He yanked pensively at his upper lip. "Two solutions; one, announce
you to the world with a clang of cymbals and a roll of drums. Two,
bury you someplace. Oh, figuratively speaking," he added hastily as he
saw my face.
"Solution one sounds good to me," I told him. "I could go home then."
He made it quite clear that Solution One was only theoretical; he was
firm about that. "Outside of rewriting all the peace treaties in
existence, do you remember how our Congress huddled over the Bomb? Can
you see Congress allowing you, can you see the General Staff agreeing
to share you with, for example, a United Nations Commission? Can you?"
No, I couldn't.
"So," with a regretful sigh, "Solution One leaves only Solution Two.
We'll grant that you must be kept under cover."
I wondered if Stein was somewhere at the earphones of a tape recorder.
For someone with as big a job as the old man likely had, it seemed
that we were talking fairly freely. He went on.
"And that Solution Two has within itself another unsolved problem; who
watches you, and who watches the watchers?"
That didn't matter to me, and I said so.
"I suppose not to you, but it would matter to the army, and it would
matter to the navy, and when J. Edgar Hoover gets around to thinking
about it, it will matter to the FBI."
"So what? Would I get a choice?"
* * * * *