been alerted. Stark knew that Swenson also knew that, but that Wilcox probably did not.
“A lot of lives could be saved if people had even a few moments to take cover,” Wilcox said stubbornly. He was not a man who frightened easily. His voice was controlled and Swenson knew that he had nothing to fear on the score of Wilcox becoming hysterical. But the mood of the room was becoming what Swenson had anticipated but not found a few minutes before-that of an unbelievable tension, an eerie overcontrol.
Wilcox reached in his brief case and took out that day’s copy of The New York Times. He threw it on the table so that it slid to a stop in front of Swenson. Squarely in the center of the front page was a picture of the President’s wife. She was in New York for the opening of a new art center.
Everyone at the table except Swenson stared rigidly at the picture. The President’s wife was a beautiful woman who had captured the imagination of the American public as few other women in public life before her. With a simple elegance, she did a great many things: painted, dedicated children’s hospitals, wore handsome clothes, entertained the great and the powerful, traveled around the world representing her husband, and cared for her children.
Swenson looked sharply at Wilcox, then at the other men around the table. He had read a great deal about how people behaved under stress. One thing emerged from the studies: a group could stand a very high level of tension, of terror even, if they were certain that everyone in the group was equally exposed. Allow even the suggestion of preferential treatment and a composed group would disintegrate into a chaotic melee of desperate individuals.
Was Wilcox trying to suggest that the President’s wife would or should receive some sort of preferential treatment? Even officers as magnificently trained as those gathered in this room could be shattered if they thought that the President might be calling New York to get his wife out of the city.
“I don’t quite understand you, Wilcox,” Swenson said. “Make yourself clear and quickly.”
Wilcox’s finger went past the picture of the President’s wife and pointed at a story in the left-hand column of the Times. “CIVIL DEFENSE CHIEF STATES SURVIVAL RATE WOULD GO UP GEOMETRICALLY WITH TIME OF WARNING.” It was an article in which the Civilian Defense Director had issued a reassuring statement that with a few hours warning casualties in an all-out war could be cut drastically.
Swenson realized that Wilcox had not even considered the fate of the President’s wife. It had never occurred to him that the President would do such a thing as give prior warning to his own family.
Groteschele, Stark, and the CIA man all laughed simultaneously. It was a short, mirthless but relieving laugh. Swenson looked at them and smiled. Wilcox looked at the others in astonishment, then growing irritation.
“On very short notice an alert to a big city would probably do more harm than good,” Swenson said. “A couple of hours and people can be dispersed and moved. But with a couple of minutes warning all you would do is produce an enormous amount of panic, crowding of the streets, a frantic searching of parents for children, and the rest. Statistically, more people are in protected spots just before the alarm than they are right after it.”
Stark started to say something and Swenson looked at him and shook his head silently.
He knew what Stark was going to say: if four 20-megaton bombs are dropped on Manhattan no one is going to survive even if they are in the strongest bomb shelter made for civilian use. Of course, there would be a few exceptions-some technician at a hospital who happened to be in a room supplied with oxygen and surrounded by stout walls, some janitor in a deeply buried basement in which by some quirk he could suck in the sewer air and subsist on that for a few hours. But it would not be more than twenty or thirty people, Swenson felt sure.
Some old reflexive control kept Swenson from thinking of his own family. It could do no good. And at the core of his personality was an almost fierce love and sentimentality about his family. Once exposed, once allowed to express itself, this torrent of love and anguish would render him worthless as a leader. So his cool mind reminded him over and over in an endless subconscious chant: there is nothing you can do, nothing you can do, nothing.
His job was to keep this group of men intact, in command of the situation, ready to move in whatever direction the President ordered. It was still possible that the Vindicators would not get through, it was possible that the Soviets might not believe that New York was actually destroyed, it was possible that some third power might panic and start to launch nuclear weapons.
Swenson’s neat prudential mind sorted out the alternatives, weighed them, thought ahead to which man should be entrusted with what tasks in the alternative situations.
The conference line connecting Moscow, Khrushchev, the United Nations, and the White House was open, but there was very little conversation.
Buck no longer felt confusion or embarrassment. He merely felt that during the course of the last few hours he had been greatly toughened. The pressure and tension, so sudden and immense as to be incalculable, had first bewildered him, turned him soft with contradictory moods. But now he felt weathered and sure. Without looking ahead he knew that his life would be different after this day.
He found himself looking at the President and running over different ways of approaching the situation.
If the situation had been reversed, if Soviet planes had accidentally been launched toward the United States, would the President have demanded the sacrifice of a Soviet city?
Probably, Buck thought to himself, although a part of the American tradition and political character would have allowed for time to see if the Soviet attack had been accidental. But how else could it be proved to be an accident? No way, he thought. The Soviet mentality, however, steeped in its own version of Maraist toughness, would not afford the time to wait, must always make its interpretation on the basis of utmost suspicion of its opponents.
“Mr. President, the activity here in Moscow seems quite ordinary, just like any other day,” the American Ambassador said.
Buck sensed that the Ambassador wanted to say something and was asking for permission. The President leaned forward, understanding in his eyes.
“A general alert would be useless, Jay,” the President said. “With the amount of time left it would only cause a mass hysteria and probably not save a single life.”
“That is correct, Mr. Ambassador,” Khrushchev said.
His voice was quiet “I have activated only those parts of our defense that have a chance of shooting down the Vindicators. Our ICBMs have already begun to stand down from the alert. I want no chance of some harebrained lieutenant getting excited and taking things into his own hands.”
It was the opening that the Ambassador wanted.
“What steps will you take to make sure that this most terrible of tragedies is not repeated, Premier Khrushchev?” the Ambassador asked.
“This is not the most terrible of tragedies,” Khrushchev said, but his voice was not belligerent. “In World War Ii we lost more people than we will lose if the two planes get through and Moscow dies. But what makes this intolerable is that so many will be killed so quickly and to no purpose'-he paused, took a breath, and then went on-'and by an accident. The last few hours have not been easy for me, Mr. Ambassador. They are not made easier by the fact that I am talking with you and Ambassador Lentov who will probably be dead in a few minutes. I have learned some things, but I do not have the time to tell them all to you. One thing I can say: at some point in the last ten years we went beyond rationality in politics. We became prisoners of our machines, our suspicions, and our belief in logic. I am willing to come to the United States and to agree to disarmament. Before I leave I will take steps that will make it impossible for our armed forces to repeat what has happened today.”
“Premier Khrushchev, I will welcome you and I shall also take the same steps that you have mentioned in regard to our armed forces,” the President said. “You have put your finger on something that has been gnawing at my mind during these last few moments.”
The President paused. A calm fell on the line.
“Premier Khrushchev?” There was a tentative note to the President’s voice.
“Yes, Mr. President?”
“This crisis of ours-this accident, as you say…. In one way it’s no man’s fault, No human being made any mistake, and there’s no point in trying to place the blame on anyone.” The President paused.
“I agree, Mr. President.”
Buck noticed the President nod, receiving the agreement as if both men were in the same room talking together. The President continued, in part thinking aloud: “This disappearance of human responsibility is one of the most disturbing aspects of the whole thing. It’s as if human beings had evaporated, and their places were taken by computers. And all day you and I have sat here, fighting, not each other, but rather this big rebellious computerized
