That disarmament was agreed
to by all nations was a matter of days only from the parallel but
unilateral decisions of both Russia and the United States, that
disarmament must be accomplished while there was yet time.

Under the political pressures backed by the human horror of all
nations, the nuclear disarmament act of the U.N. had given to the U.N.
the power of inspection of any country or any manufacturing complex
anywhere in the world; inspection privileges that overrode national
boundaries and considerations of national integrity, and a police
force to back this up--a police force comprised of men from every
nation, the U.N. Security Corps.

The United Nations, from a weak but hopeful beginning, had now stepped
forth in its own right as an effective world government. There was no
political unity at a lower echelon amongst the states or
sub-governments of the world. To each its own problems. To each its
own ideologies. To each, help according to its needs from the various
bureaus of the U.N. And from each the necessary taxes for the support
of the world organization.

In Russia the ideology of Marx-Lenin was still present. And in other
countries other ideologies were freely supported. But the world could
no longer afford an outright conflict of ideologies, and U.N. Security
was charged not only with the seeking out and destruction of possible
hoards of atomic weapons, but also with the seeking out and muzzling
of those who expressed an ideology at all costs, even the cost of the
final suicide of war, to their neighbors.

No hard and fast rules could be drawn to distinguish between a casual
remark made in another country as to one's preference for one's own
country, and an active subversion design to subvert another country to
one's own ideology. But nevertheless, the activity of subversion had
become an illegal act under the meaning of "security." And individual
governments had recalled agents from their neighboring countries--not
only agents, but simple tourists as well. For the stigma of having an
agent arrested in another country and brought to trial at the U.N. was
a stigma that no government felt it could afford.

Over the world settled a pall. The one place outside of one's own
country, where one's ideology could be spoken of with impunity, was
within the halls of the U.N. Assembly itself, under the aegis of
diplomatic immunity. Here the ideologies could rant and rave against
each other, seeking a rende