Book Review : A Swiftian Proposal for the Nuclear Age

The War Diaries of W. Morgan Petty, edited by Brian Bethell (Pantheon: $5.98)

In England, letters are still a branch of Letters. A small branch, a twig, if you like, but a branch nonetheless. The English write letters more than we do and use the phone less; and quite a few of them are penned. Handwriting is a kind of plugging-in to the general communicable spirit. And public letters are an event. The Letters column of the Times is the literate Englishman’s village green.

“The War Diaries of W. Morgan Petty” by Brian Bethell (he is Petty, of course; never mind the “edited” in the credits) could only exist in the light of all this. When one Englishman writes a letter, a second Englishman answers it. It is a forcing bid.

That was the basis of a book that came out some years ago containing the hilarious correspondence of Henry Root, who would write outrageous, whimsical and vaguely threatening letters to a variety of English celebrities and officials. Their wary, bland or infuriated replies made for high-low comedy of the Monty Python sort.

Humor With a Serious Purpose

W. Morgan Petty’s correspondence is blander and generally less successful. On the other hand, at its best, its humor is more pointed because it has a serious purpose. Using a nicely far-fetched idea--stretched, it is true, well beyond its strength--the book makes a mildly Swiftian proposal against nuclear destruction.

Bethell’s Petty is a retired glove-maker who lives in a small house in Canterbury with a small garden and a small pond containing two carp. He is a cozy man, devoted principally to the garden, which he works with the help of Roger, a temperamental friend. Small, mild men, the pair; but beware the mild Englishman. If his home is his castle, his garden is his bedroom.

Petty would have brought his pike to repel the Normans at Hastings; he would have brought his spade and bucket to answer Churchill’s call to fight on the beaches. These days, the threat to his garden is nuclear destruction and so, with Roger’s help, he declares No. 3 Cherry Drive a nuclear-free zone.

His “diaries” record a year of his efforts to establish the zone, to fortify it and to involve Washington, Moscow and his own government in it. He writes Andropov--the Soviet leader at the time--sending him a diagram of his street and requesting that he pass it along “to whoever is responsible for destroying this part of Kent, asking them to be very careful to avoid us.”

No Reply From Russians

There is no reply from the Russians, even though he has arranged to borrow extra chairs and a tea urn, anticipating the arrival of a Soviet negotiating team. Nor do the Americans reply when he writes to the U.S. Bomber Command with the same diagram and request.

Only the English answer letters, you see. The “War Diaries” consists of Petty’s journal of his preparations and his letters, and texts of the real replies that this imaginary character receives, in care of, one supposes, Mr. Bethell.

Petty may have adopted a neutralist stance for Cherry Drive but it is a bristly neutralism. He is a staunch admirer of Margaret Thatcher. His decision to establish a private non-nuclear defense zone simply follows her belief that state monopolies should be turned over to private enterprise. Defense is the biggest of the monopolies, he reasons, and he’s privatizing his bit.

He takes his geopolitical responsibilities seriously. Has the government warned that without nuclear weapons the Soviet Union would overrun the West? He will keep an open mind. But, he writes five days after his declaration, “I must say that this has not been our experience.”

In any event, he is no passivist. He and Roger dig a slit trench in the garden for the event of invasion, and practice maneuvers between the compost heap and the hyacinths. Asked to inspect the arrangements, Field Marshal Lord Carver replies that he can’t spare the time, but suggests anti-tank mines in the flower beds and offers the loan of a Swedish cavalry sword.

Neighbor Knits a Tank-Cozy

Petty writes off for a Challenger tank, preferably with a hedge-clipping attachment, and inquires about colors. The director of sales and marketing of the Royal Ordnance quotes a price--1.5 million pounds--and suggests cricket-pitch green. The chairman of the National Westminster Bank regrets that he cannot lend him the full amount but suggests that if Petty’s projected neighborhood jumble sale raises 1,499,600 pounds he might be able to supply the rest. A neighbor, meanwhile, knits him a tank-cozy, modeled on her teapot and enlarged.

The letters go out and the replies come back. A few are stiff and noncommittal. The U.S. Disarmament Agency’s sole reply is a copy of a Reagan speech. The British Atomic Research Agency sends five lines doubting that Petty’s microwave oven could be used for laser-beam defense. But most of the correspondents seem to get the joke and send absurd suggestions of their own. This, in fact, takes the edge off. It works into a lather of facetiousness and bogs down.

“War Diaries” doesn’t make a book but it does make a point. There is something uncomfortably close to the bone in Petty’s unilateral reasoning that, with his nuclear-free zone “whatever happened, his afternoon routine of a little light weeding followed by tea on the patio would remain undisturbed.” Jogging, anyone?