Somebody could do exactly the same thing again tomorrow over Washington or Philadelphia or Los Angeles and we’d be no better prepared for it than we were for this one. It’s a hurricane, Mr. Skinner, it’s a tidal wave, an earthquake. Don’t you see, it’s simply a crime-and the only way you can prevent a crime is to know in advance that it’s going to take place.

Not necessarily. It’s possible to look at this kind of behavior as a disease. We’ve found preventives for a good many diseases.

You won’t find any for this one.

We won’t know that until we’ve tried, will we?

I’ve said my piece, Mr. Skinner. Let’s get on with the questioning.

Very well. I have the feeling the interviewer has just been interviewed, but let’s try to get back on the track. Perhaps you could give me a brief summary of what part you took in the events, and then we can go into detail.

Well I’ll make it very brief, and you can call for expansion on whatever details you want. I’d just returned to my office from lunch. I had a call from Joel Azzard of the FBI. He was downtown at the Merchants Trust Bank. He told me what the situation was. I only half-believed him. I had to go over and look out the window before I was convinced.

And you saw the plane?

Damnedest thing I ever saw. I’d seen the things in newsreels during the war and I don’t suppose I’d thought of them since then. It looked so close you could almost reach out and touch it. Right over the rooftops.

What did you do?

I notified various appropriate authorities.

For example?

Well, air-traffic control at the three New York airports, for example. And the police department, division of harbor patrol. I mean, the police were in on it by then, but evidently it hadn’t occurred to them to notify the harbor division. I did so, and they made every effort to clear the harbor of traffic. Barges, pleasure craft, that sort of thing. There wasn’t time to clear the liners and big freighters out, of course. But there was some talk of trying to shoot him down into the Hudson or the East River and we attempted to clear those bodies of water.