W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps VII - Behind the Lines

BEHIND THE LINES ? 103

"Hello, David. How are you?" Rickabee said, offering his hand.

Haughton wondered if Rickabee really thought the.45 was necessary, or whether he was wearing it to set an example for the others. It seemed highly unlikely that anyone would launch an assault against the Office of Manage-ment Analysis-even with its bulging files of TOP SECRET material. And even if that happened, it seemed likely that the pierced-steel doors and the ser-geants with their 12-gauge riot guns would at least slow them down enough so that reinforcements could be called up.

"Good to see you, Fritz," Haughton said.

"Little wet outside? Would a cup of coffee be welcome? Or something stronger?"

"Coffee, please."

Banning turned and went down the corridor, obviously in search of coffee. Haughton found the key to his handcuff, and with some difficulty managed to detach himself from the briefcase. Then he worked the combination lock of the briefcase and took from it a manila folder, on which was stamped in inch-high red letters TOP SECRET. He handed it to Rickabee as Banning returned, car-rying three steaming china mugs by their handles.

"General Pickering has been heard from," Haughton said, handing the file to Rickabee.

Ten days before, Pickering had left his hospital bed-prematurely, Haugh-ton thought-to undertake a personal mission for the President: Colonel Dono-van, the head of OSS, had complained to the President that General Douglas MacArthur had flatly refused to even talk to the man Donovan had sent to run the OSS operation in the Pacific. And Roosevelt had decided that if anyone could solicit MacArthur's cooperation, it was Brigadier General Fleming W. Pickering.

The documents in the TOP SECRET folder Haughton had brought to Rickabee were the first word anyone had heard from Pickering since he had flown back to the Far East.

Rickabee slumped back in his chair and started to read the first of the two messages.

=TOP SECRET=

EYES ONLY-THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

DUPLICATION FORBIDDEN

ORIGINAL TO BE DESTROYED AFTER ENCRYPTION AND TRANSMITTAL TO SECNAV

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

SATURDAY 17 OCTOBER 1948

DEAR PRANK:

I ARRIVED HERE WITHOUT INCIDENT PROM PEARL HARBOR. PRESUMABLY, MAJOR ED BANNING IS BY NOW IN WASHINGTON AND YOU HAVE HAD A CHANCE TO HEAR WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, AND TO HAVE HAD A LOOK AT THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND FILM.

WITHIN AN HOUR OF WHAT I THOUGHT WAS MY UNHERALDED ARRIVAL, I WAS SUMMONED TO A PRIVATE-REALLY PRIVATE, ONLY EL SUPREMO AND ME-LUNCHEON. HE ALSO HAD A SKEWERED IDEA WHY I WAS SENT HERE. HE THOUGHT I WAS SUPPOSED TO MAKE PEACE BETWEEN HIM AND ADMIRAL NIMITZ. HE ASSURED ME THAT HE AND NIMITZ ARE GREAT PALS, WHICH I THINK, AFTER TALKING WITH NIMITZ AT PEARL HARBOR, IS ALMOST TRUE.

WHEN I BROUGHT UP DONOVAN'S OSS PEOPLE, A WALL CAME DOWN. HE TELLS ME HE HAS NO INTENTION OF LETTING "DONOVAN GET HIS CAMEL'S NOSE UNDER THE TENT" AND VOLUNTEERED THAT NIMITZ FEELS THE SAME WAY. I ALSO SUSPECT THIS IS TRUE. I WILL KEEP TRYING, OF COURSE, BOTH BECAUSE I CONSIDER MYSELF UNDER ORDERS TO DO SO, AND BECAUSE I THINK THAT MACA IS WRONG AND DONOVAN'S PEOPLE WOULD BE VERY USEFUL, BUT I DON'T THINK I WILL BE SUCCESSFUL.

THE BEST INFORMATION HERE, WHICH I PRESUME YOU WILL ALSO HAVE SEEN BY NOW, IS THAT THE JAPANESE WILL LAUNCH THEIR ATTACK TOMORROW.

ADMIRAL GHORMLEY SENT TWO RADIOS (16 AND 17 OCTOBER) SAYING HIS FORCES ARE "TOTALLY INADEQUATE" TO RESIST A MAJOR JAPANESE ATTACK, AND MAKING WHAT SEEMS TO ME UNREASONABLE DEMANDS ON AVAILABLE NAVAL AND AVIATION RESOURCES. I DETECTED A CERTAIN LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN HIM ON MACA'S PART. I HAVE NO OPINION, AND CERTAINLY WOULD MAKE NO RECOMMENDATIONS VIS-A-VIS GHORMLEY IF I HAD ONE, BUT THOUGHT I SHOULD PASS THIS ON.

A PROBLEM HERE, WHICH WILL CERTAINLY GROW, IS IN THE JUNIOR (VERY JUNIOR) RANK OF LIEUTENANT HON SONG DO, THE ARMY CRYPTOGRAPHER/ANALYST, WHOM A HORDE OF ARMY AND MARINE COLONELS AND NAVY CAPTAINS, WHO AREN'T DOING ANYTHING NEARLY SO IMPORTANT, THINK OF AS... A FIRST LIEUTENANT. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO TO HAVE THE ARMY PROMOTE HIM? THE SAME IS TRUE, TO A SLIGHTLY LESSER DEGREE, OF LIEUTENANT JOHN MOORE, BUT MOORE, AT LEAST (HE IS ON THE BOOKS AS MY AIDE-DE-CAMP) CAN HIDE BEHIND MY SKIRTS. AS FAR AS ANYONE BUT MACA AND WILLOUGHBY KNOW, HON IS JUST ONE MORE CODE-MACHINE LIEUTENANT WORKING IN THE APTLY NAMED DUNGEON IN MACA'S HEADQUARTERS BASEMENT.

FINALLY, MACA FIRMLY SUGGESTED THAT I DECORATE LIEUTENANT JOE HOWARD AND SERGEANT STEVEN KOFFLER, WHOM WE TOOK OFF BUKA. GOD KNOWS, THEY DESERVE A MEDAL FOR WHAT THEY DID.. THEY MET ME AT THE AIRPLANE, AND THEY LOOK LIKE THOSE PHOTOGRAPHS IN LIFE MAGAZINE OF STARVING RUSSIAN PRISONERS ON THE EASTERN FRONT... BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW TO GO ABOUT THIS. PLEASE ADVISE.

MORE SOON.

BEST REGARDS,

FLEMING PICKERING, BRIGADIER GENERAL, USMCR

T O P S E C R E T

Haughton watched Rickabee's face as he very carefully read the radio-teletype message and then handed it to Banning.

Technically, Haughton thought, not unpleasantly, but simply recognizing the facts, giving that to Banning to read is a security violation. No matter what kind of a security clearance Banning has, that message, both of these mes-sages, are Eyes Only SECNAV, and that means just what it says. If the Secre-tary wants to give them to someone else, that's his business. The fact that the Secretary told me to show both radios to Rickabee doesn't mean that Rickabee has any authority to show them to anyone else, even someone like Banning.

On the other hand, (a) if the Secretary knew about it, he wouldn't say a word. He trusts Rickabee's judgment, (b) Banning isn't just an ordinary Ma-rine Corps major with an ordinary TOP SECRET security clearance. He's cleared for MAGIC, and if an officer is on the MAGIC list, I can't think of any classified material to which he is not authorized access. And (c) after Ban-ning's brilliant-and that's the only word that fits, brilliant-briefing of the President, the Secretary of the Navy, and Senator Fowler on the Guadalcanal situation yesterday, he is one fair-haired boy.

And then, while Rickabee was reading the second radio and Banning was absorbing the first, Haughton had another thought, a wild thought, only periph-erally connected to the first:

There are three people in this little room with MAGIC clearances. In all of the world, counting even the cryptographic officers who make the decryp-tions, and the analysts, there are only forty-two people on that list, as of yes-terday.

What is it they say? "A secret is compromised the instant two people know about it." That's probably true. And MAGIC is one hell of a secret. When you have a small, but growing, capability to read your enemy's most secret en-crypted messages, the value to the war is literally beyond measure.

And to protect that secret as much as possible, you severely limit the num-ber of people authorized access to it. Some people, obviously, have to be on it. The President; Admiral Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff; the Secretary, and his Army counterpart, the Secretary of War; Admiral Nimitz as CINCPAC; General MacArthur as Supreme Commander SWPOA; and the underlings- those who broke, and are breaking, the codes in Hawaii; the analysts; the cryptographic officers who, using a special code, encrypt the decrypted mes-sages for transmission to Washington and Brisbane; the cryptographic officers and analysts here and in Brisbane; and a very few others-MacArthur's G-2 in Brisbane, Nimitz's Intelligence Officer in Pearl Harbor, and Captain David Haughton, Colonel F. L. Rickabee, and Major Edward F. Banning here. We three underlings have to be on the list because we can't do our jobs without knowing about it. And, of course, Brigadier General Fleming Pickering, for the same reason.

When I read-when was that, a month ago, two?-about the security ar-rangements for the MAGIC people in Hawaii, I thought it made sense not to permit them to leave CINCPAC without an armed escort. The Japanese might not know about MAGIC, but they almost certainly knew something highly clas-sified was going on.