ell them, the duffers and
dunderheads? We could have been halfway across Asia by now; instead we
waited and hemmed and hawed till the enemy, from the sheer weight of our
inertia, was forced to attack. The whole crew should be courtmartialed
and made to study the campaigns of Generals Shafter and Wheeler as
punishment." General Thario's always precise handwriting wavered and
trembled with the violence of his disgust.

An impalpable war, pregnant with annihilating scientific devices and
other unseen bogies was one thing; actual invasion of the sacred soil
over which Old Glory flew, and by presumptuous foreigners who couldnt
even speak English, was quite another. At once the will of the nation
stiffened and for the first time something approaching enthusiasm was
manifest. Cartoonists, moved by a common impulse, unanimously drew
pictures of Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves and preparing to give the
pesky interlopers a good trouncing before hurling them back into the
Pacific.

Unfortunately the presence of the grass prevented quick eviction of the
unwelcome visitors. Only a small portion of the armed forces was based
on the Pacific coast, because of the logistical problems presented by
inadequacies of supply and transportation. Of these only a fraction
could be sent to the threatened places for fear dispersions of the main
body would prove disastrous if the landings were feints. Thus the enemy
came ashore practically unopposed at his original landingpoints and
secured small additional beachheads at Gorda, Lucia, Morro Bay and
Carmel.

East of the grass there were whole armies who had completed basic
training, fit and supple. The obvious answer to the invasion was to load
them on transports and ship them to the theater of operations.
Unfortunately the agreement not to use heavierthanaircraft was an
insuperable bar to this action.

That the pact had never been designed to prevent nations from defending
their soil against an invader was certain; thousands of voices urged
that we keep the spirit of the treaty and disregard the letter. No one
could expect us to sit idly by and let our homeland be invaded because
of overfinicky interpretation of a diplomatic document.

But in spite of this clear logic, the American people were swept by a
wave of timidity. "If we use airplanes," they argued, "so will the
Russians; airplanes mean bombs; bombs mean atombombs. Better to let the
Russians hold what advantage their invasion has giv