for such inner rebirth and for the convictionnof “salvation” could be no morenpoignantly fulfilled than as victim of thenEstablishment’s cruelty, in short, by thenpoliceman’s club. The believer now securesnan identity rooted in self-sacrificenand moral righteousness. The puritan’snquest has been fiilfilled; “1 bleed thereforenlam.”nIxothman and Lichter provide anthought-provoking study. Their materialnis thorough to the point of being overladennwith information and indigestiblenstatistical analyses. But it is painstakinglynlucid and jargon-free. A reader has manynoccasions for reflection and self-analysisnas personality traits, parental relations,nphobias, and fantasies pass under reviewnin a long procession. Who could not, atnmany points along the vray, see bits of hisnown reflection? And though the authorsnhave succeeded in giving us several portraitsnof the radical left in the UnitednStates, one must still ask just what theynhave proved. With how much accuracyncould we prognostigate that, should thisncountry undergo another hemorrhage,nit would be non-Jewish students whonhad punitive fathers and registered 4.38nin the confabulation segment of thenpathology category of the Rorschachntests who would man the barricades innthe next revolution?n1 suspect that many conservatives willnfind Roots of Radicalism comforting.nHow reassuring it might be to dismissnfree-speech movements, civU-rightsnmarches, and antiwar protests as merelynthe manifestation of all those Oedipalncomplexes. But we might do well to remembernwith what facile joy liberals receivednThe Authoritarian Personality,nprepared by Adomo in 1950, and ThenNew American Right, to which RichardnHofetadter, Daniel Bell, David Reisman,nand others contributed in 1955. Conservativenthinkers, they argued, were frustrated,nmaladjusted, status-conscious,nsuspicious, and insecure; their ideas revealednlittle about the real world, butnmuch about the troubled souls fromnwhich they came. The conservative intel­n3SinChronicles of Culturenlectual did not belong in the classroom;nhis place was on the couch. William F.nBuckley, Jr. and Frank Meyer renouncednthose claims with justifiable wrath. Butneven as we recall the days of rage, thesenincidents should give us pause. DnPolitics Pure-Hearted and PunknRonald Reagan Talks to America;nIntroduction by Richard M. Scaife;nDevin-Adair; Old Greenwich, CT.nPhillip Finch: God, Guts, andGuns:AnClose Look at the Radical Right;nSeaview/Putnam; New York.nbyjeflfrey St. Johnnciincerity in American politics can bencharming It can also be deceptive and dangerous.nGreat evils have grown out of sincerenactions that have firagile fectual foundationsnand which lack a tough, animated intelligence.nBoth of these books suffer bomnthe sins of sincerity. Each provides a due asnto why the politics of the rigjit and the leftnin America has become the breedingnground for frustration and feilure.nRonald Reagan Talks to America is ancollection of speeches fi-om the GoldwaternRepublican National Conventionnin 1964 to the December 1981 speechnof President Reagan denouncing the impositionnof martial law in Poland. RichardnMellon Scaife’s introduction argues thatnMr. Reagan’s 1980 election representedna potential “new consensus for the nation”nwith a change from dominant liberalismnto conservatism. “It is too earlynto tell,” he states, “whether or not thisnnew and in many ways still fragile consensusnhas actuaUy triggered a long-termnchange in the nation’s direction. But thensignals are there, for those who choosento see them, that a watershed has beennreached. The United States will either returnnto greater levels of individual sovereigntynor continue down ‘The Road tonSerfdom.'”nAs comforting as the Reagan rhetoricnMr St John is a syndicated columnistnand commentatorforYoice of Americannnmay seem, the reality of foreign and domesticnpolicy wiU determine whethernsuch a consensus becomes permanentnor perishes. The American electorate repudiatednPresidents Johnson, Nixon,nFord, and Carter because they &fled tonachieve results and make good on whatnthey had promised. Mr. Reagan faces thensame political perfl. “Make no mistake,”nPresident Reagan told a nationwide TVnaudience on December 21, 1981, afternmartial law vras imposed on Poland, “theirncrime will cost them dearly in futurendealings with America and free peoplesneverywhere. I do not make this statementnlightly or without serious reflection.” Itndoes nothing to diminish Mr. Reagan’snsincerity and integrity of intent to pointnout that his Administration paid the interestnon Warsaw’s swollen forei^ debtnIn doing so, sincere intent was incineratednby pragmatic policy. It was pragmatismnfor 20 years that fueled a foolishnpolicy of Western loans and U.S. favorednationntrade treatment for an EasternnEuropean Stalinist-command economynin the belief that by subsidizing socialism,nthe West could woo the Warsaw dictatorship.nThe Polish crisis confirms what then’Tather of American Pragmatism,” WilliamnJames, concluded at the end of his life:npragmatism is not very practical.nA similar gulf between Reagan rhetoricnand policy reality presents itself in domesticnmatters. Having promised a programnof deregulation, abolition of thenDepartments of Energy and Education,nand a reduction in taxes, he has achievednlittle in these areas, or others, and hasneven implemented policy contrary tonconviction and promise. The root originsnand the peril tiiey pose to the ReagannPresidency might be better understoodnby relating two illuminating professionalnand personal incidents of this writer.n