF THE SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
PROLOGUE
It was spring in Washington, D.C., and tourists thronged the esplanades around the Potomac basin, admiring the cherry trees in full bloom. Some wandered over to the memorials for Lincoln and Jefferson and recited the words the Presidents had left for future generations to ponder. Others went to the halls of Congress where their representatives were deliberating issues that affected their daily lives. They invaded the galleries of the Senate and House and saw the machinery of government running sluggishly in the chambers below. At the end of the dull sessions, the tourists dispersed through the stately corridors. A few brushed by a door in the Senate Building where a guard stood watching the visitors with bored detachment. None of the tourists stopped to ask the guard what he was defending. If they had, he would have said, “A closed door session of the Appropriations Committee,” and no one would have bothered to press the issue with him. The guard watched the last straggler pass by and shifted his tired feet while he waited for the senators to emerge and let him go home.
They had been inside for five hours, listening to Administration representatives stressing the urgency for increased funds. The senators were not hostile to these messengers from the White House. Horace Eubank, the white-maned chairman from Louisiana, had been a member of the Appropriations Committee for over thirty years. He was acknowledged to be a strong advocate of American military superiority over any potential enemies and had even been nicknamed among certain elements in the country as Attila the Reb.
Eubank did not worry about his enemies. Elected six times to the Senate, he hoped to retire to his bank in Baton Rouge after this term and leave affairs of state to younger men. But he did worry constantly that his country was falling into ruin after years of protest and rioting in the streets. Vietnam and the entire Southeast Asian debacle had caused convulsions in almost every segment of American public opinion. Most people were simply tired of the constant warfare on the frontiers. Some had succumbed to the incessant blandishments from the new left and radical groups and decided that the first order of business was to correct the inequities so apparent among the country’s more than 200 million inhabitants. Others had embarked on a campaign of repression against those who wanted to bring down the established order.
The result had been a new isolationism, a creeping withdrawal from foreign involvements and a gradual return to the concept of Fortress America, once only a slogan of the right.
Presidents were forced to tread carefully in the discharge of their duties. Often, against their better judgments, they retreated from decisions which only decades earlier would have been popular. In this atmosphere American influence lessened noticeably in sensitive areas of Europe and Asia.
For some Americans this was only good. For others it was a tragedy. Always before in world history, these people reasoned, the strongest had survived by staying strong. The weak were always present, anticipating the time when Goliath would let his guard down and fall to the jackals. It was national suicide, they believed, and yet they were nearly powerless to stop it.
Horace Eubank had tried. For several years he had managed to secrete large sums of money in his budget for research and development of strategic weapons systems. He had aided the White House as much as he could by burying these grants under innocuous classifications, and the White House had been properly grateful. But each year it had been more difficult to find the huge funds needed to keep the United States at least even with other countries in military hardware.
Horace Eubank could recall the long list of projects which had been regretfully shelved by the government till another day and another fresh wind of change blew down on Capitol Hill. He also had at hand intelligence reports describing Soviet research and knew that several systems, if perfected in time, could irrevocably alter the balance of power in the world. All of this was in Eubank’s mind as he looked over his horn-rimmed glasses and smiled graciously at Gerald Weinroth, the President’s scientific advisor.
“Professor, I think you know how kindly disposed this committee is toward your advisory board. We are always trying to help your little endeavors along to fruition, but,” and he shrugged his shoulders sadly, “we can only do so much. We get whittled back each year and have a devil of a time scraping up what we do get for you. With the nation in the shape it’s in now, I am not at all surprised at what’s been happening. Why, pretty soon some of these people will be insisting we turn the nation’s defenses over to the Black Panthers and the SDS.”
The remark brought laughter, but Eubank was suddenly grim. “Seriously, Professor, this government is so paralyzed by the reluctance of the American people in general and the crackpot radicals in particular that I am getting scared to death at what will happen. We congressmen have to answer to the people at home and the word is out: ‘Screw the military. They screwed us in Indochina and everywhere else.’ So when you ask for money for items which I consider essential to the continued security of the country, I fear the worst. I am convinced we are in the midst of a retreat from reality. And some day we’ll wake up dead.”
Gerald Weinroth sat nodding his head vigorously in agreement. He waited to see whether Eubank had anything more to add, then hunched forward in his chair and addressed the five-man committee in a low, passionate voice:
“Mister Chairman, when I took over this job, I analyzed our position vis-à-vis the other side and concluded that we were at least even in most important areas. But it’s also my job to predict the future and here I’m in terrible trouble. Because with the funds drying up, I can’t even begin to fulfill the essential research work on systems we know the Russians already have off the drawing boards. And you all know that the real function of my group is to keep the other fellow from ever being able to get the drop on this country.”
Weinroth smiled ruefully at his friends on the panel. “And I now have an ulcer to prove I have great trouble sleeping nights worrying over just such a calamity.”
An oppressive silence followed. Finally, Horace Eubank looked at his watch. “Well, sir, we’ll get you something for your pet projects but nothing like what you really need. Meanwhile, gentlemen, why don’t we adjourn to my office and see if we can’t calm the professor down with a shot of Jack Daniels.”