Christie does not limit the dangers of the novel's era to the 1960s "brigades of revolutionary youth". Christie uses the novel to criticize the apathy of an older generation, while the youth of the era causes riots around the world. The recruitment drive for a new Children's Crusade, is (according to Christie) the result of the failure of the post-war generations (the parents and grandparents of the rioting youth) to create a better or more progressive political order. The older generations of the novel essentially cling to an "archaic political order", which offers no real progressive ideas. Lassner feels that it is not a coincidence that the novel opens with Stafford Nye dozing off at the Frankfurt Airport, reflecting Nye's casual indifference towards the political changes in the world surrounding him.