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Ripper tells Mandrake that he believes the Soviets have been using fluoridation of the American water supplies to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of Americans.

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Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
I have to say I am shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, at what a masterpiece this memoir is.
It was written by the actor Sterling Hayden -- yes, Gen. Jack Ripper in Doctor Strangelove" -- and published in 1963, when he was but 47. And yet what a life he had already led!
He ran away from school at 16 to go to sea and by his early 20s was considered a master of sailing ships, having sailed to Tahiti, fished the Grand Banks cod in a dory and had many other adventures on the salt. He was discovered by Hollywood in 1940. His first film, "Virginia," introduced him to a woman he would marry -- Madeleine Carroll -- but soon after, he went to work for the OSS during World War II, and under an assumed name ferried arms to the partisans in Yugoslavia. After the war, he made nearly three dozen movies and absolutely hated acting and Hollywood. In 1959, he defied a court order in a bitter divorce case, loaded his schooner with young adventurers and his four children and escaped to Tahiti, basically telling the courts, his ex, Hollywood and his creditors to screw themselves.
Turns out Hayden was not just a good writer; he was a great one. This book will be read 100 years from now, not only for the adventure and the accurate descriptions of life under sail, but for the tremendous life wisdom earned at great cost.