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Jesse Price, the Air Force major newly assigned to the conference, pretended he was about to duck under the table. Price was a large, loose-jointed man with a black patch over his right eye and an arrow-shaped burn scar that ran from the patch to his chin. He talked flight jargon and behaved with the insouciance of a hot pilot. Katharine had wondered why the Air Force assigned him to the Intentions Group until she looked up his record. This record included graduation from the National War College after Korea, two years as Air Attaché in Moscow, another year as observer in Indo-China, and later service with SHAPE Air headquarters in Fontainbleau. In addition, she reflected that the Air Force would never keep a one-eyed pilot unless he had much else besides. Now that Price saw she was looking at him, he straightened and said, "Are you sure?"

"Very sure, Major. The AEC is now ready to admit that they have maximum capability." She took her seat. For these men, no further explanation was necessary. Thirty megatons meant the equivalent of 30,000,000 tons of TNT. A five-megaton bomb could kill Chicago; ten, New York. Maximum capability was a phrase newly in use. It meant the capacity to utterly destroy any enemy. It meant all the bombs necessary.