The lights were on in the Oval Office to offset the gloom of the winter day outside. Inside the historic room three men were seated at an oblong table. John Milligan, the President of the United States, a big man whose sloping shoulders and barrel chest were the despair of tailors who tried to fit his suits, sat at the head of the table. At his left hand was Representative Walter W. Wendell and next to him Captain Herman Steel. The President smiled at Goldman and motioned to him to sit in the chair at his right. Mike Brannon took the chair next to Goldman, directly across the table from Captain Steel. Near the end of the table Admiral Benson and Bob Wilson were standing, closing their attaché cases.
“Thank you for the excellent briefing, Admiral Benson, Mr. Wilson,” the President said. “Please keep me informed.” He waited until the sentry had closed the door after Benson and Wilson left the room and turned to Mike Brannon.
“Are all admirals insane?” the President asked, looking at Mike Brannon. “This Russian admiral, Zurahv, who Wilson said is leading the hardliners in the Politburo, he must be insane to even think about starting a war.” He put his hands on the table and Mike Brannon noticed that the hands, despite the expert care of a manicurist, showed the signs of the President’s childhood and early manhood on a Kansas farm.
“You might be a little insane yourself, Admiral,” the President said softly. “Just a little bit. Captain Steel says you are completely mad but I don’t think that’s true.” The somber eyes beneath the thick graying eyebrows fixed on Mike Brannon.
“Why didn’t you notify me at once when you knew we had lost a submarine? Why didn’t you notify me as soon as you had determined that our submarine had been sunk by the Russians? I’m the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of this country, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten, sir,” Brannon answered.
“Then why didn’t you inform me at once?” He locked his two hands together on the table. “Let me say this to you, Admiral. I told these other gentlemen and the two who left that I wanted the truth, the damned bone truth to be spoken in this meeting and what’s said in this office doesn’t go out of this office and no matter what you say I won’t use it against you.”
“Very well, sir,” Brannon answered. “I’ll level with you. I figured that if we didn’t do something in retaliation for the sinking of the Sharkfin and do it damned fast the Russians might do something even worse than sinking one of our submarines.
“I reasoned that if I came to you that your hands would be tied, so far as taking any retaliatory action. You’d have to notify congressional committees and the National Security Council and by the time all the arguing and speech-making was over the story would be in the newspapers and on television and then you wouldn’t be able to do a thing.” His dark blue eyes stared at the President.
“I issued the orders to destroy the Russian submarine that had sunk the Sharkfin because I am convinced that swift and terrible retaliation is the only language that the Russians understand. I was sure in my own mind that it was the only way to prevent a nuclear war, sir.”
“It’s a reasonable rationale, Admiral, but you’d better explain why you believe that the Soviet Union was or is ready to attack us.”
Admiral Brannon looked across the table at Captain Steel and then turned to look at the President.
“I do not cry wolf, sir,” he began. “My military record will bear that out. But there is a school of thought about how a nuclear war could begin that I think is soundly based. I’ll cover it as quickly as I can.
“The assumption is, sir, that if the Soviet Union should decide to start a nuclear war they would strike first at our hardened missile sites, at our land-based missile silos. As soon as their missiles were launched at those targets Mr. Brezhnev or whoever is head of the Soviet government, would call you on the hot line and tell you the missiles were underway, that they would hit their targets in about fifty minutes and that loss of American life would be minimal — most of our land missile sites are away from heavily populated areas, as you know, sir.
“You would be given the choice of surrendering at once, unconditionally, or the next missiles would be launched within minutes at our biggest cities. The probable death toll from that strike could be fifty million or more American lives.” Brannon paused and looked around the table and then back at the President.
“The assumption, sir, is that you would have no choice but to surrender and save at least fifty million Americans from death.”
“Horse shit!” the President said. “Anyone who thinks that I, that any American president who sits in this White House would surrender without firing a shot is crazy!” He balled a large hand into a fist and struck the table.
“We’d fire our own missiles in retaliation.” He looked down the table at Captain Steel.
“You told me, you testified before the Congress, that your submarine missiles can hit a pickle barrel at three thousand miles. Isn’t that so?” He turned back to Mike Brannon.
“Admiral, the Russians have to know that they’d be wiped out! They wouldn’t be as stupid as that.”
“If missile accuracy was what it’s supposed to be I would agree with you, sir,” Mike Brannon said.
The President nodded his head toward Captain Steel. “Let me hear it again, Captain, tell Admiral Brannon here what you told me and the Congress about how accurate our missiles really are.”
Captain Steel nodded his head. “Sir,” he began, “the accuracy of our missiles is based on firing under optimum conditions. We have never fired a missile under less than optimum conditions.”
“Let me put it this way, sir. Each target in the Soviet Union is to be hit by three or more nuclear missiles. We have never fired more than one missile in any test. We don’t have any knowledge of what would happen to the incoming missiles after the first missile exploded, if the incoming missiles would be blown apart in mid-air or blown away from the target. We just don’t know. We’ve never been given permission to make such a test, sir.”
The President slowly began to crack the knuckles on his right hand with the fingers of his left hand. The popping sound filled the quiet room.
“You said that your accuracy figures were based on firing under optimum conditions. Correct me if I’m wrong but optimum, if I remember the word, means ideal, perfect?”
“That’s right, sir,” Captain Steel said. “We have no accuracy figures on missiles fired from polar or near polar waters, sir. We don’t know what effect the polar winds, the temperatures over the Soviet Union would have on missiles.”
“My God!” the President said. “Go on, Captain.”
“We have no accuracy figures for land-based missiles, sir, other than those fired from the West Coast to island targets to the west. Obviously, we have never test-fired a missile across the North Pole toward the Soviet Union. We don’t have any accuracy components for those areas, sir.” His ascetic face was tight and drawn.
“What you’re telling me,” President Milligan said slowly, “is that you and the rest of the fucking military chiefs have been lying! I have been told, sworn to on a stack of Bibles, that even if they attack us first we can literally destroy the Soviet Union. That’s been the rationale behind your nuclear missile submarine programs and all the rest of our nuclear weapons programs — that neither side can dare risk starting a nuclear war. Now you sit here and tell me that our missiles aren’t accurate enough to justify that rationale! God damn it, where’s the truth in you people?”