by Prof. Revilo P. Oliver

October 1986

I have just received a new book, published by Eisenhower's "American Assembly" at Columbia University, and entitled "East-West Tensions in the Third World" ($16.95; paperback $6.95). It is edited by Marshall D. Shulman, Director of the Averell Harriman Institute, also in Columbia, who, with six other academicians, verbosely ponders all sorts of knotty problems about lots of "tensions" in both hemispheres. Needless to say, the authors pile up mounds of data, but never venture to mention the real causes or to consider the fundamentals. They make me think of physicians who try to treat smallpox by counting the pustules on a victim's face, measuring the distances between them, and devising salves and powders to cover them up.

I need not add that the book will be to "Liberal intellectuals" what catnip is to cats.