The Visitors (v1.0)

54. MINNEAPOLIS

"How sure can we be of Norton?" Lathrop asked. "He's not one of our staff."

"I'd stake my reputation on him," said Garrison. "Frank and I go a long ways back. We went to school together, have been in touch ever since. He's a dedicated newspaperman. Just because he chose to hide away up at Lone Pine doesn't make him any less a newspaperman. We act as if we were specialists here—some of us write the news, others edit it, still others make up the pages, and there are a few who write editorials. Each one to his own task. Frank does the whole damn thing. He starts each week with nothing and he pulls the news and advertising together, he edits what he writes, he makes up the paper. If there is need for an editorial any particular week, he writes the editorial and not only that.

"No need to go on, Johnny," Lathrop told him. "I just wanted to know how you felt about it."

"If Frank tells me he saw evidence the visitors are making houses," said Garrison, "then I'll believe they're making houses. His story hangs together, he had a lot of detail."

"It seems incredible to me," said Lathrop, "that we have this one exclusive. That makes two in a row. We had the cars and now we have the houses."

"There's something I want to talk with you about," said Garrison. "I think we should let the White House in on it before we go to press. I've talked to the press secretary there. He seems a decent man. I can get through to him."

"You mean you want to tip them off," said Lathrop, somewhat horrified. "Tell them about the houses. ‘Why, Johnny? Just why in hell.

"My thinking may be wrong," said Garrison, "but it seems to me the administration is absorbing a lot of punishment and.

"It's good for them," said Lathrop. "The bastards have it coming. Not on this visitor matter—they've done fairly well on it. But they've been willfully wrong and pig-headed on most other things. A good dose of humility won't do them any harm. I can't seem to summon up much sympathy."

Garrison was silent for a moment, considering, trying to put his thoughts together.

"It's not the administration so much," he finally said, "as it is the nation. The White House is being stiff-necked about it; they're determined to ride the crisis out. Maybe they can do it. Maybe they had a chance of doing it before the houses came up. But the houses will wreck them. The cars are bad enough, the houses

"Yes, I can see that," said Lathrop. "The implication is there. Houses as well as cars. First the automotive business, now the housing industry. The dollar will be worthless. Our credit will be gone. But still we have to run the story. Even if we wanted to, and we don't, it's something that can't be covered up."

"There's no question about publishing," said Garrison. "We have to do that. The question is: Do we give our own government a chance to react to it before we let them have it straight between the eyes? Maybe, if they knew, they would have the time to shift their stance, stand on more solid ground to deal with it when it broke."

"The whole idea," said Lathrop, "is that we should go international on it. I'm not sure that's the right thing to do. After all, we have taken the brunt of this alien invasion. If there are to be any benefits or advantages because of it, they should go to us. The visitors chose us; we didn't invite them in, we didn't lure them in. Why they chose us, I don't know. I don't know why they didn't land in Europe or in Africa. But the U.N. has been yelling ever since it happened — .

"I don't know about that, either," said Garrison. "It would gall me to see it go international, but international or not, however we may go, I think the administration should be given a few hours to reconsider on the basis of new developments. They'll handle it better if they have some advance warning. They may elect to stand pat, tough it out. I don't know. You and I don't have to decide that. Our problem is a different one. We talk about our responsibility in dealing with the news. We think of ourselves as a public service institution. We do nothing willingly to harm or debase our cultural system. We talk a lot about digging out the truth and reporting the truth and that's an easy one in those cases where we can determine truth. But there is something else that goes beyond mere truth. And that's the power we hold. We have to use that power as wisely as we can. If we keep this bottled up for the sake of another scoop.

"Dammit, Johnny, I want another scoop," said Lathrop. "I love them. You can't get too many for me. I roll in them with great delight. How can we be sure the White House wouldn't leak it? There's no such thing as a secret in Washington unless someone has slapped a confidential stamp on it."

"They would be unlikely to leak it," said Garrison. "They'd want to keep it quiet until they could figure out what to do, what action they should take. As soon as it is known, there'll be hell let loose. They'll need all the time we can give them. They'll be no more anxious to leak it than we are."

"Well, I don't know," said Lathrop. "About letting Washington in on it, I don't really know. Let me think about it, talk with the publisher."