The story was first published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, with illustrations by Frank Kramer. In November 1940, Astounding editor John W. Campbell had suggested that Heinlein write a story about the use of radioactive dust as a weapon, proposing a detailed scenario. Heinlein discarded Campbell's scenario, and wrote a story he called "Foreign Policy", submitting it to Campbell in December 1940 with the comment "I turned the original idea upside down, inside out, shook it, and have turned out an entirely different story". Campbell quickly accepted the piece, changing the title to "Solution Unsatisfactory"; it appeared in the May 1941 issue, under Heinlein's "Anson MacDonald" pseudonym.[1] "Universe" appeared in the same issue under Heinlein's name.
John DeFries, the narrator, is the campaign manager of Clyde C. Manning, a freshman congressman and military veteran who received a medical discharge for a heart condition. DeFries chose the congressman because "he was liberal [but] was tough-minded" enough to attract conservative support. In 1941 Manning is recalled to active duty with the rank of Colonel, and takes DeFries as his adjutant. He is appointed to head a secret, top-priority project with unlimited funding, with the aim of developing a nuclear weapon before the Nazis do so. The project makes little progress into 1944. World War II is a stalemate; the British and Germans continue to bomb each other's cities, while the United States, Eurasian Union (a renamed Soviet Union), and Japan remain neutral.
Manning hears of fish dying in Chesapeake Bay where the by-products of Dr. Estelle Karst's research into artificial radioactive materials are being dumped. She was a laboratory assistant of Otto Hahn, the first man to characterize induced fission in uranium, and fled Germany "to escape a pogrom".[3] Karst is working on radioactive materials for medical uses, but Manning sees its potential as a radiological weapon. Over Karst's objections, by Christmas 1944 the United States is in possession of nearly 10,000 "units" of radioactive dust, a "unit" being defined as the quantity which "would take care of a thousand men, at normal dispersion"; enough to kill the entire population of a large city such as Berlin.
Manning seriously considers ordering that all people aware of the secret, including himself, be put to death and all records destroyed. He rejects that course because someone else, perhaps German or Russian, is certain to rediscover it. Instead, Manning in 1945 convinces the President to use the dust against Germany.[4] Since America is officially not in the war, the Americans give the dust to Britain but at the price of the British accepting a complete US ascendancy in the postwar world.
The Americans warn the Germans by demonstrating what the dust does to cattle, dropping leaflets over Germany, and having the President speak to the Führer, but the Germans refuse to surrender. RAF bombers scatter the dust over Berlin and leave no survivors. The Nazi regime collapses and the new government surrenders. Karst commits suicide by exposing herself to the dust.
Manning warns the Cabinet of the great dangers of the new situation, introducing the concepts of the nuclear arms race, mutual assured destruction, and second strike capability. He convinces the President and Cabinet that the only solution is to use the American nuclear monopoly while it still exists. Any other world power, such as the Eurasian Union, might create such dust and bomb the United States within weeks. Still a congressman, Manning convinces the President that there is no time to get Congressional approval and that the Constitution must be bypassed.
The United States issues a "Peace Proclamation" which essentially demands the immediate and unconditional surrender of the rest of the world. All other states are required to disarm and to hand over all long-range civilian and military aircraft, since any airplane can spread the dust. The prohibition on commercial airlines applies to America also; the Army will manage any required civilian air travel. Most of the world complies.
The Eurasians did invent the dust for themselves as Manning had warned, and launch a surprise attack. The American victory in the "Four-Day War" owes much to Manning, who had arranged for Congress and President to be outside Washington ahead of the attack, and false rumors of plague to empty New York; nonetheless, 800,000 are killed in Manhattan alone. Eurasian documents completely vindicate Manning's unconstitutional policies; had the President waited for congressional approval, America would have lost the war.
Manning becomes lifetime head of the new Peace Patrol, with a worldwide monopoly over the radioactive dust and the aircraft which can deliver it. He opens schools for the indoctrination of cadet patrolmen from any race, color, or nationality. They will patrol the sky and "guard the peace" of any country but their own, and would be forbidden to return to their original country for the entire duration of their service; "a deliberately expatriated band of Janizaries, with an obligation only to the Commission and the race, and welded together with a carefully nurtured esprit de corps."
Manning does not have time to complete his original plans for the Patrol. In 1951, the President dies in a plane crash; his isolationist successor demands Manning's resignation and intends to dismantle the Patrol. As Manning argues with the President, planes loaded with radioactive dust and piloted by non-Americans appear overhead. Manning is willing to kill himself and treat the capital of the United States as he would treat any other place which he perceives a "threat to world peace". He wins the standoff and becomes the undisputed military dictator of the world. DeFries (himself dying from radiation poisoning) doubts that Manning, now the most-hated man on Earth, can succeed in making the Patrol self-perpetuating and trustworthy. There is no way of knowing how long Manning will live, given his weak heart. The narrator concludes:
For myself, I can't be happy in a world where any man, or group of men, has the power of death over you and me, our neighbors, every human, every animal, every living thing. I don't like anyone to have that kind of power. And neither does Manning.
Themes
Though it deals not with fission bombs, but rather with a radioisotope dust weapon, "Solution Unsatisfactory" accurately predicted many aspects of the development of nuclear arms and the dilemmas they pose, a year before President Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project led by General Leslie Groves. Scientific advisors wrote a 1943 memo to Groves entitled "Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon":[5]
Radioactive warfare can be used...To make evacuated areas uninhabitable...against large cities, to promote panic, and create casualties among civilian populations... The amount necessary to cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. It has been estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating in a person's body would be fatal.
While not part of Heinlein's Future History, the story also marks the first appearance of a "Patrol" in Heinlein's works. The concept of a distinct order of pilots totally dedicated to preserving the peace reappears in Heinlein's later works, including the short story "The Long Watch". The juvenileSpace Cadet describes the training and indoctrination of Patrol cadets. Cadets are taught not to ask about another's country or planet of origin, and to admire and seek to emulate Rivera, a legendary Patrolman who ordered the nuclear bombing of his own hometown and died himself in the blast.
"Solution Unsatisfactory" marked the beginning of Heinlein's concern with nuclear weapons. After World War II, Heinlein believed that a nuclear arms race was an urgent problem. He wrote several works on nuclear warfare in the mid-1940s, such as "The Last Days of the United States", "How to be a Survivor", and "Pie from the Sky" but, except for "Back of the Moon," they were rejected by publishers.[6] Heinlein wrote:[7]
I wrote nine articles intended to shed light on the post Hiroshima age, and I have never worked harder on any writing, researched the background more thoroughly, tried harder to make the (grim and horrid) message entertaining and readable. I offered them to commercial markets, not to make money, but because the only propaganda that stands any chance of influencing people is packaged so attractively that editors will buy it in the belief that the cash customers will be entertained by it. Mine was not packaged that attractively.
In 1980, he published them in Expanded Universe along with "Solution Unsatisfactory".
Echoes in later fiction
The 1984 novel The Peace War by Vernor Vinge features a "Peace Authority" created when military research scientists develop a device called a "bobbler" and use it to take over the world and enforce world peace in a very similar fashion.
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion reactions, producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter.
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His plots often posed provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.
Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. Written in a few weeks in reaction to the US suspending nuclear tests, the story was first published as a two-part serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction as Starship Soldier, and published as a book by G. P. Putnam's Sons on November 5, 1959.
Space Cadet is a 1948 science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein about Matt Dodson, who joins the Interplanetary Patrol to help preserve peace in the Solar System. The story translates the standard military academy story into outer space: a boy from Iowa goes to officer school, sees action and adventure, shoulders responsibilities far beyond his experience, and becomes a man. It was published as the second of the series of Heinlein juveniles and inspired the media franchise around the character Tom Corbett, including the 1950s television series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and radio show which made "Space Cadet" a household phrase whose meaning later shifted in popular culture.
Otto Hahn was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner discovered radioactive isotopes of radium, thorium, protactinium and uranium. He also discovered the phenomena of atomic recoil and nuclear isomerism, and pioneered rubidium–strontium dating. In 1938, Hahn, Meitner and Fritz Strassmann discovered nuclear fission, for which Hahn alone, was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Nuclear fission was the basis for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
"Blowups Happen" is a 1940 science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It is one of two stories in which Heinlein, using only public knowledge of nuclear fission, anticipated the actual development of nuclear technology a few years later. The other story is "Solution Unsatisfactory", which is concerned with a nuclear weapon, although it is only a radiological "dirty bomb", not a nuclear explosive device.
"The Long Watch" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It is about a military officer who faces a coup d'état by a would-be dictator.
Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detectors and gun sights.
Building on major scientific breakthroughs made during the 1930s, the United Kingdom began the world's first nuclear weapons research project, codenamed Tube Alloys, in 1941, during World War II. The United States, in collaboration with the United Kingdom, initiated the Manhattan Project the following year to build a weapon using nuclear fission. The project also involved Canada. In August 1945, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were conducted by the United States, with British consent, against Japan at the close of that war, standing to date as the only use of nuclear weapons in hostilities.
Radiological warfare is any form of warfare involving deliberate radiation poisoning or contamination of an area with radiological sources.
Strange and exotic weapons are a recurring feature in science fiction. In some cases, weapons first introduced in science fiction have been made a reality; other science-fiction weapons remain purely fictional, and are often beyond the realms of known physical possibility.
The Soviet atomic bomb project was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II.
Plutonium-239 is an isotope of plutonium. Plutonium-239 is the primary fissile isotope used for the production of nuclear weapons, although uranium-235 is also used for that purpose. Plutonium-239 is also one of the three main isotopes demonstrated usable as fuel in thermal spectrum nuclear reactors, along with uranium-235 and uranium-233. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,110 years.
The Shape of Things to Come is a science fiction novel written by the British writer H. G. Wells published in 1933. It takes the form of a future history that ends in 2106.
A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction. The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion-based weapons have used a fission device to initiate fusion, and a pure fusion weapon remains a hypothetical device. Nuclear explosions are used in nuclear weapons and nuclear testing.
World War III, sometimes abbreviated to WWIII, is a common theme in popular culture. Since the 1940s, countless books, films, and television programmes have used the theme of nuclear weapons and a third global war. The presence of the Soviet Union as an international rival armed with nuclear weapons created persistent fears in the United States and vice versa of a nuclear World War III, and popular culture at the time reflected those fears. The theme was also a way of exploring a range of issues beyond nuclear war in the arts. U.S. historian Spencer R. Weart called nuclear weapons a "symbol for the worst of modernity."
Frank Kramer was an American artist known chiefly for his illustrations for Jack Snow's two Oz books, The Magical Mimics in Oz and The Shaggy Man of Oz, founded on and continuing the famous Oz stories by L. Frank Baum. He also illustrated Robert A. Heinlein's Solution Unsatisfactory, Maureen Daly's Twelve Around the World, and many of Caary Paul Jackson's sports novels for children, including the Bud Baker series.
The Moon Maid is a fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was written in three parts, Part 1 was begun in June 1922 under the title The Moon Maid, Part 2 was begun in 1919 under the title Under the Red Flag, later retitled The Moon Men, Part 3 was titled The Red Hawk. As evident from its name, Under the Red Flag, it appears to have been originally set in contemporary Soviet Russia, with the Bolsheviks as villains ; as this was not popular with the publishers, Burroughs transferred it to a science-fictional setting, with the evil Communist-like "Kalkars" taking over the Moon and then the Earth and being finally overthrown in the third part.
Nuclear transmutation is the conversion of one chemical element or an isotope into another chemical element. Nuclear transmutation occurs in any process where the number of protons or neutrons in the nucleus of an atom is changed.
The Berlin Project is a 2017 science fiction alternate history novel by American writer Gregory Benford. It was first published in May 2017 in the United States by Saga Press, a division of Simon & Schuster. The novel was nominated for 2017 Sidewise Award for Alternate History.
References
↑ William H. Patterson, Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, volume 1, Tor Books, 2011 ch. 20-21; see also the description of Heinlein correspondence here
↑ According to Heinlein biographer William H. Patterson, the Karst character is "an homage to Lise Meitner, who worked out the necessary mathematical support for the idea of fission in 1939 on a train fleeing Nazi Germany." Meitner, who was Hahn's co-worker, had to leave Germany in 1938 because of her Jewish origin. See Patterson's comments here
↑ The reader is told that the President that meets Manning is standing, which means that he is not Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From several hints, such as the President being described as short of stature and fluent in German, Heinlein implies that the President is New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. In For Us, the Living, Heinlein's first novel, Heinlein foresaw La Guardia being elected President for two consecutive terms in the 1950s. In "Solution Unsatisfactory", Stalin dies in 1941 and Nazi Germany has a new Führer by 1945 with no mention of what happened to Hitler.
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