Free Wag the Dog by Larry Beinhart Page A

is later called the “siege of Khe Sanh.” That occurs in January ’68.
    We get sent out on patrol. Usually a day at a time. Sometimes two or three days. It’s wet. Rain and fog. The country is rain forest, triple canopy. Steep mountains. Lots of ravines. The only thing that happens is that four guys, they start to drip and they need penicillin shots, and everybody, their feet start to rot, but nobody knows what to do about that. Here I am sixteen,most of the guys are eighteen, nineteen, the LT, he’s all of twenty-two or -three. All of us are loaded with testosterone, machismo, whatever you want to call it, and this is dumber and duller than being back home and broke on a Tuesday night.
    Our third week of patrols. By this time they’re letting new guys walk point. Third day, it’s my turn. It’s tense. But nothing happens. Except its raining. Everything gets wet. We’re climbing up and climbing down. We’re slipping and sliding and like every other day discomfort increases, fear and alertness grow dim. But, we get back to the perimeter. Alive. Now I know I’m immortal. Wet and bored, crotch and toes itching, but immortal. Fourth day, I’m second man, oh, maybe a yard or two behind point. All morning, same damn thing. It’s just drizzling. If we were out of the foliage, visibility might be twenty, thirty feet. In the forest, it’s five, maybe ten, feet.
    I’m a yard or two behind point. Suddenly, I see right in front of his foot—trip wire. That moment freezes. I know that the wire is connected to a grenade. Just like I know that the grenade is connected to an NVA patrol, killers like us, and they are connected to an army and all of us are in this thing that has its own existence, like a giant beast, which is called war. From that moment on, everything is forever different.
    The wire on the telephone is, somehow, the same thing. It is a small piece of wire, one that I cannot see but can detect with an instrument, and that wire, I know, is connected to a listener, that listener is connected to an organization, maybe Universal Security, which is connected to something else, probably larger, because U. Sec. does nothing for itself, it is always employed, an agent of another organization. There is a power out there, a great beast, watching. I have just glimpsed its existence.

Chapter
E IGHT

    A IR F ORCE O NE rose above the turbulence. Down below there were all sorts of storms. Up here was a sort of heaven. A steel cocoon close to the stars. Superb whisky. Excellent food. Dedicated servants. James Baker watched the president read Lee Atwater’s memo. When he was done, George Bush said, “Jesus fucking Christ,” the same thing that his secretary of state had said. They were very much in tune.
    â€œYou bet,” his secretary of state said.
    â€œHas anyone seen this?”
    â€œMe and thee,” Baker said.
    â€œTalk about nitty-gritty and cutting through to the nuts of the matter. When Lee Atwater is passing, it’s hardball. 11 I mean this is either out of the park or get thrown out of the game.”
    â€œThat’s true,” Baker said.
    â€œDoes it make sense, or is it from cuckoo-cuckoo land?”
    â€œBushie, I have to tell you, I don’t know. Things would have to be pretty extreme before we considered it.”
    â€œExtremism in defense of virtue is no vice.”
    â€œI’ll tell you one thing, nobody but you and I should see that memo.”
    â€œYou’re right,” the president said. “I want to reread it. Then shred it.”
    It wasn’t a long piece. It had been well thought out. It was short and to the point. That’s the only way to write a memo if you want to actually influence a president. They have too many things to think about to put up with complex ideas.
    Bush read it again. He said three things out loud: “Hollywood?!” “Shred it.” “Jesus fucking Christ.”