THAT EVENING

I watch a TV special called The Day After, dramatizing the medical and ecological fallout of even a limited nuclear exchange. I feel sick just watching it. Afterward, Robert MacNamara, Carl Sagan, Elie Wiesel, and William F. Buckley debate. Buckley tries to gloss over the risk with slick talk that I find infuriating. How much suffering does it take to affect him?

THAT NIGHT

William F. Buckley, swollen into a nearly immobile lump of a man. I know it's not food that did it, but ego. He still insists H-bombs aren't a problem. But behind him, his own pet bomb has grown big as a blimp. It won't fit in the house any more; he must live in a hangar with it.

It's on a sort of leash still--we wouldn't want the bomb unleashed, now would we? But he tied the leash to the TRIGGER! A hard enough tug and it'll detonate.

I ask him how much tension that leash can take, and first he misunderstands and says "Oh, it's the toughest cord on the market!"

I snap "You idiot, how much before the bomb detonates!"

He says airily "Oh, quite a lot. You can hang from it..." He TESTED it? With HIS FULL WEIGHT? I suppose I should be grateful that even bloated Buckley can't set off the bomb on his own... since he's willing to try, out of curiosity.

But how many more Buckleys would it take? They're out there. You can always find more Buckleys.

Clever, articulate idiots who just don't care.

Or worse yet, don't even realize.

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