On the other hand, the police guarding us took the full brunt of it. Paroxysms of love soon swept their ranks, assuming mass proportions. Before my eyes policemen tore the masks from their faces and, shedding copious tears of remorse, fell to their knees and begged the demonstrators for forgiveness, pushing the billy clubs into their hands with fervent pleas to be severely beaten. Following another LTN bombardment, which raised the drug's concentration even more, these minions of the law stumbled over themselves in the mad rush to kiss and hug everyone within reach. It was only several weeks after the whole tragedy that we were able, more or less, to piece together what had happened. The government had decided that morning to nip the developing revolution in the bud, so it put into the municipal water tower about 700 kilograms of bromo-benignimizer, mixing equal parts of Felicitine, Placidol and Superjubilan. The water to the police and military barracks had been shut off first, of course. Except that without the proper experts this plan was doomed to failure-the phenomenon of filter overload in the masks was not taken into account, for example, nor the fact that different social groups would consume the drinking water in radically different amounts.

The conversion of the police took place with particular violence because, as Trottelreiner explained to me, the less an individual was accustomed to following his own natural good impulses, the greater the effect of such drugs upon him. That explained why, when two planes in the next wave accidentally LTN'd the city hall, so many of the highest ranking police and military officials committed suicide, unable to endure the terrible pangs of conscience over policies they had implemented in the past. And if you add to this the fact that General Diaz himself had-before putting a bullet through his head-ordered the immediate release of all political prisoners, it is easier to understand the extraordinary ferocity of the fighting that developed in the course of the night.