Robert Heinlein - Expanded Universe

"You're prompt, I see," said the President. "Good." Manning bowed.

"We might as well come straight to the point," the Chief Executive went on. "There are going to be some changes of policy in the administration. I want your resignation."

"I am sorry to have to refuse, sir."

"We'll see about that. In the meantime, Colonel Manning, you are relieved from duty."

"Mr. Commissioner Manning, if you please."

The new President shrugged. "One or the other, as you please. You are relieved, either way."

"I am sorry to disagree again. My appointment is for life."

"That's enough," was the answer. "This is the United States of America. There can be no higher authority. You are under arrest."

I can visualize Manning staring steadily at him for a long moment, then answering slowly, "You are physically able to arrest me, I will concede, but I a vise you to wait a few minutes." He stepped to the window. "Look up into the sky."

Six bombers of the Peace Commission patrol over the Capitol. "None of those pilots is American born," Manning added slowly. "If you confine him, none of us here in this room will live out the day.' There were incidents thereafter, such as the unfortunate affair at Fort Benning three days later, and the outbreak in the wing of the Patrol based in Lisbon and its resultant wholesale dismissals, but for practical purposes, that was all there was to the coup d'etat. Manning was the undisputed military dictator the world.

Whether or not any man as universally hated Manning can perfect the Patrol he envisioned, make self - perpetuating and trustworthy, I don't know and - because of that week of waiting in a buried English hangar - I won't be here to find out. Manning heart disease makes the outcome even more unpredictable he may last another twenty years; he may fall over dead tomorrow - and there is no one to take F place. I've set this down partly to occupy the she time I have left and partly to show there is another side to any story, even world dominion.

Not that I would like the outcome, either way. There is anything to this survival - after - death business I am going to look up the man who invented the bow and arrow and take him apart with my bare hands. For myself, I can't be happy in a world where any man or group of men, has the power of death over you and me, our neighbors, every human, every animal, eve living thing. I don't like anyone to have that kind power.

And neither does Manning.

After World War II I resumed writing with two objectives: first, to explain the meaning of atomic weapons through popular articles; second, to break out from the limitations and low rates of pulp science - fiction magazines into anything and everything: slicks, books, motion pictures, general fiction, specialized fiction not intended for SF magazines, and nonfiction.

My second objective I achieved in every respect, but in my first and much more important objective I fell flat on my face.

Unless you were already adult in August 1945 it is almost impossible for me to convey emotionally to you how people felt about the A - bomb, how many different ways they felt about it, how nearly totally ignorant 99.9% of our citizens were on the subject, including almost all of our military leaders and governmental officials.

And including editors!

(The general public is just as dangerously ignorant as to the significance of nuclear weapons today, 1979, as in 1945 - but in different ways. In 1945 we were smugly ignorant; in 1979 we have the Pollyanna’s, and the Ostriches, and the Jingoists who think we can "win" a nuclear war, and the group - a majority? - who regard World War III as of no importance compared with inflation, gasoline rationing, forced school - busing, or you name it. There is much excuse for the ignorance of 1945; the citizenry had been hit by ideas utterly new and strange. But there is no excuse for the ignorance of 1979. Ignorance today can be charged only to stupidity and laziness - both capital offences.)

I wrote nine articles intended to shed light on the post Hiroshima age, and I have never worked harder on any writing, researched the background more thoroughly, tried harder to make the (grim and horrid) message entertaining and readable. I offered them to commercial markets, not to make money, but because the only propaganda that stands any chance of influencing people is packaged so attractively that editors will buy it in the belief that the cash customers will be entertained by it.

Mine was not packaged that attractively.

I was up against some heavy tonnage:

General Groves, in charge of the Manhattan District (code name for A - bomb R&D), testified that it would take from twenty years to forever for another country to build an A - bomb. (USSR did it in 4 years.)

The Chief of Naval Operations testified that the "only" way to deliver the bomb to a target across an ocean was by ship.

A very senior Army Air Force general testified that "blockbuster" bombs were just as effective and cheaper.

The chairman of NACA (shortly to become NASA) testified (Science News Letter 25 May 1946) that intercontinental rockets were impossible.

Ad nauseum - the old sailors want wooden ships, the old soldiers want horse cavalry.

But I continued to write these articles until the U.S.S.R. rejected the United States' proposals for controlling and outlawing atomic weapons through open skies and mutual on - the - ground inspection, i.e., every country in the world to surrender enough of its sovereignty to the United Nations that mass - weapons war would become impossible (and lesser war unnecessary).

The U.S.S.R. rejected inspection - and I stopped trying to peddle articles based on tying the Bomb down through international policing.

I wish that I could say that thirty - three years of "peace" (i.e., no Atom or H - or C - or N - or X - bombs dropped) indicates that we really have nothing to fear from such weapons, because the human race has sense enough not to commit suicide. But I am sorry to say that the situation is even more dangerous, even less stable, than it was in 1946.

Here are three short articles, each from a different approach, with which I tried (and failed) to beat the drum for world peace.

Was I really so naive that I thought that I could change the course of history this way? No, not really. But, damn it, I had to try!

"If you pray hard enough,

water will run uphill. How hard?

Why, hard enough to make water

run uphill, of course!"

- L. Long

"Here lie the bare bones of the United States of America, conceived in freedom, died in bondage. 1776 - 1986. Death came mercifully, in one stroke, during senility.

"Rest in Peace!"

No expostulations, please. Let us not kid ourselves. The next war can destroy us, utterly, as a nation - and World War III is staring us right in the face. So far, we have done little to avert it and less to prepare for it. Once upon a time the United Nations Organization stood a fair chance of preventing World War III. Now, only a major operation can equip the UNO to cope with the horrid facts of atomics and rocketry - a major operation which would take away the veto power of the Big Five and invest the world organization with the sole and sovereign power to possess atomic weapons.

Are we, as a people, prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve a world authority?

Take a look around you. Many of your friends and neighbors believe that the mere possession of the atomic bomb has rendered us immune to attack. So - the country settles back with a sigh of relief, content to leave foreign affairs to William Randolph Hearst, the Denver Post, and the Chicago Tribune. We turn our backs on world responsibility and are now hell - bent on new washing machines and new cars.