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15 - Prologue To An Analogue · Outer Space Adventures in Sci-Fi

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  Speaker 1: Prologue to an analog by Lee Richmond. This is a
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Prolog to an Analog by Lee Richmond. Finnagel's law shows
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: that many times we don't get the effect we planned on.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: But there's an inverse to that famous law too. The
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: IWC program was a newscast by Bill Howard, and the
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: news was particularly vicious that night. Bill, his big, homely face,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: leaning across a desk toward the viewer, talked in horrified
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: tones of the pest sub that had reputedly got stuck
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: in the Suez and spread epidemic across Cairo. It was
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  Speaker 1: easy to assume. Bill told his audience that the nations,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: most interested in creating a crisis in the world right now,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: had put the sub there to make an excuse to
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  Speaker 1: accuse us of the terror. It was undoubtedly really there,
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  Speaker 1: and was undoubtedly really of American make, and the epidemic
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  Speaker 1: was undoubtedly very real. Indeed, he said, the United Nations
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  Speaker 1: investigating team due to go in the canal zone the
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  Speaker 1: next day and make their report to the world would
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  Speaker 1: find that the epidemic was caused by laboratory developed bacteria
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  Speaker 1: carried in by an American made sub, it would be
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  Speaker 1: at least as bad, if not worse than reported. The
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  Speaker 1: question before the world, Bill said, was not whether bacteriological
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  Speaker 1: warfare had started, but who had started it? And the
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  Speaker 1: fact that the sub carried United States markings and was
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  Speaker 1: of United States make did not at all answer the
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  Speaker 1: question bacteriological warfare had broken out? And where it strike next?
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  Speaker 1: Was anybody's gods, But let there be no mistake, Bill said,
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  Speaker 1: this is war. It was on that note that the
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  Speaker 1: station break came, and the Thirteen Witches, trademark of the
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  Speaker 1: International Witch Corporation, came on. Harvey Randolph, manufacturer of the
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  Speaker 1: Witch line of products, leaned toward the screen intently. He
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  Speaker 1: had just transferred his account to Burton, Duster, Dustin and Oswald,
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  Speaker 1: and they had dreamed up a new type commercial for
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  Speaker 1: the products. The thirteen Witches were long legged, slender dancing goals,
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  Speaker 1: and tall black witch caps and long black capes, crimson
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  Speaker 1: mind and very little else. Each had long hair that
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  Speaker 1: swirled as she danced. Randolph chewed his lip, watching them thoughtfully.
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  Speaker 1: They came on with what was almost a valkyrie cry,
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  Speaker 1: Witches of the world to unite to make it clean, Clean,
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  Speaker 1: Clean Witch clean. Now hmm, thought Randolph. The cry struck
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  Speaker 1: rather sourly at the end of that this is war
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  Speaker 1: sentence from the newscast, he thought, But then that dramatic
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  Speaker 1: newscast ending was rather unusual. The witches were singing a
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  Speaker 1: jingling chorus as they danced. No need is too big,
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  Speaker 1: No task is too small, they sang, Which which do
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  Speaker 1: you need? You should have them all? Each witch, of course,
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  Speaker 1: displayed her particular product from the Witch line detergent, soap, shampoo, cleanser,
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  Speaker 1: cleaning fluid, Which soap or detergent, which cleanser upsurgent? Which
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  Speaker 1: which do you need? You should have them all? This
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  Speaker 1: was fairly average as commercials go, thought Randolph. The big B, D,
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  Speaker 1: D and O radical innovation would be next. It was.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: On the screen. Behind the witches appeared a map of
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  Speaker 1: the Suez Canal, and then a paper machet model of
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  Speaker 1: the nose of a sub and a dockside shanty, a
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  Speaker 1: gray pall hanging over them. As the witches turned and
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  Speaker 1: began dancing toward it, the deep voice of the announcers
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  Speaker 1: spoke over the muted jingle, Witches of the world unite.
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  Speaker 1: If Nasar had enough witches, he could solve the crisis
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  Speaker 1: which has us all in stitches and the witches in
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  Speaker 1: the United dance step approached the sub and shanty, singing,
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  Speaker 1: make it clean, Clean, Clean, witch clean. Now each sprayed
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: it with a witch product, and as they sprayed, the
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  Speaker 1: pall lifted the sub and shanty showing shining bright new
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  Speaker 1: painted clean, clean clean chanted the chorus which which witch clean, clean, Clean,
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  Speaker 1: defied dirt, defy disease, Keep witch clean well, thought Randolph,
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  Speaker 1: And then again, well he wasn't quite sure, he told himself.
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  Speaker 1: The commercial came darn near being in poor taste, what
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  Speaker 1: with the crisis so near, And yet it wasn't something
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  Speaker 1: to make you forget the product. I, Jeffrey know you'd
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  Speaker 1: think of which products quite a bit. After watching that one,
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  Speaker 1: he reminded himself to check the viewer reaction that would
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: be available fairly early next day. As he switched off
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  Speaker 1: the TV. It was almost noon next day before Randolph
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: reminded himself of the call he planned to make to
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  Speaker 1: b d dn O. He got Oswald on the wire
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  Speaker 1: almost immediately Randolph here, he said, I called you about
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  Speaker 1: that new commercial. It seems a little drastic. Are you
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  Speaker 1: planning on using it again tonight? Use we're taking full
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: credit in a witchery sort of way. Oswalt laughed. Never
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  Speaker 1: saw anything like your look, Randolph. I've got the entire
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  Speaker 1: staff tied up doing the follow up for tonight. You
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: needn't worry about liable either. We've got the whole legal
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  Speaker 1: staff turned out, going over every detail. It seemed pretty
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  Speaker 1: near the line to me, said Randolph, chewing his lip.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: He found himself a little puzzled over Oswald's tone, but
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  Speaker 1: not too much so. Any public relations man was over
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  Speaker 1: enthusiastic by nature, and Randolph's estimation, maybe it took that
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  Speaker 1: to make a good pr man. People might resent our
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: making Hey out of sickness, even if you are preaching
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  Speaker 1: that cleanliness will prevent it sickness. You might have a point,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I admit I'd argue it, but you might. But wellness,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: now it's different. I do know that if the United
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  Speaker 1: Nations team reports there's no epidemic and that the pest
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  Speaker 1: sub is one of the cleanest, healthiest crude submarines in
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  Speaker 1: the business, it's safe for us to assume that it's so,
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  Speaker 1: and to imply that which products are used to keep
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  Speaker 1: it clean? Mister Oswald, Randolph's voice took on a note
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  Speaker 1: of imperious prissiness. Would you mind explaining just what exactly
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: you're talking about? Haven't you heard the news? There's no
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  Speaker 1: bacteriological war. I admit that puts Bill Howard way out
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  Speaker 1: on a limb, but there are a lot of very
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  Speaker 1: fine people with him. There's no epidemic in Cairo. There's
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  Speaker 1: not even a bad cold that the United Nations team
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  Speaker 1: could find, and they give that so called pest sub
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  Speaker 1: the most complete bill of health in the business. Now
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  Speaker 1: the deal we plan for tonight. At the same moment,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a number of very important people were closeted with the President.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Their reactions to the United Nations report were quite otherwise
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: than those Oswald was experience. It's the exact timing in
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  Speaker 1: the detail of execution that scares me, mister President. The
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  Speaker 1: Under Secretary of State was saying the Secretary himself was
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: coming in by jet and would join them immediately on arrival.
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  Speaker 1: It implies a technology that we can't touch, even in
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  Speaker 1: our wildest dreams. I've talked to the CIA chief himself,
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  Speaker 1: and the reports from our operatives are beyond question. The
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  Speaker 1: epidemic was not only real, it was widespread. The pest
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  Speaker 1: sub was as real as this chair I'm sitting on,
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  Speaker 1: and its crew near death to the man, and no
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  Speaker 1: question about it. If they can find a bacterial war
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  Speaker 1: and produce an overnight cure at the same time, we're
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  Speaker 1: at their mercy. There's no bomb ever developed or that
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  Speaker 1: can be developed, to touch the power of what they've
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  Speaker 1: just demonstrated. The President ran his fingers through his hair.
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  Speaker 1: His face looked more drawn than any man had yet
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  Speaker 1: seen it. Yet he smiled. We're not suing for peace
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  Speaker 1: terms yet, he said, and turned to the nation's foremost biologists,
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  Speaker 1: sitting quietly in a nearby chair. What's your reaction, he asked.
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  Speaker 1: We've always known. The answer came despondently, that bacteriological warfare
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  Speaker 1: is far deadlier than any bomb, if there were any
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  Speaker 1: protection from its effects for the victor. We had a
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  Speaker 1: strain of bacteria once for which we had an immunization course,
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  Speaker 1: and we developed it far enough along the line to
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  Speaker 1: realize that even though you immunized every man, woman and
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  Speaker 1: child in this country in advance, releasing it in another
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  Speaker 1: part of the world. Mutant strains would eventually wipe out
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: this nation as well as those we fought. How about
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: mutant strains of the Suez bacteria, the President asked, then
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  Speaker 1: answered himself, No, they've produced an antidote, an antidote, if
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  Speaker 1: our reports are correct, that works overnight. He shook his
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  Speaker 1: head slowly. The ultimatum should come very soon now, the
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  Speaker 1: President said. It is the timing. I do not understand
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  Speaker 1: the timing. The big man in the Kremlin was allowing
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  Speaker 1: himself an appearance of indecision that he did not often
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  Speaker 1: indulge before underlings. Of course, there was but the one underling,
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  Speaker 1: and any audience that proved to have a later embarrassing
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  Speaker 1: potential could be silenced with ease. Still, it was unusual,
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  Speaker 1: and the lieutenant, who served as combination secretary and backstop
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  Speaker 1: for oratory, quaked as he listened. The timing is all wrong.
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  Speaker 1: But the fact is a fact. It must be a fact,
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  Speaker 1: or every operative we have should be siberianized. We must,
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  Speaker 1: of course, to act. The action must be immediate. We
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: are zeroed in. No Vlada heard himself speak, and his
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  Speaker 1: whole body was outraged at the action. He stood white trembling,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: but he had spoken, and try as he would, the
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  Speaker 1: word could not be pulled back. No, my little dove.
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  Speaker 1: And what would you suggest, then, if we are not
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  Speaker 1: to defend ourselves from this capitalistic aggression, that we shall
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  Speaker 1: sit with our hands folded and allow them to dictate
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  Speaker 1: the terms of our surrender. Speak, Send them a pest
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  Speaker 1: up and see if they can handle the bacteria we
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  Speaker 1: have developed. Vlada's throat was dry, and his voice was
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  Speaker 1: not his own. No power on earth could have made
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  Speaker 1: him open his mouth, but he had opened it, and
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  Speaker 1: he fully expected the lightning to strike him at that moment.
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  Speaker 1: Send them, Ah, of course, they can cure their own.
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  Speaker 1: And they have taken a so dramatic method of saying
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  Speaker 1: that they can cure their own. That can they cure
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  Speaker 1: the products of our laboratories? Now that we shall see.
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  Speaker 1: But we shall be as subtle, more subtle even than
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  Speaker 1: were our capitalistic friends. We shall not send our sub
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  Speaker 1: to them. We shall send it to a small island,
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  Speaker 1: and we shall see whether they wish to taste the death,
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  Speaker 1: the strangulation, and crippling, and suffering, the destruction of sanity.
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  Speaker 1: That shall be the lot of those islanders in Papeing.
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  Speaker 1: The distress was no less acute, but their reaction was
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  Speaker 1: somewhat different. The scientists being grilled had no hope left.
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  Speaker 1: He could answer honestly, for there was nothing that could
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  Speaker 1: save him from that which was in store. The strain
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  Speaker 1: was virulent. There is no known antidote. Nothing could have
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  Speaker 1: saved that port, nor most of Africa and most of India.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: And there was no way for the world to know
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  Speaker 1: from whence they came the death dealing submarine, except that
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  Speaker 1: it be the Mighty America. The bombs should have come
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  Speaker 1: and retauration, spreading their death and adding to the impetus
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  Speaker 1: of the epidemic, so that enough of the world was
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  Speaker 1: wiped out to give the great people of the Dragon
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  Speaker 1: room in which to expand. We calculated that a third
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  Speaker 1: of our own would be wiped out in the holocaust,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: which would have relieved us of many problems. The tan
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  Speaker 1: peoples of India and the darker peoples of Africa should
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  Speaker 1: have sued us to leave them in a unity of
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  Speaker 1: the yellow peoples against the insanities of the pale people
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  Speaker 1: of the West. There is no antidote. Yet the epidemic
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  Speaker 1: is destroyed. I cannot yet believe what has told me.
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  Speaker 1: I would go to my ancestors happily if I could
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  Speaker 1: go to them with the answer to this riddle. That night,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Bill Howard came on the screen, his big, homely face
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  Speaker 1: wreathed in smiles, his tweed suit and shaggy blonde hair,
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  Speaker 1: looking even more informal than usual. It's a great day
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  Speaker 1: for the people of the world, he said. There's undoubtedly
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: tremendous political significance in what happened Suez, and every statesman
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  Speaker 1: and every politician will have statements to make and conclusions
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  Speaker 1: to draw. Suez's obvious healthiness has been variously attributed to
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: American technology garnered from the experts we have sent them
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: over the years, to Russian technology garnered from their experts,
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  Speaker 1: loaned to the nation involved, to Mohammed, and to the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: God of the Christians. The peoples of the world, he
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  Speaker 1: said softly, are concerned with these things in the abstract,
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  Speaker 1: but mostly we the people are willing to leave this
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  Speaker 1: to the theorists, while we rejoice for we the people who
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  Speaker 1: thought we face that most degrading, that most unanswerable, that
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  Speaker 1: most horrible fate of all bacteriological war find ourselves at
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  Speaker 1: bacteriological peace. At the break, the thirteen witches danced on
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  Speaker 1: crying their chant, and behind them as a background was
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the bright clean sub and shanty scene. Which is of
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  Speaker 1: the world unite to make it clean, clean, clean, witch clean.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Now they chanted pachulence or peril, disease or disaster, Stay clean, clean, clean,
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  Speaker 1: witch clean, Ah, said the deep voice of the announcer,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: as the jingle muted. Which witch do you really wish?
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Which is the modern method of cleanliness using the best
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: of modern technology, And the witch witch is witching through
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  Speaker 1: the world. Randolph watched the program skeptically. The best lawyers
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and the best pr agents to be had, he reminded himself.
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  Speaker 1: Still there was a nagging worry that this thing was
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: going too far. It's okay to claim the moon, he thought,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: chewing his legs, But isn't it a little risky to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: claim peace on earth for the witch products. He made
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: a mental note to call B. D, D and O
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  Speaker 1: the next morning. The audience reaction would make itself felt
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  Speaker 1: by then, and he could decide. It was almost noon
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: next day before Randolph reminded himself of the call he
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: planned to make to B. D, D and O. He
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: got Oswald on the wire almost immediately. Randolph here, he said,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I called about that new commercial. It seems a little
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: drastic to claim peace on earth for the witch products.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: What are you planning for tonight? More of the same.
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  Speaker 1: Oswald's voice was jubilant. The switchboard has been swamped, and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: we're on almost every program on every channel. They're taking
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: us apart. Of course, Witchcraft raises its head and Salem
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: is here with a new twist and a singing commercial.
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  Speaker 1: And anybody got a pestilence that sort of thing if
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  Speaker 1: they're crediting which products from down to dawn. I sure
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  Speaker 1: didn't make a mistake when I tied our contract to
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  Speaker 1: your sales. We ought to break the bank, Randolph to
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the thought in silence. Oswald, He said, it's an old
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: habit of the American people to make a joke out
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: of what they can't understand, sort of Paul Bunyan all
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: over again. But don't overdo it. That Witches of the
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: World Unite deal. Remember the IWW wasn't that sort of communistic?
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Every time someone talks about getting the world peacefully together,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: about unity, someone starts shouting comedy. So it's when has
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: communism and unity got anything to do with anything. You
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: are an international corporation, aren't you. It's in your title IWC,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: isn't it. You don't just sell witch things in the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: United States. You have markets in Europe and Africa and
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: India and all over the place. Or I read the
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: sales charge wrong. What's worrying you about using it? The
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: overseas tapes are going like a cannonball express. Our ratings
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: have skyrocketed everywhere, Oswald said, in satisfaction, What do you mean,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: don't overdo it? You get the world in a hat
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: basket and then you want to throw it away. Incidentally,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: he added, in a calmer tone, I got one crank call.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: That's got me thinking. The guy got all the way
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: through to me before he'd talk, and that takes I'm
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: getting what with the salaries I pay people to keep
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: the cranks off my neck? He said that now we
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: have the witches of the world united, why didn't we
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: do some real cleanup work like slums and insane asylums?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Got me thinking, you know, a good cause never did
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: a program any harm. Randolph chewed his lip a while
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: in silence, and Oswald, knowing his client, waited patiently I
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: like that a lot better than claiming on earth for
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the witch products. Randolph said, at last, why don't you
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: pick a slum we can clean up for not too much,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: and let's see what you can work out. This cleanup
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: theme isn't bad. It's just peace on earth that doesn't
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: really belong to us. You know, I'll tell you what.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: We'll go to fifty thousand dollars or so on a
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: cleanup job, and you use that leave the world to
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the politicians and the egg heads. After he hung up,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Randolph stood by the telephone, still chewing his lip. Could
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: you clean up something like a slum for say, fifty
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars? Oswald would double the figure in his own mind,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: of course, always did, but he'd get the sales out
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: of it. His contract was tied to sales. Yes, he
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: thought it was best to call him off the track
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: he was on now. Lawyers or no lawyers. That sort
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: of thing was dangerous. It took a week, and it
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: took every member the staff that could be pulled off
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: other programs, as well as the ones assigned to which
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the slum had been located. Three buildings in a short
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: block just up from the battery surrounded by new buildings.
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  Speaker 1: It was a one privy to a floor cold water
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: only set up, with a family living in every room.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: It existed on high value land only because the land
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and buildings were tied up in an estate and couldn't
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: be sold, but they could be remodeled and thrown into one,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and contracts were signed permissions granted. The paperwork alone filled
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: nearly a complete file cabinet. It would take double the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars, of course, maybe more, But Randolph had
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: authorized it, hadn't he. He always named half a figure
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: or less than he meant to be used. Anyhow, International
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: ratings and sales would more than make up the purse
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: because this thing would hit Sacho. Worry about the cast
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: was the last thing that was bothering Oswald. He had
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: a bear by the tail, and his contract price was
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: tied to the gross. The show was bally Hood the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: whole week while the work went on, Clean Clean, Witch Clean,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: What's the Witch's next? Big cleanup? Witches of the World, unite,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: let's clean up this old world and make it livable.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: The night the new cleanup job was to show Randolph
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: tuned in his TV as ignorant of the details as
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the next viewer. It worried him a little that Oswald
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: insisted on keeping him in the dark on everything except
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the fact that it would be a slum cleanup. But
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: he had the best pr men and the best lawyers
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: in the country working on it, he told himself, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: certainly the sales charts for the past two weeks had
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: been spectacular. We can count on the biggest TV audience
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of the year tonight, Oswald told him gleefully at noon.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: The build up's been a natural, and those Salem with
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a new twist and a singing commercial plugs continued on
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: this network. The cost of that was comparatively small, and
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I've even gotten them onto a few of the really
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: big shows. To boot. Bill Howard came on the screen,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: his big, homely face leaning across the desk toward the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: TV audience. The biggest news in the country right now,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Bill said, in a solemn tone, is the biggest single
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: cleanup job in the country today. There's a slum. Bill
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: said right here in New York that the witches of
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the world will unite to clean up tonight. Then he
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: put on the full power of the personality that made
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: him the most listened to newscaster on the air, TV
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: and radio, the manner that made the news sound human,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: like it really happened to real people. He put it
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: on full power and went to work. First, he showed
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a big map of New York and talked about how
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: people thought of it as a big and personal play,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't. He made it everybody's hometown. Then he
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: traced them up right down to the exact spot where
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the buildings were. Then he turned on a movie and
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: he showed the back door garbage strewn, and a room
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: where a family slept, seven of them, and the privy
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: they shared with five other families. Then Bill turned off
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the movie and he brought that family to the mic,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: each of them dirty and inclosed that never had amounted
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: much and had seen a long life since even the baby.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: One kid's shoes had a soul flapping off. Another had
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the toes cut out so he could wear them even
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: though he had long outgrown them. We haven't added to
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: what we found, Bill said. This is the way the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I've introduced them as a Jones family. Let's leave it
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: at that. This is how the Joneses have had to dress.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: This is how they've had to live. This is a
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: very real part of America, he said, and his voice
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: was choking a little, and Randolph thought, if he's putting
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: that on, he's the best actor I've seen yet. Randolph
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: found himself glad he was alone and didn't have to
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: speak himself. His own throat felt choked, and now said
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Bill to his audience, it's time for the Witches. The
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: camera shifted and there was a paper machet model of
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the buildings built so you could look in the curtainless
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: windows and see the squalor lighted with a single bulb
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: on a string. There was a gray pall over the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: whole thing, and newspapers and trash blowing against the front
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: of the building. The gray pall, Randolph had figured from
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the sub scene two weeks ago, was an effect of
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: lights on a net curtain, but the effect was really good.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: The thirteen witches Witches danced in, waving their products and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: crying their chant, their crimson lined capes, swirling out to
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: glimpse the audience their long slender legs. They cried their
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: chant as they pranced toward the dilapidated building, which is
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: of the world. Unite to make it clean, clean, clean,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: which clean now, and each threw a spray of her
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: product toward the building. Which sober detergent, which cleanser asurgent?
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Which witch do you need? You should have them all? Then,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: riding over the muted jingle, the deep voice of the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: announcer saying, tonight, the Witches of the world clean, a
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: slum of the world, a particular slum, this slum, which
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: is unite and clean, clean, clean, which clean? The dancing
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: witches now threw each her ingredient on the building itself,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and the gray pall began to lighten. A bright new
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: painted front shone forth. Inside the single bulbs blacked out
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: for an instant, and then a soft light showed through
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: curtained windows, a bright new scene dimly apparent through the curtains.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: This is not just an illusion, the deep voice of
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the announcer continued, This is really happening down near the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: battery in New York City. It is happening to the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Joneses and the Smiths who live there. The chorus rose
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: to cover the announcer's voice. Clean, Clean, Clean, Witch Clean.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: The commercial and the witches faded, and Bill Howard's big,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: homely face came back on the screen. Let me introduce
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you again to the Jones family. Bill said, I'll introduce
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: you to the Joneses, but they're just one of the
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: families who will now have a decent place to live.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: And the same miracle has happened to each of these families. Now,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the Joneses came again on camera, clean in new clothes,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: hair brushed, a miracle indeed of a costume changer's speedy art.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Randolph assumed that teams of B D D and O
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: members had been at work during the commercial creating the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: miracle from the baby up and down they shone, and
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: their faces shone with an inner light. When Randolph shut
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: off the TV that night, he was chewing his lip violently.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Must have been more than double that fifty thousand dollars,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: he thought. He reminded himself to phone B D D
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: n O first thing in the morning. It was still
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: an hour before noon when Randolph's phone rang. Randolph here,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: he said, in the formality he adopted on an English visit,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: and carefully kept good morning. Oswald's voice was formal good morning.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: There was a silence while Randolph waited for the other
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: to continue. Finally, Randolph said, good show. That must have
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: cost a lot more than my price. He added. It
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: was good, though, he said again thoughtfully. Randolph Oswala's voice
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: sounded wild. I don't know what the thing cost. I
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: don't know now, sir. Just what do you mean you
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: don't know the cost. I told you to spend fifty
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and from what I saw last night, it'll
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: cost four times that. I'll go as high as one
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five thousand dollars, but not once sent over.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: And you'd better make it worth the money for that's
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a pretty penny, he said. Look, Randolph, the cleanup job
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: down there was supposed to start this morning. Contracts let
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: big crews ready to do the job fast so people
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: could go look at the finished product. Every family was
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: signed up to act as guides, like in Williamsburg. We
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: moved them all to the country yesterday so they'd look
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: healthy when they came back and the job could start
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: at the crack of dawn today. Well, well, the job's
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: already done. That's pretty fast. You said you started it
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: this morning. Yeah, and when my man phoned me from
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: down there, I told him to get black coffee and
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: sober up. But I went down myself and led jobs
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: done exactly the job we specified too, done by our plans. Furnished, painted, paint,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: dry curtains, hung the works, new bathrooms and kitchen, and
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: plumbing and electricity, the works. It's finished. My best man
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: was down there moving the families out yesterday. He swears
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: the building hadn't been touched. Then the contractor says he's
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: going to sue because he arrived with his cruise to
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: start the job and somebody else had done it. You
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: come on, you've got to meet me here and tell
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: me the answers. Just what did you put in that
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: soap of yours? Anyhow, By afternoon it was banners in
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: every paper, why across the nation, in the world. Most
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: of the stories were written tongue in cheek about the
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: miracle party. It was assumed that which products had done
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the inside job in advance and thrown in the outside cleanup.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: During the night the tenants were interviewed, Oswald had the
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: sense to move them right back into their new apartments,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and not one of them could be made to break
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: down and admit those buildings hadn't been slums yesterday. Well,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: you couldn't blame them for sticking by which look what
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: which had done for them was the word that went
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: around bleaks. Of course, the thing was a curiosity natural,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and the police had so many men assigned there by
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: nightfall it looked like a concentration camp, TV portables and
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: news photographers. Flashbulbs didn't lessen the confusion any and the
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: crowds were being let in and through only when there
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: was room for more. Bill Howard was there when Randolph
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: went through. In earnest conversation with a group of youngsters
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: in one room, Oswald arranged that the which manufacturer should
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: have a strong police escort, and the crowds moved back
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: to make way for him. In each apartment, the tenants
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: answered his questions, but they did so with a sullenness
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: that surprised Randolph. Yes, it had been a mess the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: day before. Yes, it had been rebuilt, obviously during the
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: night while they were gone. Yes, just the one night
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: they should be saying thank you. Randolph noted to Oswald
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: their acting as though I were a suspicious character. It's
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: our escort, Oswald explained suavely, these people don't think of
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: cops as their friends. Besides, this is pretty new to them.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Randolph chewed his lip and decided that Oswald was probably right,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: but the attitude was general and it irritated him. He
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: left after the briefest go through. That night, Bill Howard
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: was conservative in recounting the big news story of the
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: slow mcclearance. He wasn't giving it the real Howard try
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Randolph thought, sitting in front of his TV. There was
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the quote in the story he told too, from the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: father of the Jones family that had been on the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: program the night before. I reckon, it's pretty wonderful, mister
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Howard Jones had told him. But I don't rightly know
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: that I like it. Must admit I'm scared of this stuff,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: he had said, and waved his hand at the newness.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: It was just a single sour note in the story,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: but it stuck out. The rest was a description without
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: any mention of the miracle part. At the break, the
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Witches played the credit line to the hilt. Though Witches
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: of the world, you unite to make it clean, Clean, Clean,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Witch clean. Now. They chanted their cry and reenacted the
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: scene of the night before, while the announcer's voice rode
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: over the muted jingle to explain that which products had
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: been used to make the slum clean, clean, which clean,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: even though it took carpenters and builders and contractors to
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: remodel us slum building itself. That's better thought, Randolph, watching
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: no more of this miracle nonsense. It was barely ten
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: am next morning when Randolph's phone rang. Randolph here, he said,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: and heard Oswald's voice without preliminary they've gone. Who's gone?
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: The tenants of the building just pick up their duds
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and left. I put Dix on the case, and one
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: family has moved in with relatives in the bronx. The
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: other scattered, but will trace him. Here's one of the
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: policemen that was on duty when they left. He'll tell you.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: A new voice came on the phone. As Randolph chewed
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: his lip, Mister Randolph, this is what happened near's I configure.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: We roped off the area at dark last night. Figured
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: we'd give the families some rest and keep out the
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: night thrill. Guys, everyone in the apartments must have gotten
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: together after we cleared out the crowds. He was pretty quiet,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: but the lights stayed on till about two am. Then
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: they all started parading out, some even wearing their old clothes.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: They were carrying a few things but nothing that looked
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: like they hadn't had it before the change, so we
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: figured what they were taking was theirs. Probably didn't say
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: wor just paraded past us. Some of the kids was crying,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: but otherwise they were quiet. Then one man comes run
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: back to me and he said, get out of here.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: It's the devil's work. Get away from this place if
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: you're a god fearing mad. Then he turned and ran
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: toward the subway with the rest. I couldn't figure we
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: had any orders to stop them, so we didn't try.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: We just watched. Oswald came back on the phone. Can
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: you keep it out of the papers? Randolph asked, It's
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: already on every newscast and the papers will have it
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: by noon. It's on the wires, Oswald said. Randolph coughed nervously,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: but Oswald didn't wait for him to speak. I'm working
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: on something to counteract this, he said. We're being witch hunted.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Oswald said, I'll get the whole firm to work on
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: it and call you back in Washington. Meantime, another conference
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: was going on, far more intent, far more critical. It's
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: more than just a pest plane that crashed, and Formosa,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: mister President, the CIA chief was saying it carried bacterial
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: bombs and they exploded. There's been no attempt to hide
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: its source. It's, of course of enemy. Make no identification
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: on the bodies aboard. They're in civilian clothes, but again,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: the make is Moscow. It shouldn't be long before we
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: know the worst. Will they clean this one up as
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: they did the last one? Or will they demand surrender
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: terms on this one? The President asked. The Secretary of
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: State and the Secretary of War started to answer together,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: but it was State that got the first word in,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: I think they'll clean this one up. He said, it
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: would be a direct threat on which they'll demand surrender terms.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: That's just a guess. Of course. The best teams of
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: doctors are being organized and jetted over. The best bacteriologist
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: the nation has at its command. Every antibiotic available is
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: being sent. Will that make a dent? Know? How long
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: can we keep it under wraps? A week, ten days,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: perhaps with top security. Give it everything you've got, but
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: keep it quiet till we know what the next move is.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Twenty four hour alert, of course, immediately, even if the
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: alert itself endangers of security. Wraps. Yes, a week to
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: ten days of security isn't enough to pay for taking
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: a chance the other way. By four PM, Oswald was
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: on the phone to Randolph. We've got the antidote, he said, jubulantly.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Randolph was quiet for a minute, chewing his lip. Then
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: I'm being vilified in the press as the creator of
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: a hoax that even those who stood to benefit by
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: it couldn't take, he said. The few who have decided
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: that a real miracle occurred have also decided that I'm
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: in league with the devil and that witches are for burning. Mostly,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: witch is the butt of every joke that can be
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: dreamed up by every cub reporter in the nation. Saxton
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: has started laying the groundwork for making which a political issue.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: There's talk of an FCC investigation, I trust, he said,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: formally that your antidote is an efficient one. Oswald's voice
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: sounded smug and not at all disgruntled. Try this on
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: for size, he said. First, which is known far and wide,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: as nothing less could have made it known. Yes, and
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: if the churches banned the use of which will wish
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: we weren't okay, okay tonight we explained carefully that the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: miracle was a miracle of cleanliness, and that carpenters and
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: contractors and all that did the miracle. You know, American
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: technology and mass production and operation. Something to be proud
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: of tie, which ride into the whole picture of the
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: United States as the leader of mechanical stress, mechanical miracles.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Then what's the most appealing thing in the world. He
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: didn't wait for an answer. A child, A small crippled
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: child for whom Witch can provide the funds to make
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: her walk. Oswald hurried on, knowing that Randolph had to
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: go through a bit of lip chewing before he could interrupt,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and taking advantage of the fact to ride over objections.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: We've got a kid that an expensive operation. Will say
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: it from being a cripple. I've consulted two top surgeons already,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: and they say it's nearly positive. We don't do any
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: hocus pocus. We just say that Witch is going to
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: pay for the operation. She leaves the broadcast and goes
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: straight to the hospital. We get a movie of the operation,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: and we do movies on her convalescence, and we play
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: it for weeks until she walks on stage cured weeks later. Now,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Oswald waited, it was a long way an unusually long wait,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: even for Randolph. Finally, he said, all right, but if
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: anything unusual occurs, you will answer for it in court.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Nothing unusual could occur. I admit I still don't know
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: what happened last time, but we'll find out. Meanwhile, we'll
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: take a week to build this one up, Oswald continued.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: The build up will stress that this is a cure
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: being bought by money. No miracle except the miracle of
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: American medical know how. No miracles mean, just keep witch
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: clean and stay well, and which buys the operation the
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: kid needs. She's pretty too, he added, as an afterthought.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Ten years old. That night, Bill Howard leaned across the
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: desk toward the TV audience, and tiny drops of sweat
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: stood on his forehead. His voice was calm, though a
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: big map of New York City hung on the wall
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: behind him. The big news that night was a dope raid.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: He described the dope traffic in the nation, the efforts
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: of the FBI and every law enforcement body in the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: country to track it down, clean it out. He described
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: what it did to the young who got caught and
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: were slaves for life unless they could be cured. And
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: he spoke of the meagerness of the cures that were known.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Then he described the raid. He took a pointer from
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: his desk and he outlined how the raid had been staged,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: and he pointed out the location of the building where
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: it had occurred. Then he followed with his pointer the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: route to the precinct jail where the victims were being held.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Cannot our best researchers find a cure for this addiction,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: he asked in his husky voice. Cannot our best law
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: enforcement agencies find the real perpetrators of these crimes? The
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: perpetrators are the fiends who import dope and create addicts
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: to peddle it for them. These who are confined are
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the victims. If no way can be found to cure them,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: they must be confined again and again and again, for
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: that addiction will force them to ever increasing crime to
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: satisfy it. If no way can be found to cure them,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: these are potential slaves for life. As he ended the station,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: break came and the camera shifted to the witches dancing
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: on stage, crying their chant, Which is of the world,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: unite to make it clean, clean, clean, which clean now?
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Which sober detergent, which cleanser upsurgent. The announcer's voice when
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: it came in over the muted jingle, explained the miracle
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: of the Sloman clearance, again a miracle of American technology.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: Then he outlined the next miracle, the which corporation would promote. This,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: he said, would be a miracle of American medical know how,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: which would pay for the expensive operation needed to make
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: a little girl walk again after a crippling disease several
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: years before bone would be grafted, new muscles would be grafted.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: American medical know how, in its full extent, would be
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: put at her service. Keep healthy by keeping clean, with
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: which the announcer suggested, which would pay for the expensive
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: operation to undo the effects of one disease. Meanwhile, which
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: as customers could use the preventive medicine of cleanliness to
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: help them in their fight against disease, while the researches
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: of American medicine seek to find you real protection. It
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: was ten thirty the next morning when the doorbell rang.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: A big man was standing outside in a top coat,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: hat in hand. Randolph stood in the door waiting. The
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: man silently held out a badge, and Randolph moved aside,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: gesturing him in I didn't look at your badge close enough,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Randolph said, as he closed the door behind his visitor.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Who are you narcotic squad? The man said, briefly, I
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: was on the raid last night. Oh, the one Bill
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Howard was talking about in his newscast. Yeah, that one.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I don't figure there's any connection. And my boss just
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: laughed when I suggested there was a connection connection. You see.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: I took a break from questioning those boys we pulled
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: in trying to get a lead to the higher ups.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: They were dope to the ears, and sometimes you can
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: get info from them. I took a break for a
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: cup of coffee across the street, and there was a
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: TV in the place, and I watched your Bill Howard.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: I left just when your witches came on shouting that
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: thing about making it clean. Now. I went right back
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: and started on the question again. But the guy they
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: brought in for me to question next was not dopey.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: He was well, there's a difference between boys with the
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: monkey on their back and when there's no monkey. There
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: was no monkey. But the kid began giving me everything
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: he knew would take us to the higher ups. He
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: was being taped, of course, and I asked him when
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: he had his last shot, not twenty minutes before the raid.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: He said, calm as you please. I had the guys
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: brought back that I talked to before, and they were different.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: The only way I can describe it is no monkey.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: The monkey had been there before. I don't know. They
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: each gave us all they had and leads. They had
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: been stubborn before, but they sang like canaries. I checked,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and nobody done anything to him to bring them off
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: their jazz. If there's anything can be done to pull
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: a guy out of a jazz. Anyhow, I never heard
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: of it, and I've been in the narcotic squad since
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: the year one. I couldn't figure it. I've been hearing
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: stories about which products and that miracle had the battery,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: sort of as a joke, and I thought, just maybe,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: just possibly, you know. Anyhow, I took the tapes to
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: my boss and spoke my bit, but he just laughed.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe you'll just laugh too, But I thought i'd ask.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: At the same time, in Washington, the Cabinet was in
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: full session. Reports coming in from Formosa were worse than
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: even the most pessimistic had dreamed. The bacteria hit at
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the nerves and the brain and the victims. Excruciating was
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: a word being used. It's hit everywhere on the island
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: at once. I assume it is contagious, as well as
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: having been broadcast from whatever bombs or broadcast methods were used.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: The CIA chief reported any word from their embassy, State
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: answered that one, no word at all. Phone calls to
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: the ambassador only illicit reports that he is not available.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: I can't reach anybody higher than a fourth assistant undersecretary.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: At least it's not been on the air or in
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: the press. I don't know how long we can hold
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: him in leash. Most of your leading papers know there's
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: a twenty four hour alert on that was bound to leak,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: but I've kept him quiet. We'll have to give them
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: something soon, though they won't take a muzzle too long
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: without at least knowing. Why could you give them the
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: story and trust them when it's this important and the
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: consequences of leakage this apparent. I thought of that you
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: can convince some newsmen, but there's always a Joe somewhere
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: who figures the American people have a right to know
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: their destiny before it's decided, no matter what the effect
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and no matter if their most highly elected officials feel
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: it would not be good for them, keep it top
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: security for as long as possible. Let me know before
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: it breaks, if I can. I'm not a witch. I
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: might not know when it was breaking. The CIA chief
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: grinned sourly at his own illusion. The next night, the
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: big news was the countdown and process at Canaveral to
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: put a functioning dome on the Moon. If the dome
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: could be landed successfully, complete with live animals, a man
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: would follow shortly. That was foregone. The question was landing
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the dome, just a small spaceship body, but completely equipped
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: to keep a man alive for two years in case
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: anything went wrong with plans to bring him back pronto.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Bill Howard's voice was excited, and he ran his fingers
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: through his hair, pushing it back as he leaned across
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: the desk, the map of Florida behind him. To the statesman,
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: this is a question of who is first and who
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: is second, and perhaps who will control the space ways,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: he said, after describing the countdown in process. But to
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the peoples of the world, this is mankind reaching for
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: the stars. It is not known, he said, solemnly, whether
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the failure of many of our shots has been human
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: error or sabotage. Human error is a frailty of the race.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Sabotage is a frailty of statesmanship. That the world is
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: still divided as it reaches for the stars, yet each
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: is possible. Is there a mechanical error built in by
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: human frailty in tonight's shot? Is there a saboteur at work?
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Or as the countdown reaches zero one hour from now,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: will the dome tear through the atmosphere of Earth and
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: man's first real step to the stars successfully? Is our
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: bird perfect this time? He asked? As the break came,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: the witches danced on, crying their chant. Witches of the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: world unite to make it clean, Clean, clean, witch clean. Now.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Randolph was chewing his lips still as he went to
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: bed that night. The man from the narcotic squad had
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: left peaceably. There were answers to all the questions, and
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: it wasn't his worry anyway. He'd be glad when the
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: little girl had her operation. Grafting bones and muscles might
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: be miraculous, but they were explicable and everyone understood them.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: Talk of the FCC investigation had died a borning, but
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: talk like that was enough to upset anybody. Everything had
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: been upsetting recently, even though the upcurve on which products
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: was holding steady. The American Dome landed on the moon
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: the morning of the day that the crippled child was
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: scheduled to come on the witch program. For the American people,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: it was a day of celebration comparable to the Fourth
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: of July. In the White House, gloom hung like a
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: palpable shroud. They'll have to move fast now, the Secretary
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: of War was reporting to his chief. They can't afford
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: to let us get our man up there, even if
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: we could shoot him off successfully. We can't shoot a
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: man up there until we've proved in at least two
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: more successful shots that we can get him there, Security
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: declared forcefully. The threat from our enemies is as nothing
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: to the threat from the vote welding public. If we
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: tried and failed. When a human life is at stake,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: formosa is leaking, admitted the CIA chief. We can't hold
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: it much more than three days now. At the outside,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: the President rested a hand on his desk. Two more
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: shots mean at least six months before a man is
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: up there armed. Three days means formosa is in the
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: news this week when the news breaks, credit our doctors
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: and bacteriologists with being on the way to a cure.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: Fix it so that if they clean up their epidemic
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the way they did Suez, we get the credit. That's
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the best we can do right now, besides looking for
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: a miracle. But miracles are popular these days, he added ruefully.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: It was Bill Howard who stood outside when Randolph answered
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: his doorbell next morning. He let the big, homely, almost
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: shambling figure in without a word. I came to ask
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: you a question I don't think you can answer, Howard said, morosely,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: not moving farther than the foyer. I came to ask,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: what is it about the witches? Randolph chewed his lip,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: standing there beside his much larger gust, conscious of his
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: own prim almost prissy neatness as it contrasted to the
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: other shaggy look shaggy dog, thought Randolph, big unkempt shaggy
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Saint Bernard, what about the witches? He asked, finally, Well,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: there have been some funny things that slum. Of course
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I was there, of course I saw it, and I
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: talked of the small fry. It was a tenement the
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: day before, I'd stake a lot on it. There was
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: a silence before Randolph answered, well, well, then, just a
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: few little things. A narcotics man came to see me,
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: just personal, just curious. They've been pulling in the higher
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: ups and the dope traffic, by the way, on info
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: from the guy's caught in that raid, then that canaveral deal.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Were you listening that night? I always tune you in.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: It seems to me that today is one of celebration.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: The dome landed. Yeah, yeah, celebration. I'm a newsman and
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I get stories that don't go out. There's one that
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: just an hour before zero, a man suddenly died of
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: heart attack. The technician he took his place, you don't
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: stop a countdown like that for a heart attack, checked
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: his work and found an air that would have misfired
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: the thing. There was also one circuit that had been changed,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: but they left that because it was changed to be
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: more accurate. I figured the dead guy had done it,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: so so well, nothing. I just wanted to ask you.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: The witches don't touch anything real these days, of course,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: so even if they were well magic, somehow they couldn't
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: have been involved. There wasn't even a pause for lip
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: chewing this time. Are you trying to insinuate that witch products?
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: The question was left hanging, but Bill Howard stood there,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: looking at sponsor in the eye. Mister Randolph, I'm not
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: trying to insinuate one damn thing. I'm not even saying
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: anything to anybody, and if I did say anything be
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: laughed off the air, not by you, but by whoever
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: I said it to. I'm just telling you what twos
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: and twos have been setting themselves in front of my
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: everlasting consciousness, and asking if you know anything to add
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: to them. The lip chewing started again, and the two
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: stood there. Then Randolph said quietly, mister Howard, I've been
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: manufacturing which products for twenty five years. They have been
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: improved steadily since I first started with a very good formula.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: They are the best cleaning products available in the world today.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: I most sincerely believe they are that exactly and nothing
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: more than that exactly. So you will have to find
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: another explanation for your twos and twos, which I admit
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: are a rather spectacular run of coincidence, though not beyond
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: the bounds of credibility myself. I suspect B D and
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: O with perpetrat some sort of a hoax in the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: first instance, If any more hoaxes are perpetrated, I planned
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: to switch agencies, switch programs, and call for an FCC
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: investigation of B, D, D and O to clear the
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: witch name, which never has and never would condone any
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: hoax of any sort, much less one of the magnitude
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: of whatever occurred, which I profess I do not understand,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: but which I expect the FCC can trace to its source.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Good day to you, sir. Randolph ended the unprecedentedly long speech,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: turned on his heel, and left Bill Howard to find
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: his own way out. That night, as Bill Howard ended
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: his newscast, the camera did not switch to the witches. Instead,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: it switched to the announcer. Tonight, which products would like
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: you to meet? A little girl, the announcer said, in
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: a soft voice that contrasted well with Howard's just ended
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: powerful one. As he spoke, the camera backed away to
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: broaden its scope and including its picture. Beside the announcer
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: a small blonde child in a wheelchair. Her hair with
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: shoulder length and carefully combed. Her eyes were downcast shyly.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Her hands gripped the arms of the wheelchair, as though
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: for security. Her legs were covered with a shawl. This
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: is Mary, said the announcer, and then leaned toward her.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: We speak to the audience. Mary. She lifted deep blue
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: eyes briefly to the camera, then dropped them quickly. Hello,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: she said, in a voice barely audible. Mary is not
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: used to many people or to audiences, the announcer said.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Mary has been sitting in this wheelchair for almost three
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: years since a crippling disease twisted her limbs. We hope
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: that Mary can be made to walk. The finest surgeons
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: in the country have been consulted, and they believe an
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: operation can give her back her legs that were twisted
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: when the disease truck. International Witch Corporation has arranged for
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: that operation. Tomorrow Mary will go to the hospital. She
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: will have the operation soon, in a few weeks, perhaps
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Mary will walk. Will you like that? Mary, will you
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: like walking? He added, leaning toward the child again. The
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: eyes lifted for the briefest instant. Again they dropped shyly. Yes,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Mary said, in that barely audible voice. Then you shall
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: have it, if it can be done. The announcer said,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: and the camera moved even farther back to include a
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: stage onto which the witches danced. The witches came onto
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: the stage, not toward Mary, but stage center, chanting their cry,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: which is of the world, you unite to make it clean, Clean, Clean,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Witch Clean. Now at the corner of the screen, the
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: child body in the wheelchair shuddered. Suddenly, Mary took a
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: deep breath, went white, then red. With a forceful gesture,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: she threw off the shawl and looked at her legs.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Her hand reached down to touch them on the stage itself.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: One witch stopped dancing to watch. The others noticed stopped.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: The jingle died half through, and Mary stood up, looking
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: at her legs. She took a step toward the camera,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: and another. Her blue eyes lifted to the camera, widening
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: in the absolute quiet, as everyone on stage stood frozen.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Mary walked toward the camera, her eyes like saucers, looking
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: into it. Her voice, barely above a whisper, spoke, I'm
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I'm walking, said Mary. The papers called it the cruelest
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: hoax of all. They carried the story side by side
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: with the withdrawal of the Witch program from the network,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: both by network and by International Witch Corporation order. They
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: carried the statement of FCC officials that an investigation would
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: be made. They carried the statement by Randolph that he
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: would sue B, D, D and O. They carried the
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: statement by Oswald that he would sue Witch products. But
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: mostly they carried the story of a little girl who
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: had been whisked from sight and couldn't be located, who
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: had probably been given an operation to make it possible
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: for her to walk, but it had been forced to
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: pay for the operation by taking part in a cruel
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: hoax of unbelievable magnitude. Bill Howard stayed with the network
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: on the same time sponsorless. He had been cleared of
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: any implication in the hoax by all parties concerned, and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: his reputation had always been good. He was asked to
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: stay in town and be available to appear as a witness,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: but the network gambled that he was clear and kept
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: him on. He was one of the biggest draws in newscasting.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: His personality that made the news seem to belong to
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: the people, to be a continuing story of their lives
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: was unique. The network decided that the gamble of keeping
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: him on was warranted. By the next night, the Formosa
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: crisis had broken into the news, and it was the news.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: The details were horrible, and they were uncovered a plenty,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: finally UnGagged those who had been holding off gay the story.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: The works. The effects of the pest plane, of the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: pest bombs were the most vicious that could be developed
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: in the life laboratories of bacterial war, and they put
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: to shame the naturally occurring epidemics that have scourged mankind
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: throughout his history. And the effects were spreading with the
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: speed of a prairie fire before a high wind. The
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: entire area was quarantined, and daily the quarantine was extended.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: No plane could land and take off again, no ship
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: could enter and leave. An airflift of supplies dropped by
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: parachute was being organized. Bacteriologists and doctors jetted to the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: area were dying, with the rest caught in disease for
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: which there was no answer. The propaganda attempts to make
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: it seem as though cures were near were flatly not believed.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Suez was remembered, but was remembered as a hoax, and
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: the country had had its complete fill of hoaxes. Randolph
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: had a number of which he referred to and reported
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: as crank calls, asking which to try its might. He
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: arranged for every call that reached him to be traced immediately.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: He remained in seclusion. Oswald had a few of the
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: crank calls and reported them as such. Bill Howard had
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: a number of calls and didn't report them. Bill Howard
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: worried and added two and two, and sweated and reported
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: the details of Formosa each night. The details giantized in
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: gruesomeness until their very content was too much for the airways,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: and he had to censor them as he gave them out.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Bill Howard sweated in the cold January weather, and each
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: day he ferreted further, seeking out the realities behind the
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: censorship that lay heavy now, even over the wires, by phone,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: by gossip, by hearsay, and by nohow. He got the
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: stories behind the story, the real horrors that he couldn't broadcast.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he rebelled that the censors, and himself as one
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: of them, but he knew better than to rebel. It's
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: facing us all, he thought, we each have the right
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: to know. This is the way the world ends. He thought,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: with a whimper that comes after the agony, when agony
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: is too great, and he remembered a little girl walking
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: toward a camera with big eyes. If I were a physicist,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: he told himself, if I were a physicist instead of
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: a newshawk, I could get a computer to tell me
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: the probability ratio of whether I hold an answer. That
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: probability ratio is probably ten billion to one. He told
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: himself that probability ratio is zero. Witches are for burning,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: he told himself. He told himself a lot of things,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: and he sweated through the cold January weather. It had
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: been two weeks since the world heard the first details
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: of Formosa, and the details were so grim now that
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: you couldn't use them at all, just a blanket story.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: That night, the map of the world behind his desk,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Bill Howard leaned toward his audience. He told them the
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: human side of the story of Formosa. He spoke of
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: the people there, the ponds and the game of international suicide,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: real people, not just statistics. He described a family, and
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: he made them the family next door, mother, father, children,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: watching one another die, not prettily, but with all the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: torture that the laboratories of the world could dream and
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: put together a family that watched each other go insane,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: knowing what was happening, a family that watched each other die,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: writhing and unknowing in insanity. He took his pointer and
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: he showed the growing perimeter of the quarantine. He traced
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: the location of the center of the disaster. Then he
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: leaned again toward his audience. Listen now, he said, for
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: the world cannot sustain this torture. He took a deep breath,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: and he put the full force of his being into
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: his words. Which is of the world, Unite? He said,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: to make it clean, clean, clean, Which clean? Now? The
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: final word was out before the network censor reached the
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: cutoff switch. The president and his cabinet put the country
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: on a double alert. Russia had cleaned up for Mosa,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: they knew, and would hit the United States with disease
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: and ultimatums next. The people of the world took the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: story with an unexpected calm Kiroshima. It was too unexpected,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: too big, too unimaginable. There was a hooker somewhere, and
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: they went about their business annoyed, angry, worried, but quiet.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: The papers editorialized on the question of who cleaned up Formosa,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: who had the answers, and left the subject of what
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: the possession of such a cleanup force could mean to
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: the world to the statesman. They turned as quickly as
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: possible to other matters, for nobody was sure what to think,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: and nobody told them what to think. Bill Howard was
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: off the air. Of course, it didn't bother him. He
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: had a real problem. Now we've bought a little time,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: he thought, a little time to grow in. We've bought
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: a little time from the fanatics and their statesmen, from
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the eggheads and their politicians, from the military and the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: industrial and the really foolhardy. We the people of the world,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: have a little time now that we didn't have yesterday.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: How much he didn't know on this one. There had
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: been time to get together on this one. There had
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: been weeks while the crisis built and the world faced
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: a horrible death. This crisis had been a lengthy one.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: There had been time for a man to make up
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: his mind and try a solution. The next one might
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: be different. There might be a satellite up there waiting
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: with a button to be pushed. There were an awful
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: lot of buttons waiting to be pushed, he told himself.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: Buttons all over the world controlling missiles already zeroed in
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: on well the people of the world. The next one
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: might occur in hours or even minutes. The next one,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: the bombs might be in the air before for the
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: people even knew the buttons were for pushing. Bill Howard
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: got out his typewriter. You've got a problem. You talk
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: to a typewriter if that's the only thing that will listen.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: What's the problem, he asked himself, And he wrote it down.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: He started at the beginning, and he told the story
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: on the typewriter. He told it the way it had
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: been happening. Now, he thought, you've got to end the story.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: If you leave it just to be continued, it'll be continued,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: all right. Somebody will push a button one day and
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: that will write thirty at the end for you. Conclusion.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: The problem was, in essence, quite simply stated in terms
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: of miracles. The way things were stewing, it'd be a
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: miracle if the world held together long enough for unity
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: to set in. It'd take a miracle to bring about
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: the necessary self restraint, which was the only possible substitute
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: for the imposed restraint of war. The witch power was
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: quite clearly a power of the people, of the people
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: who needed that protection, needed those miracles, and it was
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: the power that had worked miracles. Well, never know who
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: does the job, he told himself. It's better that way.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: Like table tipping. You can say I didn't do it.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: You can even be sure you didn't do it if
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: you want to. But the table tips if you get
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: enough people around the table, Ouigi writes, if at least
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: two people have their fingers on it, so that they
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: each can say I didn't do it. Who are the witches? Why?
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: They're the people and they're not for burning? The fanatics
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: and their statesmen, the eggheads and their politicians, the brains
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: and the brain trusts, and the world weary there for burning,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: but not the witches. Which witch is a witch doesn't matter.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: An hour later, Bill Howard sat down to the typewriter again.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: He stated the general problem, but now he had a
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: specific problem, and for a man in his line of business,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: it was a fairly straightforward problem. He need only plot
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: out the necessary moves so that he could call on
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: that witch power just one more time, just once, just
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: long enough to clean out the violent rooted resistance to
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: the idea that people had powers and could work miracles.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: The end and to prologue to an analog by Lee
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Richmond read by Paul Hampton,