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The cover date ofNew Yorks first issue was 50 years ago today, on April 8, 1968.

Strangelovehad been reaching me in increasing numbers.

Strangelove,and was happy to find that it lived up to the reviews.

It made me all the more anxious to meet the creator of so extraordinary a movie.

Hewas clean-shaven, though he has since grown a full-fledged beard.

On our first day together, we talked for eight solid hours about science-fiction,Dr.

Strangelove,Flying Saucers, politics, the space program and, of course, the projected movie.

Besides talking endlessly, we had a look at the competition.

In my opinion there have been a number of good or at least interesting science-fiction movies in the past.

After I had pressed him to view H.G.

Ill never see anything you recommend again!

On the whole, however, he always treated me with great consideration.

But he had to have something to show M.G.M.

what they were buying; so he proposed that we first write the story as a complete novel.

Stanley had a neat trick for getting the best out of me.

When I wrote what I considered a good piece of prose, his usual reaction would be Thats terrific!

(She is the German girl in its moving final scene.)

He is also a gadget lover, being surrounded by tape-recorders and cameras all of which are well used.

(Or, I suspect, vice versa.)

One of Stanleys few personal idiosyncrasies is a rather exaggerated fear of illness.

I hope he is right, for immortality is now probably unavoidable.

Though this may sound unnecessarily complicated, the alternative was creeping chaos.

Stanley is one of the worlds champion worriers, though he defines this activity as potential problem avoidance.

(More often than not, it must be admitted, his pessimism is wholly justified.)

Stanley decided to take his chances with the universe; but he still worries about UFOs.

The next take was perfect.

When he does make a mistake, he corrects it unhesitatingly, whatever the cost in time and effort.

A good case in point is the original ending ofDr.

Strangelove,which climaxed with a classic old-style custard-pie fight in the War Room.

(Now you know what that buffet table was doing in the War Room.)

The year we began production, man had just obtained his first closeup of Mars, via Mariner IV.

Fiction and fact are indeed becoming hard to disentangle.