left cooling my heels and trying to get comfortable in civilian clothes. After so
many months of uniform they itched in the wrong places.
The thirty minutes went by.
The President’s reception secretary went in, and came out very promptly
indeed. He stepped on out into the outer reception room and I heard something that
began with, “I’m sorry, Senator, but-” He came back in, made a penciled notation,
and passed it out to an usher.
Two more hours went by.
Manning appeared at the door at last and the secretary looked relieved. But
he did not come out, saying instead, “Come in, John. The President wants to take a
look at you.”
I fell over my feet getting up.
Manning said, “Mr. President, this is Captain DeFries.” The President
nodded, and I bowed, unable to say anything. He was standing on the hearth rug, his
fine head turned toward us, and looking just like his pictures-but it seemed strange
for the President of the United States not to be a tall man.
I had never seen him before, though, of course, I knew something of his
record the two years he had been in the Senate and while he was Mayor before that.
The President said, “Sit down, DeFries. Care to smoke?” Then to Manning.
“You think he can do it?”
“I think he’ll have to. It’s Hobson’s choice.”
“And you are sure of him?”
“He was my campaign manager.”
“I see.”
The President said nothing more for a while and God knows I didn’t!-though I
was bursting to know what they were talking about. He commenced again with,
“Colonel Manning, I intend to follow the procedur you have suggested, with
the changes we discusse But I will be down tomorrow to see for myself that th dust
will do what you say it will. Can you prepare demonstration?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Very well, we will use Captain DeFries unless think of a better procedure.”
I thought for a momer that they planned to use me for a guinea pig! But h turned to
me and continued, “Captain, I expect to sen you to England as my representative.”
I gulped. “Yes, Mr. President.” And that is ever word I had to say in
calling on the President of th United States.
After that, Manning had to tell me a lot of things h had on his mind. I am
going to try to relate them ~ carefully as possible, even at the risk of being dull
an obvious and of repeating things that are commo knowledge.
We had a weapon that could not be stopped. An type of K-O dust scattered over an
area rendered th~ area uninhabitable for a length of time that depende on the
half-life of the radioactivity.
Period. Full stop.
Once an area was dusted there was nothing th~ could be done about it until
the radioactivity ha fallen off to the point where it was no longer harmfu The dust
could not be cleaned out; it was everywhen There was no possible way to counteract
it-burn i combine it chemically; the radioactive isotope w~ still there, still
radioactive, still deadly. Once used o a stretch of land, for a predetermined length
of tim that piece of earth would not tolerate life.
It was extremely simple to use. No complicate bomb-~ights were needed, no
care need be taken to h “military objectives.” Take it aloft in any sort of
aircraft, attain a position more or less over the area yo
wish to sterilize, and drop the stuff. Those on the ground in the contaminated area
are dead men, dead in an hour, a day, a week, a month, depending on the degree of
the infection-but dead.
Manning told me that he had once seriously considered, in the middle of the
night, recommending that every single person, including himself, who knew the
Karst-Obre technique be put to death, in the interests of all civilization. But he
had realized the next day that it had been sheer funk; the technique was certain in
time to be rediscovered by someone else.
Furthermore, it would not do to wait, to refrain from using the grisly power, until
someone else perfected it and used it. The only possible chance to keep the world