Fear: Trump in the White House(32)

“Because he’s a fucking liberal,” Bannon said. “No offense, he has not been that impressive in this thing. You guys don’t have great chemistry.”

“Yeah, but you know,” the president said. “Get him over here.”

Bannon retrieved McMaster. “The president wants to talk to you. Come on over.”

What do you think is going to happen? McMaster asked.

“I think the president may offer you the job.”

“I’ve got to tell some people. I can’t tell the president that I can take it. I’ve got to tell the Army.”

“Just play it by ear,” Bannon said. “We’ll figure it out.” That was the Trump way. Playing by ear, acting on impulse. Pure Trump.

“Do you want this job?” the president asked McMaster.

“Yes, sir.”

“You got it,” Trump said and shook McMaster’s hand. “Get the media. Get the cameras in here.” He wanted a picture with his latest general who looked out of Central Casting.

McMaster sat awkwardly on a gold brocade sofa beside the president. A large gold vase holding roses was on the table behind them.

“I just wanted to announce, we’ve been working all weekend very diligently, that General H. R. McMaster will become the national security adviser,” Trump told reporters. “He’s a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience.”

“I’m grateful to you for that opportunity,” McMaster said. “I look forward to joining the national security team and doing everything that I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people.”

McMaster’s shell shock was plain on camera as he shook Trump’s hand.

“I’ve got to call the Army chief of staff,” McMaster said to Bannon.

“Do it,” Bannon said. “But you’ve already taken the job.”

Trump’s choice played well. The media saw McMaster was an adult. There would be no more crazies. The president basked in the positive stories.





CHAPTER


12




McMaster knew the biggest national security challenge would be North Korea. It had been on the most difficult list for years.

Six months earlier, on September 9, 2016, President Obama had received unsettling news as he entered the final months of his eight years. North Korea had detonated a nuclear weapon in an underground test, the fifth in a decade, and the largest.

Seismic monitors had instantly revealed that the vibrations recorded were not caused by an earthquake. The 5.3 magnitude tremor had been instantaneous and had originated less than a mile within the earth, measured precisely at the Punggye-ri test site of the four previous nuclear detonations. The estimated yield was equivalent to 10 kilotons of TNT—approaching the 15 kilotons of the 1945 Hiroshima bomb.

Dispelling any doubt, North Korea’s 73-year-old female version of Walter Cronkite, Ri Chun-hee, appeared on state-controlled television to announce the test. She almost always appeared for the big moments. Wearing pink, and speaking in a gleeful, soaring voice, she told viewers that the regime had built a better, bigger and more versatile bomb.

The North’s nuclear weapons center said the new nuclear bomb could be mounted on a ballistic missile, a disturbing claim, although seriously doubted by U.S. intelligence.

To compound the potential North Korean threat, four days earlier the North had launched three medium-range ballistic missiles that had flown 1,000 kilometers before dropping in the Sea of Japan, making South Korea and Japan reachable targets. These tests matched an earlier single 1,000-kilometer launch the month before. Three was not a fluke.

Even with his intense desire to avoid a war, Obama decided the time had come to consider whether the North Korean nuclear threat could be eliminated in a surgical military strike. As he prepared to hand over the presidency, he knew he needed to address the North Korea mess head-on.

That successor, of course, would almost certainly be Hillary Clinton. He assured his aides in so many words that the American people would do the right thing and elect her.

From the outset President Obama had authorized several Special Access Programs (SAP), the most classified and compartmented operations conducted by the military and intelligence, to deter North Korean missiles. One program pinpointed cyber attacks on the command, control, telemetry and guidance systems before or during a North Korean missile test launch. These high-risk cyber attacks had begun in his first year as president. Their success rate was mixed.

Another highly secret operation focused on obtaining North Korean missiles. And a third enabled the United States to detect a North Korean missile launch in seven seconds. Officials have asked that I not describe the details in order to protect national security operations deemed vital to the interests to the United States.

The North Korean threat had not been diminished, and in September 2016 Obama posed a sensitive question to his National Security Council: Was it possible to launch a preemptive military strike, supported by cyber attacks, on North Korea to take out their nuclear and missile programs?

This unfinished business was particularly gnawing for Obama. His predecessors, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, had addressed but not solved problems that had been mounting for decades. And now the United States had run out of road. The Hermit Kingdom was creating a force that could extend an arc of potential devastating nuclear destruction to the homeland.