He pointed out that when the Colt six-gun reached the West, it had a tremendous effect on the relationships between small, weak men and the big, strong men who formerly had been able to bully them at will. Billy the Kid and others now had their equalizer. And from Los Alamos on, Campbell said, small countries that were unable to afford big navies and big artilleries and big air forces now could have weapons that would equalize the difference between them and the great powers of the Earth. All they had to do was find the right messenger with a suitcase to deliver them.

War is by no means gone from our planet, as a glance at almost any continent will unmistakably show. And if war ever comes our way again…

There is Lenin's dictum as enunciated in State and Revolution: “No ruling class in history ever laid down power of its own free will.” Which makes me think of Hitler, 1945, in that last bunker in the ruins of Berlin. An aide comes to him and says, “Mein Fuhrer, we have just now perfected a weapon that will vaporize the enemy, city by city, patch of countryside by patch of countryside. But—”

“But what?” yells red-eyed Hitler.

“If we use it, we just may set off a reaction that will destroy the entire planet. What should we do?”

And Hitler, hearing the Russian guns going off in one direction, and knowing that the Americans, British, and French are scant miles off in the other direction—what do you think Adolf Hitler would say to do?

No, until we as a species grow a couple of moral inches, or until we have daughter colonies on planets outside Earth, until then—

I will keep my Greek chorus ending.