Fail Safe

Defense Secretary Swenson: General Stark, are there any papers or documents in New York which are absolutely essential to the running of the United States? General Stark?

Gen. Stark: No sir. There are important documents, but none of them absolutely essential.

Admiral Wilcox: Will there be any warning given? A lot of lives could be saved if people had a few minutes.

Defense Secretary Swenson: On this short notice, an alert to a big city would do more harm than good. It only produces panic.

Admiral Wilcox: What about this?

[Wilcox tosses a newspaper onto the table, showing the First Lady in NYC, prominently featured on the main page. Swenson sees it, then gives the paper to General Stark]

Gen. Stark: Maybe... maybe he doesn't know his wife is there.

Defense Secretary Swenson: [shaking his head] He knows.

[Groeteschele finishes writing something onto some paper]

Prof. Groeteschele: Gentlemen, we are wasting time.

Prof. Groeteschele: [walking to the podium] I've been making a few rough calculations based on the effect of two twenty megaton bombs dropped on New York City in the middle of a normal workday. I estimate the immediate dead at about three million. I include in that figure those buried beneath the collapsed buildings. It would make no difference, Admiral Wilcox, whether they reached a shelter or not. They would die just the same. Add another million or two who will die within about five weeks. Now our immediate problem will be the joint one of fire control and excavation. Excavation not of the dead, the effort would be wasted there. But even though there are no irreplaceable government documents in the city, many of our largest corporations keep their records there. It will be necessary to... rescue as many of those records as we can. Our economy depends on this.

Prof. Groeteschele: [walking disgustedly back to his seat before noisily opening and closing his briefcase] Our economy depends on this.

[after closing briefcase]

Prof. Groeteschele: And the Lord said, gentlemen, "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone."