With instructions from the President to use the utmost diplomatic discretion, the Secretary of State began to put out feelers in Japan, in China, in Soviet Russia, in Iran, in Germany, and in Britain. Without revealing the seriousness of the isotope crisis, he was supposed to vibrate the web of international diplomacy, and see if he could detect in which corner the spider was sitting.

By noon on Tuesday, the President and his cabinet were faced with the question of what to do about the billions of bushels of highly radioactive grain still stored in elevators all around the country – grain which was still being happily used to bake bread, brew beer, feed animals, fill out hamburgers, and to make anything and everything from children’s cereals to bourbon whisky.

Five nuclear experts were brought to the White House just after lunch as special advisers, but as Tuesday afternoon wore on, they were unable to agree amongst themselves how dangerous the radioactivity in the grain and the flour was actually going to be. Certainly, the levels were way above those which the FDA would normally consider acceptable, but these weren’t normal times. Almost all of this year’s crops were dying of blight, and now it looked as if the stockpiles from last year were going to be contaminated beyond use.

Dr K. E. Salkeld of Minneapolis stood before the President – a tall, ascetic man with a reputation for facing up to the bitterest scientific facts – and took off his spectacles in a gesture of defeat. ‘Mr President,’ he said, ‘this radioactivity is of sufficient strength to have the same effect as a nuclear bomb, without an explosion. Our children will eat it in their diets, our adults will drink it in their beer, and it will work its evil way into the very bones of our population. Many millions will almost certainly die in terrible agony. Those who are left will face pain, loneliness, and the horror of living in a society where a very high percentage of the population is outrageously deformed.’

What worried the President more than anything else, however, was the immediate prospect of another night like Sunday, with more rioting and burning. It was quite possible that millions of Americans might be affected by radioactive poisoning if he were to keep the crisis quiet for a few more days, until he had worked out some kind of contingency plan. But the effects of the cobalt-60, although threatening, were still largely hypothetical, whereas it was almost inevitable that thousands of people would die tonight if he were to announce at once that there was a total ban on bread, cereal, cake, cookies, beer, spirits, and pastries – and if Dr Salkeld was right, meat as well, since so many American animals were fed on grain. The Cabinet had already left most of their turkey sandwiches untouched, and at six o’clock the President had turned down the offer of a steak.