'So it's a movie set.' I shook my head in admiration. 'You don't miss a trick, do you?'
'Not if I can help it, Mr. Victor. But let's get down to cases. Your country needs your help again. Your patriotism is as staunch as ever, I trust?'
'You keep interfering with my sex life and it won't be,' I told him. 'But yeah. I'm still a patsy when it comes to Uncle Sammy. What's up?'
'Have you ever heard of smut?'
'Which kind? The kind you step in, or the kind you read?'
'Neither. I'm referring to the organization.
'Oh, yeah. Vaguely. That bunch of bluenoses back in the States who want to cover Bardot's dimples. I'm afraid I don't know much about them.'
'Then let me fill you in, Mr. Victor. They are interested in much more than covering Miss Bardot's dimples, or other portions of the female anatomy. They started in the New York City area as an organization dedicated to stamping out what they considered to be pornographic literature and photographs and movies. However, today their activities encompass much more than that. Today it is their announced intention to stamp out all so-called illicit sexuality. And their concept of what is illicit includes everything from bra ads to ballet costumes. They have struck out against such things as men wearing Bermuda shorts, urinals which are not fenced off from one another, comedians who tell slightly off-color jokes, the display of Botticelli nudes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Washington Monument which they claim is phallic, sightseeing expeditions to the Grand Canyon because they think it's blatantly ovarian, automotive designs which include headlights which they consider mammarian, and many other things. They have conducted a campaign to edit all the world's great books so that words with double meanings might be censored out.'
'That's quite an undertaking,' I interrupted.
'That it is. But they have already published some suggestions. For instance, they would change the famous Shakespearean line to read 'If you nick me, do I not bleed?' And they want to change one of his titles to
'Sounds like a real fun-loving group,' I observed.
'Nor is language their major concern,' Putnam continued. 'They're also calling for legislation making it mandatory to use a method they've devised for changing babies' diapers so that the baby is never exposed. And they've stolen a leaf from that
S.I.N.A. group and now they're insisting that animals must be clothed. Only they go further than S.I.N.A. ever did. They even want birds to wear panties. Even insects! Bees in particular! And they want a law passed against the public pollination of flowers. That will give you some idea of what kind of an outfit S.M.U.T. is.'
'But what has all this got to do with me?'
'I'm coming to that. As I said before, S.M.U.T. started in the New York area. That was about three years ago, and they started small. But in those three years, they've grown unbelievably. They've not only spread throughout the U.S., but also in many other countries around the globe. They're truly an international organization now, and their power and influence is considerable. Still, it's only recently that the government has taken any notice of their activities. But once that notice was taken, we investigated – quietly, but extensively. And we learned two alarming things about S.M.U.T. But we learned them too late.'
'What do you mean?'
'First of all, we found that S.M.U.T. is much more than it seems to be. As extensive as their operations are, those operations are only a front – albeit a useful one for their purposes. But behind that front, S.M.U.T. is ambitious, insidious, and dangerous. They seem to have unlimited funds to back them up. We're still trying to trace the sources of those funds. So far all we know is that they come from banks all over the world, banks which themselves are innocent of any involvement in S.M.U.T.'s activities or purposes.'
'Just what are those purposes?' I asked.
'Summed up, they add to one thing,' Putnam told me gravely. 'They want to conquer the world.'
'Who doesn't?'
'It's no joking matter, Mr. Victor. They are out for nothing less than that – world conquest. We've learned that they've been around much longer than their public image would suggest. There are certain neo-Nazi – or perhaps not so neo – ties that we haven't been able to fully trace. But we do know that their activities are as concentrated on the Communist world as on the West. And they are as much of a threat to them as to us. I'll come to the specifics of that in a moment. But first, you look like you want to ask something?'
'Yes. Will you tell me just how a group can conquer the world with an anti- pornography crusade?'
'It's much more than that, Mr. Victor. When we realized the scope of their activities, we knew that. It's not just an anti-pornography campaign. It's anti-sexual. It's anti anything that might even vaguely be construed as sexual. And we are only just beginning to appreciate the reason behind this.'
'What reason?'
'Their true purpose, Mr. Victor, is to remove every available form of sexual sublimation from the human race so that there will be no substitute outlet for the sex act itself. What do you think will happen if they succeed in accomplishing that purpose, Mr. Victor?'
'The pediatrics business will boom.'
'Exactly. And that's what they want. They want a worldwide population explosion. They want people to breed so profusely that they will by virtue of their numbers become as sheep. And then they want to control those sheep, breed them, enslave them.'
'But I don't get it. How could they enslave them? How could they feed them and house them? How could they keep the sheep from crowding the masters right off the face of the Earth?'
'You've got me there, Mr. Victor. It's scientifically conceivable that they might succeed in herding them into the undeveloped areas of the Earth. But we don't know how they would feed them. Our government is working on that. But we do know that overpopulation is their aim.'
'How do you know that?'
'By S.M.U.T.'s other actions which tie in with their attempting to remove all sex sublimation stimulation from the human environment. We have learned that they are conducting a campaign to undermine both the U.S. and the U.N. birth control programs. Are you familiar with the role your country plays in worldwide birth control, Mr. Victor?'
'Only in a general way.'
'Then allow me to point out a few facts which are public knowledge, although the public seems to ignore them. First of all, the birth-control program now constitutes a major part of U.S. foreign aid. In the next three years the U.S. will be spending one hundred million dollars a year to fight the population explosion in underdeveloped countries. Right now in most of these countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the populations are increasing at a rate of about two-point-five percent a year. This means that in twenty-eight years these populations will double. But the average rate of increase in food production is only about one percent a year. People are starving in most of these places today. Can you imagine what it will be like in a quarter of a century?'
'You remind me of when I was a kid,' I grimaced. 'With my mother telling me to finish every scrap on my plate and not waste food because I should remember the starving children in India.'
'The point is, Mr. Victor, that our government, very quietly, has taken a strong pro-birth-control stand and backed it up in countries beyond its borders. But in these same countries S.M.U.T. has been waging a propaganda offensive against birth control. The strength of this offensive is what convinced us that S.M.U.T.'s anti-sex activities are really a screen to both aid and conceal their real objective: a catastrophic population increase. Now, at first, we thought they might be fronting for the Commies. But then we found that they've been active behind the Iron Curtain and not just in spots where the Reds might consider starvation and birthrate increase a prod to revolution. And most recently there has been a development which forces us to cooperate with the Commies – yes, even the Red Chinese – in the fight against S.M.U.T.'
