A Death in Geneva Read Online Free

most tragic of circumstances.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Yesterday, the Congress passed a unanimous resolution honoring the memory of your distinguished sister, Ambassador Constance Starring Burdette, and condemning her heinous murder by terrorists abroad. It was not my privilege to know your sister, sir, but she is immortalized in the ranks of America’s heroines. You have our deepest sympathy, sir. We are greatly honored by your presence at this inquiry. You may proceed.
    Mr. Starring: Thank you, Mr. Chairmen. I am honored to appear before this subcommittee of the Congress. I thank you and the members of the subcommittee for your tribute to my sister, Connie. I will be brief. You have other expert witnesses. I have no prepared statement. With your agreement, I will address that aspect of our national defense with which I am most directly involved . . . sea power.
    Chairman Drake: Please proceed, sir.
    Mr. Starring: Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, as a shipbuilder, fleet operator . . . and as one engaged in expanding the frontiers of undersea technology, I am keenly attentive to America’s status as a sea power. We are, sir, in a state of decline, a state of dangerous decline, and that must be a cause of deep concern for each of us.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I will not mince my words. We have declined as a maritime power. We have declined as a naval power, and there should be no mystery. The Department of the Navy no longer speaks with a clear voice. That voice has been lost for too long in the erroneously conceived Department of Defense. The Navy is underfunded. This is reflected in the fleet, in the air arm, and in vital research and development.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Fix, find, and destroy. It is an old saying, Mr. Chairman, but as relevant now as at the time of John Paul Jones and the Bonhomme Richard. The facts are that in recent years the few ships the Navy has ordered have been undergunned from time of contract. I say that, sir, to include all ships’ weaponry undergunned and with design specifications no better than mediocre.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I submit that you should not ask today’s frigate skipper to put to sea, to prepare for combat, with a single-screw ship, with a single gun mount, with a single missile launcher . . . anymore than your predecessors in the Congress would have asked our frigates of two centuries ago to set forth with a single sail.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Today’s, and tomorrow’s, man-of-war requires the seaman’s common sense and good judgment just as much as it requires advanced technology. At Towerpoint, we have fought faulty contracts as specified by the Navy Department; we have fought proposals for inferior design. But, Mr. Chairman, we have not always won.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  We are in a period of naval decadence. Alfred Thayer Mahan used this term—naval decadence—more than a century ago to describe the depths to which this nation had fallen. Mahan also taught that the Navy serves the nation, protecting not only our shores but also our seaborne commerce. In recent decades, Mr. Chairman . . .

    Starring returned the subcommittee document its envelope. The words had been transcribed as he had spoken them. The message had to be hammered home whatever the odds against corrective action by the Congress. Ahead of the jetliner, a horizontal thread of orange in the blue-blackness signaled the coming of dawn over Europe. Starring rested. Connie, “immortalized in the ranks of America’s heroines . . .” He savored the words. . . . part of history. Good work, Connie.
    The return of the coffin, the ceremony at the Air Force base, the interment at Arlington, every moment precise, dignified. We’re atour best with the dead, not the