Dark Horses

Terrorism again; or—more precisely—still. The murder of Aldo Moro has thrust this dreadful subject once more into the headlines, and made a recent spate of books concerning it intensely topical.

With frequent mentions of Italian terrorism and several passages weighing the propriety of deals with terrorists, Jan Schreiber’s The Ultimate Weapon: Terrorists and World Order (Morrow, $3.50) is certainly in medias res. In substantive terms, unfortunately, the book is a muddle. It betrays, if not a sympathy for the terrorists, an invertebrate yen to “understand” them, which amounts to much the same condition. It hints that punishment does no good, that terror is often a sane response to bad conditions, that the best way to forestall it is power-sharing and benign reform.

Terrorism again; or—more precisely—still. The murder of Aldo Moro has thrust this dreadful subject once more into the headlines, and made a recent spate of books concerning it intensely topical.

With frequent mentions of Italian terrorism and several passages weighing the propriety of deals with terrorists, Jan Schreiber’s The Ultimate Weapon: Terrorists and World Order (Morrow, $3.50) is certainly in medias res. In substantive terms, unfortunately, the book is a muddle. It betrays, if not a sympathy for the terrorists, an invertebrate yen to “understand” them, which amounts to much the same condition. It hints that punishment does no good, that terror is often a sane response to bad conditions, that the best way to forestall it is power-sharing and benign reform.