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

by William H. Patterson, Jr.

  I would never be asked to write that article … [sic] and Dr. Conley is not expected to do what I do. I am expected to entertain while informing and do both equally well. I am most emphatically expected to be scientifically accurate, but I am neither expected to be as detailed in treatment nor am I allowed as many words.…

  But … probably 90% of my readers range from 16 to 45, prime candidates to become repeat blood donors … I have no way of guessing how many future donors it will be the first incitement toward eventually becoming donors. Possibly none. But if (as I hope) it stirs out even a few hundred, my work will not have been wasted.3

  Ginny pointed out he could have written another book—or two—in the time he was devoting to these projects, and it/they would certainly have brought in more cash—but what would be the point of that? Considering their tax situation already, the entire proceeds would have gone to the federal government and the California Franchise Tax Board.

  Heinlein finished the draft of the Dirac article at four thousand words and cut it to twenty-nine hundred words for submission on July 30, 1974—two days before his August 1 deadline—and sent it off.4 In fact, he was not yet done with the article, as he had to find and specify illustrations before 1 October.

  Mr. Pope called it a “good article,”

  So I phoned him and told him it was like hell a good article as it had been cut from 4000+ words and all the juice and color squeezed out. He thought a moment and said, “I’ve already vouchered this for payment through your agent … [sic] but do you want to make it longer?”

  “I certainly do.”5

  He was given complete control over the copy and illustrations—the kind of freedom a writer is rarely given.

  There was time even for a complete rewrite—which might be necessary, since he had discovered that Dr. Dirac was still alive and still working, in Florida at the moment. That was something like finding that Santa Claus was visiting your uncle or Albert Einstein had moved in next door. With this untapped resource, it would be a shame to let all the effort go to waste: He arranged for a telephone interview with Dr. Dirac—not a simple proposition, as Dirac despised telephones and would not use them at all.

  Heinlein would chat with Mrs. Dirac, and she would take questions to Dr. Dirac—often outside in the garden—while Heinlein waited on the phone (Dirac wasn’t uncooperative, just eccentric). Heinlein sent him two copies of the draft asking him to feel free to strike anything in error, anything he might regard as too personal. “Or objectionable for any reason whatever.”6 Knowing what a bane fan letters were to his existence as a writer, he carefully included a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

  For the re-expansion of the Dirac article, Heinlein polished his original draft, but still this called for a full-out effort, can-to-can’t, finishing up on the 14th of August, and then he slept for twenty hours straight. Dirac’s daughter, Mary Collevaine, sent him a photograph of her father to be used in the article. A month after the first interview, he had a second telephone interview when Dirac was back at his permanent posting in Boulder, Colorado—and was flattered and flabbergasted when Dirac sent him a message through his wife that he was reading and enjoying Starship Troopers.

  Mr. Pope had the article reviewed by one of EB’s knowledgeable production editors, as well, Charles Cegielski, who questioned some of Heinlein’s interpretations. This correspondence was very satisfying, since most of Cegielski’s questions related to the assumptions underlying his interpretations, and he was forced to articulate just what he meant by some of the statements, to strike the exact nuance of belief and practice he lived by:

  The universe is what it is … [sic] but the returns from the upstate counties are not in; we don’t know what it is in most of its major aspects … One must use assumptions in order to live, and I assume that the universe of my perceptions is real and behave accordingly, paying taxes, driving carefully, etc.—but I do not forget that it is an assumption, and this permits me to toy with solipsist notions in private … [sic] or sometimes on paper as fiction for profit.7

  Other work was stacking up at the same time. Ginny handled an inquiry from Baird Searles, who was doing, of all things, a Cliffs Notes pony on Stranger. Heinlein wrote to Philip K. Dick, who was in the hospital, having lost (temporarily) the use of one arm as a result of surgery. A get-well card would not do, so, as soon as the deadlines were met, he sent a long, chatty letter, talking shop and assuring him the injury need not seriously interrupt his writing and suggested an electric typewriter to cut down the sheer physical drudgery of writing.8 Since freelance writers rarely have good medical insurance, he knew Phil and Tessa Dick would probably be broke, or next to it, so he bought and had delivered to them a good electric typewriter.9

  There was another letter only he could handle: A naval officer, Commander Thomas B. Buell, had sent him an elaborate questionnaire about his time with then-Captain Ernest J. King. Buell was preparing a new biography of Fleet Admiral King for the Naval Institute Press and was routinely contacting all officers who had served with King.

  Robert counted his time with King on board Lexington (CV-2) from 1930–32 as one of the formative experiences of his life. The things he noticed about King, and thought about then and in the years since, had created him as a person, as much as family and as much as any reading he had done. Master shiphandler, airplane pilot, submariner, and engineer-inventor, rigidly just and tempered with compassion, his intellectual processes sure and correct, King was Robert’s idea (barring some nonsensical intra-service infighting after the war) of a perfect human being—not a model to be copied as to detail, but as an exemplar, to show how a self-aware human being can order the materials of his profession and his life. Heinlein wanted Buell to get it right, in a way that the recitation of biographical facts just cannot convey. He sat down at his typewriter with the questionnaire on October 3, 1974, and brought all his narrative skills into play to make King live for Buell.

  Ernest J. King was a man toward whom no one who knew him felt indifferent. He aroused either extreme dislike (often mixed with very grudging admiration)—or he inspired liking so extreme that his admirers tended (figuratively) to worship the deck he trod.

  I was of the latter group, so please take into account my bias.…

  I consider E.J. King to have been the most nearly perfect military officer I have ever known.10

  And so on, forty-seven pages that day, then continuing on for a total of fifty-nine pages of reminiscences, speculation, polemical argument, and analysis—and then four more pages of officers who knew King well enough to humanize him for Buell, urging Buell to use Robert’s name and the depth and intensity of his response to open up the personal memories of naval officers who might otherwise answer lukewarm.11

  Heinlein found himself adopting this project as a personal enthusiasm, much as he had done the year before with The Mote in God’s Eye. That correspondence was a cathartic act of confession for Robert, and he probably released in that letter the impulse to write a memoir, which he had been kicking around for a few years.

  Shortly after Thanksgiving, Richard Pope sent galleys for the Dirac article, together with a set of layouts for correction and critique.

  With that task at last out of the way, Robert and Ginny could go off on vacation—a working vacation, as Robert was already deep into the research on the blood science article. They booked passage again on Mariposa, back to Hawaii for an eighteen-day cruise beginning December 14 and returning to San Francisco on New Year’s Day. They managed this time to catch the ship in San Francisco, loaded down with books and magazines.

  The increasing complexity of their literary business demanded increasing vigilance. Their annual receipts continued steadily to grow, for the ninth year in a row—$158,745 for 1974—but just in time to meet increasing expenses. Bam’s upkeep in the convalescent facility was costing one thousand dollars a month out of pocket, and by May 1975 it was clear that she would probably be there for the rest of her life. It was something they could
afford, and no one else in the family was able to support Bam this way. The market for Heinlein’s writing was strong now—but they had seen ups and downs in the market for science fiction before. Continued writing was the only way Heinlein could assure their financial situation would not collapse.

  They were getting another useful tax deduction this year that would help: They had taken a 5 percent cash investment in the Red Pine Mine in Montana, through their old friend from Colorado Springs Rowan Thomas, and had increased their investment to 7 percent in the meantime. The investment was intended to be risk-capital with a tax deduction attached, and Thomas told them they could take a whopping $17,500 deduction for 1974 taxes. Between the increase in medical expenses and the venture capital deduction, they were just about covering the increase in taxes.

  Heinlein was starting a project that would soak up a lot of that increased income. Perhaps it was sparked by a request they found in the mail from a daughter-of-a-friend in the publishing business for a letter to be published in a Candian high schoolers’ civics magazine, Canada and the World. He wrote a 750-word letter/article to be published in their April issue: “A U.S. Citizen Thinks About Canada.” The timing for this was particularly good: Robert had noticed that the vast majority of his research and reference materials on blood science were coming from Canada and England, and not the United States. Perhaps this was at least partly a reflection of the fact that Denis Paradis, from Montreal, was one of his primary sources of information, but he discovered that Canada and England—and all the Commonwealth countries, so far as he could tell—had much more efficient and better-organized blood collection services than did the United States. There were individuals with heroic dedication here, and he found the willingness to give of time and attention astonishing, but as he researched and wrote the rare blood article for the Compton Yearbook, 90 percent of the information he was using, and 75 percent of the support, was coming from Canada.12

  That situation changed a little when they went to New York in April 1975. The Science Fiction Writers of America were honoring him with the SFWA’s first Grand Master Nebula Award. Heinlein had quietly supported the SFWA during the lean years when it was in formation, actually paying the organization’s bills with cash donations out of pocket, keeping it afloat until it should become self-supporting from member dues. Possibly no one but Joan Hunter Holly, the then-treasurer, knew about that, and that was just the way Heinlein wanted it.13 He had let his membership lapse when Alexei Panshin became head of publications14—and would not, as a matter of stubborn pride, re-up while Time Enough for Love was still eligible for the Nebula. “I don’t want any possible hint that I am arse-kissing,” he told Philip José Farmer.15 But now that was over, he quietly rejoined.

  Jerry Pournelle was president of the SFWA in 1975. He had been outraged at the attitudes among some SFWAns about Time Enough for Love when it was up for Nebula consideration in 1974. Not only was the book outstandingly deserving of a Nebula (pace Clarke), but it was the organization’s first, and possibly only, opportunity to honor one of the field’s most influential writers, a generous and supportive colleague.

  Pournelle found a way to rectify the manifest injustice by instituting a Grand Master Nebula, comparable to the Lifetime Achievement Oscar given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Heinlein was to receive this singular honor at the New York Nebula Awards banquet on April 26, 1975, at the Algonquin Hotel, the day after he and Ginny attended the Mystery Writers of America annual banquet and met Eric Ambler as he received his own Grand Master Award, then met Ross MacDonald and Phyllis Whitney afterwards. That afternoon Ginny had the fortieth reunion luncheon at her college prep school, Packer, and Heinlein attended with her. They kept a cab waiting while he looked around. Ginny had told him it was like nothing so much as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in her day, and she had giggled all through the play. In fact, it had been presented at Packer the previous fall—“with the girls playing themselves,” Robert remarked dryly. Nor did they skip the ritual of having him autograph all of his books that were in the Packer library.

  At a lunch with Robert and Ginny before the Nebula Award ceremony, Pournelle gratefully acknowledged all the help Robert had given him over the years. Remembering this moment for others, years later, Pournelle said:

  He helped me with my career a very great deal, and I once asked him, “How can I pay you back?” This is a little absurd from a young man, maybe thirty, thirty-five years old just getting started, just, to someone twice his age and who is very well established, and he said “You can’t pay me back. But you can pay it forward.” Something that I have attempted to do.16

  When the SFWA Grand Master Award was announced, the crowd leaped to its feet and gave him a six-minute ovation. Robert was very moved:

  My brother, Major General Lawrence Heinlein, once told me that there are only two promotions in life that mean a damn: from buck private to corporal, and from colonel to general officer. I made corporal decades ago … but now at long last I know what he meant about the other. Thank you.17

  He was given another three-minute ovation18 as he stood at the table holding the Nebula for photographers.

  He was able to meet and talk with several “new” colleagues at this event. One was Spider Robinson, whose “Callahan’s Bar” stories he had read and enjoyed. He sought out Joe Haldeman, whose novel The Forever War had just been published in 1974,19 and complimented him on his writing—which astonished Haldeman and several people in the crowd around him, as the book was widely viewed as critical of Starship Troopers, as indeed it is: Haldeman challenged some of the assumptions and developments in Starship Troopers, based on his experience in Vietnam. But this was not so much a “disagreement” as it was a fruitful “conversation,” from which Heinlein could learn what he needed to know. Spider Robinson remembered the meeting as Heinlein interrupting the introduction by recognizing Haldeman as the author of “‘The Forever War, of course,’ Robert said, striding forward and thrusting his hand out. ‘It is an honor to meet you, sir. That may be the best future war story I’ve ever read!’”20 Heinlein always valued direct experience, and what Haldeman had to say was in no way inconsistent with Heinlein’s opinions as to what impact undeclared wars might have on the people who served.21

  The day of the banquet was also the day that Thomas Clareson sent Heinlein an invitation to participate in a MLA (Modern Language Association) conference Christmas 1975 in San Francisco. The MLA is the most important and most prestigious organization for literary studies. Ginny declined the invitation for him, on the ground that they had no time free on the dates suggested—and in fact, it did fall into a time frame Robert had reserved for his long-delayed third, and hopefully final, hernia repair surgery. But Heinlein was also a little steamed about Clareson’s apparently unconscious arrogance, asking for an unpaid public speaking engagement and, even worse, the event they wanted him for was to be chaired by Dr. David Samuelson, who had written a rather clueless article Robert referred to privately as “Panshin-like ‘criticism’ of my work.”22

  They had moved their usual holiday trip to after the Rare Blood article’s deadline on July 1, 1975, and wrapped up arrangements for it while in New York for the Nebula Awards banquet in April and May. The Seattle Opera was giving the first U.S. performance of the entire Ring of the Nibelung in August, and Ginny wanted to see it. Robert felt he had already “done” the Ring. Ginny snorted: twenty years ago in Bayreuth! This was a music event of international importance, and she wanted to be there. Robert was mollified by part two—a sea cruise continuing to Alaska.

  The prestige of the Encyclopedia Britannica opened doors, and Heinlein found the people involved in blood services a surprising lot like science-fiction fans: passionate rather than detached, and willing to devote astonishing amounts of their professional time to anyone truly interested in the work.

  Heinlein took full advantage of blood science people’s willingness to help, asking Dr. Harry Wallerstein at Jewish Memorial
Hospital in the Bronx to brief him on technical issues. Dr. Wallerstein took an afternoon off and came to the Tuscany. Tapping him was like tapping a gusher—he came prepared with an “unhurried private seminar” going over all the fundamental issues of blood science: blood chemistry, types and functions of blood cells and plasma components, methods of testing, preparing, fractionating for refrigerating and for freezing. Wallerstein made notes and sketches and as he talked turned them over to Robert for his use, patiently amplifying any point when Heinlein interrupted (frequently) to ask a question.

  Isaac Asimov had assured Heinlein it was essential for his article to get his foundation from the Race & Sanger manual Blood Groups in Man. The Drs. Race23 had for thirty years been an international clearinghouse of blood science information, and Blood Groups in Man, first published in 1950 and now in its fifth edition, was the Bible of blood science. Ginny spent two days trying to track down a copy in New York, with no success: It was missing from all the libraries that had it in their catalog. The fifth edition was simply unavailable. It was, the director of the Irwin Memorial Blood Bank in San Francisco told Drs. Race and Sanger when they had met in Helsinki in March 1975, the book most likely to be stolen in America—more, even, than any pornography.24

  But Heinlein’s resources included an extensive network of his connections. “You have been exposed to my gauche tendency to yak to anyone about whatever is currently on my mind,” he told his editor at Encyclopedia Britannica. He had talked about his problem of finding a research copy of Race & Sanger at a dinner party at the home of Martin Levin—the publisher of the Times-Mirror group.25 The next day, Levin talked to Bob Tanner, a European book and author agent—and Heinlein’s new agent for British rights. Tanner reached Heinlein the same day at the National Rare Blood Club and told him he could pick up a copy at the Times-Mirror offices. Levin and Tanner had deputized half a dozen people to hunt down copies of the book.26