There had been, as I suspected, little hard news after President
Allison's statement. Much of the night file had consisted of rehashing
the known facts and padding these out with interpretation and
speculation.
"Washington officials" said the contents of the Monolithian note were
being studied and a reply might be expected soon. These would be State
Department and White House spokesmen who didn't want to be identified.
"Diplomatic sources" said it was reasonable to assume that Britain,
France, Russia and perhaps India and the United Arab Republic had
received similar notes. These would be embassy personnel asserting
their belief that any sensible aliens would not have snubbed their
countries by communicating only with the United States.
"Experienced observers" said receipt of the note had taken officials by
surprise and that lights were burning late in government buildings as
policy-makers tried to cope overnight with the advent of interplanetary
relations. These would be newsmen interviewing each other.
"Unconfirmed reports" said any race of people capable of hurtling
billions of miles across space would be sure to have an equally
advanced military machine whose weapons would be to our nuclear stuff
what our stuff was to the M-1 rifle. This would be a roundup of
informed guessing and common sense.