Considering what else was going on in the 1950s - a time of loyalty oaths, atom-spy executions, and rampaging anti-Communist congressman and senators – there was surprisingly little Red-fighting in the science fiction magazines. Instead, the 1950s in science fiction were a time of trenchant social criticism, aimed at what those same congressman and senators were wont to describe as the American Way of Life. In “that miserable decade we look back on as the era of McCarthyism,” Galaxy’s editor Frederik Pohl proudly declared in 1968 (Extrapolation: 10, May 1969), “at a time when presidents and newspaper editors were running for shelter, about the only people speaking up openly to tell it like it was were Edward R. Murrow, one or two Senators, and just about every science fiction writer alive.”¹

 

   At times in American history, the American ideal of  liberty and justice for all has come under attack, not from outside forces, but from the very governmental institutions which were set up to protect it. The “Red Scare” of 1919 was a legacy of the First World War and the Russian Revolution. Foreigners were deported and the New York legislature expelled socialist members. A counter subversion  division was set up in the Justice Department under J. Edgar Hover. He arrested thousands of suspects, in many cases without search warrants or evidence. Suspected Communists were deported or imprisoned after hasty trials.

 

   Previous legislation such as the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 were introduced partly because of the war. However, they were also conservative America’s counter-attack on the Left. Eugene Debs, a socialist and four-times candidate for presidency of the U.S.A., was given a twenty year jail term for a speech which, allegedly, attacked conscription into the Army.  Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were found guilty of murder in a one-sided trial and electrocuted on 23^rd August 1927.

 

   The same sadly familiar scenario manifested itself in the aftermath of the Second World War. In 1947 the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) held hearings to investigate the extent of communist involvement in the movie industry. This led directly to the blacklisting of a large number of suspected communists. In response to the perceived threat of international communism the American government clamped down on alleged subversive activity. President Harry Truman ordered an investigation of the loyalty of civil servants. Executive Order 9835, issued in March 1947, was an oppressive measure: “Of the 3 million persons passed on, only a few thousand were actually investigated. Of these, 212 were dismissed, but none, apparently, had committed offenses serious enough to warrant prosecution.”²  

 

   However, worse was to come. The Korean War convinced many that International Communism was spreading; Communists came to power in China  and the Russians became a nuclear power in 1949. Many in America were convinced there were Communist traitors in the U.S. government. State Department official Alger Hiss was accused of spying and was convicted of perjury. In England, atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs was caught passing secrets to the Russians, and in 1953, husband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in New York for spying. The hysteria which caused these events also led to the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy. He led a witch hunt against suspected Communists in the government: “Between May 1953 and October 1954 no fewer than 6926 `security risks’ were `separated’ from their government jobs. Very few of these were even charged with subversion, and not one had committed any crime or breach of duty for which he was brought to trial in a court of law.”³

 

   When even the American Civil Liberties Union refused to defend communists it was a difficult and threatening time to hold radical views or raise a dissenting voice. This is where SF played an important role. Critic Patrick Parrender states:

The idea of science fiction as a mode of social criticism came to the fore in the magazines of the 1950s, when innumerable stories dealt with the threats that new technological developments such as brainwashing, lie-detector tests, computers, and subliminal advertising posed to the freedom of the individual. These stories were a clear response to the militarization of science during and after the Second World War, and to the suppression of dissident views in the McCarthy period – subjects which…were avoided or played down in most other media.⁴

 

A typical example is Isaac Asimov’s The Martian Way, which Brian Aldiss describes as, “a critical comment on what Senator McCarthy was…doing with his Committee on Un-American Activities.”⁵  

 

   Asimov was a disciple of legendary writer and editor John W. Campbell. Asimov has commented that Campbell’s ASF editorials, “championed  a social point of view which could sometimes be described as far-right.”⁶ It is no surprise, therefore, that another Campbell author, Robert Heinlein, would write the definitive pro-military SF novel, Starship Troopers (1959). Here, Heinlein envisaged a society where ex-Army veterans ran the governments of the world and where people had to serve a term in the army to gain the right to vote and become full citizens. Published just a few years after the Korean War, Heinlein’s novel was popular and influential. Critic Scott Rosenberg recalls his first encounter with the novel in the 1960s:

In those days, Vietnam had made it quite clear…that war was an awful thing, and military service was something to be undertaken only when a war was totally necessary…In this climate, Heinlein’s argument…came as a nasty provocation…it was sobering, powerful, consistent and impossible to dismiss…the author’s twists on old military-adventure-tale clichés were merely imaginative; the severity and anger behind the book’s ideas were, in the field of science fiction, unique.⁷

 

However, in Trillion Year Spree, Brian Aldiss comments that Heinlein was,

A pulp writer made good, sometimes with his strong power drives half rationilized into a right-wing political philosophy, as in Starship Troopers (1959), a sentimental view of what it is like to train and fight as an infantryman in a future war. Anyone who has trained and fought in a past war will recognize the way Heinlein prettifies his picture. But realism is not Heinlein’s vein…⁸

 

   Harrison submitted The Stainless Steel Rat  to ASF which was, at the time, the biggest SF magazine in the business with the most respected and powerful editor. The Stainless Steel Rat was an adventure tale with a touch of humour that Campbell liked. It was published in the August 1957 edition of Astounding and Campbell would later publish other Harrison stories in the same mould such as Deathworld, The Ethical Engineer, The Horse Barbarians  and Sense of Obligation. Harrison uncharitably calls them, “beginning, middle, end, action-moved, plot-supported, sexless, hardcore science fiction.”⁹ However, they met Campbell’s formula for success namely, “Campbell…advised writers that the ending of a story  `must solve the problems directly raised in the story – and do it succinctly. Quick and sharp.’”¹⁰ In reviewing these stories in a collected edition called The Deathworld Trilogy, Locus magazine states, “They’re good adventure stories and, philosophically, show a very heavy Campbell influence.”¹¹  Although Harrison did not share Campbell’s political views he is, however, quick to defend him. He states:

John was not right wing, he was not a fascist, he was a technocrat. He loved technology…Basically the idea of technocracy arose in the’30’s during the depression, it was that all problems are solved by bell-shaped curves. Engineers would rule the world and they would take care of us. And it’s a different thing from fascism…on a scale of left to right you might call it right, but I call it technocracy.¹¹

 

However, there were certain things that Campbell would not publish and Harrison realised that his novel Bill, The Galactic Hero would be one of them. In Hell’s Cartographers he states, “The novel I had in mind, was certainly not for Campbell…Bill was positively not an ASF  serial.”¹³ Harrison notes, however, that this was somewhat of a turning point in his career:

Bantam was selling an awful lot of copies of the paperback versions [of Deathworld]. The world was quite happy with my work. I wasn’t. It was a strange time to get a critical conscience. I wanted to write better and I wanted to use different material.

Salvation came through the good offices of Joseph Heller and Brian Aldiss. I read Catch 22 which crystallized my thinking. ..Heller and Voltaire demonstrated to me that some things are so awful that they can only be approached through the medium of humour.¹⁴

In Parallel Worlds, he elaborates further: “I got the clues I needed from CANDIDE  and CATCH 22: do it as a black comedy. Some things are so awful they can only be faced by bitter laughter. To this I added parody of other sf.”¹⁵  Harrison’s “awful” experience was his conscription into the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943. He spent three years working as an aircraft instrument repairman, power-operated and computer-gunsight specialist, armourer, truck driver, gunnery instructor and military policeman. Although Harrison acknowledges that his spell in the military was of some benefit, ingraining in him, “a sense of survival,” for example, he concludes bitterly that military service, “terminated my childhood…I was robbed of three years of my life without satisfactory return.”¹⁶

 

   Harrison began work on Bill, The Galactic Hero while living in Denmark in 1959. It was to be a satirical attack on the military, the “space opera” SF story of the E.E. “Doc” Smith type and also a gentle dig at Isaac Asimov’s metal planet Trantor. Harrison states, “I wanted to get my feelings about the army and the military into a novel. [I have] a deep-seated suspicion of the military, and a profound hatred of war and the people who like and want war.”¹⁷ As he suspected, Harrison had difficulty finding a publisher. Bill was an experimental novel and, although this was the vogue in the late 1960s, in the early part of the decade, it was still a financial risk for the author. SF humour is a difficult idea to sell to publishers. However, it was popular with fellow writers and, perhaps more importantly, with Harrison’s wife Joan! The story was initially rejected by Berkley Books, Damon Knight complaining that Bill was an “adventure story loused up with bad jokes.”¹⁸ However, it eventually appeared in Galaxy in the U.S.A. in 1964 and was serialised in New Worlds in the U.K. in 1965.

   Bill, The Galactic Hero is the story of a simple farmboy who is pressganged into the military. He does his military training at “Camp Leon Trotsky” and is quickly sent into battle. He accidentally becomes a hero but, in the process, his left arm is damaged beyond repair. Comically, it is replaced with the right arm of a fallen comrade who happens to be coloured. Bill is awarded a medal for his supposed gallantry, the “Purple Dart with Coalsack Nebula Cluster,” to be awarded by the Emperor on Helior, the Imperial Planet which is constructed of solid gold. However, all the pomp and ceremony is false; an actor replaces the Emperor for the ceremony, and, afterwards, Bill becomes hopelessly lost on this vast planet while looking for girls and alcohol. He becomes involved in spying and garbage disposal as the plot develops into a bizarre and witty parody of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. However, Bill is declared AWOL by the military and, after recapture and a quick court martial, is sentenced to one year of hard labour in a military prison. From there he is transported to Veniola, a swamp and jungle world, where the Imperial Army is fighting against that planet’s inhabitants, the Venians. There is an obvious comparison with the Korean or Vietnam Wars here as the humans expend vast amounts of firepower against an illusive enemy in an inhospitable environment. Unlike a traditional hero, however, Bill immediately ponders his escape. He discovers that a “Blighty Wound,” i.e., a wound so serious that he cannot fight any more, will lead to him being shipped home. Bill, therefore, bravely blows off his right foot. The novel ends with biter irony; Bill’s military career turns full circle and he returns home as a cynical recruiting sergeant who tricks his younger brother into joining the military.

 

   There are so many attacks on the conventional war story in Bill, The Galactic Hero, in particular on Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, that it is impossible to document them all. However, one incident in particular sums up all that Harrison has to say about the military. Throughout his basic training, Bill has been taught that the Chingers were “a seven foot high saurian that looked very much like a scale covered, four armed, green kangaroo with an alligator’s head.”¹⁹ However, we later discover that this feared species is seven inches tall instead of seven feet. Suddenly all justification for a war against this race is undermined in one comic moment. Basic training and combat are as accurately documented as in Starship Troopers. However, Harrison constantly illustrates their absurd and dehumanising aspects. For example, the author undermines this clichéd “rites of passage” ritual by constantly poking fun at “Deathwish Drang,” a sadistic drill instructor who, for effect, has surgically implanted three-inch tusks along with his normal teeth. Bill’s training does not, however, turn him into a perfect soldier. Instead, he is transformed into a foul-mouthed, sex-driven moron. For example, Bill becomes a hero when he destroys an enemy spaceship. However, Harrison makes the point that it was not Bill’s military training which enabled him to do this. Rather, it was pure luck mixed with Bill’s inherent imbecility. Whereas Heinlein names a space cruiser after Second World War  hero Private Rodger Young, Harrison names his ship “Fanny Hill.”  Heinlein’s heroes look forward to battle, however Bill will do anything to avoid it. Only veterans really know which book is the more accurate portrayal of military life.

 

   In Bill, The Galactic Hero, Harrison attacks the dehumanising aspects of  military service and also satirises aspects of traditional SF “space opera” with its mile-long space ships and atomic blasters. Harrison began writing the novel a full ten years before Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) saw publication. In Slaughterhouse-Five a survivor of the bombing of Dresden is moved through time and space against his will and held in an alien zoo. In Bill, The Galactic Hero, a naïve farmboy is taken from his home and forced to serve in an Imperial Army. Both novels use SF elements to demonstrate man’s vulnerability to forces beyond his control. Like Slaughterhouse-Five, Bill, The Galactic Hero caused an immediate stir. Fans of Heinlein and Asimov were outraged at the supposed slurs on their heroes. John Campbell hated the novel as Harrison had predicted, and it alienated some of Harrison’s fans who were weaned on the Deathworld series. However, it was a critical and financial success. Harrison states:

I felt that there must be a bigger market out there than I had imagined and perhaps I could now write for myself and please the readers at the same time. This was a momentous discovery and marked a new period in my writing. Not that I didn’t do the familiar to stay alive. Deathworld 3 and a number of Stainless Steel Rat books were still in the future, but I found I could experiment with new ideas and still hope to sell them as well.²⁰

 

 

   Writer and critic Tom Shippey states, “Next time that something like the A-bomb came up, where would a future Einstein’s duty lie? It is this…question which underlies the Harry Harrison novel [In Our Hands the Stars].”²¹ The novel was first published as The Daleth Effect in Analog magazine December 1969. Harrison uses H.G. Wells’s “one novelty” theory where the author asks the reader to make one leap of faith so that the author can tell his story. In Wells’s case, he asked the reader to suspend rational belief and accept the notion of an invisible man or invading Martians. Apart from this, however, everything else in his story is entirely plausible. Harrison explains:

In the…straightforward Sci-fi I do I use Wells’s one novelty theory. Wells said, you know HG, Hubert George, that if a pig came flying over the hedge at you-that's fascinating, a flying pig! Wow! You know, great! But if houses fly and barns fly and cows fly it's boredom and stupidity. Therefore he would do a good Sci-fi novel and make one exaggeration, one lie. Like one lie that would makes things a lot easier, you can go beyond the speed of light. You can't of course. But how else do you get out somewhere? So you use that lie. Something like The Daleth Effect : one lie was you have a power source that can move a spaceship without any outside source of energy and that's all. After that, everything is true. If you had that power source you could get to the moon in about five hours. You accelerate at 1G, you decelerate at 1G - no problem. You can get to Mars depending on where it is in 10-14 days it's all science! Given that one accepted lie. Readers are happy to do that. Readers like to see you give one lie. They'll swallow it, they'll suspend some disbelief and see if you can carry through with it. And you extrapolate and do a good story based on that one lie. Why not? I mean every , all novelists lie!²²

In the novel, Harrison’s “one novelty” is the Daleth Effect, discovered by scientist Arnie Klein of the University of Tel Aviv. It is an energy/force which can defy gravity and enable mankind to travel to the stars. The exact nature of this force is unimportant in terms of the story. However, a comparison can be made with the discovery of the nuclear bomb. Like nuclear energy, Harrison argues, the Daleth Effect can be put to both constructive and destructive uses. However, this novel is not about the bomb – nearly every SF writer from 1945 onwards has written about that! – but about the reaction of governments during the cold war to a new discovery. For example, in 1944 John Campbell published a story by Cleve Cartmill called Deadline which dealt with the nuclear bomb. Cartmill used facts which were public knowledge. Indeed, Tom Shippey argues that atomic bombs “were a recognized concept in science fiction from the 1930s [and] well before.”²³  However, in 1944 the Manhattan Project was highly secretive and Campbell was investigated by Military Intelligence. He used his background in atomic physics to convince them that there was no breach of security. The point is not lost on Harrison. In the novel the character Professor Ove Rasmussen states:

mother nature has no secrets. Everything is right out there where you can see it...As soon as the Japanese even heard about American radar during World War II they went to work on it…Only internal squabbling and the lack of production facilities kept them from making it operational. It was radar time. And now…now it is Daleth time.²⁴

The Nazis tried to develop a nuclear bomb but the war ended before it could be completed. After the war, when America had a monopoly on the bomb, they executed alleged spies such as the Rosenbergs to keep it a secret. However, the Russians already knew how to make it, they just didn’t have the facilities at that time. Tom Shippey states, “`Stimulus diffusion’ is a fact of the modern world, not merely an anthropologists’ (sic) curiosity. But people prefer to think of science as a kind of magic controllable only by individual adepts, because it gives them idols/scapegoats – Einstein, or Oppenheimer.”²⁵

 

   Klein quickly takes his discovery to Denmark as he knows that the Israeli authorities will be tempted to use the Daleth Effect as a weapon against their Arab neighbours. He was born in Denmark and respects this small country which did much to help its Jewish citizens during the Second World War. Furthermore, although Denmark is a NATO member its close proximity to the Soviet Union meant that it was not simply a pawn in American foreign policy decisions.

 

   Harrison has written a number of non-SF thriller novels including The QEII Is Missing ( 1980), Montezuma’s Revenge (1972), and Queen Victoria’s Revenge (1974). He uses his intimate knowledge of the thriller genre to create a multi-level plot where, on the surface we have a straight-forward plot about secrets and spies, but, by the end of the novel, we realise that Harrison is making a point about the destructive nature of the Cold War. For example, his character Horst Schmidt is a former SS guard at Auschwitz who spies for both the Russians and Americans. He has no ideological motive, only profit. He breaks into a Danish government department to search for the Daleth plans and is surprised by how easy it all is. Office doors are unlocked and Schmidt was not asked for an identity card. He states contemptuously, “No security these Danes, no security at all.”²⁶  The reader is lulled into thinking that increased security, such as baggage searches and identity cards, are the answer to this type of behavior. However, Harrison makes his point through the character of Ove Rasmussen who states, “Security killed them all. Only politicians and security agents believe in Secrets with a capital S. And maybe the people who read the spy novels about those imaginary stolen secrets.”²⁷ Even the liberal Danes change their ways. They use the Daleth Effect to create a spaceship capable of travelling to Mars in a few hours. However, to protect their invention they place explosives onboard. When  Soviet saboteurs attempt to hijack the ship, it is destroyed by explosives activated by a pre-arranged radio signal. This is security gone mad. Rasmussen states, “Apparently only…top officers knew about the destructive charges in the ship. If Arnie or I had known we would have made a public stink and would have refused to fly in her. It is all a criminal waste, criminal stupidity.”²⁸

 

   In this surprise ending Harrison reveals his views on the nature of governments. People who were guests aboard the ship turn out to be spies. American passengers smuggle arms aboard and it is clear that they will take desperate measures against their Danish allies to acquire the Daleth secret. Nils tells the American spy Baxter:

Violence, death, killing – that’s all you know. I don’t see an ounce of difference between you and your paid creatures here…In the name of good you do evil. For national pride you would destroy mankind. When will you admit that all men are brothers-and then find some way to stop killing your brothers? Your country alone has enough atomic bombs to blow up the world four times over. [The Russians are] the same as you. From where I am, here in space, about to die, I can’t tell the difference.²⁹

Finally, Harrison reveals his concept of the “world citizen”  as Rasmussen states, “We all now live in the suburbs of the same world city.”³⁰ Harrison abhors destructive nationalism, particularly that of his own USA. Nor does he like U.S. government institutions. For example, in The Daleth Effect one of his characters states, “The CIA is hideously inefficient and has a one hundred percent record of never having ever been correct with intelligence information supplied to their own government.”³¹ Similarly, the American agent, Baxter, is portrayed as a particularly loathsome individual who uses threats and an appeal to Martha Hansen’s “God-given American citizenship”³² to turn her against her Danish husband. It is this brand of patriotism that turns one person against another that Harrison so detests.

 

   The Defensive Bomber was first published in the SF anthology Nova 3 edited by Harrison. He wrote it under the pseudonym Hank Dempsey, a fact which confused Times reviewer Tom Hutchinson: “Aldiss, Malzberg, Sheckley…need I say more about this intriguing compilation of way-out examples of SF? Well, yes: to hail an emerging writer called Hank Dempsey whose “The Defensive Bomber” reveals a new and chilling talent.”³³ It is little wonder that the reviewer was confused. When the anthology was published in 1973, Harrison’s most popular stories were the humorous adventure tales of The Stainless Steel Rat. However, anyone with a detailed knowledge of the author would realise that Harrison is capable of writing with a real feeling of anger, as for example, in A Criminal Act (1966), a pro-abortion story of which Harrison has stated, “I was possessed by rage when I wrote this story.”³⁴  Of Mute Milton (1965), a condemnation of ignorant racism in the American south, the author says, “I conceived and wrote this story in a white heat, at one sitting. I do not apologize if it is an angry story.”³⁵

 

   In the Nova series, Harrison used Campbell-like introductions to set the scene for each story. Of The Defensive Bomber, the author states, “When this story was written United States bombers had been bombing Vietnam for years too bitter to count. While this anthology was being edited and published the bombing continued, though still without cause or reason. May it have stopped forever by the time you read these words.”³⁶ The Defensive Bomber is an example of  the, “beginning, middle, end, action-moved, plot-supported, sexless, hardcore science fiction” story mentioned previously. However, there are no SF elements in this story and its coldly written style is appropriate given the subject matter, the violence of Vietnam and its consequences. The story begins with the callous murder of innocent Vietnamese student Iran Tuan Nham. He was due to travel to America on a scholarship but has become an unwilling pawn in the war between America and Vietnamese communism. His place is taken by a North Vietnamese Airforce officer, Lieutenant Tran Hung Dao whose orders, we discover, are to bomb American military establishments. His mission is purely symbolic, of course, since one man cannot wage a war. However, the attacks are intended to shock the American people and remind them of the horrors of terror bombing. After the attack, he is to land at a U.S. military base in his Airforce uniform where he will be arrested as a prisoner of war.

 

   Tran’s contacts are four American students whose code-names are “Spiro” (Agnew), “Dick” (Richard Nixon), “Pat” (Patty Hearst) and “Martin-Luther” (King). They seem to be typical representatives of the counter-culture movement: Spiro is “gaily dressed” with a “ragged moustache,” Dick wears buckskin and a hat decorated with the colours of the American flag and Martin- Luther is black and wears his hair in an `Afro.’ However, Pat is a pretty, blond,  middle-class girl whose home acts as a base for the bombing operation while her parents are out. She is painfully naïve and is shocked to learn of the death of the student whom Tran has replaced. Until then, the plan was distant and remote, a fun game played without consequences. However, now it is real. For example, when Tran asks for a scarf to conceal his uniform, Pat states, “My dad has one…As long as you give it back.”³⁷ Martin-Luther, the most dedicated conspirator,  asks her bitterly “Have you forgotten there’s a war on?”³⁸

 

   Spiro and Tran hire a small plane and fly to an isolated ranch where Dick has prepared home-made bombs. When Tran asks for a volunteer to accompany him, however, Pat, Dick and Spiro offer guilty excuses. Martin-Luther angrily states, “Bunch of cheap honky cop-outs…Been having a good time? Playing at war? Well the war’s come home now and you want no part of it.”³⁹ He then volunteers to join Tran on the bombing raid. They  make two passes over Ream Field, a helicopter training base, where they manage to bomb a row of helicopters and a gasoline truck. However, they are careful not to cause injuries, attacking only military ordinance. Afterwards, they move on to the nearby North Field where they destroy some F-4 fighter bombers, the same type, Tran notes ironically, that have bombed his country.

 

   After the attack, the plane suffers a malfunction and Tran is forced to land at the civilian airport, Lindberg Field. They are surrounded by an angry mob of pilots, mechanics, maintenance staff and passengers. Tran tells Martin-Luther, “We will surrender, just as your pilots do. They bomb our hospitals and schools, three-quarters of my home town, Nam Dinh, has been destroyed. Thousands killed. Yet we only imprison your pilots.”⁴⁰ However, when the hysterical crowd which includes a policeman, tear at the plane’s doors to get at the passengers, Tran screams, “Prisoners of war! I am in uniform. For ten years you have done this to my country. Five billion dollars in bombs a year. Killed, maimed, women, children…”⁴¹ To no avail, however; Tran and Martin-Luther are pulled from the aircraft and brutally beaten to death. Some U.S. Marines arrive but instead of trying to help, they kick at the bloodied bodies of the two men. The mood of the crowd is summed up in the last lines of the story as the narrative concludes, “The crime these two had committed was unforgivable. They goddamn got what they deserved.”⁴²

 

   Like Make Room! Make Room! the author manages to include a lot of information without slowing the pace of the story. For example, when the customs official marks Tran’s case in chalk at immigration control, the inscription is described as a “cabalistic symbol”⁴³ as if this were a land of secrets. Harrison’s choice of words emphasises Tran’s alienation in a hostile country. When Tran and Spiro exchange passwords which are phrases from Karl Marx, Tran annoys Spiro by criticising Marx as a “very long-winded writer.”⁵⁵ While it may be a mistake to read too much into a seemingly innocuous line of dialogue such as this, there may be a deeper reason for this exchange. In criticising Marx and, therefore his brand of communism, Tran, as a representative of the North Vietnamese, may be emphasising that country’s independence and nationalism. This was a point that most American strategists missed at the time. It was proved when the Vietnamese and the communist Chinese went to war against each other soon after the ending of hostilities with the United States. It is not too much of a leap of imagination to consider that the author is deliberately making this point. Otherwise, the exchange between the two characters does not serve to enhance the plot in any way. After years learning the disciplines of writing and editing, Harrison is too experienced and professional to include unnecessary dialogue in a short story.

Besides, as he bluntly states, “Marx was wrong…there is no eternal war between the classes.”⁴⁵

 

   This is a story about violence and its effects. It begins and ends with murder. Harrison makes the point that violence begets violence and organised brutality by the state dehumanises its people. For example, Tran wears a uniform very similar to that of the French Airforce. While establishing a historical background, the author also makes a point about nationalism and governments in general, that they are all the same. It is an argument that Harrison has also made in The Turing Option (1992). An exchange of dialogue between two characters mirrors Harrison’s own attitudes: one states, “Governments don’t commit murder, hire assassins.”  Another replies, “My dear young man-have you been living under a rock? Anyone who has opened a newspaper in the last fifty years would laugh at your naïvete…They are all capable.”⁴⁶ However, the story is also an attack on the American government in particular. For example, in Hell’s Cartographers (1975), Harrison explains his reasons for leaving the U.S. to live in Great Britain:

Part of it…is dissatisfaction with life in a country that could commit the crimes of Vietnam and not be ashamed. Or living under a government headed by the man [Richard Nixon] whom Harry Truman called `a shifty-eyed goddamn liar’, a man who appears to have done his best to destroy the democratic form of government.⁴⁷

 

   In The Defensive Bomber the students are not portrayed as heroes. Dick, for example, is a crook. He had to steal and photocopy a pilot license as part of the plan. He boasts to Tran, “We rolled a guy for it…My department. You might say I worked my way through school  that way."⁴⁸ However, he is not as sharp as he believes himself to be and it is his mistake with the fuses which jeopardises the operation. Spiro is the instigator of the plot but he is no criminal mastermind. He drinks too much and his nerves almost betray him when he has to hire the plane which will be used in the bombing raid. Pat is, unfortunately, one of those cardboard cut-out women that SF writers seem destined constantly to create. She is naïve, easily shocked, and superfluous to the plot. Indeed, her only constructive role is to sew buttons on Tran’s uniform!. However, the author emphasises her physical form, “slim…blond hair…surprisingly large breasts.”⁴⁹ If it were not for these attributes, one feels that if Pat turned sideways the reader would not be able to see her at all.

 

   The most believable and likeable of the American characters is Martin-Luther. He is shown to be brave and resourceful. Unlike Pat, he appreciates the seriousness of their undertaking. His motivation is not treachery towards his country but an earnest desire for peace. For example, he calls himself an American whereas black activists such as the Nation of Islam considered themselves as African and advocated separatist policies. When Tran praises the conspirators as heroes, Martin-Luther states:

I don’t want to be no fuckin’ slope hero…I want to be an American who wants us out of this goddamn war before we tear ourself and the world in two. I want some of the goddamn megabucks we been spending on bombs spent in the black ghettos so my people can get away from the rats and the dirt and have what every honky bastard has, just some kind of decent life.⁵⁰

 

   Tran is a professional military man. He refuses alcohol and, instead, drinks tea. He remains calm when under pressure and is careful not to cause unnecessary civilian casualties in the attack. If he was an American carrying out this sort of operation in enemy territory he would be considered a hero. However, this admirable individual, with a degree in English literature, is as much a product of institutionalised violence as Martin-Luther. His motivation is revenge and he shows no compassion for the dead student he replaced. When the Americans notice that, in uniform, Tran appears different, “as though he were bigger, stronger,”⁵¹ it is because they have been taught to respect the American military. Their Armed Forces played an honourable role in  American history, in  wars against the English, Germans, Japanese and as part of the U.N. force in Korea.  Vietnam would change that perception. However, in the story, the students still have an ingrained respect for the uniform. It is ironic that the Vietnamese military institutions should inspire such respect since the Army of the Republic of North Vietnam and the Vietcong committed at least as many atrocities as the Americans. This was a fact that many American liberals chose to ignore.

 

   Harrison is not a man to mince words, however. He explains why he wrote The Defensive Bomber under a pseudonym: “The atmosphere was such that I couldn’t put my own name on it. It wouldn’t get published,”⁵² and what his overall aim was in writing the story:

I was trying to make the point that it was criminal to go over there and bomb a country. Nixon and Kissinger got the Nobel Prize for Peace. It was American expansionism of the worst kind. Because I’m in Europe I’m always defending America because Europeans are so anti-American. They’ve got good reason to be! So that was my small blow at the war.⁵³

 

 

    SF played an important role in the Cold War in the 1950s. In an era when America is remembered for its spineless acceptance of the  McCarthy witch-hunts, Judith Merrill maintains that, “Science fiction became, for a time, virtually the only vehicle of political dissent.”⁵⁴ The 1960s, in contrast, was a period when criticism of the Cold War became more open and, by the end of the decade, almost fashionable. John W. Campbell was against the war in Vietnam although his discovery Robert Heinlein placed newspaper advertisements in support of American involvement. Harry Harrison’s hatred of violence and the military mind-set is illustrated in the stories mentioned above. When asked about the Vietnam war in particular, he has stated:

Vietnam was one of the biggest sins America ever had…I mean there’s a lot of sinful wars [but] this was absolute nonsense you know. And they gave Henry Kissinger who killed a couple of million Cambodians, a peace prize! A Nobel Peace Prize for bombing a country that wasn’t involved in the war! We were living in Denmark at the time. I went back to the States, the kids were in high school, and I remember the time I saw that …he’d be draft age in about a year, and the war was still on, we’d move back to Denmark…take him out of there. It took America apart… It divided America right down the middle with absolutely no reason at all. There was no intelligent reason for that, not even a bad reason for that war!⁵⁵

Notes

 

¹ Paul A Carter,  The Creation Of Tomorrow: Fifty Years of magazine Science Fiction,  (New York:  Colombia University Press,  1977)  140-41.

 

² Samuel Eliot Morison,  Henry Steele Commager,  William E. Leuchtenburg,  A Concise History of the American Republic  2^nd ed.  (Oxford:  Oxford University Press,  1983)   685.

 

³ Samuel Eliot Morison,  Henry Steele Commager,  William E. Leuchtenburg,  A Concise History of the American Republic  2^nd ed.  (Oxford:  Oxford University Press,  1983)   693.

 

⁴ Patrick Parrinder,   Science Fiction: Its Criticism and Teaching,  (London:  Methuen,  1980)   71.

 

⁵ Brian Aldiss,  Trillion Year Spree,  (London:  Paladin Grafton,  1988)  295.

 

⁶ Isaac Asimov,  introduction,  The John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology,  ed.  Harry Harrison  (London:  Sphere,  1975)  11.

 

⁷ Scott Rosenberg,  rev.  Starship Troopers  12  Jun.  1998. http://www.salon1999.com/ent/movies/1997/11/07starship.html 

 

⁸ Brian Aldiss,  Trillion Year Spree,  (London:  Paladin Grafton,  1988)  333.

 

⁹ Harry Harrison,  “The Beginning of the Affair,”  Hells Cartographers,   eds. Brian W. Aldiss & Harry Harrison,  (London:  Futura,  1976)  84.

 

¹⁰ John Huntington,  “Science Fiction and the Future”  Science Fiction: A Collection Of Critical Essays ed. Mark Rose  (New Jersey:  Prentice-Hall,  1976)  161.

 

¹¹ Rev.  of  The Deathworld Trilogy, in  Locus  15^th  Mar.  1975:  5.

 

¹² Harry Harrison,  “Great Figures of SF--John W. Campbell: reminiscences by a writer/editor who knew him,”  World Science Fiction Convention, Brighton,  28^th  Aug.  1987. 

 

¹³ Harry Harrison,  “The Beginning of the Affair,”  Hells Cartographers,   eds. Brian W. Aldiss & Harry Harrison,  (London:  Futura,  1976)  90-91.

 

¹⁴ Harry Harrison,  “The Beginning of the Affair,”  Hells Cartographers,   eds. Brian W. Aldiss & Harry Harrison,  (London:  Futura,  1976)  88-89.

 

¹⁵ Harry Harrison,  ”Bill, the Galactic Hero,”  Parallel Worlds: The Worlds Of Harry Harrison,  ed.  Paul Tomlinson (number 8,  1995)  19.

 

¹⁶ Harry Harrison,  ”Bill, the Galactic Hero,”  Parallel Worlds: The Worlds Of Harry Harrison,  ed.  Paul Tomlinson (number 8,  1995)  18.

 

¹⁷ Harry Harrison,  ”Bill, the Galactic Hero,”  Parallel Worlds: The Worlds Of Harry Harrison,  ed.  Paul Tomlinson (number 8,  1995)  19.

 

¹⁸ Harry Harrison,  “The Beginning of the Affair,”  Hells Cartographers,   eds. Brian W. Aldiss & Harry Harrison,  (London:  Futura,  1976)  90.

 

¹⁹ Harry Harrison,  Bill, the Galactic Hero,  (London:  VGSF,  1990)  16-17.

 

²⁰ Harry Harrison,  “The Beginning of the Affair,”  Hells Cartographers,   eds. Brian W. Aldiss & Harry Harrison,  (London:  Futura,  1976)  91.

 

²¹ Tom Shippey,  “The Cold War in Science Fiction, 1940-1960,”  Science Fiction: A Critical Guide,  ed.  Patrick Parrinder  (London:  Longman,   1979)  104.

 

²² Harry Harrison,  personal interview,   6^th Jul. 1997

 

²³ Tom Shippey,  introduction,  The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories,  Tom Shippey  ed.  (London:  BCA, 1992)  xxiii.

 

²⁴ Harry Harrison,  In Our Hands, the Stars,  (London:  Arrow,  1986)

216.

 

²⁵ Tom Shippey,  “The Cold War in Science Fiction, 1940-1960,” Science Fiction: A Critical Guide,  ed.  Patrick Parrinder  (London:  Longman,   1979)  103.

 

²⁶ Harry Harrison,  In Our Hands, the Stars,  (London:  Arrow,  1986)

97.

 

²⁷ Harry Harrison,  In Our Hands, the Stars,  (London:  Arrow,  1986)

214-15.

 

²⁸ Harry Harrison,  In Our Hands, the Stars,  (London:  Arrow,  1986)

214-15.

 

 

²⁹ Harry Harrison,  In Our Hands, the Stars,  (London:  Arrow,  1986)

204-05.

 

³⁰ Harry Harrison,  In Our Hands, the Stars,  (London:  Arrow,  1986)

217.

 

³¹ Harry Harrison,  In Our Hands, the Stars,  (London:  Arrow,  1986)

67.

 

³² Harry Harrison,  In Our Hands, the Stars,  (London:  Arrow,  1986)

111.

 

³³ Tom Hutchinson,  rev.  of  Nova 3, by Harry Harrison,  Times,  3^rd Feb.  1977:  8d.

 

³⁴ Harry Harrison,  The Best of Harry Harrison,  (London:  Futura,  1980)  99.

 

³⁵ Harry Harrison,  The Best of Harry Harrison,  (London:  Futura,  1980)  89.

 

³⁶ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  77.

 

³⁷ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  84.

 

³⁸ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  82.

 

³⁹ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  87.

 

⁴⁰ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  91.

 

⁴¹ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  91.

 

⁴² Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  91.

 

⁴³ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  79.

 

⁴⁴ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  79.

 

⁴⁵ Harry Harrison,  afterword,  There Won’t Be War, eds. Harry Harrison, Bruce McAllister  (New York:  Tor, 1991)  304.

 

⁴⁶ Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky,  The Turing Option,  (London:  Viking,  1992)  420-21.

 

⁴⁷ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  94.

 

⁴⁸ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  82.

 

⁴⁹ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  81.

 

⁵⁰ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  84.

 

⁵¹ Harry Harrison,  “The Defensive Bomber,”  Nova 3  ed.  Harry Harrison (London:  Sphere,  1975)  84.

 

⁵² Harry Harrison,  personal interview,   18^th  Sept.  1998.

 

⁵³ Harry Harrison,  personal interview,   18^th  Sept.  1998.

 

⁵⁴ Judith Merril,  “What do you mean: Science? Fiction?”   SF: The Other Side of Realism: Essays on Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction,  ed. Thomas D. Clareson  (Bowling Green,  Ohio:  Bowling Green University Popular Press,  1971)  74.

 

⁵⁵ Harry Harrison,  personal interview,   6^th  Jul.  1997.

 

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Foreword

 

Make Room! Make Room!

 

Why is Soylent Green people?

 

Parallel Worlds

 

Afterword

 

Bibliography

 

Appendix: interviews with the author