Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald by Edward Jay EpsteinReview by: W. P. B. SmithForeign Affairs, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Jul., 1978), pp. 885-886Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20040017 .

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RECENT BOOKS 885

cated professional at work, with few second thoughts, much quiet heroism, and little sense of ambiguity or irony (as the very title suggests), in an era when his trade was generally accepted.

The last half has vastly wider dimensions. As Colby moved to senior command in CIA, his first-class legal mind and training came increasingly into play at a time when they were most needed. His articulate and detailed account of the

period after 1971 within the Agency, and of its stormy relations with Congress, the press and the public, does much to clarify a tangled story, and the author's

evolving conduct and judgments, under enormous pressure from all sides, seem to this reviewer to have been essentially right and persuasive

? certainly

as compared to the stonewalling urged by many. While the element of self

justification can hardly be absent, the basic viewpoint is, more than in most such

memoirs, tragic; Colby stresses the historical (and peculiarly American) context of the actions and misdeeds both of the Agency and of its latter-day critics.

The result belongs alongside the Church Committee Report as to the past and

present, and in the forefront of serious debate about the future role and struc ture of intelligence and covert operations in the American democratic system.

One can argue with many of the author's conclusions, notably his continued bias toward covert operations; and his treatment of the central analysis function of

intelligence is, by the same token, skimpy. But this is a big and important book. It deserves to be read whole, and carefully.

W.P.B.

ALLIES OF A KIND: THE UNITED STATES, BRITAIN, AND THE WAR AGAINST JAPAN, 1941-1945. By Christopher Thorne. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1978, 800 pp. $29.50. The best book on any aspect of World War II to appear in many years. The

research is exhaustive, the prose lucid, the analysis subtle. Indispensable not

only on its subject but for an understanding of subsequent developments.

RUSSIA, THE SOVIET UNION, AND THE UNITED STATES: AN IN TERPRETIVE HISTORY. By John Lewis Gaddis. New York: Wiley, 1978, 309

pp. $12.95 (Paper, $6.95). An excellent survey of Russian-American relations from the eighteenth

century to the present. The author incorporates the latest scholarship, in

English and Russian, and uses some archival sources.

PERJURY: THE HISS-CHAMBERS CASE. By Allen Weinstein. New York:

Knopf, 1978, 704 pp. $15.00. This stunning book is the most thorough study of Alger Hiss and Whittaker

Chambers yet published. The conclusion that Hiss often lied is difficult to swallow for those who deplore the character and methods of Hiss's accusers.

But, alas, the enemy of evil is not always good. Weinstein's evidence has been

challenged by some critics. This reviewer finds it persuasive.

LEGEND: THE SECRET WORLD OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD. By Edward Jay Epstein. New York: Reader's Digest Press/McGraw-Hill, 1978, 382 pp. $12.95.

The author and a team of assistants interviewed over 400 people for this reconstruction of the life of Kennedy's assassin. Epstein does not charge any agency, foreign or domestic, with responsibility for Oswald's act, but he suggests that Oswald was far more involved with Soviet intelligence operations than the

Warren Commission concluded. He does indict the FBI for covering up its own

incompetence.

DULLES: A BIOGRAPHY OF ELEANOR, ALLEN AND JOHN FOSTER DULLES AND THEIR FAMILY NETWORK. By Leonard Mosley. New York:

Dial, 1978, 530 pp. $12.95. Gossipy, slapdash, riddled with small errors. The most entertaining part is

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886 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

an appendix with long letters to the author from H.A.R. (Kim) Philby, Allen Dulles's British colleague turned Soviet spy.

A PRETTY GOOD CLUB: THE FOUNDING FATHERS OF THE U.S. FOREIGN SERVICE. By Martin Weil. New York: Norton, 1978, 313 pp. $12.95.

A lively, entertaining account of the aristocratic, homogeneous elite who, during the interwar years, considered themselves the embodiment of the

Foreign Service. The author concentrates on the European and Soviet sections.

SILENT MISSIONS. By General Vernon Walters. New York: Doubleday, 1978, 654 pp. $12.50.

The author's talent for foreign languages and his reliability led to a long career in Army Intelligence with many assignments as interpreter and aide to Presidents. His memoirs are conventional, chronological, discreet.

GRASSROOTS. By George McGovern. New York: Random House, 1978, 307

pp. $12.50. McGovern describes himself as soft on people and tough on issues. This

even-tempered autobiography is in character. He is forgiving of his opponents, candid about himself, and straightforward in discussing political ideas.

DASHER: THE ROOTS AND THE RISING OF JIMMY CARTER. By James Wooten. New York: Summit Books, 1978, 377 pp. $11.95.

A thin, occasionally critical biography of President Carter up to the inaugu ration, fluffed out with popularized historical vignettes of recent America.

THE PARTIES: REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS IN THIS CENTURY. By Henry Fairlie. New York: St. MarthVs, 1978, 236 pp. $8.95.

A British-born journalist long resident in the United States, Fairlie admires the Democratic Party and delights in explaining the failure of the Republicans "who seem to distrust, dislike, and fear their own time."

ON PRESS. By Tom Wicker. New York: Viking, 1978, 271 pp. $10.95. Searching, original essays ?many in the autobiographical mode ?and all

using case studies to illustrate important themes on the strengths, weaknesses and responsibilities of the press.

THE PUBLIC AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY, 1918-1978. By Ralph B. Levering. New York: Morrow, 1978, 153 pp. $5.95 (Paper, $2.95).

An elementary, somewhat bland historical survey of public opinion as a factor in foreign policy, commissioned by the Foreign Policy Association for its 60th

birthday. Who can disagree with the author's plea for better education in

foreign affairs?

AMERIKANSKAIA VNESHNE-POLITICHESKAIA MYSL'. By V. F. Pe

trovsky. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniia, 1976, 334 pp. A Soviet policy planner and scholar examines the role of the American

political-academic foreign policy community in the service of the more powerful complex of the government apparatus and monopoly capital. The descriptive parts are close to the mark, the analysis predictably less so.

J.C.C.

The Western Hemisphere Robert D. Crassweller

SOCIALISM IN CANADA: A STUDY OF THE CCF-NDP IN FEDERAL AND PROVINCIAL POLITICS. By Ivan Avakumovic. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1978, 316 pp. $6.95 (Paper).

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