World Security Workshop: Conspiracy Out of Space

[james_davis_nicoll]

World Security Workshop was an anthology series on the ABC radio network, presented by United World Federalists, and its predecessor Americans United for World Government. Twenty-six half-hour episodes were broadcast between 14 November 1946 and 8 May 1947. ABC Radio Vice President Robert Saudek produced the series.

Can you imagine what would happen if someone ran a pro-World Government show today? Heh. Glenn Beck would weep himself into a small pile of dessicated dust.

Conspiracy Out of Space by Sheldon Stark

In 1955, ten years after Hiroshima (and about eight years after this aired), the world is staggering towards nuclear war between East and West even though nobody particularly seems to want an atomic war. This sleepwalk to doom is interrupted when interference of an unknown nature that has been plaguing communications turns out to be signals from Venus.

The message claims that terrestrial weapons are threatening the physical stability of the Solar System and rather than have their world disrupted by human stupidity, the aliens will simply invade the Earth and conquer us with their superior technology if there is any sign of a war. This is followed by two explosions in remote locations on Earth; if the causes came from Venus, they did so via some means humans cannot detect.

Seeing no alternative, the nations of the world declare peace and form a World Government to make sure war never happens again. Except a few years later, once everyone gets used to the grim specter of peace
a reporter realizes that only a few scientists were ever able to decipher the message and that they are all friends known to be concerned about the prospect of atomic war. Also, there's no reason the explosives for the two demonstration attacks could not have been planted well beforehand. Maybe, just maybe, the whole thing was faked to save the world!

I am pretty sure this was a well-chewed plot idea by 1947.

Interesting issue that doesn't get discussed (because the focus is on preventing atomic war): what of the various colonial empires teetering on the edge of falling apart? If one of their colonies rises up, does that count as a war in the supposed Venusians' eyes? They cannot know because the Venusians are not talking to anyone. How far will the imperials go to prevent uprisings, given how far they went in real life with the threat of being conquered to drive them on?

The play has a brief afterword by Merle Miller, who was an interesting figure.

Comments

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

So they killed much fewer people than Adrian Veidt?

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

And did this show have a squid in it?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

No. I guess the sf/x budget didn't stretch that far...

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

None, as far as I can tell. Not directly, as far as I can tell.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

...a reporter realizes that only a few scientists were ever able to decipher the message and that they are all friends known to be concerned about the prospect of atomic war.

This casts Philip Morrison's role in SETI, over a decade later, in a more sinister light. Could he have been softening us up for the Fake Alien Threat?

I am pretty sure this was a well-chewed plot idea by 1947.

Yeah, there's a 1910ish story I read in some Groff Conklin anthology...

Strong Mothers & Weak Eyes

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

The play has a brief afterword by Merle Miller, who was an interesting figure.

Having an interest in the TV industry, I'd read Only You, Dick Daring! and was a bit bemused years later when its author became famous for other things.

Wikipedia quotes his friend as saying, of former President Harry Truman:

...if Truman did not ignore the rest of us completely...for Merle, always a smile, always an inside greeting that had to do with a couple of fellas from Missouri and Iowa...both were from the Midwest; both had strong mothers, weak eyes...

Doesn't this sound like a dogwhistle of some kind?

[timgueguen.livejournal.com]

People still posit the idea that the powers that be will fake an alien invasion as part of their scheme to take over the world or what have you. You can probably find a few hundred videos on Youtube around that theme. The fact that it never happens never seems to dissuade a new wave of such theories.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

;)

Unless it's all those stories that are discouraging anyone from trying it.

How is anybody supposed to come up with a plot that diehard fen won't immediately figure out?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Consider the difference in how telepaths working for the UN are portrayed in this 1964 novel:



And this novel from a generation later:

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

>> Glenn Beck would weep himself into a small pile of dessicated dust.

... so what would the down-side be?

Dave, the dust would then be used to make phylacteries for various other entities