Ian Slater - World in Flames

“But surely, Mr. President,” said Marchenko, “we cannot equate fuel air explosives with gas. Napalm dissipates.”

“So does nerve gas,” Chernko replied challengingly. “But it is something, Comrade, that radioactivity doesn’t do!”

The murmur of approval told Chernko he’d made a telling point.

“This is true,” Marchenko conceded, “but you are assuming that the Americans won’t answer a chemical attack with nuclear weapons.”

“They won’t fire nuclear weapons first,” said Suzlov. “Ever since Hiroshima, the American presidents have made a fetish out of not being the first to fire a nuclear weapon. Public opinion in America will not allow Washington to press the button.”

“What about their submarines?” asked Admiral Smernov.

“Of course, this is a risk,” said Chernko. “So is getting up in the morning. It is war, Comrades. And here again — thanks to the expertise of Comrade Marchenko’s wife, and others like her in the Moscow Defense Brigade — we have not only a sustainable chemical defense plan for our capital, but a nuclear one as well. New York has no such comparable defense.”

“Everyone would get mugged on the way to the shelters,” General Arbatov commented.

There were a few snuffles of restrained amusement.

“Yes,” said Suzlov, “if they had enough shelters — which they don’t.”

“Well put, Comrade President,” said Chernko. “The point is that Americans have no shelter systems anywhere as good as ours. They know this. Oh, the American public have it in their heads that because we’ve had lineups for bread, we’re as inefficient in everything else. They do not realize, as their scientists do, how sophisticated our space and missile developments have been. But Washington knows. It also knows we’re far better prepared for nuclear defense than they are. Far better. This is deterrent enough for them.”

Suzlov nodded. “Are we preparing our people for this?”

Chernko deferred to the junior Politburo member in charge of the propaganda ministry.

“Comrade President,” the radio and TV chief began. “We are showing as much footage as we can of the Americans using gas against their own people. The Chicago and Los Angeles riots have been particularly useful, plus the recent footage of American troops in the Philippines using gas to defend Clark Base against demonstrators. And, of course, a lot of riot control gas from South Korea. We have so much to use, it’s difficult—”

“Thank you,” Marchenko interceded, not because he thought it was inappropriate to use such footage but because he wanted to point out that after Gorbachev’s brief fling with glasnost, the Russian people would surely be alert to the distinction between canister tear gas and nerve gas.

Here the Minister for Propaganda fairly bristled with pride. “We have skillfully spliced the film of the American police in riot control using the gas with casualties from the Bhopal chemical disaster from the American plant in India which killed hundreds, and also other footage of American marines firing canisters—”

“So you not only have tear gas clouds fired by Americans,” interjected Marchenko, ‘“but nerve gas victims as well? Is that correct?”

“Yes, Comrade.”

“Can you match color, locale, such things…”

The minister for propaganda couldn’t suppress a smile at the war minister’s naïveté on such technical matters. “We have the best Canadian documentary techniques, Comrade, and West German technology to implement and splice.”

Marchenko, bottom lip protruding, nodded approvingly. He wasn’t one to hold grudges, and he had to admit that Chernko and the Propaganda Ministry had done a fine job in presenting their argument. The propaganda minister added that they were getting much mileage from footage of the “yellow rain” defoliants the Americans had used in Vietnam together with napalm victims, American peace activists, and “brushed-up” footage of an American actress in Hanoi, complete with Vietcong pith helmet, denouncing American fliers on Hanoi radio as war criminals.

Marchenko himself had a sudden and, he thought, convincing argument for Chernko’s position. “Of course, if the Americans fired chemical weapon missiles in Europe, the West Europeans would be furious. The danger is obvious — any winds that carry the gas to the Allied front will certainly sweep further west over Germany.”

“Exactly!” said Chernko, seizing the moment. “Comrade Marchenko is exactly right on this point.”

Suzlov had said little, and now all eyes were on him. He was a man who had risen to power on Party consensus, and in a sense, a decision on chemical warfare was not more or less important than any other requiring Party solidarity.

“We will come together again, Comrades. I want a full vote. It must be unanimous.”

“I can assure you, Mr. President—” began Chernko.

Suzlov interrupted. “That the comrades not here will concur? Are you so sure, Comrade? Personally I find your argument a strong one, but it must be unanimous from every STAVKA member. This, I insist, must be on record.” He looked at his watch and announced, “Given the urgency of the matter, Comrades, we will meet here again tomorrow evening — midnight. Waiting thirty hours will not scuttle your plan, Comrade,” Suzlov assured Chernko, “and it will give our other comrades time to attend. How long would it take to launch the gas attack if we give it unanimous approval?”

“Within the hour,” said Chernko. “Our frontline commanders are already on standby.”

“Then we can’t wait thirty hours?”

Chernko knew bureaucratic immovability when he saw it. And Suzlov wouldn’t move until he got unanimous support. “Yes, Mr. President. We can wait thirty hours.”

“Good. Then notify all members we’ll meet here tomorrow. Twenty-four hundred hours.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Suzlov nodded and walked back to his desk.

“Do you think we’ll get unanimous support tomorrow night?” asked Marchenko. “That’s if we can get a forum.”

Chernko’s smile was like that of an alcoholic asked if he could manage another drink. It was a smile that told Marchenko all the KGB’s IOUs and power would be used to make sure that everyone who should vote, would. He wondered how much pressure the KGB chief at Khabarovsk, Colonel Nefski, was applying to his son, who apparently was persisting in his liaison with the Jewish woman.

Sonar man Emerson wasn’t sure he liked the blue glow of the sonar room forward of Roosevelt’s control. He was used to working in the redded-out subs, and in his view, the argument that blue light around the sonar consoles made it easier for the operators to see the blips on the digitized display screen was debatable. “Different strokes for different folks,” as he had told the chief of the boat. The chief suspected, however, that Emerson’s quandary over the light was really a cover for a much larger concern — namely that this was Emerson’s first trip under the ice.

It was, for operators, like moving to a different neighborhood. Lying in bed at night, you knew it was traffic outside, but familiarity with the different sounds took time to get used to. Unfortunately, the war didn’t allow you much time to learn — especially given the rate of sub sinkings and “sonar operator stress syndrome,” or “SOS,” as it was known among the operators. Many had spent up to sixteen hours at a stretch on seventy-five-day war patrols as the Soviet subs lay in wait in the deep ocean ravines of the mid-Atlantic Ridge. It was these ravines, sounded and plotted by prewar Soviet oceanographic “research” ships, that had proved such a boon to the new Soviet sub offensive. No matter how good the NATO warships’ depth and profile sounders were, many of the ravines’ profiles were so jagged, often near upwellings and other thermoclines, that probing sonar signals were merely scrambled. Such sonar profiles revealed nothing more than the tops of the mountain ranges that formed the Atlantic range.