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Heinlein in his naval uniform, shortly after his graduation in June 1929. Contrary to his wishes, Heinlein did not see active military duty during World War II. December 16, 1941: Robert A. Heinlein to John W. Campbell, Jr.
So far, I have not been able to peddle my valuable services. The letter in which I volunteered, accompanied by a certified copy of my physical exam report, is wending its way through the circuitous official channels. I stuck airmail postage with it with a memo to the Commandant's aide asking him to use same, and the letter asks for dispatch orders; nevertheless, it would not surprise me to be sitting here until January or so. In the meantime, I have been circulating around the offices of local naval activities, trying to find someone who wants me bad enough to send a dispatch asking for me. No luck so far. Damn it—I should have volunteered six months ago.
December 21, 1941: Robert A. Heinlein to John W. Campbell, Jr.
I was interested in your father's comment in re the navy, and in your further comments. Some of the comments he found fault with are real faults, some as you pointed out derive from a lack of knowledge of the true problems. Some of the real faults seem to me to be inherent in the nature of military organization and inescapable. The navy is an involved profession; it takes twenty-five years or so to make an admiral—and older men are not quite as mentally flexible as younger men. I see no easy way to avoid that. Is your father as receptive to new ideas as you are? Will he step down and let you tell him how to run AT&T? Is there any way of avoiding the dilemma? Nevertheless, the brasshats are not quite as opposed to new ideas as the news commentators would have us think. The present method of antiaircraft fire was invented by an ensign. Admiral King encouraged a warrant officer and myself to try to invent a new type of bomb (Note: We weren't successful.) You may remember that one of my story gags was picked up by a junior officer and made standard practice in the fleet before the next issue hit the stands. Nevertheless, there is something about military life which makes men conservative. I don't know how to beat it. Roosevelt has beaten it from the top to a certain extent by insisting on young men and/or men whose abilities he knew, but it is sheer luck that we have a president who has known the navy's problem and personnel since he was a young man. I know of no general solution.
* * *
I may get sea orders any day—along with a lot of other old crocks who would not have to go to sea if it had not been for that partisan opposition I spoke of . . .
. . . Some of Hamilton Felix's point of veiw is autobiographical. [Hamilton Felix was the protagonist of "Beyond This Horizon."] I would like to have been a synthesist, but I am acutely aware that many of my characteristics are second-rate. I haven't quite got the memory, nor the integrating ability, nor the physical strength, nor the strength of character to do the job. I am not depressed about it, but I know my own shortcomings. I am sufficiently brilliant and sufficiently imaginative to realize acutely just how superficial my acquaintance with the world is and to know that I have not the health, ambition, nor years remaining to me to accomplish what I would like to accomplish. Don't discount this as false modesty . . .
I have just sufficient touch of genius to know that I am not a proper genius—and I am not much interested in second prize. In the meantime, I expect to have quite a lot of fun and do somewhat less constructive work than I might, if I tried as hard as I could. That last is not quite correct. I simply don't have the ambition to try as hard as I might, nor quite the health. But I do have fun!
* * *
In re mental-ostrichism and boycotting the war news: A long time ago I learned that it was necessary to my own mental health to insulate myself emotionally from everything I could not help and to restrict my worrying to things I could help. But wars have a tremendous emotional impact and I have a one-track mind. In 1939 and 1940 I deliberately took the war news about a month late, via Time magazine, in order to dilute the emotional impact. Otherwise I would not have been able to concentrate on fiction writing at all. Emotional detachment is rather hard for me to achieve, so I cultivate it by various dodges whenever the situation is one over which I have no control.
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Heinlein in his white naval uniform, (early 1930s)
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Heinlein's Fencing Champion medal.
January 4, 1942: Robert A. Heinlein to John W. Campbell, Jr.
You suggest that my thinking about the navy I keep compartmented away from my thinking on other subjects. It is true that I have been oriented and indoctrinated by a naval education and naval experience. It is true that a man cannot escape his background—the best he can do is to try to evaluate it and discount it. But as to your "proof"(by, God save us, Aristotelian logic!) that I keep my mind compartmented—well, much more about that later; much, much more.
In the meantime, I shall "sound general quarters and return your fire." For a long time I have from time to time felt exasperated with you that you should be so able so completely to insulate your thinking in nonscientific fields from your excellent command of the scientific method in science fields. So far as I have observed you, you would no more think of going off half-cocked, with insufficient and unverified data, with respect to a matter of science than you would stroll down Broadway in your underwear. But when it comes to matters outside your specialties you are consistently and brilliantly stupid. You come out with some of the goddamndest flat-footed opinions with respect to matters which you haven't studied and have had no experience, basing your opinions on casual gossip, newspaper stories, unrelated individual data out of matrix, armchair extrapolation, and plain misinformation—nsuspected because you haven't attempted to verify it.
Of course, most people hold uncritical opinions in much the same fashion—my milkman, for example. (In his opinion, the navy can do no wrong!) But I don't expect such sloppy mental processes from you. Damn it! You've had the advantage of a rigorous training in scientific methodology. Why don't you apply it to everyday life? The scientific method will not enable you to hold exact opinions on matters in which you lack sufficient data, but it can keep you from being certain of your opinions and make you aware of the value of your data, and to reserve your judgment until you have amplified your data.
All I said with reference to the Pearl Harbor debacle was that the necessary data for an opinion was not yet in and that we should reserve judgment until the data was available. I added, in effect, that this was no time for the intelligent minority to be adding to the flood of rumors and armchair opinions flying through the country. I still say so. As an intelligent and educated man, you have a responsibility to your less gifted fellow citizens to be a steady and morale-building influence at this time. Your letters do not indicate that you are being such.
I am going to try to take up a number of points one at a time, some from your letters, some from related matters.
"Aid and comfort to the enemy, phui. Morale damage, hell." (From your letter) I am going to have to be rather directly personal about this. It may not have occurred to you that I am a member of the armed forces of the United States at the present moment awaiting orders, for sea duty I hope. Such comments as you have made to me might very well damage the morale of a member of the armed forces by shaking his confidence in his superior officers. There happens to be a federal law forbidding any talk in wartime to a member of the armed forces which might tend to destroy morale in just that fashion—a law passed by Congress, and not just a departmental regulation. It so happens that I am sufficiently hardheaded, tough-minded, and conceited not to be much influenced by your opinions of the high command. I think I know more about the high command than you do. Nevertheless, you were not entitled to take the chance of shaking my confidence, my willingness to fight. And you should guard your talk in the future. It might, firsthand, secondhand, or thirdhand, influence some enlisted man who had not the armoring to his morale that years of indoctrination gives me.
Bear in mind that my advice to you is based on a law, specifically intended by the Congres
s under the Constitution to restrict the freedom of speech of civilians in wartime in their relations with the military. If you don't like the law, write to your congressman about it. If you feel you must express yourself, write it down and save it until the war is over—but don't tell a member of the armed forces that his superiors are stupid and incompetent. Don't write to Ron [L. Ron Hubbard] in such a vein. He has not my indoctrination and he is in the battlefield. If you feel that the high command is incompetent, take it up with your congressman and your senators. Those of us in the service must work under the officers that are placed over us—it doesn't help to try to shake our confidence in them.
* * *
. . . I've dug down into my personal funds many times to entertain visiting congressmen, visiting notables, etc. There are no funds appropriated for such things; the commissioned officers pay for them themselves. Naval officers act as scout masters for sea scouts. They are always available to speak before any body of persons willing to listen—travel to and from at his own expense, or charged to ship's service (a private fund) by his CO. We always have had public relations officers and we always have done everything we knew how to do to foster goodwill for the navy. In addition to that, the naval affairs committees of both houses are kept constantly informed in detail of the needs of the navy and the strategic reasons therefor.
Our efforts were pitifully inadequate. How could they be adequate? In the first place, we aren't advertising men and we don't know how. In the second place, even if we knew how, we had no appropriations to work with. All we could do was to talk, and that got us damned little newspaper space and no billboards. Of course, we could get an occasional scholarly article published—much good that did!
. . . You may consider my reaction as a type form professional reaction; it derives from my orientation and indoctrination. It is quite evident from the suggestion you made and your answer to my reaction that you have not the slightest understanding of the psychology of a professional military man. I don't know quite how to explain this. It is a heavily emotional matter and goes back to some basic evaluations. Let me put it this way: Take a young boy, before he has been out in the business world. Put him into the naval academy. Tell him year after year that his most valuable possession and practically his only one is his personal honor. Let him see classmates cashiered for telling a small and casual lie. Let him see another classmate cashiered for stealing a pair of white silk socks. Tell him that he will never be rich but that he stands a chance of having his name inscribed in Memorial Hall. Entrust him with secrets. Indoctrinate him so that he will consider himself locked up and unable to move simply because his sword has been taken away from him. Feed him on tales of heroism. Line the corridors of his recitation halls with captured flags. Shucks, why go on with it—I think you must see what I am driving at. That will produce a naval officer, a man you can depend on to be utterly courageous in the face of personal danger regardless of the sick feeling in his stomach, but it won't produce an advertising man.
Naval officers, as a group, are no more temperamentally capable of producing the kind of sensational publicity you suggest they produce than they are of sprouting wings and flying.
Furthermore, if they were, they would be no damn good as naval officers. A naval officer is much more than a man with a certain body of technical information. He is a man trained to respond in a certain behavior pattern in which "honor" and "service" have been substituted for economic motivation. I don't know whether I have convinced you or not, but I can assure you that it would be almost impossible to find an officer who has spent his entire adult life in the fleet who could put over the sensationalism you suggest. It is about like asking a priest to desecrate the sacrament.
* * *
Certainly the navy has specific secrets. In peacetime they are limited to such things as the details of weapons (and occasionally the existence of a weapon), codes and ciphers, the numerical details of gunnery scores, the insides of certain instruments, and similar details in which we are trying to keep a little ahead of the next. You spoke of "official spies" being shown things which are kept from the public. Who handed you that piece of guff? I know what you mean—foreign officers. Unless they are allies, they don't see anything that newsreel men don't see. I remember once being ordered to chaperone a British naval officer. I was admonished never to let him out of my sight and was given a list of things he must not see. I even went into the head with him. . . .
Of course, in wartime practically everything is secret—and a damned good thing! But the essential matters on which a civilian could make up his mind whether or not we need a big navy aren't secret, never have been secret, and by their nature can't be secret. Geographical strategy, for example, and the relative strengths of the fleets of various nations. Jane's Fighting Ships is not a particularly reticent book, and I know you have seen it. Navy yards aren't hard to get into. In normal times, naval vessels run boats for any visitor who wants to come aboard—and the ship's police has a weekly headache to make sure none get into the fire-control stations and similar places.
I am completely bewildered as to what you mean by the "hush hush" attitude of the navy. I would certainly appreciate some facts.
Lots of civilians are necessarily entrusted with certain naval secrets. I've sailed with many a G.E., Westinghouse, and AT&T engineer. The gadget of mine that was taken over by the fleet was developed by one of your father's engineers. I doubt if he personally had any occasion to know about it, but don't ask him about it and don't try to conjecture what it might be. Don't mention it to anyone, lest they do a little guessing. By mentioning the class of engineer that developed it I have shown greater confidence in you than I have in any other civilian. Let it stand that it is a proper military secret and that we hope that we are the only navy using it.
It is quite possible that a request for a piece of information is turned down when the questioner can see no reason why it should not be told. To that I can say only that the officers refusing to part with the information are the only possible judges as to whether or not public welfare is involved. Being human, they can make errors of judgment, hut no one can judge for them. Obviously—if you hold a secret, I have no way of judging whether or not you should share it with me. Consequently, the responsibility for the decision rests entirely with you. A perfectly innocent request for information can be met with what appears to be an arbitrary refusal. How can the questioner know?
But, having been in the navy, and having held both confidential and secret information, I can assure you that it is not the policy of the navy to go out of its way to be mysterious. Decidedly not! On the contrary, it usually seemed to me that we were too frank, aboveboard, and open. It was too easy to get too close to really hush-hush stuff, to such an extent that it used to worry me.
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Item: You excuse the somewhat wild remarks of yourself, [Fletcher] Pratt, and company, on the basis that you are sore as hell, especially so as you are navy fans and love ships. (Incidentally, you don't seem to want to be classed as part of the general public, yet seem to resent being advised to act like professionals in the matter.) If you think you're sore and upset, how do you think I feel? Pearl Harbor isn't a point on a floor game to me—I've been there. The old Okie isn't a little wooden model six inches long; she's a person to me. I've sketched her fuel lines down in her bilges. I was turret captain of her number two turret. I have been in her main battery fire control party when her big guns were talking. Damn it, man, I've lived in her. And the casualty lists at Oahu are not names in a newspaper to me; they are my friends, my classmates. The thing hit me with such utter sickening grief as I have not experienced before in my life and has left me with a feeling of loss of personal honor such as I never expected to experience. For one reason and one only—because I found myself sitting on a hilltop, in civilian clothes, with no battle station and unable to fight, when it happened.
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Editor's Note: Robert wrote stories for John W. Campbell, Jr. for Astoun
ding and Unknown for close to three years. When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, Robert tried to persuade the Navy to take him back on active duty. Failing in that, he went to work in Philadelphia doing engineering at the Naval Air Experimental Station.
The war over, Robert looked around at the wider horizons for his writing career. Four short stories were sold to the Saturday Evening Post, then the most important and highest paying market, and he sold his first juvenile novel to Charles Scribner's Sons. The next market he tackled was motion pictures, and the successful Destination Moon resulted.
"Gulf" was the only story Robert wrote after World War II which was intended solely for the Astounding market. Occasionally his agent, Lurton Blassingame, would send a novel to John W. Campbell, Jr. Some of those were rejected for various reasons with lengthy letters of explanation from John Campbell to Robert. Those stories were never intended for that market, but Campbell would explain why the writing and stories were terrible— from his viewpoint. When Podkayne [Podkayne of Mars] was offered to him, he wrote Robert, asking what he knew about raising young girls in a few thousand carefully chosen words.
The friendship dwindled, and was eventually completely gone. It was just another casualty, probably, of World War II.
CHAPTER III
THE SLICKS AND THE SCRIBNER'S JUVENILES