INGRID DOWS - AN ALTERNATE STORY PART 3 - THE SPACE AGE by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 20 – PENTAGON CHIEF

07:36 (Washington Time)

Monday, October 27, 1952 ‘C’

Southern entrance of the Pentagon

Arlington, Virginia, U.S.A.

The two armed marines standing

guard outside of the southern entrance of the Pentagon, which was the command and administrative center of American military power, eyed at once the beautiful young woman who was about to arrive at the entrance. She wore a light raincoat over a dark blue female suit with pants and a ‘Robin Hood’ style hat made of dark blue felt. She also carried a black leather briefcase in her left hand as she approached the marines at a resolute step. The senior marine, a corporal, then recognized her and spoke urgently in a low voice to the private on guard with him.

‘’That’s General Dows: Lady Hawk! Atten...hut!’’

Both marines came to attention, with the corporal saluting as Ingrid was about to come level with him.

‘’Good morning, Maam!

‘’And a good morning to you as well, Corporal.’’ replied Ingrid, returning his salute before entering the huge building. Once inside, Ingrid presented her military identification card to one of the marines vetting those entering the Pentagon. With her having either visited the building or having attended meetings and briefings here multiple times along the years, she didn’t need to ask for directions to the office of the Secretary of Defense and started negotiating the long corridors of the Pentagon at a vigorous step. Her identity was again checked as she was about to enter the section housing the Office of the Secretary of Defense, or OSD. Entering the anteroom for the OSD, Ingrid was greeted by a mature female secretary who smiled to her the moment she walked in.

‘’Good morning, General. The Secretary of Defense should arrive soon. Would you like a cup of coffee or tea while waiting for him in his office?’’

‘’Thank you but no: I already had a strong cup of coffee at the Hays-Adams Hotel. Since you are going to work for me for a few months, may I have your name, miss?’’

‘’My name is Janice Wright, General. I will be honored to serve you.’’

‘’Thank you, Janice. Can you name me the other persons working directly in this office?’’

‘’Yes, General! Major Charles Hurst is presently the military aide to the Secretary of Defense, while your chauffeur will be Sergeant Robert Kingsman. You also have a junior secretary, Mary Osborne, who should arrive at any moment now.’’ Ingrid glanced at her wristwatch and saw that it was four to eight o’clock.

‘’Miss Osborne is cutting it pretty close for showing up for work, isn’t she?’’ Janice Wright made a bit of a forced smile at that question.

‘’Mary actually called about fifty minutes ago and told me that she had to find a babysitter in a hurry for her three-year-old daughter: her normal babysitter declared herself sick at the last minute.’’

‘’Oh, I see! Uh, is there a daycare center here at the Pentagon for the young children of its civilian and military workers?’’

‘’No, there isn’t, General.’’

‘’Then, your first task for me will be to look around this building to see if there would be any large suite of rooms with direct view windows to the outside and which could be converted to a daycare center.’’

‘’Uh, how big would this daycare center need to be, General?’’ asked Janice Wright, taken a bit off balance by her request.

‘’That will depend on the number of single parents and of mothers from couples whose spouses also work.’’

‘’But, a budget would have to become available to run and maintain such a daycare center, General. Presently, finding new money for the Defense Department is like pulling out teeth.’’

‘’Well, if need be, I will pay for that daycare center out of my salary as Secretary of Defense, Miss Wright. I happen to be both a single mother and a billionaire and the welfare of my employees and of their families is always paramount to me. Plan for that new daycare to have a minimum capacity of fifty toddlers and babies at first. Then, we will see if we will need to enlarge it.’’

Janice Wright was still speechless from Ingrid’s declaration when Dwight Eisenhower entered the anteroom, followed closely by a young and very handsome Air Force sergeant. Eisenhower grinned widely on seeing Ingrid.

‘’Aah, still an early bird, Ingrid? I like that! By the way, this is my assigned military driver, Sergeant Robert Kingsman.’’

‘’Pleased to meet you, Sergeant Kingsman.’’ said Ingrid while shaking hands with the young NCO and also discreetly admiring the handsome driver. ‘’Do you have special driving qualifications which helped you get your present position?’’

‘’I previously drove an armored wheeled patrol vehicle as part of the ground security squadron of one of our strategic bomber bases, maam.’’

‘’Hum, an interesting-sounding job, I must say. I myself am a bit of a speed demon.’’

‘’Just a bit, Ingrid?’’ said Eisenhower with a smile. ‘’You ARE the Speed Demon personified. Well, let’s go into my office, so that I could brief you on your new temporary job.’’

Once inside the vast office assigned to the

Secretary of Defense, Eisenhower invited Ingrid

to sit with him at a round table set to one side of

his large, varnished wood work desk. Once

sitting, he gave her a sober smile.

‘’First off, don’t worry about the congressional clause saying that a military officer can’t be the Secretary of Defense unless he has retired from the service for a minimum of ten years: in view of the closeness to the presidential elections and in view of your temporary interim appointment, the leaders of Congress agreed to waive that condition and will not cause a fuss about that.’’

‘’That is effectively nice to know, Ike. I was a bit worried about that.’’

‘’Well, you don’t need to worry about that anymore. Second, where are you lodging right now in Washington?’’

‘’I rented a suite for the next three months at the Hay-Adams Hotel. I brought my little daughter Hien, a private educator and Hien’s nanny with me, so I will not be separated from her for months.’’

‘’Will you need to be chauffeured between your hotel and the Pentagon?’’

‘’No! I brought my sports car from Los Angeles, using an Air Fifinella cargo aircraft to fly it in. Besides, I firmly intend to jog to work from my hotel: while holding this paper-pushing job, I will still need to exercise in order to stay fit.’’

‘’Still the dedicated warrior, I see. Well, about this new job of yours, I can tell you that your biggest concern will be to continue the rearmament and upgrade programs of our forces. Truman may have been out of power for four years now but the damage his stupid defense policies did to our military is still haunting us. The Navy in particular is still in the middle of rebuilding and refitting its combat fleet. Let me show you what I have in my ‘in’ basket this morning.’’

Eisenhower then spent over two hours with Ingrid, going through his current and pending business files, at the end of which Eisenhower decided that it was time for them to head to the White House for the first cabinet meeting under President Warren. Coming out of the Pentagon and taking place in the large staff car driven by Sergeant Kingsman, they continued discussing department business while rolling over the highway bridge spanning the Potomac River, with the car arriving at the White House at twelve minutes before eleven o’clock. Ike and Ingrid then proceeded to the cabinet room, in the West Wing, where most of the cabinet members were already sitting or standing while conversing with each other. George Kenney, who was still the Secretary of the Air Force, went at once to shake hands with Ingrid, a big smile on his face.

‘’Ingrid, it will be nice to work with you again, even if I will be under you for a change.’’

‘’Well, that will be only for about three months, George. As for who will win the presidential elections in eight days, my guess is as good as yours: while President Dewey would have most probably won if not for his tragic accident, Earl Warren’s popularity was much less evident, due mostly to the typically discreet role all Vice-Presidents have to fill.’’

‘’My bet is that we will still win this election, Ingrid. Then, one big question will be who will replace you as Secretary of Defense?’’

‘’I had time to read the morning papers before going to the Pentagon. My interim appointment is already raising a storm of different opinions in Washington, some of them negative.’’

‘’Ignore those ones, Ingrid: those bad-mouthers are just bigoted misogynists. The American public mostly respect and admire you. By the way, what are you doing with your cute Hien?’’

‘’She is here with her private educator and her nanny. I will thus be able to see her every day and will also take this opportunity to make her see Washington and its surroundings.’’

‘’A good plan. Oh, here is the President!’’

Earl Warren took the time to tour the room and shake hands with the members of his cabinet, spending more time to chat in particular with Ingrid before declaring the meeting opened.

‘’Thanks for coming to this meeting, my friends. I want in particular to thank you, Ingrid, for accepting to serve in my cabinet for the next three months.’’

‘’I am always ready to serve the nation, Mister President, and will now do so again in the best of my abilities.’’

‘’Which are truly formidable. Well, we will have the presidential elections in eight days, along with the House elections and the elections for a majority of the seats in the Senate. Irrespective of who will win those elections, we will do our best to continue the work of our regretted President. George, what are the findings of the investigation into the crash of the President’s plane?’’

‘’Evidence points to bird ingestion in the UH-2’s turbines, Mister President. Burned feathers and dead geese were found inside both of the turboshaft engines of the presidential helicopter, with more dead geese found on the ground around the crash site, most probably due to collision with the UH-2. Nothing to date suggests any possibility of foul play or mechanical failure involved in this crash. It was just bad luck, plain and simple.’’

‘’I see! Well, we will let accident investigators finish their job while we take over from President Dewey. I intend for the President’s funerals and burial to be held before the elections, on Sunday, November the Second. President Dewey and his wife will be buried in Pawling, north of New York City, near which they had a farm called Dapplemere. I will personally take care of the arrangements for his funeral, which will be held in New York and which will be preceded by a lying-in-state at the Capitol’s rotunda. Until next January, we will continue with the agenda and priorities already set by our late President. At five this afternoon, I will present my cabinet, meaning you, to the American public via a televised address made from the Oval Office this afternoon, at five. Know that the present leaders of both the House and the Senate agreed to wave the normal rules concerning the eligibility of candidates to the post of Secretary of Defense, so that Ingrid could serve on a strictly interim, temporary basis until the end of next January. This should hopefully allow her to do her work without being distracted by negative innuendos and congressional attacks.’’ Ingrid simply nodded once at those words, then kept mostly silent until Warren asked her a question.

‘’Do you have any idea or initiative that you would like to implement during your time as Secretary of Defense, Ingrid?’’

‘’I do, Mister President. It concerns the continued refusal of surviving Japanese soldiers around the Pacific to surrender, even eight years after the destruction of Tokyo and Nagoya by British nuclear-tipped missiles. We should deal with that problem once and for all, to prevent more killings of civilians and depredations by those Japanese diehards.’’

‘’How would you propose to deal with that, Ingrid?’’ asked Warren.

‘’By flooding areas where they are, mostly in the Philippines, with massive amounts of light infantry units, which would comb the jungles and hills and would eliminate every Japanese soldier they will find. That operation, which I would call ‘Operation Clean Sweep’, will also serve as an excellent jungle warfare training exercise for our soldiers. I envisage our attack helicopters to scan the jungles and hills of the Philippines with their thermal cameras, which can detect human presences in the middle of jungles and forests, and this while our troops surround and secure the perimeters of the zones being scanned. Once groups of diehard Japanese soldiers will have been detected, then our infantry units will advance and sweep those zones clean. I would use the majority of our light infantry units for that task, meaning our airborne troopers, our mountain fighting units, our Marine Corps units and our Special Forces units, backed up by artillery and by combat helicopter and fighter-bomber squadrons. We have let those Japanese soldiers survive for far too long in my opinion and they cost our local allies way too much during the past eight years. I myself encountered some of those diehard Japanese in Indochina, when I went to visit the village in the Mekong Delta which had been the home of my adopted daughter and of one of my past incarnations. I killed six Japanese soldiers after they ambushed the bus I was traveling in. While the French Army is doing its best it can to eliminate those bastards, they don’t have the numbers or technical means needed to thoroughly comb the jungles of Indochina. Maybe we could help them after cleaning up the Philippines. Such assistance on our part could well help a lot our relations with the present French government and strengthen our cooperation in the Pacific.’’

‘’Do you intend to give the option of surrendering to those Japanese soldiers?’’ asked Herbert Brownell, the Attorney General, making Ingrid shake her head vehemently.

‘’I will give those bastards the same level of mercy that they showed towards our soldiers and Filipino civilians, which was none at all. Their level of barbarism and cruelty during the war disqualified these Japanese soldiers from any mercy on our part.’’

‘’I agree with you on that, Ingrid.’’ said Warren. ‘’You may go ahead with your Operation Clean Sweep when ready.’’

‘’Thank you, Mister President.’’

‘’You’re welcome, Ingrid! Now, about our economic policies...’’

16:58 (Washington Time)

The Oval Office, The White House

Washington, D.C.

‘’Two minutes to air time, Mister President.’’

Earl Warren nodded at the warning given to him by his public relations head, then looked behind him at the members of his cabinet, who were standing shoulder to shoulder on each side of his presidential desk. Ingrid, due to the importance of her position, was close to his right and would be immediately noticed by viewers even when the cameras would be pointed at him. He could already feel the current mix of reactions to her presence in his cabinet lineup among the reporters, photographers and cameramen forming a semi-circle in front of him in the Oval Office. That mix went from excitement, surprise, wonderment and barely concealed reprobation and was quite understandable, as no woman had filled such an important cabinet position before...ever. Oveta Culp Hobby, his Secretary for Health, Education and Welfare, was the only other woman in the lineup and had herself been the second ever female presidential cabinet member, the first having been Frances Perkins, who had been the Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, serving in that post from 1933 to 1945. As the next two minutes went by, he mentally reviewed what he was going to say during this televised presidential address, then spoke in a firm but calm voice when his aide gave the signal.

‘’Good afternoon, my fellow citizens. Barely five days ago, we suffered the tragic loss of our President, Thomas Dewey, who was killed, along with his wife Frances, in a helicopter accident as his aircraft collided with a flock of geese while heading towards our naval base in Norfolk. As his Vice-President, I was then automatically sworn in to occupy his post and in turn chose Secretary of Defense Dwight Eisenhower to act as my Vice-President, to ensure the continuity of government if anything happened to me. With the position of Secretary of Defense now empty, and this at a time when the United States still has plenty of enemies around the World, I deemed it primordial to fill that position, at least on an interim, temporary basis, with a candidate with superior leadership, wide military experience and strong sense of ethics. I thus asked Ingrid Dows, who is standing to my right, to fill the position of Secretary of Defense until the end of next January, which she accepted to do. As for the rest of the cabinet who was serving our regretted President, I kept it as it was. This is thus the White House team which will serve our nation until January the Twentieth, when the winner of the oncoming presidential elections will be sworn in as your next President. The nation can thus rest assured that it will be governed with a steady hand for the next three months. Our regretted President will be exposed in the central rotunda of the Capitol Building, starting this coming Wednesday, then will be buried in his hometown of Pawlin, north of New York City, on Sunday, November the Second. This concludes my presidential address. I will now take the questions of the media representatives present in the Oval Office.’’ There was an immediate storm of shouted questions from the reporters present, forcing Warren to point at a particular newsperson.

‘’NBC, go ahead!’’

‘’Mister President, shouldn’t the fact that General Dows is a military officer disqualify her for the post of Secretary of Defense?’’

‘’Normally, it would. However, General Dows has left active service some eight years ago and then transferred to the Reserves. Also, the leaders of Congress have accepted to wave the usual restrictions against officers serving in a cabinet post, in view of the interim, temporary nature of her assignment as Secretary of Defense. I would like as well to underline the fact that you will not find a more competent leader with experience of combined military operations in times of war. She also happens to possess the unique talent of being able to remember her past incarnations, which gives her 7,000 years of life experience. ABC, you may ask the next question.’’

‘’Mister President, Miss Dows is the owner, CEO and chief designer of the Hughes Aircraft Corporation, which is presently producing aircraft for our military. Wouldn’t this constitute a flagrant case of conflict of interest while she is acting as Secretary of Defense?’’

‘’I will let Miss Dows answer that. Ingrid?’’

Ingrid, who had like Warren anticipated that question, then spoke up with assurance at the cameras facing her.

‘’There won’t be any conflict of interest concerning me and Hughes Aircraft during my incoming three months as Secretary of Defense, for the simple reason that I will not intervene in any contract negotiation which would involve in any way the corporation I own. If any such negotiation surfaces, then I will let the Deputy Secretary of Defense in charge of the concerned armed service take the decisions independently of me. He will then vet his decisions with Vice-President Eisenhower. I am also a profoundly honest person and I am dedicated to serve the United States and pass the interest of the nation ahead of my own personal interests. Like I said as a joke to one friend in the past, I am too honest to be a politician, while a character in a movie said that quote, I am a politician, which means that, when I am not kissing babies, I am stealing their lollipops, unquote. Well, I don’t steal lollipops.’’ There were quite a few chuckles at her joke, including from President Warren and from his cabinet members, before the ABC reporter asked Ingrid another question.

‘’Uh, what movie was that, Miss Dows?’’

‘’The movie was titled ‘The Hunt for Red October’. Don’t bother looking up for that movie, mister: it was or rather will be produced in 1990, in the parallel timeline my adoptive mother, Nancy Laplante, came from. I learned much from Nancy about many things before she died, killed by the German Gestapo in 1941.’’ There was then a short silence at those last words before a Washington Post reporter asked a question that was again targeted at Ingrid.

‘’Miss Dows, do you have some special goals in mind about what you will do while you are Secretary of Defense?’’

‘’My main goal will be to continue to reinforce the capacities and efficiency of our armed forces, following in the solid steps taken by my predecessor, Vice-President Eisenhower. If you would ask me what are those steps, then my answer is simple: that’s classified information and you can’t have it.’’

Dwight Eisenhower, along with the other ex-military members of the cabinet, had a good chuckle at that, while that brought a smile on Earl Warren’s face.

‘’Well, as you can see, my new Secretary of Defense has a special sense of humor, on top of being a top-notch leader and administrator. If you don’t have more questions for me or my other cabinet members, then I will declare this interview over.’’

Warren then waited until the reporters and cameramen had left the Oval Office before turning his swivel chair and smiling to Ingrid.

‘’Well, those were good replies on your part, Ingrid. So, you don’t steal lollipops, really?’’

‘’Not yet, Mister President.’’ replied Ingrid while grinning.

Six days later, Ingrid, along with President Warren and the other members of his cabinet, went to the small town of Pawlin, in New York State, to attend the burial of Thomas Dewey and of his wife Frances in the cemetery located near the town’s Episcopal Church. Ingrid chose to bring Hien with her for that ceremony, so that she could feel what the nation was going through. Then, during the next two days, Ingrid continued to empty her ‘in’ basket at her new office, taking a short break from work on Tuesday to go vote in the presidential elections, which also included elections for all the seats in the House of Representatives and for many of the seats in the Senate. President Warren then gave an early day off to his White House staff, imitated by Ingrid and the other members of Warren’s cabinet, who sent their own staff home early, so that they could either vote or, if they had already done so, to go watch the results with their families.

22:43 (Washington Time)

Tuesday, November 04, 1952 ‘C’

Ingrid’s suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel

Washington, D.C.

Hien, who had insisted on staying up late in order to watch with Ingrid, her nanny and her private educator the televised news on the elections, finally fell asleep on the sofa facing the room’s television set. Ingrid gently carried her to the main bedroom and put her daughter in bed, giving her a last kiss on the forehead before returning into the lounge to join back Hien’s nanny, the loyal Madam Nguyen, and Cheryl Blake, Hien’s private educator. Cheryl, a 26-year-old, highly intelligent black young woman, had come to Ingrid’s attention when the latter had looked for employees for the daycare she was opening at her aircraft prototype center as a service and employment benefit for her technicians, engineers and clerical staff. Despite being a fully qualified early child education teacher, the poor Cheryl had been the victim of the rampant racism permeating the Los Angeles area in the late 1940s and had been despairing about finding work when Ingrid had hired her some three years ago. In turn, Hien had quickly befriended Cheryl, while the latter genuinely loved the little Vietnamese girl.

Sitting on the sofa between Madam Nguyen and Cheryl Blake, Ingrid saw on the television screen that the first voting results had started to be published. While very preliminary, a pattern was already starting to form, prompting a question from Cheryl to Ingrid.

‘’Do you think that President Warren will win, Ingrid, even though his nomination as presidential candidate dates back to only a few days before the elections?’’

‘’He has a fair chance in my opinion, Cheryl. If still alive, President Dewey would have won these elections fairly easily, as he was quite popular with the public. The fact that Warren retained Dewey’s cabinet and took Dwight Eisenhower, himself a very popular figure, as his Vice-President, could only help him today. As for his Democratic Party rival, Adlai Stevenson, I believe him to be a decent, honest politician with moderate views. However, his big problem is his lack of visibility with the American public, which contrasts with the public popularity of Vice-President Eisenhower and the general public satisfaction with the results of President Dewey’s policies during the past four years.’’

‘’Hum, I believe that you’re right about that, Ingrid. On my part, what I dislike the most about the Democratic ticket is Stevenson’s choice for candidate Vice-President. John Sparkman, who is from Alabama, is an open, avowed racist, like too many present democratic politicians from Southern States. I, for one thing, would never want to see a racist like Sparkman anywhere near the White House.’’

‘’Amen to that, Cheryl.’’

The two of them then fell mostly silent for the next couple of hours, until Ingrid nearly shouted with joy when she saw the results for the Senate seat at play in Massachusetts.

‘’YEAH! WAY TO GO, JOHN!’’

Both Cheryl and Madam Nguyen looked questioningly at Ingrid, prompting the later to provide them with an explanation for her reaction.

‘’Uh, I happen to know well John F. Kennedy, who just won his Senate seat in Massachusetts.’’

‘’How well do you know him, Ingrid?’’ asked Cheryl with a sneaky smile.

‘’Very well indeed, Cheryl. Let’s keep it at that.’’

‘’Okay!’’

About one hour later, just after a tired Madam Nguyen went to bed, the newscasters at CBS made an early declaration, naming Earl Warren and the Republicans as the predicted winners of the presidential elections. CBS also predicted that the Republicans were going to gain control of both the House and the Senate, making this a Republican clean sweep. Cheryl Blake and Ingrid then shared a congratulory hug while keeping their voices low, in order not to wake up Hien or Madam Nguyen.

‘’Congratulations, Ingrid: you get to avoid being part of a lameduck government until next January. Who do you think President Warren will pick to replace you at the end of January?’’

‘’I don’t have a clue yet about that and it won’t really matter, as I will leave Washington in January, regardless of who will replace me: I am just not made to be a politician. The only things I want are to build and fly planes and to raise my sweet Hien.’’