by Peter George
Goodfellow has not been kept informed of the project for building a great shelter and his name has been deleted from the list of those who can go into the shelter.
Strangelove ensures that Mrs Gretel Goodfellow’s name remains on the list.
The news of the assassination of the President comes as a great shock to all. But to no one more than the Vice-President, who is now pitch-forked into power as President. The new President has the following attributes; he is a northerner, his family are rich, he has no interest in politics, and he is a moron. The reasons for his election as Vice-President are interesting.
It had been necessary for the old President’s party to carry the North, where the balance of electoral power lay. To do this, a bargain was made that in return for the North’s support a northerner would be selected as Vice-President and be fully supported by the party – a typical northerner that is – associated with the mining industry, a racialist, and with little intelligence. The man selected, and who is now President of the most powerful nation in the world, had all these qualities.
He eats largely, consumes great quantities of liquor without apparently suffering any ill effects, and is a devotee of Polynesian music. His collection of records runs into the thousands and he is never happier than when listening to the music while at the same time wearing Polynesian costume, drinking rum punches from a hollowed-out half coconut shell, and admiring the convolutions of the gyrating maidens he imports monthly from the islands.
On being informed he is now President his reaction is to change the record he is playing and to order that his monthly supply of girls should be increased from four to eight. He feels now he had a position to keep up.
Unfortunately, though there is no need for a new election, the country’s constitution does call for the Vice-President to be ratified as President by the Assembly of Legislature, and since they know all about him this is hardly likely to happen. It is therefore necessary to present him with some dramatic piece of news that he can give to the public, which will create such good feeling that the legislature will hardly dare to reject him.
It is decided on a bold stroke – viz a meeting between the leading scientific advisers of both sides. This is quickly arranged. And of course Strangelove is the man selected to face the expert from the enemy.
Strangelove’s preparations for his meeting with the enemy’s expert take longer than he would have expected. He is briefed exhaustively on national security by the security authorities – not on nuclear war, no one could brief him on that – but on those aspects of the country which the experts consider it important the enemy should not know. They could, of course, obtain this information by buying a newspaper but this does not matter because the regulations they have to fulfil apply to security services, and not to newspapers.
Strangelove is also equipped – though it has been agreed that no notes will be taken during the meeting of the two experts, and that it should be entirely informal – with a tiny tape-recorder strapped to the inside of his left thigh with a recording microphone in his left ear. The story is that this is in fact a hearing aid and some trouble had been taken to ensure it is known by the enemy that Strangelove is slightly deaf. Peculiarly enough the enemy’s representative is also slightly deaf, and he too appears at the meeting wearing what purports to be a hearing aid in his right ear.
Strangelove is quite amazed to find that the enemy’s representative is a person very like himself. He is of medium height, with thick black hair, is wearing a hearing aid and tortoise-shell rimmed glasses. The only point of difference between them is that their representative wears a goatee beard and finely waxed and pointed moustaches.
As the meeting gets under way, and as both men warm to their themes, it is also apparent that apart from their physical resemblances, they think alike. Indeed, within minutes they are on the best of terms, and each is feeling warmly that the other represents the best in all that the enemy thinks.
They both agree that the policy of dispersal of military targets and the acceptance that these are the only targets which should be attacked is the only sane policy to pursue. Each assures the other that this is in fact what they would do. Furthermore, each of them mean it, which gives their assurances a truly authentic sound.
Armed with the results of Strangelove’s interview and after careful coaching, the new President appears on TV – apparently live, though in fact on film carefully edited to show him at his best. He is able to report a real hope for peace in that the enemy have agreed they also support Strangelove’s theory of war. They agree that war must be avoided, but in any case should it come it will not be at all disastrous compared with former wars.
There will no longer be a bloodbath, a matter of hundreds of millions of casualties. There will be a mere twenty million or so dead, in total, and this will be acceptable to all sides.
The new President is triumphantly returned.
Peter George circa 1962.
Edited by David George 2015.
Peter George with David George, 1965
Coming Soon from Candy Jar Books
PATTERN OF DEATH
Peter George
The pattern began in the cold heights of the sky ten miles above the flatlands of East Anglia. A new and revolutionary jet fighter was being tested at supersonic speeds.
Before long the first death slipped into the pattern as agents of a foreign power tried to sabotage the prototype fighter that would give Britain aerial superiority in the Cold War.
Into the mix came Driscoll, called back to work undercover by an anonymous branch of government security, to confront the threat. Little did they know he had already been approached by the other side.
The twisted web of events led through the streets and night clubs of London, out to the windswept military airfields and up into the empty wastelands of the stratosphere.
Through a trail of intrigue and violence the pattern was finally resolved on the concrete floor of the fighter’s hangar. But not before many had died and others revealed as something very different from their supposed identities.
First published 1954, T.V. Boardman, London
British Bloodhound No. 85
Coming Soon from Candy Jar Books
COME BLONDE, CAME MURDER
Peter George
Pacific City is beautiful. All the travel folders say so, and they should know. We have the swellest climate, beaches, movie studios and nightspots. The folders tell you all about them, as they do about our transportation system, resident celebrities, moonlight, mimosa and eucalyptus trees. We have everything and of one quality only: The best.
We have other things. A City Administration that rides in custom-bodied Cadillacs. A Police Department that likes easy answers. And assorted gangsters, hoods, whores and blackmailers. We have modern, streamlined, commercialised sin, of one quality only: The best.
For information on the things beneath the surface of the travel folders you come to people like me. Steven Bryant. Private Investigator. I’ll be glad to be of service — at fifty dollars per, plus expenses.
Mornings I may be in the apartment, or I may be in the office next door. But if you’re a client, don’t be formal. Crash right in and you’ll be sure of a welcome. Naturally, you won’t have come in time.
Just one more little thing. Any morning except Monday. Since the Milroy case I’m allergic to Monday mornings. That one started on a Monday — a fine warm morning just like today…
First published 1952, T.V. Boardman, London
Boardman Bloodhound No. 42
Coming Soon from Candy Jar Books
THE PETER GEORGE COLLECTION
The American Crime novels:
Come Blonde, Came Murder (1952)
Cool Murder (1958)
The Final Steal (1961)
The Cold War Intelligence Agents novels:
Pattern of Death (1954)
Hong Kong Kill (1958)
The Big H (1961)
The Nuclear War novels:
Dr Strangelove – Novelisation (1963) (2015)
Commander 1 (1965)
####