Acting alone, the Vice-President sent desperate appeals for canned, dried, and frozen foods to the EEC nations, to Japan, China, and even to the USSR. The first response, even from our allies, was guarded. If the United States was really on the verge of economic and social collapse, then it was almost inevitable that the future of world politics would be heavily centred on the Soviet Union, and few nations were keen to mortgage their future by helping the United States too enthusiastically.

The Soviet Union ‘regretted the crisis in the United States of America, but unfortunately had no surplus foodstuffs to spare.’ The Vice-President ripped up their telegram, but conceded that at least they had shown the good grace not to mention the Afghanistan grain embargo.

At seven o’clock on Thursday morning, the Vice-President announced on television that the sale of all canned foodstuffs was banned, although he was humane enough to suggest that ‘those who have no other food whatsoever’, and who were obliged to eat canned foods, should ‘exhaustively inspect the exterior of any can for pinholes, possibly concealed by wax.’ Over seventy-six new cases of botulism had been reported during the night, all of them fatal.

For the first time in its history, Time magazine was published that week with a black border around its cover, instead of its traditional red. It was probably appropriate, because it was the last-ever edition. Its cover story: Famine, USA.

Federal experts now estimated that even the best-stocked American homes had only sufficient usable foodstuffs to carry their families through three more weeks. Most poorer urban families, however, were down to their last few cans – and now cans were under suspicion, too, they virtually had no food to eat at all.

Heavily-guarded food distribution centres were set up in the major cities, giving out packages that had been flown into New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle, and Chicago from Britain and Denmark. American families who just two weeks ago had been eating steak, sweet potatoes, corn, fresh fruit, and any variety of ice-cream they wanted, now found themselves reduced to dried eggs, British chocolate, malt extract, margarine, and small cans of Danish processed pork. In Houston, three men were shot by National Guardsmen when they tried to break into the food distribution centre on Harrisburg Boulevard with machine-guns.

Time said, ‘This week, Americans are feeling their first real pangs of hunger. After only two weeks of blight and catastrophe, they are actually beginning to understand what it means to go without.’

During the three hours that followed the Vice-President’s announcement of a ban on canned foods, there were more than 17,000 suicides or attempted suicides throughout the United States. The Harvard psychologist Dr Leo Wolpers called it ‘the Total Despair syndrome.’ He said: ‘People have lost their confidence in tomorrow.’