VIETNAM IN FICTION

...still sent cordial birthday end of World War I. knew we could do business...

...In both books, too too, giving the reader a vivid but artis- JAMES TROWBRIDGE (and in Trowbridge's as well), we tically confused sense of what the ac- come across dead Americans with their Houghton Mifflin, $5.95 tual, bitter experience was like to live severed genitals stuffed into their through...

...Like dooms him...

...there is no one watching and, affairs it is meddling, a kind of short syringe with a lethal dose of pentothal, with two exceptions, they shrug and course Fire in the Lake...

...Rhodes' title will evoke memories tors (1922-1945...

...O Check or money order for $39 enclosed full payment...

...Tick...

...Rhodes calls "one of terial newly available from the archives pletely repugnant to a pontiff who is the greatest condemnations of a national of the Vatican, the British Foreign himself an autocrat...

...Greene's Amer- walks up behind Khiem and jams the go ahead...

...The the first dictator with whom it had to was directed against the Nazis' treatbook's merit-and its advantages over deal...

...Not bad at all...

...and leave the war in the middle...

...This is something that I, for James Trowbridge (the pseudonym one, do not remember reading about of a "former counterintelligence offi- What we have as a result are three before, but no doubt there is a refercer," according to the dust jacket), imperfectly conceived but consistently ence to it somewhere in The New York Robert Roth and William Turner Hug- interesting and in parts very good nov- Times Index...

...It is killed without ceremony but Khiem, honest in its motives and corrupt in its easy to hate the enemy...

...Its strengths and weak- of comforting, if obscurely expressed, government of Italy would not have nesses, consistency and anomalies were platitudes...

...Combat is exciting...

...The discovery seems to have VIETNAM sodapop...

...The war In sections like this Sand in the Wind grams, Knox is involved in a routine Trowbridge describes is a kind of huge has great force and vigor but the book brutality which makes the violence of racket...

...And so on...

...Roth and kill "their" Vietnamese...

...cyclo-girls ($50 for 18 men), which Soon others are trying it too and there Vietcong weapon makes the best sou- is a good deal of macabre kidding...

...mouths...

...gett could all write sharp and incisive els which ought to be required reading Everything in Sand in the Wind (a papers on why the U.S...

...All of them are called pected was to be left with mixed feel- FICTION gooks and one black infantryman in ings and as a result they do not know Body Count explains Vietnamese ethwhat to make of the whole experience...

...Their deepest dwell on the suffering which followed...

...Why did he not times distressed people who lived pressures of the various groups at the protest against men so manifestly evil, through the anguish of those years...

...In one brilliant, or to be wounded in combat...

...whole novels...

...warm body of a Vietcong killed by an well to Arms every year on the anniver- Sand in the Wind and Body Count American napalm strike...

...self largely to diplomatic history and of the anguished dismay with which The author passes no moral judg- tells us little about the structure of the the world waited for Pius XII to dements on papal attitudes that some- Vatican administration or the rival nounce the Nazis...

...aggression so naked, atrocities so fiendpurpose is to examine motives and On dictatorship in general, the au- ish...

...Very occasionally we see the confused them...

...The tions at once...

...provinces of South Vietnam...

...He is the author of The War at Home (Grossman), Marine slang and so on...

...I do not reached only after frequent digressions them from using what they found for mean simply that it ends lamely, which into matters which are absorbing but the purposes of mere art...

...Where Khiem's caution might did not lose its last trace of innocence tirely different sort, shorter, neater and have saved him, however, his greed in Vietnam it was only because it had technically more sophisticated...

...dissected by Anthony Rhodes in his Pope...

...the men are and culture of the country in whose easily buy Khiem's friend, so he fills a hungry...

...nography to a colleague in the followIf it were possible to winnow the war Sand in the Wind ing manner: "Them is bad gooks, but from the politics which shaped it they these gooks aroun' heahr is gooks, too, ROBERT ROTH would have found it easier to know only de'da good gooks...

...It jumps confusingly parison...

...in Khiem's ear, but nobody else heard pened...

...the way men at war allow human rea- vance his career...

...and this he does with dis- thor observes that an authoritarian made in the encyclical Mit brennender cernment and clarity, drawing on ma- form of government cannot be com- Sorge what Mr...

...It is a brilliant demonstration of He is in Vietnam solely in order to ad- what he said...

...20005 •~.~ ~: meu ar, ei 15 March 1974: 40 yourself primarily in the question it does, but that the dozen strong emo- artistically extraneous...

...As a State Department It's a dirty, sickening scene...

...At the in large numbers...

...Easy Victories has the Count reach conclusions but they are Since their talent is manifest perhaps tight structure and surface polish of a small and overly neat and they are it was a sense of decency which kept syllogism with no synthesis...

...Reliance more cautious, has arranged for certain execution, an exercise of arms in an age on firepower means heavy civilian cas- facts to become public in the event of when "arms" have come to include ualties...

...American money to run a phony intelli- S.S...

...He injected all in only later, when their fierce refusal Trowbridge's Knox, the ambassador's the serum, then whipped out the syringe to speak or think about the incident son, is callous, self-serving, corrupt and and leaned across to whisper something gives them a sense of what has hap- cruel, so long as it is safe to be cruel...

...in the Ukraine...

...Like Heming- are long, solid, conventional, at points men suggests a pause for lunch, intendway, these three young men wanted to almost interchangeable books about ing only to make a joke, but the mocapture what they saw, did and felt but Marines in combat in the northern mentum of his eagerness to shock carin their case politics keeps intruding...

...With the aid of based on attrition could have been deeverything that McNamara, Rusk, Ros- sodium pentothal they learn the name vised only by men who think of men tow and Bundy ought to have known, of the man with whom Khiem has made as butchers think of beef...

...W INSTON CHURCHILL once wrote tenants in conflict with company comthere is nothing so exhilarating THOMAS POWERS manders who pay more attention to as being shot at without effect and the their careers than to their men...

...Everysons to persuade them to do inhuman attache helping to run Operation thing that happens in the book is repelthings...

...One of the sary of his near-death...

...The guilt and horror settle ican retains something of innocence but needle into his kidney...

...Everyone is out for himself, puras a whole wanders in too many direc- combat seem clean and decent by com- suing money or position or power...

...He demands not only his no innocence left to lose...

...Pius XII, on the other hand, the war to provide an asylum that strategy and often apparently time- seems to have been retiring and a saved lives of many fugitives...

...but this was issued in 1937 and captured by the Allies in 1945...

...what to think, and might have written Atlantic-Little, Brown, $8.95 Good and bad, the gooks get killed novels with a sharper focus...

...Sand in the Wind and Body men who went to see for themselves...

...They also kill many very least they would have written Body Count of the characters in both books, most the "war" novels they intended rather WILLIAM TURNER HUGGETT of them with booby-traps...

...I understand that if / am not satisfied after examining the first 3 issues, I may cancel this subscription and owe nothing...

...The last thing they ex- IN actual enemy...

...Trowbridge but didn't...

...This is an under- regime ever pronounced by the VatiOffice, and the German documents statement of the Vatican's attitude to can...

...Their style was negotiation of the Concordat of 1929 the Dictators (1922-1943) very different: Pius XI was, in the by which the Papacy became once ANTHONY RHODES words of one observer, "an obstinate, more a territorial power...

...Ave., N.W...

...greetings to Hitler, gave Ribbentrop The book covers the pontificates of The "business" was, of course, the presents, received high-ranking Nazi Commonweal: 41...

...his arrangements but he is too important convinces you that if the United States Easy Victories is a book of an en- to kill...

...In authors of these three novels appar- both the Vietnamese have walk-on ently found that to be true even in roles as whores or bids selling cans of Vietnam...

...Whether such combative man" capable, in the early sovereignty has enhanced its spiritual Holt, Rinehart, $10 1930s, of conducting a personal feud authority or diplomatic influence, it was against as devout a Catholic as Lord the existence of this inviolate territory At once spiritual and shrewd, ecu- Strickland, the Prime Minister of that enabled the Vatican State during menical and parochial, timeless in Malta...

...The true ized in some ways but it, too, tells us a officers are trying to decide whether it politics of the war were simply unlot of fragmented things about war in is safe to murder a Cambodian agent speakable...

...Baltime...

...Tick...

...both . there are intelligent young lieu- I eat duck all the time...

...They're good whether they succeed as novels...

...But reality Sand in the Wind's Chief is feeling his proved intractable...

...every conceivable refinement in the art mixed feelings when they see Americans Mister Balfour, Knox's boss, is of tormenting a population...

...Tick...

...The scene is Commonweal: 39 incredible and convincing at the same far, Easy Victories is about the Ameri- deposited in a Hong Kong bank...

...And the serving in tactics, the diplomacy of the natural diplomat, with a natural diplo- Vatican was surely right in believing, Vatican is a unique and fascinating mat's dislike of plain speech and love as it did at the time, that a democratic phenomenon...

...Ge,Wlone t: Phase enter my subscription to ORIGINS for one year...

...Wash...

...They tions it elicits are never drawn together...

...books but no one is ever going to be do and they don't...

...Americans acted in Vietnam general and this war in particular, like a named Khiem who had been taking with the scruples and humanity of the briefing officer ticking off points...

...force to political points which have finally appropriate attitude which The best way to consider them is as nothing to do with fiction and they tell neither Trowbridge nor I know how to testimony, the affidavits of three young stories which never quite add up to name...

...Both have ries him forward...

...True, his predecessor, Pius XI, expose facts...

...The whole intervenBoot camp is inhuman but effective...

...Rhodes says, the Pope, "in and the Jews against an historical expressed privately by Secretary of spite of the Nazi persecution of the background of Vatican policy since the State, Gasparri, "With such a man I churches...

...war" and "Viet- Putnam's, $7.95 way along a trail out in the middle of nam" were a muddle in fact and they nowhere and the next he's lying on the keep getting mixed up in these books, Easy Victories ground cut in two...

...gence operation...

...One of the limitations of Mr...

...A bullet behind the ear may unmistakable message of Easy Victories from one character's mind to another's...

...You can't furious but afraid Washington will dis- Huggett convince you, if you still need kill the enemy if you don't know who cover he's been passing on phony re- convincing, that a military strategy he is...

...They lend emotional They remain only fragments of some asked to read them in freshman English...

...The Quiet American by Graham life, sitting strapped to a swivel chair It is the peculiar strength of these Greene, still the best Vietnam novel by in Mister Balfour's office, but $500,000 books that you find it hard to interest weekly documentation on today's church • a service for homilists, discussion groups, educators, diocesan and parish pastoral councils, wwn religious, librarians, and many others • designed with usefulness in mind • puts you in touch with the sources of current religious news and trends • quarterly indexing • weekly cross-referencing • shows how news events are part of ongoing discussions* on prepunched 8 1/2" x 11" pages • gets you to the information you need when you need it • 48 times yearly • just $39 • enter a trial subscription now • or write for sample issues...

...Pius XI may well have regretted ment of the Roman Catholic Church Saul Friedlander's more scholarly Pius his public description of Mussolini as in Germany...

...corrupts absolutely...

...Tick...

...Khiem's partner is tion was stupid in its conception, disTick...

...When no one protests What they know in the abstract keeps plenty of narrative drive and are packed he slices off a chunk, takes a bite, chews getting in the way of what they per- with detail about Claymore mines, how thoughtfully, and says, "Damn tough, sonally experienced...

...Certainly ure from the beginning, but if that chilling scene a squad of Marines, famHemingway never forgot his wound on knowledge has remained abstract or ished after two days of marching withthe Italian front in World War I and lacking in emotional conviction, these out any food, finds the charred still he is even said to have reread A Fare- novels will make it concrete and real...

...It is no small thing to kill a man was a ghastly mistake, doomed to fail- wise incredible horror...

...OBill me for $39 for one year's service* Name Address City State Zip Natio•al Catholic News Service • 1312 Mass...

...for creating character, for dialog and and strongest feelings about Vietnam At this late date presumably we (if for a kind of fevered humor which were not political, after all, but per- not they) all know the American war lends conviction to episodes of othersonal...

...One minute than "Vietnam" novels...

...BOOKS THE POPES AND THE DICTATORS GABRIEL GERSH The Vatican in the Age of Pius XI and Pius XII...

...His papal court...

...XII and the Third Reich-is that it "the man sent by Providence...

...Phoenix and other "intelligence" pro- lent in much the same way...

...The torso of the dead Vietcong can inability to comprehend the politics four decides that much money would looks like a huge roast...

...THOMAS POWERS received the Pulitzer Prize venir (the SKS semi-automatic rifle), "Light or dark...

...One for national reporting in 1971...

...It's all there, ports for two years...

...Yellow, please...

...Tick...

...To a whole generation the sight of The Vatican in the Age of the Dicta- Rhodes' book is that he confines him- Mr...

...Hug- There is one terrible scene, for ex- By the time you have finished these gett's book, Body Count, is better organ- ample, in which a group of intelligence three books you feel a little ill...

...military killed for Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, bad title which Roth seems to have to so little effect in Vietnam, and to Walter Rostow, McGeorge Bundy and come up with at the last minute) is some extent they have, but that doesn't a few other people who committed the familiar in its way but Roth is a fine seem to be what they had in mind when country to war but do not appear to writer with a real talent for narrative, they sat down to write...

...to set up a listening post, the price of but not bad...

...But the For three years after the outbreak of places the controversy about Pius XII important point for the Vatican was war, Mr...

...But Vatican policy depends the stable authority to make a Conrepeatedly exemplified during the period on more than the personality of the cordat...

...not leave much blood, but it chills the is that war corrupts and that clandesIt starts and ends arbitrarily, like the heart in a way that a death in honest tine war in someone else's country 13-month tour of Marines who enter battle cannot...

...Our" Vietnamese have his mysterious disappearance or death...

...In both books Marine explains his lack of inhibition a history of the opposition to the war in there is an Indian named Chief, in by saying, "I once had a pet duck, and Vietnam...