Robert Heinlein - Expanded Universe

If that is dispersion, I'll stay in Manhattan.

Los Angeles is a modern miracle, an enormous city kept alive in a desert by a complex and vulnerable concatenation of technical expedients. The first three colonies established there by the Spaniards starved to death to the last man, woman, and child. If the fragile structure of that city were disrupted by a single atomic bomb, those who survived the blast would in a few short days be reduced to a starving, thirst - crazed mob, ready for murder and cannibalism.

No, if we are to defend ourselves we must not assume that Los Angeles is "dispersed" despite the jokes about her far - flung city line. The Angelenos must be relocated from Oregon to Mexico, in the Mojave Desert, in Imperial Valley, in the great central valley, in the Coast Range, and in the High Sierras.

The same principles apply everywhere. Denver must be scattered out toward Laramie and Boulder, while Colorado Springs must flow around Pike's Peak to Cripple Creek. Kansas City and Des Moines must meet at the Iowa - Missouri line, while Joplin flows up toward Kansas City and on down into the Ozarks. As for Manhattan, that is almost too much to describe - from Boston to Baltimore all the great east coast cities must be abandoned and the population scattered like leaves.

The cities must go. Only villages must remain. If we are to rely on dispersion as a defense in the Atomic Age, then we must spread ourselves out so thin that the enemy cannot possibly destroy us with one bingo barrage, so thin that we will be too expensive and too difficult to destroy.

It would be difficult. It would be incredibly difficult and expensive - Mr. Spaulding's estimate would not cover the cost of new housing alone, but new housing would be the least of our problems. We would have to rebuild more than half of our capital plant - shops, warehouses, factories, railroads, highways, power plants, mills, garages, telephone lines, pipe lines, aqueducts, granaries, universities. We would have to take the United States apart and put it back together again according to a new plan and for a new purpose. The financial cost would be unimportant, because we could not buy it, we would have to do it, with our own hands, our own sweat. It would mean a sixty - hour week for everyone, no luxury trades, and a bare minimum standard of living for all for some years. Thereafter the standard of living would be permanently depressed, for the new United States would be organized for defense, not for mass production, nor efficient marketing, nor convenient distribution. We would have to pay for our village culture in terms of lowered consumption. Worse, a large chunk of our lowered productivity must go into producing and supporting the atomic engines of war necessary to strike back against an aggressor - for dispersion alone would not protect us from invasion.

If the above picture is too bleak, let us not prate about dispersion. There are only three real alternatives open to us: One, to form a truly sovereign super state to police the globe; two, to prepare realistically for World War III in which case dispersion, real and thorough dispersion, is utterly necessary, or, third, to sit here, fat, dumb, and happy, wallowing in our luxuries, until the next Hitler annihilates us!

The other necessary consequences of defense by dispersion are even more chilling than the economic disadvantages. If we go it alone and depend on ourselves to defend ourselves we must be prepared permanently to surrender that democratic freedom of action which we habitually enjoyed in peace time. We must resign ourselves to becoming a socialistic, largely authoritarian police state, with freedom of speech, freedom of occupation, and freedom of movement subordinated to military necessity, as defined by those in charge.

Oh, yes! I dislike the prospect quite as much as you do, but I dislike still more the idea of being atomized, or of being served up as a roast by my starving neighbors. Here is what you can expect:

The front door bell rings. Mr. Joseph Public, solid citizen, goes to answer it. He recognizes a neighbor. "Hi, Jack! What takes you out so late?"

"Got some dope for you, Joe. Relocation orders - I was appointed an emergency deputy, you know."

"Hadn't heard, but glad to hear. Come in and sit down and tell me about it. How do the orders read? We stay, don't we?"

"Can't come in - thanks. I've got twenty - three more stops to make tonight. I'm sorry to say you don't stay. Your caravan will rendezvous at Ninth and Chelsea, facing west, and gets underway at noon tomorrow."

"What!"

"That's how it is. Sorry."

"Why, this is a damned outrage! I put in to stay here - with my home town as second choice."

The deputy shrugged. "So did everybody else. But you weren't even on the list of essential occupations from which the permanent residents were selected. Now, look - I've got to hurry. Here are your orders. Limit yourself to 150 pounds of baggage, each, and take food for three days. You are to go in your own car - you're getting a break - and you will be assigned two more passengers by the convoy captain, two more besides your wife I mean."

Joe Public shoved his hands in his pockets and looked stubborn. "I won't be there."

"Now, Joe, don't take that attitude. I admit it's kind of rough, being in the first detachment, but you've had lots of notice. The newspapers have been full of it. It's been six months since the President's proclamation."

"I won't go. There's some mistake. I saw the councilman last week and he said he thought I would be all right. He - "

"He told everybody that, Joe. This is a Federal order."

"I don't give a damn if it's from the Angel Gabriel. I tell you I won't go. I'll get an injunction."

"You can't, Joe. This has been declared a military area and protests have to go to the Provost Marshal. I'd hate to tell you what he does with them. Anyhow, you can't stay here - it's no business of mine to put you out; I just have to tell you - but the salvage crews will be here tomorrow morning to pull out your plumbing.

"They won't get in."

"Maybe not. But the straggler squads will go through all of these houses first."

"I'll shoot!"

"I wouldn't advise it. They're mostly ex - Marines."

Mr. Public was quiet for a long minute. Marines. "Look, Jack," he said slowly, "suppose I do go. I've got to have an exemption on this baggage limitation and I can't carry passengers. My office files alone will fill up the back seat."

"You won't need them. You are assigned as an apprentice carpenter. The barracks you are going to are only temporary."

"Joseph! Joseph! Don't stand there with the door open! Who is it?" His wife followed her voice in.

He turned to tell her; the deputy took that as a good time to leave.

At eleven the next morning he pulled out of the driveway, gears clashing. He had the white, drawn look of a man who has been up all night. His wife slept beside him, her hysteria drowned in a triple dose of Phenobarbital.

That is dispersion. If you don't believe it, ask any native - born citizen of Japanese blood. Nothing less than force and police organization will drive the peasants off the slopes of Vesuvius. The bones of Pompeii and Herculaneum testify to that. Or, ask yourself - will you go willingly and cheerfully to any spot and any occupation the government assigns to you? If not, unless you are right now working frantically to make World War III impossible, you have not yet adjusted yourself to the horrid facts of the Atomic Age.

For these are the facts of the Atomic Age. If we are not to have a World State, then we must accept one of two grim alternatives: A permanent state of total war, even in "peace" time, with every effort turned to offense and defense, or relax to our fate, make our peace with God, and wait for death to come out of the sky. The time in which to form a World State is passing rapidly; it may be gone by the time this is printed. It is worthwhile to note that the publisher of the string of newspapers most bitterly opposed to "foreign entanglements," particularly with Russia, and most insistent on us holding on to the vanishing "secret" of the atomic bomb - this man, this publisher, lives on an enormous, self - sufficient ranch, already dispersed. Not for him is the peremptory knock on the door and the uprooting relocation order. Yet he presumes daily to tell our Congress what must be done with us and for us.