The Committee's manifesto claims: "—the problems in monitoring such tests are relatively uncomplicated." This is either an outright lie or ignorant wishful thinking; the problems are so complicated that nothing short of on-the-spot inspection will work—an underground test cannot be told from an earthquake shock by any known method of monitoring.
Before you trust your lives and freedom to the promises of the Kremlin, remember Budapest—
—remember Poland in 1945
—remember Prague
—remember Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
—remember Korea
—remember brave little Finland
—and keep your powder dry!
The third proposal is largely pious window-dressing but it has the same sort of booby-trap buried in it. It reads: "That missiles and outer-space satellites be brought under United Nations-monitored control, and that there be a pooling of world science for space exploration under the United Nations." The harmless part could be done if the U.S.S.R. were willing; the booby-trap is the word "missiles."
We Americans live in a goldfish bowl; we could not conceal rocket tests even if we tried. But in the vast spaces of Russia, Siberia, and China missiles of every sort—even the long-range ICBMs—can be tested in secret, manufactured and stockpiled and installed ready to go, despite all "monitoring." Anything less than on-the-spot inspection of the entire vast spaces of the Communist axis would leave us at the mercy of the bland promises of the Butchers of Budapest.
The last paragraph of this letter that they want you to send to the President is not a proposal; it is simply another attempt to strike terror into the hearts of free men by reminding us of the horrors of nuclear war.
" 'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the Spider to the Fly."
It is no accident that this manifesto follows the Communist line, no coincidence that it "happens" to appear all over the United States the very week that Khrushchev has announced smugly that the U.S.S.R. has ended their tests—and demands that we give up our coming, long-scheduled, and publicly announced tests of a weapon with minimum fall-out.
This follows the pattern of a much-used and highly-refined Communist tactic: plan ahead to soften up the free world on some major point, package the propaganda to appeal to Americans with warm hearts and soft heads, time the release carefully, then let the suckers carry the ball while the known Communists stay under cover.
They used this method to gut our army after the Japanese surrender with the slogan of "Bring the Boys Home." They used it to make us feel guilty about the A-bomb—while their spies were stealing it. They dreamed up the pious theme of "Don't Play Politics with Hunger"—then used our charity to play their politics. They used it to put over the infamous "Oxford Oath" and the phony "Peace Strikes" of the thirties. They have used this tactic many times to soften up the free world and will use it whenever they can find dupes.
They are using it now. Today both sides, Freedom and Red Tyranny, are armed with nuclear weapons . . . and the Communists are again using our own people to try to shame or scare us into throwing our weapons away.
These proposals are not a road to world peace, they are abject surrender to tyranny. If we fall for them, then in weeks or months or a few years at most, Old Glory will be hauled down for the last time and the whole planet will be ruled by the Butchers of Budapest.
For more than a hundred years, ever since the original Communist Manifesto, it has been the unswerving aim of the Communist Party to take over all of this planet. The only thing blocking their conquest is the fact that the tragically-shrunken free world still possesses nuclear weapons. They can destroy us . . . but they know that we can destroy them.
So they want us to throw away the equalizer.
If we do, we can expect the same "mercy" that Budapest received. They will say to us: "Surrender—or be destroyed!"
"God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it."
—Daniel Webster
We the undersigned are not a committee but simply two free citizens of these United States. We love life and we want peace . . . but not "peace at any price"—not the price of liberty!
Poltroons and pacifists will think otherwise.
Those who signed that manifesto have made their choice; consciously or unconsciously they prefer enslavement to death. Such is their right and we do not argue with them—we speak to you who are still free in your souls.
In a free country, political action can start anywhere. We read that insane manifesto of the so-called "Committee for a 'Sane' Nuclear Policy" and we despised it. So we are answering it ourselves—by our own free choice and spending only our own money.
We say to the commissars: "You will never enslave us. The worst you can do is kill us. But we are resolved to die free!"
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
—Benjamin Franklin
No scare talk of leukemia, mutation, or atomic holocaust will sway us. Is "fall-out" dangerous? Of course it is! The risk to life and posterity has been willfully distorted by these Communist-line propagandists—but if it were a hundred times as great we still would choose it to the dead certainty of Communist enslavement. If atomic war comes, will it kill off the entire human race? Possibly—almost certainly so if the Masters of the Kremlin choose to use cobalt bombs on us. Their command of science in these matters seems equal to ours, they appear to be some years ahead of us in the art of rocketry; they almost certainly have the power to destroy the human race.
If it comes to atomic war, the best we can hope for is tens of millions of American dead—perhaps more than half our population wiped out in the first few minutes.
Colorado Springs is at least a secondary target; all of us here may be killed.
These are the risks. The alternative is surrender. We accept the risks.
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards."
—Samuel Adams
We have no easy solution to offer. The risks cannot be avoided other than by surrender; they can be reduced only by making the free world so strong that the evil pragmatists of Communism cannot afford to murder us. The price to us will be year after weary year of higher taxes, harder work, grim devotion . . . and perhaps, despite all this—death. But we shall die free!
To this we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
* * *
We the undersigned believe that almost all Americans agree with us. Whoever you are, wherever you are, you sons of Patrick Henry—let us know your name! Sign the letter herewith and mail it to us—we will see that it gets to Congressman Chenoweth, to both our Senators, and to the President.
1958 address— Robert and Virginia Heinlein
1776 Mesa Avenue
Colorado Springs, Colorado
1980 address— (Care Spectrum Literary Agency
60 East 42nd Street
New York City, New York 10017)
"WHAT CAN I DO?"
This much has been done by two people acting alone. Let's call ourselves "The Patrick Henry League" and prove to our government that the Spirit of '76 is still alive. We are two, you and your spouse make four, your neighbor and his wife make six—we can snowball this until it sweeps the country.
We can advertise in other counties, in other states.
If you who are reading this are not in Colorado Springs, stand up, speak up, and start your own chapter of "The Patrick Henry League" now. You are a free citizen, you need no permission, nor any charter from us. Run an ad—quote or copy this one if you like. Dig down in the sock to pay for it, or pass the hat, or both—but sound the call in your own home town, mail copies of your ad out of town, and get some more letters started toward Washington.
And let us hear from you!
Let us all stand up and shout aloud again and forever:
"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!"
br />
President Eisenhower,
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
We know that you are being pressured to stop our nuclear weapons tests, turn our missile and space program over to the U.N., and in other ways to weaken our defenses.
We urge you to stand steadfast.
We want America made supremely strong and we are resolved to accept all burdens necessary to that end. We ask for total effort—nuclear testing, research, and development, highest priorities for rocketry, sterner education, anything that is needed. We are ready to pay higher taxes, forego luxuries, work harder.
To this we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Respectfully yours,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(names)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(address)
AFTERWORD
When the soi-disant "SANE" committee published its page ad in Colorado Springs (and many other cities) on 5 April 1958, I was working on The Heretic (later to be published as Stranger in a Strange Land). I stopped at once and for several weeks Mrs. Heinlein and I did nothing but work on this "Patrick Henry" drive. We published our ad in three newspapers, encouraged its publication elsewhere, mailed thousands of reprints, spoke before countless meetings, collected and mailed to the White House thousands of copies of the letter above—always by registered mail—no acknowledgement of any sort was ever received, not even in response to "Return Receipt Requested."
Then the rug was jerked out from under us; by executive order Mr. Eisenhower canceled all testing without requiring mutual inspection. (The outcome of that is now history; when it suited him, Khrushchev resumed testing with no warning and with the dirtiest bombs ever set off in the atmosphere.)
I was stunned by the President's action. I should not have been as I knew that he was a political general long before he entered politics—stupid, all front, and dependent on his staff. But that gets me the stupid hat, too; I had learned years earlier that many politicians (not all!) will do anything to get elected . . . and Adlai Stevenson had him panting.
Presently I resumed writing—not Stranger but Starship Troopers.
The "Patrick Henry" ad shocked 'em; Starship Troopers outraged 'em. I still can't see how that book got a Hugo. It continues to get lots of nasty "fan" mail and not much favorable fan mail . . . but it sells and sells and sells and sells, in eleven languages. It doesn't slow down—four new contracts just this year. And yet I almost never hear of it save when someone wants to chew me out over it. I don't understand it.
The criticisms are usually based on a failure to understand simple indicative English sentences, couched in simple words—especially when the critics are professors of English, as they often are. (A shining counterexample, a professor who can read and understand English, is one at Colorado College—a professor of history.)
We have also some professors of English who write science fiction but I do not know of one who formally reviewed or criticized Starship Troopers. However, I have gathered a strong impression over the years that professors of English who write and sell science fiction average being much more grammatical and much more literate than their colleagues who do not (cannot?) write saleable fiction.
Their failures to understand English are usually these:
1. "Veteran" does not mean in English dictionaries or in this novel solely a person who has served in military forces. I concede that in commonest usage today it means a war veteran . . . but no one hesitates to speak of a veteran fireman or veteran school teacher. In Starship Troopers it is stated flatly and more than once that nineteen out of twenty veterans are not military veterans. Instead, 95% of voters are what we call today "former members of federal civil service."
Addendum: The volunteer is not given a choice. He/she can't win a franchise by volunteering for what we call civil service. He volunteers . . . then for two years plus-or-minus he goes where he is sent and does what he is told to do. If he is young, male, and healthy, he may wind up as cannon fodder. But there are long chances against it.
2. He/she can resign at any time other than during combat—i.e., 100% of the time for 19 out of 20; 99+% of the time for those in the military branches of federal service.
3. There is no conscription. (I am opposed to conscription for any reason at any time, war or peace, and have said so repeatedly in fiction, in nonfiction, from platforms, and in angry sessions in think tanks. I was sworn in first in 1923, and have not been off the hook since that time. My principal pride in my family is that I know of not one in over two centuries who was drafted; they all volunteered. But the draft is involuntary servitude, immoral, and unconstitutional no matter what the Supreme Court says.)
4. Criticism: "The government in Starship Troopers is militaristic." "Militaristic" is the adjective for the noun "militarism," a word of several definitions but not one of them can be correctly applied to the government described in this novel. No military or civil servant can vote or hold office until after he is discharged and is again a civilian. The military tend to be despised by most civilians and this is made explicit. A career military man is most unlikely ever to vote or hold office; he is more likely to be dead—and if he does live through it, he'll vote for the first time at 40 or older.
* * *
"That book glorifies the military!" Now we are getting somewhere. It does indeed. Specifically the P.B.I., the Poor Bloody Infantry, the mudfoot who places his frail body between his loved home and the war's desolation—but is rarely appreciated. "It's Tommy this and Tommy that and chuck him out, the brute!—but it's 'thin red line of heroes' when the guns begin to shoot."
My own service usually doesn't have too bad a time of it. Save for very special situations such as the rivers in Nam, a Navy man can get killed but he is unlikely to be wounded . . . and if he is killed, it is with hot food in his belly, clean clothes on his body, a recent hot bath, and sack time in a comfortable bunk not more than 24 hours earlier. The Air Force leads a comparable life. But think of Korea, of Guadalcanal, of Belleau Wood, of Viet Nam. The H-bomb did not abolish the infantryman; it made him essential . . . and he has the toughest job of all and should be honored.
Glorify the military? Would I have picked it for my profession and stayed on the rolls the past 56 years were I not proud of it?
I think I know what offends most of my critics the most about Starship Troopers: It is the dismaying idea that a voice in governing the state should be earned instead of being handed to anyone who is 18 years old and has a body temperature near 37°C.
But there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Democracies usually collapse not too long after the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses . . . for a while. Either read history or watch the daily papers; it is now happening here. Let's stipulate for discussion that some stabilizing qualification is needed (in addition to the body being warm) for a voter to vote responsibly with proper consideration for the future of his children and grandchildren—and yours. The Founding Fathers never intended to extend the franchise to everyone; their debates and the early laws show it. A man had to be a stable figure in the community through owning land or employing others or engaged in a journeyman trade or something.
But few pay any attention to the Founding Fathers today—those ignorant, uneducated men—they didn't even have television (have you looked at Monticello lately?)—so let's try some other "poll taxes" to insure a responsible electorate:
a) Mark Twain's "The Curious Republic of Condor"—if you have not read it, do so.
b) A state where anyone can buy for cash (or lay-away installment plan) one or more franchises, and this is the government's sole source of income other than services sold competitively and non-monopolistically. This would produce a new type of government with several rabbits tucked away in the hat. Rich people would take over the government? Would they, no
w? Is a wealthy man going to impoverish himself for the privilege of casting a couple of hundred votes? Buying an election today, under the warm-body (and tombstone) system is much cheaper than buying a controlling number of franchises would be. The arithmetic on this one becomes unsolvable . . . but I suspect that paying a stiff price (call it 20,000 Swiss francs) for a franchise would be even less popular than serving two years.
c) A state that required a bare minimum of intelligence and education—e.g., step into the polling booth and find that the computer has generated a new quadratic equation just for you. Solve it, the computer unlocks the voting machine, you vote. But get a wrong answer and the voting machine fails to unlock, a loud bell sounds, a red light goes on over that booth—and you slink out, face red, you having just proved yourself too stupid and/or ignorant to take part in the decisions of the grownups. Better luck next election! No lower age limit in this system—smart 12-yr-old girls vote every election while some of their mothers—and fathers—decline to be humiliated twice.
There are endless variations on this one. Here are two: Improving the Breed—No red light, no bell . . . but the booth opens automatically—empty. Revenue—You don't risk your life, just some gelt. It costs you a ¼ oz troy of gold in local currency to enter the booth. Solve your quadratic and vote, and you get your money back. Flunk—and the state keeps it. With this one I guarantee that no one would vote who was not interested and would be most unlikely to vote if unsure of his ability to get that hundred bucks back.