Dr. Strangelove

by Peter George

  But Elise soothes his nerves by a simple process of concentrating his attention on her and her many desirable attributes, and by telling him that General Clapp (to whom she refers by the affectionate nickname of Thunder) is a most charming and likeable man, not to be confused with the military officers whom he had viewed with such distaste during his brief spell of compulsory military service.

  In fact, Strangelove can find this out for himself tonight, since the General is giving a party in his honour. Strangelove is still somewhat incredulous. In his honour? But of course, she replies. He is now a man of influence. Of power. He will see tonight what it means to be a member of the inner circles.

  Under this barrage of flattery, coupled with hints at other and more intimate privileges that can be his, Strangelove’s whole personality begins to expand and flower. He agrees to attend the party.

  In General Clapp’s apartment Strangelove is greeted by an immaculate Air Force sergeant who ushers him through to where Clapp is dispensing hospitality to many guests. It is immediately apparent that Strangelove is the guest of honour, and he is taken around from group to group to be introduced, complimented and altogether lionised.

  Strangelove is much enjoying himself in the party at large and by now has had quite a few drinks pressed upon him, which really he has been too nervous to refuse. Then after a while Clapp takes him away from the main party to his own den.

  In the den Smith is waiting, and Elise is standing decoratively beside the bar that occupies one side of the room. Strangelove is made much of by Clapp and Smith, who talk again with him about his ideas and finally offer him, formally, the post of adviser to the committee.

  All this is too much for Strangelove’s already lessened resistance. The influence of the luxury, the respect, the great food and liquor that he has been given, plus the radiant presence of Elise, make him say that he will do what they want and become adviser on military affairs to the committee.

  With this achieved Clapp and Smith, after suitable felicitations, leave Strangelove in the private room. Elise also remains. One can only record here that if Doctor Blot had questioned Strangelove on the following day he would not have found his experience of women as barren.

  Strangelove is soon installed in a palatial office where his needs, both secretarial and otherwise, are catered for by a personal secretary, called Rita, whom Elise had found for him. She is a physical type, in complete contrast to Elise, but equally attractive. There is also an efficient girl who does the work.

  Strangelove is told that his function is first to think, and then after discussion with Clapp and Smith to embody his thoughts in writing papers which can be presented to the committee for defence. But Strangelove finds that this is not as easy as he had anticipated. Most of the sum of what he knows has already been expressed in his book – which consumed all his previous research and ideas – and he is now at something of a loss as to what to say next. He deliberately hints at this to General Clapp, and the two of them discuss it, but without reaching any definite conclusion.

  That evening however, having temporarily deserted his secretary Rita for an evening of stimulating intellectual congress with Elise, Strangelove is prompted by one of her remarks to a most brilliant, if slightly unethical, idea.

  Elise casually mentions the case of a theorist who had written a paper for the committee which by some mischance had been classified Top Secret. Once this was done, since the theorist was not security cleared to read Top Secret material, he was forbidden to read the paper that he had written.

  To Elise, this was mildly amusing. To Strangelove, it was absolutely inspiring.

  The following day he confers briefly with General Clapp, and within hours virtually all the experts on nuclear physics and warfare throughout the country have been approached by discreet Government representatives to submit a detailed list of their ideas on all aspects of nuclear warfare to the Capital. They are asked to complete this task within three weeks, and since they are going to be highly paid for the project they succeed in doing it.

  On receipt of the papers at the Capital they are immediately taken to Strangelove’s office, where a board consisting only of General Clapp immediately declares their contents to be Top Secret. The papers are duly stamped as such, and their writers informed of the classification. They are also quietly told that since they are now Top Secret any reference to their content or even their existence will cause trouble, possibly even imprisonment for the unfortunate who makes such reference.

  Strangelove is now in possession of ideas from the best brains in the country, and he sets himself to assimilate them, after which he will be able to produce a combination of them as his own, secure in the knowledge that no one will dare to challenge him.

  But Goodfellow does mount a challenge to Strangelove’s strategy, and that challenge having been made publicly, it must either be accepted – or rejected with contumely.

  Strangelove, Clapp and Smith confer anxiously on this matter. But in the end it is decided that the challenge should be accepted and Strangelove agrees to meet Goodfellow for a public debate before the TV cameras, to be refereed by a well-known news commentator.

  The contestants are strangely ill-matched. Goodfellow is a man of sincere feeling, generally considered a liberal in his approach, and well briefed by the scientists who have given him the ammunition for the debate. But he is not a man who can quickly put across an idea in simple language – a facility in which Strangelove excels.

  Strangelove also comes across as a man of complete sincerity, in so far as he genuinely believes his vision to be correct, but unlike Goodfellow, when he expresses those views, his sincerity shines through and the simple language in which he speaks, though it conveys only a potted version of the highly complex and technical matters under consideration, is nonetheless easily acceptable by the millions who would not understand the complexities anyway.

  Though the debate is not conducted in front of a live audience, some people from both sides are in the studio, though of course out of camera range. Among them is Goodfellow’s wife, Gretel, of whom Strangelove is becoming more enamoured. But on the few occasions she looks at her husband, it is with undisguised contempt which slowly gives way to bitterness and disgust as the confident, smooth talking Strangelove effectively reduces Goodfellow to a mouthing of incomprehensible complexities.

  Everything Goodfellow says is completely true, but he is so inarticulate that his truth can only be recognised by a few. Strangelove gains a complete and convincing victory in the television debate.

  Reaction to Strangelove’s easy victory is instantaneous. His first book had brought him to the notice of perhaps ten thousand people. But the television debate brings him to the notice of millions, and those who did not actually see the programme are able to read about it when it is prominently splashed in the country’s newspapers over the following days.

  The confidently smiling face of a benign Strangelove is suddenly familiar to the nation. From now on he is news.

  All this delights the great man. It is pleasant to be recognised in the streets of the Capital and to be asked to sign his autograph. It is even more pleasant to be asked to address (for a generous fee) various other institutes and associations. Strangelove particularly enjoys the invitations to address women’s colleges. His success with the students is as spectacular as if he had been an alcoholic foreign poet.

  And all the time Strangelove, who is anything if not assiduous, is sifting through the papers that the great experts have written.

  When challenge evolves to attack, it comes from an eminent authority outside our country but whose government is one of our closest allies. No pressure can be brought to bear on this well-known philosophical scientist by our country, and since many newspapermen are liberal – though the newspaper proprietors are not – the scientist’s remarks are given wide prominence.

  It is felt by Clapp and Smith that the most effective way of protecting Strangelove and his theories would be to counter
-attack Goodfellow and the scientist from our ally who has supported him.

  The scientist is fairly easy to deal with. Already he has incurred the displeasure of his government by his refusal to conform to the view that genocide is preferable to any form of defeat.

  Further, he has made one or two remarks which under our ally’s much stricter law could be interpreted as seditious. And of course our ally depends greatly on us financially, economically and militarily. So it is easy to arrange for this man’s arrest, trial and subsequent imprisonment. This discredits him in his country, though strangely, people seemed to admire him rather than otherwise. However, in this country, in the real seat of power, only a few people know enough about it to feel that way, and they do not count.

  Goodfellow is a rather different proposition. He is, after all, an important member of the government. Also, though Clapp and Smith know quite well he is the person behind the attack on Strangelove, it is difficult to prove, and so Goodfellow can not be attacked directly. But there are always ways to get around a situation like this, and Goodfellow is quietly degraded in his security station so that from now on he sees only the most unimportant of state papers.

  It is obvious that, though the people who violently opposed possession of the bomb are small in number, they are increasing every day and becoming a considerable nuisance. It is difficult to argue with them since it is obvious to everyone that a nuclear war would mean terrific casualties – some estimates run as high as 95% of the population – and although all sorts of alternatives are tried in the computers, that figure hardly varies.

  So loud have the cries of protest become that they actually threaten the plans of Clapp and Smith, and it therefore becomes necessary for them to take some action that will soothe the feelings of the population.

  They send for Strangelove one morning, and explain this to him. Strangelove is rather slow in grasping the implication of what they have told him. The great man has never considered the ultimate effect of public opinion, and he finds it difficult to realise that these people matter at all.

  However, Clapp and Smith insist that what is now necessary is some entirely original theory of warfare which will ease the anxiety of the country. This should at the same time increase – if possible – military construction while reducing dramatically the number of casualties which a war might entail.

  These are the basic requirements and within this framework Strangelove can produce any theory which will achieve debate and that the public can readily understand.

  For a week Strangelove works industriously, hiding himself away from his usual companions, and incorporating into his own ideas parts of the Top Secret information he has at his disposal. At the end of that time he brings to Clapp and Smith the summary of his thinking. This is written on a single sheet of paper, and Clapp and Smith read it, first with amazement, and then with mounting delight.

  Strangelove’s Theory

  1. There is an opportunity of interest between us and the enemy in avoiding mutual destruction. If, as we understand it, an all-out war would virtually destroy us both, that war would be futile. It is therefore necessary to reduce the effects of any such war, and the enemy are as concerned about this as we are.

  2. Given the destructive effects of modern weapons, which we cannot alter, and which are constantly increasing, it is obvious that the only thing we can alter is the allocation of targets. The enemy would wish to hit, and there is no reason why he should not, those targets which correspond in our country to those we wish to hit in his – strategic targets – well away from centres of population, so that those centres did not suffer damage from blast and heat.

  3. There remains the problem of radioactivity and fallout. The answer is simple, though naturally it will be costly. Shelters must be provided for the whole population, in which they remain for at least six months after an attack. These shelters must be fully equipped to enable life to continue with a minimum of disruption and this will entail considerable expenditure on such things as food, drugs, and well manufactured articles which will help to sustain life.

  4. Under these circumstances, the computers have shown that we may expect only four or five million casualties. This of course is nothing, because by accepting this we will be able to indulge in a mutually satisfactory nuclear war, and at less cost than, say, World War II.

  5. This is obvious to us, so naturally it will be obvious to the enemy.

  Clapp and Smith are delighted with Strangelove’s new theory. It has all the merits they had expected.

  From Clapp’s point of view it means that war is once again a responsible possibility, and can be demonstrated as such to the population. And if war is once again a reasonable possibility, then naturally we will want to win it, and therefore we should increase our weapons to the point where we are sure of winning it.

  This would, of course, be done by the simple device of telling the public that:

  Firstly:

  Thermo-nuclear war is no longer about wholesale destruction and all the other horrible things associated with it by a few irresponsible doom-mongers.

  Secondly:

  Even if a small war (in terms of casualties) can now be expected, this will be made less likely to occur by us building our forces to the point where the enemy would realise he cannot possibly prevail or win.

  And finally:

  This increase of forces will mean that the Air Force will naturally have the major role, since only they have weapons systems at their disposal which would ensure destruction of our enemy’s strategic targets but not their cities, and with the added ability to defend our own country.

  Smith is delighted because he envisages, and is later able to report to his employers, the huge industrial activity which will result from Strangelove’s new programme. He thinks, with great pleasure, of the billions of cubic yards of concrete, the vast amount of land, the millions of items of equipment, which will be required for shelters. And this in addition to the increased military requirements which he confidently believes that the public, in their relief at the lifting of the shadow of wholesale destruction from their lives, can now be induced to support.

  It remains only to implement Strangelove’s programme, and Clapp and Smith, both of them experts in the tactics of bending popular opinion, decide that Strangelove’s arguments should be expanded into book form, and that money should be used to ensure that the book is produced as quickly as possible and gets the widest possible distribution.

  They therefore obtain for Strangelove a whole battery of expert stenographers, and also the services of three professional writers whom they are able to entice by offering them more money for a few weeks concentrated work than they would have got in a year from the sale of their books. Each of the three writers they hire is an accomplished writer of fiction.

  In the unprecedentedly short time of four weeks the book is completed. Again government resources are brought to bear, and within a further four weeks two hundred thousand copies of it have been printed, and are ready for distribution.

  A natural decision, as a result of Strangelove’s new theory, is that as many people as possible must be got underground. This is necessary both to guard them against the effects of fallout and to encourage the construction industry generally, which is not expanding as fast as it should.

  Strangelove suggests that example is better than precept, and that surely the first priority must be to put safely underground those members of the government on whose safety the conduct of affairs in a nuclear war will largely depend. It is unlikely that the refuge will ever be needed, for Strangelove is quite confident that war will now never happen, but it gives a good example and, if copied throughout the country, will result in a contented, unworried population. And since anxiety neurosis is the most common affliction of the thinking people in this country, this can do nothing but good.

  It is therefore announced that the government is constructing a shelter of this type but nothing is said of the vast costs involved or the dept
h at which it is planned to build the refuge. In fact the plans call for a shaft reaching down some five thousand feet into the earth, and adjoining the shaft an underground living and central facility which extends through miles of passages and many hundreds of rooms.

  The planning of this refuge is carried out by Strangelove, who is now the recognised expert on anything pertaining to nuclear war.

  Doctor Blot, the advisory psychiatrist to the committee, is approached by Strangelove for his advice on ensuring the most suitable background in which members of the government may not only live but continue to function efficiently.

  Blot has strong views on this. It is disastrous, he points out, to expect people who have been used to sumptuous surroundings to exist happily, let alone function efficiently, in a harsh, bare environment. All must be comfort, even luxury, and this must apply not only to the decor and furniture but to the food, the liquor, the entertainment facilities, and even to the type of female companionship required to make what would be privation into the kind of pleasant environment in which men can make weighty decisions without being distracted by a lumpy mattress, poor food and boredom with their surroundings.

  Strangelove is fully in agreement with this and so, peculiarly enough, are those other high rank officers who are consulted about the matter and who will themselves have a place in the refuge should it ever become necessary. Plans are authorised and passed, and the building of the refuge is pressed forward on a crash priority programme.

  At this point it is thought fitting that Strangelove should be interviewed on television to explain the theories contained in his new book. After his last performance, when he wiped the floor with Goodfellow, Clapp and Smith are confident he will sell both the book and his theory to the public. They therefore arrange a nationwide link up and await with confidence the outcome of the interview.