If we do, we can expect the same "mercy" that Budapest received. They will say to us: "Surrender - or be destroyed!"

"God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it."

- Daniel Webster

We the undersigned are not a committee but simply two free citizens of these United States. We love life and we want peace ... but not "peace at any price" - not the price of liberty!

Poltroons and pacifists will think otherwise.

Those who signed that manifesto have made their choice; consciously or unconsciously they prefer enslavement to death. Such is their right and we do not argue with them - we speak to you who are still free in your souls.

In a free country, political action can start anywhere. We read that insane manifesto of the so - called "Committee for a 'Sane' Nuclear Policy" and we despised it. So we are answering it ourselves - by our own free choice and spending only our own money.

We say to the commissars: "You will never enslave us. The worst you can do is kill us. But we are resolved to die free!"

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

- Benjamin Franklin

No scare talk of leukemia, mutation, or atomic holocaust will sway us. Is "fall - out" dangerous? Of course it is! The risk to life and posterity has been willfully distorted by these Communist - line propagandists - but if it were a hundred times as great we still would choose it to the dead certainty of Communist enslavement. If atomic war comes, will it kill off the entire human race? Possibly - almost certainly so if the Masters of the Kremlin choose to use cobalt bombs on us. Their command of science in these matters seems equal to ours, they appear to be some years ahead of us in the art of rocketry; they almost certainly have the power to destroy the human race.

If it comes to atomic war, the best we can hope for is tens of millions of American dead - perhaps more than half our population wiped out in the first few minutes.

Colorado Springs is at least a secondary target; all of us here may be killed.

These are the risks. The alternative is surrender. We accept the risks.

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards.

- Samuel Adams

We have no easy solution to offer. The risks cannot be avoided other than by surrender; they can be reduced only by making the free world so strong that the evil pragmatists of Communism cannot afford to murder us. The price to us will be year after weary year of higher taxes, harder work, grim devotion ... and perhaps, despite all this - death. But we shall die free!

To this we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

We the undersigned believe that almost all Americans agree with us. Whoever you are, wherever you are, you sons of Patrick Henry - let us know your name! Sign the letter herewith and mail it to us - we will see that it gets to Congressman Chenoweth, to both our Senators, and to the President.

This much has been done by two people acting alone. Let's call ourselves "The Patrick Henry League" and prove to our government that the Spirit of '76 is still alive. We are two, you and your spouse make four, your neighbor and his wife make six - we can snowball this until it sweeps the country.

We can advertise in other counties, in other states.

If you who are reading this are not in Colorado Springs, stand up, speak up, and start your own chapter of "The Patrick Henry League" now. You are a free citizen, you need no permission, nor any charter from us. Run an ad - quote or copy this one if you like. Dig down in the sock to pay for it, or pass the hat, or both - but sound the call in your own home town, mail copies of your ad out of town, and get some more letters started toward Washington

And let us hear from you

Let us all stand up and shout aloud again and forever:

'Give Me Liberty or Give Me death!"

Robert and Virginia Heinlein 1958 address - 1776 Mesa Avenue

Colorado Springs, Colorado

1980 address - (Care Spectrum Literary Agency

60 East 42nd Street

New York City, New York 10017)

President Eisenhower, The White House

Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. President:

We know that you are being pressured to stop our nuclear weapons tests, turn our missile and space program over to the U.N., and in other ways to weaken our defenses.

We urge you to stand steadfast.

We want America made supremely strong and we are resolved to accept all burdens necessary to that end. We ask for total effort - nuclear testing, research, and development, highest priorities for rocketry, sterner education, anything that is needed. We are ready to pay higher taxes, forego luxuries, work harder.

In this we pledge our lives our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Respectfully yours,

(names)

(address)

AFTERWORD

When the soi - disant "SANE" committee published its page ad in Colorado Springs (and many other cities) on 5 April 1958, I was working on THE HERETIC (later to be published as STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND). I stopped at once and for several weeks Mrs. Heinlein and I did nothing but work on this "Patrick Henry" drive. We published our ad in three newspapers, encouraged its publication elsewhere, mailed thousands of reprints, spoke before countless meetings, collected and mailed to the White House thousands of copies of the letter above - always by registered mail - no acknowledgement of any sort was ever received, not even in response to "Return Receipt Requested."

Then the rug was jerked out from under us; by executive order Mr. Eisenhower canceled all testing without requiring mutual inspection. (The outcome of that is now history; when it suited him, Khrushchev resumed testing with no warning and with the dirtiest bombs ever set off in the atmosphere.)

I was stunned by the President's action. I should not have been as I knew that he was a political general long before he entered politics - stupid, all front, and dependent on his staff. But that gets me the stupid hat, too; I had learned years earlier that many politicians (not all!) will do anything to get elected... and Adlai Stevenson had him panting.

Presently I resumed writing - not STRANGER but STARSHIP TROOPERS.

The "Patrick Henry" ad shocked 'em; STARSHIP TROOPERS outraged 'em. I still can't see how that book got a Hugo. It continues to get lots of nasty "fan" mail and not much favorable fan mail.. . but it sells and sells and sells and sells, in eleven languages. It doesn't slow down - four new contracts just this year. And yet I almost never hear of it save when someone wants to chew me out over it. I don't understand it.

The criticisms are usually based on a failure to under - stand simple indicative English sentences, couched in simple words - especially when the critics are professors of English, as they often are. (A shining counter example, a professor who can read and understand English, is one at Colorado College - a professor of history.)

We have also some professors of English who write science fiction but I do not know of one who formally reviewed or criticized STARSHIP TROOPERS. However, I have gathered a strong impression over the years that professors of English who write and sell science fiction average being much more grammatical and much more literate than their colleagues who do not (cannot?) write saleable fiction.

Their failures to understand English are usually these:

1. "Veteran" does not mean in English dictionaries or in this novel solely a person who has served in military forces. I concede that in commonest usage today it means a war veteran.. . but no one hesitates to speak of a veteran fireman or veteran school teacher. In STARSHIP TROOPERS it is stated flatly and more than once that nineteen out of twenty veterans are not military veterans. Instead, 95% of voters are what we call today "former members of federal civil service."