Books in Brief

Appeasement—Road to War, by William Henry Chamberlin (Rolton House, $3.95). “From the time of Pericles and Demosthenes to the modern experience of Munich and Yalta, appeasement, which may be defined as retreat before force or the threat of force, accompanied by the sacrifice of a weaker ally, has never led to peace—except a peace of surrender.” Here, at the start of his book, Mr. Chamberlin states his thesis, which he develops with considerable strength and overpowering documentation throughout the length of this slim but solid volume. He shows both sides of the coin: how appeasement has always led to war under deteriorated circumstances, and how a resolute stand has maintained the peace by discouraging, for a time, the lust of aggressors. Herein, the difficulty: for the resolute stand taken at A today must be taken at B tomorrow. We face a long career of resolute stands if we are to survive. We must be ready to run The Big Race every day, not just in the Olympics: we must learn to meet what Mr. Chamberlin calls “the permanent Communist threat.” He analyzes the Communist threat with a thorough review of recent history: the challenges faced or not faced in Berlin, Laos, Quemoy; the psychic traps of coexistence, disarmament, Summit meetings. And he confirms his own correctness negatively, by offering a richly merited divellication of the appeasement arguments of Walter Lippmann, Vera Micheles Dean, C. Wright Mills and James P. Warburg; and positively, by the flow of time. For his book was written, most of it, by mid-1960, and the predictions he made then, unlike any predictions Mr. Lippmann ever made, have come to pass. W. F. RICKENBACKER

The Cuban Invasion: Chronicle of a Disaster, by Tad Szulc and Karl E. Meyer (Praeger, $3.95). This book will recommend itself to that portion of the public which has succumbed to the assiduously cultivated fiction that CIA bungling rather than New Frontier gutlessness was responsible for failure at the Bay of Pigs. Times-man Szulc is an old hand at partisan propaganda in the classic Joe Barnes-Herbert Matthews tradition, while co-author Meyer, a Washington Post reporter, is obviously learning the craft on his way to bigger things. Reticent about his past, Szulc touched these shores en route from his native Poland to Brazil, where his father was established as official trade representative of the Polish People’s Republic. Marriage to a United States citizen, and intercession with immigration authorities by a former Vice President and a senior U.S. Ambassador, got Szulc back into the U.S., where he remains, officially classified as a “stateless person.” The book’s publication date, April 17, has a special and cynical significance, for it was only a year ago that the Establishment chickened out on the anti-Communist invasion brigade, dooming many to needless death, others to “socialist” slavery. Soon afterwards Szulc toured the battleground in the entourage of a triumphant Fidel Castro. And so it goes. Our President’s image has got to be preserved. tiresias

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Appeasement—Road to War, by William Henry Chamberlin (Rolton House, $3.95). “From the time of Pericles and Demosthenes to the modern experience of Munich and Yalta, appeasement, which may be defined as retreat before force or the threat of force, accompanied by the sacrifice of a weaker ally, has never led to peace—except a peace of surrender.” Here, at the start of his book, Mr. Chamberlin states his thesis, which he develops with considerable strength and overpowering documentation throughout the length of this slim but solid volume. He shows both sides of the coin: how appeasement has always led to war under deteriorated circumstances, and how a resolute stand has maintained the peace by discouraging, for a time, the lust of aggressors. Herein, the difficulty: for the resolute stand taken at A today must be taken at B tomorrow. We face a long career of resolute stands if we are to survive. We must be ready to run The Big Race every day, not just in the Olympics: we must learn to meet what Mr. Chamberlin calls “the permanent Communist threat.” He analyzes the Communist threat with a thorough review of recent history: the challenges faced or not faced in Berlin, Laos, Quemoy; the psychic traps of coexistence, disarmament, Summit meetings. And he confirms his own correctness negatively, by offering a richly merited divellication of the appeasement arguments of Walter Lippmann, Vera Micheles Dean, C. Wright Mills and James P. Warburg; and positively, by the flow of time. For his book was written, most of it, by mid-1960, and the predictions he made then, unlike any predictions Mr. Lippmann ever made, have come to pass. W. F. RICKENBACKER

The Cuban Invasion: Chronicle of a Disaster, by Tad Szulc and Karl E. Meyer (Praeger, $3.95). This book will recommend itself to that portion of the public which has succumbed to the assiduously cultivated fiction that CIA bungling rather than New Frontier gutlessness was responsible for failure at the Bay of Pigs. Times-man Szulc is an old hand at partisan propaganda in the classic Joe Barnes-Herbert Matthews tradition, while co-author Meyer, a Washington Post reporter, is obviously learning the craft on his way to bigger things. Reticent about his past, Szulc touched these shores en route from his native Poland to Brazil, where his father was established as official trade representative of the Polish People’s Republic. Marriage to a United States citizen, and intercession with immigration authorities by a former Vice President and a senior U.S. Ambassador, got Szulc back into the U.S., where he remains, officially classified as a “stateless person.” The book’s publication date, April 17, has a special and cynical significance, for it was only a year ago that the Establishment chickened out on the anti-Communist invasion brigade, dooming many to needless death, others to “socialist” slavery. Soon afterwards Szulc toured the battleground in the entourage of a triumphant Fidel Castro. And so it goes. Our President’s image has got to be preserved. tiresias