The Long Telegram
The Long Telegram I wanted to sleep late but I couldn’t. I was up and down a couple times and gave up. The meeting the previous afternoon had left me depressed. I needed to get a memo put together, something that danced around the issues and wouldn’t tag me as the bearer of bad news. I needed to be the first to tell the tale. I turned on the radio and listened to an oral rendering of ”A Gathering Light, by Jennifer Donnelly.” It has been going on all week, the young woman’s voice reading excerpts in the depths of the hour between four and five. It is a story said to be aimed at teenagers, but it made me thankful to be alive in this new century, and not trapped in the old one. There was murder in the words, and the smell of cancer. And the notion of women as chattel, and the bleakness of a life like that to a young girl’s eyes. I started to write The Memo. It had to be direct enough to put me on record, without appearing to be the bearer of bad tidings. I do not want them to shoot the messenger later today, or wave it around in some future board meeting. I cannot cloak myself in secrecy, as I once did in the Government, so I typed the words ”FOR YOUR EYES ONLY- SENSITIVE SOURCE- NOT FOR FURTHER DISSEMINATION.” It was similar to the words I used in the Cold War, and as I typed them I heard that George Kennan had died. I blinked. I thought the originator of the doctrine of Soviet Containment was long in his grave, but he had lived past a century. Long enough to see his words translate into policy, and policy into victory, of a sort. He wrote an extraordinary cable from his post in Moscow after the war ended. He had seen the murder of the Kulaks, and the purges, and the ruthless prosecution of the war. The telegram had no name, simply being described as ”The Long Cable.” He advocated the establishment of a series of strategic alliances around the periphery of the Soviet Union, to contain the bacillus of communism. Not to challenge it directly, strength on strength, but keep it limited. He was encouraged to seek a broader audience, but as a State Department Official, he could not do it in his own name. In 1947, the long cable appeared in the journal Foreign Affairs , as a treatise called The Sources of Soviet Conduct. The article was signed by “X.” Everyone knew who really had authored the piece, but Kennan needed plausible deniability. As I did this morning. I started my long telegram with a folksy introduction: ”Boss, I’m sorry I could not make the affair at Fados’ Irish Bar in Chinatown yesterday- as you obserrved, I was dressed in a bright green sweater in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, but the trip to the Pentagon was painful but useful. I am curious about why the Irish have made a beachhead near the Dragon Gate, but stranger things go on in this town.” Well begun, I needed to get to the context of the meeting. The company is struggling to keep a contract in the war zone. There is a fair amount of urgency about it, and careers could be on the line. One of them could be mine, though as I privately note, I already had my career in the government, and I am retired. Now I just have a job. I went on: ”Our company guys were late to the 1300 meeting you dispatched me to. I thank the Lord I still have a valid pass to get into the Building. It is fortress Pentagon now. The escalator from the subway that once rolled right up into the building has been ripped out. The bus platforms have been moved away from the massive limestone flanks of the building, and tall grassy berms have been placed to deflect blast from vehicle bombs. Armed guards man a checkpoint not far from the new subway exits, and people without Pentagon identification badges are shaken down even before they are herded into metal detector the Visitor’s Center. I got past that, but there was a scary moment when the badge did not work in the card reader, and I had to visit the desk. But I am still in the system and managed to waltz in.” The badge expires at the end of this month. I sighed. That is another looming inconvenience I have to deal with. If I can’t find a sponsor, I am going to be down in the Visitors Center with the other concerned citizens, and will be watched every moment I am in the Building. The office I was headed for was familiar to me, just down the hall from the headquarters office where I used to work on the E-Ring, looming above South Parking. I was early, fashionably so, and thus wound up with an impromptu session with the Deputy for Resources for the Assistant Secretary. She is an old friend, and a knowledgeable player in the budget wars. I told her I had a quick message to deliver, and she dragged in her action officer for my sort of issues. I gave her the elevator pitch, the distilled message that can be delivered if you find yourself with a few minutes with someone influential or powerful. The Deputy Assistant Secretary listened, agreed with our position, but said the matter had been considered several months ago during internal government discussions, and discarded against the larger issue, which is that the rebuilding of Iraq’s basic infrastructure is NOT going to be a US Government bill. She thanked me for coming around, and understands why we have to say what we have to say, and she agrees with us. But the larger decision has been made. The Government money is just not going to be forthcoming. They were getting ready for a session with a competitor, whose team was waiting in the outer office. I did not know what it was about, but I have my suspicions. It was fortunate that everyone else was running late, I wrote. The Government Official with whom we were supposed to meet was late, and his tardiness gave me the chance for the session with the Deputy, and our company delegation was hung up at the Visitor’s Center. The delay gave me twenty minutes with the Official, who I have worked with for a decade. We closed the door and talked about the things we cannot talk about in the light of day. He gave me the lay of the land, straight, and not for attribution. There are some things that have gone horribly wrong, not our fault, and it does not look like they can be set right. Too late. When the Company guys arrived, under escort, we went through the official briefing. At the end, the Official was sympathetic. He is onboard with everything we are doing, and supports us. He just has no money. The Government is not going to fund the reconstruction, and the Department views the matter of reprogramming appropriated funds as a matter under the cognizance of the Executive Office of the President, at the Office of Management and Budget. He considers the most likely funding stream as coming from the World Bank, where Paul Wolfowitz, the current Deputy Secretary of Defense, will take over on the first of June. That is the job that Robert MacNamara went to when he tired of the war in Vietnam. I dutifully copied down the action items, and made a mental note about the ones I could not put on paper. I saved the Official’s staff the trip, and I escorted our company guys to the Visitor’s Center exit. ”How do you think it went?” they asked, as we walked down the broad smooth ramp from the third floor to the concourse. Everyone needs reassurance. ”I think it went pretty well,” I said. ”They are very sympathetic. They just don’t have any money.” I dropped them off, and went to the security office to chase a Defense Department Form DD-2259 to see if I could renew my Pentagon badge. I think I may have found someone to sponsor me, if I talk sweetly and rely on the kindness of an old colleague. I looked at the memo on the screen, and then typed: ”I will not be in until noon or so. We have a session with a potential partner in a big contract with DoD in Alexandria at 10:00 and then I have lunch with the new Customs and Border Protection Service Director of Intelligence at one. I’ll fill in the specifics I cannot commit to paper when I see you.” I mashed the send button, and hoped my message would be the first in the queue when my Boss got into the office. It is like golf, in a way. After he retired from baseball, Mickey Mantle used to say that ”he who had the fastest golf cart gets the best lie.” I hope it is true. Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra |