Robert A. Heinlein, In Dialogue with His Century, Volume 2

by William H. Patterson, Jr.

  As “Year of the Jackpot” appeared in Galaxy in March 1952, Heinlein took up the manuscript of The Rolling Stones to cut it for Boys’ Life, the only real serial market he could see for it. His concentration was broken almost immediately: Miss Dalgliesh wrote with some “questions”—unpleasantly Freudian—about the “repulsive love habits” of the flat cats. This was more of the amateur psychoanalysis of the Red Planet days. Heinlein immediately and flatly rejected the Freudian interpretation and demonstrated his point by giving a lengthy Freudian reading of one of Miss Dalgliesh’s own juveniles. He was still fuming the next day: “Her letter was rather horrid and I was quite offended.… enough is enough and I do not intend to tolerate any more of this sort of thing.… Amateur psychoanalysis makes me sick!”20

  Miss Dalgliesh wrote back, explaining that she was not herself a Freudian, as he had assumed—“but am aware that the world at the present time is full of pseudo-psychologists who pick up all kinds of things in books for young people … I don’t argue—but I simply try to head them off. Of course I don’t think you write ‘dirty books.’ Neither do I.”21

  That settled his mind somewhat:

  It is an enormous relief to find discover [sic] that you are not one of the “enemy,” but an ally. But I had to get angry enough to cease being diplomatic to find that out. Under any ordinary circumstances I will not argue Freud with a Freudian, astrology with a believer in astrology, ghosts with a spiritualist, theology with a priest or minister, economics with a Marxist. It does no good.…

  … Look, as long as we are on the same team, rather than fighting each other, you won’t find me difficult about changes. Any more you want to make?22

  He was able to send Blassingame the cut magazine version of The Rolling Stones, retitled “The Unheavenly Twins,” on March 17 and move on. Crump bought it on April 10, retitling it “Tramp Space Ship.”

  Life chez Heinlein came to a standstill in April 1952: The National Figure Skating Championships took place in Colorado Springs, and Ginny was on the hosting committee—chief accountant supervising the relays of clerks necessary to compute the judges’ tallies. Robert was on the trophy committee, which meant his part was over before the event began, and he could indulge in spectating. He valued the skating they did, not the least because it threw him “into social contact with dozens of children from two years to twenty several times a week.”23

  Once the Championships were out of the way, they could both relax a little. Ruth Harshaw’s Carnival of Books program on Red Planet aired on April 12, 1952 (with a tag publicizing Between Planets, which was just out). Shortly thereafter, the renowned poet John Ciardi wrote Heinlein in his capacity as editor for the Twayne publishing house, asking for an introduction to a collection of L. Sprague de Camp’s stories, The Glory That Was. Heinlein still felt he owed de Camp something because Shasta had dumped de Camp’s introduction for The Green Hills of Earth. He wrote back that he would be honored to write this preface.24 Ciardi took the opportunity to ask for “any book-length Heinlein ms.”25

  On April 22, Heinlein took Ginny ice-skating and suggested they drop by Lucky’s house on the way home. The door was flung open and everyone Ginny knew in Colorado Springs shouted “surprise.” Robert had put together an “over the hill”–themed surprise party for her thirty-fifth birthday.

  Also and more seriously over-the-hill, Heinlein’s 1939 car, Skylark IV, “now threatens to quit every time we take it out of the garage”26 and would never stand up to a long road trip. They started looking at cars, both new and used.27 April was royalty statement month (though also tax month!), and the influx of cash gave them a little leeway—until nearly all the gadgetry in the house went on the fritz at the same time, including the plumbing, which he discovered had been creatively “revised” from his original design and had to be dug up and reinstalled correctly.28

  In the middle of the work on the house, they found a used 1949 Cadillac, a thing of beauty. “It is a well-nigh perfect piece of machinery,” Heinlein wrote of the car, within the limits of the art of the time—solidly built as only mid-century Caddys were.29 And they were able to purchase Sweet Chariot for cash in hand, without taking out a bank loan: Without warning, Pathé—not United Artists—paid Heinlein 95.23 percent of the “deferments” on the Destination Moon project, $4,285.30 (of which Blassingame’s commission was 10 percent).30 The deferments, being production expenses, were paid out before profits. If Pal got any, he would then pay Heinlein and van Ronkel their 10 percent of his share.

  Heinlein pulled out the abandoned manuscript for the Man from Mars book, but it did not come together for him this time, either, so he put it aside again and wrote the script for the “This I Believe” radio program. He decided to avoid religion entirely and talk about his opinions—philosophy—about what being an American meant to him.31 “My religious beliefs are private to me,” he began,

  … and I suppose that yours may be to you. I am going to talk about more homely matters, matters so simple and obvious that it has almost gone out of fashion to talk about them—trite things, as trite as approving of good roads and good weather, or declaring for the American home and the American flag.

  I believe in my neighbors.32

  The Edward R. Murrow staff were delighted with it—“The simple, direct and personal treatment of your creed is the kind of statement we always hope to get,” the producer’s assistant wrote back to him.33 They instructed him to arrange with KVOR in Denver to make a disk of him reading it for later broadcast.

  In June, the Popular Mechanics article on the house appeared, and Arthur C. Clarke announced his arrival in New York on a promotion tour. Heinlein had been corresponding with Clarke since January 1947 through the British Interplanetary Society, of which Clarke was an officer (Clarke had also begun selling science fiction to Astounding in 1946). When Clarke’s new book, The Exploration of Space, sold to the book-of-the-month club, Heinlein arranged for G. Harry Stine to give Clarke a tour of the White Sands missile proving ground while Clarke was in New Mexico on his way to Los Angeles. He invited Clarke to stay with them in Colorado Springs on the way back.

  While Clarke was with the Stines—and Clyde Tombaugh—early in June, and then on to Los Angeles, Heinlein tried again to work on The Man from Mars, but put it aside again. Clarke arrived in Colorado Springs on schedule, on June 25, for an extended visit.

  Ginny had thought, since food rationing was still so tight in Britain, that Clarke would appreciate some delicacies, but found that Clarke was not much interested in food.34 He and Robert talked incessantly, even as they went sightseeing, climbing Pike’s Peak on its funicular railway (Ginny stayed behind, as she had trouble breathing at that height),35 and, on another occasion, being lowered in a bucket into a Colorado gold mine. Clarke recalled the trip for his authorized biography:

  “We spoke about everything under the sun,” recalls Clarke, “but especially the film Destination Moon … We both felt very strongly about the production … Bob and I were both crazy about it” … It was, according to Clarke, a “wonderful visit,” that transformed a growing friendship into a close one.

  Clarke remembers Heinlein as “very protean. Heinlein was everything—like Walt Whitman.”36

  Shortly after Clarke left to continue his book tour, Heinlein heard from Bill Corson that their rocketry friend Jack Parsons had died in an explosion on June 17, 1952. L. Sprague de Camp forwarded a newspaper clipping that assumed it was murder:

  … somebody set off a bomb underneath him apparently, though the article was almost entirely devoted to his “weird sex cult” as they express it and gave no details about the actual demise, e.g., where it took place. Parsons’ mother committed suicide a few hours after Jack’s death. No mention of any widow, though when I got a letter from Jack a few months ago he said something about being back with “the witch” whoever that may have been. Thought you’d like to know.37

  Ave atque vale.

  Describing the summer’s accumulation of interruptions
, Heinlein wrote to Blassingame,

  Yes, I am still having trouble with that novel [Stranger]. Trouble is all I am having—trouble with the story itself and trouble with my surroundings. I have lost almost a month to houseguests, Arthur C. Clarke followed by the [George and Doña] Smiths—and now we are about to spend a week in Yellowstone and Sun Valley, leaving tomorrow. I could cancel this trip but there are reasons why it is desirable not to cancel it. Furthermore I hope that a few days away from that constantly ringing phone will help me to straighten out this novel in my mind. (Sometimes I think that everyone in the country passes through Colorado Springs in the summer!)38

  Heinlein planned out a circle-tour itinerary that would take him and Ginny to a number of the National Parks in the region, and they packed up for an extended trip, leaving on July 17 for Jackson Hole and on in a few days to Grand Teton National Park, and to Yellowstone for the bears and the geysers. Then on to Sun Valley for outdoor ice-skating—in July!—and Salt Lake City for the “Days of ’47” festivities commemorating the founding of the city, and on to Zion National Park.

  From Zion, they went south to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Overlooking the canyon, they turned on Sweet Chariot’s radio and listened to the Republican National Convention nominate Dwight D. Eisenhower for president. They stayed for a few days in a log cabin and took a mule ride down the Bright Angel Trail to the bottom of the Canyon.

  They then turned east again, stopping by Bryce Canyon. They motored on to Aspen, and then home to Colorado Springs—“to find a bushel of mail and a constantly ringing phone. I don’t know why we ever came back.”39 This trip had been a much-needed tonic for the stress of the last couple of years—and Ginny gave every early sign of having “caught” on this trip and might be pregnant. It was too early to ask the rabbit.40

  Blassingame expressed interest in paying them a visit that coming winter—a hunting trip possibly, since they had elk there in Colorado. Blassingame had developed into a very good long-distance friend, though they had met only briefly on a trip to New York in 1948.

  Also among the piles of accumulated correspondence were two irritating and presumptuous letters from Forry Ackerman, peeved that Heinlein refused to join the Science Fiction Writers of America41 (an organization Heinlein had never heard of until this mention), chiding him for—wholly imaginary—incidents of spite toward fans, toward himself, and toward Ray Bradbury, and for costing him—and himself!—a cash customer by the “rude” way he had treated a fan Ackerman had sent for an unannounced and unwelcomed visit. “Antagonism breeds antagonism,” Ackerman wrote sententiously,

  and old tales about Heinlein are dragged out for counteraction … but I can only gulp and go inarticulate at the mystery of Heinlein the man, Heinlein the mystery, Heinlein the enigma, Heinlein the fan-hater, Heinlein the recluse.…

  Are you a happy man, Bob Heinlein? You are in no way beholden to me to answer that question. But the recent conjecture that has reached my ears is that you aren’t, couldn’t be with all the venom you pour forth and irritation that radiates from you.42

  Heinlein wrote back, summing up his dissatisfaction with Ackerman’s criticisms, and his curious version of “friendship.”

  This “Heinlein the recluse” talk is rather silly. It is high time you stopped it.… It is none of your dam[ned] business whether I go to such things or not. You have been going on tediously for years on the subject and it is time you shut up.…43

  Patiently he covered each of Ackerman’s points in detail—and he told Ackerman bluntly it was a case of rank impertinence for Ackerman to set himself up as judge of Robert’s and Ginny’s social correctness.

  Heinlein was beginning to realize it was not so much he had a “problem” with fans as that he had problems with one, very specific fan:

  Ever since the war my relations with you have been one long series of demands, alternated with criticisms and sarcasm. I repeat, I will not buy your friendship. If it is true friendship, freely given, I will be most happy to have it. But I shall make no further effort to live my life to fit your ideal concept of what I ought to be (a tail on Forry’s kite, apparently!) and I shall put up with no more of your diatribes …44

  At this point, nothing but an apology from Ackerman would do. And there the matter stood.

  One day in mid-August, a man named Jack Seaman telephoned saying he was in Denver and wanted to come down to Colorado Springs for a visit about a television series he was putting together. Robert listened politely as Seaman explained that Forry Ackerman had put him in touch with Ned Brown at MCA45—and, indeed, in the mail shortly afterward was a letter from a Malcolm Stuart at MCA about Seaman: He was a former stuntman, now turning producer, and he had a half-hour science-fiction anthology series already financed, to be called The World Beyond. Seaman wanted to buy as many as thirteen new stories from Heinlein—plus TV rights to stories Heinlein had already written.46

  Seaman turned out to be an engaging fellow, reasonably knowledgeable about science fiction, with workable story ideas of his own and enough story sense to know what was doable—and his project was not speculative: It was already funded.47 Seaman had in mind a collaboration, developing the thirteen original stories together (at $400 per story, split two ways), and then the producing company, Clarinda Pictures, would have an option for them to write screenplays from the developed stories (at $500 each, again, split two ways).48 If Clarinda purchased any of Heinlein’s older stories, Robert would get the story payment, but they would split the script collaboration. Seaman’s proposal was “adequate without being financially exciting,” Heinlein remarked:49 He would not net as much as the same effort put into a new book for Scribner. But he agreed. Seaman could come back in two weeks to work on the first thirteen stories.

  Seaman went back to Hollywood to work out the contract, and Heinlein concentrated on clearing his desk. The article for the School Library Association of California was a chore: “This sort of writing I find difficult, as I am not a literary critic and it makes me rather self-conscious to write about my writing. Telling stories is easier.”50 Dalgliesh liked “Ray Guns and Rocket Ships” so well that she asked if she could submit it to Library Journal on his behalf (although they cut nearly eighteen hundred words out of the version they eventually published).51

  Before the winter visitors started arriving, Heinlein had time to write the short story he had promised American Legion Magazine, but he didn’t have an idea, so he turned to Ginny, his personal font of all ideas. She remembered when she was a child—in 1925—reading newspaper stories about a dogsled race to Nome, Alaska, rushing medical supplies to relieve a plague. Ham radio operators all over Alaska had followed the incident and relayed the reports nationally.52 Robert rethought the incident in science-fictional terms and centered the story around the crushing acceleration a relief pilot would have to endure for days at a time on an interplanetary serum run. It would disable him for life. He completed “Sky Lift” on September 4, 1952.

  The deal with Seaman and Clarinda Pictures turned out more complicated than he and Seaman had discussed, and the contract negotiations dragged out. The head of the company, Sam Norton, wanted to decrease the option and writing money. The deal had started out marginal for Heinlein in the first place, and that reduction would drive it into the category of not-worth-wasting-time-on.53 But Seaman continued negotiating with Norton as the month Robert set aside for the project dwindled away.

  Robert and Ginny decided to take up an invitation from G. Harry Stine to go to White Sands for the public launching of the last of the V-2 rockets. The American Army had captured parts for about a hundred V-2s in the Harz Mountain manufactories, and there was now only one left—a “hangar queen” that was never supposed to have flown. The Heinleins flew to Las Cruces, New Mexico, the day before the launch and rented a car. They had been able to get a reservation at the El Amador, a converted coach house so old that the wooden floors had waves worn into them where so many had walked. Heinlein spoke before the Rocket Societ
y there, and they had an early dinner with Jack Williamson.

  After an additional day’s delay (someone had forgotten to order the liquid oxygen part of the fuel) they found themselves with Jack Williamson, Harry Stine, and Clyde Tombaugh close to an otherwise unidentified site named “Station Easy.”54 The rocket lifted breath-stoppingly slowly, majestically, and picked up speed, gaining altitude until it was directly overhead and seemed to—hesitate. Ginny, whose eyesight was still very sharp, said “there is something wrong with that rocket,”55 but the men assured her she was imagining things. Ten miles up, it seemed to be shooting off its carbon vanes—

  And the sky was suddenly full of debris, and the V-2 seemed to be falling back on them. There was no place to run: The falling debris was everywhere.

  The rocket crashed half a mile away, taking out a telephone pole near the Navy blockhouse, and the fuel, ten tons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen peroxide, exploded. “And there was the most beautiful—well, it looked like a nuclear explosion at first,” Ginny Heinlein recalled. “Great big flame … silvery … around the edges.”56 Stine later speculated that the hydrogen peroxide sitting overnight in the tanks, waiting on the forgotten LOX, might have corroded the tanks.57

  The delays with the Seaman project continued, and Heinlein continued to work on other things: He wrote a short review of a new space book, Across the Space Frontier by Cornelius Ryan, titled “The Ever-Widening Horizons,” for the Colorado Springs Sunday Free Press, that appeared on September 28. On September 30, the people at Rockhill Radio informed Blassingame that Kellogg’s was dropping Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, and the weekly checks would therefore stop.58 Rockhill would continue to look for a new sponsor. The royalties would be missed, but his print publication was going strong—Boys’ Life began “Tramp Space Ship,” his three-part adaptation of The Rolling Stones, in October.