tain them, they dreamed of Paris.nL he virtue of O’Brien’s novel is thatnit shuns polemics. He writes intenselynof combat: the anticipation, mindlessnfiring, counting bodies, and numbednrecovery; it is enough to evokeneither admiration of such succinctnprose, or the fatuous assumption thatnthe explicit horror of it all means thatnO’Brien is shocked at the very idea ofnAmericans fighting communists innSoutheast Asia. And reading O’Brien’snreviewers, it seems that most of themnstopped after skimming the dust cover,nor wrongly thought that Going afternCacciato was meant to be another antiwarntract, if not in Herr’s style, then innCaputo’s. Thus O’Brien has been praisednto the skies for his technique by journalsnthat, during Vietnam, had exactlynnothing to say about the hearts andnminds of American soldiers.nIndeed, O’Brien has been called ingenious,nbut he is better than that. Hisnbook is a profound but unpretentiousnportrait of men at war in a war that wasndifferent because, for all they knew,nthey were utterly alone. The Americannarmed forces as a whole emerged fromnthe Vietnam war badly scarred, but individualnsoldiers who were lucky enoughnto be with units that supported them asnmen, particularly on the platoon andncompany level, returned strengthenednby the intense communion with eachnother, which was all they had. O’Briennwrites that last names or first namesnwere dropped, the one or the otherndeemed unnecessary as long as eachnman had some identity. The exceptionnis Lieutenant Sidney Martin, the brainynWest Pointer who never understood whynVietnam was different than Hastingsnor St. Vith, and sent his men into tunnelsnto be slaughtered, until he himselfnneedlessly died. Third squad, first platoon.nAlpha company was one of thosenfortunate units. It could not hold Cacciato.nBut, with the acutely personalnvision of the journey to Paris, it heldnthe others.nIt may be that the critical responsento O’Brien’s novel signals a subtlenchange in the American cultural mindset.nLike The Deer Hunter, it has receivednits due of acclaim, though unlikenthe film, which was full of cinematicnrazzle-dazzle, it did not bring forth thenusual curses of people of William Kunstler’snilk who read books. They may wellnhave misunderstood O’Brien, it is easynto do so. His novel is complex and unevennin places, with passages of slipperynwriting and literary gimmicks. It maynalso be that there is a hesitancy to challengena novelist who writes of an aspectnof the war that rises above the cliches,nespecially while the new rulers of Vietnamnhave been sending their people offnto drown.nBut the converse may be true, at leastnfor some. The war in Vietnam wasnbased on bad strategy, but that strategynsprang from an idealism and presumptivenessnof American military and spiritualnstrength that, if wrong fornVietnam, were nevertheless well-foundednin history. That the American leadershipncould not immediately recognizenthe pitfalls of land war in SoutheastnAsia was, and is, understandable. Butnwhen the bloody abyss of the war wasnfinally known to all, that leadership betrayednthe spiritual legacy that had engenderednthe policy. This war, like allnwars, was unwanted, but unlike allnothers, it was swept under the rug^n”They had no cause,” wrote O’Brien,nby which he means they understood thatnthe cause was sacrificed to the demandsnof vocal minorities at home, and ideologicalnfoes abroad. Opponents of thenUnited States’ role in Vietnam typicallynblamed it on America’s spiritual bankruptcy,nthe arrogance of power, thenmilitary-industrial complex—a veritablenbazaar of doctrinaire fanaticism. Thenaftermath in Vietnam and Cambodianhas unmasked the pro-Viet Cong doublespeaknas both sinful and doleful. Goingnafter Cacciato tells us, finally, that thenshibboleths of the ’60s were all irrelevant,nand even worse, opportunistic tonthe point of vice. Since the publicationnof O’Brien’s subtle story, it is so muchneasier for an unbefuddled mind to callna spade a spade. DnModern Liberals & IntellectualnStorm TroopersnHarvey Mansfield: The Spirit of Liberalism;nHarvard University Press;nCambridge, Massachusetts.nAlvin Gouldner: The Future of Intellectualsnand the Rise of the NewnClass; Seabury Press; New York.nby Paul GottfriednxVlthOugh these two books havenas an overlapping theme the role ofnAmerica’s liberal intelligentsia in thensurrounding culture, the difference betweennthem is perhaps more significantnthan their similarity. One volume ad-nDr. Gottfried teaches history at RockfordnCollege,nnnmonishes and occasionally chastises,nwhile the other endorses what is supposedlynhumanity’s last best hope, thenintellectual Left. Still, oversights andnomissions are to be found in both works.nThe nature of those oversights—dependingnon the gravity of the argumentsnconsidered—make both sarcasm andnseriousness inevitably interrelated innapproaching them.nMansfield’s book, a collection ofnessays—what the French might callnessais de circonstance—cstme into beingnover a period of several years. Pullingn•21nIVovember/December 1979n