she knew it.
In a way, they both decided their future in having that beer. The rest was just making all the moves and countermoves required to carry out the decision. There had been some difficulty about the “Black unearned fortune,” but Betty had been reassured when Black told her that he lived entirely on his colonel’s pay and that his share of the. family income went into a fund at Wells Fargo Bank. Black said he had no notion of what the fund amounted to, but that it was “maybe around four million,” and they both burst into laughter.
Once, a month later, they’d taken a picnic lunch to Walden Pond.
“But why the Air Force?” she asked. “I can understand going in at the start of the war, but I can’t understand why you’d stay in afterward.”
“It was simple,” Black said. “What work could I do where ‘success’ would be mine and not because of family background? The Air Force work was mine. The commendations came in from majors and colonels who couldn’t have cared less about the San Francisco Blacks even if they had known of them.” He looked at her directly and for the first time she sensed his bluntness and honesty. “You heard I was one of ‘those’ Blacks and put me into a category.”
Betty nodded her head in a silent agreement that was also an apology.
“You’re my favorite militarist,” she said softly.
“Don’t use labels, Betty,” he commanded. “Do you think the SAC people are all anxious to have war? Don’t be a fool. We’re as scared as everyone else. Look, I was on the Strategic Bombing Survey of Germany after the war. It’s not something that’s liable to make you a warmonger.”
Black paused. The survey had been a pause in his life too. It had troubled him. For the one big conclusion that came Out of the Survey was that, for all the apparent devastation, the main thing destroyed was people. The factories and the railways were put back into fairly good running order in an unbelievably short time. Indeed, bombing seemed to be an odd prod to survival, to sharpen the impulse to strike back.
“Blacky.” She took his hand and he looked down at her, startled. She put back her head and laughed loud enough to startle some birds into flight across the pond. “You look as if you thought you were about to be raped.”
He could not believe his ears. He was delighted and confused and definitely embarrassed. “Am I?”
“Are you what?”
“Am I about to be raped?”
She choked with laughter and somehow they had their. arms about each other, quite dumsily. She said into his shirt, “I’m such an ass.”
On this note-more or less-they were married three months later.
Black’s early morning drive out Long Island to Mitchel Air Force Base was not slowed down by traffic. He arrived with plenty of time to spare for the flight to Washington. The day was clear and mild, and he checked out, a Cessna 310. He had never lost his affection for a small, light plane. Even the 310 was automated, but it was still fun to fly. Someday he wanted to buy one of the quick stubby stunt biplanes that were now being reproduced, and recapture the old thrill of flying, to fly rather than to administer a plane.
As he settled on course for Washington, he felt the need suddenly of a cold drink of water, and last night’s cocktail party came flooding back through his mind. He had not wanted to go at all. Betty had never taken to Groteschele. Black also knew he would be listening to Groteschele at today’s briefing. So when Senator Hartmann’s secretary called he’d tried to beg off.
But Hartmann was insistent. He had collared Emmett Foster, the editor of the Liberal Magazine, which constantly criticized nuclear testing and supported unilateral disarmament. What Hartmann wanted was a cocktail party confrontation between Foster and Groteschele. Each in his way was distinguished. They merely happened to be at opposite ends of the controversy over thermonuclear warfare. Hartmann was no fool. A Midwestern Republican with a vigorous shock of white hair, sanguine complexion, and Falstafflan girth, he orated like William Jennings Bryan and generally looked like a musical-comedy senator. But under that shock of white hair operated one of the finest minds in Washington. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he wanted to hear the two points of view in an informal environment. He knew that Black was considered a “brainy” general and was a link between the purely tactical people in SAC and the Big Planners at the Pentagon. Groteschele had, of course, become famous after the publication of Counter-Escalation, which Foster had dissected and left for dead in the pages of his magazine.
Usually Betty refused to go to military-government-academic cocktail parties. To Black’s surprise she insisted on going to this one.
They had arrived late. Foster was there, but Groteschele, as usual, was even later. Foster stood in a corner talking in a firm, even voice. Black realized that the man would be no pushover. To Black most “professional liberals” had shrill voices, spoke in a rush, and accused anyone who questioned their facts of favoring nuclear extermination. Facts were unimportant. Survival, common morality, humanity, damage to unborn generations-this was their chant.
Not Emmett Foster. He was a cool one and Black could tell it instantly. Even as they moved across the room, Foster, a short muscular man with hard black eyes, used words and phrases which indicated he had read the Congressional Record and the scientific journals and probably interviewed a number of military people. Also Foster didn’t skip around. He answered questions precisely, sticking relentlessly to the point and relying on real evidence. Betty and Black listened for fifteen minutes and Betty turned to Black,’ her eyebrows arched.
“No fool,” she said.
“No fool,” Black agreed.
M that moment Groteschele arrived. He had not changed much physically since graduate-school days. A bit heavier, but not grossly so. But he was dressed better and he had the air of authority about him. He is almost silken, Black thought He smiled easily, said something to everyone he was introduced to, patted Black on the shoulder, kissed Betty on the cheek. He smelled slightly of men’s cologne.
Hartxnann introduced him to Foster, but Groteschele smiled and said they had already met. Without a wasted motion Groteschele moved beside Foster, stationed himself for the debate, but with no sign of antagonism or of condescension.
Foster waited until the introductions were over and went on.
“Times have changed since Clausewitz. True, war was an institution like church or the family or private property. But institutions grow obsolete, exhaust their function,” Foster argued. “Real tough-mindedness consists in recognizing that thermonudear war is not the extension of policy by other means, it is the end of everything-people, policy, institutions.
“Groteschele,” Foster said in his firm unyielding manner, “is a modern Don Quixote, dashing through the stratosphere on nuclear jaunts, talking of obliteration as if it could be made partial, hypnotized by his own words.”
Foster stopped almost politely, and looked at Groteschele. Groteschele rocked on his heels, looked down at his scotch and water. He let the silence draw out. He shook his head once, a slight puzzled motion as if he were considering one argument and had abandoned it.
Betty, who seldom drank, took a long scotch from one of the passing waiters. Black noticed that her hand trembled slightly.
Finally Groteschele spoke. His voice was extremely gentle.
“In a full.scale nuclear war between America and Russia a hundred million people, more or less, will be killed-right?” he asked Foster.
“A hundred million,” Foster repeated, “or more.”
The circle of people about the speakers moved restlessly. Betty finished her drink in a gulp and looked for a waiter. Black moved closer to her.
“Things would be shaken up,” Groteschele went on. “Our culture and their culture would not be the same. Granted?”
“Granted,” Foster said. He grinned toughly.
“Now this is a tragedy and no one here denies that,” Groteschele said and his eyes swept generously over the group, lingered on Senator Hartmann. “But would you not grant that the culture which is the best armed, has the best bomb shelters, the best retaliatory capacity, the strongest defense, would have an ancient and classical advantage?”
