on September 3, 1939. (If all thisnsounds a little like something out ofnHogan’s Heroes, it isn’t surprising — sondo Hider’s adversaries, born, like him,nof the democrahc flesh and blood of anfree West. “Never has a simpler documentnbeen issued in history with consequencesnmore far-reaching or morenpregnant with hope,” the New YorknTimes reported on “the results of annintimate conversation between ChancellornAdolf Hitler and Prime MinisternNeville Chamberlain in Herr Hitler’snprivate apartments” on September 30,n1938.)nBy contrast, Stalin, as befits a goodnstrategist, was always at least a stepnahead of destiny. If Professor Topitschnexaggerates Stalin’s genius for longtermnthinking, his error is insignificant,nfor the Soviet totalitarian system, alreadynperfected by the time Hitlernseized power, was most efl^ective inncompensating for the individual shortcomingsnof its engineers, an advantagenthe National Socialist system wouldnnever possess. In any case, ProfessornTopitsch’s contention that Stalin hadnduped Hitler as he would later dupenthe Allies is utterly plausible.nWhat gives support to this contentionnis the existing record of diplomaticnand military moves made by the Sovietsnin the direction of Germany, particularlynafter the signing of the Hitler-nStalin pact in 1939 (“Now I have thenworld in my pocket!” the euphoricngambler is said to have exclaimed).nProfessor Topitsch demonstrates how,nby opening and closing the tap ofnhostility (i.e., by intermittently violatingnand observing the terms of then”Boundaries and Friendship Agreement”),nStalin manipulated Hitler —nhis main hope for a destabilizednEurope — into a world war from whichnhe, Stalin, would emerge as the solenvictor.nIt is true that the Generalissimo hadnoverestimated his own army and underestimatednHitler’s impulsiveness:n”Operation Barbarossa,” the “treacherous”nattack on Russia, came at leastnsix months too soon. But the magnitudenof this one miscalculation —ntactical, not strategic — should not.nProfessor Topitsch argues, blind posteritynto the truth about Stalin’s grandndesign.nThat design is now the map ofncontinental Europe, and it is easy tonsee why the author of Stalin’s Warnstates unambiguously that his bookn”has been written more for thenEnglish-speaking than for the Germannreader.” That it has received so littlenattention, here or in the United States,nis in itself an alarming sign. For there isnno time like the present to remind thenheirs of Chamberlain on both sides ofnthe Atlantic that the harvest of Yaltanwas sown in Munich by those who likento reap.nAndrei Navrozov is poetry editor fornChronicles.nLetter From thenLower Rightnby John Shelton ReednDulce et DecorumnOne of the most moving war memorialsnI know is on a wall outside thenreading room of the British Museum.nIt is a simple plaque with the names ofna hundred or so librarians killed in thenGreat War. Librarians. Think about it.nThat plaque makes a point, doesn’tnit, if not perhaps the one it was intend­nBOOKS IN BRIEFned to make. Are we better off becausenthose young men died? I don’t know.nMaybe it would be easier to say if Inwere Belgian.nHere’s another. A few years ago,nhiking in the hills above Lake Gomo,nmy wife and I came across a littlenchapel dedicated to the memory ofnlocal lads who died in World War II. Itnwas decorated with freshly cut flowers.nThe boys it commemorated hadnfought for Mussolini.nNow, to have left that beautifulnplace to die in the sands of NorthnAfrica or the snows of Russia — well,nobviously, the right or wrong of theirncause is important, but why shouldn’tntheir parents and girlfriends have builtnthat chapel? Who could fail to bentouched that, 40 years later, they stillnbrought flowers and burned candles?nI’m told that the Vietnam memorialnattracts more visitors than any othernsite in Washington. I’m sure that manynwho go there believe that the cause innwhich those servicemen died wasnfutile, even wrong, but surely nonone goes to gloat or to scoff. Therenare some lines — are they fromnHousman? — something like:nHere we lie who did notnchoosenLos Angeles and the Automobile: The Makings of a Modern City by Scott L.nBottles, Berkeley: University of California Press. A paean to the automobile — andnwide open (or urbanized) spaces — by an articulate real estate salesman.nTornado: Accounts of Tornadoes in Iowa by John L. Stanford, Ames: Iowa StatenUniversity Press. The author, a physics professor, has dedicated this unprepossessingnhandbook on a force of nature to the Lord, “who designed the earth and the skies.”nSeeds of Change by Henry Hobhouse, New York: Harper and Row. The most recentnreprint of the well-known account of how the manipulated environment manipulates itsnmanipulators.nPolitics and the Ethiopian Famine, 1984-1985 by Jason W. Clay and Bonnie K.nHolcomb, Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival, Inc., distributed by TransactionnBooks, New Brunswick, NJ; $9.95. Condemned by Ethiopia’s Marxist government andnby many of the 47 Western aid organizations subsidizing it, this report outlines whynunconditional humanitarian aid to tyrannies kills instead of saves.nThe Hunger Machine by Jon Bennet with Susan George, Cambridge: Polity Press.nDisregarding Ethiopia, Cambodia, the USSR, and other worthless bits of history, thenauthors question the world, but never their own wisdom.nThe Fatal Impact: The Invasion of the South Pacific by Alan Moorhead, New York:nHarper and Row; $25.00. Rousseau lives, in this conscience-stricken account of a LostnParadise.nThe Maine Woods by Henry David Thoreau, New York: Harper and Row. A reprintnof a charming classic, by the man who was not afraid to be foolish.nnnFEBRUARY 1988 / 47n