Edmonds, Wash. (AP) – The NASDAQ index soared more than 400 points at the opening today on news that the Pentagon has entered into a contract with R H Research, Inc., of Edmonds, Washington, to procure a completely new type of weaponry. The agreement calls for $77.1 billion to be spent during an initial five-year R&D period. Actual procurement and deployment are expected to bring RH an additional $95.8 billion, and the follow-on business for maintenance and a series of upgraded models could yield some $245 billion over the next 25-30 years, plus additional amounts for completion of engineering change orders.
In Bethesda, Maryland, a consortium composed of Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Company expressed disappointment at the Pentagon's selection of RH as prime contractor for the massive project. According to spokesman Kenneth Killdear, the consortium has invested more than $6 billion in preliminary research to demonstrate the feasibility of a new generation of space-based, laser-guided, hydrogen-powered, kinetic-energy, multi-purpose munitions to be used in a scenario code-named Operation Armageddon. Said Killdear, "We expect to urge our friends in Congress to do whatever they can to bring about a reconsideration of DoD's deal with RH. We have grave doubts about RH's ability to deliver the goods on time and at cost." When asked about Lockheed and Boeing's own record of cost overruns and schedule slippages, Killdear had no comment.
Other defense contractors also expressed misgivings about the Defense Department's decision. In Falls Church, Virginia, a spokesman for General Dynamics, Rear Admiral (ret.) Rocky Waters, declared at a press conference that "RH has no track record in the defense industry, and our country cannot risk its security by doing business with fly-by-night firms in places that lack reserved airport parking spaces for members of Congress." In Lexington, Mass., Raytheon spokeswoman Estella Bright reacted angrily to news of the industry upstart's Pentagon bonanza. "I don't know any other way to put it," she said. "This means war."
At R H Research, Inc., headquarters in Edmonds, president and sole shareholder Robert (Buck) Higgs expressed satisfaction with finalization of the agreement. "This is the realization of a dream," he said. "I invested more than a decade of my life stalking Donald Rumsfeld. I know where he's gone, and I know what he's done; and now all my hard work has finally paid off." Queried about the ability of a small one-person (Chapter S) corporation to carry out the massive project, Higgs said he had complete confidence that RH would be able to cash checks as well as Lockheed or Boeing. "Once those advance and progress payments begin to roll in," he insisted, "I'll show you the kind of technological miracle that hasn't been witnessed since the explosion of the Challenger."
Although RH will rely on completely novel technology, much of which remains classified, Higgs revealed that the awesome power of the new weapons derives from harnessing the energy of fruit. "Here in Washington state," he said, "we have had more than a century of experience with apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, cherries, and a variety of berries. Therefore, it was only natural that we would be the first to discover that fruits contain, in their pits, a form of energy far more powerful than that of atomic fission or fusion." Although his experiments are not yet complete, Higgs insisted that once he had succeeded in "splitting the pit," the world would be astonished. "I foresee the day when a single peach bomb will have greater explosive power than all the nuclear weapons ever built."
With the peach bomb perfected, "very little additional development" would be required to produce, for use in constricted theaters of operation, the cherry bomb. Follow-on work would give rise to an apple howitzer shell, a pear mortar shell, and a nectarine-rocket bazooka able to penetrate the armor of any tank now in the field. Anti-personnel "blueberry bomblets" would follow shortly. Higgs foresees that ultimately the armed forces will be equipped with a fully color-coded arsenal suitable to use by illiterate soldiers, allowing military recruiters to tap the human resources of recent graduates of public schools. "It used to be that soldiers had to know the "up" from the "down" written on an ammo crate. With my system, they need only be able to tell the difference between a Golden Delicious and a Granny Smith."
In eastern Washington, where unemployment rates have been relatively high in recent years, fruit growers expressed cautious optimism. The Chamber of Commerce of Yakima, Washington, issued a brief statement: "Anything that provides jobs for our young people is a godsend. We also welcome the opportunity to do our part in advancing the technology of death and destruction. If President George (Shrub) Bush should give the order to blow Beijing to smithereens with one of our Jonathans, our fructose-filled hearts would surely swell with pride." Governor Gary Locke, recently reelected Democrat, said "this is no time to split hairs about human rights to life." He saw "absolutely no downside" to the subcontracts certain to spill across the area stretching from Pasco, near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, in the south to the Okanogan Valley, spanning the U.S.-Canada border, in the north. "We need the jobs badly in this area," he said. "If we must create those jobs by risking the fate of humanity, well, it won't be the first time we've done that in this state."
May 2, 2000
