6AM Boston Ma The police and Railroad executives were breathing a sigh of relief since as one of them pointed out that the train that had been blown up had already unloaded its cargo so all they had to move was railroad cars and engines. Someone had to tell the president that terrorists had attacked blown up tracks in Boston and one of the rail routes into Boston had been disrupted if only for a few days. The crews were already hard at it an Army officer had told the workers that if the commies chose this time to cross the border the Army would be short of men, material and equipment. The betting money was that a team of commie saboteurs had blown the tracks and men were coming in from all over New England giving up their fourth of July to make sure the boys in Europe got their equipment and supplies on time.
8am Pentagon The request that the 116th Infantry brigade readied to move the Europe as well an Independent battalion of Armor. Along with the request came a brief explanation. Also there was a request on the what plans the Pentagon had for the 35th.
Ronald Reagan looked around the table at his assembled staff and he was not happy. **So no one has any idea just who blew up the railroad tracks in Boston other than it must be some radical group.** The rest of the room went silent then the head of the FBI who did not normally sit in on meetings of the NSC looked directly at the president and he replied, **Mr. President, I can understand why your upset, the security of the United States is threatened and our boys in Europe could be the ones left holding the bag. But the truth is that is the best we can answer at this time. We will investigate and see what we find but I believe that an announcement that the rail lines into Boston were sabotaged causing a train derailment needs to be made before all sorts of wild rumors start up. **
Then his Chief of Staff for the White House looked up from a message that had been hand delivered to him, ** It’s too late someone called a talk radios show and he just announced that the People Army of the Radical Front for Democratic Action, blew up the fascist armed trains in Boston.** The general reaction in the room was, **Shit.** For moment there was a burst of everyone talking while no one was listening. The President Reagan shouted, **Everyone shut up.** Then he looked at the FBI director who was going through a list of radical organization. When he finished and looked up from the folder, everyone was staring at him expecting an answer, He looked around the room and then he told the room, ** The name is not on the list but I would bet given the name we are not dealing with more than a few people, mostly men and some of them were probably involved in the Radical sixties movement like the Weatherman or some other similar group. There may or may not be others involve most likely younger men **
Then one of the members of the NSC commented, **You don’t know anything about them yet you are telling us that they are small group, mostly men, with older radicals from the weathermen and maybe some younger followers. How the hell do you come up with all of this. ** The rest of the room also had the same question.
The FBI director replied, ** Logic actually the use of the phrase army is often used by small groups to puff themselves up to make them look bigger than they really are. Sixties radicals because the people making the bombs knew what they were doing. Also the Boston Bomb squad gave the bombing, a good look over the placement of the bombs. They feel that whoever did it knew what he was doing. The message the group sent to the press sound like a left wing radical group and the left- wing radicals of the sixties had some fairly good bomb makers. The attacks also showed planning, my people tell me that the location of the attack had good avenues of escape so someone looked over the locations to pick the best possible site. Younger men as followers they would look up to the older men who had been involved in the bombing campaigns of the sixties.
Then the Chief of the Joint chiefs of staff spoke up, **Governor Dukakis wants one brigade of troops from the 26th ID. The problem it’s the only one of our Guard infantry division that is more or less ready to go to Europe if we need it. While the 187th Infantry brigade is based in Massachusett, but it is supposed to go to Iceland that is as soon as we free up enough transport planes to move it. We should be able to have the 58th in Boston by the end of the week ** We gave this some thought the 116th which is also close was rejected since we have received messages from Europe requesting that is be assigned to Europe.
The 73rd brigade of the Ohio Army National Guard is preparing moving out to Fort Campbell. We could change the destination to Boston. But we felt that the peace movement would not react well to the Ohio National Guard showing up in Boston to keep order. President Reagan considered that bit information and then it hit him, **Aah yes KENT STATE, no that would make the peace movement paranoid and a lot of Democrats in both the House and Senate would be complaining. No sending them would not be a good idea. For now we will have to let Dukakis have the brigade from the 26th. I will talk to him by phone tomorrow and let him know he needs to keep a lid on the situation in Boston. **
Then the President looked around the room and he asked is there anything else I need to know. The JCS looked up and replied, **A couple of things, there was some sort of dispute over in Germany about the placement of units. General Rogers decided in the favor of the Germans so we need to send the 116th over to Europe. As well as a tank battalion and he told us to make sure that the units were as close to proper TO&E as possible. I have spoken to the Air Force about moving the entire brigade over by air and the tank battalion can go by sea with the Fast Convoy. It does screws with our movement plans a little bit but only by a very little bit. But we already factored an unexpected movement into our plans. He also sent a message asking what we plan to do with the 35th ID, just why I don’t know.
President Reagan sat for a moment and he replied, **Well it’s obvious that he has a plan or he would not have asked you if you did. By the way do you? ** The JCS looked around the room and he told the President, **Well to tell the truth we were thinking about pulling troops from it as we needed them to be replacements for casualties. ** Reagan considered what he had been told and he replied, Tell him your plan and ask for his and then I can decided which makes more sense to me. Then Reagan asked what the other item.**
The Chief of Staff replied, ** Well the British are considering sending their Gurkha Brigade and some other troops but they will need help moving the brigade to South Korea. Which he thought would not be that difficult since two convoys were going to be in the area to help with the movement of the brigade. **
Reagan considered what he was told and he replied, Well take care it and tell the Brits we will be happy to accept the Gurkha Brigade. Now I will let Pentagon to take care of the matter. ** Then he told the people in the room, **I will go up and talk to the press. ** On his way out, he told the FBI director to keep me updated on what his people discovered. Nancy had insisted that he take it easy for the rest of the and he would after he expressed condolences for the families of the railroad men who had died in the derailment and then outrage of the vicious attack by the bombers with the promise that they would be found and punished. Right now, Reagan was feeling every one of his seventy-three years.