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Article: In a Strange Land.(books, arts & manners)(Robert Anson Heinlein )(Biography)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- July 9, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WHEN Robert A. Heinlein opened his Colorado Springs newspaper on April 5, 1958, he read a full-page ad demanding that the Eisenhower administration stop testing nuclear weapons. The science-fiction author was flabbergasted. He called for the formation of the Patrick Henry League and spent the next several weeks writing and publishing his own polemic that lambasted "Communist-line goals concealed in idealistic-sounding nonsense" and urged Americans not to become "softheaded."
Then Heinlein made an important professional decision. He quit writing the manuscript he had been working on--eventually it would become one of his best-known books, Stranger in a Strange ...