Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

our own lives, our families, and every life on the globe, if you refuse this

compromise, we will fight as fiercely and with as little regard for fair play as any

cornered animal.” With that he made. His first move in attack. It was quite simple.

He offered for their inspection the outline of a propaganda campaign on a national

scale, such as any major advertising firm could carry out as a matter of routine. It

was complete to the last detail, television broadcasts, spot plugs, newspaper and

magazine coverage with planted editorials, dummy “citizens’ committees,” and-most

important-a supporting whispering campaign and a letters-to-Congress organization.

Every businessman there knew from experience how such things worked.

But its object was to stir up fear of the Arizona pile and to direct that

fear, not into panic, but into rage against the Board of Directors personally, and

into a demand that the Atomic Energy Commission take action to have the Big Bomb

removed to outer space.

“This is blackmail! We’ll stop you!”

“I think not,” Lentz replied gently. “You may be able to keep us out of some

of the newspapers, but-you can’t stop the rest of it. You can’t even keep us off the

air-ask the Federal Communications Commission.” It was true. Harrington had handled

the political end and had performed his assignment well; the President was

convinced.

Tempers were snapping on all sides; Dixon had to pound for order. “Doctor

Lentz,” he said, his own temper under taut control, “you plan to make every-one of

us appear a black-hearted scoundrel with no oilier thought than personal profit,

even at the expense of the lives of others. You know that is not true; this is a

simple difference of opinion as to what is wise.”

“I did not say it was true,” Lentz admitted blandly, “but you will admit

that I can convince the public that you are deliberate villains. As to it being a

difference of opinion … you are none of you atomic physicists; you are not

entitled to hold opinions in this matter.

“As a matter of fact,” he went on callously, “the only doubt in my mind is

whether or not an enraged public will destroy your precious plant before Congress

has time to exercise eminent domain, and take it away from you!”

Before they had time to think up arguments in answer and ways of

circumventing him, before their hot indignation had cooled and set as stubborn

resistance, he offered his gambit. He produced another lay-out for a propaganda

campaign-an entirely different sort.

This time the Board of Directors was to be built up, not torn down. All of

the same techniques were to be used; behind-the-scenes feature articles with plenty

of human interest would describe the functions of the Company, describe it as a

great public trust, administered by patriotic, unselfish statesmen of the business

world. At the proper point in the campaign, the Harper-Erickson fuel would be

announced, not as a semi-accidental result of the initiative of two employees, but

as the long-expected end product of years of systematic research conducted under an

axed policy of the Board of Directors, a policy growing naturally out of their

humane determination to remove forever the menace from even the sparsely settled

Arizona desert.

No mention was to be made of the danger of complete, planet-embracing

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catastrophe.

Lentz discussed it. He dwelt on the appreciation that would be due them from

a grateful world. He invited them to make a noble sacrifice, and, with subtle

misdirection, tempted them to think of themselves as heroes. He deliberately played

on one of the most deep-rooted of simian instincts, the desire for approval from

one’s kind, deserved or not.

All the while he was playing for time, as he directed his attention from one

hard case, one resistant mind, to another; He soothed and he tickled and he played

on personal foibles. For the benefit of the timorous and the devoted family men, he

again painted a picture of the suffering, death, and destruction that might result

from their well-meant reliance on the unproved and highly questionable predictions

of Destry’s mathematics. Then he described in glowing detail a picture of a world