Brent Colton is a retired CIA operations officer now in the employ of the Creighton Corporation, a privately owned think tank that advocates various opinions on world issues, but it’s his clandestine job to solve the dirty problems for their private clients for a million dollar fee with no questions asked. When recovering stolen technology from a Vietnamese industrialist, Colton obtains evidence that he secretly partnered with a U.S. Senatorto rig the recent presidential election and elect him to the nation’s highest office.

IS A ‘SEVEN DAYS IN MAY’ SCENARIO LOOMING?
by Terry Heath, 2006

There are Internet rumblings that the U.S. military elite are unhappy with proposed Bush administration plans to eliminate Iran’s nuclear development program by targeting up to 400 potential bombing sites in that Middle Eastern country with all weapons in our arsenal including, potentially, the first introduction of nuclear devices in a war setting since 1945.

Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has written a provocative article in the April 17, 2006 issue of the New Yorker Magazine that suggests the Pentagon, under President George W. Bush’s direction, has prepared battle plans to eliminate Iran’s fledging program that international experts say could enable that Islamic nation to have operational atomic bombs in the next two to five years.

And now a group of six retired Army and Marine generals have disclosed their dissatisfaction with current administration policy and have called for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s immediate resignation due, in their view, his poor management skills in running the Pentagon bureaucracy and coordinating the ongoing stalemate in Iraq.

President Bush issued a written statement on April 14th showing his support for the embattled cabinet official and Rumsfeld says he intends to stay in the post as we potentially go to war with Iran in the next few months.

So what options would a reluctant military elite, who still have to account for the safety of tens of thousands of U.S. troops bogged down in an endless ground war against a hard to find enemy in neighboring Iraq, to keep from being ordered to use its destructive powers against a country that offers very little threat to us at the moment?

In these dangerous times would it be outrageous to suggest a coup d’etat and a replacement of civilian leadership by a military tribunal on a temporary basis until this nation makes peace with its enemies?

Would such an extremist move of a self-imposed military regime change on current civilian leadership be possible in the United States? Several military experts recently got together to discuss if such a radical event could occur against our democratic structure of government.

The April, 2006 issue of Harper’s Magazine features a transcript of four defense industry insiders debating the possibility of a potential military overthrow of our civilian government if such high-ranking officials in our armed services lost faith in a president and his administration to properly govern the country and repeatedly force the military to solve the chief executive’s ill-fated excursions into other countries around the globe.

Those involved in the discussion were Professor Andrew Bacevich of Boston University, retired Brigadier General Charles Dunlap, Jr., Richard Kohn of the University of North Carolina and Edward Luttwak who wrote the book ‘Coup D’Etat: A Practical Handbook.’ The four are experts on the military and how the Pentagon functions and all offered the opinion that a successful overthrow of our civilian government would be remote.

Each of the quartet expressed that it was extremely unlikely a military coup could take place in our society because the plotters could never gain the public support needed for such an endeavor unless the military possessed a charismatic popular officer who could gain the support of a disillusioned civilian populace.

Does that seem familiar?

The book and movie version of ‘Seven Days In May’ details a plan by the Joint Service Chiefs to replace a perceived weak president in a dispute over the direction of American nuclear policy in the setting of the Cold War. The book was written by Washington journalists Fletcher Knebl and Charles W. Bailey II and was published in 1962. The movie version starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Fredric March was released in 1964 in the months after the JFK assassination.

The plot centers on those heads of the military planning to depose the president during a nuclear war drill being conducted at a mythical military control center named Mount Thunder. At that same time specially trained troops under the conspirators direct authority would take over specific communication centers across the country so the announcement of a transfer of power could be undertaken at a minimal cost of inconvenience and human lives to a surprised U.S. populace finding themselves under a new leadership being offered by a charismatic Air Force general named James Scott, as portrayed in the film by Lancaster, whose tough political foreign policy rhetoric had already won over millions of supporters to his cause.

The two newsmen/novelists supposedly based their page turning tome on the grumblings being made at that time by the senior military brass in the wake of the disastrous 1961 Cuban Bay of Pigs invasion when President John Kennedy call off planned air attacks to support the failed land invasion of that island nation.

So has a real-life charismatic military leader ever actually rationalized the extreme option of bypassing civilian authority when in conflict with those in the Executive Branch to solve the nation’s problems in a manner he alone can choose without a meddling Congress or Supreme Court to get in his way?

Beloved Five-star General of the Army Douglas MacArthur endured his share of policy disagreements with several leaders occupying the White House but he never considered taking part in a military overthrow of the executive branch and run foreign policy matters his own way.

Or did he?

Several books have been written which allege in 1934 when Franklin Roosevelt was president that many of the nation’s rich industrialists were unhappy with the Democratic chief executive’s plan to end the economic depression the country was going through by massive government intervention. The story goes that the coup plotters approached beloved Marine General Smedley Butler, who coined the prophetic term ‘war is a racket,’ to see if he would be interested in coordinating the military’s assistance of running the country in such a plan. He was apparently repulsed by the idea and promptly informed Roosevelt of the scheme once he discovered that none other than MacArthur had previously been approached and supposedly agreed to some of the aims of the group.

Once Roosevelt was briefed and became aware of the potential revolt it was decided to leak the details to the press in a way to make it seem like it was some foolish joke gone too far so no more was to be made of it. But isn’t it interesting shortly after this alleged incident took place that MacArthur retired from the Army and went to the Philippines and stayed there until being recalled into military service in 1941 shortly before the American entry into World War Two when his services were again needed.

Alternate Scenario One: December, 1963

John Kennedy has been buried in Arlington National Cemetery for two weeks and the military elite determines that Lyndon Johnson is unfit for high office. Next in line to succeed him is elderly Speaker of the House John McCormack who is 72 years old. Would military intervention have been needed to restore confidence to American prestige throughout the world as we and the Soviet Union battled for nuclear supremacy?

Alternate Scenario Two: January, 1975

Richard Nixon has been impeached by the House of Representatives but is waiting for his Senate trial to begin. He decrees by executive order that a national emergency exists and suspends the authority of Congress and the Supreme Court until he alone determines such a crisis is over. Would the military have been forced to step in and take the reigns of power from a potential dictator?

Alternate Scenario Three: June, 2009

The U.S. economy is on life support after years of deficit spending and declining manufacturing capability. The nations of Asia sense instability in the dollar and begin dumping their Treasury Bond holdings. A weak president, unable to come up with a workable economic solution while millions of citizens see their savings and home equities wiped out, focuses his/her attention on creating a war against a perceived ‘rogue nation’ to divert the coming anger of the American people. Would a charismatic military man come forward to restore order amongst chaos when the country needs him?

Will an American military officer ever challenge our constitutional form of government if they believed the actions of the civilian authority could irreparably harm the country? Possibly so, if that individual determines certain military orders given by a desperate politician far exceeds the defensive needs of the United States, and would have to step in and temporarily take over the reigns of command to prevent a potential worldwide nuclear conflagration.

Terry Heath California E-Mail readermail@terryheathbooks.com