Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE TEST 51 glass. ““No mistake. That Otto was a bad apple. Tricky, too. Let me fill you in on the background a little— ‘fill you in,’ that’s a nice military phrase, colonel’d love that—Let’s have another drink, awful dry just talking. Hey, Joe!”’ “You are going to get drunk, Robert,” the German warned. ““Mean to get drunk. Best medicine in world for clean-cut young American lad, rising industrial personnel man, snatched into Army and hauled half- way around world to associate with Freudians and West Pointers and Military Intelligence analysts—pres- ent company always excepted, of course. Ought to try it yourself, boy, give you a better perspective, give you the big picture—‘big picture,’ ’nother nice military turn of phrase. I’m learning, I’m learning, Pll make it yet. ‘What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, Otto. Good old Otto, here’s to Otto. Prosit. Thing is, authoritarian in democratic culture is one thing, authoritarian in authoritarian cul- ture, horse of an entirely different culture—hear what I said there? Said ‘culture,’ meant to say ‘color.’ Good gag, have to remember that. Think maybe somebody else said it first, though, trouble with smart things a man says when he’s drunk, somebody else always gets credit. ‘“‘Where was I? Oh, yeah. . . thing is, catch an authoritarian in an authoritarian culture, claims he’s rebel against that culture, obviously lying. Take him out and shoot him. Got nothing to do with whether authori- tarians should all be shot or shouldn’t all be shot, don’t shoot him because he’s authoritarian, shoot him because he’s enemy agent, trying to infiltrate. “Catch authoritarian in democratic culture, though, don’t mean a thing. Colonel’s authoritarian as hell. Good colone!, though. Captain’s radical as hell. Good psychoanalyst, though. Nice thing about living in democratic culture, don’t always have to be test- ing people, don’t have to tie labels on them, take them out and shoot them. Hard work, shooting people, gives lots of people bad dreams. Democratic culture, you can hate a man’s guts for his own sweet sake, don’t have to worry about his politics, still work with him. More efficient that way. Colonel had his way, we'd take all the Freudians out and shoot them. Awful waste, wouldn’t have any nice neat little tests to catch spies then. Captain had his way, we’d take all West Pointers out and shoot them, leave us in an awful fix if we had to fight a war. Be shooting people all the time, wouldn’t have any time for anything else, no time to eat, no time to make love, no time to get drunk, no time for nothing. You and me, ordinary jerks, we get along with the captain, get along with colonel, gets too much for us, go out and get drunk.” : The American squinted at his empty glass. “Hey, getting behind here, can’t have that. Hey Joe!” The first day in the compounds, the refugees were bathed, deloused, fed, and segregated by sex and language groups. Stanislaus was put in a small wooden hut with fourteen other men of his cover nationality. The second day, they were ques- tioned— com (9) bookssco mM .