Back Channel (29 page)

McGeorge Bundy was irritated, a trait he manifested only by a slight tightening of his fingers on his gold-plated pen. It was late morning of Saturday, October 20. Yesterday, he had told the President that he had changed his mind. He no longer believed a blockade would be adequate. They had to go in and get the missiles. It wasn’t that Bundy wanted war; he simply had no other option ready to hand.

Now, suddenly, he did. An opportunity had been handed to them; but he couldn’t mention it in the meeting.

And so he kept listening and taking notes. His intention when he spoke to the President had been to support only a limited air strike. But now, as he listened to the other members of the ExComm, Bundy realized that his reluctant switch in position had only hardened the line of the hard-liners. General Taylor thought an air strike would work. Robert Kennedy called an immediate attack their final chance to destroy the missiles.

Then the director of central intelligence reported that at least eight and possibly as many as sixteen of the launchers were now active. Silence fell.

“What that means,” said McCone, “is that they can now fire off the R-12s on about eight hours’ notice. And those missiles, as you know, can strike anywhere on the East Coast.”

Everyone looked expectantly at the President, waiting for him to instruct the Joint Chiefs to take out the launch sites.

But Kennedy kept going back and forth. He saw points in favor of the strikes; he saw points in favor of the blockade. One minute he seemed inclined toward Maxwell Taylor and the Joint Chiefs, who wanted to attack at once. The next he was nodding in apparent agreement as McNamara, backed up by United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, insisted that diplomacy could resolve the crisis.

“That’s crazy,” said Taylor. “If we make the first offer, we look weak.”

“All that matters is getting those missiles out,” said Stevenson. “What difference does it make how we look?”

“When they launch those R-12s at Washington and New York, you’ll find out what difference it makes.”

“You can’t possibly hit all the missiles in the first attack. They’ll launch whatever they have left.”

“Once you start thinking that way,” growled Taylor, “you’ve already lost.”

The general’s furious gaze was focused on Stevenson, but Bundy knew that the true object of his anger was his commander in chief. The President’s indecisiveness was costing him respect around the table. A lot of these men had served under Eisenhower, and still considered Kennedy an unproven boy.

Other voices, equally passionate, weighed in. Discussion was turning into argument. Finally, at Kennedy’s signal, Bundy rapped on the table for silence.

“We go with the blockade,” said Kennedy.

Several members of the ExComm suppressed groans: the President had chosen to split the difference.

“Let’s at least call it a quarantine,” said Dean Rusk, unhappily. “A blockade violates international law.”

“Quarantine, then,” said Kennedy. He turned to Bundy. “And let’s do something to make sure that, no matter what happens, nobody fires the Jupiter missiles in Turkey without my direct order.”

“We’ve taken care of that already,” said an irritated General Taylor. “We’ve sent out clear instructions.”

“Let’s just make double sure,” said the President.

As the ExComm broke up, Bundy hurried into the hallway, catching up with the Kennedy brothers just before they entered the Oval Office.

“Mr. President, if I might have a minute.”

“I have to talk to Bobby and Sorensen—”

“Yes, sir. Your brother should probably hear this anyway. But nobody else at this point.”

Kennedy gave him a look. He hated Bundy’s penchant for secrecy, but could not deny its dividends.

“Let’s go in the office,” he said.

The President sat in the rocker, with the attorney general frowning behind him like a bodyguard. Bundy sat to attention on the sofa.

“Go ahead,” said Kennedy.

“Sir, I had a call early this morning from President Eisenhower—”

The President’s brother interrupted. “Well, call him back, Mac. Tell him we’re grateful for his advice, and we’ll let him know if he can help.”

But Jack Kennedy only waited, fingers steepled as he rocked. “This isn’t Ike being a busybody again, Bobby. This isn’t Ike tossing off ideas to remind me that I commanded a little wooden patrol boat and he commanded D-Day. This is different, isn’t it, Mac?”

Bundy’s eyes never left the President’s face. “Yes, sir.”

“Well, then, what is it? What did Ike say that you can’t say in front of the whole ExComm?”

“Sir, it’s about
SANTA GREEN
.”

Again the attorney general intervened. “I’ve told you before, Mac, we don’t want to hear any more about that operation. This office has to be protected from it.”

Still Bundy spoke only to his commander in chief. “Mr. President, it seems that the operation may have borne unexpected fruit. I believe that we may have our back channel. That was the subject of President Eisenhower’s call.”

All at once, neither Kennedy looked bored. “Go on,” said the President, eyes narrowing.

“Sir, President Eisenhower was calling to give me his enthusiastic endorsement of a woman named Harrington. She’s an analyst at State—”

“She’s the one who just got fired,” said Bobby, to the President.
“The one who came up with the idea for
SANTA GREEN
in the first place.”

Bundy would not be deterred. “Sir, I also had a call late last night from Dr. Harrington. President Eisenhower’s purpose was to tell me that I should trust what she told me.”

“Why on earth—” the attorney general began, but his brother waved him silent.

“Let him finish, Bobby.”

“Sir,
GREENHILL
got in touch with Dr. Harrington last night. She claims to have been contacted directly by the Soviets. The General Secretary is offering to negotiate through her to you, as a back channel, separate from the negotiations at the embassy, which he does not expect to bear fruit. One of our leading academic analysts believes her story to be credible. So does Dr. Harrington. And the claim is also consistent with certain information the Agency has developed concerning the movements of the KGB’s top man in the United States. In short, we should take it seriously.”

Bundy paused, testing their reaction. The Kennedy brothers were intelligent, courageous men. True, they were a bit arrogant, and too self-certain and self-satisfied for Bundy’s taste. But they respected his judgment, and knew he would not waste their time unless he thought the idea worth trying.

Finally, the President smiled. “Ike has never really liked me that much. He didn’t like my tax cuts, and he’s worried I’m spending too much on defense. But I’ll tell you something. After the Bay of Pigs went south, I asked him to come down to Camp David for a talk. Sent the helicopter. We spent a couple of hours together.” The rocking slowed, then picked up again. “We talked about what went wrong. He said I should have given the invasion air cover. I said I was worried about everybody knowing it was us. Ike laughed. He told me the invasion force had boats, weapons, radios—where else would they have gotten all that? He said it’s impossible for the United States to hide its hand in the world. Whatever we do, everybody will always know it’s us. And then he gave me some advice. He said, never go into battle unless we plan to do whatever is necessary to win.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“And you think this woman—this
GREENHILL
—can help us win?”

“I do, sir. But it’s going to be tricky. If word leaks out, the Soviets
will run for cover and the back channel will shut down. We’ll have to exclude the ExComm.”

The attorney general was flabbergasted. “Why would we do that?”

Still Bundy kept his solemn gaze on the President. “Sir, I am going to make a proposal. It won’t be in writing. Nothing will be in writing. I would like to run an operation involving three principals, and nobody in the White House, aside from the three of us and the director of the Secret Service, will be aware of what is going on.”

The attorney general started to ask what the operation was, but his older brother got in the first question: “Who are the principals?”

“One, a Soviet intelligence officer,” said Bundy. “Two, a college student.”

“Who’s the third?”

“You, sir. You’d have to be part of the operation for it to work.”

Kennedy stopped rocking. “In case you’ve forgotten, Mac, I’m the President of the United States—”

“Yes, sir. And that’s why only you can do it.”

“What exactly would I have to do?”

“Provide ample grounds for Washington rumor, sir. Unflattering rumor, I’m afraid. Your reputation will be hurt, but the country will be saved.”

The Kennedy brothers exchanged a wary glance. It was the attorney general who said, curtly: “I think you’d better explain that.”

Bundy never cracked a smile. “Well, for one thing, I understand she’s a real beauty.”

“Who is?”

“G
REENHILL
.”

The two women shared a late breakfast, in the course of which Harrington asked Margo about her hopes and her dreams and her young man, and kept the conversation carefully clear of Varna and Fomin and the missiles in Cuba. Afterward, they went for a walk along narrow Georgetown streets while Ainsley trailed a block behind, watching for surveillance. At three-thirty in the afternoon, a car called for her, a dark Ford that practically screamed official business. The driver’s name was Warren. He was brown-haired and broad-shouldered and sported a crew cut and an ill-fitting suit, and even if his identification, demanded by Harrington, had not said “Secret Service,” Margo suspected that she would have recognized him a mile away.

“We won’t speak again, dear,” said Harrington on the front step.

“I understand.”

“You’ll do fine.”

“I’ll do my best,” Margo said, and felt somehow that her answer had let Harrington down.

Sitting in the back as the dark sedan sailed through the Saturday traffic, Margo was at once nervous and proud. This was it. She had what she wanted. Harrington had warned her back in September that being on the inside could be an addiction, and Margo understood entirely, because the rush that had her trembling was anticipation, not
fear. Her body felt loose and hot, her clothes scraped uncomfortably against her skin, and she supposed this is what it must feel like when you’re sneaking off to meet your lover.

She was righter than she knew.

Warren drove swiftly across town. Twice she asked where they were going. Twice he answered with boyish diffidence that they were almost there. Finally, he pulled up outside an aging apartment building on Columbia Road, just off Sixteenth Street. Warren parked on a side street and, holding the door, directed her to what looked like the service entrance.

“Just ring the bell, miss. Oh, and don’t forget your bag.”

The man who answered might have been Warren’s twin, in affect if not in appearance, for he, too, was tall and crew-cut, although his hair was black to Warren’s brown, and Margo guessed he was somebody’s bodyguard even before he had her remove her hood and then held up a photograph, comparing the likeness. He stepped aside and invited her in, but never offered to take her bag, she supposed to leave his hands free in case she pulled a weapon.

“Please, follow me,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft in a man so obviously tough. He led the way along a narrow corridor. The walls were sagging with damp. At the back of the apartment, he knocked at a door, opened it, waved her through, shut it from the outside.

The man waiting inside was small and professorial, right down to the regulation tweeds. The steel frames of his spectacles glistened. His eyes were very dark, and very serious.

“My name is McGeorge Bundy,” he said, taking the bag from her hand and setting it aside. He seemed distant and distracted. Behind the polished lenses, his sharp eyes flashed with the anger of unresolved tragedy, like a man who had just lost a relative and wondered whether you were to blame. “I work at the White House. I am special assistant to the President for national security affairs.”

A larger stage indeed.

“I’ve seen you on television,” Margo said, and immediately felt like an idiot.

But Bundy was in any case not a man for small talk. “We have very little time, Miss Jensen. I’m going to explain what happens next, and then, God willing, you’re never going to see me again.”

Steam gurgled behind a wall. Clothes, tools, and empty beer bottles competed for floor space. She suspected that the building super lived here, when the President’s national security adviser wasn’t borrowing the place.

For half an hour, he laid out the scheme—she would have a cover job at the Labor Department, housing had been secured for her—and then he explained the procedure for arranging her meetings with Kennedy.

“I’ll be meeting him personally?” she asked, very surprised.

“That seems to be what Fomin expects. He doesn’t want intermediaries. He sounds ready to see conspiracies everywhere. The only way to reassure him is if you carry messages directly to and from the President.”

“I’m just going to walk into the Oval Office and meet the President?”

“Not exactly. We’ll get to those details in a moment.”

There was more to the briefing—contact numbers, addresses—and then Bundy apologized handsomely for drawing her into the middle of this. But he kept looking at his watch, and she wondered what he was late for.

“That covers it, Miss Jensen. Any questions?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please.”

“I’ve been asking, but nobody will tell me what happened to Agatha. Agatha Milner. She was with me in Varna—”

“We’re not discussing Varna,” he said firmly. “Next.”

The swiftness and finality of this dismissal left her momentarily dizzy. As simple as that, Bundy was able to conjure Agatha into the ether.