substance around the globe. HongnKong and Rotterdam currendy are thenkeys in their distribution network, sincenthese two ports have the heaviest volumenof traffic, making it nearlynimpossible — especially in the presentnpolitical and economic environmentn— to monitor cargoes passing throughnthem. Heroin is repackaged andnshipped out of Hong Kong and Rotterdamnto the drug markets in Europenand North America.n”Crack” and the Cocaine Cowboysnhave captured the headlines in Americanin recent months, a developmentnthat has tended to obscure the impactnof the problems created by our heroinnaddicts. Yet, as Posner reminds us,nthere are an estimated 750,000 heroinnaddicts in the US, up from 500,000naddicts when President Nixon declarednhis own “war on drugs” back in 1971.nThese heroin users are responsible fornnearly three-quarters of urban crime.nDespite millions of dollars spent onnanti-heroin efforts, only AIDS has hadnany real effect in retarding the growthnin the number of junkies.nAs the author admits, it was thenchanges in US immigration laws madenin 1965 that opened the door to Chinesencriminals: since that year, Chinesenand other Asian immigrants havenflooded into our country. The FBInreports that Asian youth gangs arenemployed as “street muscle” by thenTriads, who in the US operate throughnTongs (the word, which is derived fromn”Town Hall,” describes fronts that oftennpublicly engage in charitable worknin Chinese communities). These Asiannsyndicates pose special problems fornlaw enforcement, since their membersnare bound to secrecy, and the almostninsurmountable barriers of language,ndialect, and culture make prosecutionndifficult in the extreme.nBRIEF MENTIONS-nIn short, as Posner’s remarkablenbook makes evident, the US currentlynhas almost no capability to deal withnthe Triads. And as we approach 1997,nthis failure of law enforcement becomesneven more critical. Posner is tonbe commended for preparing his chillingnexpose. But will the United Statesnmeet this new challenge? Given hownwe have reacted to the Cuban, Colombian,nMexican, Haitian, Jamaican, Nigerian,nVietnamese, and other criminalngangs that have come into the countrynin recent years, I, for one, am notnbetting that we will.nWjyne Lutton is a policy analystnwriting from Washington, DC.nIn Search of thenNew American Mannby Michael LindnTaming the Prince:nThe Ambivalence of ModernnExecutive Powernby Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr.nNew York: The Free Press;n3S8 pp., $24.95nThe evident purpose of Taming thenPrince is to provide a respectablenphilosophical pedigree for the usurpationsnand abuses of power by AmericannPresidents since FDR. (ProfessornMansfield dedicates the book to hisnfather, “constant advocate of a strongnpresidency from Franklin Roosevelt tonRonald Reagan.”) Where conservativesnsuch as Corwin, Kendall,nBurnham, and Samuel Francis havenseen danger in the growth of extraconstitutionalnpresidential power.nTHE WRITING LIFE by Annie DillardnNew York: Harper & Row; 111 pp., $15.95nThe author oi Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and An American Childhood has writtenna book that is in many ways more autobiographical than her autobiography,nbecause writing (and reading) has always been the substance of Annie Dillard’snlife. Young people looking for advice will find it, as long as they are not lookingnfor someone to tell them what kind of pen to use, or which writing program tonenter: pick a subject you love, she says, and then worry that bone till you havencleaned it of every bit of marrow. The stylist of Pilgrim makes her welcomenreturn here. (KD)n36/CHRONICLESnnnMansfield finds “ambivalence.” Wenneed “some general understanding favoringnstrong executive power to resistnlegislative usurpation and its partner,noverbearing bureaucracy.” Mansfieldnseeks to provide that understanding bynillogically obscuring the distinction betweennexecution of the laws and tyranny:n”since some taint of tyranny necessarilynaccompanies law, law can only benexecuted tyrannically.”nHaving conflated law enforcementnand lawlessness, Mansfield claims thatnpolitical philosophy provides two waysnto “tame and use” the necessary tyrannynof executive power. The first methodnof reducing “the necessary risk ofntyranny” inseparable from executivenpower is Aristotie’s. In the ideal regime,nthe executive would be transformednfrom “the destroyer of law untona king, the guardian of law.” In practice,nit is only possible to achieve thensecond-best option — the rule of law,nachieved by the dispersal of executivenpower among a number of magistratesnin a mixed regime.nMansfield is disappointed that Aristotlenfails to anticipate his perceptionnthat executive power is necessarily beyondnthe law. “Again we watch Aristotlenpassing up an opportunity to developnexecutive power” by failing to postulaten”a fund of arbitrariness with whichnto govern willful men” and by hisnfailure to “construct a guise of legality”nfor such arbitrary one-man rule. Evennworse, in Aristotle’s Politics, the executivenoffices “are discussed in the pluralnwithout reference to the need for unitynin one man that modern theories of thenexecutive assert.” Mansfield forgetsnthat the Swiss executive is the sevenmembernFederal Council, and the Britishnexecutive the Cabinet, not thenprime minister. Aristotle (like the USnSupreme Court, which has consistentlynupheld the constitutionality of independentnagencies) mistakenly believesnthat a plurality of independent executivenmagistrates is necessary to maintainnthe supremacy of the legislativenassembly; whereas Mansfield claims, innlanguage that would have warmed thenheart of Louis Napoleon, Hifler, ornPeron, that “the people should benembodied in one man … to securenthe unity of executive powers, despitentheir separate definitions, through thenunity of one human body.”nMansfield, unable to find his “am-n