Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

[Part IV]


Chapter Nine – Red Dawn

(149)

17th September 1984:

DC Metro Police responded to a shooting incident in Georgetown just before morning rush hour. Two men were found dead, both shot in the head, while a suspect was seen running away. Officers converged upon the general area looking for the shooter. Others begun investigating by talking to a witness, searching for whomever had made the 911 call from a payphone and also trying to identify the bodies. The wallets from both men had been removed but there was a search nearby in bins and such paces in case they had been discarded following a possible robbery. That was the working assumption following a string of disturbingly similar crimes in the area over the past few weeks. Those officers would never get to discover that this wasn’t a robbery at all, nor that one man was a CIA case officer with the other deceased being a Soviet diplomat who’d left his embassy an hour beforehand. A warning had been passed on but only to someone who’d moments later lost his own life.

Several hours later, as the time was just approaching a quarter to midday in Washington, a phone call to the president was forced through to him in the Oval Office. It originated from overseas, in Tel Aviv, and was routed through the Israeli Embassy. The president was busy but the prime minister himself was on the line and kept stressing the urgency. What it was about, he wouldn’t say. This delayed things. Kennedy took the call soon enough though: he would always take a call from Israel and shouted at his chief-of-staff for causing the hold-up. His opening pleasantries were interrupted. Yitzhak Shamir called him ‘my friend’ and told him to leave Washington. Leave now, Shamir told him as Kennedy tried to interrupt, for the Soviets are about to go to war with you: this is not a joke. Kennedy was rather taken aback. He had a million questions. When? Where? Why? What did Shamir know? What was going on? The prime minister was a former Mossad man. He knew more than he let on, there were things that he couldn’t say. However, there were other things that he nor his country didn’t know as well. All of those answers were ones which he nor Israel just didn’t have. Leave, Shamir told him, and ‘get in your helicopter’ and go.

Kennedy kept Shamir on the line. When was this attack coming? In what form would it take? Surely Israel was aware that only today Gromyko was coming to Washington, yes? They were meant to be talking to trash out a mutual understanding to avert war in Latin America. Others came on the line. The Deputy National Security Adviser – Turner was still out with ‘the flu’ – initiated a teleconference call. He brought many people on the line with him, separate to the Kennedy-Shamir call but so that they could hear that. These others included the White House Chief-of-Staff, Bentsen over at the Pentagon and Vance at Langley. Kennedy asked his questions of Shamir again. Shamir told him that he didn’t know all that Kennedy wanted to know. More could be discussed later. There was a war coming: ‘get on your helicopter!’ He then told Kennedy that the Israeli government was evacuating the city and moving to safety. He had to go. Shamir cut the connection. The chief-of-staff brought in the head of the Secret Service on the second call. Questions went around. Discussions were had over what to do. Shamir’s comment that he and his government was leaving Tel Aviv frightened the Secret Service chief more than anything else which he had heard. He told those on the line in Washington that they needed to start contingency dispersion of the government. They needed to do it now. There was no timescale given. No one knew how long that they had. This could all be a mistake. Kennedy said that he was contacting Mondale so they could talk to the Soviet Embassy or even try to contact Ustinov directly in Moscow. There must be some kind of mistake, he said.

Others weren’t talking the chance. Bentsen left his office and went into ‘the tank’, the National Military Command Centre (NMCC): a secured internal room within the Pentagon. The Secret Service started sending out alert signals. The missing Turner’s deputy started making calls as well, including getting Marine One spun-up. From over in the Executive Office Building – just across from the White House –, the Secret Service chief ordered his personnel to get Kennedy out of the White House. There was something very, very wrong with what was going on. There was no time to play around.


Vice President Glenn was due at an event inside Kansas City at midday. He was running late for that campaign stop, one of several through the Mid-West today and tomorrow. Rather than being in the Missouri city, he was still at the airport outside there and where he was just about to de-plane. There had been a delay earlier in leaving St. Louis. Those at the event he was due to attend would wait though for he was the vice president.

Over their radios, the Secret Service agents heard the codeword ‘Beetroot’. It was today’s codeword for a war alert: ‘Yellowcake’ meant an assassin while other codewords meant different things. There was procedure for this. The aircraft would be leaving Kanas City now. Air Force Two today was a VC-137, a four-engined Boeing-707 conversion. The aircrew were told to get back up in the sky. They were told the urgency and didn’t ask questions. Only the bare-minimal safety checks were done before moving and several more as the aircraft was taxiing. The civilian control tower was told that Air Force Two was lifting off – no reason was given – and they had to clear the skies. Several Secret Service agents were left behind on the ground along with dignitaries and the media. Air traffic control redirected an incoming United Airlines flight, forcing an emergency go-around & a devil of a fright for the passengers aboard that Boeing-727, and the VC-137 raced down the runaway. Glenn had questions. Everyone aboard had questions. ‘Beetroot’ was all that they had heard and that was enough. A fast take-off commenced, one which wasn’t very comfortable for the passengers. Up the aircraft went, climbing away and pretty damn fast. Kansas City was left far behind.


The Secret Service provided protection to the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate. The two men were second and third in line to presidential succession. Those agents heard ‘Beetroot’ over their radios too. Their training snapped into gear. Polite but firm instructions were given for the two protectees to get moving. Congress was in session and debates ongoing. That didn’t matter, not one bit. There were questions of concern and shouts of alarm. The agents did their jobs regardless. Both men were taken out of the building on Capitol Hill and towards where two incoming US Air Force helicopters were due to arrive after rushing here from Andrews AFB.

From the State Department and the Treasury Building, more Secret Service agents hustled Mondale and Bayh about to get them moving. More helicopters – the 89th Military Airlift Wing had a squadron of Hueys & Sea Kings – were on the way for the two of them. Again, there were many questions. There was no time for answers to be given, answers that the agents didn’t have anyway. These men were at the top of the presidential line of succession and the agents had their orders, standard operational procedure. Evacuation was to be done on receipt of a codeword. Explanations would be given by others.

Bentsen was very quickly inside the NMCC. If a nuclear weapon hit the Pentagon, the room offered no protection against that. A deep bunker beneath the building had been refused on cost grounds by President Johnson back in the Sixties. The head of his Secret Service detail wanted to take him to Raven Rock but was unable to force the issue. He didn’t do his job effectively in getting Bentsen out of such a place. Bentsen contacted the White House and demanded of the chief-of-staff that Kennedy leave there once he found out that the president remained. He was still in the Oval Office trying to talk to the Soviets! Was he an idiot? He should be on that helicopter which the US Marines had arriving on the White House Lawn… or at least in the bunker under the East Wing. Get him out, Bentsen shouted at the man on the other end of the phone, while also wondering what was wrong with Kennedy’s Secret Service detail in not doing that themselves. Into the NMCC, there came contact with the secretary of defence from military bases across the country. He turned his attention to that due to the urgency of the situation. He too had been alarmed at Shamir’s warning though had wanted to know more. He had no idea when the attack would come, what form it would take or even if it really was about to happen. There was no information from Israel on that nor any of the United States’ own on this. It could all be a mistake. NORAD headquarters beneath Cheyenne Mountain had no missiles or bombers on the screen. The NSA had no sign of an attack; neither did the DIA. There were no urgent messages coming in from aboard of aircraft in the skies nor submarines at sea. Silence, that was all that there was. Bentsen gave an alert order though. The Joint Chiefs – missing the Chairman and the US Air Force chief – pushed him for that, so did SAC’s commanding general who had raced to his aircraft at Offutt AFB (rather than stay in his bunker at that location) and was seeing that getting ready for lift-off. United States military forces, nuclear and conventional, were ordered to DEFCON 2… not DEFCON 1.


Kennedy was unable to contact neither the ambassador nor the Soviet general secretary. He tried to speak to Shamir again. The agents in the Oval Office eventually got him out of there. He hadn’t wanted to go. He’d been told that no missiles were coming in. There was still time to avert a war. It might not even be a nuclear one, it might not even be happening. The Secret Service had to manhandle him. These agents on his detail had an odd relationship with him where they were with him every day and ‘looked the other way’ so many times. They always did as they were told; their bosses were aware of this too and hadn’t stopped the behaviour where the president browbeat such men into submission. Not today though. Finally, they stood up to him and told what the president to do.

Marine One was outside. The engines of the VH-3 could be heard inside the building as Kennedy was eventually dragged out towards it. He asked after his wife and children. They were being taken care of he was told. An evacuation of staff was taking place inside from the West Wing while the president was outside about to enter the helicopter waiting for him. One of those staffers, who’d waited at her desk to be told what to do rather than panicking – someone had to keep up appearances –, looked at her watch as she finally stood up to join the others after locking her desk draw. The time read a few seconds after midday.

There was the brightest of flashes.

This is all I can say:

This is going to be very bad. If its a nuclear strike and that seems the most likely I wonder why things don't quickly escalate to a nuclear exchange. It could be something less dramatic but still very destructive.

If the Soviets do take out Kennedy they probably have given the US a better war leader by some way given the mess he's made of things.

Anyway the ball is now rolling.

It has. More to follow tomorrow, what caused that flash and others too.




Yeah, its bad.
Go big or go home, such is the thinking.



Israel conspiracy theories will be plentiful.
There is a story there when it comes to that attempt at warning.



There is to be nuclear drama to be played out.
Yeah, Kennedy is out of the game.


It isn't just there nor him only either.

Hope there's a few members of the US government in safety.

It will not be pretty. See below.





There are. They are the lucky ones.



Someone tried to tell the CIA in the hours beforehand as we saw in the update, but it was too late. Israel didn't know much either, especially not the timing. How and what they knew will be revealed in time.

Wow. That's a lot of leaders taken out at once. Good job.