2019/3b.plaintext

   1 megis penta couple of days over at the pentagon briefing the staff and trying to gauge the mood
   2 there you are right the hawks are getting pretty restless and have more or less decided already that
   3 the soviets are to blame for recent events on the apollo programme some of the generals dont need
   4 much of an excuse to turn up the heat but you dont get four stars without understanding the need for
   5 political support and there has been a concerted whispering campaign to convince the president to
   6 take a strong line the most strident are calling for a large buildup of forces along the border with
   7 east germany as a show of strength arguing that the attack on the space programme must have been
   8 authorised by the politburo that makes no sense to me first the russians are more likely to try to
   9 win the propaganda war than to risk conflict and second the sabotage if that is what it is isnt
  10 sophisticated enough for a kgb operation but it is hard to convince the generals that that is true
  11 some of the more cautious planners mostly those who actually fought in the last war have managed to
  12 block the buildup proposing a new tranche of wargames instead mobilising that way is still a
  13 provocation but is less likely to accidentally trigger aware specially if we notify pavlovsky in
  14 advance all the same my own time in berlin convinced me we have to tread very softly there so i
  15 headed over to langley and convinced them to suggest an alternative we will step up inspections at
  16 checkpoint charlie to make it harder for soviet agents to cross and crank up the teufel s berg
  17 listening operation to see if that turns up anything related i am also going to send a couple of our
  18 best over to baikonur to try and find out what is going on there the soviets are pretty secretive
  19 about their own space programme and without the worlds press watching we dont really have a clear
  20 picture of their progress or their plans unless they are close to putting their own men on the moon
  21 icant see what they have to gain with what seems to be a fairly disorganised attempt to derail our
  22 space programme but i would still like to know what they are up to keep a close eye on the mission
  23 planning and let me know if you hear anything worrying i will be back about a week before the launch
  24 harry