"No, Sir, he has not. Am I missing something here, General?"

"Right now, Admiral, you know as much as I do," CINC STRICOM said.

There was almost immediately a knock at the door. A moment later Major General George Dyess, STRICOM J-3, entered without waiting for permission.

"Have a look at this," Evans said, handing the message to him. "It just came in, Ralph brought it over."

General Dyess read it. "The natives are restless, I see. You think this is important, Sir?"

"Give it to Colonel Lowell, George," Evans said, and then answered Dyess's question: "I'm worried by the 'strong possibility' that the natives have been armed by the Chinese communists."

"What would you like me to do?" General Dyess said.

"Get OPLAN 15-6 out of the file," CINC STRICOM ordered.

He looked at Lowell. "Any suggestions, Lowell?"

"Private Portet, Sir," Lowell said.

Both General Dyess and Admiral Summerall looked at him in curiosity.

General Evans snorted and then nodded. "Yeah," he said.

"Show OPLAN 15-6 and this message to Private Portet. See what he has to say. Have him put it on paper. When we have that and I want it as soon as you can get it-you come by the house. Bring Portet with you."

"Yes, Sir," Lowell said.

"Who is Private Portet?" Admiral Summerall asked.

"He's a draftee who used to live in the Congo," CINC STRICOM explained. "Right now he's our resident expert on the place."

"Apparently you don't think much of either your, or the Navy's, area intelligence specialist for the Congo?"

"I know this young man lived in the Congo, where he flew for a cargo airline, and that he speaks the language," Evans said.

"And I strongly suspect that when I telephone Colonel Sanford T. Felter and read him this TWX from Dills, the first thing he's going to ask me is what Portet has to say about it."

XIII.

(One) Camp David, Maryland 17 June 1964 Colonel Sanford T. Felter came to Camp David on the Presidential Sikorsky H-34 helicopter sent to Washington to fetch Presidential Press Secretary Pierre Salinger. He was not the only hitchhiker. The Director of the USIA and a CIA briefing officer were also aboard.

Felter had to wait until Johnson had seen all of these people before he was able to see the President.

When it was his turn, he saw that the President was wearing a loud, flower-patterned, Hawaiian shirt with its tail hanging out.

And he was making himself a drink. From the look on his face Felter could tell he was not in a good mood.

"Good afternoon, Mr. President," Felter said.

The President grunted. He did not offer Felter a drink.

"I will try to be brief, Mr. President."

"Go ahead."

"I don't know, of course, how far the CIA briefing went with regard to Albertville-"

"He never heard of it," the President said. "I asked him and he didn't know one fucking thing about it. I sent him to find out."

"Sir?" Felter said, confused.

"Albertville, in the Congo? That is what you're here to tell me about?"

"Yes, Sir."

"The Senator from Oklahoma took time from his busy schedule to call me and ask what I intended to do about his people getting run out of there. I told him I was working on it. I told you to keep me advised, goddamn you. How come you're coming in now?"

"Mr. President, I got my information thirty minutes before I got on the chopper."

"Maybe I better ask the Senator from Oklahoma to keep me advised. He's apparently better informed than you are." Felter did not reply.

"Well, let's hear it, Colonel. Better late than never, to coin a phrase. "

"I have my information from two sources, Mr. President," Felter said. "From Colonel Dills, who is the STRICOM liaison officer in the Congo, and from Captain Lunsford, a Green Beret officer in the area. I would therefore rate my information as wholly reliable."

"Late, but reliable," the President said sarcastically. "I suppose that's something."

"Perhaps I could save some of your time, Mr. President, if I knew what the Senator has already told you."

"He said he had a telephone call from one of his more important constituents who had his balls all up in an uproar. The constituent just had a telephone call from his man in the Congo, who said he had to charter an airplane to get his people out of some town because it had been taken over by some rebels."

"That would be Mr. Swayer, of Unit Rig, Mr. President, and it explains why the Senator heard about this so quickly. Mr. Swayer apparently telephoned Tulsa as soon as he got to Leopoldville. My information came by radioteletype."

"Next time tell them to get on the phone," the President snapped.

"With respect, Mr. President, I think we have to give Colonel Dills the benefit of the doubt and that he considered the telephone and decided it would be better to collect all the facts and use radioteletype."

The President, not mollified, glared at Felter. "Well, let's have all the facts. "

"Yes, Sir. Sir, Albertville is a small town on Lake Tanganika, just about in the middle of Africa. Lake Tanganyika forms me international border between the ex-Belgian Congo and Tanzania and Burundi."

"What are Americans doing there?"

"Unit Rig is supplying heavy earth-moving equipment, huge trucks, to Union Miniere for use in the mines. The trucks were disassembled for shipment and air-freighted in. They are being reassembled on site. Mr. Swayer is Unit Rig's supervising engineer."

"So what happened?"

"My information, Mr. President, is that a Congolese named Nicholas Olenga has taken over the town."

"Who the hell is he? What does he want?"

"We don't know much about him, Mr. President. He is a member of the Maniema tribe, in his early thirties. Before independence he was a clerk, which would indicate that he is literate.

Colonel Dills believes that since he did not receive a position of importance under the Leopoldville government, he now intends to topple that government and take over himself."

"He was a goddamned clerk? And thinks he can take over the government? Is he nuts? How long will it take your Colonel Mobutu to get over there and throw his ass in jail?"

"I don't believe that will happen anytime soon, Mr. President," Felter said. "Colonel Dills reports that the ANC, the Armee Nationale Congolaise, 'is planning action to bring the situation under control.' But he reports that he does think that they will be successful in the near future. I concur with his evaluation of the situation."

"Jesus Christ!"

"The Red Chinese, Mr. President, have been engaged for some time in a propaganda effort, the gist of which is to convince the Congolese that the United States intends to step in to replace the Belgians as their colonial masters. It has been successful among the Maniema and some other tribes in that area of the Congo. They are now violently anti-American. Olenga has apparently used this as his rallying point."

"Let me get this straight," the President said. "An ex-clerk with delusions of grandeur has convinced a bunch of jungle bunnies that we're the bad guys and they have taken over some backwater town in the middle of nowhere. Right so far?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

"You really think those Unit Rig people were in danger?"

"Yes, Sir, I believe they were."

"And the entire Congolese Army can't stop this foolishness?"

"Not in the foreseeable future, Mr. President."

"So what happens now? You're not suggesting that he can actually take over the whole Congo? How many men does he have?"

"My information is that he took over Albertville with a force of approximately three hundred, Sir."

"Three hundred?" the President parroted incredulously. "And the Army can't take them on-put them behind bars?"

"Colonel Dills believes, as does Captain Lunsford, and I concur, that as soon as they realize the ANC has not done anything about Olenga, the natives-that is to say the uneducated tribesmen who live in the bush-will rush to join him."

"What makes this Captain Lunsford an expert?"

"He has been in the area, Sir. He is there now. He speaks the language. Captain Lunsford reports that Olenga is now wearing a Belgian officer's uniform and calling himself 'colonel,' and his organization 'the People's Army.'"

"He's there now?"

"Yes, Sir. He requested permission to remain in the area, and I gave it to him."

"How come the Unit Rig people were in danger and he's not?"

"He is in some danger, Sir. But he speaks Swahili and several of the local dialects and believes he can pass himself off as a Congolese."

The President's eyebrows rose at that. "You mean he's black?"

"Yes, Sir."

"I'll be damned," the President said. "OK, Felter, worst possible scenario. Let's have it."

"The tribesmen, Maniema and others, will join Olenga. They will march on the small towns in the area. They may be able to take Bukavu and possibly even Stanleyville. If they are able to take Bukavu, which I consider possible, I believe this will open the very real possibility of substantial assistance from the Chinese communists in Burundi. If they have arms, they can take Stanleyville. If they take Stanleyville, and they haven't been given arms before, I am sure they will get them then."

"They have not yet been supplied with arms?"

"Not so far as I know, Sir. One of the reasons I gave Captain Lunsford permission to stay was in the hope that he could find out about that."

"What about Chinese advisers?" the President asked. "I'd like to get my hands on one of them involved in this."

"I don't think they will send either advisers or substantial shipments-in other words, attributable shipments-or arms until they see how he's doing. What they call face is involved, Sir. They are not, in my judgment, going to make their involvement known until they are sure of success. They do not wish to lose face."

"So we just wait to see what happens, huh?"

"I don't see what other alternatives there are, Mr. President."

"What about your friend Mobutu's paratroopers? Could they put this lunatic down?"

"I don't believe Colonel Mobutu will use them until the situation is worse than it is. By then it may be too late. But he will not risk letting them get too far from Leopoldville, not now."

"Well, we'll see how hard the Ambassador can lean on him about that," the President said. He raised his eyes to Felter. "I'm sorry I jumped on your ass when you walked in, Felter."

"Yes, Sir."

"Keep doing what you're doing. It may not sound like it from time to time, but I appreciate it."

(Two) 30 June 1964 AP NEW YORK NY 30 JUN 205p FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL WIRES UNITED NATIONS NEW YORK-JUNE 30-UN SECRETARY GENERAL U THANT REPORTED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBL Y AT TWO PM THIS AFTERNOON THAT THE LAST ELEMENTS OF THE UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING FORCE IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO HAVE BEEN WITHDRAWN.

U THANT PRAISED THE EFFORTS OF THE PEACEKEEPING FORCE IN "MAINTAINING THE PEACE AT GREAT COST," BUT SAID HE "HAD TO TELL THIS BODY THAT THE IMMEDIATE OUTLOOK IS NONE TOO PROMISING." THE MULTINATIONAL FORCE HAD BEEN IN THE FORMER BELGIAN CONGO ALMOST FOUR YEARS. KNOWLEDGEABLE OBSERVERS HERE BELIEVE IT HIGHLY UNLIKELY THAT THE UN WILL AGAIN DISPATCH A MILITARY FORCE TO THE STRIFETORN AFRICAN NATION.

(Three) Conference Room 6-14 The Central Intelligence Agency Langley, Virginia 0815 Hours 7 July 1964 Since the Fourth of July had fallen on Saturday, and since government employees already had Saturdays off, and since it was the intent of the Congress to provide government employees, including themselves, with a paid day off for the celebration of the birth of the nation, Monday, July 6, 1964, had also been declared a holiday, so that those who had not elected to celebrate the nation's independence on their own time could celebrate it on the taxpayers' time.

Those employees of the Central Intelligence Agency whose duties required that they come to work on Monday, July 6, would be paid at overtime rates in the case of hourly employees; and those on the General Schedule of Professional Employees would be given compensatory time off. The idea, presumably, was that they would celebrate the nation's independence on, say, the third of August-or whenever they could be spared from their duty.

But those CIA GS employees who had worked on Monday had everything ready for the Director's senior staff conference.

The maps in the room had been updated, the files from around the world edited, or condensed, or analyzed, or all three. Estimates and scenarios had been prepared. The conference room itself had been swept, once with a Hoover vacuum cleaner, and again by a man looking for electronic bugs. The paper shredders had been checked to make sure that when documents were fed into them they would be sliced into narrow strips and fed into bum bags. Pencils (six per chair at the table) were sharpened, and pads of note paper were laid out.

Coffee was brewed; and cups, non-dairy creamer, sugar, and saccharine were arranged in convenient places. A small pitcher of real cream had been placed near the Director's chair. He had found out what was in non-dairy creamer and would have nothing to do with it.

There were five people in leather upholstered chairs at the large, glossy, eight-place mahogany table when the Director walked in, smiled, and said "Good morning," and sat down.

They were the Deputy Directors for Overt Operations, Covert Operations, Counterintelligence, and Administration, and the Executive Administrative Assistant to the Director. The Executive Administrative Assistant to the Director, who was the only female in the room, was seated right next to the Director and had brought a brand new stenographer's notebook.

In chairs against the wall were more than a dozen other people whose presence it was believed would be required during the meeting. They were desk officers for various areas of the world and other specialists of one kind or another.

It was understood by them that they were not supposed to either smoke or expect a cup of coffee. Rank hath its privileges.

The Director had just settled himself in the chair, cleared his throat, and reached for the first of the folders his Executive Administrative Assistant had placed before him on the desk when a red lamp on one of the telephones began to flash.