Читать книгу An Affair of State онлайн

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"What happened to you? Why aren't you a Chief of Division any more?" Jeff hazarded.

"I'm going to answer you," Locke said, his voice still low. "Because I have dangerous and unfashionable thoughts. Because I won't go along with the 'you're another' school of diplomacy. Because I believe we can have another war, or we can have civilization. We cannot have them both."

Jeff said, "Maybe I've got dangerous and unfashionable thoughts too."

"Knowing your father, I thought you would have. But we are not alone. We are only two in a great majority. True, it is a majority inarticulate, confused, and almost ashamed of displaying its consuming will for peace. We turned over our leadership to those who have a vested interest in war, and we have had trouble getting it back. My judgment tells me that we will never get it back, that the odds are for another war, and the dissolving of all our rights and freedoms. We will believe that thus we can beat the Russians, and survive. But if we survive it will be only as blind ants underground, fearfully guarding their eggs and breeding more soldier ants so they can continue to exist, always blind and underground."