Free The Mouse That Roared by Leonard Wibberley

matter.
     
    Gradually, but definitely, what had been intended as warning of a mere practice alert, though on an unprecedented scale, evolved, as a result of the mass publicity, the insistent and inescapable repetitions, the emphasis on the omnipotence of the weapon which had inspired the exercise, into a warning of an actual alert in the public mind. The attempts to put down the salami rumour and the alcohol rumour were taken as positive proof that the real thing was to be expected. The belief grew that the United States Government had received secret information that a genuine attack with atomic weapons or even worse was to be launched on the east coast. And then, from a mild hysteria, a form of panic developed.
    It started with a demand by parents that schools be closed lest, when the alarm was sounded, mothers and fathers be separated from their children. The school authorities, not wishing to be responsible for the care of hosts of children during an alarm of uncertain duration, readily acquiesced in this demand.
    Then city workers began to avoid travelling by subway or by bus, lest they be caught in these conveyances during the alarm. Three days after the warning of the practice alert was issued, subways were carrying less than half their usual quota of commuters. Buses reported their traffic had fallen off sixty per cent. Later, though not much later, wives demanded that their husbands stay at home, and as the conviction grew that a real attack was impending, there was a rush at railway and airline terminals to get out of New York. Businesses closed down, streets and playgrounds were left deserted, and the panic was on.
    The full power of all the communication media was again called upon, this time to get over the message that no actual attack was expected. The exercise was to be merely one of preparedness. The international situation was healthy-healthier than it had been at any time since the close of the war. Diplomats attested to this and were supported by generals and admirals. One general, who but ten days previously had advocated an immediate attack upon those nations, which, he said, were intent upon bleeding the United States to death, announced that there was no reason at all why the two sides could not sort out their difference peaceably.
    “We are,” he said, “on the very verge of peace--a peace which, if cool judgments are allowed to prevail, must last through our lifetimes and those of our children.”
    All this, however--the unwavering insistence that this was to be but a practice in preparedness, the unqualified statements of diplomats, generals, and admirals that no war was in sight, even a Press conference in which the President assured the nation that there was no danger of attack by any foreign nation or combination of foreign nations--all this had little effect. One question remained unanswered in the public mind: Why have such a large-scale practice if there is no possibility of war breaking out immediately?
    Then the one thing happened which, even if the attempt to allay the panic had made any headway, would have cancelled all the progress achieved.
    Senator Griffin, seriously disturbed by a thousand letters a day from people all over the country, demanding to know whether the United States had any adequate weapons with which to defend itself, decided to announce that the quadium bomb had been perfected. He did so only after consulting with the President, the Secretary of Defence, and other members of the cabinet. He urged on them that the only way to allay the panic was to assure the public that the United States was in possession of a weapon of such tremendous destructive capacity that no other nation would dare to attack it.
    As chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, he called a Press conference and gave the details of the bomb to the reporters who crowded into the Senate committee room.
    “The Q-bomb, which has been perfected by Dr. Kokintz,” he said, “gives us the ability, as it