Books in Brief

The Goldwater Caper, by Richard H. Rovere (Harcourt, $3.95). The New Yorker’s trademark, annually reproduced on its cover, is “Eustace Tilley,” a Regency dandy peering through a magnifying glass at a butterfly. As the New Yorker’s resident Eustace Tilley in Washington, Mr. Rovere bestows this dainty sort of attention on the nation’s political affairs, inditing his dispatches in a precise and elegant prose. In the present volume he has thrown together several of his columns, the aborted foetus of a book, and a couple of freelance articles, all having more or less to do with Senator Goldwater and the 1964 campaign. Fortunately he has dated these offerings, and we are thus able to study, in their chronological order, successive stages in the emotional development of Mr. Rovere. We find him serenely assured in November 1963 (“My own present feeling is that the prospect for Goldwater’s elimination [as a candidate for the nomination] is better than the prospect for his taking himself in hand”); positively purring with pleasure after Lodge’s New Hampshire victory in March 1964 (“there is absolutely no reason for Lodge not to stand mute in Saigon until all the debaters have exhausted themselves and their audiences, and the tiresome primaries are over”); shaken to the very core of his Liberal being by Goldwater’s astonishing nomination in July (“Had Ambassador Lodge not thought that someone was bound to eliminate Goldwater, he would have left South Vietnam long before he did”); acidly explaining the issues at stake to readers of London’s Encounter in August (“[The campaign] will, it now seems, be a referendum on bigotry”); snarling at the Republicans in September (“not even Miller has accused anyone of treason. Pay dirt, it would seem, is being overlooked”); fawning over Johnson in October (“Human hands have seldom taken as much punishment as his have taken in recent weeks”); and serene again when it was all over (“I offer this book as a souvenir of a toothache”). As a dentist would say, now you can spit. W. A. RUSHER

First Journey,by Winston S. Churchill (Random House, $4.95). Here is a breezy backward look over young Churchill’s 20,000 mile tour of Africa by light plane. Predictably, the author of this pleasant travelogue likes Nigeria, the Peace Corps, and the Shell Oil Company (whose credit card he used with ease in the middle of Darkest Katanga); quite as predictably, he is not fond of the Boers, Osagyefo Nkrumah, or getting lost over the Congo minutes before sundown. He gives us a few interviews with African notables, and an occasional bit of passable scene-painting; some valuable insights into the Yemen war, life in Angola (purveyors of Pavlovian anti-colonialism will be discomfited), and the strange nature of African political life; and several memorable moments, including a perplexing visit to that very unsanitary hospital in Lambarene and a trip to Kolwezi, Tshombe’s last stronghold, hours before the capitulation of naughty Katanga. Having survived arrest as an obvious drunkard by a policeman in Fez after giving his correct name, Churchill will doubtless weather the comments of hordes of reviewers eager to compare his literary gifts with those of his late grandfather. He is competent, observant, and cheerful withal; Emerging Africa sounds rather fun.

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The Goldwater Caper, by Richard H. Rovere (Harcourt, $3.95). The New Yorker’s trademark, annually reproduced on its cover, is “Eustace Tilley,” a Regency dandy peering through a magnifying glass at a butterfly. As the New Yorker’s resident Eustace Tilley in Washington, Mr. Rovere bestows this dainty sort of attention on the nation’s political affairs, inditing his dispatches in a precise and elegant prose. In the present volume he has thrown together several of his columns, the aborted foetus of a book, and a couple of freelance articles, all having more or less to do with Senator Goldwater and the 1964 campaign. Fortunately he has dated these offerings, and we are thus able to study, in their chronological order, successive stages in the emotional development of Mr. Rovere. We find him serenely assured in November 1963 (“My own present feeling is that the prospect for Goldwater’s elimination [as a candidate for the nomination] is better than the prospect for his taking himself in hand”); positively purring with pleasure after Lodge’s New Hampshire victory in March 1964 (“there is absolutely no reason for Lodge not to stand mute in Saigon until all the debaters have exhausted themselves and their audiences, and the tiresome primaries are over”); shaken to the very core of his Liberal being by Goldwater’s astonishing nomination in July (“Had Ambassador Lodge not thought that someone was bound to eliminate Goldwater, he would have left South Vietnam long before he did”); acidly explaining the issues at stake to readers of London’s Encounter in August (“[The campaign] will, it now seems, be a referendum on bigotry”); snarling at the Republicans in September (“not even Miller has accused anyone of treason. Pay dirt, it would seem, is being overlooked”); fawning over Johnson in October (“Human hands have seldom taken as much punishment as his have taken in recent weeks”); and serene again when it was all over (“I offer this book as a souvenir of a toothache”). As a dentist would say, now you can spit. W. A. RUSHER

First Journey,by Winston S. Churchill (Random House, $4.95). Here is a breezy backward look over young Churchill’s 20,000 mile tour of Africa by light plane. Predictably, the author of this pleasant travelogue likes Nigeria, the Peace Corps, and the Shell Oil Company (whose credit card he used with ease in the middle of Darkest Katanga); quite as predictably, he is not fond of the Boers, Osagyefo Nkrumah, or getting lost over the Congo minutes before sundown. He gives us a few interviews with African notables, and an occasional bit of passable scene-painting; some valuable insights into the Yemen war, life in Angola (purveyors of Pavlovian anti-colonialism will be discomfited), and the strange nature of African political life; and several memorable moments, including a perplexing visit to that very unsanitary hospital in Lambarene and a trip to Kolwezi, Tshombe’s last stronghold, hours before the capitulation of naughty Katanga. Having survived arrest as an obvious drunkard by a policeman in Fez after giving his correct name, Churchill will doubtless weather the comments of hordes of reviewers eager to compare his literary gifts with those of his late grandfather. He is competent, observant, and cheerful withal; Emerging Africa sounds rather fun.