PEOPLE
ARE TALKING
ABOUT...

PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT... Henry A. Kissinger's really brilliant book, *Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy*, in which he mentions, under the heading of need for a doctrine, that "Policy is the art of weighing probabilities; mastery of it lies in grasping the nuances of possibilities."... The quick cuts in the wit of Mort Sahl, whose night club monologues leave his audiences laughing and bleeding. ... The Stereodisc, *Railroad Sounds, Steam and Diesel*, a record that sounds like a night in a roundhouse; although meant to be played for full sound with a cartridge not yet on the market, it can be played now on a conventional phonograph.

PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT... The odd idea of reviving tattoo-
ing, not by sailors, but by painters and jazz-lovers; one Newporter,
female, has a speckled butterfly on her arm, and another, male, a
heart... Richard Lippold, the sculptor, now in France to do one
of his constructions, perhaps a cobweb on a vine for the wine
château-museum of Baron Philippe de Rothschild... The fervour,
the fresh dancing forms of Inbal, a troupe of Israeli dancers...
The fun of a new book, *Puzzle-Math*, by George Gamow and Marvin
Stern who have told some fascinating mathematical puzzles in the
form of stories, putting the answers in italics and dialogue... The
pretty new theatre, the York, which has the new Tennessee Williams'
play, *Suddenly Last Summer*, powerfully written, but in the end, an
evanescent exercise in horror that fails: on a white hot day against
a white wall on a white hill a gang of enraged children eat up a poet
in search of God.

"THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS"

William Inge, thick-browed, frowning, soft-faced, and contained,
stares out of this photograph in which he is backed by five of the
superb players in his *Dark at the Top of the Stairs*. A dramatist
who has had four hits and made a fortune out of the theatre, he is
gentle and controlled, with such heart that he sympathizes with all
his characters as though he were God. Although he has no difficulty
at all in saying what he means, his characters fumble their inarticu-
late way. They are all apparently average people who lead lives
that are only partly desperate and often not quiet. In the process
of telling about one family in Oklahoma in the twenties, Mr. Inge
involves them in a variety of fears including money troubles, job
troubles, small-town prejudices, adolescent party qualms, and mar-
riage problems. He even rips the silver cord again. On these mat-
ters he is almost always wise, sometimes anguished, sometimes
amusing, the scenes flowing theatrically and potently.

*Left to right:* Charles Saari as a difficult, oddball child; Teresa Wright as a mother who often forgets to be a wife; and Eileen Heckart whose scenes of swift heartiness are followed by heartbreak. *Back row:* Timmy Everett, unforgettable as a boy shunted to military school; and Pat Hingle, twanging his fear and bravado.

96

PENN

ANIC

BUTTON

ur fault? my wife's fault?) He said looking at the woman. He stood near bodies touch as they moved. He wanted comfort to be the best love she now er of a face with its huge dark eyes ing for an instant and gazed curiously at be fine to give her what she wanted. lady was in perfect control," the cop don't look where they're going, don't cross ard. She couldn't stop them if she was the the lady'll have to appear in court anyhow say, but it's my opinion." He grinned and und used the quizzical word "lady," Shaper Barbara was such a lady, so cool about it. is such a lovely person," a woman came up She paused to let him assimilate this informa- it food clanked in her mesh shopping bag. "I hole thing. You should have seen how con- how she cuddled that little girl who was she didn't even think of herself and her own

man followed them.

as all right, but she was so sweet to her any- ust ran right in front of the car. She should piece of her mind—the brats, they're sup- safety first in school—if it had been me, I'd es, me, but no, she cuddled and cuddled

said. "Where did they take the child?" he asked on, a bored lonely vacant creature destroyed fur collar: "She had a right he did, she did, but she only—"

said. He led his wife away, very much leaning solicitously over her. He felt inward heat of Barbara's effort at which keeps the freezer cool. The was nothing more required. Bar- He followed Barbara.

en he took her arm again. e how little Jeanie is."

The woman with the cat food hung near them, shaking her head in violent wonder and approval. He held the door open for his wife. She liked public courtesies. He got in at his side. She sat there very still and white. He noticed that she had remembered to turn off the ignition, although the car must have stalled, and she had both put on the brakes and left it in gear. She said nothing until they turned the corner away from the crowd. Then he began to hear her breathing, and he felt her huge, dark, smudged eyes on him as he paid elaborate attention to his driving. "It's all your fault," she said softly.

They did not need another accident. He pulled over to the curb, stopped, and locked the brake before answering. "For what? How?" he asked. He put out his arms toward her in the hope of catching something. "How is it possible, Barbara?"

She whispered to him under great pressure, like a bursting vessel, "It's all your fault. Your fault." The tears were shaken from her eyes, propelled by anger, hatred, anguish. A droplet splashed on his hand and he felt its hot spreading. "Your fault for everything!"

"Let's go to the hospital first," he said, "then we'll talk. First we want to make sure the child is all right, don't we?" He felt a marvel of a smile gathering within and spreading its warmth through his veins. It was a wondrous calm humour that came to dwell with him. At last the connection was made between trouble and ordinary times and he could figure out what to do next. For him now to control, to manipulate; and beyond those items of approximation and accommodation, perhaps even to break loose from manipulating and controlling, which are the resort of weakness. The panic button had no more power over him. He would not betray it, no, but the smile nourished him.

"Your your *your* fault!"

"Poor Barbara," he said, "you're upset." He held her struggling head; it pressed furiously against his shoulder; he stroked her hair. He blinked his hot dry eyes and, to relieve them, focused as far down the street, as far away as he could without moving. "You're upset, but never you mind, Barbara honey. Who wouldn't be?"

Now free, free!

95

[LC]

# THE CASE FOR LIMITED NUCLEAR WAR

Henry A. Kissinger, *Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy*. N.Y.:Harper, 1957.

Now that the United States and Russia can virtually annihilate each other and humanity itself, all-out war cannot serve any rational purpose; it is, at best, a measure of desperation. Yet war remains, as it has always been, a contingency that nations must prepare to meet. The clashes of the past decade in Greece, Korea, Indochina, and Suez demonstrate that warfare has not been abolished. Indeed, the very horror of total war, the use of an instrument of "nuclear blackmail," encourages the Communists to seek limited war to gain their objectives on the installment plan.

Therefore, somehow this nation must be ready to defend its interests by military means short of all-out war. Otherwise, it faces the alternative of thermonuclear catastrophe or piecemeal defeat and surrender.

To show how the United States can avoid this dilemma and utilize its military strength to support its political objectives Mr. Kissinger has written this highly significant book, which is an outgrowth of eighteen months' work with a group of experts organized by the Council on Foreign Relations and led by Mr. Gordon Dean, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

With acute penetration, fertile imagination, and impressive analytical skill Kissinger examines the whole realm of relevant military, political, and psychological questions concerning the impact of nuclear weapons upon foreign policy and develops the unorthodox thesis that a strategy of "limited nuclear war," complementing our capability for massive retaliation, will utilize America's skills to best advantage with the least risk of total war. In considerable detail he describes what such a strategy would require in terms of military tactics, defense organization, political policies, and diplomacy.