Volume 31, Number 1 · February 2, 1984
Sovietizing US Policy
By George W. Ball
Nuclear War, Nuclear Peace
by Leon Wieseltier
A New Republic Book/Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 109 pp., $2.95 (paper)
This book is an impressive tour de force. In a mere eighty-four pages the author tells nonexpert Americans most of what they need to know about our nuclear predicament—and tells it with lucidity, cogency, and quiet persuasion. It is a vastly better book than the nuclear primer prepared by the Harvard experts, Living with Nuclear Weapons,[*] since it avoids the compromises and ambiguities inherent in a collaboration. Mr. Wieseltier is a good writer and clear thinker and, unlike many other commentators on nuclear strategy, he comes to the subject of nuclear weapons without being a hostage to previous commitments. He examines the nuclear issue in the round, scraping it free of the mystique and technical obfuscation in which it is now encrusted.
Review, 2543 words
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