'If either side launched a surprise attack I should have thought it much more likely to be the Russians. We know that the old religion is making use of Communism, because it aims to destroy the Governments and false religions of the West. Isn't it quite a possibility that the Brothers of the Ram in Moscow might influence the men in the Kremlin into going to war with the idea of putting an end to the Christian heresy for good?'

He smiled at her. 'You've got it all wrong, honey. There's Communism and Communism. The sort that's outside the Iron Curtain is the genuine old Marxist goods, and useful to us. But not the Soviet brand. The boys in the Kremlin threw true Communism down the drain years ago. Take a look at what's been happening there. No more free love but a big build-up for family life. Go to church if you want to. Cut down the drink, or else. A new bourgeois society with all the old taboos. The guys at the top aren't going to risk the good time they're having for the sake of going crusading in Europe. They're reckoning on getting the whole works without. I've told you how, honey. Giving the impression that the Cold War is over and they really want to be friends, taking over wherever we stop paying out, industrial sabotage and using sweated labour to undersell us. I'm telling you, unless Uncle Sam blots Russia first it'll be the only country worth living in ten years hence.'

'We are always told here that the American people are scared stiff at the idea of an atomic war. And so are we for that matter. Anyhow, it would end in the whole world going up in flames; so however bad unemployment in the States becomes, I can't see them urging their Government to let them commit suicide.'

'They wouldn't do that. Not consciously. The danger is things could get so bad there'd be a threat of revolution. Rather than face that the Government might plunk for taking the big gamble. All I'm telling you is that economics might push the U.S. into pulling the trigger, whereas the Soviets are getting more prosperous all the time. They're as scared of starting anything as we are, and they've more to lose. They've only to go on playing it the way they are to get Europe's cities, ports and industries as going concerns. They'd be plumb crazy to reduce them to heaps of ruins.'

'Then why is it that all these conferences about doing away with nuclear weapons have never got further than nibbling at the problem of preventing an atomic war? If what you say is right surely the Russians should be only too anxious for both sides to scrap everything, then they would have a free field to go on with their peaceful penetration without any risk of the United States suddenly banging off at them?'