And Where Will I Get A Malted?

ON THERMONUCLEAR WAR, by Herman Kahn, Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1961. Index. xx + 668 pp.

“He was always sleepy. And always ready to sleep. Everywhere. At the biggest mass meetings, at all the concerts, at every important convention, he could be seen asleep.

“And he slept in every conceivable and inconceivable pose. He slept with his elbows in the air and his hands behind his head. He slept standing up, leaning against himself so that he shouldn’t fall down. He slept in the theater, in the streets, in the synagogue. Wherever he went, his eyes would drip with sleep.

“Neighbors used to say that he had already slept through seven big fires, and once, at a really big fire, he was carried out of his bed, still asleep, and put down on the sidewalk. In this way he slept for several hours until a patrol wagon came along and took him away.

“It was said that when he was standing under the wedding canopy and reciting the vows ‘Thou art to me …’ he fell asleep at the word ‘sanctified,’ and they had to beat him over the head with brass pestles for several hours to wake him up. And then he slowly said the next word and again fell as...