Chapter 1336: Attacking the Troubles

The first order of business was to get the people under control first, Allen Wilson still believed that a High Commissioner could take care of this, the cause and effect was still unclear, but he guessed that the head should be an American wounded soldier, not a Korean one, he believed in the ability of the Korean soldiers to treat the civilians with a heavy hand when no one was looking, but that was in the realm of South Vietnam.

Malaya was a British colony, and the Koreans should not have had the guts to mess around on British territory, and after waiting a while, a telegram from Kuala Lumpur arrived in Whitehall.

He hadn’t guessed wrong at all; the crimes against the nurses at the local hospital had been committed by American wounded soldiers, and as for the Korean wounded soldiers involved, they had been ordered to help out by the Sovereign.

This is not at all surprising, American soldiers are like this in any country around the world, and this includes the U.S. It seems that in later times there was a movie called the General’s Daughter about the U.S. military who can’t keep their pants on wherever they go, and even the General’s Daughter was a victim of this, and the presence of it in Malaya is not at all surprising.

Not that he necessarily had to do anything rash now, he’d see how Richard responded first, and by the time the second phone call rang, Richard had already indicated that he’d sent someone to arrest all the wounded soldiers involved.

“The Malayan colony is conservative, and you know the colony fears nothing more than this sort of thing. Crimes against women are the most likely to inspire nationalism, and that’s something Britain wants to avoid at all costs. So you must make a show of punishing them severely, and let the local judicial officials decide whether to apply the Qing law or the law of the religion of peace. The first priority is to salvage Britain’s prestige and defend local interests.”

Alan Wilson said this paused for a moment, “As for the mastermind, first determine the origin, if the famous family after it, may ultimately be subject to U.S. pressure to be released, but if there is no history of the bottom, then don’t be polite, in order to highlight the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, we will not openly kill the U.S. soldiers, but is still a wounded soldier, out of a little complication and what not. Normal. Drug overdose not saved? Alcohol poisoning? There are plenty of excuses.”

“A wounded Korean soldier would be dead in the water if he was talked back to by a local justice official in the colonies, I reckon.” Richard voiced his concerns as well, “Secretary General, is there going to be a public execution?”

“Koreans? Heh!” Allen Wilson said with an old-fashioned ease, “Pull all the soldiers rescued in Malaya, no need to differentiate between the US and South Korea, all of them will be pulled over for a deep education. Now there’s another question, does the US Army Command in South Vietnam know about this? Since you haven’t blocked the news, I assume it’s known. If the U.S. generals apply pressure, you’re calling me.”

As he said this, Alan Wilson once again looked at his watch, “That’s it then, it’s time to go off duty over here, we’ll talk about it tomorrow if there’s anything.”

With the tradition of the U.S. military, once the U.S. military in other countries to commit crimes, as long as they are not caught red-handed that will certainly be subject to pressure, if the impact is very large, the U.S. will certainly get the offending soldiers back to their home countries. It’s not that the U.S. military is much better about internal matters, but the rules for this particular group of the military are different from other groups.

Allen Wilson could give the U.S. Army a face and wouldn’t openly kill this American soldier to beat the face of Top of the Hill City, but this person had to stay and couldn’t just pat himself on the back and walk away.

A soldier in the district, theoretically, will not attract the attention of the United States, secretly killed and so what? In fact right now the US military command in South Vietnam hadn’t really noticed the incident because Richard had locked the culprit on the South Koreans as instructed by the Supreme Authority.

As for the Pentagon in Washington, which has the time to care what happens to a soldier fighting outside, the United States has nearly 200,000 troops stationed in South Vietnam, and they can’t care less. The thing that the Pentagon is discussing intensely right now is whether or not to expand the strike, and that’s the important thing.

The chiefs of staff also strongly advocated a more intense three-dimensional attack by U.S. forces on North Vietnam by air, land and sea. They took this recommendation so seriously that they handed the Department of Defense another memorandum reiterating their view that an invasion of North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, including the deployment of U.S. forces in Thailand, had become essential, and that at the same time there existed a very real possibility of the use of nuclear weapons against a major power.

They emphasized that all of the above actions underscored the need to mobilize U.S. reserve forces now.

Lyndon Johnson was deeply alarmed by the Pentagon’s ideas, as the CIA had given him diametrically opposed information, concluding that winning the war simply on the basis of current war efforts was indeed unlikely. As for the several CIA options, including: building a wall along South Vietnam’s western and northern borders; mining ports; massive air strikes; and destroying transportation routes on rivers; an examination of all of these and other options that were screened resulted in the conclusion that none of them would be sufficient to achieve the desired U.S. objective of a military victory.

Another additional option proposed sending U.S. troops to North Vietnam, which Marine Corps officials estimated would require at least half a million additional U.S. troops in the region.

Lyndon Johnson, ignoring the Pentagon and CIA disputes, was preparing for a visit by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson as a way to highlight the special Anglo-American relationship at this particular time, and even better if he could get Britain to send troops.

The American President was sure to be disappointed, as one of the main purposes of this visit by Harold Wilson was to broker an American armistice.

Relations between Britain and the Soviet Union had recently been moving in a favorable direction, and after a telephone conversation with Kosygin, the chairman of the Soviet Council of Ministers, Harold Wilson decided to persuade the United States to armistice in the name of both Britain and the Soviet Union.

In fact this was not the first time that a country had persuaded the United States to stop the war; eight countries had called for an armistice in the last year’s time, and Britain and the United States had long been on the same page in international affairs. British Prime Minister Wilson was very concerned about President Lyndon Johnson’s expansion of the Vietnam War.

President Lyndon Johnson had indicated that he was considering the use of nuclear weapons to end the war. Wilson persuaded the U.S. President to engage in peace talks through a hotline and asked to come to the U.S. for an interview. The Texas-born US President refused! That was when Labor had just won the election.

Now that the U.S. military campaign was going nowhere, Harold Wilson once again hit on the idea of persuading an armistice in the hope that the U.S. would stop fighting.

Before the Prime Minister left, Alan Wilson had betrayed this purpose to McCarthy, who made him a defender of the special Anglo-American relationship, not unlike the Prime Minister who was suspected of being a Soviet spy. It was intolerable that Kosygin should be used to put pressure on the American President.

With expectant eyes to see the prime minister board the special plane to the United States, Alan Wilson stretched a lazy waist, now is the time to take the opportunity to ask the Kuala Lumpur side, about the unfortunate isolation of the incident to deal with it yet? You have to be quick and not hesitate in such matters.

Arriving in Washington, Harold Wilson, on meeting Lyndon Johnson, expressed the hope that the United States would call a truce.

This surprised the U.S. President, for the first time felt that the other party was judged by the Central Intelligence Agency as a Soviet spy, produced a hint of trust, Lyndon Johnson turned the tables and opened his mouth, “I will not teach you how to solve the problem of Jakarta, and you do not teach me how to deal with Vietnam. If you really want to help me, send some troops over to help us with those guerrillas. Make it official that you want to support us. If you can’t do that, you might as well go on solving your Jakarta problem.”

Lyndon Johnson was nonchalant and developed a deep mistrust of the British Prime Minister’s surprising move to join forces with the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in a joint mediation effort; some harmless issues that the US could not mind, but this was a large-scale war, and the UK was siding with the USSR?

Alan Wilson knows that the Prime Minister this trip will certainly mediate a lonely, if he is not checked the reliability of the Prime Minister, in a third-party perspective, perhaps he would have suspected that the Prime Minister is not a Soviet spy? How could he think of talking to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, jointly with the Americans?

He even thought that the Prime Minister should learn from himself and sneakily take out the offending American GIs and then make a big deal out of the fact that the remaining seven Korean soldiers had been explicitly executed in defense of the fact that Britain was protecting the local population of Malaya from aggression.

This time Alan Wilson flew straight to Kuala Lumpur, ready to be there in person to give Richard his support regarding the unfortunate drug overdose of American soldier Sgt. John McNaughton, and he expressed his sympathy for the US Army Command in South Vietnam, that war can really change a person, and that brutal wars lead to the choice of drugs in order to make up for traumatized hearts and minds, and that this should be taken as a warning.

He was sure that the US military would thank him for saving a soldier’s pension, the criteria for the death of a US soldier in action, must ensure that the soldier was killed on the battlefield by the enemy forces on the spot, any of these reasons like getting sick in the army due to the combat environment, or the unfortunate fall to death while boarding a helicopter would not be recognized as a death in action, and rightfully so, drug overdoses were not included in the death of a soldier in action either.

“How many wounded soldiers have South Vietnam sent over for treatment in Singapore now?” Stepping out of the airport walkway and seeing Richard coming up to meet him, Alan Wilson asked the question first.

“Seven or eight hundred.” Richard froze, “There were only about a hundred American soldiers, we don’t know why the Koreans fought to come to Singapore for treatment, but it was agreed to by the U.S. Army.”

“It could be that they did too many assholish things in South Vietnam and were afraid of getting killed while being treated in South Vietnamese hospitals, who’s to say.” Alan Wilson had some doubt on his face, “The United States has nearly 200,000 troops stationed in South Vietnam, and Korea has less than 100,000 in South Vietnam. But the ratio of wounded South Korean soldiers in Singapore is several times that of the U.S. troops, it seems that our U.S. ally, did not arrange for the South Korean soldiers to attack and overcome the difficulties.”

The ratio of U.S. and South Korean numbers was two to one, but the wounded South Korean soldiers were almost five times as many as the U.S. If the Philippines had the same ratio in its rear hospitals, it really showed that the U.S. had taken his advice to heart, and that the U.S. would never surrender until the blood of the South Korean soldiers had dried up.