The Tashkent Crisis Page 10

  From all sections of the country, left, right, and center, they had come to voice their opposition to a bill before Congress that they felt was immoral and unconscionable. The measure had been proposed by Senator George T. Stratton of Colorado in the Senate and by Congressman Amos Seligsohn of Cincinnati in the House.

  The Stratton-Seligsohn bill responded to a decade’s alarmed attention to ecology, the study of man’s environment. Scientists, viewing the deterioration of the planet’s resources, had been making more and more dire predictions about the future of man. Some foresaw extinction within thirty-five years. Others wondered openly whether he would rot in our own garbage. Governments on both sides of the Iron Curtain had been laboring to cope with the universal menace. Billions were appropriated to eradicate smog and reduce water pollution, but efforts were too diffuse to combat the insidious byproducts of man’s technological development.

  Two years before, a World Congress on Environmental Problems had been held in Vienna. Interested parties from seventy-four countries had presented their proposals. Birth control, the absolute limiting of procreation, was the antidote recommended by seventy-one delegations.

  Just one year back, the Soviet Union, the United States, France, and Poland had asked for and received an audience with the Pope. Specialists from each country produced graphs and charts to illustrate the tragedy facing man. They expressed their conviction to the Pontiff that the best solution was a limitation of the number of people on the earth.

  The four nations wanted the Pope to make a pronouncement to the Catholic masses endorsing the concept of birth control by artificial means. The Pope promised an answer within one year.

  On March 14 that year, he published an encyclical known as De populis mundi, from its opening words. In it, the Pope reiterated his belief that birth control by artificial means was contrary to God’s law and therefore forbidden to billions of Catholics throughout the world.

  In the United States, the disaffected and disenchanted condemned the Church for its blind obedience to what it termed “antiquated and irrelevant dogma.” More and more enlightened priests broke with Rome over the position of the Pope.

  When William Stark took office, certain forces in the nation were determined to override interference from outside interests. A campaign was mounted in all fifty states to educate voters to the calamity awaiting them if something was not done immediately to stabilize the country’s population.

  Television time was bought to explain the peril. One advertisement brought the viewer to a flat plain in Kansas. At first only a small group stood on it. Then hundreds and finally thousands arrived, pushing and shoving each other to maintain footing. At the end, children and old people were being trampled in a desperate attempt to salvage a piece of soil for themselves. A somber voice asked: “Is this the future for your unborn?”

  Senator George Stratton was convinced his bill was the only reasonable solution. A religious man, himself, Stratton was immediately denounced by church groups and other factions, which characterized him as an insensitive monster, a gauleiter not unlike Adolf Hitler.

  Stratton endured the vilification stolidly. His biggest problem was encouraging other legislators to support the controversial bill. His colleagues had a terrible choice. Though most of them were convinced of the need to act, they had to face a divided constituency at home. When they read the significant passages in the proposed legislation, they quailed at two items. The first endorsed a fifty percent additional income tax on couples who insisted on having more than two children. The second asked that repeated violators of the limitation clause be forced to submit to sterilization at government expense.

  Lawmakers in Washington knew that these provisions, if passed, could mean the end of their careers. Voters had not yet signaled a majority sentiment to the Congress, and the men on Capitol Hill could only sift the evidence at hand and relate it to their own precincts.

  In large urban areas, where the black vote had to be cultivated, militant leaders told the people that the Stratton-Seligsohn bill was a thinly camouflaged scheme for black genocide by the white racist society—and many young radicals agreed. Moderate elements from coast to coast saw the Stratton measure as perhaps unfortunate but necessary. Though they deplored its possible infringement of personal liberty, they could see no alternative. In some conservative strongholds, rightists castigated Stratton as a tool of the left, who was trying to cripple the country while the Communists burgeoned on all sides.

  In Washington, the members of Congress read these omens with growing apprehension. As the date for voting on the Stratton-Seligsohn bill neared, Capitol Hill was a wary camp of troubled politicians, wrestling with their consciences and their ambitions for continued power.

  Into this uneasy situation marched thousands of people who saw the bill as an attempt by the government to practice Big Brotherism on them. Many of them had come to Washington before to protest the war in Vietnam and the oppression of black people and to advocate disarmament by the great powers.

  Sharon McCandless had never demonstrated for or against anything in her life. But SOUL had brought her forth from Indiana to make her plea for sanity. A nineteen-year-old sophomore from Butler University, the hazel-eyed brunette had come by bus from Indianapolis with her boy friend, Tom Samuels. The overnight ride to Washington had been carefree and filled with gaiety. As the vehicle ghosted through sleeping towns in southern Pennsylvania, riders had drifted off to cramped naps. At 6 A.M., Tom shook Sharon awake at the base of the Lincoln Memorial where the bus had parked in a long line of vehicles. They tried to eat the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches they had brought in a knapsack, but it did not feel like breakfast, and the couple walked down past the Smithsonian Institution buildings on the Mall to a cafeteria on a side street. Inside were several cops munching doughnuts and coffee. When the proprietor saw the students approaching the door, he ran to it and pulled down the curtain. A sign waved from it: “Sorry, Closed for the Day.” Sharon and Tom went elsewhere in pursuit of breakfast.

  Henry Fuller was too busy to eat. As a group leader in the demonstration, he was responsible for the orderly procession of his five hundred people at the White House. The marchers were beginning to mass at the south bank of the Reflecting Pool, once the site of Resurrection City.

  Henry worked at the Pentagon. A lawyer, he handled contracts with private industry for the peaceful development of atomic energy. He believed in this aspect of the government’s program, but through his work he knew that in sixteen centers around the world, the United States had concentrated the equivalent of one trillion tons of TNT. Fuller could not live with this thought. As a man with a wife and six-month-old child, he refused to believe that these weapons would not be used someday. He wanted them dismantled by a worldwide agreement.

  As to SOUL, he felt that denial of life by government regulation was as wicked as extinction by a bomb. Thus, he marched to protest this latest abomination. Fuller knew that if he was recognized during the parade by government agents, his top-security clearance would be lifted and his job would be jeopardized. But it was worth the risk to him to attempt to force the President of the United States to take a position. The youthful group leader passed among his charges for the day and issued further instructions. At precisely 10:30 A.M., he gave the order to move from the Reflecting Pool toward the Washington Monument from there to the Capitol Building, and, finally, back by way of Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.

  Forty feet away from him, a man in a double-breasted brown suit watched him carefully. The man was swarthy. His shoes were distinctive, pointed, and of European cut. He held a large package in his hand, and he too looked at his watch when Fuller did. At precisely 10:31, he ripped a manila cover off the package and pulled forth a huge sheaf of handbills, which he began circulating to the crowd of marchers, happily leaving on their crusade for future generations.

  William Stark had no time to worry about a demonstration in front of the White House. His mind was bedeviled by
the pressing problems before him. He had just talked by scrambler phone to Karl Richter on the plane. Richter told him that he had briefed Safcek and Gorlov for the mission. Jump-off would be sometime after midnight, Peshawar time, near 2 P.M., in Washington. Richter was elated with his men. Safcek was the coolest man he could imagine in such circumstances. Gorlov was relatively calm, uncommunicative, but obviously efficient and ready. Stark told Richter he wanted to be in constant touch with the operation after they landed and would be available at any hour for consultation. Richter promised to keep an open line to the White House.

  Stark had also met with Sam Riordan and Gerald Weinroth. Riordan told him Russian strategic weapons were no longer on alert. Samos detectors had come to the startling conclusion that the Soviets appeared to have declared a holiday for their personnel. No activity was apparent at missile sites. The Soviet naval task force in the Atlantic was still moving inexorably toward the East Coast and at present was three hundred miles northeast of Montauk.

  Weinroth had consulted his own scientists and concluded that the laser, if operating efficiently, could be fired at Washington and then New York within ninety seconds’ time. Stark pursed his lips in distaste, and Weinroth apologized for giving such awful news.

  At 11 A.M., the White House press office was jammed with newsmen clamoring to ferret out the truth behind the meeting the night before. Edwin Rast, press secretary at the White House, told them the President would refuse to discuss such speculations at this time.

  Alex Barnett said acidly: “I suppose the armed forces are on alert to defend the country against the marchers going by here soon.” Rast refused to get involved with the acerbic representative of CBA Broadcasting and walked out of the room to a chorus of catcalls.

  On the line of march, Sharon McCandless read a pamphlet someone had thrust at her. While attempting to maintain her footing in the crush of demonstrators, she managed to digest its contents. Clutching at Tom’s arm, she screamed, “My God, did you see this?” He took the paper and read:

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  AS PER INSTRUCTIONS INITIATE CONDITION RED ON SEPTEMBER 16 AT 0900 HOURS.

  ASSIGNED TARGETS IN THE SOVIET UNION AND ITS SATELLITES WILL BE RENDERED USELESS BY APPROPRIATE NUCLEAR CONFIGURATIONS. FINAL CODED SIGNAL FOR ATTACK WILL BE ISSUED BY MY ORDER AT 0800 HOURS SAME DAY. REPEAT MY ORDER ALONE.

  STARK

  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

  Tom read it twice. “Where did you get this?” Sharon said a marcher had handed it to her as they were approaching the Washington Monument.

  Tom was incredulous. “It’s just a joke. Some underground group must have made it up to put a little spice into the protest. Forget it, honey. Let’s enjoy the scene.”

  She was not so sure and felt a distinct wave of fear. “Do you really think it’s just a hoax, Tom?”

  “Of course. The United States would never do such a thing, and why should they? Everyone has been sitting down lately to talk about disarmament.” The couple joined hands and walked on.

  Others in the march were not so calm about the pamphlet. A tall, muscular man of about forty raised the paper into the air and shouted: “Look at what those bastards over in the White House are plotting now! Stark has gone crazy!” His voice was heavily accented, and his jacket bulged over the left breast. He shoved the pamphlet and others he had with him at some curious paraders, who read them with growing indignation.

  Henry Fuller had been pleased at the way his group of demonstrators were behaving. At first, the procession was slightly disorganized as thousands of citizens struggled to form into a reasonable facsimile of a parade. They wanted television cameras to record the truth, that this march was not an excuse for excess by a few against the Establishment. The past years had seen the bulk of the American people increasingly repelled by those who spoke disparagingly of an oppressive government and yet resorted to disruptive tactics to bring their own message to the people. Fuller and his followers marched with a sense of urgency but not in direct rebellion against their own governing process.

  Fuller’s glasses had begun to cloud over in the humidity of the late Washington summer. As he marched along wiping them carefully, he heard a discordant chorus behind him and turned to check. Two men were haranguing the increasingly agitated crowd. Fuller fought his way back through the press of onlookers to the edge of the disturbance. He could hear someone screaming: “It’s true. This signature is Stark’s. Somebody told me that a person in the Pentagon leaked it to us to expose the Administration’s plans for a third world war.”

  Henry Fuller grabbed a pamphlet and read the fateful words. He could not believe them and shouted: “Who the hell are you?” toward the speaker. But the man was gone, swallowed up in the throng. Harsh voices beat at Fuller’s ears, and he felt a sudden surge of anger. His demonstration was turning into a mob scene before his eyes.

  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.”