Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

A unified Korea ITTL should be an earlier and larger supplier of steel on the world's market, and that is not helping the United States at all.
Rep. James Hendrix while wanting to stand on his own in crafting the "Save United States Steel" Act, is not going to cross "Big Bill" Stoughton as "Big Bill" will still be around long after Nixon goes back to San Clemente.

As seen IOTL, American workers will not care who owns the factory as long as they get paid, so to them a working German owned steel plant is better than a closed US owned steel plant.
Another factor is that there is no Taft-Hartley Act ITTL and that makes it easier for the United Steel Workers to organize in the new plants with the help of their German union counterparts.
 
Part 145, Chapter 2631
Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Thirty-One



26th July 1977

Richthofen Estate, Rural Silesia

“Fraulein Auer is an opinionated young woman who is clearly not afraid to voice those opinions” Ilse read the letter from Mathilda’s school aloud. “That has proven to be a bit much for her Professors at times.”

Manfred the Elder snorted in laughter. Mathilda was doing well in school as far as getting good marks was concerned, just there were a few issues that the school felt her guardians, namely Ilse and Albrecht needed to address over the Summer Holiday. Unfortunately, Albrecht’s father was present as they were discussing the matter and Ilse didn’t exactly find his perspective helpful.

“You approve of this sort of conduct?” Ilse asked her father-in-law.

“If I felt that she was wrong, I wouldn’t” Manfred said. It seemed like his greatest joy these days was in watching his grandchildren drive his children insane.

In the case of Mathilda that had come in the form of a pair of essays she had written that had reflected how she had conducted herself over the Spring Term. The first had been a couple thousand words about how she thought that Agamemnon deserved far worse than merely being beheaded by his wife after what he had done to their daughter, Iphigenia. Mathilda had then suggested several ideas for what Clytemnestra should have done instead that involved a lot more blood, fire, and screaming. The Professor found that to be rather disturbing. The Headmistress had been informed and she had called Ilse. That might have been the end of it, except a few weeks later Mathilda had employed her poison pen again. This time it was her opinion of the March family from a book she had read in English Class, and it had not been complimentary. Giving up your dreams and settling for mediocre domesticity unless you were conveniently dead by the end of the book, was how she had termed it.

“What my father is trying to say is that Tilda is a modern young woman who can be a bit rebellious when it comes to the confines of a classical education” Albrecht said trying to be helpful, which made Ilse wish that his career had not kept him away from home so much over the last few years.

“More like old fashioned” Manfred said, “Very old fashioned.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Albrecht asked.

“Enough” Ilse said, more than a little worried about what Manfred might tell his son about the young woman who had inadvertently become their middle daughter. She found Mathilda absolutely exasperating at times, then there were others when she proved to be the best possible big sister for Ingrid.

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Mathilda was walking down the forest trail with sandaled feet listening to the sound of birds and insects, enjoying the smell of earth and the plants that surrounded them. While her cotton dress was perfect for the season, her friend. Or at least that was what everyone was calling her, Edmée, or Eddi as she liked to be called, was dressed almost as if they were back in school. Rounding out their little party was Ingrid and Mathilda’s dog Freyja. As was what had become tradition with them Mathilda and Ingrid were singing to the trees, trading verses as they walked. It was the sort of improvisation that Mathilda had once done with her mother, and she was happy to do it with Ingrid.

“What is that song about Tilda?” Eddi asked as they concluded the song.

“The changing of seasons, time, life, a bit of everything” Mathilda replied. She had tried to explain her singing to others before, but found that they generally didn’t understand or jumped to all sorts of strange conclusions. She had found it easier just to let the songs speak for themselves and not to include much about the religious aspects.

“I think that it is very pretty” Eddi said as they rounded a bend in the trail.

“Thank you” Mathilda replied and Ingrid gave her a gap-toothed grin.

When Summer Holiday rolled around this year, Eddi’s parents had told her that they were going to be abroad and that she could spend it at the home of her Aunt like she had in prior years. The Aunt in question despised Eddi and her children tended to echo their mother’s sentiments. It was so bad that if it were possible, Eddi would have stayed in Tzschocha. Mathilda had asked Eddi if she wanted to go to Opa’s estate in a moment of weakness and Eddi had been acting as if she were the greatest friend she could ever have in the weeks since. It was something that Mathilda felt a bit guilty about, because she felt that she had not been a particularly great friend to Eddi.

“Is this it?” Eddi asked, pushing her glasses back on her nose.

“Yes” Mathilda replied as they descended into the small valley. They had spoken about this place over lunch and Eddi had wanted to see it. Even now at the height of summer the air grew noticeably cooler as they passed among the trees with trunks a meter or more thick. “Opa says that this place was ancient when Rome was just a settlement on the Palatine Hill and all of Germany once looked like this.”

“I find that hard to imagine” Eddi said as they reached the tiny brook that flowed through the valley. Freyja, in the manner of dogs since the dawn of time, found a nice spot to sleep as her humans went about exploring the grove.
 
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In the case of Mathilda that had come in the form of a pair of essays she had written that had reflected how she had conducted herself over the Spring Term. The first had been a couple thousand words about how she thought that Agamemnon deserved far worse than merely being beheaded by his wife after what he had done to their daughter, Iphigenia. Mathilda had then suggested several ideas for what Clytemnestra should have done instead that involved a lot more blood, fire, and screaming. The Professor found that to be rather disturbing.
I wholeheartedly agree with Mathilda. Clytemnestra should have started with the Mycenaean Greek equivalent of a cheese grater and then worked her way up. or down, from there.
 
It is not hard to see how Kat's expansive definition of family has influenced Ilse as she sees Mathilda being a very integral part of her own family, and now Matilda has added Eddi to the family without saying a word.
 
It is not hard to see how Kat's expansive definition of family has influenced Ilse as she sees Mathilda being a very integral part of her own family, and now Matilda has added Eddi to the family without saying a word.
And up until Ilse met Kat she was an orphan. She is going to hold family she has as precious because of that.
 
And up until Ilse met Kat she was an orphan. She is going to hold family she has as precious because of that.
That is true, but Ilse has trust issues from being abandoned and is very wary of letting people in.
It took some time for Ilse to completely accept Mathilda, and it was how Ilse saw Mathilda being such a great help by keeping Opa von Richthofen engaged and entertained, helping out with Ingrid, and helping Suse Rosa before she gave birth that Ilse finally and wholeheartedly accepted Mathilda.
And now Mathilda has brought home a “friend” from school who basically has been thrown away by her own family, that is going to resonate with Ilse and Eddi will be told that there is always room for her.
 
Part 145, Chapter 2632
Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Thirty-Two



27th July 1977

Over the Mid-Atlantic

The Stewardess was happy that Nina and Lutz were not causing trouble at the moment. Lutz was asleep in Kiki’s arms and Nina had a couple coloring books out and that was drawing her undivided attention. It had been suggested that if Kiki wanted her quiet for a few hours she would acquire a 64-piece box of crayons for her, so far that had worked on this flight, but Kiki knew that there were still several hours ahead of them.

As she had boarded the flight home, Kiki had been forced to conclude that the United States had changed since she had been there before and not for the better. Everywhere she had gone, there had been this feeling in the air, like if the entire nation was in a defensive crouch ready to lash out in violence at any second. According to news reports she had read things were supposedly looking up in America. Through a mixture of legislation and legal rulings, the country was finally living up to its highest aspirations. That wasn’t what greeted her once she had left Los Angeles though. It was like if people resented the idea that they might have to treat their neighbors as equals.

When she had been preparing for this tour she had read a recent bestselling novel by Jerome Garcia, in it the Science Fiction author had gone on a bit of existential tangent when he mentioned that American life was defined by tiny boxes. You lived in a tiny box in the suburbs, you got into a different tiny box in the shape of a car to fight your way through traffic to sit in yet another tiny box in the form of an office. It was sort of hard not to see the obvious comparison to a prison cell that Garcia had made, and he had pointed out that everyone was completely terrified that someone might take their box, whichever one it was, away. It seemed that there was a fourth, somewhat larger box as well, the sort of neighborhood where they could insulate themselves from the very sort of reality they strived to maintain. Kiki had not gotten the chance to meet Jerome Garcia while she had been in San Francisco this time, but if his writings were a reflection on who he was, then he was probably an interesting man.

It had been that passage of the book that had kept coming to mind as she had dealt with President Nixon. There had been an underlaying anger there. When he had mentioned the actions of the BND there had been no real heat behind it, it had been her dealings with Oglebay Norton that had what was at issue. She had seen the visible decline of industry in Upper Midwest in the form of shuttered factories and warehouses. The same thing had been happening in certain parts of Germany as mining had declined in the east and heavy industry in the west. How that had rippled through the economy of the region taking out dozens of other businesses in the process. In Germany, they had engaged in a process of modernization, reinvestment, and tearing down what couldn’t be saved. That seemed to be working, but to suggest that similar policy be pursued and demonstrating that it was possible had apparently stepped over an invisible line.

That had just left Kiki exhausted. Just like the rest of the tour had and she was really starting to understand Kat’s attitude towards the United States. The only time that she had felt welcome had been when she had visited the Valenzuela family, and many Americans considered them even greater outsiders than she was. Tonight, she was going home, first to Hamburg and then the connecting flight to Munich. She would sleep in her own bed and just be with her family for a few weeks. Hopefully, her brother would not see fit to ask her for anything for a long time.



La Massana, Andorra

It was Marie Alexandra’s idea. After years of bullshitting everyone, perhaps Tatiana owed it to herself to actually see the Pyrenees Mountains. Of course, Marie rather pointedly told Tatiana that she had no interest in backpacking, not when there were plenty of perfectly good trains and buses over the mountains. That was perfectly in keeping with who Tatiana’s little sister was. She loved to explore, but only so long as there was hotel with full amenities nearby at the end of the day. And as much as it annoyed Tatiana to admit it, this beat waiting tables in Boston by a long shot.

The choice to go to Andorra first also made perfect sense when looking at it from Marie’s perspective. The Principality was seated neatly between France and Spain, so it had a foot in both cultures. The chance to speak French and Spanish while shopping in Andorra la Vella and taking in the local culture was the perfect recreation for her.

At Marie’s insistence, they had found a hotel in a mountain village outside the capital that was happy to have paying guests during the summer. All it took was a look around the lobby to see the paintings that were a part of the decorations, downhill skiing and tobogganing mostly, to see that was where the hotel made most of its money.

Now, Marie was talking about what she wanted to do over the next few weeks until she needed to return to Montreal. They had an entire country to explore and so little time. That was certainly one way to look at it.
 
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The 64-piece crayon set, small wonder it can keep a child like Nina occupied for hours.

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Kiki and her Family along with the entourage that accompanied them on this trip should have at least the entire First-Class section of the Lufthansa flight they were on.
The trip did accomplish the goal of showing that the German Imperial Family in the guise of the Princess Royal are not the "Monsters under the bed" that the more Anti-German extremists love to portray them as.

The steel industry in the United States and other heavy industries need a massive revitalization effort, and a combination of government incentives plus more foreign investment is going to be a win-win for everyone if the breaks go the right way.
With the passage and more importantly the enforcement of Civil Rights laws, it will allow for the South to catch up economically to the rest of the country as anti-discrimination and segregation boycotts are ended.

For the German Desks at the various Headquarters of the different intelligence services, they are in a bind as they want to find out what Marie Alexandra Kristina von Mischner-Blackwood is doing, but they have no way to ask as that would bring them to the attention of The Tigress.
As shown previously, Marie has made a sport of spotting any surveillance attempts on her and has easily either ditched them or exposing them in the most embarrassing way possible.
They may try to go after her non-entity of a sister Tatiana, as she may be an easier target to get close to.
 
For the German Desks at the various Headquarters of the different intelligence services, they are in a bind as they want to find out what Marie Alexandra Kristina von Mischner-Blackwood is doing, but they have no way to ask as that would bring them to the attention of The Tigress.
As shown previously, Marie has made a sport of spotting any surveillance attempts on her and has easily either ditched them or exposing them in the most embarrassing way possible.
They may try to go after her non-entity of a sister Tatiana, as she may be an easier target to get close to.
Except Tatiana is anything but a non-entity and, despite what she herself may believe about her change in career paths, can look forward to an exciting career in the Imperial Foreign Office Diplomatic Service. Think about it, from now on Tatiana will be travelling on a full diplomatic passport and, once the various intelligence and counter-intelligence services register that she is a von Mischner-Blackwood, any embassy, consulate or diplomatic mission to which she is attached will see significant resources assigned to follow her specifically. This will naturally be to the detriment of their surveillance efforts on other members of said embassies, consulates or diplomatic missions, because their institutional bias, prejudice and paranoia won't let them do anything else but assume that she is "up to something". Just like her mother, grandfathers and (possibly/probably) her father & younger sister.

Now picture this:

Tatiana leaves the embassy/consulate with a large shoulder bag and a camera. She takes public transport, getting on and off at apparently random places. She takes a lot of photographs, often of seemingly bizarre objects, occasionally of things that they probably wish that she wouldn't, but hey, they're in public, so they can't stop her. Then there are the few times where, while taking photos of bizarre things like trash in an alley, she'll rearrange things "to get a better shot", sometimes she counts or taps on brick walls. Sometimes she buys a newspaper or a magazine and sits on a park bench, folding and refolding said paper, before leaving the newspaper/magazine behind, or not. Say that on Thursdays, she frequents a certain cafe/diner, where she sits in the exact same seat/booth every single time for exactly one hour. Sometimes she talks with people, others she just sips her coffee or tea while doodling in a notebook. Sometimes she throws her doodle into the trash, sometimes she doesn't. Rumours spreading from the FBI indicates that she is definitely a player in the Great Game, well trained in field-craft, so her bizarre antics cannot be ignored.

Now imagine what a counter-intelligence agency would do in response. Can you imagine them trying to decide if the ice cream that she threw in the trash was a signal to a covert German agent, or was it because she decided that she didn't like the taste? Did she really bend down to retie a shoelace or did she service a dead drop?
Can you imagine the manpower they would divert just to ensure that yet another von Mischner-Blackwood doesn't humiliate them again?

Now imagine what they are missing while they follow her around.
 
They would tie themselves up in knots trying to work out what was going on while the actual officers are swanning about doing everything they need to without so much as a single tail.
 
Plus points if Tatiana is posted to some where like Mexico or Cuba that is just close enough to the US to get them really spooked. Then have her Mom and other assorted relatives visit her at different times. Imagine having her be posted to Cuba and deciding to go on a trip with friends to the Bahamas and the boat has "Problem with its <insert propulsion/hull/other item>" and it has lots of other boats come by to offer to help but they wait until its fixed.
 
Tatiana still has the Margaret Anne Morgan alias, and Anne Morgan is an United States citizen and with just a state issued ID can cross into the United States from Mexico without a passport at any border crossing from San Ysidro, CA to Port Arthur, TX.
This was true IOTL until the 9/11 attacks.
Remember in the preview, Anne showed a MA drivers license to a Boston PD officer that showed her address in Salem, MA.
I doubt that given the traditional rivalries that the FBI had with other governmental agencies, that the FBI has informed the US Department of Justice, the Border Patrol, and the INS to put "Margaret Anne Morgan" on a watchlist .
 
Tatiana still has the Margaret Anne Morgan alias, and Anne Morgan is an United States citizen and with just a state issued ID can cross into the United States from Mexico without a passport at any border crossing from San Ysidro, CA to Port Arthur, TX.
This was true IOTL until the 9/11 attacks.
Remember in the preview, Anne showed a MA drivers license to a Boston PD officer that showed her address in Salem, MA.
I doubt that given the traditional rivalries that the FBI had with other governmental agencies, that the FBI has informed the US Department of Justice, the Border Patrol, and the INS to put "Margaret Anne Morgan" on a watchlist .
There is no way that the Germans would make that assumption. That cover has been blown, with an FBI agent actually visiting her parental home (albeit reluctantly). As a result, it has been decided that Tatiana will now be a 'legal' officer of German Intelligence, which means that she uses her own name, has an actual job in an embassy/consulate or diplomatic mission and has an extremely official diplomatic passport with diplomatic immunity that comes with it. However, because the Americans ITTL have proven themselves to be less than reliable in respecting such passports, Tatiana will almost certainly have a cover or two that are unsullied. Just in case.
 
Much like her mother, Tatiana will have so many people falling over each other wherever she is posted and then they end up doing all kinds of stupid things. She could go get coffee and have all sorts of people going to that coffee shop, want to engage in some local aid? Have Tat go to visit a restaurant, diner or coffee shop on a regular basis and all kinds of business shows up.
 
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