How I Saved Greenland

My minor role in helping avoid a political and diplomatic disaster.

Maybe it was because I hang out in Massachusetts, or because I have some experience as a journalist and speechwriter. In any case, I was invited to Washington, D.C., recently to help with a small problem.

It seems the Department of Defense (oops, War) needed someone to do a little damage control without leaving fingerprints, and I was deemed sufficiently obscure for the task. I’m sworn to secrecy, of course, but here’s a brief, lightly censored account of how the U.S. dealt with a major political and diplomatic disaster.

As everybody knows, our President has long been obsessed with taking over Greenland. That vast, cold, thinly populated wasteland happens to be rich in oil, gold, uranium and those “rare earth” minerals so beloved by the tech industry. The territory also lies strategically close to both the U.S. and Russia.

Just one problem: Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, had no intention of coming under U.S. control. Denmark, too, quickly rejected that notion, as did its fellow NATO member states except for the U.S. Several of those allies even sent troops to Greenland as a show of solidarity – and a message for Trump to back off.

He was having none of it. The President quickly threatened 10% tariffs on countries that oppose his designs on Greenland, rising to 25% if they persisted. When the NATO allies indicated they weren’t budging, Trump ordered his secretary of, um, war, Pete Hegseth, to mount a full-scale invasion of the territory.

Unfortunately, President got a bit confused, as a man pushing 80 and not known for linguistic consistency sometimes does. Only the day before, he mixed up Greenland with Iceland. This time, instead of Greenland he said Greenfield.

Any other Cabinet member would have corrected him. But Hegseth was still in the Trump doghouse after accidentally inviting a journalist to an online meeting of senior officials to discuss top-secret military plans – on an insecure chat platform. The ensuing media outcry included references to Hegseth’s alleged drinking, womanizing and general incompetence.

So, he dutifully organized an invasion of Greenfield. First, however, Hegseth had to decide which of the more than two dozen U.S. localities of that name to target. In the end, he went with the oldest and best-known: the city of 14,000 souls in western Massachusetts. It didn’t hurt that this Greenfield is a Democratic stronghold in heavily Democratic state. The Secretary was hoping that Trump, who had just cut social services funding to five such “blue” states, would not complain.

Indeed, the President was thrilled. On Wednesday, he and Hegseth gathered in the Situation Room to watch as 15,000 U.S. troops marched into town unopposed. Schools and non-essential workplaces were closed, public gatherings banned and immigrants rounded up.

Greenfield has been a friendly little hamlet since the 1680s. It was home to America’s first cutlery factory and, for a time, dominated the tap and die industry (nuts and bolts). Nowadays, however, the local economy seems to be based on such “elite” industries as theater, dance, cute restaurants and small tech startups. In other words, it was ripe for attacking.

As the troops dug in amid snow and sleet, however, people began asking whether the U.S. really needed to occupy yet another U.S. city. Weren’t Washington and Minneapolis enough? So I drafted an official statement, this one framing the invasion as a deliberate show of strength, a dry run for the coming takeover of Greenland and proof that the President was serious. Indeed, he loved it.

After that, alas, came the mass arrests, the nationwide protests, the diversion of ICE agents to quell them, the heavy GOP losses in midterm elections, rising calls for Trump’s impeachment and a growing tendency for the word “Greenfield” to be followed by “disaster.” Trump began insisting that the whole idea was Hegseth’s, though neither man had a clue how to end it gracefully.

I did. Among the town’s many charms is a rather common optical illusion known among psychologists as a “gravity hill.” Greenfield’s version, I usefully recalled, is on Shelburne Road, just past the Route 2 bridge. For someone standing underneath it, the road appears to rise slightly before cresting a few hundred feet away. From a distance, a car in neutral at the bottom of the incline will appear to be going uphill – and, some folks say, might even vanish altogether.

Thus, one frosty dawn, the entire invading force suddenly disappeared without a trace. I can’t go into details, but Trump and Hegseth followed my advice to remain silent about it. After a few days of puzzlement, the press lost interest, life in Greenfield returned to normal and the occupation began to fade from public memory.

By then, however, Trump had invaded Greenland, NATO had dissolved, Russian troops had marched into Alaska and, after a fateful vote in Congress, newly installed President J.D. Vance was calling for multilateral peace talks.

Though my services were in higher demand than ever in D.C., I returned to the calm of civilian life. I now spend my days wondering why a U.S. president would even think of seizing another NATO ally’s territory.

Such a move makes little sense militarily, economically or politically, and it can make a president’s career disappear faster than a gravity hill could. Which, come to think of it, is a halfway decent argument for trying.