used a cousin of the old Kaiser as a symbol, the one that sued for peace.
Then the trouble started.
When the Prime Minister announced the terms of the private agreement he had
had with our President, he was met with a silence that was broken only by
cries of "Shame! Shame! Resign!" I suppose it was inevitable; the Commons
reflected the spirit of a people who had been unmercifully punished for
four years. They were in a mood to enforce a peace that would have made the
Versailles Treaty look like the Beatitudes.
The vote of no confidence left the Prime Minister no choice. Forty-eight
hours later the King made a speech from the throne that violated all
constitutional precedent, for it had not been written by a Prime Minister.
In this greater crisis in his reign, his voice was clear and unlabored; it
sold the idea to England and a national coalition government was formed.
I don't know whether we would have dusted London to enforce our terms or
not; Manning thinks we would have done so. I suppose it depended on the
character of the President of the United States, and there is no way of
knowing about that since we did not have to do it.
The United States, and in particular the President of the United States,
was confronted by two inescapable problems. First, we had to consolidate
our position at once, use our temporary advantage of an overwhelmingly
powerful weapon to insure that such a weapon would not be turned on us.
Second, some means had to be worked out to stabilize American foreign
policy so that it could handle the tremendous power we had suddenly had
thrust upon us.
The second was by far the most difficult and serious. If we were to
establish a reasonably permanent peace?say a century or so?through a
monopoly on a weapon so powerful that no one dare fight us, it was
imperative that the policy under which we acted be more lasting than
passing political administrations. But more of that later?
The first problem had to be attended to at once?time was the heart of it.
The emergency lay in the very simplicity of the weapon. It required nothing
but aircraft to scatter it and the dust itself, which was easily and
quickly made by anyone possessing the secret of the Karst-Obre process and
having access to a small supply of uranium-bearing ore.
But the Karst-Obre process was simple and might be independently developed
at any time. Manning reported to the President that it was Ridpath's
opinion, concurred in by Manning, that the staff of any modern radiation
laboratory should be able to work out an equivalent technique in six weeks,
working from the hint given by the events in Berlin alone, and should then
be able to produce enough dust to cause major destruction in another six
weeks.
Ninety days?ninety days provided they started from scratch and were not
already halfway to their goal. Less than ninety days?perhaps no time at
all?
By this time Manning was an unofficial member of the cabinet; "Secretary of
Dust," the President called him in one of his rare jovial moods. As for me,
well, I attended cabinet meetings, too. As the only layman who had seen the
whole show from beginning to end, the President wanted me there.
I am an ordinary sort of man who, by a concatenation of improbabilities,
found himself shoved into the councils of the rulers. But I found that the
rulers were ordinary men, too, and frequently as bewildered as I was.
But Manning was no ordinary man. In him ordinary hard sense had been raised
to the level of genius. Oh, yes, I know that it is popular to blame
everything on him and to call him everything from traitor to mad dog, but I
still think he was both wise and benevolent. I don't care how many
second-guessing historians disagree with me.
"I propose," said Manning, "that we begin by immobilizing all aircraft
throughout the world."
The Secretary of Commerce raised his brows. "Aren't you," he said, "being a
little fantastic, Colonel Manning?"
"No, I'm not," answered Manning shortly. "Im being realistic. The key to
this problem is aircraft. Without aircraft the dust is an inefficient
weapon. The only way I see to gain time enough to deal with the whole
problem is to ground all aircraft and put them out of operation. All
aircraft, that is, not actually in the service of the United States Army.
After that we can deal with complete world disarmament and permanent
methods of control."
"Really now," replied the Secretary, "you are not proposing that commercial
airlines be put out of operation. They are an essential part of world
economy. It would be an intolerable nuisance."
"Getting killed is an intolerable nuisance, too," Manning answered
stubbornly. "I do propose just that. All aircraft. All."
The President had been listening without comment to the discussion. He now
cut in. "How about aircraft on which some groups depend to stay alive,
Colonel, such as the Alaskan lines?"
"If there are such, they must be operated by American Army pilots and
crews. No exceptions."
The Secretary of Commerce looked startled. "Am I to infer from that last
remark that you intended this prohibition to apply to the United States as
well as other nations?"
"Naturally."
"But that's impossible. It's unconstitutional. It violates civil rights."
Killing a man violates his civil rights, too Manning answered stubbornly.
"You can't do it. Any Federal Court in the country would enjoin you in five
minutes."
"It seems to me," said Manning slowly, that Andy Jackson gave us a good
precedent for that one when he told John Marshall to go fly a kite." He
looked slowly around the table at faces that ranged from undecided to
antagonistic. "The issue is sharp, gentlemen, and?we might as well drag it
out in the open. We can be dead men, with everything in due order,
constitutional, and technically correct; or we can do what has to be done,
stay alive, and try to straighten out the legal aspects later." He shut up
and waited.
The Secretary of Labor picked it up. "I don't think the Colonel has any
corner on realism. I think I see the problem, too, and I admit it is a
serious one. The dust must never be used again. Had I known about it soon
enough, it would never have been used on Berlin. And I agree that some sort
of world wide control is necessary. But where I differ with the Colonel is
in the method. What he proposes is a military dictatorship imposed by force
on the whole world. Admit it, Colonel. Isn't that what you are proposing?"
Manning did not dodge it. "That is what I am proposing."
"Thanks. Now we know where we stand. I, for one, do not regard democratic
measures and constitutional procedure as of so little importance that I am
willing to jettison them any time it becomes convenient. To me, democracy
is more than a matter of expediency, it is a faith Either it works, or I go
under with it."
What do you propose?" asked the President.
"I propose that we treat this as an opportunity to create a worldwide
democratic commonwealth." Let us use our pre
sent dominant position to issue
a call to all nations to send representatives to a conference to form a
world constitution."
"League of Nations," I heard someone mutter.
"No!" he answered the side remark. "Not a League of Nations. The old League
was helpless because it had no real existence, no power. It was not
implemented to enforce its decisions; it was just a debating society, a
sham. This would be different for we would turn over the dust to it."
Nobody spoke for some minutes. You could see them turning it over in their
minds, doubtful, partially approving, intrigued but dubious.
"I'd like to answer that," said Manning.
"Go ahead," said the President.
"I will. I'm going to have to use some pretty plain language and I hope
that Secretary Larner will do me the honor of believing that I speak so
from sincerity and deep concern and not from personal pique.
"I think a world democracy would be a very fine thing and I ask that you
believe me when I say I would willingly lay down my life to accomplish it.
I also think it would be a very fine thing for the lion to lie down with
the lamb, but I am reasonably certain that only the lion would get up. If
we try to form an actual world democracy, we'll be the lamb in the setup.
"There are a lot of good, kindly people who are inter-nationalists these
days. Nine out of ten of them are soft in the head and the tenth is
ignorant. If we set up a world-wide democracy, what will the electorate be?
Take a look at the facts: four hundred million Chinese with no more concept
of voting and citizen responsibility than a flea; three hundred million
Hindus who aren't much better indoctrinated; God knows how many in the
Eurasian Union who believe in God knows what; the entire continent of
Africa only semicivilized; eighty million Japanese who really believe that
they are Heaven-ordained to rule; our Spanish-American friends who don't
understand the Bill of Rights the way we think of it; a quarter of a
billion people of two dozen different nationalities in Europe, all with
revenge and black hatred in their hearts.
"No, it won't wash. It's preposterous?to talk about a world democracy for
many years to come. If you turn the secret of the dust over to such a body,
you will be arming the whole world to commit suicide."
Larner answered at once. "I could resent some of your remarks, but I don't.
To put it bluntly, I consider the source. The trouble with you, Colonel
Manning, is that you are a professional soldier and have no faith in
people. Soldiers may be necessary, but the worst of them are martinets and
the best are merely paternalistic." There was quite a lot more of the same.
Manning stood it until his turn came again. "Maybe I am all those things,
but you haven't met my argument. What are you going to do about the
hundreds of millions of people who have no experience in, nor love for,
democracy? Now, perhaps, I don't have the same conception of democracy as
yourself, but I do know this: Out West there are a couple of hundred
thousand people who sent me to Congress; I am not going to stand quietly by
and let a course be followed which I think will result in their deaths or
utter ruin.
"Here is the probable future, as I see it, potential in the smashing of the
atom and the development of lethal artificial radioactives. Some power
makes a supply of the dust. They'll hit us first to try to knock us out and
give them a free hand. New York and Washington overnight, then all of our
industrial areas while we are still politically and economically
disorganized. But our army would not be in those cities; we would have
planes and a supply of dust somewhere where the first dusting wouldn't
touch them. Our boys would bravely and righteously proceed to poison their
big cities. Back and forth it would go until the organization of each
country had broken down so completely that they were no longer able to
maintain a sufficiently high level of industrialization to service planes
and manufacture dust. That presupposes starvation and plague in the
process. You can fill in the details.
"The other nations would get in the game. It would be silly and suicidal,
of course, but it doesn't take brains to take a hand in this. All it takes
is a very small group, hungry for power, a few airplanes and a supply of
dust. It's a vicious circle that cannot possibly be stopped until the
entire planet has dropped to a level of economy too low to support the
techniques necessary to maintain it. My best guess is that such a point
would be reached when approximately three-quarters of the world's
population were dead of dust, disease, or hunger, and culture reduced to
the peasant-and-village type.
"Where is your Constitution and your Bill of Rights if you let that
happen?"
I've shortened it down, but that was the gist of it. I can't hope to record
every word of an argument that went on for days.
The Secretary of the Navy took a crack at him next. "Aren't you getting a
bit hysterical, Colonel? After all, the world has seen a lot of weapons
which were going to make war an impossibility too horrible to contemplate.
Poison gas, and tanks, and airplanes?even firearms, if I remember my
history."
Manning smiled wryly. "You've made a point, Mr. Secretary. 'And when the
wolf really came, the little boy shouted in vain.' I imagine the Chamber of
Commerce in Pompeii presented the same reasonable argument to any arly
vulcanologist so timid as to fear Vesuvius. I'll try to justify my fears.
The dust differs from every earlier weapon in its deadliness and ease of
use, but most importantly in that we have developed no defense against it.
For a number of fairly technical reasons, I don't think we ever will, at
least not this century."
"Why not?"
"Because there is no way to counteract radioactivity short of putting a
lead shield between yourself and it, an airtight lead shield. People might
survive by living in sealed underground cities, but our characteristic
American culture could not be maintained."
"Colonel Manning," suggested the Secretary of State, "I think you have
overlooked the obvious alternative."
"Have I?"
"Yes?to keep the dust as our own secret, go our own way, and let the rest
of the world look out for itself. That is the only program that fits our
traditions." The Secretary of State was really a fine old gentleman, and
not stupid, but he was slow to assimilate new ideas.
"Mr. Secretary," said Manning respectfully, "I wish we could afford to mind
our own business. I do wish we could. But it is the best opinion of all the
experts that we can't maintain control of this secret except by rigid
policing. The Germans were close on our heels in nuclear research; it was
sheer luck that we got there first. I ask you to imagine Germany a year
hence?with a supply of dust."
The Secretary did not answer, but I saw his lips form the word Berlin.
They came around. The President had deliberately let Manning bear the brunt
of the argument, concerning his own stock of
goodwill to coax the obdurate.
He decided against putting it up to Congress; the dusters would have been
overhead before each senator had finished his say. What he intended to do
might be unconstitutional, but if he failed to act there might not be any
Constitution shortly. There was precedent?the Emancipation Proclamation,
the Monroe Doctrine, the Louisiana Purchase, suspension of habeas corpus in
the War between the States, the Destroyer Deal.
On February 22nd the President declared a state of full emergency
internally and sent his Peace Proclamation to the head of every sovereign
state. Divested of its diplomatic surplusage, it said: The United States is
prepared to defeat any power, or combination of powers, in jig time.
Accordingly, we are outlawing war and are calling on every nation to disarm
completely at once. In other words, "Throw down your guns, boys; we've got
the drop on you!"
A supplement set forth the procedure: All aircraft capable of flying the
Atlantic were to be delivered in one week's time to a field, or rather a
great stretch of prairie, just west of Fort Riley, Kansas. For lesser
aircraft, a spot near Shanghai and a rendezvous in Wales were designated.
Memoranda would be issued with respect to other war equipment. Uranium and
its ores were not mentioned; that would come later.
No excuses. Failure to disarm would be construed as an act of war against
the United States.
There were no cases of apoplexy in the Senate; why not, I don't know.
There were only three powers to be seriously worried about, England, Japan,
and the Eurasian Union. England had been forewarned, we had pulled her out
of a war she was losing, and she?or rather her men in power?knew accurately
what we could and would do.
Japan was another matter. They had not seen Berlin and they did not really
believe it. Besides, they had been telling each other for so many years
that they were unbeatable, they believed it. It does not do to get too
tough with a Japanese too quickly, for they will die rather than lose face.
The negotiations were conducted very quietly indeed, but our fleet was
halfway from Pearl Harbor to Kobe, loaded with enough dust to sterilize
their six biggest cities, before they were concluded. Do you know what did
it? This never hit the newspapers but it was the wording of the pamphlets
we proposed to scatter before dusting.
The Emperor was pleased to declare a New Order of Peace. The official
version, built up for home consumption, made the whole matter one of
collaboration between two great and friendly powers, with Japan taking the
initiative.
The Eurasian Union was a puzzle. After Stalin's unexpected death in 1941,
no western nation knew very much about what went on in there. Our own
diplomatic relations had atrophied through failure to replace men called
home nearly four years before. Everybody knew, of course, that the new
group in power called themselves Fifth Internationalists, but what that
meant, aside from ceasing to display the pictures of Lenin and Stalin,
nobody knew.
But they agreed to our terms and offered to cooperate in every way. They
pointed out that the Union had never been warlike and had kept out of the
recent world struggle. It was fitting that the two remaining great powers
should use their greatness to insure a lasting peace.
I was delighted; I had been worried about the E. U.
They commenced delivery of some of their smaller planes to the receiving
station near Shanghai at once. The reports on the number and quality of the
planes seemed to indicate that they had stayed out of the war through
necessity, the planes were mostly of German make and poor condition?types