Part 13 (1/2)
Whether or not any man as universally hated Manning can perfect the Patrol he envisioned, make self-perpetuating and trustworthy, I don't kno' and-because of that week of waiting in a buried En lish hangar-I won't be here to find out. Manninl heart disease makes the outcome even more uncc tam-he may last another twenty years; he may ke 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 anoth side to any story, even world dominion.
Not that I would like the outcome, either way. there is anything to this survival-after-death busine5 I am going to look up the man who invented the bc and arrow and take him apart with my bare hanc For myself, I can't be happy in a world where any ma or group of men, has the power of death over you ai me, our neighbors, every human, every animal, eve living thing. I don't like anyone to have that kind power.
And neither does Manning.
FOREWORD.
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 1 945-but in different ways. In 1945 we were smugly ignorant; in 1979 we have the Pollyannas, 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 forthe ignorance of1979. Ignorance today can be charged only to stupidity and laziness-both capital offences.) I wrote nine articles intended to shed light on the postHiros.h.i.+ma 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 s.h.i.+p.
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 s.h.i.+ps, 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 ma.s.s-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 A- or H- or C- orN- orX- 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 ap proach, with which I tried (and failed) to beat the drum br world peace.
Was I really so naif that I thought that I could change the course of history this way? No, not really.
But, d.a.m.n 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
THE LAST DAYS OF THE UNITED STATES.
”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 h.e.l.l-bent on new was.h.i.+ng machines and new cars.
From such an att.i.tude, with dreadful certainty, comes World War III, the Twenty Minute War, the Atomic War, the War of Final Destruction. The ”secret” of the atomic bomb cannot be kept, the experts have told us repeatedly, for the ”secret” is simply engineering know-how which can be developed by any industrial nation.
From this fact it can be predicted that any industrial nation, even though small and comparatively weak, will in a few years be able to create the means to destroy the United States at will in one all-out surprise attack. What const.i.tutes a strong power in the Atomic Era? Scientific knowledge, engineering skill, and access to the ores of uranium-no more is needed. Under such circ.u.mstances the pretensions of the Big Five to veto powers over the affairs of this planet are preposterous. At the moment there is only the Big One, the United States, through its temporary exclusive possession of the Bomb. Tomorrow-five to ten years- the list might include any of the many nations with the two requirements.
Belgium and Canada have the greatest known deposits of uranium. Both are small but both possess science and skill in abundance. Potentially they are more powerful than any of the so-called Big Five, more powerful than the United States or Russia. Will they stand outside indefinitely, hat in hand, while the ”Big Five” determine the fate of the human race? The developments of atomic weapons and of rocketry are a.n.a.logous to the development of the revolver in individual affairs-it has made the little ones and the big ones all the same size. Some fine day some little nation may decide she is tired of having us around, give us one twenty-minute treatment with atomic rocket bombs, and accept our capitulation.
We have reason to fear such an attack. We have been through one Pearl Harbor; we know that it can happen to us. Our present conduct breeds fear and distrust in the hearts of men all over the globe.
No matter how we think of ourselves, no matter how peaceful and good hearted we think ourselves to be, two facts insure that we will be hated by many. We have the Bomb-it is like a loaded revolver pointed at the heads of all men. Oh, we won't pull the trigger! Nevertheless, do you suppose they love us for it?
Our other unforgivable sin is being rich while they are poor. Never mind our rationalizations-they see our wasteful luxury while much of the globe starves. Hungry men do not reason calmly. We are getting ourselves caught in a situation which should lead us to expect attack from any quarter, from whoever first produces atomic weapons and long-distance rockets.
Knowing these things, the professional gentlemen who are charged with the defense of this country, the generals and the admirals and the members of the military and naval affairs committees of both houses, are cudgelling their brains in a frenzied but honest attempt to persuade the rest of the country to follow this course or that, which, in their several opinions, will safeguard the country in any coming debacle.
But there is a tragic sameness to their proposals. With few exceptions, they favor preparedness for the last war. Thusly: Conscription in peacetime to build up a reserve; Emphasis on aircraft carriers rather than battles.h.i.+ps; Decentralization of cities; An armaments race to keep our head start in atomic weapons; Agreements to ”outlaw” atomic weapons; Consolidation of the Army and the Navy; Buying enough war planes each year to insure new development; An active military and foreign affairs intelligence corps; Moving the aircraft industry inland; Placing essential war industry underground.
These are the progressive proposals. (Some still favor infantry and battles.h.i.+ps!) In contrast, General Arnold says to expect war in which s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+ps cruise outside the atmosphere and launch super-high-speed, atomicarmed rockets on cities below. Hap Arnold tells his boys to keep their eyes on Buck Rogers. Somebody is wrong-is it Hap Arnold or his more conservative colleagues?
Compulsory military training-France had that, for both wars. The end was Vichy.
Aircraft carriers vs. battles.h.i.+ps. Look, pals, the aircraft carrier was the weapon of this war, before Hiros.h.i.+ma. Carriers don't look so good against s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+ps. Let's build galleons instead; they are cheaper, prettier, and just as useful.
Decentralization of large cities-let's table this one for a moment. There is some sense to it, if carried to its logical conclusion. But not with half measures and not for $250,000,000,000, the sum mentioned by Sumner Spaulding, its prime proponent.
Bigger and better atomic weapons for the United States-this has a reasonable and rea.s.suring sound.