The Throne of Saturn, page 37
He had seen to it that journals such as The Christian Science Monitor, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, Women’s Wear Daily, and anyone else who might be able to throw a little counterweight on the other side, were excluded from this favoritism. The vice president and his advisers, abiding in good faith by the secrecy restrictions demanded by the Russians at the opening session, did not help their friends. Consequently, the voices raised for the United States were uninformed, vague and uncertain, unable to sound any very clear note of positive support.
The world, and particularly the American people, received an overall impression of flat, stubborn, hostile, inexcusably bullheaded American intransigence.
Alexei Kuselevsky had not been scientific adviser in the Washington embassy for six years for nothing. He knew his American friends of the media and he played them like a violin. With obliging skill and the conviction that they were helping to save the world, they carried the tune.
Now, on this fourteenth day and tenth formal morning session of the conference, he and his colleague the Foreign Minister, acting on instructions received from Moscow after last night’s particularly delicious feast, decided, in the vice president’s annoyed words, to blow it all to hell. Their move came when the Foreign Minister, following the alternating schedule which gave him today’s opening statement, deferred to “my dear friend, Academician Alexei V. Kuselevsky, for a procedural matter.”
“Mr. Vice President, Mr. Foreign Minister, distinguished delegates,” Alexei said promptly, his round little face creased by a thoughtful frown, “it is the belief of my government that we have now reached the stage at which these proceedings should be public. Accordingly on behalf of the U.S.S.R., I do so move, distinguished delegates.”
For several moments there was a stunned silence, while the vice president, chairman for the day under the alternating rule, did his best to remain impassive. He had always believed secrecy was bad in principle and probably disastrous to the United States in application, but the president and the State Department had insisted he go along with it, the State Department with its usual reason: it would upset the Russians and jeopardize negotiations if the United States insisted upon maintaining its own principles. When the vice president called for instructions, the president had been more pragmatic: “Let’s jolly them along for a bit and not get into an argument on the first day.” The result had been the same.
And now here it was, just as the vice president had anticipated, playing directly into their hands. He could see the headlines now: U.S. BALKS AT RUSS DEMAND WORLD BE TOLD OF GENEVA TALKS. REDS CHARGE AMERICANS NEED SECRECY TO CONCEAL SPACE IMPERIALISM.
And that, of course, was exactly what Alexei did charge five minutes later, after the vice president, impatiently brushing aside the bright young men from Washington who immediately buzzed in his ear with frantic and impossible advice, had reminded the conference coldly of the unanimous agreement on secrecy reached the first day.
“Mr. Vice President,” Alexei replied in a tone of deep reproach, “the government of the U.S.S.R. did not understand at that time that this was to be an inflexible and eternal restriction, Mr. Vice President. My government did not understand that it was to be used to deny the peoples of the world their perfectly justifiable right to know what we are doing here in our work toward space cooperation. My government wonders, Mr. Vice President,” he added severely, “what the government of the United States is afraid of? What is it trying to conceal? Is it some new and sinister form of space imperialism, Mr. Vice President? The government of the U.S.S.R. wonders this.”
“The government of the U.S.S.R.,” the vice president snapped, “knows perfectly well that it is raising an utterly phony issue, I will say to Delegate Kuselevsky. This is a bare-faced and blatant attempt to get world headlines and win a propaganda advantage. The Soviet Union, as usual, is not interested in cooperation. It is interested only in propaganda.”
“Mr. Vice President,” Alexei Kuselevsky retorted, his round face flushing, his pudgy little hands clenching and unclenching before him on the table, “the delegate of the United States is making unwarranted and unworthy charges here. The government of the United States for some sinister space-imperialist purpose of its own is choosing to deny knowledge of our proceedings to the peoples of the world. Why, why, why? That is what I ask the distinguished chairman, the delegate, the vice president of the United States!”
“The distinguished chairman, the delegate, the vice president of the United States,” the vice president replied in a tone so scathing that his bright young men visibly cringed and wilted like dying flowers at his side, “says to the delegate of the U.S.S.R. that he is talking nonsense. Further, he knows he is talking nonsense. Blatant, deliberate, crude, vicious nonsense.”
“The United States is trying to keep these proceedings secret!” Alexei cried, pounding his tight little fists furiously upon the table. “The United States is seeking an imperialist advantage in space. Space imperialism, Mr. Vice President, space imperialism!”
“Very well!” the vice president said, raising his voice and drowning Alexei into silence for the moment. “Throw open the doors! Bring in the press and television! Put your ridiculous demands on the table in front of the whole world (‘Oh, my God!’ murmured one of his young men, turned pale and appeared about to faint) and see what the world makes of them. See what the American people make of them when they get the truth! The United States,” he went on more calmly, “has been trying to protect you from your folly, I will say to the delegate. We did not think you would want the world to see how truly impossible you are.”
“Impossible?” Alexei demanded, apparently getting a second wind while the Foreign Secretary maintained his usual dourly frowning silence at his side. “Impossible? What is impossible? We make a perfectly reasonable request for a percentage of the launch teams that will reflect our scientific achievements in this field. As the first nation to orbit man successfully in space, we make a perfectly reasonable request that we be given four members of a crew of six. And because we have always been hindered and hampered in our search for cooperation with the United States by your morbidly suspicious security procedures, Mr. Vice President—such ‘security,’ more like crazy witch-hunting!—we have asked that these stupid and unnecessary procedures be suspended so that we may work freely with you on this great adventure to Mars.
“And this is ‘impossible’! This is ‘folly’! The United States should know what impossible folly is, Mr. Vice President! It has destroyed this conference with it!”
And with a quick glance at the Foreign Minister, who nodded and followed his lead, he picked up his papers and marched sternly toward the door. After him, frowning and looking as ostentatiously severe as they could manage, marched the twenty-seven other assorted scientists, clerks, secretaries, spies, and propaganda experts of the Soviet delegation.
“So can I come home?” the vice president inquired into the silence of the Oval Room.
“At once,” the president said.
“I think that would be best,” the vice president agreed. “I apologize, Mr. President. They never intended to negotiate, and we didn’t want to. But I’m afraid I let them beat me to it. I should have thought of a way to avoid that.”
“But of course,” the administrator said, “we couldn’t have moved first. Imagine what the reaction would have been.”
“Watch it now,” the president suggested dryly.
In a handful of major publications and a few smaller ones, here and there throughout the world, some balance and perspective were maintained:
RUSS END GENEVA TALKS WHEN U.S. OPPOSES GIVING FULL CONTROL OF MARS FLIGHT … U.S. CALLS RED DEMANDS RIDICULOUS AS CONFERENCE COLLAPSES … SOVIETS WALK OUT WHEN U.S. REJECTS ONE-SIDED MARS PLAN.
But overwhelmingly from America’s most influential journals and from the great majority of the newspapers of the world there came another story—the story Alexei and his friends had counted upon. Their confidence was not misplaced:
U.S. BOMBS SPACE TALKS … U.S. SECRECY RULE BRINGS RUSS WALKOUT AT GENEVA … REDS DEFEND WORLD RIGHT TO KNOW SPACE PLANS … SOVIET DELEGATION TERMS U.S. SECRECY “IMPOSSIBLE FOLLY” … RUSS CHARGE U.S. SEEKS SPACE IMPERIALISM … SOVIETS END CONFERENCE AS U.S. BLOCKS MARS COMPROMISE …
And on the editorial pages and in major news broadcasts and commentaries the theme of American intransigence and iniquity expanded and grew as it had on a thousand other occasions in these peculiar decades when derogating America had become the pastime not only of the world, but of a highly vocal and self-important portion of America’s own citizenry:
“We do not for a moment, of course,” the Times declared solemnly, “hold any great brief for giving the Soviet Union absolute control of the Mars mission. Nonetheless, we cannot escape the conclusion that if the United States had not gone to Geneva so obviously adamant in its intention to dynamite any kind of agreement, the world might today be in much better shape and feeling much more secure on this difficult issue.
“There are arguments to be made, perhaps, against the Soviet suggestion that its technicians be given a numerically (but perhaps not scientifically) greater amount of control over launch operations. But equally, it seems to us, there are arguments that can be made for it. Certainly, it did not warrant any such harsh and out-of-hand rejection as this government’s somewhat odd delegation, headed by the vice president, gave it.
“But this was in a sense only a minor dispute compared to two other matters on which the conference foundered: the refusal of the United States to waive internal security measures which past experience has shown to be ill-advised and punitive to the point of insanity, and the insistence of the United States upon an iron-clad secrecy rule at the conference which is repugnant to the world’s right to know and to all the instincts of this free people.
“We have opposed for many years the petty ways in which the FBI, the Justice Department, the Passport Office and all the other peek-and-pry agencies of the government have pandered to the shabbiest fears of America’s more timorous and easily frightened citizens. We do not believe in witch-hunts and we have said so on many occasions going back to the high-riding days of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy and beyond. We believe America has nothing to fear from a free interchange of persons and ideas with the Russians. We can understand the Soviet resentment that now, at this late date and in connection with this great enterprise, the United States should still be acting like a terrified child afraid of the dark. On this ground alone we can appreciate why the Soviet Union decided to terminate what was obviously a futile attempt to instill some sanity into these matters.
“But it is on the ground of secrecy and this government’s adamant refusal to permit the peoples of the world their fair and basic right to know the inner truths of a venture that could drastically affect all their lives and futures, that we think the United States is most gravely to blame for what has happened in Geneva …”
“With an infallible instinct for the wrong thing,” the Post began, “this government has once again destroyed the chance—perhaps the greatest chance—to arrive at a genuine working arrangement with the Soviet Union. This time the occasion was the Mars flight. In the past it has been other proposals for cooperation and unity. Every time, American fear or American stupidity or outright American intransigence has brought a sad collapse to bright and shining hopes. How long can this go on? How long, indeed, do we have left?
“It may be, as the United States seems to maintain, that the Soviet suggestion that they be allowed a majority of the technical personnel in charge of the Mars launch is a somewhat exaggerated claim. But surely it should not have been rejected outright. Surely there is present in the United States (if not, perhaps, in the delegation headed by the vice president which went to Geneva) the intelligence, the patience, the broad world view, and the skill, to come to some reasonable determination on this issue. In our estimation it was not something to kick overboard summarily. It was worthy of better than that.
“On the issue of the removal of the petty and punitive internal security regulations which have hampered U.S.-Soviet cooperation for many decades, we could not agree more with the Russian position that they are ridiculous, inhibiting, self-defeating, and inexcusable, particularly when applied to so great an enterprise as the mission to Mars. This is not some monumental attempt to keep a bushy-bearded Bolshevik from infiltrating the Senior Citizens’ Bowling League in St. Petersburg, Florida. This is a solemn and serious attempt by a great scientific power to achieve a genuine cooperation with the United States in space. And still, we find the witch-hunters of the FBI, the Justice Department, the Passport Office, and all the other peek-and-pry agencies of a timorous government trying to impose their frightened little rules upon the great project of sending an expedition successfully to Mars. We cannot say we blame the Soviet Union for its reaction.
“Nor can we blame it for its condemnation of the United States insistence upon a secrecy rule which flies completely in the face of the traditions of this free democracy, and completely in the face of a worried world’s right to know what is going on in the project which could have such dramatic impact upon the future of all mankind. Nothing can justify so undemocratic, so arbitrary and so harmful a stand …”
And from Frankly Unctuous and the great majority of his colleagues of air and tube, from Percy Mercy, Walter Dobius, and the great majority of their think-alikes of column and commentary, there came the same insistent hammering upon the same self-righteous themes. Competing voices, even those which said nothing more startling, in effect, than, “Hey! Let’s stop and look at this thing objectively!” were drowned and lost in the clamor. It was, after all, as some of the most famous members of the media had often blandly told the country, an article of faith that “there is no such thing as objectivity.” Those who justified giving free rein to their own intolerant and illiberal prejudices by claiming so, roared on.
Much of this ill-tempered yawp, of course, was standard procedure and the sort of thing that every American administration in an intolerant and truth-twisting century was used to and shrugged off. But enough of it struck home to the less sophisticated to worry and alarm those who bore the major responsibility for Planetary Fleet One. By next morning in Houston, they felt themselves to be under a steadily mounting pressure from which they were not protected by the thick skins and dogged determination of those more accustomed to public life.
Once again in the velvet night they had gone out to watch brightly lit, arrogant Space Station Stalin pass on its cold, inexorable rounds. Once again, they had watched modest little Space Station Mayflower come trailing along diffidently behind. And once again they had felt fear.
It was in no easy mood that they met next day to consider the implications for themselves and their mission of the events, so misrepresented and so ominous, of Geneva.
Chapter Eighteen
Jazz asked for the meeting in a call to Connie shortly after the 6 pm news broadcasts with all their sly and not-so-sly condemnations of the United States and their indirect and not-so-indirect musings as to whether Piffy One should be allowed to fly at all in view of the new world situation.
“I don’t quite see what we can do about it,” Connie told him, “except go on about our business and keep our mouths shut. It seems to me that’s the best answer to these bastards from where we sit.”
“I’m not saying we should answer them,” Jazz said impatiently. “I’m saying we’ve got to protect ourselves.”
“We can’t stop them from talking.”
“That’s not what I mean. Do I get my meeting or don’t I?”
“Nine tomorrow, my office?”
“Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
But though he said goodbye with a certain dryness in his tone, Connie was not sorry Jazz had precipitated a meeting. He felt some psychological need to be with his crew, whatever their differences, in the face of what seemed to be almost universal attack. When he told Jane about it, she looked at him with a wide-eyed, serious stare.
“He’s afraid for you all. And frankly so am I. There seems to be so much criticism and so much bitterness—it’s almost as though there were an active force in the air wishing things would go wrong. I’m a little superstitious about that sort of thing: I think there can be such a thing as a universal malevolence. I think lots of our own countrymen are helping to create it right now.”
“Lots,” Connie agreed, “but I can hardly believe all. There’s a certain group that always fouls its own nest, but I still think the great majority is with us and for the mission.” He smiled. “Three months from now, when all the damage has been done and it no longer matters, somebody will publish a public opinion poll showing this to have been true … No, Janie, I wouldn’t worry, if I were you. It will work out all right.”
“Aren’t you worried?” she asked, her eyes shadowed with concern. “How can you hear all these bitter statements and not be? Some of them are practically demanding that the mission be cancelled. They sound as though they don’t want Piffy One to fly at all.”
“I thought you agreed with that,” he suggested, though, in fairness, she had said nothing further on the subject since their argument a month ago. She gave him a sudden glance.
“Only if you yourselves decided not to go. I wouldn’t want a lot of—of—outsiders interfering with Piffy One.”
“That’s my Janie,” he said with a laugh, pulling her toward him and giving her a quick kiss. “You really sound fierce, gal. Spoken like the wife of an astronaut, and that’s for sure. True to the corps and all that stuff.”
