Grumbles from the Grave (11 page)

Somebody around this controversy does need a psychoanalyst—and it ain't you and it ain't me and it ain't Willis.

March 18, 1949: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein

Book will have to be changed before it can go on the recommended library list. There is a certain amount of censorship in the juvenile field. Publishers must sign an affidavit when asking for books to be purchased by libraries, saying there is nothing in them which will offend either youngsters or parents. Dalgliesh is sending list of changes needed in
Red Planet.
Once those changes recommended by the juvenile librarian are made, Scribner's will take book. Scribner's is a respected house and excellent connection for RAH.

Editor's Note: Around this time, Robert was looking for an idea for the story "Gulf," which he had promised to John W. Campbell, Jr. for the special November 1949 issue of
Astounding
. We approached this task in a fashion today known as brainstorming. I would put up an idea and Robert would knock it down.

The title, "Gulf," was the hitch. Eventually I suggested that it might be possible to do something like the Mowgli story—a human infant raised by a foreign race, kept apart from humans until he reached maturity. "Too big an idea for a short story," said Robert, but he made a note about it.

Further brainstorming resulted in the notion Robert wanted to do a superman story for "Gulf." What did supermen do better than their peers? "They think better," I replied. So another note was made.

Then Robert disappeared into his study and wrote eighteen pages, single spaced, of notes on ideas which the Mowgli suggestion had started rolling in his brain. He worked on those pages the whole night, and came out with a batch of papers titled
The Man from Mars [Stranger in a Strange Land].

The Man from Mars
was then set aside, and "Gulf" was written to meet JWC's deadline, as it must be sent off to New York before we departed for Hollywood. We planned to drive to California at the end of May, and had no idea just when we would return to Colorado.

March 24, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I agree to all changes [on
Red Planet
]. Let's go ahead with the contract. Please ask her to send me the original manuscript. Please ask her to make her instructions for revision as detailed and as specific as possible. She should bear in mind that, since these revisions are being made to suit her taste and her special knowledge of requirements of the market,
my
taste and
my
limited knowledge of them cannot be a guide to me in making revisions—else I would have submitted a manuscript satisfactory to her in the first place.

* * *

I note with wry amusement that she no longer speaks of the book as "fairy tale quality," "not
our
sort of science fiction," "lack of controlled imagination," "strange shaped Martians," etc. The only point she still makes which she originally made is about Willis and (pardon my blushes!) s-x. Okeh, s-x comes out; it was probably a mistake on the part of the Almighty to have invented s-x in the first place.

I capitulate, horse and foot. I'll bowdlerize the goddamn thing any way she says. But I hope you can keep needling her to be specific, however, and to follow up the plot changes when she demands the removal of a specific factor. I'm not just being difficult, Lurton; several of the things she objects to have strong plot significance . . . if she takes them out, the story ceases to be. Removing the details objected to about Willis is a much simpler matter; it's offstage stuff and does not affect the story line until the last chapter.

If she forces me to it, I'll take out what she objects to and then let her look at the cadaver remaining—then perhaps she will revise her opinion that it "—doesn't affect the main body of the story—" (direct quote).

I concede your remarks about the respect given to the Scribner imprint, the respect in which she is held, and the fact that she is narrowly limited by a heavily censorship-ridden market. I still don't think she is a good editor; she can't read an outline or a manuscript with constructive imagination.

I expect this to be my last venture in this field; 'tain't worth the grief.

April 18, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

The revised version of
Red Planet
will be in your hands by the end of the month and you may tell Miss Dalgliesh so. I am complying with
all
her instructions and suggestions.

April 19, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Alice Dalgliesh

The manuscript of
Red Planet
is being returned, through Mr. Blassingame. You will find that I have meticulously followed all of your directions, from your letter, from your written notes, and from your notations on the manuscript, whether I agreed with them or not. I have made a wholehearted attempt to make the changes smoothly and acceptably and thereby to make the story hang together. I am not satisfied with the result, but you are free to make any additional changes you wish wherever you see an opportunity to accomplish your purposes more smoothly than I have been able to do.

Most of the changes have been made by excising what you objected to, or by minor inclusions and variations in dialog. However, on the matter of guns, I have written in a subscene in which the matter of gun licensing is referred to in sufficient explanatory detail to satisfy you, I think.

The balance of this letter is side discussion and is in no sense an attempt to get you to change your mind about any of your decisions concerning the book. I simply want to state my point of view on one matter and to correct a couple of points.

At several different times you have made the point that this book was different from my earlier books, specifically with respect to colloquial language used by characters, with respect to firearms, and with respect to aggressiveness on the part of the boys. I have just checked through
Rocket Ship Galileo
and
Space Cadet
—as published—and I do not find any of these allegations substantiated. In both books I made free use of such expressions as "Yeah," "Nope," "Huh", "Stinker," and similar sloppy speech. In both books the boys are inclined to be aggressive in the typical, male-adolescent fashion. See pages 8, 23, 42, 107, 200, and 241 of
Space Cadet
and all of
Rocket Ship Galileo
from page 160 to the end—not to mention a couple of minor brushes earlier. In re guns,
Space Cadet
cannot be compared with the other two books as all the characters are part of a military organization from one end to the other, but
Rocket Ship Galileo
can be compared with
Red Planet.
In
Rocket Ship Galileo
they are handling dangerous explosives in chapter one. From page 62 to the end they are all heavily armed at all times—
and no mention is ever made of licensing them.
On pages 165-6 Art and Ross each kill a man; a few pages later Morrie kills about eighty men. On page 167 dialog makes clear that they are long used to guns. I bring up these points to correct matters of fact; I do not like being accused of having switched the mixture on you.

Now, as to matters of opinion—You and I have strongly different evaluations as to the best way in which to handle the problem of deadly weapons in a society. We do not seem to disagree in any important fashion as to the legitimate ways in which deadly weapons may be used, but we disagree strongly as to socially useful regulations concerning deadly weapons. I will first cite two points which sharply illustrate the disagreement. I have one of my characters say that the right to bear arms is the basis of all human freedom. I strongly believe that, but you required me to blue-pencil it. The second point concerns licensing guns. I had such licensing in the story, but I had one character strongly object to it as a piece of buttinsky bureaucracy, subversive of liberty—and I had no one defending it. You required me to remove the protest, then build up the licensing into a complicated ritual, involving codes, oaths, etc.—a complete reversal of evaluation. I have made great effort to remove my viewpoint from the book and to incorporate yours, convincingly—but in so doing I have been writing from reasons of economic necessity something that I do not believe. I do not like having to do that.

Let me say that your viewpoint and evaluation in this matter is quite orthodox; you will find many to agree with you. But there is another and older orthodoxy imbedded in the history of this country and to which I hold. I have no intention nor any expectation of changing your mind, but I do want to make you aware that there is another viewpoint that is held by a great many respectable people, and that it is quite old. It is summed up in the statement that I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of individuals, such as the Sullivan Act of the State of New York. I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty, subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating in their purpose. You will find that the American Rifle Association has the same policy and has had [it] for many years.

(56)

Heinlein's Expert Rifleman medal, from his naval days.

France had Sullivan-type laws. When the Nazis came, the invaders had only to consult the registration lists at the local gendarmerie in order to round up all the weapons in a district. Whether the authorities be invaders or merely local tyrants, the effect of such laws is to place the individual at the mercy of the state, unable to resist. In the story
Red Planet
it would be all too easy for the type of licensing you insist on to make the revolution of the colonists not simply unsuccessful, but impossible.

As to such laws being self-defeating, the avowed purpose of such laws as the Sullivan Act is to keep weapons out of the hands of potential criminals. You are surely aware that the Sullivan Act and similar acts have never accomplished anything of the sort? That gangsterism ruled New York while this act was already in force? That "Murder, Inc." flourished under this act? Criminals are never materially handicapped by such rules; the only effect is to disarm the peaceful citizen and put him fully at the mercy of the lawless. Such rules look very pretty on paper; in practice they are as foolish and footless as the attempt of the mice to bell the cat.

Such is my thesis, that the licensing of weapons is subversive of liberty and self-defeating in its pious purpose. I could elaborate the arguments suggested above at great length, but my intention is not to convince, but merely to show that there is another viewpoint. I am aware, too, that even if I did by some chance convince you, there remains the unanswerable argument that you have to sell to librarians and schoolteachers who believe the contrary.

I am not inexperienced with guns. I have coached rifle and pistol teams and conducted the firing of millions of rounds from pistols to turret guns. I am aware of the dangers of guns, but I do not agree that those dangers can be eliminated nor even ameliorated by coercive legislation—and I think my experience entitles me to my opinion at least as much as schoolteachers and librarians are entitled to theirs.

* * *

I am sorry to say in answer to your inquiry that I do not expect to be able to come east soon. If Miss Fowler passes this way, we shall be very glad to see her and to show her some of the sights if she wishes.

May 9, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

As to the name on
Red Planet
ms., no, I'm not adamant; I'll always listen to your advice and I'll lose a lot of sleep before I will go directly against your advice. But I feel rather sticky about this point, as I hate like the deuce to see anything go out under my own name, without even sharing responsibility with Miss Dalgliesh, when said item includes propositions in which I do not believe. The matter of style, plot, and the effect on my literary reputation, if any, I am not adamant about, even though I am not happy about the changes—if you say to shut up and forget it, I'll shut up. It's the "Sullivan-Act-in-a-Martian-
frontier-colony
" feature that I find hard to swallow; from my point of view I am being required to support publicly a doctrine which I believe to be subversive of human liberty and political freedom.

Editor's Note: Because of the necessity of editing
Red Planet to suit the sensibilities of librarians (who, at that time, were mostly elderly ladies), Robert seriously made the suggestion that Miss Dalgliesh's name be added to the book as an author. This suggestion might have been made over the telephone—the files are incomplete on this point.

But the storm blew over, and
Red Planet, firearms or no, Willis' sex or no, became very popular. It was one of Robert's most popular books for juveniles.

May 17, 1949: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I'll have to give some thought to the Scribner's beef over the name. I can't see why Alice Dalgliesh's name, tacked on, should be a handicap. Maybe they would like to send the script back for reworking to
my
ideas. It seems to me that if she insists on rewriting the story by remote control, then she should expect to share the blame.