vBraun quote

[Paul Mackin]

On Wed, 3 Jan 1996, Gillies, Lindsay wrote:
 
>	  I see the von Braun quote not as a synthetic 
> moment of science and philosophy, but as a nasty joke on TRP's part---sort 
> of, its nice that werner has these convictions, seeing as how he's been 
> instrumental in helping so many Londoners discover whether they are true or 
> not.

If we know our TRP, won't we just naturally expect him to plant _several_
meanings at a strategic point in the book?

A number of colateral points come to mind in connection with the war, the 
rocket, and the quote.


1.  Through vBraun is not known to have been disturbed much with the use of
slave labor, he was, like the quote indicates, a man of some religious
feeling. He later claimed that his last meeting with Hitler had 
disillusioned him. H. was "suddenly revealed to me as an irreligious man, 
a man who did not have to answer to a higher power . . . He was completely
unscrupulous."

2. Because of the use of said slave labor, more Germans than Brits died as a
result of the rocket program. (Don't have the stats at my fingertips but
think this is true.)

3. From the standpoint of the immediate war effort, it might have been
smarter to stick with the low-tech buzz bombs (which cost a fraction
of the V2). Among other things, its noisiness created more terror and the
fact that it could be shot down diverted more Allied effort into
stopping it. There was no defense against the rocket. Whose side was 
Wernher really always on anyway?

			P