Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

up to produce that feeling of warm satiation. At that I don’t have it in its most

virulent form; two of my colleagues are reliably reported not to have missed their

daily fix in more than forty years.

The best that can be said for SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY is that the solution

is still unsatisfactory and the dangers are greater than ever. There is little

satisfaction in having called the turn forty years ago; being a real-life Cassandra

Page 41

is not happy-making.

SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY

In 1903 the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk. In December, 1938, in

Berlin, Dr. Hahn split the uranium atom.

In April, 1943, Dr. Estelle Karst, working under the Federal Emergency

Defense Authority, perfected the Karst-Obre technique for producing artificial

radioactives.

So American foreign policy had to change.

Had to. Had to. It is very difficult to tuck a bugle call back into a bugle.

Pandora’s Box is a one-way propositiori. You can turn pig into sausage, but not

sausage into pig. Broken eggs stay broken. “All the King’s horses and all the King’s

men can’t put Humpty together again.”

I ought to know-I was one of the King’s men.

By rights I should not have been. I was not a professional military man when

World War II broke out, and when Congress passed the draft law I drew a high number,

high enough to keep me out of the army long enough to die of old age.

Not that very many died of old age that generation! But I was the newly appointed

secretary to a freshman congressman; I had been his campaign manager and my former

job had left me. By profession, I was a high-school teacher of economics and

sociology-school boards don’t like teachers of social subjects actually to deal with

social problems-and my contract

was not renewed. I jumped at the chance to go to Washington.

My congressman was named Manning. Yes, the Manning, Colonel Clyde C.

Manning, U. S. Army retired-Mr. Commissioner Manning. What you may not know about

him is that he was one of the Army’s No. 1 experts in chemical warfare before a

leaky heart put him on the shelf. I had picked him, with the help of a group of my

political associates, to run against the two-bit chiseler who was the incumbent in

our district. We needed a strong liberal candidate and Manning was tailor-made for

the job. He had served one term in the grand jury, which cut his political eye

teeth, and had stayed active in civic matters thereafter.

Being a retired army officer was a political advantage in vote-getting among

the more conservative and well-to-do citizens, and his record was O.K. for the other

side of the fence. I’m not primarily concerned with vote-getting; what I liked about

him was that, though he was liberal, he was tough-minded, which most liberals

aren’t. Most liberals believe that water runs downhill, but, praise God, it’ll never

reach the bottom.

Manning was not like that. He could see a logical necessity and act on it, no matter

how unpleasant it might be.

We were in Manning’s suite in the House Office Building, taking a little

blow from that stormy first session of the Seventy-eighth Congress and trying to

catch up on a mountain of correspondence, when the War Department called. Manning

answered it himself.

I had to overhear, but then I was his secretary. “Yes,” he said, “speaking.

Very well, put him on. Oh

hello, General . . . Fine, thanks. Yourself?” Then there was a long silence.

Presently, Manning said, “But I can’t do that, General, I’ve got this job to take

care of. . . . What’s that?.. . Yes, who is to do my committee work and represent my

district? . . . I think so.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “I’ll be right over.” He

put down the phone, turned to me, and said, “Get your hat, John. We are going over

to the War Department.”

“So?” I said, complying.

“Yes,” he said with a worried look, “the Chief of Staff thinks I ought to go

back to duty.” He set off at a brisk walk, with me hanging back to try to force him