“Another—is to continue the assault we are making. I assure you, the foe is suffering grievously. But his cities are so few, his dispersion of populace is so great, that our gallant Air Force cannot readily drive his people into the general panic that has uprooted this nation and destroyed its social organization. In time our effort might be equally effective. We must inquire if we have the time. The bombs, the planes, the determined men to fly them, we do have. But let us suppose the effort took thirty days. Meanwhile, other assaults would probably be launched against us. Our citizens would continue to battle one another, freeze, soon die of hunger, go mad.
In the end, there might remain in both nations that utter wreckage of civilization which the few predicted for so long, and the many refused to believe. But that is a second possibility.”
“The third?” a woman’s voice called. “What’s the third?”
For a moment, the new President reverted to his old habit as Speaker of the House. “The lady from Massachusetts asks the third. I’ll explain as best I am able. I am not a scientist. The military will amplify.”
He frowned, cleared his throat. “First, I must state that my late, great predecessor, though he worked hopefully for peace, somewhat feared a situation like this. He feared, as did his Chiefs of Staff, the very danger we have encountered. He, with them, prepared a threat of their own—of our own—a dreadful threat, intended only for use as a menace. You are familiar with the Nautilus ….”
The silence in the old room was absolute.
“…the first of the atomic-powered submarines. As the ‘peace’ negotiations reached a high degree of intensity, it was felt in the—the”—he stumbled—“White House that the enemy was probably sincere. But the possibility remained that such negotiations might be the immediate precursor to the disaster that now is fact. Or to the threat of it. Consequently the Nautilus was drydocked and secretly reconverted. She is still a ship, still a submarine, still atomically driven, but she is also a bomb. She contains, now, the largest hydrogen bomb ever assembled, and around it and in her sides, replacing armor, and in her keel, for ballast, is the element cobalt with other readily radioactivated elements. She stands, this day, in the North Sea, awaiting orders. She could be sent swiftly into the Baltic. She could approach the ways to the enemy, dive to bottom, and explode herself.”
“The crew…?” someone interrupted.
Gates said nothing. His long, thin face turned toward the questioner and his hazel eyes burned into the man. Then, at last, he spoke again.
“This is one of the greater-than-super weapons mentioned at least as far back as the Truman Administration. Its exact effect is not known and cannot be calculated. A few scientists fear its detonation at sea bottom might actually set up the planetary chain reaction. Most say not.