Books, Arts & Manners

Against All Hope, by Armando Valladares (Knopf, 380 pp., $18.95) Fidel: A Critical Portrait, by Tad Szulc (Morrow, 703 pp., $19.95) Fidel, by Peter G. Bourne (Dodd, Mead, 332 pp., $18.95)

I’ll never forget attending, in an elegant Washington drawing room (Embassy Row, not Georgetown, for once), a private showing of a documentary film about Fidel Castro. This was in 1976. The film—shameless propaganda from beginning to end—had been made by Saul Landau of the Institute for Policy Studies. A dozen or so IPS types constituted the audience. The lights came on, and there was a sincere round of applause—as much for Castro as for Landau. I was anxious to preserve decorum, not to mention my by-then shaky liberal credentials, but I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Pure propaganda!” I shouted out, rattling the wine glasses and cheese knives.

TB

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Tom Bethell

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Human Rights

Ronald Reagan

Against All Hope, by Armando Valladares (Knopf, 380 pp., $18.95) Fidel: A Critical Portrait, by Tad Szulc (Morrow, 703 pp., $19.95) Fidel, by Peter G. Bourne (Dodd, Mead, 332 pp., $18.95)

I’ll never forget attending, in an elegant Washington drawing room (Embassy Row, not Georgetown, for once), a private showing of a documentary film about Fidel Castro. This was in 1976. The film—shameless propaganda from beginning to end—had been made by Saul Landau of the Institute for Policy Studies. A dozen or so IPS types constituted the audience. The lights came on, and there was a sincere round of applause—as much for Castro as for Landau. I was anxious to preserve decorum, not to mention my by-then shaky liberal credentials, but I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Pure propaganda!” I shouted out, rattling the wine glasses and cheese knives.