by Peter George
PG suggests that Strangelove was metaphorically born on June 26 (another significant family date) of an unspecified year in the early sixties. That’s the day his great book is published and sent to him at his Scientific Institute.
Representing an earlier take on the character, the story does not tie in to the film directly. For example, Dr Strangelove is shown to be working at a middling US Institute, and there is no mention of his coming from post-war Germany as part of Operation Paperclip or anything similar.
I hope for all Strangelove aficionados this short piece will add another layer of interest and a further insight into Peter George’s variety of writing voices.
To ready it for publication, I carefully edited and adapted the disordered typescript sheets in my possession. These were PG’s unpolished drafts. At no point should my voice be apparent in Peter George’s writing though.
Because PG died in 1966 at the age of forty-two, he couldn’t know the enduring legacy of Dr Strangelove, nor the continuing interest of academics and commentators in dissecting and discussing every last detail connected to it.
He has not been around to protect or grow his own reputation, or to draw attention to his own enormous contributions to this landmark of cinema. This new edition of Dr Strangelove begins the fight back to re-establish his rightful place as a master of cool and snappy comic noir writing and cold war nuclear fiction.
The Next Steps
With a new publisher in Candy Jar Books, who are aiming to republish all Peter George’s novels over time, I will be very glad a new audience of readers can get to know and enjoy his work. It’s been too long that the reading public have not had access to these books – they really do deserve a wider audience.
I’ve read the books again and again over a long period of years, gradually getting past my subjectivity (my dad actually made this up and wrote it all!) to be able to objectively – neutrally – read them.
Now as I edit them for republication, they allow me to be engulfed in his personality, character, experiences and humour. To get to know him and analyse and admire his brain and sharp wit.
You can look forward to a staccato burst of books, the entirety of Peter George’s oeuvre, originally published between 1952 and 1965.
All his books are told with a snappy zip, the plots are satisfying in their outcomes, and his characterisations are cut close to the bone.
Come Blonde, Came Murder and Cool Murder tell of Steve Bryant, Private Investigator in PG’s Pacific City based tales, a shamus knocking into the bad guys and the cops.
Later there’s the one-off filmic heist action of The Final Steal, set in the heat of the Utah desert. In 1970 the film rights for the book were sold to 20th Century Fox as part of a three-film contract they had set up with the film director, Russ Meyer. The mind boggles.
There are gritty semi-autobiographical adventures in Hong Kong Kill and The Big H with the suave transatlantic agents Brandon and Lundstrom protecting the free world from Chinese heroin and more. A scene onboard a B-52 refuelling in mid-air closely echoes the opening sequence of Dr Strangelove.
Further personally revealing details of his RAF life, and the technological knowledge he was so good at utilising in his writing, are found in Pattern of Death. It’s a high-stakes spy saga as the RAF tests a new prototype jet aiming to break the sound-barrier. This jet is subsequently targeted by the cold war enemy to prevent aerial supremacy. The descriptions of the jet’s test flights are very good indeed.
Then there’s perhaps the greatest nuclear fiction ever written with Two Hours to Doom, Dr Strangelove and Commander-1.
Alongside Peter George’s novels, Candy Jar Books are also due to publish his first full-scale biography, written by Rhys Lloyd. I have been in contact for some years with Rhys and from the start he seemed the right person to take on Peter George when the time came.
He is therefore the only researcher to have been given complete access to my Peter George archive as well as full access to members of my family and their mental and physical archives.
I hope in his writing he will come to demolish some of the accepted shibboleths surrounding Peter George and get to a certain truth.
Peter George’s Oscar nomination for Dr Strangelove
Back Again
I’m asleep in bed, the house in Hastings.
He comes so quietly into the room I don’t realise he’s there until he shushes me awake with a finger at his lips.
‘I’m back,’ he says, ‘I had to be away but I’m back now.’
I knew he would be. I’m feeling flushed with some kind of excited anticipation. My senses waft him in.
‘You wake the girls, David, I’ll go and hide in the cupboard under the stairs. We’ll give them a surprise.’
I wake my sisters and mother.
‘Dad’s back!’
I overcome their disbelief.
‘He is, come on – he’s downstairs.’
They follow me down to the seemingly empty room and I deliver the punch-line to our little jape.
With a flourish I throw open the angled door of the cupboard so he can spring out…
Not there. I wake up. Again and again.
David George
26 March 2015
Letter from Peter George to Stanley Kubrick, 1963
Peter George
DR STRANGELOVE
OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING
AND LOVE THE BOMB
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The pages which make up this bizarre and ancient comedy were discovered at the bottom of a deep crevice in the Great Northern Desert of planet Earth. The reader will see that there is a short introduction written by the men who discovered the manuscript. Aside from this, the pages are presented in exactly the form in which they were found.
At the end of the story there is a brief epilogue which states why we have published this book.
INTRODUCTION
The story opens during the latter half of Earth’s twentieth century. We do not know quite why this dating system was used, since we have evidence of life on Earth long before this. But we assume that after some unprecedented disaster it was agreed by the survivors to start a fresh count on time. This has mainly been our experience in other worlds.
At this stage the technology of Earth, though still crude by our standards, had advanced sufficiently so men had been able to build tiny thermonuclear weapons, the largest of which was only about a hundred megatons in explosive yield. But to compensate for this they had built plenty of them, enough we estimate to have destroyed the world three and a half times. Why they would have wanted to be able to do it more than once is a mystery to us.
Simple nuclear weapons had been used twice some years previously to end what men quaintly referred to as World War Two. Since then they had multiplied both in size and number. Two major powers shared between them about ninety-five per cent of this nuclear capability, both in weapons and means of delivery. They were not on friendly terms, and we find this difficult to understand, because both were governed by power systems which seem to us basically similar.
Both these major nations spent vast sums of money in competing with each other on these toys, and yet more vast sums on trying to conceal from the other their progress. One such project began about thirteen months before our story opens. Soviet scientists and engineers, backed by a great mass of volunteer labour, started work at the base of a perpetually fog-shrouded mountain in the empty arctic wasteland of northern Siberia.
In spite of the most stringent security measures, some rumours concerning the project did leak through to the rest of the world. But they were of so horrible and fantastic a nature that people did not, could not, take them seriously. Other more substantial rumours had it that on completion of the project, to maintain the greatest possible secrecy, all who had been concerned with the project were – to use their own strange phrase – liquidated.
At the time of our story every nation, and not least the two major powers, feared su
rprise attack and took all precautions against it. Yet we do not find any positive evidence that the full and infinite consequences of nuclear attack were appreciated by governments and their peoples.
In the period of which we write, one of the measures taken by the United States of America to guard against surprise attack was an airborne alert. (We have copied the phraseology current at the time.) This meant that they kept seventy jet bombers always in the air.
As crews tired they were relieved by replacement bombers, but never less than seventy were airborne and prepared for action. They were armed with full war loads of thermonuclear weapons.
One half of this airborne alert force on this day had left the Burpelson Air Force Base many hours before. They were one of Strategic Air Command’s bomb wings. The planes of this wing were now dispersed from the Persian Gulf to the Arctic Ocean. They had in common only one geographic factor. All of them were approximately thirteen hundred miles – some two hours in flying time – from their assigned targets in enemy territory. They also had in common their bomb load. All of them carried two bombs, as well as certain other devices, which together gave a yield of forty megatons. Each bomber therefore carried the equivalent of forty million tons of TNT. It may be noted that this was about equivalent to sixteen times the amount of explosives dropped during World War Two, and about two and a half thousand times the force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
One of the bombers, named by its crew Leper Colony, was approaching its Fail-Safe point. Once it reached this point it would automatically turn and head for home. This was of course a safety precaution, one of many these cautious but determined men had dreamed up to prevent any distressing little accident.
The crew of Leper Colony were highly trained, efficient men. They were specially selected. They were proud men, alert men, confident men; yet within each of them there was a slow accretion of tension and nervous strain.
They were men who could not afford to relax, for relaxation would perhaps menace the peace of the world.
As Leper Colony approached its Fail-Safe point, our story begins.
LEPER COLONY
Aesthetically the exterior shape of the aeroplane was pleasing. The swept wings gave an impression of arrow swiftness; the shining body, of brightness and cleanness; the eight great engines, of power and pure functional efficiency. Effortlessly, matter-of-factly, Leper Colony was putting nearly seven hundred airborne miles behind her each hour, scorning distance and reducing the globe to a few hours’ flying time.
Inside the aeroplane the six men of the crew were looking forward now to turning at their Fail-Safe point. They would have to stick around the general area a little longer, it was true, but at least when they turned they were past the worst. These were men who had to pay the price of vigilance. Dedicated men. Their motto: Peace is our profession.
The layout of the bomber was essentially simple for so complex an aeroplane. In front sat the pilot and co-pilot. Behind them and facing to the rear were the defence-systems officer and the radar/radio officer with all their complicated, ingenious apparatus. On a lower deck were the navigator and the bombardier, each with his complicated devices at finger’s touch. Below them again and a little aft was the bomb bay. Here were stored two thermonuclear bombs, each of twenty megatons yield. Most SAC crews had given affectionate names to the bombs they carried, and these names were usually chalked on the bomb itself.
In Leper Colony the bombs had been given female faces of a sort. Their names were Hi-There and Lolita. In the pilot’s section the plane commander, Major Kong, known to the rest of the crew as King, was munching a sandwich and idly flicking over pages of the current Playboy magazine. To the left of the serried banks of instruments there was a triptych of ancestral portraits with, reading from left to right, King’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather appropriately scowling martial scowls, all of them decked in martial regalia of the past. King yawned and turned a page of Playboy. The plane moved steadily through the mesosphere on autopilot.
On King’s right Captain G. A. Owens, known as ‘Ace,’ gazed steadily at the arctic sky. There was nothing in the sky to interest him, but even less in the aeroplane. Of the two boring alternatives, he preferred the sky. He gnawed occasionally at a large apple.
Lieutenant H. R. Dietrich, the defence-systems officer, was playing with a pack of cards. He executed an intricate accordion, was dissatisfied with it, tried again, and then proffered the cards to Lieutenant B. Goldberg, the radar/radio officer.
Goldberg raised his eyebrows slightly. It was a gesture he had been practicing for the past six months as a counter to Dietrich’s manipulation of the cards, which Goldberg admitted was pretty damn slick. He permitted himself to accept a card, while at the same time conveying he was not really interested in the manipulation, however slick, of pieces of pasteboard. With an expression as deadpan as Dietrich’s he slid the card face down on his desk and reached for his coffee and his book. There was an article in Reader’s Digest more important than Dietrich and his fool tricks. He sipped his coffee luxuriously, ignoring Dietrich’s increasing agitation.
On the lower deck, where the navigator and bombardier had their stations, the navigator slowly unwrapped a Hershey bar. Lieutenant Sweets Kivel intended to buy himself a confectionery store. For the present he had to stay in the Air Force because he needed money to buy the store, and this was a way of getting it. But not forever. Oh brother, no! Enough money – about another year he figured – and Sweets knew just the store he was aiming to buy. He munched the chocolate bar thoughtfully as he perused the Confectioner’ s Journal.
Alongside him the bombardier, Lieutenant Lothar Zogg, an intelligent but rather smug young Negro from New York, was pointedly staring at the navigational charts that lay ignored while Sweets read his journal. He nudged Sweets with his leg, said, ‘How about that turn point?’
Lieutenant Kivel laid down his journal. ‘Well, yeah, Lothar, okay, let’s wait a minute, huh?’ He clicked on his intercom. ‘Hey, King, three minutes to turn point; fresh heading will be three-five-three.’ He waited for King’s acknowledgment, then sank back in his seat, conscious of a job well done. He picked up the copy of the Confectioner’s Journal he had laid on his chart table while he called King and began to read with renewed interest.
Major King Kong watched the three minutes pass on his watch. Fifteen seconds before the time, he leaned forward, and with the easy practiced grace of the veteran pilot, turned the autopilot gyro heading to three-five-three. He watched the turning of the plane with close attention, allowing his copy of Playboy to fall between him and his co-pilot, Ace Owens. Ace was quick to pick up the copy, begin to turn its pages.
‘Roger,’ King said. Even in that one word it was possible to distinguish his unmistakable Texas drawl. ‘Headin’ three-five-three.’
Ace Owens examined the photo foldout of ‘Playmate of the Month.’ He contemplated the photo with reverence, almost awe, then he said, ‘Miss Foreign Affairs… thirty-eight… twenty-four… thirty-six, and a top-rated Washington secretary. How about that, King?’
King frowned, made sure that the plane had rounded out of the turn, locked the gyros, then said judicially, ‘How about what, Ace? Great statistics. Great secretary. Prob’ly holds the world’s horizontal shorthand record. But what else, Ace?’
Ace looked at the photo again. He said, ‘King, you know she kind of reminds me of that brunette I, I mean you, I mean we, had back in Houston, you remember? What the hell was her name?’
‘Hold up the photo, Ace. Give ole King a good, long look. Yeah, you’re right, son. You’re right. Name of Mary Ellen.’ He paused for a moment, looking at the foldout in detail. ‘Yeah, reckon you might draw one or two comparisons at that.’
‘She was a doll. A real live doll.’
‘Prime cut and double grade-A premium,’ King assented. ‘Ain’t seen me with no other kind, have you, boy?’
‘No,’ Owens said, ‘guess I haven’t ever, King. You know, you had it so g
ood so long I don’t think you even appreciate it anymore.’
‘Well now,’ King said. ‘Me, I’d question that. ‘Preciate it? Hell, me an’ ole Bull Daddy got one whole oil well down in San Anton’ just to show our ‘preciation.’
‘You mean Bull Daddy he’s still at it?’
‘Hell yes,’ King said with quiet pride. ‘And I reckon ole Bull Daddy’s aimin’ to be top gun in our outfit for a while yet.’
‘But he must be pushing seventy-five, King.’
King lit a cigar with care. He made sure it was drawing satisfactorily, inhaled luxuriously, then said, ‘Seventy-five nothin’. That horny ole bastard’s seventy-eight next month. Lemme tell you, Ace, ole Bull Daddy jest wrote me a letter about this little ole gal he had come down from Pecos. Seems he turned that gal every way but loose.’ King leaned back on his seat, raised his legs so his half riding boots rested on the instrument panel in front of him, and gave vent to a rebel Gee-haw that echoed through the aeroplane. The crew ignored it. They were accustomed to King. And of course they had their own cards, magazines, journals, and books to occupy them.
‘But ole Bull Daddy he’s a damn fool about some things. Not that I’d be right anxious to inform him about that, you understand, but the fact is, number one, he’s a romantic fool when it comes to foolin’ around with women, and number two, he ain’t got no taste. He used to say, ‘Why hell, boy, you just throw a gunny sack over their heads and you can’t tell one from the other.’
Once again King’s rebel yell was heard in the plane. Then he went on, ‘And he’s tied onto some real dogs too, I’ll tell you that. But not me, ole buddy. I’ve got to have it prime cut and double grade-A premium.’
