W.E.B. Griffin - The Corps 03 - Counterattack

"I don’t think I quite follow you," Pickering said.

"This is good stuff," Knox said, looking down at his glass.

"I’ll give you a case to take with you," Pickering said. "I have a room full of it downstairs."

"Because I’m the Secretary of the Navy?"

"Because I would like to make amends for my behavior in Fowler’s apartment. I had no right to say what I said."

"The important thing, I realized, was that you said it," Knox said. "And you might have been feeling good, but you weren’t drunk. I think you would have said what you said if you hadn’t been near a bottle."

"Probably," Pickering said. "That doesn’t excuse it, of course; but, as my wife frequently points out, when silence is called for, I too often say exactly the wrong thing."

"Are you withdrawing what you said?" Knox asked evenly.

"I’m apologizing for saying it," Pickering said. "I had no right to do so, and I’m sure that I embarrassed Richardson Fowler."

"But you believe what you said, right?"

"Yes, I’m afraid I do."

"You had me worried there for a moment," Knox said. "I was afraid I had misjudged you."

"It may be the Scotch, but I have no idea what we’re talking about," Pickering said.

Knox chuckled.

"We’re talking about you coming to work for me."

My God, he’s serious!

"Doing what?"

"Let me explain the problem, and then you tell me if you think you could be helpful," Knox said. "I mentioned a moment before that David Haughton doesn’t like you because you’re not sufficiently awed by the Secretary of the Navy. That attitude- not only on Dave Haughton’s part, but on the part of practically everybody else-keeps me from hearing what I should be hearing."

"You mean what’s wrong with the Navy?"

"Precisely. Hell, I can’t blame Haughton. From the moment he entered Annapolis, he’s been taught as an article of faith that the Secretary of the Navy is two steps removed from God. The President sits at the right hand of God, and at his feet the Secretary of the Navy."

"I suppose that’s so," Pickering said, chuckling.

"To Haughton’s way of thinking, and to others like him, the Secretary of the Navy controls the very fate of the Navy. That being so, the information that is presented to him has to be carefully processed. And above all, the Navy must appear in the best possible light."

"I think I understand," Pickering said. "And I can see where that might be a problem."

Knox removed his pince-nez, took a handkerchief from the sleeve of his heavy woolen suit-now that he noticed it, Pickering was sure the suit was English-and polished the lenses. He put them back on his nose, stuffed the handkerchief back up his jacket cuff, and looked directly at Pickering.

"That might be an overstatement, but it’s close," he said. "And to that problem is added what I think of as the Navy’s institutional mind-set. From the very beginning, from the first Secretary of the Navy, the men in blue have been certain that the major cross they have to bear is that the man with the authority is a political appointee who really doesn’t know-is incapable of knowing-what the Navy is really all about."

"Huh," Pickering grunted.

"Their quite understandable desire is-and I suppose always has been-to attempt to manage the Secretary of the Navy. To see that he hears what they want him to hear, and that he does not hear-or at least is presented with in the best possible light- what they’d rather he didn’t hear at all."

"One doesn’t think of the Navy as an institution," Pickering said, "but of course that’s what it is."

"On October 13, 1775, Congress voted to equip seven ships to support George Washington," Knox said. "Less than a month later, on November 10, 1775, the Congress authorized the Marine Corps. And before that, there were states’ navies- Rhode Island’s in particular. In July 1775, Washington sent a frigate of the Rhode Island navy to Bermuda to get gunpowder for the Continental Army. In 167 years, a certain institutional mind-set is bound to occur."

Pickering chuckled. There was something professorial in the way Knox had precisely recounted the origin of the Navy, and about the man himself, with his pince-nez and superbly tailored English suit. It was difficult to imagine him during the Spanish-American War, a Rough Rider sergeant charging up Kettle Hill with Lieutenant Colonel Teddy Roosevelt’s 1stUnited States Volunteer Cavalry.

As it is difficult for me to accept that I once actually fixed a bayonet onto my ‘03 Springfield, and that when the whistle blew, I went over the top and into no-man ‘s-land in Belleau Wood.

"They had an interesting tradition, early on," Pickering said. "Privateers. I don’t suppose I could talk you out of a Letter of Marque, could I?"

Knox looked at him with annoyance, and then smiled. "You really think there’s a place in this war for a pirate?"

"A pirate is an outlaw," Pickering said. "A privateer was authorized by his government-and our government issued a hell of a lot of Letters of Marque-to prey on the enemy’s shipping. There’s a substantial difference."

"You sound as if you’re serious."

"Maybe I am," Pickering said.

Knox looked at him for a moment, his demeanor making it clear he was not amused that Pickering was proposing, even half-jokingly, an absurd idea. Then he went on, "I understand why you felt you couldn’t work for Bill Donovan, but I think you’ll have to grant that he has the right idea."

That was pretty stupid of me,Pickering thought. He’s going to think I’m a fool or a drunk. Or both.

"Excuse me? What idea?"

"The country will be better off-if the Army and the Navy let him get away with it, which is open to some doubt-if, that is to say, intelligence from all sources can be filtered through Donovan’s twelve disciples... and if they will use it as the basis for recommending to the President action that is in the best interests of the United States, as opposed to action recommended on the basis of the parochial mind-set of the Army or Navy."

"I agree," Pickering said. "I’m a little surprised-maybe ‘disturbed’ is the word-to hear you doubt the Army and Navy will ‘let him get away with it.’"

"I try to see things as they are," Knox said. "And I’m fully aware that in addition to being at war with the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese, the Army and Navy are at war with each other."

Pickering chuckled again.

"I laugh, too," Knox said. "Even knowing that it’s not funny."

"Why do I think that the Navy is having a hard time managing you?" Pickering said.

"Well, they’re trying," Knox said. "And the odds would seem to be in their favor. Franklin Roosevelt is partial to the Navy. He was once an Undersecretary, for one thing. For another, he has a lamentable habit of calling in Ernie King-"

"Admiral King?" Pickering interrupted.

Knox nodded. "King replaced Admiral Stark as Chief of Naval Operations on December 31. Stark was a good man, but after Pearl Harbor he had to go. Anyway, Roosevelt has already started giving Admiral King marching orders without asking or telling me about it. And he’s about to throw Admiral Bill Leahy into the equation."

"Thatyou’ll have to explain," Pickering said.

"Leahy-and understand, Pickering, that I admire all the people I’m talking about-is functioning as sort of chief of military staff to Roosevelt, a position that does not exist in the law. They’re about to organize a committee, comprised of the Chief of Staff of the Army, the head of the Army Air Corps, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps. They’re going to call it the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or something like that. And Leahy will preside over that. Without any legal authority to do so, except a verbal one from Roosevelt."