The movie which blocked this story’s path (based on the 1976 story by Ira Levin) was The Boys From Brazil (1978 ). The main problem was that it dealt with the cloning of a famous historical figure (in that case, Hitler), which could seem to turn my story (which was created without a knowledge of Levin’s work) into a merely imitative endeavor; but the purpose and direction of The Boys From Brazil was so different from my work’s, that my reticence to go forward with my own story was probably an overreaction. The Boys From Brazil was primarily (aside from being a thriller) a philosophical exploration of the nature-nurture question and the challenges faced in choosing a moral path, while my story was more focused on issues of social justice and the evolution of personality. With the passage of time, the shadow of The Boys From Brazil has receded, and I have felt more empowered to heal the nostalgia of a good idea which I abandoned, by bringing it back to life.

It is understood that some readers may be distressed by what they perceive to be the violent or revolutionary drive of the story. For those readers, I can best explain myself by saying that, although I am a man of peace, I, as we all do, live in a world of violence, and that it is well to know where this violence comes from: what attitudes, inequalities, behaviors and deprivations lead to it. And well to escape the "spins" which we are spoon-fed by our official consciousness-shapers, who rob our clarity by training us to overlook certain forms of violence, while condemning others; to forgive the aggravation, but never the response. We do not see the first blow; we only protest the counterpunch. I believe, as the Irish song goes: "If you sow the seeds of justice, you will reap the fruits of peace." We live in a world which desperately needs the beautiful ideas, which we all espouse, to be supported by our actions; we need to walk our talk, to end the reign of hypocrisy which, more than anything else in the world, is what turns brother against brother. For there to be peace on earth, there must be great changes: changes in our hearts, and in the world that is the reflection of our hearts. John F. Kennedy recognized this in 1962, when he urged sweeping political, social and economic reforms in Latin America as an alternative to violent revolution, saying: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." This, in the end - aside from the adventure, the characterization, and the depiction of the birth of choices - is the moral essence of this story.