Random Notes

■ More October Titles: George F. Kennan’s latest book is The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Atomic Age (Pantheon, $13.95), which seeks to discredit the idea that what he calls the “nuclear explosive” is a moral or pragmatic instrument of war. (Unfortunately for him, Kennan has fatally compromised anything he might ever write on the subject of the United States v. the Soviet Union by his immortal asseveration of a few years ago in the New York Times Magazine that it is better to be Red than dead “because when you’re dead, that’s it.”)

The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Basic, $16.95), by Fred L. Greenstein, is yet another volume contributing to the favorable reassessment of Eisenhower and the 1950s, by a man who considers Ike to have been a tough- minded and skillful political realist.

CW

About the Author

Chilton Williamson Jr.

■ More October Titles: George F. Kennan’s latest book is The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Atomic Age (Pantheon, $13.95), which seeks to discredit the idea that what he calls the “nuclear explosive” is a moral or pragmatic instrument of war. (Unfortunately for him, Kennan has fatally compromised anything he might ever write on the subject of the United States v. the Soviet Union by his immortal asseveration of a few years ago in the New York Times Magazine that it is better to be Red than dead “because when you’re dead, that’s it.”)

The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Basic, $16.95), by Fred L. Greenstein, is yet another volume contributing to the favorable reassessment of Eisenhower and the 1950s, by a man who considers Ike to have been a tough- minded and skillful political realist.