Char said, "Ever since I was about ten years of age I've been reading about the Russian people starving to death and having to work six months before making enough money to buy a pair of shoes. So I've decided to see how starving, barefooted people managed to build the largest industrial nation in the world."
"Here we go again," Hank said, taking up his glass. He toasted her silently before saying, "The United States is still the largest single industrial nation in the world."
"Perhaps as late as 1965, but not today," she said definitely.
"Russia, plus the satellites and China has a gross national product greater than the free world's but no single nation produces more than the United States. What are you laughing at?"
"I love the way the West plasters itself so nicely with high flown labels. The free world. Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, South Africa—just what is your definition of free?"
Hank had her placed now. A college radical. One of the tens of thousands who discover, usually somewhere along in the sophomore year, that all is not perfect in the land of their birth and begin looking around for answers. Ten to one she wasn't a Commie and would probably never become one—but meanwhile she got a certain amount of kicks trying to upset ideological applecarts.
For the sake of staying in character, Hank said mildly, "Look here, are you a Communist?"
She banged her glass down on the bar with enough force that the bartender looked over worriedly. "Did it ever occur to you that even though the Soviet Union might be wrong—if it is wrong—that doesn't mean that the United States is right? You remind me of that ... that politician, whatever his name was, when I was a girl. Anybody who disagreed with him was automatically a Communist."
"McCarthy," Hank said. "I'm sorry, so you're not a Communist."
She took up her glass again, still in a huff. "I didn't say I wasn't. That's my business."