Volume 27, Number 17 · November 6, 1980
Apocalypse for Everyone
By Alexander Cockburn
The Devil's Alternative
by Frederick Forsyth
Viking, 432 pp., $12.95
The Fifth Horseman
by Larry Collins, by Dominique Lapierre
Simon and Schuster, 478 pp., $13.95
The Spike
by Arnaud de Borchgrave, by Robert Moss
Crown, 374 pp., $12.95
The White House is going to be a crowded place for the next couple of years, if these three novels—laboriously positioned on the borders between fiction and 'real life'—are any guide to what lies ahead. At one end of the Oval Office, in Frederick Forsyth's vision of 1982, we have President William Matthews, a decent sort of fellow with 'down-home personal tastes in clothing, food, and creature comforts.' At the other, in the Collins/Lapierre scenario which seems to be taking place in December, 1981, we have someone austerely described as 'The President,' who is clearly a re-elected Jimmy Carter. And running between them is the Borchgrave/Moss version of the commander-in-chief, a populist type from Mississippi called 'Billy Connor.'
Review, 3661 words
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