Free Two Peasants and a President by Frederick Aldrich Page A

ratings.  
    “Republican Senator Virgil Baines, in a speech less than one hour ago, claimed that the Philippine warship lost in the South China Sea was in fact sunk by a Chinese submarine.  China has maintained that their frigate only fired warning shots across her bow as part of a campaign to assert sovereignty over an area of more than 1.4 million square miles.”
    “China has also previously insisted that the Philippine vessel was in Chinese waters, in spite of the fact that the Filipino ship was sunk approx i mately seventy miles west Palawan , the largest island in the southern-western Philippines, and more than seven hundred miles from China.”
    “Response in the Philippine capitol of Manila has been swift and vi o lent.  Rock-throwing mobs surrounded the Chinese embassy and only quick action by the military prevented further violence.  The Philippine gover n ment has requested an emergency session of the UN Security Council.”
    “Calls to the White House and the Chinese embassy have not been r e turned. We will continue to bring you breaking news on this story as we receive it.”
     
    ******
     
    The president stabbed the remote with his thumb and tossed it on the coffee table in the oval office.  “Damn ! ” he uttered.  His chief of staff and press secretary sat stone-faced.  The door flew open and the first lady burst in, slamming the door in the face of the Secret Service agent trailing her.
    “That son of a bitch!  Who the hell does he think he is?” 
    The timid and unctuous press secretary cast his eyes downward, hoping to avoid the attention of a first lady who had on more than a few occasions addressed him as a principal might speak to a pubescent seven th grader.  In truth, he was terrified of her and he had never seen her this ugly before.
    “We’ve got to come up with a response, and quickly,” she said.  Looking over at the cowering press secretary she ordered:  “Out!”  Less than six seconds later the door had closed behind him.
    “What’s Stuart doing?” the first lady demanded. 
    “He’s sewing a Boston necktie,” the president responded, referring to an old Boston machine trick, something that could be hung around the neck of a political opponent.
    “What kind of necktie?” she continued. 
    “Let‘s just say it involves a hidden video camera,” replied the pres i dent.
    “What are you planning to tell the press?”
    In truth the president hadn’t come up with the answer to that question.  Obviously there’d been a major leak, but with the USS Hawaii still in the Pacific, that left only the Department of Defense and a few members of the cabinet and national security team.  The president thought he had a pretty good idea, but he was not yet certain and a cabinet shake up in the midst of a crisis would only make him appear more inept, not to mention dishonest. 
    “If you’d get out of my face for a minute,” he shot back at her, “I might be able to come up with an answer.”  His chief of staff sat wishing he’d been expelled along with the press secretary.  As was her custom, the first lady retreated not an inch, and he was getting weary of being forced to listen to her frequent tirade s . 
    “It was that b astard, Benedict,” she ranted, “he’s always wanted a show down with China.  I told you he was a bad idea.”
    “Would you rather have seen him nominated for president?” the president asked.  There was no reply.
    “It seems pretty clear,” the Chief of Staff said, finally summoning the courage to speak,  “if it’s confirmed that we knew about the sub, the Repu b licans will trumpet it all over Washington and the right-wing media will cr u cify us for being too cowardly to stand up to the Chinese.  If we climb on the anti-China bandwagon we can kiss an y future investments goodbye – end of expansion, end of administration.” 
    “Unless we want to just sit around slitting our wri sts,” he continued, “there’s only one