Texas Two-Step: Nixon nominates Connally as VP in 1973
- Thread starter wolverinethad
- Start date
He might face liberal Maryland Senator Charles Mathias in the primary but probably nobody else would try to primary him as he picked Reagan as his Vice President to avoid just that.
Sorry for the long gap, but my family has been going through a LOT in the past six weeks and I've had no space to write much.
Understandable. I feel like that is happening to a lot of people recently, myself included. I could never hope to ever be able to find time to write a short story let alone an entire timeline. This story is very intriguing and fun to read so please keep up the great work!
I don't think that's the only reason actually. Apparently he was kicked 6 times. 7 was the final straw
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October 30, 1974
The term “October Surprise” had been in the political lexicon of Americans for a century, at least, and to those with the keenest of political antennae in the nation’s capital, the time was ripe for the President to launch one. In this highly irregular year, though, it rather made sense that the electoral earthquake wasn’t engineered at all, but instead emanated from a more natural combustion in the frozen woods west of Moscow. A few days prior, Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, suffered a severe stroke at his dacha. While they sat on it for a few days, hoping Brezhnev would recover, by the 30th it appeared unlikely that the man would speak again. Like Lenin and Stalin before him, the current head of the Soviet Union’s Politburo and the Communist Party apparatus was a voracious smoker, and when that was combined with the stress of the job, the results were predictable. When the realization sank in, a call was placed to the office of Ambassador Walter Stoessel, asking him to come to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Stalinist-era building resembling that of a Pharaoh’s throne in shape, while possessing all the charm of a T-64 tank. The ambassador’s visit was accomplished with the normal manic detail to security and secrecy that the Soviets were known for.
Andrey Gromyko, Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, did not mince words. Brezhnev was severely ill and unlikely to recover. The Soviets had no intention of going public with the news yet, but they were informing America as it was likely that the SALT II summit would be postponed. Stoessel tried to inquire as to more details, but the man whose nickname around the Kremlin was “Ass of Stone” had not gotten there by being voluble. Upon his return, the ambassador began immediately coding a telex for transmission to Kissinger at the State Department, which was a combination of few facts and much speculation. The position in Moscow was as much intelligence officer as it was diplomat, and the same went for Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Ambassador in Washington. Unbeknownst to Kissinger or Stoessel, one of the embassy staffers had a lucrative side gig as a confidential source for Newsweek’s Moscow correspondent, Al Friendly, Jr., son of the legendary journalist Al Friendly. Friendly Sr. had been headed for the top spot at The Washington Post when Ben Bradlee swooped in and stole that away from him. Junior had been in the business for fifteen years and recently won the prestige appointment in Moscow. The newsmagazines, more than any other news outlets, relied heavily upon money to grease the wheels. Government officials got to write blurbs for $25 in the “Periscope” section of Newsweek, for example. Dinners and cigars and whiskey were used elsewhere in return for juicy leads for purloined documents. In this case, it was more than worth the bottle of Chivas Regal that served as payment.
Friendly knew there was only one way to handle news of this magnitude, and it wasn’t going to be in Moscow. He booked a flight out of Sheremtyevo International Airport for the following morning to go to Paris, home of Newsweek’s European bureau. Friendly wasn’t sure who had more bugs in the Moscow embassy, CIA or the KGB, and Paris would be safe from the prying ears of both countries. There would be another flight there, that of Osborn Elliot, the executive editor of the magazine, who wanted to hear this in person. Competition would make him do his best to keep it from Bradlee, whom Elliot had mentored for a time while serving as managing editor (the number two slot at any publication) when Bradlee was Washington bureau chief for Newsweek. Bradlee would want the news, of course, another scalp on a belt that already included the Pentagon Papers and the first impeached & removed president in American history. Elliott didn’t know the details of the story, but the short phone call he received from Friendly told him that this was a story where Elliot would want to hold it and make sure it got responsible treatment, which is easier to do with a weekly magazine versus a daily newspaper. Not that his former protégé was irresponsible, but the amount of time spent considering the fallout of a story was more compressed in the newspaper world. Friendly, of course, had his own reasons for making sure Bradlee didn’t know a thing until they went to print. A little revenge for Pops. Ben’ll understand. Hell, he might even send me one of his famous letters.
Friendly arrived first at the brand new Charles de Gaulle airport, which opened the previous March, and marveled at how spacious it was, how high the ceilings were, and at the massive electronic flight status board. The baggage claim was faster than Orly ever had been, and Friendly hailed a cab into Paris. He’d booked a room at the Villa Panthéon, a charming boutique hotel in the Latin Quarter on a quiet side street. This ensured a much better chance of secrecy than the bigger, fancier hotels along the Champs-Élysées. He ordered a glass of Bordeaux at the bar, something that was rather cheap to do, and waited for Elliott to arrive. Friendly was on a second glass when the balding, perpetually rumpled editor came through the doors. Friendly waved him over to the bar, where Elliott ordered a scotch, neat, and the two retired to a table on the sidewalk. It was an unseasonably warm day, in the mid-60s, and the sun was out. Coming from Moscow, which was already freezing, Friendly was glad to be outdoors in the sun. Elliott took a large slug from his scotch and looked at his Man in Moscow. “Okay, Al, I flew six hours from New York to listen to you, so what’s so damned secret?” Friendly sipped at his Bordeaux. “Oz, I got the summary of a cable being sent back to Washington from the embassy. Brezhnev is incapacitated and likely to die. He had a massive stroke. The Soviets hoped he’d bounce back, but when he didn’t, they started to panic a little. Called the ambassador to the Foreign Ministry where Gromyko told Stoessel that the Vladivostok summit was off and swore him to secrecy. Such a story, of course, is sure to drive them insane, but this story is huge. There’s going to be a massive fight to replace Leonid Il’ych—he’d been making moves to fully sideline Kosygin and Podgorny to ensure nobody would threaten his seat. They’ve got all this oil money coming in and instead of resolving the issues with housing or consumer goods, they’re just pouring out military aid to other nations. Buying the peace, if you will, and subsidizing oil purchases by the Pact nations. Whoever replaces him is going to swing one way or the other. If it’s a hardliner like Suslov, we’re going to be in big trouble. He hates detenté and will gladly spike it, but if it’s Kosygin or Podgorny, expect some radical reforms to open up that economy. Kosygin is probably the smartest guy there, which in a way makes him dangerous, but he genuinely wants peace because he wants to cut back on the military spending. That, of course, will set off Marshal Grishin, who thinks World War III is always imminent.”
Elliott took another drink. “How solid is your source, Al?” “Embassy staffer, handles comms. I get him a good bottle of Chivas whenever I leave Moscow and he gives me interesting tidbits. It’s a cold, miserable place and you don’t have much of a social life. We assume all of our apartments are bugged. The embassy has more bugs than a Bronx tenement, except they’re all electronic and not usually ours. We all have tails, get followed. They distrust journalists in general, but because my dad was an intel officer during the war, they really distrust me,” Friendly replied. “Oz” nodded. “Okay, I’m going to want to talk to legal about this. He didn’t hand you the actual cable, correct?” The correspondent shook his head in the negative. “Excellent, so our embassy won’t revoke your credentials. Is there anyone at all in their bureaucracy who will talk, Central Committee?” The editor knew it would be a no, but he had to ask anyway. Friendly confirmed that it was a non-starter. “We’ll co-byline it for you, because I’m going to have Kosner backstop this in Washington, maybe see if someone at State will talk. You know how that place is, especially with Kissinger being the leaker-in-chief for the past five years,” Elliott commented. Friendly thought about it, and decided solo glory was useless if the story didn’t run. This would be the cover and it would be a big one. “Sure, Oz, I’d love the help. What else do you need from me?” “Nothing much. You ready to start writing?” The two men got up, Friendly paid the tab at the bar, and they took their bags up to their respective rooms before coming back outside to catch a cab for the bureau. Elliott would call back to D.C., telling Kosner to be ready for a telex with instructions. Friendly began typing away at one of the floater desks, and his copy would be taken by Elliott back to New York. Friendly looked up after a while at Elliott, who was making notes at a nearby desk. “Oz?” “Yeah, Al?” “Can you give my dad a call when you get back, tell him he should make sure to get the next issue? I think he’d love it.” Elliott smiled. “Of course. I might even have Ed hand-deliver it to him.”
Ed Kosner was the man who’d headed the Watergate coverage for the last year and a half as assistant managing editor in Washington, and it was generally agreed that Newsweek had excelled at the task, providing top-tier analysis and solid reporting. Now Kosner himself was working the phones, at 36 still fresh and energetic. He had cultivated sources all around town, having worked under Bradlee for two years when that man was still helming the bureau in D.C. Bradlee had given him his first big assignment, sending him to write about how Jacqueline Kennedy was adapting to life after the murder of her husband, former President John F. Kennedy. Kosner handled the topic with sensitivity and proceeded to climb the ladder. He was supposedly in line whenever Oz retired in New York—the man was in demand. He was chairman, president, and editor of the magazine, and Columbia was after him to become a full professor at their journalism school, generally regarded as one of the top ones in the nation. Kosner would be the youngest editor in the magazine’s history if he got promoted to that spot, and that was just another prod for an already driven young man to help confirm this massive scoop. After spending a couple of hours working some contacts of his elsewhere in the bureaucracy, Kosner realized that there was someone who could definitely confirm—the only issue was that there was an equal chance the man would squeal to his boss, old Henry himself. Kosner thought about it, picked up the phone a couple of times and put it back down again, wondering if it were worth the gamble. The man in question had recently been put down around some reporters rather viciously by the Secretary of State, and was likely still smarting from that. That would be a reason he’d be willing to talk, just to stick it to “Super K,” as an earlier issue of Newsweek had dubbed the SecState. On the other hand, this man had been called “Kissinger’s Kissinger,” by many, another German Jew who’d fled the Nazis, joined the U.S. Army, and fought against them. That gave him a very close bond with his boss.
Finally, Kosner pulled the trigger. He dialed the number from his Rolodex. It only took two rings for the recipient to answer. “Sonnenfeldt.” “Hal, it’s Ed Kosner. Care to grab lunch, say about 12:30? I’ll pay.” The Counselor to the Secretary of State looked at his calendar. “Yes, that should be fine. How about Sans Souci?” That was immediately followed by a belly laugh from Sonnenfeldt, who knew that Ben Bradlee, Art Buchwald (humor columnist at the Post), and the general counsel for the newspaper, Edward Bennett Williams, all ate lunch there regularly. Kosner smiled. “Duke Zeibert’s. A corned beef sounds amazing right about now.” Zeibert’s was also well-known for its high-end clientele. Now it was Sonnenfeldt’s turn to chuckle. “Okay, Ed, you got me. Scholl’s, then. It’s a 15-minute walk. Anonymous.” The counselor hung up. Kosner made a note to write an expense report for the lunch, even though it’d be cheap. Why spend money when a fabulously wealthy owner could spend it instead?
An hour later, the two met in line at Scholl’s, a buffet cafeteria for lunch, enjoyed by everyone. The food was tasty, if not healthy, and it was busy. After getting their food and paying the cashier, they found a table in between some businessmen and some construction workers, a perfect pair of bookends who would not care a whit about their conversation. “So, Hal,” Kosner started in between bites of his pastrami on an onion roll, “what’s Henry think about Leonid Il’ych and his…misfortune?” The counselor to Kissinger kept a perfectly good poker face while blandly asking, “What misfortune are you talking about?” Oh, but I bet you’re a good cardsharp, Hal, Kosner thought beneath his own smile. “We’ve gotten information we consider authoritative that the Boozer-in-Chief had a major stroke and the Vladivostok summit is off. That he’s probably not going to recover. It would be nice if you’d confirm. Doesn’t have to be by name, just a State Department source.” Sonnenfeldt considered that. “Ed, you do realize how bad this could get, right? The way the forces are arrayed, the wildcard being the chairman of the KGB? Are you sure that’s a story you want to run?” Asking the question served as a confirmation, however indirectly, that the story was true. Kosner felt a surge of excitement. “Hal, if it were to get as bad as you say it could be, the people should know about it. And it’s not like the administration has a ton of credibility about dangers after what Nixon did. I did note, however, that you didn’t deny it. Very Ziegler-ish of you.” Sonnenfeldt put down his food. “Ed, I like you, but don’t compare me to that wehklagend kleine Scheiße again, please.” Kosner didn’t ask for him to translate, he could tell by the reappearance of the Berlin accent of the State Department man that it was not something to repeat. “Okay, Hal, I’m sorry. So, in or out?”
“Brezhnev did have a stroke. No communication ability, nor is he walking, according to what Gromyko told Walt in Moscow. Probably his awful personal habits coupled with the stress of being the leader of that behemoth—he smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish. When I’ve gone over with Henry before, it’s astonishing what his appetites are. There’s been some intel that he’s also terrified of nuclear war. Probably the only real reason we’ve reached detenté with the Soviets, although it is strange that his alliances are with the hardliners for domestic reasons. Anyway, the way this plays out if he’s done for is hard to figure out. Kosygin has been largely sidelined, even if he continues to head the government. Podgorny still has substantial influence, although Kirilenko probably controls most of the bureaucracy. Suslov is the kingmaker—he can never take the chair himself. Andropov has been cozy with Brezhnev, yet we’ve heard that he’s a purist who despises the corruption around Brezhnev and his clique. There’s a lot about the Politburo that resembles the school I went to in Britain as a teenager. Kosygin and Podgorny could make a move if they can get someone else on their side—Kirilenko, perhaps. Grechko is like Suslov, will never take the chair himself because the Party does not trust the military, but his support will still be valuable. Understand this: Whatever we do in the next few weeks will have enormous impact on our future relations with the Soviets. We have to be measured in our responses and sensitive to their situation. Senator Jackson, for example, does not understand this. We have worked five years to bring detenté, and it could disappear in a heartbeat if we push them the wrong way right now. It is only because of detenté that Gromyko had the space to tell us what was happening over there. If we blow it, then we’re right back to 1962 again. Even someone inclined to continue it will be in a delicate situation, because they don’t have Brezhnev’s pedigree. You’re too young to really remember how Beria fared, but he wanted to reform, leaned forward too far without consolidating his position, and they shot him. Those worries still permeate the thoughts of every Politburo member today.” Sonnenfeldt leaned back in his chair while Kosner hurried to finish taking down that whole exposition.
“Is this a wave-off, essentially, a warning that Oz should spike this?” Kosner prayed it wasn’t the answer. “No, Ed, Oz Elliott should not in any way discern my motivation as a desire to exercise any censorship or prior restraint. It is merely my desire to convey to you and to the Newsweek editors the situation as it is. It’s why I came to lunch.” Sonnenfeldt smiled. Kosner closed his notebook. “Okay, if it runs, attribution will be to State Department officials, nothing specific. That should pass muster.” Kosner laid a couple of dollars on the table for the tip and left first. Sonnenfeldt decided to go back for some pie. They made it good here.
*****
George Bacon was in a jovial mood. The first trial raid of the Cheyenne helicopters had been a rousing success. Bacon was a former Green Beret, now a CIA field officer, and because of his experience in Vietnam, his first posting was in Laos. Director Nitze thought it was a perfect place to run the trial from, because it wasn’t in Vietnam proper, and aid to Laos had not been cut off by the Congress. Another sleight of hand pulled by the bureaucratic master, the Cheyennes were piloted by VNAF officers, with Air America copilots to help supervise and guide them. The target had been a fueling station on the Ho Chi Minh trail, with PAVN trucks and BTR-50s lined up, guards out with portable SAM launchers but not aimed in any direction, unaware that a pair of Laotians were hidden deep in the trees and quietly radioing back snippets of information to Bacon. The four Cheyennes took off when it became clear the vehicles were going to be there for a while. Buzzing in underneath the radar floor at 224 mph, they fired multiple cluster rockets first, which reduced the amount of portable SAMs available to fire back with, and then they deployed the TOW missiles, eliminating multiple BTR-50s. With the SAMs unable to acquire targets because the helicopters were too close and too low, they pressed their advance with the 30mm cannons, taking out the trucks and blowing holes in the pipeline. The fuel spill added to the devastation already inflicted, catching fire and causing further chaos. The Cheyennes spun around and used their miniguns to do another pass, then took off west for Long Cheng, the CIA’s black site that was still unknown to virtually everyone on Earth, including Congress. The entire attack had lasted under ten minutes, but a whole company of PAVN soldiers, not Vietcong, had been decimated by four Cheyenne helicopters working with the element of surprise.
Bacon composed a short coded message that he sent using the communications building at Long Cheng, as state of the art as it got. Even though the U.S. had officially pulled out after the Paris Peace Accords, both Bill Colby and Paul Nitze had continued to insert CIA officers into the country because nobody knew about the airfield, and thanks to Air America (the CIA-owned front that was as much its paramilitary air force as it was a cargo company), it was the easiest covert op to keep going that the CIA had ever known. They had night-vision goggles, satellite communications, and an airfield kept in pristine condition. It was the perfect place for the Cheyennes to stage from, and after receiving Bacon’s message, Nitze called Lockheed to press for accelerated production. One mission wasn’t enough to bring to the Oval Office, but if they could pull off a couple more ambushes, especially a bigger one, that would be something to hand the President.
*****
The Brezhnev story broke on the Monday morning newscasts, The CBS Morning News and NBC’s Today both led with it, while ABC was forced to just air a “Breaking News” graphic as they had yet to launch their new morning show. Frank Reynolds did about thirty minutes from Washington, while the other networks covered it at the top of each hour for about ten minutes. As a courtesy, Elliot had delivered copies the night before to the White House so that the aides who arrived in the predawn hours would have time to read it, digest it, and write their memos for the President. Connally, of course, knew everything that was in the article, but such a close-held secret leaking out this fast was going to raise hackles with the Soviets. Kissinger was on the phone to the President to proclaim his desire to catch and fire the leaker before Big John had even finished his breakfast. This proclamation made Connally roll his eyes, as he knew well that this was how Henry operated, and he’d have put money on Henry himself being the leaker if it wasn’t so damaging to Henry’s goals with SALT II. The President leaned back as Henry went on, sipping his coffee and thinking about who knew. It didn’t take long before he recognized that it was probably a low-level person who confirmed, no matter how Newsweek framed it, a comms center employee at Foggy Bottom or something of the sort, someone who saw the cables back and forth with Moscow. Maybe a secretary. Connally shrugged mentally—the Soviets had to be shitting themselves right now, but they always proclaimed collective leadership and now they’d have the chance to prove it. There’d be a lot of Sturm und Drang coming from Gromyko and Dobrynin, but that’s all it would be, noise.
Barnes came in to give his boss the morning brief and agenda—today had been scheduled to be one of those days that Presidents love, a Rose Garden ceremony for the new World Series champions, the surprising Texas Rangers, managed by Billy Martin, who’d turned around a club that lost an astounding 105 games the year before. Martin had made a number of roster moves before the owner who’d brought him in as manager/general manager, Bob Short, sold the club to a wealthy oil supplier, Brad Corbett. Corbett decided he would be his own general manager, but as the club did well in the first three months, leading the AL West, Corbett had left the roster alone. After falling behind the Oakland Athletics in July, it took every last bit of Martin’s being to convince Corbett not to start making crazy trades. After the All-Star Game, Martin made all the right decisions with the lineup, catching the A’s and passing them in a wild final weekend. They then went into the American League championship series with the AL East champion Baltimore Orioles. It went all five games, but the Rangers prevailed and made it to the World Series to face the MLB's winningest team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, whom they defeated in six games.
The deciding game was played at Arlington Stadium, one of the only games played during the daytime the entire year, since there were no awnings and it was the hottest place in the entire league. Connally had been there—an event that made the Secret Service nervous as hell, and he’d arrived after the game started, a concession to security. When the Rangers won, Connally made his way down to the locker room, startling MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who’d not expected this. When the cameras came on, the nation saw the President in the background, beaming like a schoolgirl who’d just gotten to kiss her crush. Billy Martin, for once in his life, was at a loss for words when the President gave him a big bearhug and pulled a cigar out for him. It seemed so out of character for Connally, but the man took such great pride in Texas, and Martin’s story echoed his own, a kid from a small town who fought his way to the top. So, today, everyone on the Rangers was far more prepared for their President. They brought a Rangers jersey and a plaque inscribed for “the most powerful fan in baseball.” Connally loved it so much that he had it framed and hung in the private study off of the Oval Office.
As the most powerful fan in baseball celebrated with his home state team, the rest of official Washington was ablaze with chatter about the Brezhnev story. The conservatives were warning anyone within earshot that a hardliner like Grishin would come to power, the liberals were voicing hope that Kosygin would become the new General Secretary, and the reporters scurried about, trying to get it all on paper or camera. Teddy Kennedy had put a statement out in time for the 8 am coverage on the morning shows, and would end up giving interviews to his hometown Boston Globe, as well as the Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald, by day’s end. He’d cut back substantively on his drinking, too—a doctor-professor from Harvard Medical School had provided him Naltrexone, a drug deep into its FDA trials for its ability to curb addictions with opioids. The doctor thought it was worth trying for a man who wanted to be President, who had a problem with alcohol, and who could, perhaps, help win the FDA’s approval for it if he won the Presidency. Only Joan and his chief of staff knew that particular secret, in fact, she was considering trying it too watching what it’d done for her husband. Teddy’s sobriety had cut down on his penchant for womanizing, which was doing wonders for their marriage. It had been rocky from the start—a rushed engagement, followed by Joan’s reluctance to meet at the altar, and then Joe Kennedy’s intervention to push her forward into the marriage. Shortly thereafter was the 1964 plane crash, then Chappaquiddick, Ted Junior’s bone cancer, and just a couple months ago, a near-riot in Boston where white families protesting integration began throwing insults…followed by various objects. The rollercoaster had been brutal and she’d long been ready to get off. The past few months changed her thinking—the ride might just be leveling off.
Others joined in on the commentary, looking to boost their own stature. Scoop Jackson held a full-blown press conference, taking questions and giving bold pronouncements on the future, or lack thereof, he saw for the Soviet Union. Lots of bluster, warnings about the need to increase the defense budget in case a hardliner like Suslov or Grishin took the reins in Moscow—Scoop was laying down his own markers as he plotted the announcement of his own run for President. James Buckley prevaricated about the evils of Communism and how the felling of Brezhnev was a sign from God. John Stennis drawled that apparently Brezhnev couldn’t hold his liquor. By that evening, Ambassador Dobrynin appeared on all three network news broadcasts to angrily deny that Brezhnev was on the way to a state funeral thrown in his honor. There’d also been an equally angry call to Henry, about how they broke their word. Kissinger swore up and down he’d never do such a thing, and how could Dobrynin accuse him after all they’d done together? The two diplomats went back and forth, the Russian heated throwing accusations of treachery out, the German-Jewish American cajoling, pleading with the ambassador to listen to him, to believe him. Henry had learned the art of wearing down the person on the other side of the table, or phone line, and it worked. Dobrynin finally relented. He would advise Gromyko to continue on with the plans for SALT II. Those plans, of course, were rather dependent on who became the next General Secretary.
Eight days until the midterms.
Andrey Gromyko, Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, did not mince words. Brezhnev was severely ill and unlikely to recover. The Soviets had no intention of going public with the news yet, but they were informing America as it was likely that the SALT II summit would be postponed. Stoessel tried to inquire as to more details, but the man whose nickname around the Kremlin was “Ass of Stone” had not gotten there by being voluble. Upon his return, the ambassador began immediately coding a telex for transmission to Kissinger at the State Department, which was a combination of few facts and much speculation. The position in Moscow was as much intelligence officer as it was diplomat, and the same went for Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Ambassador in Washington. Unbeknownst to Kissinger or Stoessel, one of the embassy staffers had a lucrative side gig as a confidential source for Newsweek’s Moscow correspondent, Al Friendly, Jr., son of the legendary journalist Al Friendly. Friendly Sr. had been headed for the top spot at The Washington Post when Ben Bradlee swooped in and stole that away from him. Junior had been in the business for fifteen years and recently won the prestige appointment in Moscow. The newsmagazines, more than any other news outlets, relied heavily upon money to grease the wheels. Government officials got to write blurbs for $25 in the “Periscope” section of Newsweek, for example. Dinners and cigars and whiskey were used elsewhere in return for juicy leads for purloined documents. In this case, it was more than worth the bottle of Chivas Regal that served as payment.
Friendly knew there was only one way to handle news of this magnitude, and it wasn’t going to be in Moscow. He booked a flight out of Sheremtyevo International Airport for the following morning to go to Paris, home of Newsweek’s European bureau. Friendly wasn’t sure who had more bugs in the Moscow embassy, CIA or the KGB, and Paris would be safe from the prying ears of both countries. There would be another flight there, that of Osborn Elliot, the executive editor of the magazine, who wanted to hear this in person. Competition would make him do his best to keep it from Bradlee, whom Elliot had mentored for a time while serving as managing editor (the number two slot at any publication) when Bradlee was Washington bureau chief for Newsweek. Bradlee would want the news, of course, another scalp on a belt that already included the Pentagon Papers and the first impeached & removed president in American history. Elliott didn’t know the details of the story, but the short phone call he received from Friendly told him that this was a story where Elliot would want to hold it and make sure it got responsible treatment, which is easier to do with a weekly magazine versus a daily newspaper. Not that his former protégé was irresponsible, but the amount of time spent considering the fallout of a story was more compressed in the newspaper world. Friendly, of course, had his own reasons for making sure Bradlee didn’t know a thing until they went to print. A little revenge for Pops. Ben’ll understand. Hell, he might even send me one of his famous letters.
Friendly arrived first at the brand new Charles de Gaulle airport, which opened the previous March, and marveled at how spacious it was, how high the ceilings were, and at the massive electronic flight status board. The baggage claim was faster than Orly ever had been, and Friendly hailed a cab into Paris. He’d booked a room at the Villa Panthéon, a charming boutique hotel in the Latin Quarter on a quiet side street. This ensured a much better chance of secrecy than the bigger, fancier hotels along the Champs-Élysées. He ordered a glass of Bordeaux at the bar, something that was rather cheap to do, and waited for Elliott to arrive. Friendly was on a second glass when the balding, perpetually rumpled editor came through the doors. Friendly waved him over to the bar, where Elliott ordered a scotch, neat, and the two retired to a table on the sidewalk. It was an unseasonably warm day, in the mid-60s, and the sun was out. Coming from Moscow, which was already freezing, Friendly was glad to be outdoors in the sun. Elliott took a large slug from his scotch and looked at his Man in Moscow. “Okay, Al, I flew six hours from New York to listen to you, so what’s so damned secret?” Friendly sipped at his Bordeaux. “Oz, I got the summary of a cable being sent back to Washington from the embassy. Brezhnev is incapacitated and likely to die. He had a massive stroke. The Soviets hoped he’d bounce back, but when he didn’t, they started to panic a little. Called the ambassador to the Foreign Ministry where Gromyko told Stoessel that the Vladivostok summit was off and swore him to secrecy. Such a story, of course, is sure to drive them insane, but this story is huge. There’s going to be a massive fight to replace Leonid Il’ych—he’d been making moves to fully sideline Kosygin and Podgorny to ensure nobody would threaten his seat. They’ve got all this oil money coming in and instead of resolving the issues with housing or consumer goods, they’re just pouring out military aid to other nations. Buying the peace, if you will, and subsidizing oil purchases by the Pact nations. Whoever replaces him is going to swing one way or the other. If it’s a hardliner like Suslov, we’re going to be in big trouble. He hates detenté and will gladly spike it, but if it’s Kosygin or Podgorny, expect some radical reforms to open up that economy. Kosygin is probably the smartest guy there, which in a way makes him dangerous, but he genuinely wants peace because he wants to cut back on the military spending. That, of course, will set off Marshal Grishin, who thinks World War III is always imminent.”
Elliott took another drink. “How solid is your source, Al?” “Embassy staffer, handles comms. I get him a good bottle of Chivas whenever I leave Moscow and he gives me interesting tidbits. It’s a cold, miserable place and you don’t have much of a social life. We assume all of our apartments are bugged. The embassy has more bugs than a Bronx tenement, except they’re all electronic and not usually ours. We all have tails, get followed. They distrust journalists in general, but because my dad was an intel officer during the war, they really distrust me,” Friendly replied. “Oz” nodded. “Okay, I’m going to want to talk to legal about this. He didn’t hand you the actual cable, correct?” The correspondent shook his head in the negative. “Excellent, so our embassy won’t revoke your credentials. Is there anyone at all in their bureaucracy who will talk, Central Committee?” The editor knew it would be a no, but he had to ask anyway. Friendly confirmed that it was a non-starter. “We’ll co-byline it for you, because I’m going to have Kosner backstop this in Washington, maybe see if someone at State will talk. You know how that place is, especially with Kissinger being the leaker-in-chief for the past five years,” Elliott commented. Friendly thought about it, and decided solo glory was useless if the story didn’t run. This would be the cover and it would be a big one. “Sure, Oz, I’d love the help. What else do you need from me?” “Nothing much. You ready to start writing?” The two men got up, Friendly paid the tab at the bar, and they took their bags up to their respective rooms before coming back outside to catch a cab for the bureau. Elliott would call back to D.C., telling Kosner to be ready for a telex with instructions. Friendly began typing away at one of the floater desks, and his copy would be taken by Elliott back to New York. Friendly looked up after a while at Elliott, who was making notes at a nearby desk. “Oz?” “Yeah, Al?” “Can you give my dad a call when you get back, tell him he should make sure to get the next issue? I think he’d love it.” Elliott smiled. “Of course. I might even have Ed hand-deliver it to him.”
Ed Kosner was the man who’d headed the Watergate coverage for the last year and a half as assistant managing editor in Washington, and it was generally agreed that Newsweek had excelled at the task, providing top-tier analysis and solid reporting. Now Kosner himself was working the phones, at 36 still fresh and energetic. He had cultivated sources all around town, having worked under Bradlee for two years when that man was still helming the bureau in D.C. Bradlee had given him his first big assignment, sending him to write about how Jacqueline Kennedy was adapting to life after the murder of her husband, former President John F. Kennedy. Kosner handled the topic with sensitivity and proceeded to climb the ladder. He was supposedly in line whenever Oz retired in New York—the man was in demand. He was chairman, president, and editor of the magazine, and Columbia was after him to become a full professor at their journalism school, generally regarded as one of the top ones in the nation. Kosner would be the youngest editor in the magazine’s history if he got promoted to that spot, and that was just another prod for an already driven young man to help confirm this massive scoop. After spending a couple of hours working some contacts of his elsewhere in the bureaucracy, Kosner realized that there was someone who could definitely confirm—the only issue was that there was an equal chance the man would squeal to his boss, old Henry himself. Kosner thought about it, picked up the phone a couple of times and put it back down again, wondering if it were worth the gamble. The man in question had recently been put down around some reporters rather viciously by the Secretary of State, and was likely still smarting from that. That would be a reason he’d be willing to talk, just to stick it to “Super K,” as an earlier issue of Newsweek had dubbed the SecState. On the other hand, this man had been called “Kissinger’s Kissinger,” by many, another German Jew who’d fled the Nazis, joined the U.S. Army, and fought against them. That gave him a very close bond with his boss.
Finally, Kosner pulled the trigger. He dialed the number from his Rolodex. It only took two rings for the recipient to answer. “Sonnenfeldt.” “Hal, it’s Ed Kosner. Care to grab lunch, say about 12:30? I’ll pay.” The Counselor to the Secretary of State looked at his calendar. “Yes, that should be fine. How about Sans Souci?” That was immediately followed by a belly laugh from Sonnenfeldt, who knew that Ben Bradlee, Art Buchwald (humor columnist at the Post), and the general counsel for the newspaper, Edward Bennett Williams, all ate lunch there regularly. Kosner smiled. “Duke Zeibert’s. A corned beef sounds amazing right about now.” Zeibert’s was also well-known for its high-end clientele. Now it was Sonnenfeldt’s turn to chuckle. “Okay, Ed, you got me. Scholl’s, then. It’s a 15-minute walk. Anonymous.” The counselor hung up. Kosner made a note to write an expense report for the lunch, even though it’d be cheap. Why spend money when a fabulously wealthy owner could spend it instead?
An hour later, the two met in line at Scholl’s, a buffet cafeteria for lunch, enjoyed by everyone. The food was tasty, if not healthy, and it was busy. After getting their food and paying the cashier, they found a table in between some businessmen and some construction workers, a perfect pair of bookends who would not care a whit about their conversation. “So, Hal,” Kosner started in between bites of his pastrami on an onion roll, “what’s Henry think about Leonid Il’ych and his…misfortune?” The counselor to Kissinger kept a perfectly good poker face while blandly asking, “What misfortune are you talking about?” Oh, but I bet you’re a good cardsharp, Hal, Kosner thought beneath his own smile. “We’ve gotten information we consider authoritative that the Boozer-in-Chief had a major stroke and the Vladivostok summit is off. That he’s probably not going to recover. It would be nice if you’d confirm. Doesn’t have to be by name, just a State Department source.” Sonnenfeldt considered that. “Ed, you do realize how bad this could get, right? The way the forces are arrayed, the wildcard being the chairman of the KGB? Are you sure that’s a story you want to run?” Asking the question served as a confirmation, however indirectly, that the story was true. Kosner felt a surge of excitement. “Hal, if it were to get as bad as you say it could be, the people should know about it. And it’s not like the administration has a ton of credibility about dangers after what Nixon did. I did note, however, that you didn’t deny it. Very Ziegler-ish of you.” Sonnenfeldt put down his food. “Ed, I like you, but don’t compare me to that wehklagend kleine Scheiße again, please.” Kosner didn’t ask for him to translate, he could tell by the reappearance of the Berlin accent of the State Department man that it was not something to repeat. “Okay, Hal, I’m sorry. So, in or out?”
“Brezhnev did have a stroke. No communication ability, nor is he walking, according to what Gromyko told Walt in Moscow. Probably his awful personal habits coupled with the stress of being the leader of that behemoth—he smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish. When I’ve gone over with Henry before, it’s astonishing what his appetites are. There’s been some intel that he’s also terrified of nuclear war. Probably the only real reason we’ve reached detenté with the Soviets, although it is strange that his alliances are with the hardliners for domestic reasons. Anyway, the way this plays out if he’s done for is hard to figure out. Kosygin has been largely sidelined, even if he continues to head the government. Podgorny still has substantial influence, although Kirilenko probably controls most of the bureaucracy. Suslov is the kingmaker—he can never take the chair himself. Andropov has been cozy with Brezhnev, yet we’ve heard that he’s a purist who despises the corruption around Brezhnev and his clique. There’s a lot about the Politburo that resembles the school I went to in Britain as a teenager. Kosygin and Podgorny could make a move if they can get someone else on their side—Kirilenko, perhaps. Grechko is like Suslov, will never take the chair himself because the Party does not trust the military, but his support will still be valuable. Understand this: Whatever we do in the next few weeks will have enormous impact on our future relations with the Soviets. We have to be measured in our responses and sensitive to their situation. Senator Jackson, for example, does not understand this. We have worked five years to bring detenté, and it could disappear in a heartbeat if we push them the wrong way right now. It is only because of detenté that Gromyko had the space to tell us what was happening over there. If we blow it, then we’re right back to 1962 again. Even someone inclined to continue it will be in a delicate situation, because they don’t have Brezhnev’s pedigree. You’re too young to really remember how Beria fared, but he wanted to reform, leaned forward too far without consolidating his position, and they shot him. Those worries still permeate the thoughts of every Politburo member today.” Sonnenfeldt leaned back in his chair while Kosner hurried to finish taking down that whole exposition.
“Is this a wave-off, essentially, a warning that Oz should spike this?” Kosner prayed it wasn’t the answer. “No, Ed, Oz Elliott should not in any way discern my motivation as a desire to exercise any censorship or prior restraint. It is merely my desire to convey to you and to the Newsweek editors the situation as it is. It’s why I came to lunch.” Sonnenfeldt smiled. Kosner closed his notebook. “Okay, if it runs, attribution will be to State Department officials, nothing specific. That should pass muster.” Kosner laid a couple of dollars on the table for the tip and left first. Sonnenfeldt decided to go back for some pie. They made it good here.
*****
George Bacon was in a jovial mood. The first trial raid of the Cheyenne helicopters had been a rousing success. Bacon was a former Green Beret, now a CIA field officer, and because of his experience in Vietnam, his first posting was in Laos. Director Nitze thought it was a perfect place to run the trial from, because it wasn’t in Vietnam proper, and aid to Laos had not been cut off by the Congress. Another sleight of hand pulled by the bureaucratic master, the Cheyennes were piloted by VNAF officers, with Air America copilots to help supervise and guide them. The target had been a fueling station on the Ho Chi Minh trail, with PAVN trucks and BTR-50s lined up, guards out with portable SAM launchers but not aimed in any direction, unaware that a pair of Laotians were hidden deep in the trees and quietly radioing back snippets of information to Bacon. The four Cheyennes took off when it became clear the vehicles were going to be there for a while. Buzzing in underneath the radar floor at 224 mph, they fired multiple cluster rockets first, which reduced the amount of portable SAMs available to fire back with, and then they deployed the TOW missiles, eliminating multiple BTR-50s. With the SAMs unable to acquire targets because the helicopters were too close and too low, they pressed their advance with the 30mm cannons, taking out the trucks and blowing holes in the pipeline. The fuel spill added to the devastation already inflicted, catching fire and causing further chaos. The Cheyennes spun around and used their miniguns to do another pass, then took off west for Long Cheng, the CIA’s black site that was still unknown to virtually everyone on Earth, including Congress. The entire attack had lasted under ten minutes, but a whole company of PAVN soldiers, not Vietcong, had been decimated by four Cheyenne helicopters working with the element of surprise.
Bacon composed a short coded message that he sent using the communications building at Long Cheng, as state of the art as it got. Even though the U.S. had officially pulled out after the Paris Peace Accords, both Bill Colby and Paul Nitze had continued to insert CIA officers into the country because nobody knew about the airfield, and thanks to Air America (the CIA-owned front that was as much its paramilitary air force as it was a cargo company), it was the easiest covert op to keep going that the CIA had ever known. They had night-vision goggles, satellite communications, and an airfield kept in pristine condition. It was the perfect place for the Cheyennes to stage from, and after receiving Bacon’s message, Nitze called Lockheed to press for accelerated production. One mission wasn’t enough to bring to the Oval Office, but if they could pull off a couple more ambushes, especially a bigger one, that would be something to hand the President.
*****
The Brezhnev story broke on the Monday morning newscasts, The CBS Morning News and NBC’s Today both led with it, while ABC was forced to just air a “Breaking News” graphic as they had yet to launch their new morning show. Frank Reynolds did about thirty minutes from Washington, while the other networks covered it at the top of each hour for about ten minutes. As a courtesy, Elliot had delivered copies the night before to the White House so that the aides who arrived in the predawn hours would have time to read it, digest it, and write their memos for the President. Connally, of course, knew everything that was in the article, but such a close-held secret leaking out this fast was going to raise hackles with the Soviets. Kissinger was on the phone to the President to proclaim his desire to catch and fire the leaker before Big John had even finished his breakfast. This proclamation made Connally roll his eyes, as he knew well that this was how Henry operated, and he’d have put money on Henry himself being the leaker if it wasn’t so damaging to Henry’s goals with SALT II. The President leaned back as Henry went on, sipping his coffee and thinking about who knew. It didn’t take long before he recognized that it was probably a low-level person who confirmed, no matter how Newsweek framed it, a comms center employee at Foggy Bottom or something of the sort, someone who saw the cables back and forth with Moscow. Maybe a secretary. Connally shrugged mentally—the Soviets had to be shitting themselves right now, but they always proclaimed collective leadership and now they’d have the chance to prove it. There’d be a lot of Sturm und Drang coming from Gromyko and Dobrynin, but that’s all it would be, noise.
Barnes came in to give his boss the morning brief and agenda—today had been scheduled to be one of those days that Presidents love, a Rose Garden ceremony for the new World Series champions, the surprising Texas Rangers, managed by Billy Martin, who’d turned around a club that lost an astounding 105 games the year before. Martin had made a number of roster moves before the owner who’d brought him in as manager/general manager, Bob Short, sold the club to a wealthy oil supplier, Brad Corbett. Corbett decided he would be his own general manager, but as the club did well in the first three months, leading the AL West, Corbett had left the roster alone. After falling behind the Oakland Athletics in July, it took every last bit of Martin’s being to convince Corbett not to start making crazy trades. After the All-Star Game, Martin made all the right decisions with the lineup, catching the A’s and passing them in a wild final weekend. They then went into the American League championship series with the AL East champion Baltimore Orioles. It went all five games, but the Rangers prevailed and made it to the World Series to face the MLB's winningest team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, whom they defeated in six games.
The deciding game was played at Arlington Stadium, one of the only games played during the daytime the entire year, since there were no awnings and it was the hottest place in the entire league. Connally had been there—an event that made the Secret Service nervous as hell, and he’d arrived after the game started, a concession to security. When the Rangers won, Connally made his way down to the locker room, startling MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who’d not expected this. When the cameras came on, the nation saw the President in the background, beaming like a schoolgirl who’d just gotten to kiss her crush. Billy Martin, for once in his life, was at a loss for words when the President gave him a big bearhug and pulled a cigar out for him. It seemed so out of character for Connally, but the man took such great pride in Texas, and Martin’s story echoed his own, a kid from a small town who fought his way to the top. So, today, everyone on the Rangers was far more prepared for their President. They brought a Rangers jersey and a plaque inscribed for “the most powerful fan in baseball.” Connally loved it so much that he had it framed and hung in the private study off of the Oval Office.
As the most powerful fan in baseball celebrated with his home state team, the rest of official Washington was ablaze with chatter about the Brezhnev story. The conservatives were warning anyone within earshot that a hardliner like Grishin would come to power, the liberals were voicing hope that Kosygin would become the new General Secretary, and the reporters scurried about, trying to get it all on paper or camera. Teddy Kennedy had put a statement out in time for the 8 am coverage on the morning shows, and would end up giving interviews to his hometown Boston Globe, as well as the Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald, by day’s end. He’d cut back substantively on his drinking, too—a doctor-professor from Harvard Medical School had provided him Naltrexone, a drug deep into its FDA trials for its ability to curb addictions with opioids. The doctor thought it was worth trying for a man who wanted to be President, who had a problem with alcohol, and who could, perhaps, help win the FDA’s approval for it if he won the Presidency. Only Joan and his chief of staff knew that particular secret, in fact, she was considering trying it too watching what it’d done for her husband. Teddy’s sobriety had cut down on his penchant for womanizing, which was doing wonders for their marriage. It had been rocky from the start—a rushed engagement, followed by Joan’s reluctance to meet at the altar, and then Joe Kennedy’s intervention to push her forward into the marriage. Shortly thereafter was the 1964 plane crash, then Chappaquiddick, Ted Junior’s bone cancer, and just a couple months ago, a near-riot in Boston where white families protesting integration began throwing insults…followed by various objects. The rollercoaster had been brutal and she’d long been ready to get off. The past few months changed her thinking—the ride might just be leveling off.
Others joined in on the commentary, looking to boost their own stature. Scoop Jackson held a full-blown press conference, taking questions and giving bold pronouncements on the future, or lack thereof, he saw for the Soviet Union. Lots of bluster, warnings about the need to increase the defense budget in case a hardliner like Suslov or Grishin took the reins in Moscow—Scoop was laying down his own markers as he plotted the announcement of his own run for President. James Buckley prevaricated about the evils of Communism and how the felling of Brezhnev was a sign from God. John Stennis drawled that apparently Brezhnev couldn’t hold his liquor. By that evening, Ambassador Dobrynin appeared on all three network news broadcasts to angrily deny that Brezhnev was on the way to a state funeral thrown in his honor. There’d also been an equally angry call to Henry, about how they broke their word. Kissinger swore up and down he’d never do such a thing, and how could Dobrynin accuse him after all they’d done together? The two diplomats went back and forth, the Russian heated throwing accusations of treachery out, the German-Jewish American cajoling, pleading with the ambassador to listen to him, to believe him. Henry had learned the art of wearing down the person on the other side of the table, or phone line, and it worked. Dobrynin finally relented. He would advise Gromyko to continue on with the plans for SALT II. Those plans, of course, were rather dependent on who became the next General Secretary.
Eight days until the midterms.
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How did the Texas Rangers fare better than OTL in 1974? In OTL, they finished 84-76 (one of those games was the infamous Ten Cent Beer Night, which they won by forfeit--did that happen in TTL? (1))...
(1) Billy Martin was badass for the way he led his players (armed with baseball bats) to save outfielder Jeff Burroughs when he thought Burroughs had been attacked by Cleveland fans.
(1) Billy Martin was badass for the way he led his players (armed with baseball bats) to save outfielder Jeff Burroughs when he thought Burroughs had been attacked by Cleveland fans.
Billy Martin is a drunk baseball god, glad to see him. Fantastic return, as always details like restaurants and corned beef sandwiches sell me hard 
I really hope Connally isn't killed by Squeaky Fromme or Sara Jane Moore in September 1975 since that would probably mean a GOP landslide in '76. Though with Connally and Reagan on the same ticket together (some would say a westerner's dream ticket), completely avoiding the chaotic 1976 Republican primaries of our timeline, and the fact that Connally refused to pardon Nixon the GOP will certainly head into the 1976 election in a much stronger position than they did in our timeline. I doubt whoever the Democratic nominee is will be able to unseat Connally.
You're hitting your stride here, @wolverinethad . Who did the Rangers beat in the Series?
I stayed at the Villa Panthéon when I was in Paris in 2018 and it is a VERY charming hotel. Rooms are small but comfortable, the tub was deep, and the windows open up into the street.
I'll fix it, but the answer is the Dodgers.
Shit, I had rewritten that section right before posting and it's left out.
I'll fix it, but the answer is the Dodgers.
Could Connally outdue Carter on Middle East peace? I can see him working with Sadat and Hassen. Perhaps he will support Iran to avoid the 79 destruction of the Red Lion and Sun.
Hey @wolverinethad I have a question about Rejection and Revenge timeline, since it ended in April 1994 did you plan for Clinton to be re-elected, and how would the list of alternate presidents play out in that universe? Would Al Gore win in 2000? I don't want to sound rude but I really enjoyed your timeline and would love to see a conclusive end brought to it like a post credits scene/summary.