"Of course, Mr. President."
"I understand that you met with Bill Donovan right after the war started, isn't that so?"
"Yes, Sir, it is." William S. Donovan, a New York lawyer, had been asked by Roosevelt to establish an organization to coordinate all United States intelligence activities (except counter intelligence, which was handled in the U.S. and Latin America by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. The organization evolved first into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and ultimately into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
"I understand that your talk with Donovan didn't go well,"
"That's correct, Sir." Where the hell did he hear that? Did Donovan fell him? Or Richmond Fowler?
Roosevelt laughed.
"Forgive me. But you and Bill are the immovable object and the irresistible force. I'm really not at all surprised. I would love to have been a fly on the wall."
"Actually, Sir, it was quite civil. He asked me to become sort of a clerk to a banker whom I knew, and I respectfully declined the honor." Pickering sensed Leahy's eyes on him, glanced at him, and was surprised to see what could have been a smile on his lips and in his eyes.
"And then, as I understand it," Roosevelt went on, "when you went to The Marines and offered your services, they respectfully declined the honor?"
"They led me to believe, Mr. President," Pickering replied, smiling back at Roosevelt, who was quietly beaming at his play on words, "that as desperate as they were for manpower, there was really no place in The Corps for a forty-six-year-old corporal. "
"And then you went to Frank Knox, and he arranged for you to be commissioned into the Navy?" That wasn't the way it happened. Frank Knox came to me and asked me to accept the commission.
"Yes, Sir," Pickering said.
`Admiral Leahy and I have just about concluded that was a mistake," Roosevelt said.
"So have I, Mr. President. I-"
"I don't think the President means to suggest that you're not qualified to be a Naval captain, Captain," Leahy broke in quickly. "I certainly don't. Your conduct aboard the Gregory put to rest any doubts about your competence. And I was one of those who never had any doubts."
"I didn't mean that the way it sounded, Fleming," Roosevelt said.
"I respectfully disagree, Admiral," Pickering said. "I should not be a Naval officer, period."
"Now with that, " Roosevelt said, "I agree."
"As soon as I can discuss the matter with Secretary Knox, Mr. President, I intend to ask him to let me out of the Service."
"I know," Roosevelt said. "He told me. I'm afraid that's quite impossible, Fleming. Out of the question."
"I don't quite understand," Pickering said.
`You're familiar, of course, with the Office of Management Analysis in Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps?"
Pickering thought a moment, came up with nothing, and replied, "No, Sir. I am not."
"Does the name Rickabee mean anything to you, Pickering." Leahy asked.
"Yes," Pickering replied immediately. "Yes, indeed. Outstanding man."
"He heads the Office of Management Analysis," Roosevelt said a trifle smugly.
"Yes, Sir," Pickering said, feeling quite stupid. He had never actually met Lieutenant Colonel F. L. Rickabee, USMC, but he had seen how efficiently the man could operate. He had, in fact, vowed to find Rickabee in Washington, to shake his hand, and say thank you.
Among the long list of Navy brass actions in the Pacific that were outrageously stupid in Fleming Pickering's view was their handling of the Royal Australian Navy Coastwatcher Establishment.
When the Japanese began their march down the Solomon Islands chain toward New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand, the Australians hastily recruited plantation managers, schoolteachers, government technicians, shipping officials, and even a couple of missionaries who had lived on the islands.
They hastily commissioned these people as junior officers in the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve and left them behind on the islands, equipped with shortwave radios and small arms.
They were in a position to provide-at great risk to their lives-extremely valuable intelligence regarding Japanese Army and Navy movements, strength, location, and probable intentions. But the Navy arrogantly judged that information coming from natives who were not professional Navy types couldn't possibly be genuinely valuable.
Later, when the value of the Coastwatcher-provided intelligence could no longer be denied, the Navy brass decided that it was now far too important to he left to the administration of the lowly Royal Australian Navy Reserve Lieutenant Commander who was in charge. The U.S. Navy would take over and do it right, in other words.
Pickering heard of the situation from an old friend, Fitzhugh Boyer, who had been Pacific and Far East Shipping's agent in Melbourne and was now a Rear Admiral in the Royal Australian Navy. Fitz Boyer introduced him to Lieutenant Commander Eric Feldt, who was running the Coastwatcher Establishment, and who cheerfully confessed to being a little less than charming to the detachment of U.S. Navy officers who had shown up in Townsville to take over his operation.
Fitz Boyer told Pickering that it was unfortunately true that Feldt did indeed tell the captain who led the detachment that unless he left Townsville that very day, he was going to tear his head off and stick it up his anal cavity.
That same day Pickering fired off an URGENT radio to Frank Knox, recommending that a highly qualified intelligence officer be sent to Australia as soon as possible, with orders to place himself at Feldt's disposal, and with the means to provide Feldt with whatever assistance, especially financial, Feldt needed.
Nine days later, Major Edward J. Banning, USMC, former Intelligence Officer of the Fourth Marines in Shanghai, got off a plane in Melbourne carrying a cashier's check drawn on the Treasury of the United States for a quarter of a million dollars.
He was accompanied by a sergeant. Within days the balance of Marine Corps Special Detachment 14, along with crates of the very best shortwave radios and other equipment, began to arrive by priority air shipment.
Banning and Feldt were two of a kind; they hit it off immediately. Not only that, Banning and his detachment proved to be precisely what Pickering had hoped for but thought he had little chance of getting.
Soon after a pair of U.S. Marines was parachuted onto Buka Island to augment the Coastwatcher operation there, Pickering confessed to Banning that he was astonished at the high quality of the people Frank Knox had sent him; and he was equally surprised that they'd arrived so quickly. And Banning replied that the man responsible was Rickabee.
"Mr. Knox is a wise man," Banning said. "He gave this job to Colonel Rickabee, together with the authority, and then let him do it."
That was the first time Pickering heard of Rickabee. But before he was ordered home, he'd had many other dealings with the man; and each contact confirmed his first impression: Rickabee was a man who got things done.
"Colonel Rickabee and you have many things in common, Fleming," Roosevelt said, smiling. "For instance, some people-not me, of course, but some people-think you both have abrasive personalities." Roosevelt waited for a reply, got none, and then went on.
"Another way to phrase that is that neither of you can suffer fools. As I'm sure you've learned, fools find that attitude distressing. That doesn't bother you, I know, but it does affect Rickabee."
"I don't think I follow you, Mr. President."
"When Admiral Leahy let the word out that the promotion of Lieutenant Colonel Rickabee to brigadier general was being considered, it was not greeted with enthusiasm. Quite the reverse."
"I think he would make a splendid general officer," Pickering said.
"So do I," Leahy said. "I've known him for a long time.
Even before I was Chief of Naval Operations, he did special jobs for me.
And he has done special jobs for me since."