Tomahawk (28 page)

Tomahawk carries the potential of making each destroyer and cruiser in the fleet a threat to enemy ships and land targets, the way the carriers are a threat to them today.

Dan's thoughts once again drifted to Kerry. What if she
didn't
marry him? She still had his ring, but she hadn't worn it. He hadn't had a drink since Friday night, but he was starting to wonder how long he could keep it up. What if he had just one beer? Would she leave him over that?

MR. WOODRUFF. I would like you to address the nuclear issue. Presumably, the President is the only one who can authorize the use of a nuclear warhead. Now you fellows have the Lance; you have the Polaris; you want the Tomahawk now. It took two or three days to get hold of the White House back when the
Pueblo
was captured. We may have an even worse time trying to determine whether we should fire one of these weapons so that we can hit a ship that was far away and we were not sure we could hit it with a conventional weapon.

ADMIRAL NILES. TO clarify that, sir, all the antiship Tomahawks are installed with conventional warheads.

MR. WOODRUFF. I thought I read somewhere you said they had half and half?

ADMIRAL NILES. The land-attack version does have both warheads.

MR. KOELPELS. I would like to echo my colleague's concern. All the evidence I have heard before this committee is that there is very strong nuclear superiority on the part of the Russians.

MR. OSBORN. What do you use for targeting?

ADMIRAL NILES. There is a variety of over-the-horizon systems. Some of this can be better explained with a transparency

(Pause)

First, the antiship targeting. Our airplane and overhead surveillance data is brought together in a system that was called “Outlaw Shark” in its experimental days.

For the land attack, the Tomahawk navigates inertially, with periodic way-point checks by terrain contour matching. At the end, you can use scene-matching technology to get accuracies of (deleted) or better. Let's skip that view graph I'm looking for mission planning. Here we are.

This is the screen from a prototype display, showing how the routes are laid out. This also shows defenses in the area, the missiles and antiaircraft and so forth. This is where the human being gets into the flying of the missile. He can vary the route here till he gets one that is satisfactory to him. This is fed into a disc storage. The disc is delivered to the ship, wherever it happens to be. In the future, the planning could take place in a carrier's combat information center.

MR. KOELPELS. SO you are assuming that there will be a carrier nearby. Then why not just have manned aircraft fly the mission?

ADMIRAL NILES. AS I stated, sir, there will be a continued requirement for carriers. We cannot fight without control of the air. The mission update could be done on a carrier, or it could be done ashore. Our
first mission-planning capability is entering operation shortly in Norfolk, Virginia.

MR. OSBORN. If there are no further questions, I will adjourn until one-thirty this afternoon.

When the chairman stepped down, Dan stood with the rest, but he was astonished at the whole procedure. He'd expected a solemn atmosphere, serious questions, moments of drama. Or, failing that, a boring but thorough grilling. But the federal court downtown had been more solemn; hell, traffic court in Charleston had been more impressive when he'd gone in to argue a ticket.

To begin with, when they started, there hadn't been one actual representative in the room. When Romanick had asked Willis to start by presenting his statement, Dan had scribbled a note and shown it to one of the financial people. It read, “Who's she?” He got a whispered response: “She's the senior subcommittee staffer.”

The chairman, Osborn, had strolled in in the middle, of Willis's statement. The admiral had stopped, but Osborn had flipped his hand, gesturing him to continue. The chairman had talked to Romanick and another staffer in a barely lowered voice as Admiral Willis read. Later, Woodruff had ambled in, carrying a paper cup of coffee, and Koelpels hadn't shown up till the session was well under way. Dan had come armed with twelve copies of every handout, to cover the ten congressmen on the subcommittee and leave a couple for the staffers. But only five had ever shown their faces in the room; two had sidled in unobtrusively, sat for a few minutes, then left again. Only Osborn, Koelpels, and Woodruff had asked any questions, and Osborn had spent much of the time, even when the witnesses were answering, talking to Ro-manick. Koelpels had arrived with a sheet of paper in his hand, and he had spent part of the time making calls on a phone in the corner. Once or twice, he'd laughed so loudly that whoever was testifying paused, uncertain whether to continue. The only one who had paid attention throughout the proceedings was the stenographer who sat recording the testimony. Occasionally, before Osborn had
asked a question, Dan had seen a staffer pass a slip of paper to him.

He couldn't decide whether to laugh or weep. If he'd only known, out on watch at night, that this was how national policy was made. If he'd understood back when he took
Reynolds Ryan
to sea with her boilers shot, with rust in her fuel, undermanned, how it had all begun back here, with politicians who cared so little they didn't even bother to show up for hearings.

Now it was lunchtime. Niles, Willis, and the other principals filed out, leaving the documents and references on their table. Evans said, looking at the enlisted people, “We're going to need someone to stay in the room with this stuff. Sergeant? Thanks.”

“If you want to eat in the building, there's a cafeteria.” The senior staffer gave them directions and said, “You don't need to be back before two for the afternoon session.” She gave them a faint smile, and headed off after Osborn.

He and Westerhouse and Evans and Burdette were at one of the round tables in the basement when Dan said, “I didn't realize they were this … informal.”

“Go to the big authorization hearings, the full committee it's a little better. But not much,” Evans said. The Air Force colonel seemed preoccupied; he pushed his salad around on his plate, then pushed it back and sat with his arms folded, looking away from them.

Dan asked Westerhouse, “How do you think it's going so far, sir?”

“I think we're going to catch some harder pitches this afternoon. The heavy hitter wasn't even here this morning.”

“Harrow, you mean?”

“Right, Congressman Harrow. But so far, we're looking okay.”

“When do they vote?”

“They report their findings to the committee, and the vote takes place there. We'll never see it.”

Westerhouse explained the appropriation process. Dan hadn't realized it was so complex. Several civilians set trays
down near them as they ate. Then they talked about this and that. He tuned back in a little later when Burdette said, “But what about that stuff Koelpels was asking about? The idea we're behind in nuclear weapons?”

“We're not. Not according to warhead count.”

“But how do we know how many they have? No, don't tell me. They submit the annual warhead report, and we bump that against NATO's.”

“I think we've got plenty,” said Dan, remembering Szerenci's analysis of deterrence. “Actually, we probably only need a couple of hundred. If we need any—which I'm not sure we do.”

One of the civilians said politely, “You don't think we need nuclear weapons, Commander?”

“There are good arguments we don't. If we ever use them, it's a disaster. If we don't, it's a waste.” He shrugged. “So I wonder sometimes: Why are we still pouring money down that rat hole?”

Evans cleared his throat, frowning. He seemed about to say something when Captain Westerhouse got up. He hadn't eaten much, barely touched his bean soup. He said casually, “Dan, you done? We need to get back and relieve the good sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

Westerhouse didn't say anything till they were back in the hearing room. He told the sarge he could go eat. Then he turned to Dan, the two of them alone now in the echoing high-ceilinged chamber. “I just heard a couple things from you I don't understand. Would you like to offer me an explanation?”

“You mean about the nuclear issue?”

“That's right.”

“I just don't think we need ‘em, sir. The Navy doesn't, as far as I can see. It doesn't increase our security; it escalates the—”

“I understand you were with a group of people who disrupted an international arms exhibition last month. Is that right?”

Dan found himself at a loss. Certainly it was true, but how did Westerhouse know? “Uh, who told you that, sir?”

“That's immaterial. Were you?”

“I wasn't ‘with' them, sir. In the sense of participating in what they were doing.”

“But you were there. And you knew them.”

He agreed that he had. Westerhouse looked at him for a few seconds, then said, not unkindly, “Sit down, Dan.”

He did, and watched the captain's hand pass over his thinning hair. Saw the dark patches under his eyes. And something told him that what he was going to hear next was important, at least to the man across from him.

“Dan, I'm afraid I'm not going to be with the program much longer.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“I'm not doing well. It's metastasized.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“I guess I haven't kept you up-to-date on all this. I have myeloma. Cancer of the bone marrow. The docs at Bethesda found it when I went in for some back problems. I did some chemo and radiation last year. Felt better, for a while. But now they've found several more tumors.”

Dan stared into the flat, fatigued eyes, and for a moment didn't know what to say. He fumbled out, “That's horrible. I didn't know, sir. I mean, I thought you looked tired, that's all. But you must be in … in pain, too.”

“I don't like to advertise things like that. Daresay most men don't.” Westerhouse looked away, down the empty room. “They offered me medical retirement. But to be frank, there wasn't anything more important I could think of I wanted to do.

“But the point I want to get to is not my health. The point is to give you some advice, get you back on course before you get too far off to steer back.

“Now, I don't know how deeply you're involved with these people. And it may not be my business, whom you associate with on your off time. But you're here to do a job. If you've got a problem with working on a nuclear-capable missile, you can either salute and keep your doubts to yourself or you can resign. Do you understand what you've just been told?”

“Yes, sir, but there's a third alternative.”

“What's that?”

“That you take me off working on the nuclear Tomahawk.”

Westerhouse looked as angry as Dan had ever seen him, but his voice stayed level. “Wrong. We don't make choices on what we do or don't work on. We execute the orders we're given. The single exception would be unlawful orders, and we are not talking about those. We're sitting on the Hill right now. These are the people who make those decisions.”

“Sir, you've seen how they conduct hearings. Do they look like they know enough to make a decision? And you're saying our orders aren't unlawful. We're a party to treaties outlawing weapons of mass destruction.”

“Commander, we're not here to discuss the political system, or international law. Your friends are your business, but your performance is mine. You took off running on the ABLs, getting the missile on the battleships, but now … Let's go to the bottom line. You can either go to work, and by that, I mean keep on busting your ass to get this system operational, just like the rest of us, or turn in your letter. I am not going to listen to any more disloyal and disgruntled talk! No, that's enough! I'm chopping this discussion off now.”

They stood, falling silent as the admirals filed back in. A little while later, Mrs. Romanick entered, and after her the stenographer, and the afternoon session began.

The subcommittee met at 2:15 P.M. in executive session, Hon. Vesey Osborn (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

MR. OSBORN. At the request of recently arrived members of the committee, we are extending this hearing in order to look into the Tomahawk program a little more thoroughly. However, I need to underscore that we are getting to a point where we have a tight schedule. We have to reconsider the Department of Energy bill and complete markup of HR 2970 by the finish of business on Friday. Now, to begin. I know that you gentlemen have the impression we don't generally look very closely at the
documents you hand in to us, but as it happens, we have examined Admirals Willis's and Niles's statements this morning. Here is my first question. On page 8 you stated that the inventory objective was (deleted) missiles. Where does a number like that come from?

ADMIRAL WILLIS. It's the output of a model. It includes the interplay of various weapons, surface, air, and submarine forces, all in threat-oriented scenarios. What I want to know is the probability that each vessel in a task group will have the rounds he will need to play the scenario. When you crank through all that, a number pops out.

MR. MULHOLLAND. We are talking about an increase in the size of the Navy, an increase in the number of combatant ships to 600; has that been taken into consideration?

ADMIRAL WILLIS. Yes. I think Admiral Niles's team has brought a slide that relates to the—yes. Now, this is what the model kicks out and says I want to have at a given year in the future, say five years out.

MRS. ROMANICK. We are seeing escalation on the costs; we are seeing escalation on the inventory of missiles; we are seeing escalation on the number of launchers. Are we going to have the ships' capabilities increasing proportionally?

ADMIRAL NILES. Speaking as someone who in time of war might find himself in command of a group of ships armed with Tomahawk, I can say that these would be much more capable ships in a tactical engagement.