From: gwb
To: Hank Blakely
Sent: Thursday, August 2, 2001
Subject: No way to run a war

If you know anybody wants a used Cabinet, I got one I'm willin' to let go cheap. And I ain't talkin' about furniture, neither.

'Coupla weeks ago, I seen 13 Days, that Cuban Missile Crisis movie, for the second time. I didn't remember nothin' from the first time, which was just after my inauguration, 'cause some genius thought it'd be clever to invite Teddy Kennedy and his family over for dinner and a movie. It was 'sposed to be a cymbal a' my reachin' out.

What it was was a night in the cineplex a' Hell. I was so distracted I couldn't concertate. In the first place, I am no particular fan a' the Kennedys. And once Teddy gets his arms around the popcorn bowl you can forget about gettin' any yourself. And ever' time somethin' important happened in the movie, they'd nudge each other and laugh like they knew somethin' the rest of us didn't - which I guess they did.

But what I hated most a' all is that whenever the movie Jack Kennedy did somethin' smart or brave, I could feel them lookin' at me sideways. It was a most uncomfortable evenin'.

This time it made more sense. And even though the movie was - if y' don't mind my sayin' so - a kinda liberal's wet dream, I'd still have to say it was a absorbin' filmic experience. Since you didn't notice no atom bombs goin' off back then, I won't be givin' nothin' away to tell you the movie crisis worked out as okay as the real one.

The mornin' after seein' it the second time, while Laura was explainin' the newspaper to me, she come across these two stories about makin' a game outta the missile crisis. Somebody'd used some mathematics called "game theory", to figure out the best course a' action in confusin' situations, and somebody else'd made a similaration of the crisis itself. And then I got this idea. This awful, terrible, horrible idea.

Just a coupla weeks before, I'd made a speech about how America's agriculture is a national security asset, so in a way the Department a' Agriculture is as important as the Department a' Defense. And it come to me that, when you think about it, the whole Cabinet is defensive. So I thought, why not sharpen up our national defense skills by similaratin' the Cuban Missile Crisis? And then - and this is where I now believe I went most wrong - I figured to have me and the Cabinet take on the roles of the actual crisis folk.

I called over to Defense, and Rummy and some a' his people found a famous international professor a' game theory, name of Alberich Rheingold. The Professor was a real strange little man: very short and kinda stooped over, with bushy white hair and coke-bottle eyeglasses, and a thick, raspy, accenty kinda voice that made me wanna give him a cough drop ever' time he said somethin'.

But he was one whizzbang game-maker. In a coupla days he'd worked up equations that covered all the things that coulda happened in the crisis, and he made a sorta script outta note cards for each a' the key roles. Then we matched up the roles with 12 a' the 14 Cabinet positions. Here's the list we come up with:

ROLE	PLAYER	AGENCY
John F. Kennedy President	George Bush	White House
Nikita S. Khrushchev Russian Premier	Colin Powell	State
Fidel Castro Cuban Premier	Anne Veneman	Agriculture
Robert F. Kennedy Attorney General	John Ashcroft	Justice
Kenny O'Donnell Presidential Adviser	Tommy Thompson	Health and Human Services
Robert McNamara Secretary of Defense	Don Evans	Commerce
McGeorge Bundy National Security Adviser	Gale Ann Norton	Interior
Curtis LeMay Air Force Chief of Staff	Donald Rumsfeld	Defense
Dean Acheson Fmr. Secretary of Defense	Rod Paige	Education
The CIA	Elaine Chao	Labor
Adlai Stevenson U.N. Ambassador	Norman Mineta	Transportation
Robert Lovett Fmr. Secretary of State	Spencer Abraham	Energy
Dean Rusk Secretary of State	Paul O'Neill	Treasury

And very early the followin' Monday mornin', we was all gathered at the big conference table with Rheingold explainin' how the game worked. We had a maximum a' 14 similarated days to act out the crisis. Rheingold would announce when each new "day" started, and referee the action. Most important - and another thing I hadn't thought through all the way - the cards was only a guideline. We didn't need to stick exactly to the way things actually happened. We was allowed a certain amount a' embolism.

This looked like it was gonna be fun. I was real excited. A coupla things tended to throttle my joy, though. Annie Veneman had the flu, so she asked Christie Todd Whitman to take her place. Now, Christie and me ain't got on so good since I appointed her to the EPA. Turned out I had to go back on a few promises I made her then; which woulda been okay if I'd remembered to let her know before the public found out. Caught her sorta by surprise, it did.

And Elaine Chao was our third or fourth choice for Labor Secretary after Linda Chavez blew up. Our thinkin' here was that Elaine could help us with Asian voters - bein' as how they hadn't turned out for me as big as we'd hoped. Well, I congratulated Elaine up and down on her bein' Chinese (I've noticed that racial people take a lotta pride in their groups. I'd prob'ly feel the same way if I belonged to a racial group), but Elaine didn't seem to be as excited by the fact of her Asian-ness as I was. Still, we get along fine, but in a kinda sandpapery way, if y' know what I mean.

My sense of misgivin' about those two got more amplified when I noticed that they was readin' their cards with their heads together and gigglin' a lot. And then I looked around the room at ever'body else studyin' their cards, and come to realize they all seemed a lot more chipper than I woulda expected at that hour a' the mornin'.

Professor Dr. Rheingold started things rollin with: "Day One: October 15!"

Right away the CIA (Elaine) tells me: "Mr. President, we have proof the Soviets have installed medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba."

"Well," I said, "This can't be good news. How many they got?"

"32 for sure," she says to me, "But we think there may be an additional ten or more in other locations, and we think most of those may be launch-ready."

"Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Time out!" I shouted. "My cards don't say nothin' about no launch-ready missiles this early in the game!"

"We added them," said Castro (Christie), with a big syrup smile.

See? Now right there's where I shoulda simply said "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Good day", got up and walked out. That's what I shoulda did.

Instead, I asked Rheingold, "Can they do that?".

"Yah," he said, smilin', "zey can do zat" ('scuse my German). I thought I heard some snickerin' down at the end a' the table, but I couldn't be sure.

I though for a moment. This early in the game, and I was already runnin' in the dark. "Oooookay," I said to Rheingold, "Spose I could talk 'em outta it?".

"You could try," he said with a shrug.

So I asked Castro (Christie). "Hey, Fidel, can't we work this out?"

"Hah!," she said.

Okay, then. "Hey, Nikita! Why don't you fellas get them missiles outta there? I got elections comin' up next month, and you know how that is."

"Not really, Mr. President," said Khrushchev (Colin), laughin', "But what missiles do you mean? I have no idea what you are talking about". Somebody snickered again.

I exploded, "Well that's just a bare-faced lie! We got pictures, dammit!". Khrushchev just shrugged.

"Day Three, October zeh 17th", said the Professor.

"All right," I said, turnin' to my advisers, "what're my options here, boys?"

"An air-strike, obviously." said Acheson, "We need to hit them hard and fast".

"Well," I said, that makes sense."

Lovett said "We can't do that. It would mean instant war. Our only choice is to blockade Cuba.".

"Yeah," I said, I see your point."

"No, No!" Bundy said, "A blockade is an automatic act of war. We should do nothing until our options are clearer."

"Well, Damn!" I said, slammin' my pen down, "each a' you got different recommendations, and each one sounds right! How'm I 'sposed to choose?"

"Ah, yes," the Professor said, "Zat is zeh hell of it, isn't it? Day Four, October zeh 18th."

This wasn't goin' at all well. Days Four and Five was endless chit-chat about air-strike-blockade-do nothin'-air-strike-blockade-do nothin', and so on. Five days already, and nowhere was the only place we'd got to.

On Day Six, the CIA tells me the Cubans got more medium-range ballistics, some anti-aircraft missiles, and some Russian bombers. By this time I was pretty sure if I heard one more cackle outta Fidel, she could start lookin' for a job in somebody else's administration. Then Curtis LeMay tells me the air-strike could cost 20,000 casualties, just as the Professor says, Day Eight, October zeh twenty-second"

Well, I hadda do somethin' fast, so I decided to play it safe and do what JFK done, so I okayed the blockade.

Day Eight passed pretty tense. The Soviet ships was gettin' closer to the quarantine line, and Fidel kept eggin' Khrushchev on.

I still couldn't get no consensual satisfaction outta my advisors. McNamara said we'd prob'ly have to fire on some a' their ships. Rusk said he thought the Russians was weakenin'.

Then on Day Nine, McNamara tells me the Soviets got a sub runnin' with the ships. "Well thanks a hell of a lot for that late-breakin' news, Mr. Secretary!" I yelled, "How long you been savin' that tidbit?"

On Day Ten, October 24th, things, which up to now had been goin' to hell slowly, now speeded up. Most a' the Russian ships stopped at the quarantine line, but some slipped past us.

Now, what happened next is a matter of some debation. I was yellin' at the CIA and LeMay for missin' them ships, when McNamara says he didn't know if they was carryin' missiles or baby food. But all I heard was "carryin' missiles", and we had a cotangent for that, so I right away ordered our ships to fire on the tanker Bucharest.

This caused some consternation on the other side. With Fidel yellin' "Get him! Get him!", Khrushchev fired back at our ships, and ordered his troops to start marchin' on Berlin. In response to which we went to DefCon 2 - the last step before war. Then ever'body stopped and held their breaths.

"Day 12, October zeh 26th!"

Adlai Stevenson said now we got no choice but to remove our missiles in Turkey as a trade for Cuba, somethin' LeMay and the other Chiefs was dead set against. But we brung it up with Khrushchev anyway, suggestin' that it could be done later, so it didn't look like we'd chickened.

Then, on the followin' day - Day 13 - one a' our U2 planes accidental crossed into Russian airspace, and another U2 was shot down over Cuba. Now Khrushchev demanded the missile trade be done immediately - no more talk about waitin' to make us look good. I asked him to be reasonable, remindin' him again about our up n' comin' elections.

"Mr. President," he says, "You be reasonable. We have fewer than fifty missiles a mere 90 miles from your country. You have many more a mere 150 miles from ours. What is the difference? There can be no question but that you will have to remove yours now." Then he added, "I care nothing about your election, President Bush".

"Kennedy," I corrected.

He smiled, "Of course. 'President Kennedy'." Then somebody (I think it was the same bastard as before, and I swear I'm gonna listen to the tapes later and nail that SOB), muttered "Yeah, right!".

The thought a' lookin' like we'd caved in this close to even a imaginary election made my stomach hurt. I said, "Nikita! I can't do that!"

He give me a cold stare. "Then that is your decision." Then Fidel jumped up and started Shoutin'. "Don't trust him, Nikita! Don't trust him! You can't believe a word the lying bastard says! Shoot him! Shoot him!"

Christie was gettin' over-invested in her role.

But I'd had enough by then. I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit this now, but I kinda lost it right there. "It AIN'T my decision," I yelled. "This is somethin' alla you made me do! It's not my fault! It's not my damn fault!."

I pointed at Colin and Christie, "All you done since the game started is lie to me. What kinda fair play is that, huh?". Then I pointed a finger at my "advisers", "And you three! What I gotta do to get just one solid recommendation outta the three a' you? What'm I 'sposed to do, make up all this by myself?"

Then I pointed to ever'body, "And none a' y'all is any better! I heard all that laughin'. It's just ain't fair! You'd think somebody might help a fella; give him a damn chance, but no! Ever'time I climb up the steps, one a' you's always there to kick the trapdoor out from under me. Well I got a flash for you folks, the joke's on you! I'M THE GODDAMNED PRESIDENT NOW, AND THERE AIN'T NOTHIN' YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!

They was all lookin' at me with open mouths. I guess I was a sight, yellin' and carryin' on, but I had a right. I musta been wavin' my arms a lot, too, 'cause my pen slipped outta my hand and shot up in the air, and as we all watched it come down in a long silvery arc, the Professor said:

"DAY 14, October zeh 28th. Failure to reach resolution in the required time. A Nuclear exchange ensues. Zeh game is ended."

And the pen clattered down on the table and fell onto the floor. Nobody picked it up on the way out.

Next time, I'll just turn the whole thing over to the military. They won't need no 13 days, neither. Four, maybe five, tops, and it'll all be over.

Your good and upset friend,
W

PS: Slight setback on that big project I mentioned before. But I'm workin' on it. So stay tuned!