Robert A. Heinlein In Dialogue with His Century

21. A very narrow margin. Shortly after the publication of Starship Troopers, Heinlein set out as his own thought the core observation on which modern individualist anarchism is based. After remarking that he was against conscription and against confinement, he goes on to say:

The only thing common to all forms of government is force. It was rude of me to say so, in an era when euphemisms of all sorts are customary. But there it is—force.… I am not objecting to this. I am simply saying: all government is force. The sole difference between one sort and another is: who exercises that unlimited force?

RAH, letter to George Scithers, 11/23/59.

The modern definition of a state in libertarian theory, following a long debate over the notion of “competing governments” in the late 1960s and early 1970s, is an entity or organization which claims to control the exercise of force and violence within a given territory.

48. Virginia Heinlein, letter to Leon Stover, 01/10/86. This exchange was not on the preserved portion of the interview tape; nor was it included in the CBS commemorative book. Stover’s “outtake” in his book Robert Heinlein for the Twayne U.S. Author Series (at 122, fn. 2) is an almost word-for-word transcription of Virginia Heinlein’s memory, as follows:

The exchange which I recall so vividly between Robert and Walter Cronkite went something like this:

R. About one third of the weight of this Apollo ship could have been saved by having an all-female crew.

C. Women in space!! Never (words to this effect).

R. Eventually whole families will go into space. But in this particular instance, if we’d sent someone—say Peggy Fleming—on this mission, the entire project could have saved a great deal of money, etc. Because women weigh less than men, and the engineering on the Saturn rocket would have been simpler and cheaper. An athlete like Peggy Fleming could have learned all the things she needed to know, and done what was necessary.

C[ronkite] continued to splutter at the idea of women in space, and these days he would find himself a candidate for lynching if he said some of the things he said then.

Robert continued with other considerations, and interrupted C[ronkite] again and again.

Stover added (at 123):

What makes this exchange interesting is that it dramatically reverses all the usual cliches about these two men. While the media critics dub Cronkite the great “liberal” commentator of the TV airwaves, critics of Heinlein attack him for being illiberal, sexist, and antifeminist.

61. RAH, letter to Paul Kantner, 09/18/69. Kantner later remembered the incident with a somewhat different slant:

During an interview for David Gans’ Grateful Dead Hour a couple of months ago, [Paul] Kantner [of Jefferson Airplane] told me this story: “When I was making Blows Against The Empire, I wrote a letter to Heinlein because I got his address. He lived down in Santa Cruz, in Bonnie Doon, actually, where my first girlfriend lived, so I thought ‘well, this is propitious.’ And I sent him a letter asking permission to use some of his words and some of his concepts out of his novels in Blows Against The Empire. He wrote me back saying, ‘My god, this is staggering’—something like that—‘you people have been ripping off my ideas and words for like 30 or 40 years and you’re the first person who’s ever had the decency to ask for permission.’ And he said, ‘P.S. Oh by the way my gardener says he went to high school with Marty Balin, who is your lead singer right now, and sends his best.’ That was a cute letter.”

http://www.metafilter.com/48658/Specialization-is-for-Insects. Accessed by Bill Mullins 05/26/06 and reaccessed by the author 07/11/11.