Books in Brief

Who Promoted Peress? by Lionel Lokos (The Book mailer, $3.00). Well, who did promote Peress? The answer, which can be found in this carefully researched book, is less sensational than melancholy: Colonel Blimp promoted Peress. Bad enough, but worse was to come, when the shifty General Zwicker was promoted, a gesture of retroactive vindictiveness against Senator McCarthy. The record is all here for those who want to look at it, which they’ll have to do fast, before history runs away with the facts, forever stabilizing the passion play constructed around the upward mobile Mr. Welch. Mr. Lokos writes with a great zest, and all fact mongers are in his debt. W. f. buckley JR.

Mila 18, by Leon Uris (Doubleday, $4.95). Turning his attention to the Warsaw ghetto uprising—and keeping one eye trained on John Hersey’s more ambitious The Wall —Leon Uris this summer produced Mila 18, by all odds the worst Uris book ever written, (No mean feat.) Top banana in the Uris ghetto is one Andrei Androfski, who combines the best qualities of Chaim Weizmann and Tarzan. Andrei, to be sure, has his faults— viz., a hot head and a Polish. American sweetie. But as someone remarks on page 43, “If a shikse was good enough for Moses, a shikse is good enough for Androfski”—neatly dispatching one piece of bigotry. Gabriela (for such was her name) is, needless to say, both “beautiful” and “brilliant.” She wheels and deals as no one has since Ann Sheridan, the Oomph Girl, appeared in a flick as the intellectual leader of the Norwegian Underground. Among her allies are a kindly old rabbi and a kindly old priest; one hopes that a kindly old Calvinist divine will make the scene, but no such luck. The main problem is to spring one Christopher de Monti, an Italian journalist who has become “the most important man in the ghetto.” Chris dabbles in alcoholism, sex orgies with Nazi biggies, and spying for the Germans. Nonetheless, Uris redeems him, and he is soon hustling through the Warsaw sewers. Among the lesser characters there are hosts of good Jews, hosts of bad Germans; what Uris seems to be pushing throughout is Zionism for the Jews, genocide for the Germans. Although the valiant men and women who died in the Warsaw ghetto deserve better, Mila 18 is selling briskly.

Featured Tags

Manage following

Literature

History

William F. Buckley Jr.

Who Promoted Peress? by Lionel Lokos (The Book mailer, $3.00). Well, who did promote Peress? The answer, which can be found in this carefully researched book, is less sensational than melancholy: Colonel Blimp promoted Peress. Bad enough, but worse was to come, when the shifty General Zwicker was promoted, a gesture of retroactive vindictiveness against Senator McCarthy. The record is all here for those who want to look at it, which they’ll have to do fast, before history runs away with the facts, forever stabilizing the passion play constructed around the upward mobile Mr. Welch. Mr. Lokos writes with a great zest, and all fact mongers are in his debt. W. f. buckley JR.

Mila 18, by Leon Uris (Doubleday, $4.95). Turning his attention to the Warsaw ghetto uprising—and keeping one eye trained on John Hersey’s more ambitious The Wall —Leon Uris this summer produced Mila 18, by all odds the worst Uris book ever written, (No mean feat.) Top banana in the Uris ghetto is one Andrei Androfski, who combines the best qualities of Chaim Weizmann and Tarzan. Andrei, to be sure, has his faults— viz., a hot head and a Polish. American sweetie. But as someone remarks on page 43, “If a shikse was good enough for Moses, a shikse is good enough for Androfski”—neatly dispatching one piece of bigotry. Gabriela (for such was her name) is, needless to say, both “beautiful” and “brilliant.” She wheels and deals as no one has since Ann Sheridan, the Oomph Girl, appeared in a flick as the intellectual leader of the Norwegian Underground. Among her allies are a kindly old rabbi and a kindly old priest; one hopes that a kindly old Calvinist divine will make the scene, but no such luck. The main problem is to spring one Christopher de Monti, an Italian journalist who has become “the most important man in the ghetto.” Chris dabbles in alcoholism, sex orgies with Nazi biggies, and spying for the Germans. Nonetheless, Uris redeems him, and he is soon hustling through the Warsaw sewers. Among the lesser characters there are hosts of good Jews, hosts of bad Germans; what Uris seems to be pushing throughout is Zionism for the Jews, genocide for the Germans. Although the valiant men and women who died in the Warsaw ghetto deserve better, Mila 18 is selling briskly.