23 – Boston
The new United States Courthouse in Boston was an architectural wonder. Its seven-story curving glass wall faced Boston Harbor. The courthouse was a soaring, dignified edifice to justice. The judges working there were used to a leisurely caseload of 150 to 250 active cases, compared with the 2,500 active cases their compatriots in the state trial courts each handled. The lock-up at the federal courthouse could hold no more than two dozen prisoners, brought in for their day in court or arrested by federal agents and being held for arraignment.
Everybody involved in the upcoming arrests knew they were facing a day unlike any other day at the federal courthouse. Its architects and planners, taking into consideration what they thought was every possible use the building might face, never considered the possibility of 5,000 prisoners rounded up in a single evening by an army of federal law enforcement officers. Nor could they have foreseen additional thousands of husbands and wives showing up at arraignments and bail hearings the next morning, accompanied by their battalion of lawyers. Where would these prisoners be held? How would they be fed? Where would all the lawyers even park?
Obviously, the federal courthouse could not handle that mass of people. Camp Curtis Guild in Reading, Massachusetts was located 15 miles north of Boston, a quick drive up Interstate 93. It was home to the 51st Troop Command, Organizational Maintenance Shop 22, 101st Engineer Battalion and the 272d Chemical Company of the Massachusetts Army National Guard.
Camp Curtis Guild was chosen as the central assembly point for teams of FBI agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement police and assorted federal law enforcement officers who would round up the refugees and their protectors. The decision was made not to use local or state police officers for this operation, out of concern that they would be unable to keep the plans secret.
Other difficult practical decisions were made. First, it was decided to take all the refugees into custody, men, women and children. Detention facilities would have to be found for them, no matter how many people were involved. The truth was that nobody ever took a head count on the two ships anchored in the harbor and nobody in any position of authority had anything but estimates as to how many refugees escaped. The guesses ranged from 2,000 to 5,000 people. The ships were small - certainly not cruise ships - but they were crowded. That decision, to take all the “illegals” into custody, was a simple one.
Attorney General McQueeney recalled her telephone conversation the prior evening with President Quaid, after she called him shortly before midnight to try to convince him to at least soften the tone of what she knew she had no choice but to do.
Deciding to arrest Israeli soldiers, or even all the Israeli civilians from the ships, was something she could live with. More difficult was the decision about who should be arrested from the hundreds of local families that sheltered these people. McQueeney did not want any U.S. citizens arrested. Her preference, repeating to the President what she’d told her senior staff hours earlier, was to issue summonses ordering these people to appear in court at a later time, a time that, she silently hoped, could be postponed enough times so some new crisis would draw the public’s attention and she would not have to prosecute generally law-abiding citizens, prosperous citizens, for doing what she felt in her heart she would have done had she been in their shoes at the time.
Once again however, the Attorney General was told that she was following orders, not issuing them.
“If we are going to do this, and we are going to do this, we do it the right way, all the way,” President Quaid told her. “There are dead soldiers, dead American soldiers. It was pointed out to me that more Americans just died in Boston Harbor than died in the original Boston Massacre.
“You don’t issue tickets to murderers, or people who shelter murderers. You arrest them. That is what we are going to do.”
By the end of what felt like the longest day of his presidency, President Quaid was fully committed to this operation, but the strain was showing. His top staff noted how much of a calming and moderating influence his two closest friends - his wife Catherine and National Policy Advisor Brown - had been, when they were still around.
“You will arrest these people, every damn one of them, and you will prosecute them, do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” McQueeney responded quietly. She felt like she was flunking a test. Something more than following orders was called for. McQueeney knew that, but was shocked to see herself doing just that, as if she had no other choice.
The Queen still retained some discretion, however. It was her decision that only one adult member of every household that harbored refugees would be taken into custody, that each household would decide who would take responsibility and who would stay behind.
“And no children, no teenagers,” she told her subordinates the afternoon before the late-night roundup was scheduled. “Not even if they want to go, not even if they ask to go.”