Most major cities in the United States were still under the watchful eyes of the National Guard, the Army, and the Marine Corps. So far, over five thousand men and women had been arrested for looting or for breaking curfews, and twenty eight had been shot dead. Food was being sold only from certain major supermarkets, and each customer was being rationed to twenty-five dollars worth of food at the checkout, although there were no strict checks on how many supermarkets any one customer went around to visit, or even how many times he went through the same supermarket’s checkout in one day.

The front-page photograph of the New York Daily News had shown a two-mile line of shoppers waiting outside the A&P on Third Avenue at 51st Street, some of them with camp-stools and even sleeping-bags. The headline read FOOD LINE BLUES.

At seven o’clock, the President appeared on television again to ‘thank the American people for their calm, their dignity, and their brave acceptance of one of the greatest natural disasters of our time.’ He explained that America’s allies were airlifting food which would be stored all around the country, and sold to the population on ration ‘when the time for such extreme measures eventually comes.’ He was giving out no hints yet that the crop blight had been started on purpose – despite what Ed Hardesty had said on Sunday night – and he deflected questions from the press that the approaching famine might have been caused by Soviet sabotage.

Another question he ducked was, ‘Where is Senator Shearson Jones? Have you talked to him yet? Has he answered Mr Ed Hardesty’s allegations that the blight was allowed to spread so that he could line his own pockets? And, come to that, where is Mr Ed Hardesty?’

The President left the lectern, with its Presidential seal and its screen of bulletproof plastic, and waved to the press as he left the room without even turning back to look at them.

George Bannon, of the Washington Post, said, ‘Something tells me we’re being strung along for some reason or other. My nose itches, and when my nose itches, that means trouble.’