So I went back to California and sold him CROOKED HOUSE and LOGIC OF EMPIRE and UNIVERSE and SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY and METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN and BY HIS BOOTSTRAPS and COMMON SENSE and GOLDFISH BOWL and BEYOND THIS HORIZON and WALDO and THE UNPLEASANT PROFESSION OF JONATHAN HOAG - which brings us smack up against World War II.

Campbell did bounce one of the above (and I shan't say which one) and I promptly retired - put in a new irrigation system - built a garden terrace - resumed serious photography, etc. This went on for about a month when I found that I was beginning to be vaguely ill: poor appetite, loss of weight, insomnia, jittery, absentminded - much like the early symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis, and I thought, "Damn it, am I going to have still a third attack?"

Campbell dropped me a note and asked why he hadn't heard from me? - I reminded him of our conversation months past: He had rejected one of my stories and that marked my retirement from an occupation that I had never planned to pursue permanently.

He wrote back and asked for another look at the story he had bounced. I sent it to him, he returned it promptly with the recommendation that I take out this comma, speed up the 1st half of page umpteen, delete that adjective - fiddle changes that Katie Tarrant would have done if told to.

I sat down at my typewriter to make the suggested changes.. . and suddenly realized that I felt good for the first time in weeks.

Bill "Tony Boucher" White had been dead right. Once you get the monkey on your back there is no cure short of the grave. I can leave the typewriter alone for weeks, even months, by going to sea. I can hold off for any necessary time if I am strenuously engaged in some other full - time,

worthwhile occupation such as a construction job, a political campaign, or (damn it!) recovering from illness.

But if I simply loaf for more than two or three days, that monkey starts niggling at me. Then nothing short of a few thousand words will soothe my nerves. And as I get older the attacks get worse; it is beginning to take 300,000 words and up to produce that feeling of warm satiation. At that I don't have it in its most virulent form; two of my colleagues are reliably reported not to have missed their daily fix in more than forty years.

The best that can be said for SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY is that the solution is still unsatisfactory and the dangers are greater than ever. There is little satisfaction in having called the turn forty years ago; being a real - life Cassandra is not happy - making.

SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY

In 1903 the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk. In December, 1938, in Berlin, Dr. Hahn split the uranium atom.

In April, 1943, Dr. Estelle Karst, working under the Federal Emergency Defense Authority, perfected the Karst - Obre technique for producing artificial radioactives.

So American foreign policy had to change.

Had to. Had to. It is very difficult to tuck a bugle call back into a bugle. Pandora's Box is a one - way proposition. You can turn pig into sausage, but not sausage into pig. Broken eggs stay broken. "All the King's horses and all the King's men can't put Humpty together again."

I ought to know - I was one of the King's men.

By rights I should not have been. I was not a professional military man when World War II broke out, and when Congress passed the draft law I drew a high number, high enough to keep me out of the army long enough to die of old age.

Not that very many died of old age that generation! But I was the newly appointed secretary to a freshman congressman; I had been his campaign manager and my former job had left me. By profession, I was a high - school teacher of economics and sociology - school boards don't like teachers of social subjects actually to deal with social problems - and my contract was not renewed. I jumped at the chance to go to Washington.

My congressman was named Manning. Yes, the Manning, Colonel Clyde C. Manning, U. S. Army retired - Mr. Commissioner Manning. What you may not know about him is that he was one of the Army's No. 1 experts in chemical warfare before a leaky heart put him on the shelf. I had picked him, with the help of a group of my political associates, to run against the two - bit chiseler who was the incumbent in our district. We needed a strong liberal candidate and Manning was tailor - made for the job. He had served one term in the grand jury, which cut his political eye teeth, and had stayed active in civic matters thereafter.

Being a retired army officer was a political advantage in vote - getting among the more conservative and well - to - do citizens, and his record was O.K. for the other side of the fence. I'm not primarily concerned with vote - getting; what I liked about him was that, though he was liberal, he was tough - minded, which most liberals aren't. Most liberals believe that water runs downhill, but, praise God, it'll never reach the bottom.

Manning was not like that. He could see a logical necessity and act on it, no matter how unpleasant it might be.

We were in Manning's suite in the House Office Building, taking a little blow from that stormy first session of the Seventy - eighth Congress and trying to catch up on a mountain of correspondence, when the War Department called. Manning answered it himself.

I had to overhear, but then I was his secretary. "Yes," he said, "speaking. Very well, put him on. Oh hello, General ... Fine, thanks. Yourself?" Then there was a long silence. Presently, Manning said, "But I can't do that, General, I've got this job to take care of... . What's that?.. . Yes, who is to do my committee work and represent my district? ... I think so." He glanced at his wrist watch. "I'll be right over." He put down the phone, turned to me, and said, "Get your hat, John. We are going over to the War Department."

"So?" I said, complying.

"Yes," he said with a worried look, "the Chief of Staff thinks I ought to go back to duty." He set off at a brisk walk, with me hanging back to try to force him not to strain his bum heart. "It's impossible, of course." We grabbed a taxi from the stand in front of the office building and headed for the Department.

But it was possible, and Manning agreed to it, after the Chief of Staff presented his case. Manning had to be convinced, for there is no way on earth for anyone, even the President himself, to order a congressman to leave his post, even though he happens to be a member of the military service, too.

The Chief of Staff had anticipated the political difficulty and had been forehanded enough to have already dug up an opposition congressman with whom to pair Manning's vote for the duration of the emergency. This other congressman, the Honorable Joseph T. Brigham, was a reserve officer who wanted to go to duty himself - or was willing to; I never found out which. Being from the opposite political party, his vote in the House of Representatives could be permanently paired against Manning's and neither party would lose by the arrangement.

There was talk of leaving me in Washington to handle the political details of Manning's office, but Manning decided against it, judging that his other secretary could do that, and announced that I must go along as his adjutant. The Chief of Staff demurred, but Manning was in a position to insist, and the Chief had to give in.

A chief of staff can get things done in a hurry if he wants to. I was sworn in as a temporary officer before we left the building; before the day was out I was the bank, signing a note to pay for the sloppy ser uniforms the Army had adopted and to buy a d uniform with a beautiful shiny belt - a dress uniform which, as it turned out, I was never to need.