She shrugged. "But he didn't – or couldn't. I don't know which; he rarely talked to me. Real talk, I mean. Not just, 'Good morning,' and, 'Did you have a comfortable flight' and not wait for an answer.

"I didn't care. I relished every minute of the campaign. An actress sometimes plays a queen... but for four months I got to be one. Never dreaming that our ticket would win. I knew what a – No, de mortuis nil nisi bonum, and we must get back to work. What would you do about pollution of streams?"

"Eh? But that one has already been solved. By one of the Scandinavian countries, I believe. You simply require every user to place his intake immediately downstream from his discharge of effluent into the stream. In self – protection the user cleans up his discharge. It's self – enforcing. No need to test the water until someone downstream complains. Seldom. Because it has negative feedback. Ma'am, complying with a law should be more rewarding than breaking it – or you get positive feedback."

She made a note. "We could clean up the Mississippi that way. But I'm fretted about streams inside states, too. For example, the Missouri, where it is largest, is entirely inside the State of Missouri."

"Ma'am, I think you'll find that you have jurisdiction overall navigable streams."

I do?

"Ma'am, you have powers you may never have dreamed existed. A 'navigable stream' is one only three feet deep, I think. You may right now have the power to order this under law already on the books. If there is a paragraph or even a clause on placement of inlets and outlets, you almost certainly can issue an executive order right away. Today. The boss of the U.S. Engineers would know. General Somebody. A French name."

She touched a switch. "Get me the head of the U.S. Engineers. How would you dispose of nuclear power plant wastes? Rocket them onto the Moon as someone

urged last week? Why wouldn't the Sun be better? We may want to go back to the Moon someday."

"Oh, my, no! Neither one, Ma'am."

"Why not? Some of those byproducts are poisonous for hundreds of years, so I've heard. No?"

"You heard correctly. But the really rough ones have short half – lives. The ones with long half – lives – hundreds, even thousands of years, or longer – are simple to handle. But don't throw away any of it, Ma'am. Not where you can't recover it easily."

"Why not? We're speaking of wastes. I assume that we have extracted anything we can use."

"Yes, Ma'am, anything we can use. But our great grandchildren are going to hate you. Do you know the only use the ancient Romans had for petroleum? Medicine, that's all. I don't know how those isotopic wastes will be used next century .. . any more than those old Romans could guess how very important oil would become. But I certainly wouldn't throw those so – called wastes into the Sun! Besides, rockets do fail – . . and who wants to scatter radioactives over a couple of states? And there's the matter of the fuel and steel and a dozen other expensive things for the rockets. You could easily wind up spending more money to get rid of the ashes than you ever got from selling the power.

"Then what do you do? They say we mustn't sink it into the ocean. Or put it on the Antarctic ice cap. Salt mines?"

"Madam President, honest so help me, this is one of those nonproblems that the antitechnology nuts delight in. Radioactive wastes aren't any harder to handle than garbage. Or hot ashes. Or anything else you don't want to pick up in your bare hands. The quantity isn't much, not at all like garbage, or coal ashes. There are at least a half dozen easy ways. One of the easiest is to mix them with sand and gravel and cement into concrete bricks, then stack them in any unused piece of desert.

"Or glass bricks. Or let the stuff dry and store it in steel barrels such as oil drums and use those old salt mines you mentioned – the bricks you could leave in the open. All by remote manipulation, of course; that's the way a radioactives engineer does everything. Waldoes. That's old stuff. No trouble."

"I thought you said you were obsolete."

He grinned sheepishly. "Ma'am, it's easy to talk. As long as I know that young fellows will have to do the tedious drudgery that goes into making anything new work. But the solutions I've offered are practical. No new discoveries needed.

"How about air pollution?"

"What sorts, Ma'am? The two main sources are internal combustion engines – trucks and autos – and industrial smokes. Quite different problems."

"Pick one."

"Transportation pollution is going to solve itself soon. Either the hard way or the easy way. Oil, whether it's our own or from the OPEC, is too valuable to be burned in cars and trucks; it's the backbone of the chemical engineering industry – fertilizers, plastics, pesticides, lubricants, and so forth. So, quite aside from the energy problem, we need to stop burning it. We can either wait until it's forced on us catastrophically . . – or we can turn to other transportation power voluntarily, and thereby become self – sufficient in oil for peace or for war. Either way, transportation pollution is ended."

"But what other transportation power, Doctor?"

"Oh. Half a dozen ways, at least. Get rid of the I.C. engine completely, both Otto cycle and Diesel cycle, and go back to the external combustion engine and steam. The I.C. engine never did make sense; starting and stopping combustion every split second is a guarantee of incomplete combustion, wasted fuel, and smog. Air pollution. External combustion has no such built – in stupidity; no matter what fuel, it burns continuously and can be adjusted for complete combustion. The Stanley Steamer used kerosene. But that's petroleum again. I would use wood alcohol as a starter – it hurts me every time I pass a sawmill and see them burning chips and slash.

"But wood alcohol has its drawbacks. We may burn hydrogen someday. Or learn to store electricity in less weight and less space. Or store energy in a flywheel. But all of those, even hydrogen, are simply ways to store energy. It still leaves an energy problem."

"Hydrogen, too? But you said we would burn it. No?"

"We'll burn it for some purposes; in some ways it's the ideal fuel; its only ash is water vapor. But, Ma'am, we don't have hydrogen; we have water – and even with perfect efficiency – never achieved – the energy you get out of hydrogen by burning it cannot exceed the energy you must use in getting that hydrogen by electrolysis of water. So you must generate electricity first."

"I see. No free lunch."

"Never a free lunch. But the energy problem can be solved several ways . . – through renewable resources. We've been using nonrenewable resources – coal and oil and cutting trees faster than they grow."

"Renewable resources – Windmills and water power and sun power?"

"Wind and water power are fine but limited. I mean effectively unlimited power. Such as this new wrinkle of thermoelectric power from the temperature difference of deep ocean and surface ocean. But there aren't too many really convenient places to do that. You named the one energy that is unlimited and convenient anywhere. Sun power."

"So? What desert is convenient to the Gary steel mills?"

"Not desert, Ma'am; the Sierra Club wouldn't like it."

"I plan to tell the Sierra Club that they are not the government of the United States. But in stronger language."

"I look forward to hearing you, Madam President.

The Sierra Club loves deserts and hates people. But our deserts aren't sufficient. Sun power, yes – but unlimited sun power. In orbit."

South Africa Enraged

United States Surprise Return to Gold Standard at $350 per Troy Ounce of Fine Gold Has

Bourses in Turmoil

"New Policy Obvious Concommitant of

Return to Balanced Budget," Says

Treasury Secretary Spokesman

"The Way to Resume is to Resume."

By ADAM SMITH

Finance Editor

WASHINGTON – The Treasury Secretary, after reading aloud to the Press the President's brief announcement of resumption of specie payments immediately at $350/oz., emphasized that this was not a tactical maneuver to "strengthen the dollar," not an auction of bullion such as those in the past, but a permanent policy consistent with the administration's total policy. "A return to our traditional policy, I must add. A century ago, for 15 years, war caused us to suspend specie payments – but never with any intent to accept the vice of fiat money. Since 1971, as sequelae to 3 wars, we have had a similar problem. By letting the dollar float until the world price of gold in terms of dollars settled down, we have determined what could be called the natural price. So we have resumed specie payment at a firm gold standard. God willing, we will never leave it."

This was in answer to the London Times correspondent's

frosty inquiry as to whether or not the Secretary thought anyone would want our gold at that price. The Treasury Secretary told him that we were not "selling gold" but promising to redeem our paper money at a gold – standard price. The Times' question was inspired by the fact that at the close of market Friday the London fix was $423. 195 per troy ounce, with the Zurich fix, the Winnipeg fix, and the Hong Kong fix (the last only hours before the Washington announcement) all within a dollar of the London fix.

PRAVDA: " – .capitalistic trickery – "

Moscow has not had a free market in gold since pre – 1914 but, as a gold – producing country, its response to our resumption policy has been even more acid than the shrill complaints from Johannesburg. The Zurich gold market did not open today. London opened on time but the price dropped at once, with the first purchase at $397. 127, which slowed but did not stop the decline. Winnipeg opened an hour late; the reason became clear when the Prime Minister announced the tying of the Canadian dollar to the U.S. dollar at one – to – one – a fait aCCompli as the two currencies have hunted up and down, never more than 1% apart, for the past several months.

The timing of the announcement gave the world a weekend in which to think things over, the purpose being presumably to reduce oscillations. The New York Stock Market responded with an upward surge. The Dow – Jones Industrials closed at

"Mr. Chairman, are these unofficial figures I have in front of me – that each of you has in front of you – correct? Or have my informants been leading me down the garden path? The figures on the use of hard drugs, for example?"

"Madam President, I don't know quite how to answer that."

"You don't, eh? You're Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and for four years before that chief of staff of your service. If these figures are not right, how far are they off and which way?"

"Ma'am, that is a question that should be put to each of the Services, not to me."

"So? General, you are relieved of active duty. A request for retirement will be acted on favorably, later today. You are excused. General Smith, take the chair."

The President waited until the door closed behind the ex – Chairman. Then she said soberly, "Gentlemen, it gives me no pleasure to put an end to the career of a man with a long and brilliant record. But I cannot keep in a top spot in my official family a military officer who can't or won't answer questions that, in my opinion, must be answered if I am to carry out my duties as Commander in Chief. If he had answered, 'I don't know now but I'll start digging at once and won't stop until' – but he said nothing of the sort. I gave him two chances; he brushed me off." She sighed. "I suppose he dislikes taking orders from one with no military experience; I do not assume that my sex and skin color had anything to do with it. General Smith, you are in the chair by default; I can't ask you about the other Services. How about your own? Hard drugs."

"I suspect that this figure is conservative, Ma'am. I've been trying to get hard data on hard drugs since I was appointed to this job a year ago. In most cases we need evidence from medical officers to make it stick

• . . and all our doctors are overworked; we don't have nearly enough of them. Worse yet, some of the doctors are pushers themselves; two were caught."

"What happened to them? Making little ones out of big ones?"

"No, Ma'am. Discharged. In civilian practice, I suppose."

"For God's sake, why? Has the Army forgotten how to hold a court martial? Two drug pushers, simply sent home and still licensed to practice medicine – and to prescribe drugs. General, I'm shocked."

"Ma'am, may I say something in my own defense? Then you can have my request for retirement, if you wish it."

"Please. Go ahead."

"These cases occurred before I became Chief of Staff. At the time these two were caught, I was Superintendent of the War College; drugs are not a problem there. When last I had troop duty, I did have a policy of treating use of hard drugs as a criminal offense, as permitted and required by regulations. But the very most I ever managed was to get some sent to the V.A. for hospital cure and rehabilitation. Under the present rules, if a man has a good lawyer – and they do, usually – he can get away from courts martial and appeal to a civilian judge. That usually ends it."

"Madam President, may I add something?"

"Certainly, Admiral."

"Have you heard of the mutiny in the Somers about a century and a half back?"

"I – Yes, I think I have! A novel. Voyage to the – Voyage to the First of December. Right?"

"There was a novel some years back; I think that was the book's title. I haven't read it. Then you are aware that it was a tragic scandal, with mutineers hanged at the yardarms. What I wanted to say was this: I think the figures on drugs in the Navy are about right – lower than in the Army, of course; the circumstances are different. But what is killing the Navy – aside from a shortage of career officer material – is that both mutiny and sabotage are out of hand – . – because offenses that used to rate hanging from the yardarm are now treated as 'Boys will be boys.' A great deal of it does derive from a change in the legal structure, as the General said. I would rather have five ships properly maintained, properly manned, shipshape and Bristol style, than ten ships undermanned and shot through with men who should never have been accepted in the first place. A stupid and sullen seaman is worse than no one at all."

The President said, "Judges, chapter seven."

The Admiral looked puzzled. The Marine Commandant suddenly said, "Gideon's Band!"

"Exactly. I suspect that we have been trying to meet

quotas – numbers of men – rather than placing quality first. I'm sure it's not as simple as that, but that does seem to be part of it. General, does the Air Force have any different slant on this?"

"No, Ma'am, I think the Navy and the Corps both speak for me. And the Army. . – although Smitty's problems are different from ours. Our worst problem is hanging on to trained men.. – because what we teach them, flying and electronics especially, are very salable on the outside. I want to add something, though. Marijuana is not on the list of drugs. It may very well be true that grass is no worse than liquor. But neither one mixes with driving a flying machine. Or anything in an airplane. But grass is harder to cope with. A stash is easier to hide than a bottle, and it is harder to tell when a man is stoned than when he is drunk. And much harder to prove. I welcome suggestions."