Fail Safe (12 page)

It-was during this time that Groteschele found himself trimming off excess weight and taking daily exercises. Finally he was doing hours of bar-bell exercises, pushups, and road-work every day. He became as physically tough as the SS troopers, his belly as flat, his face as expressionless. Always, just before the interview was over, Groteschele let slip the fact that he was a Jew. Never as a direct admission, always slyly and as if the prisoner had known from the start.

It was the only thing that made the SS troopers

crack, even a little. They would stare at Groteschele's well-muscled body, his inscrutable face, lila bard eyes. Then, for a moment in time, Groteschele could see fear in their eyes. It was gone instantly, the eyes shut, the expression lost. But it was enough for Groteschele. They had seen a different kind of Jew and it frightened them.

By the time the war was over Groteschele had developed a new interest. It was the study of politics. Americans had mastered technology and the scientist would continue to be a hero for some time. But the real decisions, the real power would lie with those who understood politics. Competence in pglitics would be the ultimate sanctuary, although partisan elective politics would be as volatile as ever. He must, he reasoned, be an expert in politics but not subject to popular opinion. He calculated that with the GI Bill and the money be had saved he would be able to get a Ph.D. at an Ivy League college an, still be a few thousand - dollars ahead.

His father had only one piece of advice. "If you are going to become a professor change your name to Groth," he said. "American universities have too many German Jews. They will lose their tolerance for them."

Groteschele had not changed his name. It was the first time he -had rejected his father's advice, but now he was surer than his father about some things: the character of Americans, for instance, and the favorable attitude toward the Jewish intellectual in the academic world. This did not mean that he was insensitive to names. In fact he found them fascinating. He had, for example, noticed that his name was considered by most to be German and he knew that his appearance was not distinctively Jewish. He considered the possibility that he might even suffer somewhat from anti-German

feeling, but he also remembered the guilty conscience which Americans had had over their anti-Getinanjgn after World War L All in all, when everything was added up, he calculated that he would benefit by sticking with his name and identity.

Once this decision was made the plan was simple. He knew that it would take some luck, but he was also determined to do everything possible to minimize the importance of that element.

The first thing was to become a protégé of Tolliver. Groteschele sensed that Tolliver had an ego of formidable proportions. This was what led him to work in the area of great sweeping diplomatic moves, intricate military strategies, and it was also what led him to an instantaneous and ferocious defense of his views.

For the first year in graduate school Groteschele made no move toward Tolliver. He sat quietly in his classes and read every book and article the man had written. He watched the other graduate students as they slowly learned the pitfalls and terrors of the academic world. By the end of the first year none of them regarded it as "the ivory tower" any more. By then they - bad learned it was more like Kafka's Castle: a place of enormous tension, the scene of ununderstood conspiracies, a place of stalking and frantic flight from an unseen enemy. Groteschele watched some of the others break and remained impassive. Groteschele was certain that he would not be one of those who broke. He had been prepared for the fact that the big beautiful buildings and the book-lined studies and the quiet seminar rooms would really be scenes of battle.

At the end of the first year Groteschele's chance came. Tolliver published a book called Models for the Future War. The title had been a mistake. It suggested that Tolliver was, somehow, advocating war. The re

views of the book were generally negative, some of them, scathing. Groteschele read the reviews carefrtlly. Finally he found one in a liberal monthly in which it was clear that the author had not read the whole book but had skimmed the first few chapters and then used that much as a platform to expound his own theories about "the rising tide of militarism."

Groteschele wrote a 2,000-word letter to the magazine. It was a model of careful and biting analysis. The editor of the monthly, in a spasm of regret, sent Groteschele a check for $25 and published the letter as an article.

Groteschele wisely did not send Tolliver a copy of the article, but inevitably Tolliver read it. He never thanked Groteschele for the article, in fact, he never mentioned it. But in his second year of graduate work, Groteschele received a written invitation from Tolliver to be his research assistant. Groteschele never worked so hard in his life. His eyes constantly burned from reading in bad library light. He had no time for exercise and could feel his body go slack, the fat start to gather, the hard muscularity he had liked disappear.

Carefully and patiently Groteschele read all of the memos which Tolliver, as a long-time consultant to the Pentagon, received from Washington. By studying the memos and by careful questioning of Tolliver, Groteschele found what he wanted: a public gap in American military thought. Stretching over a generation, the notion had arisen that America would never start a war. Even the most hardened of the military people cautiously skirted around this question. As a result a mood had grown up which made a discussion of America striking first impossible. A few officers had mentioned it in "off-the-record" briefings and - bad promptly been branded warmongers and their careers

carefully altered so that they disappeared from the public eye. Even among themse,lves the military had developed a theory and lexicon and strategy which always skirted the idea of the United States starting a war.

In his Ph.D. dissertation Groteschele attacked this taboo. He provided a -respectable language and theory within which the "first strike" or "preemptive war" could be discussed. The name of the dissertation was The Theory of Counter-Escalation Postures in a Thermonuclear World. He gave Tolliver five copies of the first draft of the dissertation. Tolliver knew why he had received extra copies. He sent them along to Washington.

Groteschele curbed his hopes. He knew the copies of the dissertation might well disappear in the labyrinths of Washington. Or the central idea might be attacked by a powerful person, or, even more damaging, be dismissed as trivial or nutty. But his luck held. One day the phone call came.

"Dr. Groteschele, this is Colonel Stark of the Air Force in the Pentagon," a calm voice said. "We have read your dissertation with great interest and wonder

- when you can come to Washington -to discuss it."

Technically Groteschele was not yet a Ph.D., but he

- sensed this was not the time to point out that fact.

"Colonel Stark, my schedule is fairly full for the next five or six days," Groteschele said cautiously. "Maybe sometime next week."

Stark cut in abruptly. There was an edge of irrita

- tion in his voice, but there was also something of respect.

"Doctor, down here we consider this rather urgent," Colonel Stark said. "After all, the security of the coun

- try is involved."

"Can you schedule the meeting for tomorrow after. noon?" Groteschele asked abruptly.

The colonel could and did. That afternoon meeting was not easy. For the first time since the captured SS troopers had made the remarks about Jews being like rabbits, GrOteschele felt isolated. He was seated at the end of a long table. The other seats were occupied by six generals, five colonels, four civilians, and a secretary who was operating a Stenotype machine. Groteschele glanced at Stark. Stark's face was completely expressionless. Groteschele did not bother to look at the others. He knew that none of them were yet committed.

Quite suddenly Groteschele lost his nerve. The whole situation was preposterous. He was only a student who had once been an Army lieutenant and he was talking to professionals who had devoted their lives to the conduct and strategy of war. He sensed that he was about to make a fool of himself. Quickly, and with the telescopic capacity of the tragic moment, he saw the rest of his life. He would slide, slide, slide, always downward. He smiled woodenly down the table as he calculated where he woqld end, what the academic equivalent of his father's butcher-shop job would be. He would be a grade-school teacher to a bunch of idiot children. -With a terrible self-hatred he was aware of how he had physically declined, was no longer taut and trim. To them, these men of power and elegance around the table, he must look like a fattening, white-grub academic. He looked at Stark, started to ask to be excused.

- "Excuse me, Colonel Stark," Groteschele said and then paused. To his astonishment his voice came out cold and steady, without a tremor. His mouth was dry, his mind a shambles, his fingers had a quiver-but his

voice was rock-hard. The decision was made for him. He would read the paper just as he had written it, using the one physical attribute that was still in control: his voice. Later, reading, he realized that his paper was a wild gamble. He reviewed alternative theories of modern thermonuclear war and, with all the deliberateness of a machine gunner, shredded them to pieces. Inevitably he must be damaging some of the men in the room. The knowledge made his fingers tremble even more. His mouth went cottony, but somehow the words continued to pour out with even more control. When he finished his review of "obsolete al

- ternatives" he sensed that he had probably bruised every man in the room. There was nothing to do but go on. -

When he came to his own theory his voice became sharper, more incisive, although the words were more ambiguous. Without smiling, using his new vocabulary, he presented the alternative of the United States striking first. However, he never quite used those words. He took the people around the table to the edge of the abyss, 'forced them to look over the edge. Then, his language still cold, be described a situation in which the abyss was not threatening, but was in fact a magnificent and glowing opportunity. The whole presentation took one hour and ten minutes. He was not interrupted once.

When he had finished and had squared his papers in front of him on the table Groteschele stared straight ahead.

The first person to speak was an elderly, white-haired man in uniform at the far end of the table. He had a deep and authoritative voice that emanated from - a face made of leather, and four stars decorated each shoulder. Groteschele had not noticed him before, but

sensed at once that he was the senior officer in the room. He was, in fact, in charge of strategic plans for the Air Force and had deliberately not identified himself with any single point of view. Ruthless on weak logic and thin evidence, he had the reputation of listening with an open mind to any proposal that was sensibly presented.

"Dr. Groteschele, speaking for myself only, I con. gratulate you on an extremely clear and lucid presentation of a complex problem," the general said. The general looked at his hands, smiled, and went on. "Your alternative is a difficult one. I believe it might be the right one. At the least it should be thoroughly discussed."

Groteschele relaxed. He was safe. He hardly heard the other voices as they murmured various reasons for approving Groteschele's paper.

When the briefing broke up, Stark invited him to dinner. Groteschele smiled, aware that the invitation had come after the briefing rather than before. He accepted. The dinner was small, but GrOteschele knew that the men there were powerful. And he was the prize, the sought-after expert. Eyes turned to see him when he spoke. Others broke off their conversations to listen. -

"My God, did you hear the Old Man say that Dr. Groteschele might have 'the right one'?" Colonel Stark said. "That's the closest he has ever come to a commitment."

They stared at Groteschele. He did not smile. Calmly he went on to describe some of the implications of his position.

That had been the start.

Soon he was practically commuting to Washington. Conference followed conference. Discussion papers appeared at regular intervals. Each trip, each conference,

gave Groteschele access to new and valuable inforuzation. He was cleared for access to top-secret material, He had free communications with the experts working on the fantastic frontiers of defense developments.

His doctoral dissertation was published under the title Counter-Escalation. It was instantly reviewed by Hanson Baldwin in The New York Times Sunday book-review section, and was the lead. Walter Millis reviewed it for the Herald Tribune. For' a book of its type it sold very well, over 35,000 copies. Its reputation spread everywhere. Liberal journals attacked the book. A pacifist group burned it in Mann County, California, and then had second thoughts about book-burning and apologized to a nonlistening public. The book was discussed on two national television panel shows. People who had never read it had violent opinions about it. -

With a speed that startled him he now became a public personage outside the defense and academic communities. He analyzed the reasons for his success and finally satisfied himself. There was a morbidity about his subject matter which somehow flowed over onto Groteschele and- gave him an aura. He was extremely careful never to discuss dassified information in public, but even so he could draw a picture of how the United States would look after a thermonuclear first strike, the awful seductions of surrender, the number of children who would suffer malignant genetic defects from radioactivity. Looking coolly at a room full of people he would tell them how many decades it would take the survivors of a thermonuclear war to regain the standard of living of medieval days. He could see the audience stiffen, tongues licking at the corners of their mouths, the signs of nervousness and fascination multiply.

Groteschele knew that he was regarded as a magician.

The awesome powers on which he was expert, the facts of life and death and survival, the new cabalistic language of the nuclear philosophers and high scientists of physics, were merely matters of fact. But the layman, the rich socialite, the industrialist, the politician, endowed Groteschele with control of the things he described.