Category: Imported

decision to review is made is a halfnhour. Many books get less. At thenthird-ranking Los Angeles Times BooknReview, I hasten to add, most books getnmuch less.nBoth the quantity and the qualitynmaintained at the Times cost money.nSeveral years ago, the well-connectednhead of an old New York publishingnhouse told me that it was “commonnknowledge” that the Times...

was Chilton Williamson Jr., then bookneditor of National Review and nownsenior editor at Chronicles: conservativenon conservative, in other words.nOn April 2, 1989, we published anreader’s letter: “How could you assignnHorowitz and Collier’s book to a seniorneditor of the National Review for review?nThat is like asking Roy Cohn tonreview a defense of Joe McCarthy.nThere isn’t a...

LITERATUREnThe Importance ofnBeing by Ernestnby Gregory McNameenThe Betrayal of HemingwaynIf Ernest Hemingway had any notionnof what would happen to his firstndrafts, miscellanea, letters received andnsent, and unfinished manuscripts afternhis death, it’s likely he would have setnfire to his study and all its contentsnbefore priming his shotgun and blowingnhis brains out on the second of July,n1961....

piece for later publication as a book.nThat it took a quarter of a century tonappear between hard covers is evidencenenough that Hemingway and, for antime, his literary executors did not wishnto see it included in his canon. Butneven Hemingway’s assessment of hisnwork would not matter, in the end, tonthe publishers.nA year after The Dangerous Summernappeared...

gifts for a neighbor’s child.nWe know that Hemingway oncenconsidered preparing a new edition ofnhis stories, but he never took the chorenbeyond a casual suggestion to his editornat Scribner’s, Maxwell Perkins. Withnall its trivia, this is not the collectionnthat Hemingway would himself havenprepared. Why he did not is somethingnof a mystery, unless one admits thentransparent possibility...

How the Club Woi1(snEvery 4 weeks (13 limes a year) you get a free copy of the Chib Bulletin, which offersnyou the Featured Selection phis a good choice of Alternates. Books on current issues,nreligion, economics, Communism, politics, etc. — all of interest to conservatives. * Ifnyou want the Featured Selection, do notiiing. It will come...

EDITORnThomas FlemingnMANAGING EDITORnKatherine DaltonnASSISTANT EDITORnTheodore PappasnCONTRIBUTING EDITORSnJohn W. Mdridge, Harold O.J.nBrown, Samuel Francis, GeorgenGarrett, Russell Kirk, E. ChristiannKopff, Clyde WilsonnCORRESPONDING EDITORSnBryce Christensen, Odie Faulk, JanenGreer, John Shelton Reed, JosephnSchwartz, Gary VasilashnEDITORIAL SECRETARYnLeann DobbsnEDITORIAL ASSISTANTnMatthew KaufmannPUBLISHERnAllan C. CarlsonnART DIRECTORnAnna Mycek-WodeckinPUBLICATION DIRECTORnGuy ReffettnADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVEnGeorgia L. WolfnCOMPOSITION MANAGERnAnita FedoranCIRCULATION DIRECTORnCarol BennettnA Publication ofnThe Rockford InstitutenEditorial and Advertising Offices:...

when he sees it, apparently, and knowsnto go with talent and track record overn”qualifications” on a resume.nAs to Lynne Cheney, she has beennand remains a superb chairman of thenNational Endowment for the Humanities—nprecisely because she hasncourageously and effectively raised thenbanner of standards and scholarshipnagainst the trendy deconstructionistsnand know-nothings of the academy. Asnchairman she has been...

GLASNOST IN CHILE? Pinochetnis getting no credit for it. Yet at thensame time General Secretary (and nownalso President) Gorbachev’s policiesnare being hailed as major breakthroughs,ndepartures from the previousn(Brezhnev) era. They are deemed tonhold out great promise for the peoplenof the Soviet Union, if only they cannsucceed. Glasnost (openness) andnperestroika (reconstruction) are widelynpraised by commentators as...

withstanding that the minutes of thenmeeting are a matter of record.) In ansubsequent, poorly-attended meetingnof full professors of arts and sciences, anproposal that Gottfried’s credentials benconsidered was turned down. As onenparticipant put it, Gottfried was “ideologicallyndangerous.”nSince Paul Gottfried has enjoyedncivil debates and friendly relations withnmany Straussians, particulariy the studentsnof Harry Jaffa, his plight cannhardly be...

sumptions. Speaker after speakernopened with a ritualistic attack onn”mercantilism” and “economic nationalism”nbefore turning his attentionnto ways of helping American firmsndefeat their foreign rivals — the veryngoal of mercantilists and economicnnationalists!nDespite the attempt to link mercantilismnwith isolationism, just the oppositenis true. Mercantilism was the policynof governments that recognized thenopportunities opened by sea-trade withnAsia and the discovery...

transactionnNew and Recent Books on Family and Policynf^nThe,. .npoliticsnHumannNaturenThomas Flemingn^<^ -7nEamilynQuestionsnReflections on thenAmerican Social CrisisnAllan C. CarlsonnTHE POLITICS OF HUMAN NATUREnThomas FlemingnThe effort to understand human nature in a politicalncontext is a daunting challenge that has beennundertaken in a variety of ways and by a myriad ofndisciplines through the ages. This volume takes up anvariety...

PERSPECTIVEnI”- p’ •*? -li-# My^% ^n’- ^’ 4 ^jimmm^j^l^J^ ‘^ .# ^nf %’:%^ 4 -ir-^ ^r4i’-^*”f •^i’i^5S-;$f 1^nRock and Roll Never ForgetsnIn the 1950’s any real American boy knew that whatevernhe wanted to be when he grew up, it was not annunderemployed television father like Ward Cleaver or OzzienNelson. Our fictional heroes were from another...

and 50’s, this music had roots. In the songs of HanknWilliams, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis, we arenskipping over a hundred years of commercialization andnreturning to the Anglo-Celtic roots of American music, tonthe violence and authenticity of the old Border ballads, to anconfrontation of real life — take it or leave it—as it is...

It’s true that the British Invasion brought in purely popngroups like Peter and Gordon and Herman’s Hermits, but itnalso gave us the Hollies and Graham Nash, Van Morrisonnand Them, Eric Burdon and the Animals. We were back tonthe ballads, and if it torpedoed the career of Neil Sedaka, it’snsmall wonder. As Neil complained in his...

corruptive influence. I’m afraid I don’t get the point. IsnMick Jagger really a primary influence on contemporarynrock? It is easy to draw very unpleasant conclusions if wencompare Bon Jovi with Buddy Holly, but what if wencompare Tom Petty, Ian Anderson, and Dire Straits with thenTeddybears, Frankie Avalon, and the Shangrilas? A somewhatndifferent picture emerges. One...

while my pal’s pilot was describing to the rest of us hisnsurprise, while in violent maneuvering against a division ofnMIG’s, to feel the unexpected impact of a blindside midair!n”No surprise, Boss,” interrupted the popular back seater,nsmiling and shaking his head in the spirit of sardonic fly-boynhumor. “I knew what to expect right after I heard...

1950’s books like The Ugly American, helping our friendsnhelp themselves at the grass roots level. “Limited War,” theyncalled it.n(If I sound cynical about grass roots support and “helpingnlittle people help themselves,” I am skeptical about it fromnboth the rational and emotional sides. Rationally, it isngenerally thought of as a poor utilization of our Army’snfighting power....

pilots had earned a record total of decorations for flightnheroism. Of the 120 pilots addressed in this talk, 13 did notnreturn with the ship. Nine were killed in action and four,nincluding myself, were shot down and taken prisoner.nOn the Oriskany’s next cruise, during the summer ofn1966, five more from my air group joined us in...

the nation; then commit the troops.”nFred Weyand, Combat General in Vietnam and formernChief of Staff of the US Army, says, “When the Army isncommitted, the American people are committed, and whennthe American people lose their commitment it is futile to trynto keep the Army committed.”nThe Founding Fathers drove a spike into the Constitutionnthey framed, a...

But who can forget how quick they were to endorse thisn”engine” of the war that LBJ demanded in the heady timesnof summer 1964. The House of Representatives passed itnunanimously after a total of 40 minutes of discussion. ThenSenate had two diehards and it took 8 hours and 40nminutes—but, as you might know, before a Senate...

Johnson’s mobilization proposal (on July 25, 1965) wasnex-Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg. He voiced thenopinion that a “mobilized” Vietnam War would make hisnimage as our UN Ambassador more tainted than would ann”unmobilized” Vietnam War.nWell, I say then, from the national commitment viewpoint,nthat’s all the more reason for the soldier to want hisnwar declared. That’s the...

Anation lives by its myths and heroes. Many societiesnhave survived defeat and invasion, even political andneconomic collapse. None has survived the corruption of thenpicture it has of itself. High art and popular art are not inncompetition here. Both may and do help citizens decidenwhat they are and admire. In our age, however, high art hasngiven...

The late 60’s were not a good time for either man.nEastwood was cast in a number of Westerns, watchable nownonly because they include him. The nadir was the incrediblencatastrophe of Paint Your Wagon (1969), a musical Westernnthat combined appalling immorality with unbelievably badnsinging. Eastwood’s walk through a forest singing, “I talk tonthe trees,” may be...

a corrupt rich man who is practicing strip-mining.nEastwood’s admiration for Shane is easy to understand.nAlan Ladd is a man without family who saves not only ancommunity but also a family in the face of temptations tonuse violence and to steal another man’s wife. That thenfamily and the community are saved by a man who has...

As 1969 rolled around and the decade was ending, I wasnsix years old and living in a temperate Southern city anthousand miles from New York. Conflict came fromnwanting to stretch my feet into my brother’s half of thenbackest-back of our fake wood-sided turquoise station wagon;nVietnam had no meaning for me. I must have sat on...

where she would answer the door with pepper in her hand,nready to blind a possible attacker. Stephen Sondheim wasndoing word puzzles for the fledgling magazine New York.nThe newspapers were 10 cents. You could get a studionapartment in Manhattan for somewhere between $100-n$250. You could get a bag of heroin uptown for around $3nto $5, which...

protests inside university buildings. But IDA and the gymnwere more important as symbols of everything the studentsnfelt was wrong, than as issues in their own right.nLike many things, the Columbia strike was both so sillynand so serious at the same time. While on the one handnthere was the radical students’ admitted lack of a realnagenda,...

Trout for his fish hawk’s clamp,ntorn ducks, shrews, what a congeriesnof the bloated and debrainednI gathered. Two autumnsnI scaled trees Old Longabellyncouldn’t negotiate, bringingnempty nests to earth, and morenthan once a papery hornet’s globe.nI was his retriever as well as cooknand pack beast, and drubbed enoughnfor all three when he was sliding innhis boozing can....

tween The Squaw Man (1914) andnPorgy and Bess (1959) he produced anlong list of picture shows, some ofnthem pretty good, and one of them.nThe Best Years of Our Lives (1946),nearning him a belated AcademynAward. Goldwyn knew and workedn(and fought) with practically everybodynin the history of Hollywood. (Thenphotographs of them are well chosen,ngreat and good fun.)...

“Enemies of Society”nby Arthur M. Ecksteinn’The essential matter of history is not what happened but what people thoughtnor said about it.”n— Frederic MaitlandnDestructive Generation: SecondnThoughts About the Sixtiesnby Peter Collier and David HorowitznNew York: Summit Books;n338 pp., $19.95nIn the late summer of 1985, the SannFrancisco Bay area celebrated then40th anniversary of VJ Day and the...

Soviet-front group) in the nuclearnfreeze; hence the fact that when Colliernand Horowitz last appeared at thenUniversity of Colorado, the picketingnagainst them was led by the ancientnSender Gariin, current guru of thenColorado left—and the man who recruitednWhittaker Chambers for thenparty back in 1925.nIndeed, in the end Collier and Horowitznargue that if there ever was suchna thing...

any sort? “Not compassion butnresentment . . . not the longing fornjustice but the desire for revenge; not anquest for peace but a call to arms . . .nnot altruism and love but nihilism andnhate. This is the poisoned well of thenradical heart; it is war that feeds thentrue radical passions.”nPowerful stuff; perhaps a little...

How doesnGeorge Willnread 50+nbooks per yearnwhile shaving,nwalking, andnriding in taxis?nThe answer is simple: Henlistens to unabridged audionrecordings of books. This is anlife-changing practice wenrecommend for anyone whonwants to make maximum usenof his time. Try listening to ourngreat books while driving,ncooking, exercising, gardening,nor if skilled, while shaving.nGOD AND MAN AT YALE-Wm^ F. Bmkley, Jr.n5 l’/2-hour cassettes...

pressive. He has done something thatnmuch needed doing. Conservativenreaders will respond positively to hisnrespectful inclusion of rightist traditions;nhis perceptive appraisal of the New Leftnof the 60’s; his recognition of thencurrent threat of Marxism in the universities;nand his desire, in the face ofnrecent European — particularly Frenchn—influences, to protect and cultivatenour indigenous intellectual traditionsnand national culture....

Letter From thenLower Rightnby John Shelton ReednGary, Martin, and JohnnI started this letter back when DavidnGarrow’s biography of Martin LuthernKing appeared, with its revelationsnabout Dr. King’s sexual habits, just inntime for Christmas 1986. I put it asidenbecause I wasn’t happy with it. In thensummer of 1987, the Hart and Bakkernscandals made me dust it off...

the way that he did. King was a bravenman and a world-historical figure. ButnGarrow’s research in the FBI filesnmakes it obvious that he was also ancompulsive philanderer.nMaybe King felt bad about it. Maybenhe suffered from what my buddynJ.R. calls “the heartbreak of satyriasis.”nGarrow doesn’t say, although TaylornBranch’s new book suggests that hendid. Nevertheless, King continued...

Still, something seemed not quitenright.nThe grand dame of the New Agenwas the medium Helena Petrovna Blavatsky,nwho in 1875 founded the TheosophicalnSociety and taught that wencan benefit from listening to spiritn”Masters.” Leadership of the orderneventually passed to Alice Ann Bailey,nwho established Lucifer PublishingnCompany in 1922, changing the namento “Lucis” in 1923. When the psychedelicn1960’s effected the...

control after my morning visualizationnand goal-recording sessions. And allnthat nutty out-of-body travel and channelingnand firewalking — people reallyndo thai, too. Books written by sensible,ngrown-up, traditionally religious Christiansnand Jews about their youthfulnexperiments with New Age practicesntestify that they experienced occultnphenomena, often without the help ofndrugs. I fooled around with yoga longnenough in my late teens and...

“‘Getting the government off thenbacks of the American people’ will benno one’s slogan in 1988. Making governmentnmore efficient and more effectivenwill be the thing this time. I’vennever understood why conservativesnpositioned themselves against government.”nMr. Weyrich added, “the truthnis that some of us believe in governmentnactivism. . . . too often, we havenattempted to reject the obligation...

MEDIAnThe World’s BestnBad Magazinesnby Janet Scott BarlownThe below are litde collections ofninformation I picked up from, respectively,nEsquire and GQ. ‘nThe world’s finest ready-madensuits are found in America. Thenworld’s most intriguing men’snstore is in Italy. The worid’snbest harmonicas come fromnGermany.nFifteen percent of all furs in thenUnited States are sold to males.nSome men tint their chest hairnto...

kin suddenly lurched off into sports:n”Now, if only some ball team withnvision and reverence for tradition andncontinuity would bring back thosenwonderful old baggy flannel uniforms,nmaybe I could look forward to springntraining with enthusiasm. . . . Hownabout you?” How about me? Me, Inthink that if ball players took the fieldnwearing “those wonderful old baggynflannel uniforms,”...

POP CULTUREnAdverpop Rocknby Gary S. VasilashnDoctors are prohibited from hawkingnproducts in television commercials.nIt’s a question of ethics. So,nsince the real ones can’t do it, stand-insnare asked to fill the prescription. MarcusnWelby was never jumpy — and probablynwouldn’t have been even if he hadnaccidentally reversed the electric paddlesnused to jump-start a heart—sonRobert Young became a very...

back together for a tour. “Everything isnperfectly in place. It’s our 25th anniversary.”nDoes Townshend actuallynbelieve that a generation that nownwields briefcases and Filofaxes willnstand on chairs in auditoriums and singnwith one bold voice, “We won’t getnfooled again”? Probably not. A Whonreunion would simply make good businessnsense, just as Jagger and KeithnRichards, who had been sniping...

FILMnLA’s Cult ofnthe Deadnby K.L. BilUngsleynOne of the many hearses that plynHollywood Boulevard is differentnfrom all the others. The long graynCadillac sports a sunroof, air-conditioning,nand a cargo of live bodies, not deadnones. The vehicle is the flagship ofnGrave Line Tours, and every day itsndriver leads his seven passengers, eachnwith a window seat, on what is...

the police collaborated. Remember,neverything on this tour has been verified.nLess mysterious is the site wherenLana Turner’s daughter plunged anknife into Johnny Stompanato, whon”bled to death in five minutes.” Wenalso see the armored door of mobsternBugsy Siegel’s estate. Unfortunately,nMr. Siegel was sitting by the windownone evening when a hail of bulletsnfrom unknown assailants “nearly torenhis head...

M-A-l-L-^-^Or^Rr-D-E-Rr-^n_!!&_nA^LhnA SELECTION OF USEFUL AND IMAGINATIVE PRODUCTSn• A REMOTE FOR ALL REASONSnLooking for a way to simplify your handlingnof modern electronic gadgets?nThen the One For All Remote Control is fornyou. Remarkably easy to use, it can replacenup to 13 different remotes for your TV, cable,nVCR, CD or other infrared appliancesnWhen combined with its command centernand...

UBERALnINTELLECTUALS:nHOW DO THEYnGET THAT WAY?nPaul Johnson anatomizes 20 of them —ntheir ideas, their lives, their moralsn”So full of life and energy and fascinating detail, and so rigfitnfor the moment, that anyone who picks it up will have a hardntime putting it down.” -NORMAN PODHORETZ, New York Postn”^^mnWhy Johnson’s treatment is unique, -n* The essential ideas...

EDITORnThomas FlemingnMANAGING EDITORnKatherine DaltonnCONTRIBUTING EDITORSn]ohn W. Aldridge, Harold O.J.nBrown, Samuel Francis, GeorgenGarrett, Russell Kirk, E. ChristiannKopff, Clyde WilsonnCORRESPONDING EDITORSnBryce Christensen, Odie Faulk, JanenGreer, John Shelton Reed, JosephnSchwartz, Gary VasilashnEDITORIAL SECRETARYnLeann DobbsnEDITORIAL ASSISTANTnMatthew KaufmannPUBLISHERnRichard A. VaughannART DIRECTORnAnna Mycek-WodeckinPRODUCTION MANAGERnGuy ReffettnADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVEnGeorgia L. WolfnCOMPOSITION MANAGERnAnita FedoranCIRCULATION DIRECTORnCarol BennettnA Publication ofnThe Rockford Institute:nAllan C. Carlson,nPresidentnEditorial and Advertising Offices:...

THE MARCH CHRONICLESnstirred up a great deal of hostility innstrange quarters, where freedom ofnexpression used to defend everythingnbut unfashionable opinions. The Perspectivenessay on immigration evennattracted the attention of a newspaperneditor in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, namednPaul Greenberg. In an op-ed piecenpublished in the Washington Times,nGreenberg applies such terms as “hysteria,”n”xenophobic,” and “ugly alarum”nto Chronicles’ editor. This...