Читать книгу An Affair of State онлайн

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"That's a pretty black picture."

"I know it. We have the choice of believing Patton, who said, 'Man is war,' or of believing Sherman. I'm afraid we'll believe Patton."

Jeff thought of the Nebelwürfe coming in on the slopes of Mt. Altuzzo, and the terrible winter of '44, when it was always cold and always wet on Route 65, which the homesick doughs called Easy Street. "When it comes," he laughed, "I want to be the guy who hands out the doughnuts on the dock at Hoboken."

Horace Locke smiled, as though he had followed Jeff's chain of thought perfectly. "I don't think that would help you much. There was 'Remember the Maine' and then there was 'Remember Pearl Harbor,' and the next one will be 'Remember New York.'"

He paused, and the smile disappeared. "In every country are men who want war for one reason or another. The military we can understand. They have been trained and educated for one purpose, and when they pursue their raison d'être it is understandable. But there are many others who want war, and their motives are not always so clear as, say, the greed of our local Krupps, and the fear and suspicion of the men in the Kremlin. All of them have some personal reason--and to them a good reason--for bringing down the house of man in atomic shambles."