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unacceptable and therefore it had to be cancelled. The only person there quali- fied to address himself to the political implications of the air strike, was the Secretary of State, the man holding the President's proxy for action. The Secretary then suddenly called the President on the telephone, reported our discussion, which he did with accuracy, including the gist of my analysis of the military implications of the cancellation. He reiterated the political unacceptability of the air strike and recommended that the cancellation stand. He then turned to me to see if I had anything else to say to the President, I said, "No", as I believed that all had been said. The Secretary had given all my military arguments, but [these were] overbalanced by the political implica- tions. There was now a great urgency for action if I were to be able to carry out the orders of my Commander-in-Chief. This was no time for repetition of arguments. Rather it was time -- perhaps already past time -- to transmit to the Central American air base the command to cancel the strikes. As it turned out, our cancellation order caught the crews in their cockpits pre- paring to take off in a very short while. I knew of the difficulties facing me of getting across the order, first to our Staff. The order hit them like a bolt from the blue. We had tried to think of all the things that could go wrong with the operation and to be prepared with corrective actions. This development was completely unexpected and caused great consternation in the Staff. However there was no time here either for argument about the President's order. We had first to get out the stop order in a manner that would be understood and accepted by those - 292 -