otage… the real battlefield of the urbannguerrilla is in men’s minds.” In Monimbonthere are several givens, none of whichnis implausible. One is that the Cubansnwant to cause instability in the U.S.nAnother is that ghettos in places likenMiami have a very low flash point. Finally,nthat the high-tech infrastructure innthis country is open to breakdowns thatnwould have serious and wide-rangingnconsequences. The first is obvious; thenCubans didn’t take in radical Americansnfor the sake of the sugar crop. The secondnhas been shown to be the case by thenrioting that took place in Miami’s LibertynCity area in 1980. Tensions, as Moss andnde Borchgrave show, cannot be anythingnbut increased by the influx of aliens,nsuch as those that Castro shipped outnfrom Mariel. The final given, the vulnerabilitynof the infrastructure, is a most unpleasantnone to think about, as Americansnhave become enthralled by the Machine.nIn 1973 a book entitled The ComingnDark Age by Roberto Vacca appeared;nhe had thought about the subject. Hisnthesis is that systems upon which peoplendepend are growing too big, that theynwill get out of control by 1985-1994,nand thus the dark ^e. He writes:nAs yet, a crisis in a single system wouldnnot be enough to bring a great metropolitannconcentration to a halt But anchance concomitance of stopples innthe same area could start a catastrophicnprocess that would paralyze the mostndeveloped societies and lead to thendeaths of millions of people.nVacca’s vision is an apocalyptic one andnhis rhetoric is suitable to it. StiU, as henmoves through the book, checking offnthe possible points of breakdown andntheir eflfects—massive traffic jams, powernfeilures, computer losses, etc.—he makesnthe apocalypse seem more imminentnthan distant. Moss and de Borchgravenshow what could happen in New YorknCity if a massive protest, traffic jam, riots,npower outages, and the bombing of thenWorld Trade Center were to occur—notnby chance, but by design. The design isnplausible, which makes it all the morenhorrible.n1 he Cuban (and Soviet) scenario detailednmMonimbo is not one that wouldnhave the immediate efifect of causing anfijll-blown revolution and the subsequentnwelcoming of Castro to Boca Raton. It isnone that would, as Moss puts it in ThenWar for the Cities, initiate “a vicious cyclenof terror and counter-terror that willnalienate popular support from the government.”nIt would cripple the leaders; thenminds of many people would desfre annanswer, any answer. Monimbo is badnfiction, but an interesting prognostication.nThat is, to borrow a line from MossnBlithe & Mean SpiritsnNathan Miller: FDR: An IntimatenHistory; Doubleday; New York.nDown & Out in the Great Depression:nLetters from the “ForgottennMan”; Edited by Robert S. McElvaine;nUniversity of North Carolina Press;nChapel Hill.nby Charles A. MosernAny treatment of a major politicalnleader wtjo greatiy influenced worldnhistory is bound to be interpretativenthrough selection, and in an abstractnsense Miller’s study of Franklin Rooseveltnis no exception to that rule. Still, thenbook is of a length appropriate to its topicn(slightly over 500 p^es), the material isnon the whole sensibly chosen to strike anbalance between the depiction of Rooseveltnas a man and as a political leader,nand Miller allows his own explicit predilectionsnto intrude only infrequendy,nand then briefly. The book grows thinnernfrom about 1936 on, with only somen100 pages devoted to Roosevelt’s lastndecade; this strategy is understandable:nDr. Moser is professor of Slavic at thenGeorge Washington University innWashington, DC.nnnand de Borchgrave, which they appliednto a story by thefr Hockney, “The piecen[is] no literary masterpiece, even thou^n[they] devoted a paragr^h to describingnthe peculiar stench of rotting mangroves.”nHockney is the most fully rounded character,nyet he seems to have been cutnfrom corrugated cardboard; feelings—nemotional and physical—^are attachednto him with cellophane tape. Eventsnoccur within the text mechanically, notnorganically; it is like a down-sized RubenGoldberg contraption. However, the sociopoliticalnaspect, or vector, is to thenpoint. Hopefully, it will prove to be anbad prognostication. DnRoosevelt’s actions during that timencaused such repercussions throughoutnthe world that a thorough assessment ofnall of them is simply more than a biographynshould attempt.nFDR amounts to a standard biographicalntreatment, running from beginningnto end, describing the private man behindnthe public man, but never outside thenbounds of relative good taste. Millernnever forgets that he should concentratenon Roosevelt’s public actions, and notnhis personal foibles. And he providesnsufficient material to enable us to answerncertain questions about FDR which henhimself does not address.nOne of the most interesting such questionsnis: Which were the traits of FranklinnRoosevelt’s character that enabled himnto become the supreme leader of one ofnthe world’s leading powers for an unprecedentednlength of time during thentwo most profound crises it has faced innthis century—^the Great Depression andnthe Second World War? Deep crises demandnextraordinary leadership, and thatnRoosevelt, for all his faults, did in fact provide.nIn 1932 Walter Lippmann callednhim “a pleasant man who, without anynimportant qualffications for the office,nwould like very much to be President,”nan evaluation with which many of thosennnAiovemberl983n