Books in Brief

If All the Rebels Die, by Samuel B. Southwell (Doubleday, $5.95). This book lacks some of the dimensions of a novel, but makes up for those deficiencies by its intellectual and moral qualities; perhaps it is best taken as a science fiction “extrapolation.” The premise is a nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States, assumed to have occurred just before the story begins. The United States Government has capitulated: later we learn that the surrender was not the result of the devastation brought by the bomb—which, though enormous, was at least equalled in the Soviet Union—but of a failure of nerve. A Communist occupation force moves in. The book’s primary scene is Travam, a medium-size Texas city outside the nuclear target zones, and in particular the local campus of “the university.” The problem is what response to make to the slowly tightening occupation. The action differentiates the possible responses —welcome, servility, collaboration, indifference, non-cooperation, active resistance—and explores their motivations. Mr. Southwell not only confronts issues that have become familiar—for example, the moral dilemmas of conspiratorial resistance and “using the enemy’s methods”—but raises the profoundly disturbing question: Is the American ethos equipped to deal with such an enterprise as Communism? If All the Rebels Die poses this question with entire generality: the extrapolation of a Communist force literally in occupation can be understood merely as a symbol of Communism as actually present, in idea, influence and threat, among us. For his question Mr. Southwell does not offer an answer. J. burnham

The Communist Controversy in Washington, From the New Deal to McCarthy, by Earl Latham (Harvard, $7.95). Writing with sardonic wit and urbanity, Professor Latham separates the Communist problem (there was infiltration of government) from the Communist issue (the partisan uproar in political and intellectual circles, particularly during the McCarthy period). His barbs lodge impartially in the hides of “orthodox” Liberals and “orthodox” conservatives. He restricts himself to the civilian agencies of the Federal Government and sets forth the familiar public record dispassionately, blinking no conclusions but equally refusing to draw even the most obvious inference. A brilliant political scientist, he is at his best in his analysis of the role and function of the three branches of the American system and the use by Congress of “prescriptive publicity” (similar to Greek ostracism and incidentally, he points out, first used by the Liberals in the Thirties). His attempt to fit McCarthy into the rhythm he discerns in American politics (periodic change forced by accumulating grievances against the “ins,” since people generally vote “against,” not “for”) has strong points, but a few dubious economic and historical underpinnings. At any rate, he sees McCarthy as a catalyst for precipitating a change long held in suspension by the third term and the war; the stress once relieved, neither McCarthy nor the Communist issue was relevant to the new situation. Despite his brilliance, and just because he is a trained American political scientist, his incomprehension of a politics based on ideology is nearly total. He can assess Americans in interaction with Communism, but for all his prodigious labor he cannot assess American Communists or international Communism.

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If All the Rebels Die, by Samuel B. Southwell (Doubleday, $5.95). This book lacks some of the dimensions of a novel, but makes up for those deficiencies by its intellectual and moral qualities; perhaps it is best taken as a science fiction “extrapolation.” The premise is a nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States, assumed to have occurred just before the story begins. The United States Government has capitulated: later we learn that the surrender was not the result of the devastation brought by the bomb—which, though enormous, was at least equalled in the Soviet Union—but of a failure of nerve. A Communist occupation force moves in. The book’s primary scene is Travam, a medium-size Texas city outside the nuclear target zones, and in particular the local campus of “the university.” The problem is what response to make to the slowly tightening occupation. The action differentiates the possible responses —welcome, servility, collaboration, indifference, non-cooperation, active resistance—and explores their motivations. Mr. Southwell not only confronts issues that have become familiar—for example, the moral dilemmas of conspiratorial resistance and “using the enemy’s methods”—but raises the profoundly disturbing question: Is the American ethos equipped to deal with such an enterprise as Communism? If All the Rebels Die poses this question with entire generality: the extrapolation of a Communist force literally in occupation can be understood merely as a symbol of Communism as actually present, in idea, influence and threat, among us. For his question Mr. Southwell does not offer an answer. J. burnham

The Communist Controversy in Washington, From the New Deal to McCarthy, by Earl Latham (Harvard, $7.95). Writing with sardonic wit and urbanity, Professor Latham separates the Communist problem (there was infiltration of government) from the Communist issue (the partisan uproar in political and intellectual circles, particularly during the McCarthy period). His barbs lodge impartially in the hides of “orthodox” Liberals and “orthodox” conservatives. He restricts himself to the civilian agencies of the Federal Government and sets forth the familiar public record dispassionately, blinking no conclusions but equally refusing to draw even the most obvious inference. A brilliant political scientist, he is at his best in his analysis of the role and function of the three branches of the American system and the use by Congress of “prescriptive publicity” (similar to Greek ostracism and incidentally, he points out, first used by the Liberals in the Thirties). His attempt to fit McCarthy into the rhythm he discerns in American politics (periodic change forced by accumulating grievances against the “ins,” since people generally vote “against,” not “for”) has strong points, but a few dubious economic and historical underpinnings. At any rate, he sees McCarthy as a catalyst for precipitating a change long held in suspension by the third term and the war; the stress once relieved, neither McCarthy nor the Communist issue was relevant to the new situation. Despite his brilliance, and just because he is a trained American political scientist, his incomprehension of a politics based on ideology is nearly total. He can assess Americans in interaction with Communism, but for all his prodigious labor he cannot assess American Communists or international Communism.