TWENTY-SEVEN
On Sunday night the 15th inst. the earth shook here so as to shake the fowls off their roosts, and made the houses shake very much, again it shook at sunrise and at 11 o’clock next morning, and at the same time the next day, and about the same time the third day after.
Accounts are brought in from the nation that several hunting Indians who were lately on the Missouri have returned, and state that the earthquake was felt very sensibly there, that it shook down trees and many rocks of the mountains, and that everything bore the appearance of an immediate dissolution of the world! —We give this as we got it— it may be correct— but the probability is that it is not.
Clarion, Friday, February 14,1812
The President stared at the coffin that softly gleamed in the subdued lighting of the East Room, nestled beneath a huge bouquet between the Eliphalet Andrews portrait of Martha Washington and Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of her husband. For a moment, a weird, wild grief struck him, and the President wanted to fling himself onto the coffin and wail and tear his hair. Then, just as suddenly, he was again himself, the President of the United States, standing on the polished floor in the silent solemnity of the Executive Mansion. In the morning, the gates of the White House would be opened and the public would file through the East Room, thousands of people sharing in the ritual of mass mourning.
More than the First Lady would be mourned tomorrow. Many thousands had died across the middle of the nation. Some were buried beneath unexcavated rubble; some were buried anonymously in mass graves; and many would never be found.
Tomorrow’s funeral of the First Lady, here in the White House and taking place under the universal eye of television, was only the most public of the funerals for earthquake victims. All those who lost loved ones, or who waited in gnawing uncertainty, would now have a chance to participate in the rite of public mourning. In the public mind, this funeral might come to stand for them all. That was why, over the strong objections of the President’s security detail, the public funeral had to be held in the White House, the tragedy brought fully into the national home.
And— though even Stan Burdett was too tactful to say so— the President was enough of a politician to know that this was something of a public relations bonanza. In the past, the nation had presidents who, as in the cliché, claimed they shared the citizens’ pain. Now the tens of thousands who had lost so much in the quakes knew that the President was one of them. He, too, had lost a loved one in the tragedy.
The President expected that his next set of approval ratings would be at an all-time high. He would have prodigious coattails. The Party would stand to gain in the next elections.
The President, however, had not yet made up his mind whether he really cared about this or not.
“Sir?” The Marine colonel who had been put in charge of the funeral arrangements stood by, the subdued lights gleaming on the buttons of his blue full-dress jacket. “Mr. President? Is everything suitable?”
The colonel, the President remembered, had been reviewing the arrangements for the funeral, talking all this while. The President hadn’t heard a word.
Well. It probably didn’t matter anyway.
The President cleared a particle of grief that seemed to have lodged in his throat. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it’s fine.”
The President walked across the gleaming parquet floor to the coffin and laid his hand upon its smooth surface. He made the gesture only because he knew it would have seemed odd if he hadn’t. Whatever was actually in the coffin, the burnt offerings that had been raked from the remains of Air Force Two, bore no resemblance to the woman with whom he had shared his life. For some reason the President found this a comfort. He would have been far more disturbed had he thought of the First Lady— the woman who had shared his life, his career, his bed— lying cold, still, and recognizable, in her familiar blue suit with its familiar corsage, all locked in the mahogany-and-bronze box.
Also because it was expected, he bent his head for a moment, and clasped his hands in an attitude of prayer. In reality his mind was pleasantly numb. Whatever of the outside world intruded on his thoughts, it seemed to come through a layer of cotton wool. Since his wife’s death he had been operating largely on automatic pilot, making decisions in a world that seemed strangely devoid of consequence or purpose.
Yet he managed to make decisions. Most of them did not require a lot of thought— most situations had obvious enough answers, and when they didn’t, he was resigned to the fact that decisions taken in an emergency were necessarily taken on the fly, with incomplete information, and that consequences would have to be dealt with as they occurred.
I say come, he thought, and they cometh; I say shove off, and they shoveth. And in the end, the world seems to spin on its axis whether they cometh or not.
He looked up at the tactful sound of a throat being cleared. It was one of his aides, reminding him of the meeting of his foreign policy working group. He finished his prayer— his public, nonexistent prayer, his dumb-show for the peace of mind of the Marine colonel and any other onlookers who wanted the President, in his grief, to behave “normally,” whatever that meant— and as he made his way out he stopped by the colonel to thank him for the care he had taken with his arrangements, and said he would see him tomorrow. Then he walked with his aide down the length of the Jefferson Pavilion to the West Office Wing and the Oval Office.
The foreign policy working group consisted of the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and various representatives from the Pentagon and the Department of Commerce.
For once, the President thought, he was able to attend a meeting without Boris Lipinsky droning on at his elbow.
The President greeted the working group in the Oval Office, accepted their condolences on the loss of the First Lady, and seated himself behind Rutherford B. Hayes’ desk. He turned to the Secretary of State. “What’s on the agenda?” he said.
“Firstly, Mr. President,” the Secretary said, “I’m relieved to report that Israel, Syria, the Palestinians, and Iraq have been persuaded to reduce their state of military alert.”
“Good work. Thank you, Darrell.”
The Secretary smiled in acknowledgment. “We’ve got alarming news from the Balkans, sir. We are receiving bulletins on the persecution by Macedonia of its Albanian minority.”
“Which Macedonia?” the President asked. The Greeks held onto the view that their Macedonia was the real one, with the state that called itself Macedonia being made up entirely of imposters. The Greeks were more or less alone in this view, but still the distinction created a degree of uncertainty in the terminology.
“The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,” the Secretary clarified. “Though the Greek Macedonians would probably be happy to persecute their Albanians as well, come to that.”
“And what form does the Former Yugoslavs’ persecution take?”
“Attacks on villages by paramilitaries. Minor ethnic cleansing.” The Secretary sighed. “I regret to say that minor ethnic cleansing, unless checked, often turns into major ethnic cleansing.”
And, he did not need to add an ethnic cleansing that would further destabilize a region that was already one of the most explosive places on earth. If Macedonia became unstable, Greece might very well intervene against the small nation that dared to usurp the name that Greece considered its own. The Serbs, friendly with the Greeks, might seize the opportunity to restore their hegemony in Bosnia and Kosovo. Turks might view any larger conflict as their chance to adjust their borders with Greece. The Serbs were loathed by the Bosnians, Croatians, Kosovars, and Albanians, and the Montenegrins didn’t think much of them either. All of these might view with favor the chance to reduce the influence, territory, or army of Serbia.
The Balkans had already graced the planet with the First World War. A certain degree of concern, the consensus considered, was definitely in order.
The President, swathed in his strangely congenial mental habit of cotton wool, had difficulty summoning any degree of concern whatever. But he was aware that the President ought to be concerned about such things, and he made the appropriate responses.
“What can we do about it?” the President asked.
“There are already NATO soldiers in Macedonia,” the National Security Advisor said. “Patrolling the borders of Kosovo and Albania at the request of the Macedonian government. But they are lightly armed, dispersed through the countryside, and vulnerable to retaliation should they attempt to intervene in any local matters.”
The National Security Agency had been created as an activist organization by President Kennedy, frustrated by the cautious diplomacy of the career diplomats at State. Traditionally the NSA was interventionist, willing to charge into any crisis with any amount of force; while the woolly minded diplomats at Foggy Bottom preferred caution, more caution, and endless talk.
The two men in the Oval Office reversed this tradition. The Secretary of State was a bouncy activist, a kind of muscular missionary for American values who was willing to take troubles by the neck and shake them till their teeth rattled. The National Security Advisor, a military man, had always been far more cautious. The President had the impression that the general did not want to commit force anywhere in the world unless he had a million armed men, bases and supplies prepositioned, a resolution from the UN Security Council, and a forecast predicting six weeks of perfect weather. The President often thought of his Security Advisor as his General in Charge of Saying No.
No, as far as the President could discern through the strange inconsequential mist that seemed to envelop him, seemed the proper response to this situation. “Let’s dump this in the Europeans’ lap,” he said.
“Sir,” said the Secretary of State. He bounced with impatience on his Federal period armchair. “The Europeans have shown themselves consistently unable to deal with ethnic conflicts on their own continent.”
“Well,” said the President, “let them learn.”
“Without us,” Darrell persevered, “they have no leadership. They’re a committee without a head— you can’t run a crisis by committee. Not with a dozen or fifteen countries all having an equal vote with Luxembourg.”
“If they need leadership, then lead them,” the President said. “Give them orders, if you like. But don’t commit American resources. They will understand the reasons.”
The American people, with their economy in ruins and a large percentage of their population living in camps or wandering for an indefinite period as refugees, would not look kindly on an administration that committed its forces to the defense of the Albanian minority of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. If the President tried, Congress would go berserk.
Albanians would die— die horribly, tortured and raped and bludgeoned— but the President knew that most congressmen would rather see fifty thousand Albanians publicly tortured to death on CNN than to have a single serviceman from their home district come home in a box. Probably most of them, like their constituents, could not even find Albania or Macedonia on a map.
It was the Albanians’ loss that the planet’s only remaining superpower was so pig-ignorant of the world, but there you were. Those who did not know history, the President thought, were doomed to watch it being made by other people. He smiled to himself in appreciation of this little private witticism.
The President became vaguely aware that the Secretary of State had shifted to another topic. “Russian paramilitaries, sir,” the Secretary of State. “Infiltrating into Georgia in large numbers— infiltrating, hell,” he added scornfully, “they’re taking buses and planes. Mercenaries, former Spetznaz men, old Gamsakhurdians, Russian Mafia, South Ossetian and Abkhazian separatists . . .”
“Aiming at what?” the President said, interrupting because he saw no point in the list going on. It was one of the facts of post-Cold War geopolitics that he knew who these people were, that a revolt of Gamsakhurdians and South Ossetians was something for which he was intellectually prepared.
The Secretary shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they’re after control of the new oil pipelines, maybe they just want to keep the Georgians running scared. Maybe they want to annex Abkhazia. Who knows if the Russians even know what they’re after? It’s a way of keeping the pot stirring in the Near Abroad. If things turn chaotic enough, they may be able to find some advantage. Or loot, that being what a lot of Russian generals are after these days.”
“And our options?”
“Our soldiers in Georgia are few and highly specialized,” said the National Security Advisor. “They are certainly not prepared to intervene in any Georgian civil conflict.”
The President blinked. He turned his gaze on the advisor. “We have military assets in the Georgian Republic?” he said.
“Certainly. Special ops people, trainers and advisors, and communications specialists listening in on communications in Russia, Ukraine, and other areas of interest.”
The President supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. He’d probably been told this at one time or another, and forgot.
“Well,” he said, attempting something that was half a joke, “I suppose it would be unwise to start a conflict with Russia.”
“We can’t do anything for Georgia other than let the Russians know we’re paying attention,” the Secretary agreed. “The Russians would go ballistic if we interfered with their arrangements in the Near Abroad.”
“Which does not include Latvia,” the National Security Advisor added.
The President looked at him in surprise. “Joe?” he said. “Latvia?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” the Secretary said. “I must have been unclear. The paramilitaries are also moving into Latvia. We presume they will attempt to cause civil disturbances which the Russians can profitably exploit. A few years ago the Russian military ran war games in the region of the Baltics, in which they simulated taking over a small country. They called it ‘Operation Return.’”
The President tried to focus on this problem. It seemed to require more than his current level of concentration could quite absorb.
“Latvia is only a little more than fifty percent ethnic Latvian,” the National Security Advisor said. “The rest are mostly Russians or Belorussians. We presume that the Russian infiltrators will attempt to provoke conflict between the Latvians and the minorities, who will then ask for Russian protection ...”
“Latvia and the other Baltics are within the West’s sphere of influence,” the Secretary said. “They’re candidate NATO members, and the only reason they are not fully within our defense umbrella is that we have tried not to offend Russian sensibilities. The Baltics were part of the USSR, and the Russians would be very sensitive about these nations being made part of a Western military alliance.”
“The Baltics are militarily indefensible,” added the advisor. “Latvia’s nothing but a plain with rolling hills— Russian tanks could be in the capital in a matter of hours. I have to question whether NATO should commit itself to defending that which cannot be defended.”
“Enrolling the Baltics in NATO is the best way of protecting them,” the Secretary countered. “Let the Russians know that if they roll their tanks over that Latvian plain, there will be consequences, that they’ll have to take on all of Europe and the U.S. at the same time ...”
The President’s head whirled. The Secretary’s vehemence was making his head ache. He pressed his palms to his temples. “Gentlemen,” he said. “It’s a little late to debate the NATO issue now. The question is, what can we do in the current situation?”
“Sorry, Mr. President,” the Secretary said. “But this is a clear challenge to the West and to your leadership. They want to discover whether we still possess the will to defend our commitments in light of the tragedy that has befallen us.”
Will seemed to the President a perfectly absurd thing to want to possess. What did will matter in a world that could wipe you out without thinking? That could open a crevasse in your path and leave you a burnt cinder on the runway?
Will was meaningless. An absurdity. It flew in the face of Nature. And for a nation to possess will— that notion was even more ridiculous.
Still, the holder of the office of the President was presumed to possess something called will. The President supposed that he was obliged to pretend that something like will existed.
And then an idea occurred to him.
“Do you suppose the Russian President knows what his people are up to?” he asked. He himself, after all, hadn’t known there were American soldiers in Georgia; perhaps the Russian President was similarly uninformed. Or indifferent.
The Secretary seemed interested in this idea. “It’s very possible,” he said. “The Executive over there has uncertain control over some of its departments, let alone things like paramilitaries. It wouldn’t be the first time some ambitious minister or general blindsided his own leadership.”
“Perhaps you should tell our ambassador to inform their President on the QT,” the President said. “Point out what a PR disaster the whole thing could be if it went wrong, like in Chechnya.” He turned to the Secretary. “It was Chechnya where they really screwed the pooch, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell them that this isn’t a public issue yet,” the President free-associated. “But that it can be. Tell him, hey, his people have already screwed up their little operation, everyone’s onto them, if he acts quickly, he can save face.”
“But if the Russian President is the person behind it ...”
“It won’t make any difference,” the National Security Advisor said quickly. “It’s a way of saving his face whether he’s a part of it or not. Just tell him the jig’s up. There’s no need to make a public issue of it.”
“Not unless we need to,” the Secretary said. Calculation gleamed in his eyes.
The President rose from behind the desk. “Let me know what the Russian President says,” he said. “I’m interested.”
I’m interested in knowing why he cares, he thought.
The others, startled, rose from their seats. “I have a big day tomorrow,” the President said. “I’ll leave the details to you gentlemen.”
Maybe his idea was useful. Maybe it wasn’t. He would probably never know.
The world could open at his feet and swallow him up, and it wouldn’t make a difference to anything.
He left the room, made his way out through the West Office Wing into the White House proper, and went up carpeted steps to his own private apartments. He sat on his bed for a long while and tried to decide whether or not he really wanted to lie down.
He really couldn’t tell. So, after thinking about it for a while, he did nothing.