28 October 2007

The Dining In



We were at Fort Myer in the rain last night for the annual formal dinner of our little tribe of Spooks. It had been falling pervasively through the day, a steady soaking. It was inconvenient to be in Black Tie in the wet, since winged collars tended to droop immediately, and the jaunty bow ties hung limp.

There were no complaints, though. We have made back only a third of the shortfall of the long dry summer, and we will not be entitled to start complaining until at least another ten inches of cool water fills back the reservoirs and softens the hardness of the ground.

My date for the evening was the Admiral Emeritus, the last man standing from the Great War against the Japanese. He is a remarkable fellow, spry and opinionated as ever, and I count myself lucky to have his company.

He has been to most of these events since they began, the year after John Kennedy was shot down in Dallas. The world did not have much discipline in those days, and there was a great and implacable Enemy to be confronted, and a surrogate in Vietnam heating up. The traditions of the past must have been a comfortable connection to the victories of the past.

Forty-three of them of them have been held since, in victory and defeat.

I am a newcomer; my first was twenty-one years ago.

One of the collateral duties of the junior assignments officer- me, at the time- was to arrange the dinner. It was an elaborate ceremonial affair, conducted with meticulous reverence for the original dinners held by the Royal Navy.

The ritual was highly stylized, and featured several of the institutional elements of cruelty popular in the British service that initiated flogging as a means of discipline. The Dining In was a version of the Mess Night that Nelson celebrated in his flagship HMS Victory, and the protocol was intentionally intimidating.

By structure, the Director was President of the Mess, and a junior officer appointed Vice President to manage the event and serve as master of ceremonies. The formality was reflected in the physical trappings of the event. The officer's club of choice, whether it was Bethesda Naval Hospital, Fort Myer or Fort McNair, was subject of point papers and much debate, as was each bit of minutia, including the selection of the brand of cigars for the after-dinner speech.

The number of rules and protocols, violation of which were subject to fine, required a small handbook, which was placed carefully at each plate, so that the event might be scored like a match at Wimbledon.

When the event actually arrived, the head table was arranged at one end of the dining room for the dignitaries and a small table placed at the distant end for Mr. Vice. The piper was engaged for the Parade of the Beef, and the dining area was decorated with the Flag from the Director's office for the appropriate patriotic convocation, followed by the blessing from the Padre. The Smoking Lamp from the wooden USS Constellation was obtained by signature loan from the Navy Museum.

The actual event was as rigidly stylized as a NASCAR Race, and the main interest for the crowd was essentially the same: would there be a spectacular breach of decorum that would end the career of the hapless officer responsible for the arrangements?

As with all events that featured young officers and alcohol, there was plenty of opportunity for mischief. If you have gathered that the whole thing was a colossal pain in the ass, you are getting the picture.

Those days, happily, are gone. Twenty Directors of Naval Intelligence have come and gone since the beginning of the dinner, and the strictures of the event have eased. The rigid attention to ritual has softened into something that is much more like a family event. Last night there was no head table at all, and though the piper piped and the beef was paraded, the Director of Naval Intelligence was a genial and kind pater familia.

For reasons of non-attribution, I cannot share the name of the Speaker, but suffice it to say that he was the most senior official in all Spookdom, and it was fortunate that his warm and informative remarks were first on the agenda, even before the food was served.

That disconcerted him a bit, but only briefly, and it turned out that the new twist on the agenda was a good thing. Shortly after the beef was served, he rose and swept out of the room. It appeared the President needed him.

The rest of the program swept on. The food was not bad. The junior officers are fresher, smarter and a little more sober than the ones I remember, and they have more experience in the actual art of war than any of us that fought the largely stylized conflict with the Soviets. The skits were tightly constructed, and the humor suitably sly and sardonic. There was even a dance number performed by the most junior members of the Mess, remarkably well choreographed.

As I was driving my date home, the Admiral looked out the window at the rain and said the same thing I was thinking. This might have been the best Dining In, ever.

It did not occur to me until much later to think about what our speaker had said. I removed the limp bow tie and removed the studs and cufflinks from the formal shirt in the darkness at Big Pink. He is so folksy and approachable that the clarity of his message did not immediately strike me. The nature of the business has changed precisely as the ritual of the Dining In has, inverted from cold precision to something much warmer.

There is a relevance to the art of analysis as we have always practised it, with attention to detail, and intense awareness of sources and methods. The hunt for intention, from space or under the sea, required a mastery of all the tools in the trade.

In the old days, we knew with precision the capabilities and methods of the Soviets. What we did not know was what they intended to do with them. The new threat is exactly a mirror image, and it is why we need these fresh young officers to be at the top of their game.

Al Qaida knows exactly what they want to do to us, since it is posted prominently on Jihadi websites and intercepted from the ether. They want to kill millions of us, if they can, a number so vast and chilling that it almost- almost- defies the imagination.

What we don't now is how they intend to do it. As I hung the tuxedo in a place where it could dry before I put it away for the year, I hoped the kids will have the tools to figure it out.

It is really important.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com


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