Cocktails with the Admiral: Drinks, Espionage and the History of the American Century
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Cocktails with the Admiral: Drinks, Espionage And the History of The American Century By Vic Socotra Copyright 2017 Vic Socotra All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 16-XXXXX ISBN: pending First printing 2016 Cover Photo: U.S. Navy Published by Socotra House Publishing LLC Culpeper, VA E-edition by Socotra House Introduction RADM Donald McCollister Showers started life as a farm boy in Depression-era Iowa. He once explained how his family survived the bank closures that locked up all the ready cash. His family traded farm animals for house-calls by the Doctor, who shared the same problem of liquidity as everyone else. As the New Deal was changing the face of America, Mac could see the war clouds looming. After completing college (journalism and bagpipes) in 1940, he had to ask his mother for permission to join the other 90-day-wonders in Navy Officer Training in Chicago and arrived at his first duty station in Hawaii in February of 1942, when the great capital ships of the Pacific Fleet still rested on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Through pure chance, he was assigned to the staff of Station HYPO, the code-breakers led by CDR Joe Rochefort, and whose wizardry enabled the Navy’s greatest maritime victory at Midway Atoll. The rest of his war in the Pacific was on the personal staff of Chester Nimitz, and serving as Chief of Estimates at the forward headquarters, produced the forecast of American casualties in the impending invasion of the Home Island of Japan. His numbers helped support the decision to open the Atomic Age. He then strode the streets of Yokosuka five days after Japan’s surrender. Despite the rapid demobilization, he decided to stay in the Navy, since he had no civilian job held for him back home. Along the way, he met all the five-star Flag Officers, dined with Marshall Tito and chatted up the Queen of England. He rose to make Admiral himself against the backdrop of the conflict in Vietnam. Retiring from active service, he became a trouble-shooter for the Director of Central Intelligence, and had a ring-side seat for Watergate and the excesses of America’s Intelligence Community. He and his lovely wife Billie raised great family, and in the end, he became his wife’s caregiver for a decade after her illness was revealed. His support to other families in dealing with the 36-hour-day of dementia helped me immensely as my Father succumbed to the same awful disease. He was a man in full, and his story is one that encompasses the dizzying moments of the American Century. Let’s take the journey with him, in his own words. - Vic Socotra Arlington, VA Table of Contents Part One: War in the Pacific The Day After Written Approval Dumb Luck Up Periscope The Bomb Plot Foxing the Sun Sitting under a tree First to the Blackboard None Dare Call It… The war in the Navy Fronts Jasper, Mush and Mac Pear Pie Under construction Iron Pants and Cherry Pie Operation Starvation Heresy You Have No Idea Potsdam and Monkfish RDay Staff Work The Day After (Saying farewell at Arlington National Cemetery) It was April 16th, the Day After the funeral. The pictures had been posted, the toasts were raised at the wake at Willow. The haunting sound of the highland pipes covered the retreat of hundreds of officers and Sailors from the grave site. Mac’s earthly remains were given over to the soil, and to the patient presence of his beloved Sara V., better known as Billie. The Boston Bombers who hit the Marathon finish line were still on the loose. Mac had passed late the previous year, Oct 19th 2012, at peace and with his family all around. I was in Colorado at the time, and I got the news it speared me with regret, though I must say Mac's final transition was conducted in the way that he preferred. His heart was giving out, the cardio experts at the Virginia Medical Center could not intervene surgically due to Mac's age. He was alert, and asked what his options were. The Doctors said "Hospice," and with that, Mac made his decision and was at peace. It was his choice all the way, just as it had been all his life. There is a lag of months between the memorial services at Arlington and the actual interment. On this crisp day in April, the Old Guard scheduled the funeral, and Mac's earthly remains were brought, by turns, to the Old Post Chapel at Fort Myer and then to Section 66, Lot 7135 on the flat plain of the lower cemetery. The Office of Naval Intelligence turned out in force, and the honor guard of enlisted sailors and officers were led by three Vice Admirals. I took a hundred or so and posted them to social media. Pictures are not reality, of course, but the pageant, dignity and tradition displayed is clear enough from those images. I have attended far too many of these funerals and will probably attend only one more, one in which I do not anticipate a speaking part. This was one for the ages, and is going to stand in memory for all of us. The haunting sound of Amazing Grace and Scotland The Brave were the last echoes of the official ceremony. Mac had been a piper in his youth, and this completed another circle per his detailed instructions. The Piper is a physicist in his day job, by the way, and a good man. But his day trade is just as relevant as his skill on the pipes. But of course there were a lot of good women and men there that gray afternoon to say farewell and Godspeed. They paid tribute to a man whose like and endurance does not come along very often. He became, with the passing of so many of his generation, an icon of his age. And a very good friend to many. The world being what it is, we did not know of the outrage at the Boston Marathon until we got to Willow after the internment to join family and friends to celebrate what will stand in my mind as the finest example of a private interment at the Nation’s place of ultimate honor. Mac would have been proud, I think. Now we have to turn back to the events of the world we have all made, and it will be another grim bit of business. Mac would have had something to say about it, but his cares are not now of this world. We are on our own now. But there is more to this. A lot more. Why don’t you join me for a drink and we can talk about it. The wine was chill in the dimness of the Willow Bar. They turn the lights down at 5:15 each afternoon to encourage the enthusiasm of the regulars. The pork spring rolls from the neighborhood restaurant menu were hot. Humidity was down on the sun-drenched streets outside. Jake was doing some business at the bar, and Mac and I were at one of the little tall cocktail tables that line the deep brown wooden divider that separates fine dining from the usual suspects in the lounge. I was scribbling like mad, since I have everything out of order. Mac brought some documents and books to review. He had the CIA monograph on the end of the Pacific War, and the new book on the Berlin Airlift. Just what I needed, more books, but the craving to understand is an ongoing imperative, as insistent as thirst at the end of a summer business day. “Charles Nathan” were the Christian names of Mac’s father, but he was on travel someplace. His Mom, Hedwig (“Hattie”) Showers came to the door, and Captain of Police Laurence N. Ham told her why he had driven her son over from the field house at Iowa State University. The Draft Act had not been passed yet, and there were some legal niceties that had to be accommodated, even though they would soon be swept away on the road to global war. Lieutenant Ham cleared his throat. “Your son is just ten days away from his 21st birthday, Ma’am. I need to get your written authorization for him to join the Navy. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Hattie asked with a Mother’s concern. The world, ot at least the rolling low hills of Iowa was at peace. The trouble in Europe was someone else’s problem for the moment. Mac nodded, and she went ahead and signed her name. With that, Lieutenant Ham was one body closer to meeting his prodigious quota list for August, and Mac smeared his thumbprint on the faded document that Mac produced from an envelope and placed on the table in front of me. I was careful not to drip the savory dipping sauce from the spring rolls on it, or on his draft registration that he produced as a companion piece a moment later. “My Dad was president of the Johnson County Draft Board, and when the Draft Act was passed the next month, he insisted that I sign up, even though I was already in the Navy,” he said, taking a sip of his savory red beverage. “He said no son of mine is going to be accused of not doing his duty.” He shook his head at the ancient remark.