The Week

There was the photograph in the New York Times: posters shouting “Bienvenido, Compañero Fidel” signed “Partido Communista de Chile.” And there was the caption: “Posters in Santiago say, ‘Welcome, Colleague Fidel.’ “ And if your Spanish I teacher told you “compahero” means “comrade,” why then she’s not fit to print.

Really, it was a shame. Libinform worked so hard— bustling in and out of court, buying newspaper ads, collecting signatures, holding news conferences, whipping up mass hysteria. It had half of Canada in a tizzy; it had all Japan ready for the ultimate tsunami; according to Herb Caen, it had Ocean Beach jammed with surfers waiting for the ride of their lives. Then The Bomb went off, and the mean old thing was a complete dud. A big-game hunter five hundred miles away didn’t feel a thing. Not a teacup rattled in Anchorage; nobody in Japan or California so much as got a foot wet. No terrible earthquake, no giant tidal wave, no radiation escaping into the atmosphere, nothing. Nada. Nichevo. The AEC was delighted with the Amchitka test, but for libdom it was a cruel blow when the world didn’t end. Now, national review hopes to bring back the smiles to those downcast faces with a Revelation: According to secret papers stolen from a trashcan in Chagrin Falls, there was a radiation leak—not into the atmosphere, but into a cavern deep in the ocean where has slumbered for centuries a prehistoric monster, half lizard, half newt and twice the size of the Chrysler Building. Anybody who’s seen Japanese horror flicks on the Late Show knows what radiation does to those babies: It wakes them up, and makes them hungry. This particular one lives on a steady diet of liberals, and he should reach San Francisco in a day or two. ‘‘General! it’s still coming! All our weapons are useless!”… “Very well, it’s our only chance—unleash John Lindsay!”

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William F. Buckley Jr.

There was the photograph in the New York Times: posters shouting “Bienvenido, Compañero Fidel” signed “Partido Communista de Chile.” And there was the caption: “Posters in Santiago say, ‘Welcome, Colleague Fidel.’ “ And if your Spanish I teacher told you “compahero” means “comrade,” why then she’s not fit to print.

Really, it was a shame. Libinform worked so hard— bustling in and out of court, buying newspaper ads, collecting signatures, holding news conferences, whipping up mass hysteria. It had half of Canada in a tizzy; it had all Japan ready for the ultimate tsunami; according to Herb Caen, it had Ocean Beach jammed with surfers waiting for the ride of their lives. Then The Bomb went off, and the mean old thing was a complete dud. A big-game hunter five hundred miles away didn’t feel a thing. Not a teacup rattled in Anchorage; nobody in Japan or California so much as got a foot wet. No terrible earthquake, no giant tidal wave, no radiation escaping into the atmosphere, nothing. Nada. Nichevo. The AEC was delighted with the Amchitka test, but for libdom it was a cruel blow when the world didn’t end. Now, national review hopes to bring back the smiles to those downcast faces with a Revelation: According to secret papers stolen from a trashcan in Chagrin Falls, there was a radiation leak—not into the atmosphere, but into a cavern deep in the ocean where has slumbered for centuries a prehistoric monster, half lizard, half newt and twice the size of the Chrysler Building. Anybody who’s seen Japanese horror flicks on the Late Show knows what radiation does to those babies: It wakes them up, and makes them hungry. This particular one lives on a steady diet of liberals, and he should reach San Francisco in a day or two. ‘‘General! it’s still coming! All our weapons are useless!”… “Very well, it’s our only chance—unleash John Lindsay!”