Nikola Tesla Books
IN SEARCH OF NIKOLA TESLA 'What's the worst thing you can do to the enemy?" he asked me. I shrugged. 'Well, kill them, I suppose. Blow them up?" He shook his head and smiled at my simplistic answer. 'People can be replaced. In modern warfare you can replace people in the front line fairly quickly. But if you injure them, that could be far worse.' He explained that an injury requires a decision, and it may tie up several people to give treatment and fly out the wounded soldier. Even worse is an officer who is disabled but remains in command. A weapon which would produce nausea, confusion, forgetfulness and irritability could devastate an opponent. After all, history shows us that wavering, ambiguous orders and blundering decisions can more effectively turn a battle than firepower alone. A badly worded order caused Lord Cardigan to lead the Light Brigade to charge down the 'valley of death' into heavy Russian armaments instead of securing the lightly defended Vorontsov Heights. In the campaigns which led up to the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's various physical disabilities seem to have taken a heavy toll upon his military genius. Errors of judgement during the battle, as much as Wellington's nerve and Blucher's determination to arrive on time, seem to have contributed to the French defeat. A battle can be won or lost on an army's morale and the character of its commander. Clearly a device which could subtly undermine the will to fight and the ability to make clear and immediate decisions would be of considerable interest to military intelligence all over the world. But did such a weapon exist? Could a Tesla transmitter be tuned to emit disabling radiation towards an opposing army? Could it be so arranged as to disrupt the normal life of a civilian population by promoting irritability, minor illnesses, loss of concentration and the like? If this were true then Tesla's invention had certainly been used for evil ends. What had once started out as a plan to free the human race would have ended up as yet another form of enslavement. Was there no ray of hope in all this? 135
