Homer Crawford chuckled ruefully. "The point is well taken, I suppose. However, so was the one expressed by Mr. Jackson. We do what we must, and what we can." His eyes went over the assembly. "Is there any other group from which we haven't heard?" When there was silence, he added, "No group from the Soviet Complex?" Ostrander, the C.I.A. operative, snorted. "Do you think they would admit it?" "Or from the Arab Union?" Crawford pursued. "Whether or not the Soviet Complex has agents in this part of Africa, we know that the Arab Union, backed by Islam everywhere, has. Frankly, we of the African Development Project seldom see eye to eye with them which results in considerable discussion at Reunited Nations meetings." There was continued silence. Elmer Allen came to his feet and looked at Ostrander, his face surly. "I am not an advocate of what the Soviets are currently calling communism, however, I think a point should be made here." Ostrander stared back at him unblinkingly. Allen snorted, "I know what you're thinking. When I was a student I signed a few peace petitions, that sort of thing. How--or why they bothered--the C.I.A. got hold of that information, I don't know, but as a Jamaican I am a bit ashamed of Her Majesty's Government. But all this is beside the point." "What is your point, Elmer?" Crawford said. "You speak, of course, as an individual not as an employee of the Reunited Nations nor even as a member of my team." "Our team," Elmer Allen reminded him. He frowned at his chief, as though surprised at Crawford's stand. But then he looked back at the rest. "I don't like the fact that the C.I.A. is present at all. I grow increasingly weary of the righteousness of the prying for what it calls subversion. The latest definition of subversive seems to be any chap who doesn't vote either Republican or Democrat in the States, or Conservative in England." Ostrander grunted scorn. Allen looked at him again. "So far as this job is concerned--and by the looks of things, most of us will be kept busy at it for the rest of our lives--I am not particularly favorable to the position of either side in this never-warming cold war between you and the Soviet Complex. I have suspected for some time that neither of you actually want an ending of it. For different reasons, possibly. So far as the States are concerned, I suspect an end of your fantastic military budgets would mean a collapse of your economy. So far as the Soviets are concerned, I suspect they use the continual _threat_ of attack by the West to keep up their military and police powers and suppress the freedom of their people. Wasn't it an old adage of the Romans that if you feared trouble at home, stir up war abroad? At any rate, I'd like to have it on the record that I protest the Cold War being dragged into our work in Africa--by either side." "All right, Elmer," Crawford said, "you're on record. Is that all?" "That's all," Elmer Allen said. He sat down abruptly.