e task assigned me--to investigate the rise
and power of The Leader. I find it hard to concentrate. My mind goes
back to your laboratory. I am deeply shaken by my experience there. I
had thought nothing could be more bewildering than my own work.
Consider: Today I received a letter in which a man tells me amazedly of
the life he led in a slave-labor camp during the time of The Leader's
rule. He describes the attempt of another prisoner to organize a revolt
of the prisoners. While he spoke of the brutality of the guards and the
intolerably hard labor and the deliberately insufficient food, they
cheered him. But when he accused The Leader of having ordered these
things--the prisoners fell upon him with cries of fury. They killed him.
I had this information verified. It was true.

I cannot hope for a sane explanation of such things. But a sane
explanation for my experience seems even less probable. I am impressed
by your rat who levitates crumbs of cheese. But I am appalled; I am
horrified; I am stupefied by what I did! You asked me to wait for you in
a certain laboratory beyond a door. I entered. I saw a small, fat, mangy
she-dog in a dog-run. She looked at me and wagged her tail. I thereupon
went to the other end of the laboratory, opened a box, and took out a
handful of strange objects you later told me are sweetmeats to a dog. I
gave them to the animal.

Why did I do it? How was it that I went directly to a box of which I
knew nothing, opened it as a matter of course, and took out objects I
did not even recognize, to give them to that unpleasant small beast? How
did I know where to go? Why did I go? Why should I give those
then-meaningless objects to the dog? It is as if I were enchanted!

You say that it is a psi phenomenon. The rat causes small objects to
move. The dog, you say, causes persons to give it canine candy. I revolt
against the conclusion, which I cannot reason away. If you are right, we
are at the mercy of our domestic animals! Dog-lovers are not people who
love dogs, but people who are enslaved by dogs. Cat-lovers are merely
people who have been seized upon by cats to support and pet and cater
to them. This is intolerable! I shall fear all pets from now on! I throw
myself back into my own work to avoid thinking of it. I--

* * *

Later. I did not mail this letter because an appalling idea occurred to
me. This could bear upon my investigation! Do you think The Leader--No!
It could