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\n(Jill St. John, Leonid Brezhnev and Dick Nixon.)<\/p>\n
\n(Jill St. John, Leonid Brezhnev and Dick Nixon.)<\/p>\n
I was sitting and talking to Old Jim at the end of the Willow Bar. It was fiercely and oppressively hot outside, and people in Arlington were acting out. Pedestrians were walking out in the crosswalks against the light, motorists were honking wildly and I saw more people flipping each other off than I had since the Pueblo Crew convinced the North Koreans that the middle finger was the Hawaiian Good Luck Sign.<\/p>\n
Mac had left me with a lot of work, but we had arrived at the point in his career where some of the characters being to overlap.<\/p>\n
I raised a glass to Jim after graceful Elisabeth-with-an-S topped me up. Aimee was resigned to having to service the sweating customers out on the patio.<\/p>\n
My San Diego Attorney was in town from the Left Coast on matters pertaining to litigation and history, and he told me he wanted to talk about the \u201ccreative differences\u201d between Doctor Kissinger and the CIA, since that runs directly into the Schlesinger Commission which was the reason Mac was be hired at the CIA after his Navy career was done.<\/p>\n
\u201cHenry the K looms over my younger years like the Matterhorn,\u201d I said. \u201cI can\u2019t believe he is still around, pontificating in his new book \u201cOn China, and where this is all going to go in the post-American Century.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFuck him,\u201d said Jim.<\/p>\n
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\n(Henry and Jill. Photo Corbis.)<\/p>\n
\u201cTrue. But I have to say that his continued vitality is impressive. Think back to his reputation when he was in the Nixon White House. Did you ever run into him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSaw him a few times. Nothing personal. I thought he was a pompous jerk.\u201d
\nOld Jim had been a part-time speechwriter on staff for a while, which was odd for a radical like Jim. But there was a lot of strange stuff going on then- \u201cRemember Dr. Hunter S. Thompson talking NFL issues with candidate Nixon in the back of his limo on the campaign trail?\u201d I said. \u201cAnd National Security Advisor Henry-the-K with the rep of a swinger.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris, the Good Doctor was escorting the lovely Jill St. John, the bombshell who stole the show in the Bond film \u201cDiamonds are Forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n(Jill St. John in \u201cDiamonds are Forever.\u201d)<\/p>\n
I looked up to see The Lawyer coming in the front door, blinking from the heat and brilliance of the sun. I waved and he came over to take a stool next to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy Hour White is always good here,\u201d I said. \u201cWelcome to Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lawyer frowned. \u201cToo goddamned hot,\u201d he aid. \u201cI prefer San Diego. I did my time here as a staffer on the Hill and I don\u2019t regret leaving.\u201d The Lawyer is a Princeton man, a speaker of French, and a combat vet from the unpleasantness in SE Asia. He has the bright Mediterranean look of his youth gone only slightly to seed. He has an acid wit and the unflinching eye of an old Spook.<\/p>\n
Jim took a deep pull on his long-neck Bud and told The Lawyer we had been talking about Kissinger and Nixon.<\/p>\n
The Lawyer looked thoughtful. \u201cApparently Tricky Dick was not happy about Henry-the-K\u2019s public profile. Hard to believe Ms St John was also dating Sidney Korshak at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFunny how the mob keeps showing up in this history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIsn\u2019t it?\u201d said Jim. \u201cThose fucks.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKorshak was an attorney, like me,\u201d said The Lawyer. \u201cOnly he was the most powerful one in the world. Sidney was the Chicago Mob\u2019s guy in Hollywood, The Fixer.\u201d The Lawyer looked into his tulip glass and took a decisive sip. \u201cHe suggested Jill for the Bond movie, and made it happen. He was the kinda guy who could make creative differences an gambling debts go away, deliver the right actor to the right studio at the right time and make union problems disappear. He was one of the most powerful people you never heard of.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was apparently grateful to the old guy. Very grateful.\u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway, I was thinking about all that ancient history because I had to dig into the Schlesinger Commission to understand why Mac went to work for Bronson Tweedy and DCI Dick Helms in 1972.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne has to give it to St John, who was able to simultaneously enthrall both one of the country\u2019s most powerful public officials and its most furtive power broker,\u201d said Jim.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can be positively lyrical, Jim\u201d said Aimee, walking by with a tray of empty glasses.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said the other day that there was a lot of tension between Langley and the White House, and that there was \u201csurprise\u201d about the Cambodian coup.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what the history book said about the origin of the Schlesinger Commission to overhaul the intelligence community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is bullshit,\u201d said The Lawyer. \u201cI was there and I know.\u201d He grimaced. \u201cNice acting on Kissinger\u2019s part!\u201d said Jim.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clear to me now that the Cambodian coup was engendered slowly, and underwritten by the Special Operations Groupies who had local indigenous troops working SOG projects.\u201d said The Lawyer. \u201cI have been looking at this for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked pensively in the direction of Elisabeth, who was polishing a glass and peering at it against the light from the front window. \u201cThe alphabet soup of militias we had links to- the Khmer Kampuchea Krom, the Khmer Serei being the anti-communist ones, though the Khemer Rouge wound up with some of the money. All of them at one time or another were sent into Cambodia to unsettle Prince Sihanouk or aid Lon Nol. They all were billed as anti-monarchist groups, some commie and some not, but they were in fact funded by CIA black budget money, as Henry the K well knew. The President had directed him to explore two potential CIA actions in Cambodia. They were either going to support covert paramilitary ops against North Vietnamese Regular Forces in the sanctuary areas, or take direct action action against the arms traffic running from the port up the Freedom Highway to the borer. You know the US actually built the road? It was a weird time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lawyer had been the Naval Intelligence Liaison Officer at Ha Tien, and he could see Cambodia from the front porch of his Hooch. He has some strong opinions about what went on there.<\/p>\n
\u201cLon Nol had long contacts with US Army SPEC FORCES SOG types during the war, and lived in one of the SOG camps in Vietnam for two weeks closely before the Cambodian coup. SOG sent 100 well-armed indigenous KKK\/Khmer Serei troops to Phnom Penh to guard Lon Nol as the coup actually went down.\u201d<\/p>\n
I frowned and took a sip of Happy Hour White. \u201cThere is a lot of stuff no one knew about this. Was it part of Tricky Dick\u2019s Secret Plan to end the war?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. Kissinger had a plan. He was trying to stop the flow of arms that was going from the port at Sihanoukville up to the NVA sanctuaries on the Vietnamese border. I know this from SOG guys who were involved. It was actually a perfect set up for \u201cplausible deniability.\u201d The CIA had no station in Cambodia, and only had one retired French sea captain in Phnom Penh as an agent. They Agency guys constantly grilled us for information, giving nothing in return.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBastards.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot all of them. I\u2019m still in touch with the CIA province chief for Kien Giang province where Ha Tien is. We ought to get him to come to Willow and have a drink with him some time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSounds good,\u201d I said, thinking it was getting on toward time to be in Big Pink\u2019s swimming pool.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway, I look back on the \u201csurprise\u201d of the Cambodian coup d\u2019etat as one of the best kept secrets and clandestine victories for the US during the Vietnam War. It was so good, nobody can authoritatively pin that on the CIA or the US to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lawyer smiled grimly. He has been active in efforts to try to mitigate the residue of the horror of Pol Pot\u2019s rule with the Khmer Rouge, and got himself crosswise with American policy initiatives in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t forget,\u201d he said, \u201cin the Kissinger-Nixon tapes that were recorded in April of 1970, Nixon says to Kissinger about Cambodia: \u201cIf this fails Henry, it\u2019s your ass!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHenry is still around and publishing books on what we ought to do about China.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. Isn\u2019t he the piece of work? Creative differences with Dick Nixon aside, he is still working.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(Jill St. John, Leonid Brezhnev and Dick Nixon.) I was sitting and talking to Old Jim at the end of the Willow Bar. It was fiercely and oppressively hot outside, and people in Arlington were acting out. Pedestrians were walking out in the crosswalks against the light, motorists were honking wildly and I saw more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}