The fack can't be no longer disguised
that a Krysis is onto us.
--Artemus Ward
The story was coming in on the teletypes.
LA PLAZA, EL SPANIOLA, Aug. 9 (AP)--El Spaniola's military overlord,
General Rafael Domingo Sanchez, today warned mankind that an O-bomb is
poised, ready to drop, over each of the world's major cities. Unless
there is unconditional surrender by noon (EST) today, he declared, they
will be blasted into oblivion.
The ultimatum from this tiny Caribbean island nation, until last
night dependent on its coffee and banana crops for its livelihood,
specifically mentioned New York, London, Moscow, Peking, Paris, Bonn,
Rio de Janeiro, Melbourne, Tokyo and Bombay. It cautioned, however,
that the omission of any city from the list did not necessarily mean
that it was not also threatened.
El Spaniola, which has over the past 18 months been secretly buying
long range jetliners and converting them to bombers, claimed also to
have given asylum to Dr. Franz Kuperman, the convicted atomic spy who
disappeared after serving a ten-year term in a U.S. federal prison....
* * * * *
HAVANA, Aug. 9 (UPI)--The secret of the O-bomb, which today threatens
the extinction of the planet, is a simple one which spymaster Franz
Kuperman took into Spaniolan exile with him, diplomatic sources here
said today. The scientists of the Western and Soviet worlds were
frantically working toward that secret when Kuperman made his knowledge
and its resulting power available to the four-million population
banana-and-coffee "republic" of El Spaniola. Looming large....
* * * * *
PARIS, Aug. 9 (AFP)--The absence today of the world's leading
statesmen, now on the Monolithian satellite of Ultra, made it doubtful
that there would be a quick reply from the Quai D'Orsay to the threat
of El Spaniola.
"We must await word from our President," a spokesman said at 6 A.M.
(EST). "He is undoubtedly in consultation with our allies and, at this
very moment, charting a course of action."
* * * * *
LONDON, Aug. 9 (Reuters)--The Foreign Office had no immediate comment
early today on the bomb threat alleged to be poised over London and
other world capitals.
The acting prime minister urged the nation to be calm. He said he did
not entirely discount the possibility that the threat was a hoax or a
bluff, although radar did confirm that an unidentified aircraft was
circling high overhead.
As a precaution the Air Ministry ordered all planes, civil and
military, grounded.
* * * * *
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (WW)--The question of why El Spaniola's O-bombers
can't be shot out of the air was answered today by Pentagon sources.
Each of the terrible bombs is encased in a virtually indestructible
shell and cannot be detonated by another explosion. Thus, even though
the bomber were to be pulverized, the O-bomb itself would survive and
fall toward its target, exploding at a prearranged altitude chosen to
achieve maximum destruction....
* * * * *