"That is a single situation," White pointed out. "We can't waste time on it. What we have to do is work out a policy. When the news breaks, we have to have at least the beginning of a policy. We have to give the nation and the world some indication of what we intend to do about it."
"It's going to go down hard," said the President. "Whatever we do, it will be hard to take. From our first beginnings, we have been a proud people. Standing on our own feet. It's not in us to cave ~
"Some damn fool," said Whiteside, "started a rumor on the Hill that there had been a weapons test and we're onto something. It won't take long for Ivan to pick that up. Get him upset enough and one touch of a button.
"That rumor," said the President, "wherever it might have come from, has served to keep the Congress solidly behind us. If it hadn't been for the rumor, no one knows what they might have done."
"That is all behind us," urged White. "We should forget it now. What's done can't be helped. We have to live with it. As I've told you from the start, we can't work it out alone. If we act in a reasonable manner, we will have the rest of the world behind us. We've not gone so far that we've lost good will."
"Even Russia?" asked the President.
"I don't know what they'll do to help. Probably more than we would expect. But if we react reasonably, they'll keep their fingers off the buttons Henry talks about."
"And what else? Just what do you have in mind? What do you see?"
"I am convinced we have to agree, in principle, that the visitors constitute an international problem, that we must consult with other states considering the situation that has been created here. I think that most of the major states realize that no one nation, us or anyone else, could contain such a situation, that eventually, it will spill over national boundaries, any national boundaries, and that it will become a world problem. I think the time has come to invite help and cooperation from the rest of the world, from anyone who might be willing to help and cooperate."
"Marcus, you have talked with some of these people?"
"Informally, yes. Unofficially. Mostly, they have done the talking and I have done the listening. Those I have talked with are convinced that whatever happens to us now will happen to them later unless the problem, or problems, can be solved."
"What sort of cooperation can you detect? We have to know. If we go international, we have to know where we stand, what we can expect."
"France and Britain are ready to come in—in any way they can be of assistance. Do what they can to bolster the dollar, do whatever they can. Japan has the same willingness. The Scandinavians are waiting only for a word from us. The West Germans stand ready, if necessary, with monetary aid."
"You mean foreign aid? For us!"
"That's exactly what I mean," said White. "Why flinch away from it? We've carried half the world on our back for years. We rebuilt Western Europe after World War II. It would be no more than turn and turn about. It's their ass as well as ours and they know it. The rest of the world can't afford to let us collapse. Even the OPEC people would rally around."
The President looked around the table with a stricken face. "Oh, my God!" he said.
"It's not only the matter of keeping us from going under," said the Secretary of State. "It's a matter of working out a new system
— a new political pattern, a new financial concept, perhaps a rehauling of the entire economic structure. Not for the United States alone, but for the world. The visitors not only have come close to ruining us, but they have changed the situation for the entire world and we have to find a way to live with it. Nothing will ever be the same again. I think the first job, and perhaps the hardest, will be to honestly analyze what has happened. We have to know that before we can assess its impact."
"You're very eloquent on the subject, Marcus," said Hammond. "Do the other nations, the men you have talked with so informally and so unofficially, recognize all the factors that you have outlined for us?"
"I would say they do," said State. "At least, their thinking runs in that direction."
"But the tests," cried Whiteside. "‘We are onto something. Do we have to give up everything? Can't we, somehow, hold back on what we found?"
The President said, quietly, "I don't think we can, Henry. You have heard what the man said—a new kind of world and a new way to live in it. It comes hard for old battle-scarred dogs such as you and I, but I can glimpse some of the logic in it. I suppose that some of us, maybe the most of us, have been thinking something like this all along, but couldn't bring ourselves to say so."
"How the hell we'll ever work it out," said Hammond, "I don't know.~~
"Not us alone," said State. "The world. It's not up to us alone; it's up to all the others. If the world doesn't pull together on this one, all of us are sunk."
57. MINNEAPOLIS
Gold was reading copy on the Norton story. He lifted his head and looked across the desk at Garrison.
"This last paragraph," he said.
"What about the last paragraph?"
"Where he tells about seeing shadows in the kitchen, as if there were people in the kitchen. And he thinks, ‘My God, are they making people, too? "
"There's nothing wrong with it. It's a honey of a line. It makes cold shivers up your spine."
"Did you tell Lathrop about this? Mention it particularly to him?"
"No, I guess I didn't. I forgot. There were a lot of other.
"And Porter?"
"No, I didn't tell Porter. It would have scared the pants off him."
"It could have been Norton's imagination. He didn't see any people. All he saw, or thought he saw, were shadows. Maybe he imagined shadows."
"Let me see it," said Garrison, holding cut his hand. Gold handed him the sheet.
Garrison read the paragraph carefully, read it through again. Then he picked up a heavy, black editorial pencil and methodically crossed out the paragraph.