A priest exhorted those around him to seek the truth immediately. He shouted, “Let’s go to the White House! That man in there knows what’s going on. Let’s ask him directly.”
A middle-aged woman in an expensive silk suit shrilled: “Father is right! We have a duty to find out whether this paper was signed by Stark. My God, imagine if it’s true. We’ll all be dead in a matter of days.”
Fear had possessed the members of SOUL. Fear and a sense of righteous wrath had twisted the idealistic sentiments of thousands and was creating a mob.
In the growing frenzy, sane voices were drowned out. Henry Fuller was helpless. He tried to cajole, then to demand loyalty to the original reason for the march. He pulled at strangers and cursed the agitators who had transformed them. A fist rose from the crowd and smashed into his mouth. Fuller fell to the pavement, his blood staining the asphalt. A marcher kicked him in the ribs, and Fuller feebly attempted to raise himself to a sitting position. He heard people screaming in rage and anger and saw hundreds of shoes running by him as the line of march rushed past his body toward the citadel of power. Henry Fuller beat his fist into the ground in frustration and sorrow for his fellow man.
SOUL split into two groups, one of which doubled back to swing across the Potomac. Twenty-five minutes later, in front of the Pentagon, military policemen watched warily as the first of the protestors descended upon them. The angry shouts reached the ears of Colonel James Shelton, standing at the entrance to the massive building. He was appalled. Days of negotiations with demonstration leaders had convinced Pentagon generals that there would be no need to fear an invasion by dissident factions intent on humiliating the government of the United States. SOUL was sincere, sensible, and scrupulously correct. It had refused to allow extremist groups to join the march. General Stephen Austin Roarke himself had signed the order permitting the demonstration in downtown Washington, and lesser Pentagon officials had not even thought to post soldiers from surrounding bases.
Colonel Shelton saw the hands waving hundreds of white slips of paper. He did not know the extent of the trouble that awaited him. In the mass of protesters who poured off the bridge and down the road leading to the stucco fortress, Sharon McCandless and Tom Samuels had been engulfed by the rising indignation at the “Stark” order. They had lost their objectivity along with thousands of others who heard the chorus of fear and frustration around them and denied their own instincts for order. Sharon was both exhilarated and frightened. She wanted direct action yet feared its consequences. Tom was feeling a great sense of guilt because he did not really believe the contents of the directive by Stark. Yet he had allowed himself to be swept along in the fury that suddenly veered from the announced line of march and swept into Virginia.
Hurriedly called MPs lined up across the entrance and stared over the heads of the mob descending on them. Colonel Shelton walked out in front and waited for the confrontation.
A native of Alabama, he had spent fifteen years in the United States Army, including two years in Vietnam as an advisor to South Vietnamese rangers. Shelton had lived with fear during that entire time and had acquitted himself ably. Yet today, basking in the warmth of a relentless sun, he felt a strange mixture of panic and helplessness. These people had ostensibly come in peace. But the front ranks of protesters were not filled with calm men. They were the enemy.
The marchers stopped twenty feet in front of him. Behind them hundreds of people bumped into one another like the cars of a freight train. The crowd reassembled, spreading out like a fan around the tiny line of soldiers.
Colonel Shelton breathed deeply. “May I ask who your leaders are?”
A delegation of five stepped toward him. Each held a white slip of paper in his hands. One old man wearing a seersucker suit was the spokesman. His face was wizened, and his white hair lay in wisps on his sweating head. The old man thrust his paper at Shelton and spoke in a thin, tired voice: “As you know, we came to Washington in peace. Our hearts break at the thought of our children and grandchildren living under the threat of a dictatorship which could force them to control their progeny.” The old man paused to wipe his perspiring forehead. He glanced at the colonel, who was smiling pleasantly at him. “We, these people,” and his hand waved behind him at the assemblage, “bear no ill will. And yet in the past hour, these people have been shattered by that paper you have in your hand now.”
The old man stared directly into the colonel’s eyes: “We must have an explanation from the government about this order. My friends out here demand a satisfactory answer.”
He was not threatening Shelton. His voice was almost plaintive, filled with remorse for even an overtone of menace in his request. The old man was suddenly quiet. Shelton looked at the paper carefully. While he read, flags over the Pentagon snapped lazily in a welcome breeze whose coolness fanned the faces of the inflamed citizens. Shelton’s first reaction was amazement. He began to laugh but quickly stopped when he realized his position.
“Gentlemen, I don’t know where you got this supposed order, but it is incomprehensible that you would believe it. As rational beings, you cannot suppose that it is anything but a fabrication.”
The people in front of him stared back blankly. Shelton’s mind raced rapidly. “Perhaps you should all sit out here and calm down for a while. You’re welcome to use the grass area for your comfort. And again I assure you this paper is a hoax of some sort.”
The old man said reproachfully, “Colonel, we want a better answer than that. Please talk to someone inside, and meanwhile we will wait on the grass. And thank you for the offer.”
Colonel James Shelton ducked inside the door and picked up a wall telephone. He spoke rapidly to E Ring and explained the contents of the document. While he spoke, the citizen army outside broke its ranks and sprawled in the grass. Thermos jugs of lemonade and Coke were distributed. Sharon and Tom munched the sandwiches from breakfast. The protesters continued to wonder openly about the origin of the document. Some were still unconvinced, but the majority were filled with apprehension.
Minutes stretched into a half hour, and Colonel Shelton had not emerged. The guards around the front door were quietly equipped with tear-gas guns handed out surreptitiously. At Fort Myer, several miles distant, the officer of the day was ordered to send two thousand combat-ready soldiers by truck to the Pentagon. They were to appear within one hour.
Someone in the crowd of resting marchers had waited long enough. He stood up and shouted: “We want an answer, we want an answer.” A swell of voices chanted with him. Inside the Pentagon, hundreds of office workers went to the windows. The panes rattled from the concussion of angry words. Colonel Shelton was deep within E Ring, explaining the mood of the marchers to a confused general, who had just read the Stark directive. Shelton was losing his calm. “Sir, those people are really shook up over this thing. And they weren’t at all mollified when I put it down as a crank job. We’ve got to find them some kind of reasonable explanation, or this place will be a battleground by nighttime.”
The general said: “How the hell did they fall for this bullshit?”
Shelton said: “They’re so bothered by the whole nuclear situation that anyone could turn them on with it. Since they spend half their waking hours wondering what the hell the world is coming to, a smart agitator could just plant a seed like this and watch it flourish. And I’m afraid that’s what has happened today.” The general said: “Wait until the television people get a hold of this one. No matter what we tell them, they won’t be satisfied. And if there are agitators mixed up in the crowd, we’ll catch hell one way or the other.”