Astounding
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an unlikely pair Silverberg, Other Spaces, Other Times, 41–43.
“This is Robert Silverberg” Robert Silverberg, e-mail exchange with author, September 20, 2016.
“Bob Silverberg is a kid” JWC to E. E. Smith, May 26, 1959.
“I was so excited at the thought” Robert Silverberg, in Solstein and Moosnick, JWC’s Golden Age of Science Fiction, 29.
writing up the editor’s ideas “What difference does it make whether you do the actual typing yourself, or see to it that Silverberg and Garrett write exactly what you would have written if you had written it?” E. E. Smith to JWC, April 20, 1959.
a drunk and a sexual predator “You could follow [Garrett’s] movements . . . by the squeals of the women whose bottoms he had just pinched.” Frank Herbert, “Randall Garrett,” in Garrett, The Best of Randall Garrett, 135.
Garrett was shockingly frank Robert Silverberg, e-mail to author, September 21, 2016.
“lack of breast development” JWC to Joseph Winter, May 7, 1953.
“What’s the matter, Isaac?” Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 78.
treated Garrett at the house JWC to Bernard I. Kahn, February 20, 1957.
the editor insisted on playing a tape Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 78–79.
Garrett had “guessed” Ibid., 79.
“It’s been so long” JWC to Randall Garrett, November 11, 1957.
“slob . . . complete bum” JWC to Leslyn Campbell, October 17, 1965.
“Well, by damn” JWC to Rick Cook, September 24, 1970.
“the brightest and kindliest” JWC to Asimov, January 1, 1962.
bareback on a friend’s horse Author interview with Leslyn Randazzo, July 29, 2016.
“an Italian sunset color display” JWC to Carl A. Larson, December 9, 1969.
“What happened?” Author interview with Leslyn Randazzo, July 29, 2016.
“Leslyn got started right” JWC to Raymond F. Jones, April 29, 1953.
Heinlein had sent all of her letters Frederik Pohl, “The Wives (and Drives) of Robert Heinlein, Part 1,” May 17, 2010, http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2010/05/the-wives-and-drives-of-robert-heinlein-part-1 (accessed December 2017).
Martin Gardner “John Campbell, Jr., who had been introduced to dianetics many years earlier when Hubbard began treating him for sinusitis, and who in turn introduced dianetics to the world, has likewise been divorced. He married Dr. Winter’s sister. And he still has his sinusitis.” Gardner, Fads and Fallacies, 280.
“He hasn’t creative ability enough” JWC to Theodore Sturgeon, June 19, 1958.
to push beyond the limits of the magazine JWC also tinkered in his workshop for several years with a “waveform generator” that he hoped would make him a fortune. Technological limitations forced him to scale it back, and a patent that he filed in 1956 lacked any practical application. United States Patent, “Electron Discharge Apparatus,” J.W. Campbell, Jr., July 9, 1956. Patent number 2,954,466.
faith healing JWC underwent treatment with Doc Brinker, a faith healer in Pennsylvania, and the psionics researcher Curtis Upton, who also treated JWC’s sister, Laura. JWC to Dr. L. H. Wallendorf, October 29, 1956; Leslyn Campbell, February 8, 1967; Asimov, June 10, 1958; and Curtis Upton, January 21, 1960.
other forms of pseudoscience These included the herbal cancer cure developed by Harry Hoxsey, whose work was denounced by the Food and Drug Administration. JWC to John W. Campbell, Sr., August 26, 1957.
“Bullshit!” De Camp, Time and Chance, 222.
a radio anthology series In the past, JWC had recommended stories—including RAH’s “Requiem”—for the show Beyond Tomorrow, consulted for Dimension X and X Minus One, and served as a freelance editor for The Planet Man. He also corresponded with the producer Clement Fuller about a television series called The Unknown, but nothing ever came of it. JWC to Clement Fuller, March 5, 1952.
Exploring Tomorrow The series ran from December 4, 1957 to June 13, 1958, on the Mutual Broadcasting System. “Campbell often ended up just restating the theme or moral of the episode, regardless of how obviously those points had been made by the story itself. . . . John Campbell’s talent and his enormous contributions to science fiction are beyond question, but acting as a radio host was apparently outside his expertise.” DeForest, Radio by the Book, 190–91.
Sputnik “We agreed in our first conversation after the satellite went up that people were going to react by deciding science had caught up with science fiction.” Del Rey, The World of Science Fiction, 371. The launch coincided with the demise of the American News Company, a distributor on which many pulps depended, which led to the failure of a dozen titles over two years. Astounding survived, but its circulation fell by almost half.
Interplanetary Exploration Society JWC, “Society for Amateurs,” ASF, July 1958, 5–7.
its inaugural meeting Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 140–41.
F. Darius Benham JWC to F. Darius Benham, July 24, 1957 and August 12, 1957.
“What’s all this?” Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 141.
Boston . . . an event at an arboretum Ibid., 234.
Street & Smith was bought by Condé Nast “Inherited Deal,” Time, August 31, 1959, and Maier, Newhouse, 43–45.
“You—and many another” JWC to RAH, March 31, 1953.
he announced without warning JWC, In Times to Come, ASF, January 1960, 82.
“I’ve already received a number of comments” JWC, In Times to Come, ASF, February 1960, 37, 53.
“a name of memories and tradition” Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 197.
“I have never quite managed to forgive Campbell” Ibid.
CHAPTER 14: STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND (1951–1969)
“Under extreme environmental pressure” JWC, “The Value of Panic,” ASF, August 1956, 4.
some of which belonged to Peg Campbell JWC to Don Purcell, March 14, 1955.
“one of the most central points” “Dianetics Group to Quit City Because ‘We’re Not Wanted,’ ” Elizabeth Daily Journal, April 3, 1951.
Perry Chapdelaine Chapdelaine, who later preserved and published much of JWC’s correspondence, described his experiences with LRH in his book During the Dawn of Dianetics and Scientology.
Ron Howes Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, 136.
Purcell reached out to Campbell Purcell’s first letter to JWC is dated July 28, 1951, and the two men corresponded sporadically over the next few years.
“Two of the early associates” Miller, Bare-Faced Messiah, 187.
“a heavy foe of dianetics” LRH, letter to FBI, July 11, 1953.
Hubbard was happy to be the sole authority in Wichita LRH’s visitors during this period included a teenager named Del Close, who later became renowned as one of the founders of modern improvisational comedy. Johnson, The Funniest One in the Room, 28–29. Close wrote up the encounter in “Del and Elron,” an autobiographical story in the comic book Wasteland, August 1988, 1–8.
Volney Mathison Mathison, Electropsychometry, 101–3.
a lie detector that van Vogt had described “He emerged almost immediately carrying a small lie detector. He grasped the two hand grips firmly.” Van Vogt, The World of Null-A, ASF, September 1945, 26.
electroencephalograph readings Winter, A Doctor’s Report on Dianetics, 185.
“It works magnificently” JWC to A. S. Budgely, September 10, 1963.
forced on him by his publisher Hubbard Association of Scientologists to Better Business Bureau of Phoenix, Arizona, June 12, 1954.
a session that Hubbard conducted in April A recording of the tape was leaked in 2014 to The Underground Bunker, https://tonyortega.org/2014/06/17/rare-tape-reveals-how-l-ron-hubbard-really-came-up-with-scientologys-space-cooties (accessed December 2017).
“fantasies built upon reading and imagination” LRH, Science of Survival, 85.
implant stations on Mars “The report area for most has been Mars. Some women report to stations elsewhere in the Solar System. There are occasional incidents about Earth re
port stations. The report stations are protected by screens. The last Martian report station on Earth was established in the Pyrenees.” LRH, A History of Man (previously titled What to Audit), 110.
a dozen case studies of past lives LRH, Have You Lived Before This Life?
He even claimed to have audited E. E. Smith Raine, “Astounding History,” 15.
“small-town booster” In a lecture delivered on December 9, 1952, for the Philadelphia Doctorate Course, LRH said: “Mohammed decided to be a good small-town booster in Kansas, Middle East, or something of the sort.” Compare to Bolitho: “Mahomet was a ‘home-town booster,’ and this conception will unlock the many obscurities of his life and his doctrine.” Bolitho, Twelve Against the Gods, 125.
“The lever of his position” Bolitho, Twelve Against the Gods, 137.
a machine that induced hypnosis using sound Miller, Bare-Faced Messiah, 214.
one of his Ole Doc Methuselah stories LRH, “A Sound Investment,” ASF, June 1949, 36–57.
“I await your reaction” Urban, The Church of Scientology, 65.
“If you want to get rich, you start a religion” Miller, Bare-Faced Messiah, 119 and 134. Harlan Ellison—who was a teenager in Ohio at the time—implausibly claimed to have been present on the night that LRH came up with the idea. Segaloff, A Lit Fuse, 119.
“It was, as a matter of fact” JWC to G. Harry Stine, May 16, 1956.
“better controls . . . change of status of man” LRH, All About Radiation, 120, 149.
“Of course Scientology” William S. Burroughs to Allen Ginsberg, October 30, 1959, quoted in Burroughs, Rub Out the Words, 3.
“If President Kennedy did grant me an audience” LRH, “A Second Statement by L. Ron Hubbard,” January 6, 1963. FBI file on LRH.
“Things go well” LRH to JWC, August 29, 1964.
“intellectual garbage” JWC to Cyril Vosper, April 30, 1970.
“Some of [Hubbard’s] claims” Wright, Going Clear, 111–12.
“It is carefully arranged” Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, 193.
“Very space opera” A copy of the original handwritten Xenu story can be viewed at https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/OTIII (accessed December 2017).
including William S. Burroughs In his correspondence, Burroughs clearly refers to the OT III material: “So leaving aside galactic federations and Zmus [sic] there may be some validity in Hubbard’s procedure. . . . Exactly how are these body thetans contacted and run? Are they addressed directly and if so in what terms? Do they have names? Do they have dates? Are they run through the alleged shooting freezing and bombing incidents as if you are an auditor running an internal parasite through these incidents?” William S. Burroughs to John Cooke, October 25, 1971, quoted in Burroughs, Rub Out the Words, 374.
white uniforms with silver boots Atack, A Piece of Blue Sky, 211.
“They have lived on this little earth” Bolitho, Twelve Against the Gods, 117.
Jack Parsons The fullest account of Parsons’s death appears in Pendle, Strange Angel, 1f.
a party hosted by Ron Howes Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 94.
the inventor of the Easy-Bake Oven Barry M. Horstman, “Ronald Howes, inventor of Easy-Bake Oven, dies at 83.” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 19, 2010.
“Ron is a jerk” RAH to George O. Smith, circa May 10, 1953, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 94.
including George O. and Doña Smith The Smiths visited the Heinleins in 1952 and again around 1957. RAH to Lurton Blassingame, July 16, 1952, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 81; and Doug Smith, e-mail to author, October 11, 2017.
“a fake utopia” RAH to Robert A. W. Lowndes, March 13, 1956.
“a revolting son of a bitch . . . I thank heaven that I live” Ibid.
“traitors” and “custard heads” RAH, Tramp Royale, 63.
Irving Pichel Hoberman, An Army of Phantoms, 52–54.
Dalton Trumbo Ibid., 126.
Chan Davis Davis, a prolific contributor to ASF, was sentenced to six months in prison after refusing to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee. De Baets, Censorship of Historical Thought, 569.
Bernhard J. Stern Price, Threatening Anthropology, 137–38.
a record by Tom Lehrer RAH to JWC, August 30, 1954.
“Isaac, your books are so proper” Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 117.
tired of Campbell’s provocations RAH’s reluctance to work with JWC was clearly a matter of choice, not ability. When Theodore Sturgeon wrote to ask for financial help, RAH sent him a check and a letter filled with story ideas that he knew would sell to ASF. Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 125.
“Half the time at least” RAH to JWC, July 17, 1956.
including several to Doña Doña Smith to RAH, January 20, 1952.
“The only thing that really worries me” RAH to Lurton Blassingame, February 12, 1952, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 77.
The Door into Summer On May 11, 1957, JWC wrote of the novel to Asimov: “Bob can write a better story, with one hand tied behind him, than most people in the field can do with both hands. But Jesus, I wish that son of a gun would take that other hand out of his pocket!” In the end, Boucher bought it for Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Asimov raved: “This is the best thing you’ve ever done, which means, for my money, it’s the best thing anyone has ever done. . . . I love The Door Into Summer and I love you.” Asimov to RAH, August 25, 1956.
Campbell rejected the former, but bought the latter JWC to RAH, April 5, 1957.
“Two changes, admittedly easy” RAH to Lurton Blassingame, May 17, 1957, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 142.
“very shook up” RAH to Buddy Scoles, October 9, 1957, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 145.
Campbell was tantalized by it JWC to RAH, December 23, 1957.
“I do not think” RAH to Alice Dalgliesh, December 24, 1957, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 147.
“Consciously or unconsciously” RAH, “Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?,” Expanded Universe, 392.
“You do realize” Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 153.
Campbell was skeptical of the whole approach JWC to RAH, June 10, 1958.
“I therefore played a very small part” Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 10.
“I fear Bob’s going to induce” JWC to Lurton Blassingame, March 4, 1959.
“the pious critic” RAH to Theodore Sturgeon, March 5, 1962, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 185.
“the best setup for a novel” RAH to Theodore Sturgeon, February 11, 1955, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 125.
“ignoring length [and] taboos” RAH to Lurton Blassingame, October 21, 1960, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 203.
“I thought I was getting a saga” JWC to RAH, August 12, 1962.
“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” The phrase was introduced to Heinlein by Jerry Pournelle in December 1964. Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 264.
he reluctantly rejected it JWC to RAH, July 6, 1965.
“The central problem of today” RAH to Rex Heinlein, December 4, 1960, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 206.
in the absence of other strong personalities Asimov, I. Asimov, 76. Asimov incorrectly dated the shift in his political views to 1946, when RAH floated the idea that President Truman should appoint a Republican successor, laying the groundwork for a later return to power. Asimov misinterpreted the proposal: “This was the first indication to me that he had grown conservative.” Asimov, In Memory Yet Green, 488.
a talk by Linus Pauling Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 238.
“I think Bob Welch’s methods” RAH to Dorothea Faulkner, July 27, 1961.
“psychogenic” JWC to RAH, May 3, 1957.
“a parasitic excrescence” RAH to Elizabeth Price, November 11, 1967, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 277.
; he had sampled marijuana “I’m afraid that I’m too square to have tried marijuana, but Robert did try it in his youth.” Virginia Heinlein to Leon Stover, February 1982.
“as much of a failure as other drugs” RAH to Elizabeth Price, November 11, 1967, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 277.
“If a male and a female” RAH to Marie Browne, December 18, 1968, quoted in Patterson, The Man Who Learned Better, 294.
“innuendo for innuendo” Asimov, In Memory Yet Green, 681.
“looked around” Frederik Pohl, “Our continued reminiscences of Isaac Asimov,” November 10, 2010, http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2010/11/isaac-asimov-part-6 (accessed December 2017).
“Well, what the hell do you do?” Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 279.
“I was having a stronger and stronger impulse” In Memory Yet Green, 669.
Campbell turned it down JWC to Asimov, February 20, 1955.
they often quarreled over money White, Isaac Asimov, 156.
he hated that she smoked Asimov, I. Asimov, 106–8.
“In all those years I had not made her happy” Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 32.
“Genius at Work” and “Great Lover” Freedman, Conversations with Isaac Asimov, 14.
“Gertrude complains” Asimov to RAH, January 27, 1955.
“miserably unhappy” Asimov to RAH, February 5, 1955.
Asimov was still selling stories to Campbell One of these stories, “Pâté de Foie Gras,” was based on a premise from Peg. JWC to John Pomeroy, September 19, 1956.
“I would write one for him” Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 52.
losing it would disappoint both his father and Campbell Poul Anderson, “In Memoriam,” Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction, November 1992, 9–10.
“I berated myself” Asimov, In Joy Still Felt, 106.
“What’s your name?” Ibid., 66.
“There’s no need to end the evening, I hope” Ibid., 154.
He had grown closer to his other editors “I suppose it must have been Campbell’s imprinting in the first place, but I have the tendency to look upon editors as security figures.” Ibid., 250.
“I am glad to see” Ibid., 173.
“telling jokes” Asimov, Asimov on Science Fiction, 200.