More than that, Pickering was under orders from the President of the United States to report directly to him his assessment of all things in the Far East, including General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.
Pickering had quickly learned that the CIA Tokyo sta-tion chief (whose cover was senior economic advisor to SCAP) had quarters in the VIP compound, a staff car, and considered himself a member of the SCAP staff.
If he could have, Pickering would have relieved the sta-tion chief on the spot for permitting himself to be sucked into the MacArthur magnetic field. The CIA was not sup-posed to be subordinate to the local military commander or his staff. But he realized that would have been counterpro-ductive. For one thing, it would have waved a red flag in MacArthur's face. For another, he didn't know who he could get to replace him.
Pickering had declined the VIP quarters, saying that he was more comfortable in the Imperial Hotel. When Willoughby heard about that, he replaced the driver of Pickering's staff car with an agent of the Counterintelligence Corps wearing a sergeant's uniform, and assigned other CIC agents, in civilian clothing, to provide around-the-clock security for Pickering in the Imperial Hotel.
Willoughby's rationale for that was that the Assistant Director of the CIA for Asia obviously needed to be pro-tected. That was possibly true, but it also meant that CIC agents, who reported to Willoughby, had Pickering under observation around the clock.
Pickering typed out his own reports to President Tru-man, personally encrypted them, and personally took them to the communications center in the Dai Ichi Building, waited until their receipt had been acknowledged by Colonel Ed Banning at Camp Pendleton, and then person-ally burned them.
When Pickering told MacArthur that he already had an aide, Captain McCoy, General Willoughby had been visi-bly startled to hear the name, and Almond had picked up on that, too.
"The same McCoy?" MacArthur had inquired.
"Yes, sir."
"Ned," MacArthur said to Almond, "during the war, when we were setting up our guerrilla operations in the Philippines, Pickering set up an operation to establish con-tact with Americans who had refused to surrender. He sent a young Marine officer-this Captain McCoy-into Min-danao by submarine. Outstanding young officer. I person-ally decorated him with the Silver Star for that."
That was even less the truth, the whole truth, and noth-ing but the truth. MacArthur had originally flatly stated that guerrilla operations in the Philippines were impossi-ble.
President Roosevelt had learned there had been radio contact with a reserve officer named Fertig on Mindanao. Fertig, a lieutenant colonel, had promoted himself to brigadier general and named himself commanding general of U.S. forces in the Philippines. MacArthur and Willoughby had let it be known they believed the poor fel-low had lost his senses, and repeated their firm belief that guerrilla action in the Philippine Islands was, regrettably, impossible.
Roosevelt had personally ordered Pickering to send someone onto the Japanese-occupied island of Mindanao to get the facts. Lieutenant Kenneth R. McCoy, Gunnery Sergeant Ernest Zimmerman, and twenty-year-old Staff Sergeant Stephen M. Koffler, a radio operator, had infil-trated Mindanao by submarine and found Fertig.
McCoy's report that Fertig was not only sane (he had promoted himself to brigadier general on the reasonable assumption that few, if any, American or Philippine sol-diers who had escaped Japanese capture would rush to place themselves under the command of a reserve lieu-tenant colonel) but prepared, if supplied, to do the Japa-nese considerable harm. Roosevelt had ordered that Fertig be supplied. At that point, MacArthur had begun to call Fertig and his U.S. forces in the Philippines "my guerrillas in the Philippines."
When the U.S. Army stormed ashore later in the war on Mindanao, Fertig was waiting for them with than 30,000 armed, uniformed, and trained guerrillas. USFIP even had a band. In very real terms, except for artillery and tanks, USFIP was an American Army Corps. Army Corps are commanded by lieutenant generals. MacArthur continued to refer to Fertig as "that reserve lieutenant colonel."
In the face of that gross distortion of the facts, Pickering had felt considerably less guilty about saying McCoy was his aide.
"And what did your `aide-de-camp' have to say about what he saw on the wharf at Pusan?" Almond asked, smiling.
"General, this was an observation by an experienced of-ficer, not, per se, a criticism," Pickering said.
Almond nodded his understanding.
"McCoy said that most of the enlisted men are fresh from basic training, and that the officers and noncoms are also mostly replacements. There has been no opportunity for them to train together, nor has there been an opportu-nity for them to fire or zero their weapons."
Almond looked pained.
"Zimmerman checked their crew-served weapons,"
Pickering went on. "He knows about weapons. The 29th has been issued new.50-caliber Browning machine guns; they were still in cosmoline when they were off-loaded from the ships in Pusan. None of their mortars have been test-fired."
"God!" Almond said.
"The 29th was ordered to move immediately to Chinju, where it will be attached to the 19th Infantry of the 24th Division. The 19th has taken a shellacking in the last cou-ple of days-you heard the G-3 briefing just now. In these circumstances, McCoy doesn't think that either unit is go-ing to be able to offer much real resistance to the North Koreans."
Almond was silent a moment.
"I agree. That information would not have contributed anything to the staff conference, in the sense that anything could be done about it by anybody at that table. But I thank you for it."
"I thought you should know, sir."
"What Walker is doing is trying to buy enough time to set up a perimeter around Pusan, and hold that until we can augment our forces."
"I understand, sir," Pickering said.
"Between you and me, Pickering, that's all that can be done at the moment. The arrival of the Marine Brigade will strengthen the perimeter, of course, and the 27th Infantry is about to arrive. I understand they're better prepared to fight than, for example, the 29th is."
Pickering didn't reply.
"Maybe we'll get lucky," Almond said, as if to himself. And then he added, "Your `aide.' Is he still in Korea?"
"No, sir. He came in early this morning."
"I'd like to talk to him," Almond said. "Would that be possible?"
"Yes, sir. Of course. You tell me where and when."
"Would it be an imposition if I came by the Imperial?"
"No, sir. Of course not."
"I have to see General MacArthur," Almond said. "He normally sends for me fifteen, twenty minutes after the staff meeting. And there's no telling how long that will take; he's doing the preliminary planning for the amphibi-ous operation up the peninsula. But when that's over, I think I'll be free. If I'm not, I'll call. That Okay with you?"
"That's fine with me, sir. McCoy will be waiting for you."
"I don't want to make talking to him official," Almond said. "You understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then I'll see you in an hour or two," Almond said, of-fered his hand, and left the conference room.
Chapter Ten
[ONE]
THE DEWEY SUITE
THE IMPERIAL HOTEL
TOKYO, JAPAN
1105 25 JULY 1950