exposing the stupidity and pomposity of his superiors, the officers and bureaucrats of the Hapsburg empire. For Czechs living under communist rule, Hasek's work has served as a popular antidote to gloom.
Hasek (1883-1923) was an unpredictable rebel-a folk hero in disguise. A descendant of Slavic peasants, he was born in Prague, a city dominated an officious German minority. His early adult years were devoted to anarchism, drink, and the writing of satire. Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army...
John G. Tower, in Foreign Affairs (Winter 19811
19821, Reader ~ervices, 58 East 68th St., New York. N.Y. 10021.
Who is chiefly responsible for American foreign policy: The Executive? The Congress? Or are, t'hey equal partners?
The issue has bedeviled the Republic since its founding, writes Tower, a Republican Senator from Texas, but the first significant con- gressional challenge to a President's conduct of foreign affairs was the Senate's rejection of Woodrow Wilson's Versailles Treaty in 1920....
parochial political concerns. In 1981, Tower recalls, House Whip Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) admitted to voting against the sale of AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia not on the proposal's merits but because of the political sentiment in his home district.
Domestic policy may benefit from horse-trading, but diplomacy should be made of sterner stuff. Foreign policy is a chess game, Tower concludes dryly, and "chess is not a team sport."
"Local Government, Suburban Segrega- Suburban tion...
Willianl R. Havender, in Journal of Contemporary Studies (Summer 1981), Transaction Periodicals Consortium, Dept. 541, Rutgers-The State University, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903.
The Food and Drug Administration's attempts to ban nitrites and sac- charin, its successful campaigns against cyclamates and herbicide 2,4,5-T, and the 1980 evacuation (on orders from President Jimmy Car- ter) of 710 families living near a chemical dump in the Love Canal section of Niagara Falls, N.Y.-all have one thing in...
overly fastidious regula- tion, in such areas as job safety, toxic waste, air and water pollution.
Thus, the Delaney Amendment (1958) banned any food additive found to cause cancer in aiz-y animal in a single study, despite scientists' own ingrained wariness and their emphasis on duplicatable results. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, overwhelmed its responsibility for evaluating thousands of new chemicals, has drawn up "generic" guidelines that provide answers in advance...
early struggles to end racial segregation in the South. Mostly children of affluence, these unlikely rebels saw links between their personal troubles (a nagging sense of meaningless- ness, disenchantment with materialism) and larger public issues. In- deed, it was this merger of private and public concerns that gave the youthful Movement its vitality and broad appeal, even before the Viet- nam draft loomed up as a focus for campus protest.
Why did such a lively social phenomenon fade 1973? Certainly...
launching the limited nuclear attack anticipated U.S. strategists, Beres argues. Moreover, even a limited strike would leave some 18 million Americans dead, so the Soviets have no reason to believe Washington would restrain itself in case of such an attack. Finally, the Soviets themselves reject the notion of a limited nuclear war-they would not play by the rules.
Indeed, the American strategy is likely to be a temptation to the Soviets. "Used in retaliation," Beres notes, "counterforce-targeted...
Donald R. Baucom, and Warfare in Air University Review (Sept.-Oct. 1981),
Superintendent of Documents, Govern-
ment Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
20402.
In the spring of 1943, Axis troops were dug into high ground near the North African city of Tunis. The American commander watched as a heavy artillery barrage smothered the enemy's emplacements, then turned to a war correspondent and said: "I'm letting the American taxpayer take this hill." Citing this incident, historian Allan...
Paul
N. Bloom and Stephen A. Greyser, in toC~HSU~~Y~S~?Business Review (Nov.-Dec.
Harvard
1981). Subscription Service Dent.. P.O.
Box 3000, ~oburn,Mass. 01888.-
The middle-class consumer movement, so active during the 1960s and most of the '70s, seems lately to be out of the news, pre-empted such matters as defense, the economy, and events abroad. According to Bloom and Greyser, business professors at the University of Maryland and Harvard, respectively, the picture is more complicated: While...
Paul
N. Bloom and Stephen A. Greyser, in toC~HSU~~Y~S~?Business Review (Nov.-Dec.
Harvard
1981). Subscription Service Dent.. P.O.
Box 3000, ~oburn,Mass. 01888.-
The middle-class consumer movement, so active during the 1960s and most of the '70s, seems lately to be out of the news, pre-empted such matters as defense, the economy, and events abroad. According to Bloom and Greyser, business professors at the University of Maryland and Harvard, respectively, the picture is more complicated: While...