Gitmo... Guantanamo Bay

PREFACE

You would not know it listening to politicians or the media in Washington, D.C. these days, but Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is one of the better natural harbors along the eastern coastline of the Western Hemisphere, and has been the site of a fully operational U.S. Naval Base for over 100 years.

Located half way between Miami and San Juan the Gitmo Naval Base commands the northeastern corner of the Caribbean Sea about seven hundred nautical miles due north of the Panama Canal – now operated by China. Small wonder the Russians have been trying to get their hands on Gitmo since Raul Castro came back from his sojourn in the Soviet Union in the 1960’s.

John and Bobby Kennedy sent the Russians packing, but look what happened to them.

*****

GUANTANAMO CITY

A large town located south from hillsides across the outcroppings of the northern reaches of an estuary to the body of water that shares its name, and toward the United States Naval Base that has been its neighbor for over 100 years.

Rafael’s day job is managing the water and sewerage plant in Guantanamo City, where he lives with a pretty younger wife and two teenage daughters. Rafael is sixty years old… give or take a few years. His real birthday was hidden from him for so long that when the wraps came off no one around him could recall the exact hour or day he had come into the world. His mother, now dead for several years, on her deathbed owned up to some truths that Rafael had previously only suspected. His father was a nameless American sailor or marine who’d been shipped to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base for training at some point in the mid to late 1950’s.

The close-by town of Cayamo in those days was a brothel… stretching from end to end on one side of the main drag in off-boardwalk wooden shacks where Cuban women came from the area to wait for carloads of sailors arriving in a pack by a rickety old train running on a rusty track. The sailors drank beer and rum and paid Dollars to make adult mischief until gathered hours later at a muster near the train station and put back on the train cars and motor launches to return to the U.S. Base.

Rafael realized early on that he and a few of his friends and older children in the area were different. Their hair was too light, and too much sun burned their skin. He never complained. In fact, he had been good looking enough to be much sought after by the girls in his school, and he grew up as a normal Cuban man in the small outland called Guantanamo. He learned early the importance of catching his own dinner… not an opportunity that would have been available had he been living 700 miles west on the opposite end of the main Island near Havana.

He sees every movement of nature now as he moves quietly along the stringy wet shoreline. The brackish water that is his playground and fish farm is flushed twice every day by tides that barely reach far enough inland and northwards to clean out the mild toxins of sea creature and grassland defoliation, but enough to bring life and energy to the waterborne inhabitants that are Rafael’s quarry. He often fishes at night… using a small light that brings fish and urchins to the surface to pounce… only to be pounced upon themselves when close enough to his nets.

On this day he stops, checks his position by triangulating fixed compass points on his horizon, and takes a space-aged shape from the package under his arm and attaches it to a six-foot stake as instructed. Rafael’s position in charge of the area sewerage plants has been the perfect and natural choice as any infiltration of toxicity into the marshes and upper Bay would bring an end to his fishing holes.

Today there’s something new. Good. Life is made too simple by endless repetition. He looks at the unit more carefully now that he is alone in the tall grass of the wet bogs. Solar-battery-driven and designed to be placed at the top of a stake stuck four feet into the marsh, the unit is topped by a thin whip-like antenna and sports a small bulb, which flashes when imposed upon by motorized objects flying in the night sky. Rafael knows that because when he flicked a switch it had done this, much to his shock, while sitting on the stand in his bedroom as a Navy plane circled to land at NAS Guantanamo, twenty miles away.

Satisfied he is at the exact spot along the edge of the marsh grass that had been pointed out to him on a satellite picture, he drives the stake into the marsh. Both he and the young man who gave him the device know that Rafael is probably the only person alive sufficiently familiar with the inner bay, north of the U.S. line, to be able to walk out and put a stake down at a precise point shown to him along the shoreline of the whole upper Guantanamo Bay.

Once the stake and attached unit are well in place, Rafael wheels and gives a quick underhanded bird salute south toward the American Base… an expression that both he and his mystical father recognize. The man whose bloodline he shares is probably in the grave by now, but equally important that Rafael make the connection.

He arrives home in time for his family’s favorite bean salad on top of one of the fish he caught the day before. The gold coins in his pocket make him feel good. He’s finally able to buy his wife and children some new clothes.

*****

PALM BEACH

Charles Black, the White House Chief of Staff, is enjoying Palm Beach as one of those places where few things seem real. The social scene is a cartoon for him… vividly colorful and just real enough to remind its inhabitants they’re alive.

Charles’ family’s vacation is shot full of invitations to cocktail parties and dinner invitations coming from those who either want favors from the White House or think they’re owed one, and his staff manages to regret them all as fast as they are received. Instead, Charles takes his family to some of the very good, but off the high-end social scene, restaurants in the Palm Beaches. His wife and children are enjoying their holiday and having a great time. Charles is grateful for the time together with his family, but if he ever gets another vacation he’ll opt for a horseback ride and camping in Wyoming or Montana, and leave his smart phone at home.

The first two days in Palm Beach, before the press drifted away, were hectic in and around the modest home, blocks from the beach, he’s rented for 10 days. Charles is accustomed to the inconvenience. It took the missus a few days to get used to dealing with the fishbowl life style Palm Beach reserves for celebrities, which she found more intrusive than political Washington. In DC the sheer number of bureaucrats and erstwhile celebrities dilutes popular attention. Charles’ two teenage daughters take the attention in stride, flirting, texting, and tweeting as they go.

In a few days he’ll be back in D.C. chained to his desk; but the South Florida weather is good and eighteen golf holes beckon before the afternoon rainsqualls come through. The truth is he chose the Palm Beaches to please his wife… the children wanted Orlando… and Charles didn’t care so long as he could play a little golf. Just being out of the office for a few days with his family is a holiday for him.

The phone interrupts his early morning breakfast session with his wife, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New York Times, coffee, and two strips of bacon with eggs over easy.

‘What’s up, Jean?’ His senior Admin wouldn’t be bothering him if it weren’t important. ‘A meeting with who… the Secretary of State… this morning in Miami? You must be kidding.’

What choice does he have but to postpone the opportunity to lose a few more golf balls with a game that has improved little since arriving for the Congressional Recess, but what in hell is so important that she can’t wait to be back in Washington on Monday? More of that woman’s confused priorities no doubt.

When Charles came into the White House job three years earlier he was like an owl in the tree looking down on the political world from on high, but at this point he feels more like a rabbit, running around trying to survive amongst hordes of lobbyist foxes bent on having him for lunch.

He gives his wife the bad news, and takes the limo his Admin ordered for him, down I 95 to a hotel penthouse suite along the up-market Miami downtown waterfront. Five or six lanes in each direction with ten percent of the drivers bent on killing themselves together with as many others as they can take with them.

His limo driver tries to make the trip interesting, and Charles begins to relax after a while, taking in the sights as the driver moves over to AIA somewhere below Fort Lauderdale, and drives along the beach road lined on one side with modern plastic skyscrapers and expensive automobiles baking in the hot sun… safer and more interesting than I 95… if idly vacuous.

The last few miles into downtown Miami come alive with workers rushing about and Charles has his first look at an interesting network of modern overhead trams. Finally, they round a piece of Miami waterfront, and drive into the entrance semicircle of a major hotel.

This is not the Miami that Charles remembers. The number of well dressed Latinos of both sexes carrying shinny brief cases, mingling with local business women and men, and moving easily and quickly up and down stairs and sliding into and out of shiny cars, puts a handsome South American veneer on the surroundings. This modern image will remain fresh in Charles’ mind for months, and will come in handy when he and a few close advisors determine to engage the New World in looking south and north, not east and west, to tap the strength and power of the Hemisphere working together as a new force to tackle pockets of discord for the betterment of all. No small task for peoples only five or six hundred years unshackled from the yoke of the diverse kingdoms of Europe…

Or about time maybe, Charles thinks.

A State Department junior waits nervously near the circular front door of the hotel to escort the White House Chief of Staff through a labyrinth of security… two elevator banks, past several well-armed guards posted in the open space that leads to a luxury set of rooms… exposing through oversized picture windows Key Biscayne, connected by bridges off to the East, and a large cruise ship leaving the harbor.

At the end of this secure entry all Charles manages to see of the Secretary of State is a note she has left with his name on it.

Charles, this is all in your ballpark. Thanks for coming.

I couldn’t wait any longer. See you back in the Capitol.

He wonders if the lady’s that casual with her diplomatic comrades. Her Assistant Secretary for Central American Protocol, Bruce Ante, is a thin-lipped puppy of a man with a constantly runny nose, whose main claim to fame is he had once counted Hugo Chavez, the now deceased populist dictator of Venezuela, among his personal contacts.

‘The Cubans have presented a decent case,’ Ante tells him in clipped tones. ‘A lease, sir, even one with no fixed term… not the same as sovereignty,’ as if Charles didn’t know that. ‘The USCuba Treaty gets in the way. On the merits of the lease alone, their legal position is pretty strong. You can factor in world opinion for a slam-dunk. Only one problem, sir… the International Court… that’s at The Hague… doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear and decide the matter… unless we consent to it.’

He doesn’t know whether to laugh or shout obscenities. ‘So you dragged me all the way down here off my one vacation in three years to tell me that?’

Assistant Secretary Ante stands still for a moment, mouth open, shuffling his feet, and coughs up an answer: ‘The Secretary hadn’t realized that the International Court’s jurisdiction was based on our express consent.’

‘Oh great. So who gave her that message… you?’

Ante’s eyes look down at his feet as his head nods to catch up.

‘So how come Cuba goes ahead and files the case anyway?’

‘It’s not completely unheard of,’ Ante says.

‘You mean to provide the fuel for organizing and fanning the flame of world opinion?’

Ante perks up, as Charles seems to have joined the team. ‘Exactly, he says. There are many important issues before the United Nations these days. They may be looking for a trade-off somewhere.’

‘I don’t see there’s much to trade. Anyway, who’s ‘they’,’ he asks, thinking the previous Secretary of State, a graduate of the Penn Law School, would not have overlooked questions of jurisdiction.

‘We think the Russians may be behind this. You may recalI that Vladimir Putin sailed into Havana a few months ago on one of their spy ships, and spent some time with both Castros. I think you had better talk with the Secretary about that aspect. It’s above my pay grade.’

He can only smile inwardly at being summoned away from holidays to an urgent meeting by a high government official who has not even bothered to show up.

‘So, who’s handling that non-case for us at the International Court?’ he asks her junior replacement.

‘The Solicitor General’s Office,’ Ante says, ‘In coordination with the Department of Justice.’

Three years heading up the White House staff has given him a nose for the big ones… and, while apparently the Secretary doesn’t think so, this meets all his qualifications for a crisis of major proportions, a complaint in the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, to recover Guantanamo Bay from the United States, possibly in league with a Russia bent on having a spot here to house their war machines – to match what the Chinese have by operating the Panama Canal at the other end of the Caribbean, compliments of Jimmy Carter.

All this coming in the middle of the President’s bid for reelection to a second term; and now this Foreign Service junior officer is telling him they have a good case… at least before the court of world opinion. He’d best speak with the Solicitor General’s Office before the President calls him for a report.

Hopefully, we file a motion to dismiss based on lack of jurisdiction, and that’s the end of it…

Why does he not believe that?

Charles spends the final thirty-five minutes of his limo ride back to Palm Beach sipping on Jamaican rum swished around in a half ounce of fresh lime juice, compliments of his driver. His mind roams through the issues dumped into his lap. Guantanamo Bay has been a sword in the side of every President since the Bush Administration had opened Camp Delta. These days the name Gitmo no longer means a well-placed United States Naval Base with good access and a bridge between the Atlantic and Caribbean Seas. Now it refers to a controversial prison for Islamic jihadists.

He had been present three years earlier when the President was told by the Secretary of the Navy that the bay was one of the best natural harbors in the hemisphere and strategically placed to command the Caribbean Sea from its northeast corner, while China and Venezuela, Iran’s partner in crime, control virtually the entire southern extremity from Trinidad to Panama… and lest we forget, the Navy likes to add, Russia has always coveted that harbor. China too, Charles thinks as they cross the north bridge into Palm Beach.

*****

POTOMAC VIEWS

The Watergate Hotel came into national prominence when five men were caught trying to burglarize and bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee, which had its offices there. 'Watergate' became a household name during the ensuing scandal that eventually led to Richard Nixon resigning the Presidency. Nearby, one of Washington’s better addresses then and now, is the large condominium complex also known as The Watergate.

Kate Stevens smiles at the doorman, and with amusement and some self indulgence watches his reflection in a window looking out toward Georgetown as he follows her movements to the mailbox and then into one of the elevators that will take her to the top floor of that section.

Kate has showered and changed into casuals by the time the man in her life, Gordon Cox, walks in the door to their penthouse flat at The Watergate, an apartment he assembled eight years before by combining two regular units into a showplace overlooking Georgetown to the northwest, the Kennedy Center immediately south, and the Potomac River with Virginia beyond to the west. Kate moved-in a couple of years earlier when they’d developed notions of spending a lifetime together… and their relationship has grown by leagues ever since.

They occupy the most important piece in each other’s lives, and together they’re a visible part of the Washington political/lawyer scene… Kate with her current position on the Solicitor General’s staff, which she joined after her clerkship at the Supreme Court… and Gordon in his 14th year practicing a mixture of corporate law and litigation in the Nation’s Capitol. Gordon is also working on his fourth year as an informal confidant of the woman for whom he’d campaigned and is now entering a fourth year as President of the United States.

Gordon seldom brings work home, and unlike some lawyers carries a briefcase only when he has something to do in it. ‘It’s not his pocketbook,’ Kate likes to tell her friends.

‘You’re home early,’ he says, giving Kate a warm kiss,

and plops his six-foot-four frame onto the loveseat next to her.

Kate puts her arms around his neck with a sly smile, ‘I came home to pack. I’m off for a few days,’ she says, assessing his reaction.

‘Hey… to where… what’s up?’

‘Our old friends in Havana,’ she says. ‘The Cubans have filed a complaint before the International Court alleging breach of the terms of our lease to the Base at Guantanamo Bay and demanding we vacate immediately.’

‘Where’s Yogi Berra when you need him,’ Gordon mutters.

‘What?’

‘As Reagan liked to say… ‘Here we go again.’’

‘If that includes our visiting Havana again, I hope not.’

‘You’ve had an interesting Monday.’

‘More like a surprising afternoon. I was called in after lunch. The SG wanted to know all about your and my trip to Havana three years ago. I’m supposed to find out what’s really going on over there at The Hague. Apparently, there are all kinds of rumors about what and who are really behind this. The AG said he spoke with Charles Black, and they decided to send me across the Pond to The Hague,’ she tells him with some pride showing through. Then suddenly reacting to a thought that pops to the surface… ‘Did Charles talk with you?’

Gordon slides his 6-4 body down to the floor so he’s looking slightly up at Kate. ‘He called me late this this afternoon.’

‘Did you have anything to do with… . .’

Gordon interrupts. ‘With you’re going to The Hague…?’ absolutely not.

‘But he did call for advice?’

‘The White House expects the story to hit the street tomorrow. He’s already getting calls from the Times and the Journal. He recalled I had predicted two years ago that Cuba might someday file such a complaint. What did I know that he didn’t?’

Kate laughs. ‘And you told him I would be perfect for the assignment.’

‘No. I told him the Russians wanted that base to