Chapter 26: We Begin to Earn Our Pay

I started going through the routines of my algorithm, looking for any bugs, Tuesday morning. Molly came back to my cubicle and said that a report had been couriered over for me to read. I thought it strange that Molly hadn’t brought it with her. She just smiled and said she had placed it on the conference room table. I went back to my backtracking routine, looking for any erroneous pathways and other bugs. I decided to take a break after an hour, and went to the conference room to look at the report that was sent. I wasn’t expecting what was waiting for me on top of the conference table. There were eight bound volumes, each the size of a large city telephone book.

I opened the closest volume, labeled Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 1981-1983 Talks. The eight-volume set was a detailed analysis of the failure in treaty negotiations. The treaty’s purpose was to limit the positioning of missile delivery systems and cruise missiles. Treaty negotiations had been a dismal failure up until now. Neither side was willing to limit mid-range nuclear weapons.

Johan, Andi, and I poured over those eight volumes for the next several weeks. It was an exercise in futility for me; neither side could agree on anything, and there had been infighting between members of the American treaty committee. The treaty negotiating team consisted of people from the Department of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary’s Office, and the National Security Council. There was a legitimate reason for each group to be included on the team. The negotiation team politically was a mix of conservative Republicans and a smattering of Democrat Warhawks. Their influence made the National Defense Industry Association a booming moneymaker.

It was in the middle of the second week, and the three of us were clustered around the conference table, when Andi started laughing until she had tears coming down her cheeks. I thought she had gone completely mad from continuously reading the utter failure of the negotiations at first. She looked over at me when she was able to regain her composure, and motioned with her head that I was to follow her out.

“I need to take a break,” Andi said. “I need to grab a soda, James; you look like you could use one, too. Can I get you anything, Johan?”

Johan, with his nose still stuck in the volume, mumbled, “No thank you.”

I thought that he could spend twenty-four hours with his nose in a book and not take a break.

I followed Andi out, and we headed down the corridor to the elevator to the first floor and the concessionaire.

Andi clued me in as to what was so funny while on the elevator. The name of a certain Russian local party boss was named as a secondary-level member of the Soviet negotiating team. It was his Mercedes that we ‘borrowed’ for our escape to Leningrad. I began laughing, too; no wonder that he wasn’t using it. The local party boss was out of the country when we visited his summer place.

“Do you suppose that we should return his cash that we took as well?” I asked.

“No, we earned it, he didn’t,” Andi responded. “We might need it in the future, especially all those British Pound notes that we have. We never can tell when they might be useful.”

We got our drinks and went back to going over the volumes of minutia that we were required to read.

Another week and a half of us reading the mountains of typed memos and minutes provided to us in those eight volumes went by.

The rest of the staff kept busy doing the tasks I had assigned to them while the three of us went about our reading. Randy and Scotty did their weekly bug sweeps of both the office and my house, checking for any signs of electronic eavesdropping devices. Both the house and the offices showed no sign of bugging devices so far.

Jean stayed with Karen and the rest of the female members of my now expanded household. Olive and Jean were now included with Karen and her grandmother. Beast was having a blast working the crowd with his woeful puppy act trying to get extra bits of food directed his way. The Dobermans were learning from the master and were soon copying his bad behavior. I had to call the three dogs on it several times. I’m not sure the response if I got was that they were sorry for begging, or sorry that I caught them, when I got this repentant doggie look from them.

Molly did her Office Manager role well. She screened our calls taking messages when necessary, and putting those calls that were necessary for us to take through. I cannot complain about my hiring her; she did her job and did it well. She was her happy bubbly self when the rest of us were down, and having her around always perked the rest of us up.

Dr. Frisch put his pen down, took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose in the middle of the fourth week of going through the volumes, and announced, “We can stop reading this pile of government crap. I know why the first treaty talks failed and I can sum it up in three sentences.”

Andi and I expectantly looked up at him. I urged him on by saying, “Go on.”

Johan responded, “First there was infighting among the different departments making up the US delegation. The State Department didn’t like what the Defense Department would propose and vice versa. The Defense Department would make demands that the other departments didn’t like, then the conservative Republicans didn’t like what the neoconservatives proposed. There were several proposals put forth by the different factions of the Treaty Negotiating team. Not one of those proposals had full US support. No wonder the Soviets rejected them all. And lastly there were open personality conflicts between committee members.”

“Continue,” I said.

“Second, the American side was constantly lowering the number of accepted nuclear devices, which the Soviets rejected. Then there was Russian insistence that the American numbers include not only missiles, but also aircraft delivery systems and cruise missiles. The Russians also had some proposals that would include others in that number, including NATO, and our European allies who have nuclear capability who are not members of NATO,” Dr. Frisch said.

“Lastly, the Russians walked out of the negotiations when nothing was being accomplished at the Negotiating Table, and our side positioned intermediate nuclear devices, namely the Pershing IIs, in West Germany.”

“So where does that leave the current negotiations?” I asked.

“Rumor has it the President and the Soviet leader Gorbachev has at least started talking to each other, thanks to the British invitation to both sides,” Johan said. “Where does that lead to? Your guess is as good as mine.”

Johan and I received an invitation to attend a meeting of the full cabinet several weeks later. The subject was unknown to us at the time. This would be an ears open and mouth shut time for me. I would sit, listen, and keep my thoughts to myself. To follow an old saying, “It is better to appear to be a fool than opening one’s mouth proving it.” I am glad I made it a practice to keep one of my good suits hanging in a suit carrier at the office; you never knew when you would need to wear it.

I called Robert to drive us to the White House. He was on time to pick us up and get us to our destination. Robert drove and I had Randy ride shotgun as our security for the short drive. Johan appeared to be nervous for the first time since I have known the man. I told him to relax; the White House was like visiting a museum except the exhibits were live and talked to you. I don’t think I was of much help, as he seemed more nervous after I made my comments.

We cleared the first security checkpoint, stopped at the visitors’ entrance, and then allowed to exit the vehicle. We had our identifications checked again at the door, and had to pass through a metal detector. A staff member waiting for us asked that we follow him to the cabinet room. We entered the near empty room; the far wall lined with chairs. Dr. Frisch and I initially started for the far wall and our guide asked we sit on the opposite side of the table. He pointed to one chair pushed up against the wall, and indicated that Johan was to sit there. I was about to join him when our guide directed me to a seat at the cabinet table. I think I gave the guide a look of disbelief; someone was surely setting me up to play the fool. Our guide filled us in on proper protocol while we waited for the President and the Cabinet to assemble. We were to address them as Secretary and their surname when addressing any Cabinet Member. It would be Secretary Smith or Jones, and we were to address the President as Mr. President at all times. We were to silently stand when the President entered the room, and a simple nod of the head would suffice if the President acknowledged us. It seemed simple enough.

Members of the Cabinet began to file in a few minutes later. Most of them simply ignored Dr. Frisch and me carrying on conversations among themselves. The two that sat on either side of me simply nodded at me, and I returned the nod out of respect for the office they held. Sitting across the table from me was Secretary of State George Schultz. He curiously looked over at me, smiled and nodded. I returned his nod and felt the sweat running down my back and pooling in my underwear. I would need to have this suit cleaned before I wore it again. I looked around the room taking it all in, seeing whom I was sitting near; I knew I was out of my league. I was hoping that I could just make an excuse, get up, and make a run for the gate. I wished that I was back in Chicago; life there was so much simpler. I felt someone squeeze my shoulder; I looked up and saw that it was Secretary of Defense Weinberger. He smiled down at me as he passed by. Someone then announced ‘The President of the United States’, and everyone stood. As he walked past people, he would greet some and he would simply walk past others. He stopped and shook my hand when he came up to me, leaned in closer to me, and whispered, “Any more problems I should be aware of?”

“No Sir, Mr. President, everything is running fine,” I answered.

He smiled and nodded, went on to his seat, which was four seats from me.

I sat there looking around the room, thinking to myself. Here I was barely into my thirties, sitting among the nation’s leaders. The members of the Cabinet closest to my age were those in their late forties. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would be sitting here. I could not figure for the life of me, why so much trust was placed in me. I wish I knew what it was.

The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense had a debate most of the meeting. The gist of the debate was whether or not to include a reduction in the number of strategic arms in the treaty negotiations. The Secretary of State was for it, and the Secretary of Defense was against it, backed by the Joint Chief of Staff. The President intently listened at the debate, occasionally asking questions. For the most part the rest of the Cabinet sat there quietly looking bored. I listened with interest as the two men debated pluses and minuses for including Strategic Arms in to the negotiations. Then I heard a question coming from the President that almost put me into cardiac arrest.

“What do you think, Dr. Mercer?” the President asked.

Several of the men who sat across the table from me, must have found my facial expression amusing as they were trying their best to hide the smiles. I must have given the President a deer caught in the headlights look.

I carefully and slowly responded, “Mr. President, I am only an attendee; I don’t have the expertise or the knowledge of the others, and don’t feel I am qualified to answer your question.”

“You surely have an opinion one way or the other about limitations on the number of strategic weapons two superpowers have, Dr. Mercer,” he answered urging me on.

“Yes I do, Mr. President, no one should need those in an ideal world, but this is not a perfect world. The USA and the Soviet Union are two opposing ideologies in government. Both feel threatened by the other. Each side will feel justified in holding such weapons as a check to keep the status quo until this difference can be resolved. Anyway to negotiate the number of such weapons each side feels the need for defensive purposes downward, is a plus,” I responded.

“You should be more of an expert than just about anyone else here in this room after your recent foray into the Soviet Union. Why don’t you tell those who don’t know about what we are talking about what you and your team discovered, and the intelligence you were able to bring out,” the President requested.

I told the assembled Cabinet members every aspect, from the day I was recruited, to the day we were back on US soil, as ordered by the President of the United States. The members of the Cabinet intently listened as I described every aspect of the mission. I told them of the training we received, how each of the team had a specific duty to perform, and how each of them were successful in accomplishing it. I described the covert sub landing on the beach, the trip to the Russian Computer Center, and how I was amazed at how much the Russians were able to accomplish using simple Apple II computer systems.

I explained how the computers determined bomb concentration on a target and then calculated collateral damage. I said this determined how much of their arsenal to use to destroy a target. I pointed out that I saw targets on European maps as well as world maps. Locations included parts of Western Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Turkey, and in the United States Washington, DC, New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and most of Colorado and Nebraska as these were all considered strategic targets.

I then went on to tell how Mike had betrayed our mission. I noted faces of several people look slightly embarrassed when I mentioned this. I made a mental note to myself to find out more about them. Most of the others expressed outrage at this and wanted to know where the traitor was hiding.

I told them about our escape from the camp, hiding out in the summer home of the local Communist party leader, who I recently learned had been one of the previous Soviet Treaty Negotiators. They chuckled at how we ‘borrowed’ his Mercedes and made it to Leningrad. I ended my story with the rescue by the team from the US Embassy in Moscow and our subsequent flight back to the USA.

The President ended my telling of the mission by saying that the intelligence I had gathered was most crucial to the USA and it gave our side an indication of the level of sophistication the Soviets had in their nuclear program.

The rest of the meeting was an open discussion by the Cabinet members as to whether or not to include the Strategic Nuclear Weapons into the negotiations. It was by a majority consensus, but as an addendum to a later negotiating session.