Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

and a majority, by recent Gallup polls, believe it will come. We have seen the

diplomats and prime ministers and presidents and foreign affairs committees and

state departments manage to get things messed up in the past; from where we sit it

looks as if they were hell-bent on messing them up again. We hear the rumble of the

not-sodistant drum.

What we want, we little men everywhere, is planetary organization so strong

that it can enforce peace, forbid national armaments, atomic or otherwise, and in

general police the globe so that a decent man can raise his kids and his dog and

smoke his pipe free from worry of sudden death. But we see the same old messing

around with half measures.

(If you want to help to try to stop the messing-up process, you might write

Congressman Jerry Voorhis, or Senator Fuibright, or Senator Ball, or Beardsley Ruml,

or Harold Stassen. Or even the President himself.)

If things go from bad to worse and we have to fight a war, can we prepare to

win it? First let us try to grasp

what kind of a war it will be. Look at LIFE, Nov. 19, 1945, page 27: THE 36-HOUR

WAR: Arnold Report Hints at the Catastrophe of the Next Great Conflict. The first

picture shows Washington, D.C., being destroyed by an atomic rocket bomb. The text

and pictures go on to show 13 U.S. cities being destroyed the same wa~, enemy

airborne troops attempting to occupy, the U.S. striking back with its own rockets

from underground emplacements, and eventually winning-at a cost of 13 cities and at

least 10,000,000 American lives.

Horrible as the picture is, it is much too optimistic. There is no reason at

all to assume that the enemy will attack in too little force, destroying only 13

cities, or to assume that he will attempt to occupy until we have surrendered, or to

assume that we will be able to strike back after we are attacked.

It is not safe to assume that the enemy will be either faint-hearted or

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foolish. If he follows our example with Japan, he will smash us until we surrender,

then land. If his saboteurs are worth their blood money, our own rocket emplacements

may be blown up by concealed atomic bombs just in advance of the attack.

Atomic rocket warfare has still another drawback- it is curiously anonymous.

We might think we knew who had attacked us but be entirely mistaken.

You can think of at least three nations which dislike both us and Russia.

What better joke for them than to select a time when suspicion has been whipped up

between the two giants to lob just a few atomic rockets from a ship in the North

Atlantic, or from a secret emplacement in the frozen north of Greenland-half at us,

half at Russia, and with the attack in each case apparently coming from the other,

and then sit back while we destroyed each other!

A fine joke! You would die laughing.

Don’t think it can’t be done, to us and to Russia.

What can we do?

The first thing is to get Congress to take a realistic

view of the situation. The most certain thing about LIFE’s description of the coming

war was the destruction of Washington. Washington is the prime military target on

earth today for it is the center of the nervous system of the nation that now has

the Bomb. It must be destroyed first and it will be destroyed, if war ever comes.

Your congressman has the most dangerous job in the world today. You may live through

World War Ill-he can’t. Make yours realize this; he may straighten up and fly right.

What we want him to work for is world order and world peace. But we may not

get it. The other nations may be fed up with our shilly-shallying and may not go

along with us, particularly any who believe they are close to solving the problems

of atomic weapons. We may have to go it alone. In such cases, is there anything we

can do to preserve ourselves?

Yes, probably-but the price is high.

We can try for another Buck Rogers weapon with which to ward off atomic bomb