The New Year brings the 60th anniversary of one of my favorite books, a Cold War satire. The Mouse that Roared (Four Walls Eight Windows, 152 pages, $10) by Irishman Leonard Wibberley was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post December 1954 and January 1955.
The book, which I read at 10, was my introduction to satire, geopolitics and diplomacy. It was great preparation for the Foreign Service.
Wibberley treats us to the imaginary European Duchy of Grand Fenwick, "five miles long and three miles wide," that is desperately in need to money. Since 1370 the Duchy has had a roaring economy due to sales of an internationally prized wine, Pinot Grand Fenwick. When the grape crop fails, disaster must be averted.
Grand Fenwick's population has grown to 6,000 and Duchess Gloriana must act to quickly to finance the Duchy and keep people content. What to do?
The Duchy's two political parties, the Dilutionists and the Anti-Dilutionists, named for their position on watering down the prized wine to increase sales, suggest asking the U.S. for aid to save the Duchy from Communism. One problem: Russia does not know the Duchy exists.
Gloriana, a beautiful 22 year old, has a better plan. The Duchess rides her bicycle to a meeting with forest ranger Tully Bascomb, something of a country wise-man. He tells her there is only one honorable way to get money from the U.S. "We could declare war."
Gloriana sees the wisdom of this even though Grand Fenwick has only a small army of longbow men who wear traditional 14th century suits of armor. She concludes, "There are few more profitable undertakings for a country in need of money than to declare war on the United States."
The plan is simple: "We declare war on Monday, are vanquished Tuesday and rehabilitated beyond our wildest dreams by Friday night." In 1950s lingo, "rehabilitation" meant unlimited billions in foreign aid money.
How to start the war? Gloriana proves a California winery is pirating Pinot Grand Fenwick. An angry Grand Fenwick sends a Declaration of War to the U.S. Department of State. A Foreign Service Officer looks at it and considers it a joke and uses it to absorb water under the potted plant in his office.
After weeks of U.S. silence, Grand Fenwick pulls together an expeditionary force to land in New York, declare war to someone and immediately surrender before anyone could get hurt. Tully Bascomb and 22 other armored soldiers take a bus to Marseilles and a brig, called Endeavor, to New York.
Unknown to the Fenwickians, an eccentric New York City scientist has developed a Q bomb for Washington. The powerful bomb will "incinerate two million square miles" when detonated. News of the bomb panics New York City and everyone takes safety in underground fallout shelters.
When Bascomb and troops arrive in New York they find city streets deserted. They find no one to surrender to.
The Fenwickians eventually come upon scientists wearing protective suits to guard them from any Q bomb fallout. The troops panic and shoot arrows at them. The scientists rip off their suits and alert their superiors New York has been invaded by men from Mars.
Bascomb finds a newspaper in the street and learns of the Q bomb. With his troops, they march to the scientist's lab, address conveniently printed in the paper, and capture the scientist and the bomb. They return to Grand Fenwick victorious over the United States!
Instead of declaring defeat to the most powerful nation in the world, they declare victory. The tiniest country in the world has become the most powerful country in the world.
With the news out, Russia rushes to "protect" Grand Fenwick. U.S. officials are in a state of shock at having lost an unknown "war" to the Duchy.
The U.S. president and European Heads of State travel to Grand Fenwick pleading for world peace. But the Fenwickians have their own ideas about peace and "weapons of mass destruction," like the Q bomb.
Irishman Wibberley (1915-1983) was a prolific author and journalist who lived most of his life in California. He dedicated The Mouse That Roared, his most famous work, "To all the little nations who over the centuries have done what they could to attain and preserve their freedom. It is from one of them I am spring."
Wibberley's masterful comic construction works beautifully from start to finish. The Mouse That Roared is a classic fable of mice and men and war and peace. Its message is as sharp today as when it came upon the American scene 60 years ago.
Jim Patterson, Diplomat
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