Sex and the High Command by John Boyd Read Free Book Online Page A

continued. “Intuitive thinking! We’re going to take off at tangents, weave and squirm, and come up with creative solutions.”
    Somehow it seemed to Hansen that the admiral was practicing what he was beginning to preach as Primrose veered from his subject. “Of course, we’re handicapped by formal educations. Social adjustment’s all that’s taught. At Annapolis we called it military discipline. Dewey, James, and Freud, the three horsemen of our eclipse, to borrow the words of a priest I know. Now, at Saint Cyr…” With growing unease and awe, Hansen listened as the admiral named by name French professors he’d like to invite to Annapolis, revised the curriculum at the academy, quoted Lin Piao and Mao on the subject of the Chinese character. “We could learn a lot from scarabs,” he concluded.
    “Arabs, sir?”
    “No, scarabs. Entymology’s a hobby of mine. Your budding officer. Navy, Army, or Airforce, could learn a lot from entymology. Better than a survival course. Grasshoppers make good eating. Some snails.”
    He mentioned scarabs at Eighth Street, and McCormick was angling onto Independence before Hansen realized that entymology was the study of insects. If this was the variety of mind it took to fly an admiral’s flag, Hansen decided he’d better start looking for a good cold-water detergent to wash his third repeater in because he would be flying it for a long, long time.
    “But, by all means,” the admiral continued, “we should teach diplomacy. In this business, you don’t merely find solutions, you find compatible solutions. My solutions have to satisfy doves, hawks, and dawks.
    “Let’s consider the problem before us this afternoon. President Habersham is a dove, with his wings clipped by constitutional law. Cobb, of State, is a hawk tethered by Southern gallantry. State’s best friend is Dalton Lamar, Interior. That boy’s an eagle, but State keeps him in line with the doves. Oglethorpe Pickens, the boy Secretary of Defense, is a hawk. Now, Dr. Drexel, of Health, Education, and Welfare, went to SMU, but that isn’t why they call him a Mustang. Axminister Farnsworth—Can you imagine wasting a name like that on an attorney general?—votes with the President; he was Habersham’s student at Arkansas. Powers of the FBI goes along with Farnsworth, or vice versa. Frumenti, of course, is Labor, and he’s a peregrine falcon. He hails from California. The newspapers were claiming sectionalism in the Presidential cabinet, so Habersham brought in one Northerner.”
    “I thought California was out West, sir,” the chief said.
    “Technically, you’re correct—Turn right at the next corner—but all who are not Southerners are Northerners. Incidentally, Senator Dubois will be present. The Veep’s in Puerto Rico on a goodwill jaunt. Defer to Dubois. He’s majority leader, a Republican from Louisiana. He claims to be a Negro—one-sixteenth qualifies you in Louisiana—but I think he’s suffering from terminal satyriasis. Next to the President, Dubois is key man in Operation Chicken Pluck.”
    “Operation Chicken Pluck?”
    “Up to now, the operation has been top secret, but I’m springing it at this cabinet meeting—Park there. Chief. The President’s assistant, Amos Culpepper, will brief you on the reasons for this meeting. Culpepper has a marvelous knack for simplifying complex subjects—Here we are, gentlemen—but I think history has a way of preparing us for these things. For instance, Johnson’s credibility gap taught us to stretch our imaginations.”
    As Hansen emerged from the station wagon, he was almost positive that the admiral was referring to Lyndon Johnson, but he was wary. “Yes, sir,” the captain agreed. “In my own mind, I’ve been stretching the bounds of probabilities to include the improbable.”
    “Excellent. Now, gentlemen, both of you must be prepared to accept the incredible. But you’re both Navy. Remember, brave hand in the foray, cool council in