Good Missiles, Good Manners, Good Night

"Good Missiles, Good Manners, Good Night" is an article first published in The New York Times on September 13, 1969 and reprinted in Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons in 1974.

Summary

Melvin Laird and Richard Nixon, 1973

Vonnegut went to high school with Barbara Masters, now wife of Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. Another former student quipped that at a certain age, the world is run by high school classmates and one realizes that life is nothing but high school again. Richard Nixon—who with Laird recently proposed the Safeguard Antimissile system, the use of which an expert believes would cause universal and fatal birth defects—is easy to imagine in high school. Both powerful men can smile while calling for the building of a doomsday device.

Vonnegut heard that the now Mrs. Laird liked his books and wished to hear from him when he came to Washington, D.C. This baffled him, since his most recent book was about unarmed humans being bombed. But he remembered that in high school they were all taught to smile and respect the opinions of others. If the two were to meet, Vonnegut has no doubt that he would have politely respected the view that the defense establishment was only doing what was necessary, even if suicidal, and that "even for planets there are worse things than death". The younger generation doesn't learn such manners anymore, rudely attacking those who would build a device which could kill all children everywhere.

See Also

• Introduction in Our Time is Now: Notes from the High School Underground, which expands on the idea of adult life as high school