Nixon entered office, American troops in Vietnam stood at 525,000 and were still increasing according to plans made in the Johnson Administration. In 1972, they had been reduced to 25,000.

4. The Nixon Administration concluded the first strategic arms control agreement; the first agreement banning biological weapons; opened relations with China; ended the decades-long crisis over Berlin; launched the Arab-Israeli peace process; and initiated the Helsinki negotiations generally accepted as weakening Soviet control of its satellite empire and fostering German unification. Are these the actions of "rogue leaders" as Christopher Hitchens describes them? Calls Nixon?

5. Nixon was a strategist. As a strategic ploy, he did want the notion to get around that, if provoked by a foreign aggressor, he might respond disproportionately. But it is important here to separate the Nixon who sometimes mouthed extreme measures to his confidants for dramatic or rhetorical effect, and the Nixon who never made a really serious international move without the most careful and cautious analysis. It is laughable to imagine Richard Nixon ordering a domestic coup. James Schlesinger did apparently in Nixon's last days direct the JCS to ignore orders from their Commander-in-Chief - in itself an extralegal act. If Schlesinger thought the President unfit to carry out his duty as Commander-in-Chief, he was a strategic ploy.

in Chief, the legal remedy is to ask the Cabinet to declare him incapacitated.

But whatever his motives, Schlesinger never came to either of us (or anyone else, so far as we know) with his concerns and what to do about them.

6. As for the story by Joe Laitin (a close associate of Schlesinger) that a frenetic Nixon came tearing down the stairs two at a time, pursued by six Secret Service agents, and literally knocked Laitin over – no way. Nixon could not have gone down a set of stairs two at a time if his life depended on it.

7. Anthony Summers is certainly within his prerogatives to write his views about Nixon, and Christopher Hitchens to review them and add his own. But we feel that the *New York Times* has been derelict in its literary duty by having a hatchet job reviewed by a hatchet henchman.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcoft

Mr. Joseph Lelyveld
Executive Editor
The New York Times

New opening for NY Times letter:

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the 1968 election campaign, but the allegations that he blocked a Johnson Administration Vietnam peace initiative remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. In any case, the record shows that the South Vietnamese footdragging (alleged to be at the behest of Nixon underlings) -- even if the account were true -- could not have had the consequences that Mr. Summers claims. The expanded Paris peace talks began in early November, and any delay was very brief; Nixon -- as President-elect and at the peak of his leverage -- encouraged South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu to cooperate with the Johnson Administration. Moreover, if the issue is political interference during the campaign, any discussion of this question has to begin with the revelations from Soviet archives that a main motive of rushing the bombing halt and peace talks before the election was to get *Hubert Humphrey* elected.

2. It also needs to be borne in mind that the expanded Paris talks, once they began, were about procedure, not substance; they traded a U.S. bombing halt for the opening of four-party talks. Those talks immediately deadlocked, not on the substance of how to end the war but on whether the Viet Cong guerrillas should have the same status at the table as the Government of South Vietnam. No substantive proposal of any kind was put forward by the Johnson Administration. It is therefore nonsense to assert that Nixon in 1972 achieved no better terms than what Johnson "offered" in 1968. (Hanoi rejected compromise terms until 1972.)

KISSINGER ASSOCIATES, INC.

350 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10022

TELEPHONE: 212-759-7919/

FACSIMILE: 212-759-0042

FACSIMILE TRANSMITTAL SHEET

TO:
Jon Faulkner (guest)

FROM:
Rebecca Jordan

COMPANY:
Claridge's

DATE:
Oct. 13

FAX NUMBER:

TOTAL NO. OF PAGES INCLUDING COVER:

011-44-20-7499-2210

11

PHONE NUMBER:

011-44-20-7629-8860

RE:

Various-PLEASE HOLD FOR
JON FAULKNER'S ARRIVAL
ON SAT., OCT. 14 @ 12 NOON

Messages:

Re: <u>NYT letter</u>

* Attached one page of points 1 & 2 is collaborative rewrite by Rodman & Scowcroft. I did not mark up your version with their changes.

* Peter Mandaville checked figures in point 3. He found them correct after checking National Archives and Research Administration SE Asia Official Combat Areas Casualties file. He said the figures are correct and there is nothing substantial to change the wording in point 3.

* Scowcroft & Rodman said "casualties" usually means "killed and wounded". Scowcroft advised changing "casualties" in point 3 to "killed in action". I marked this change per attached.

* Scowcroft changed point 4 & 5 as marked in attached.

* Scowcroft said he is now fine with letter with above changes.

* I await your word before sending. Should your signature be affixed via signature machine?

Amb. Lader today invited you and Mrs. Kissinger to stay at residence while you are in London. Christie expressed much appreciation and added that you will be at Claridge's where the MT&R meetings will be and you are attending the meetings.

I will be at home until 8:00 a.m. on Saturday and will return home at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Messages may be left on my home telephone and I can access them remotely. Otherwise I will be in Gettysburg, PA @ Comfort Inn, TF #717-337-2400, checking in @ 12 noon on Saturday and checking out @ 9 am on Sunday. Room under name of John Jordan. [Gettysburg is in same time zone as NY]

## Calendar:

Sat., Oct. 14
bet. 2:30 pm & 7:30 pm London time
You initiate telephone call to Cheney @ his home
His residence TF: 307-739-2444
Contact: Mary (his pers. asst. & dau) Cellular 512-970-4289
Cheney also has phone number of Claridge's

Tues., Oct. 24
7:45 a.m.
breakfast with Sec. of Finance Daniel Marx
(Argentina) and Bill Rogers @ Chase.

2

October 12, 2000

To the Editor of the New York Times:

We would like to raise some questions of fact about Christopher Hitchen's tendentious account of a tendentious book, Anthony Summers' *Arrogance of Power*.

1. Neither of us was associated with Richard Nixon during the election campaign of 1968, and the allegations against him remain, in our view, allegations unsubstantiated by persuasive evidence. But the record shows that the consequences of South Vietnamese foot-dragging (allegedly at the behest of Nixon underlings), were – even if the account were true - nothing like what Mr. Summers alleges. The agreement between the Johnson Administration and the North Vietnamese was concluded on November 1, 1968, or one week before the elections. The negotiations, in fact, started November__. So the delay was inconsequential – and Nixon as president-

(4)

elect urged President Thieu to cooperate. (There is also mounting evidence
(including from Soviet archives) that the Johnson Administration rushed the
negotiations for its electoral purposes.

2. The Paris negotiations during the 1968-69 transition were about procedure, not substance; they traded an end of bombing for the opening of talks. They immediately deadlocked, not on substance but on whether the South Vietnamese guerrillas should have the same status as the government of the Republic of Vietnam. No substantive position of any kind was put on the table by the Johnson Administration at any point. It is therefore nonsense to say that Nixon achieved no better terms than what Johnson offered in 1968.

3. The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with Vietnam casualties, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 casualties. Of the 20,000 casualties in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months - clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US casualties had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year. At the end of his first term, they had been reduced to fifty per month. When

4. The Nixon Administration concluded the first strategic arms control agreement; the first agreement banning biological weapons; opened relations with China; ended the decades-long crisis over Berlin; launched the Arab-Israeli peace process; and initiated the Helsinki negotiations generally accepted as weakening Soviet control of its satellite empire and fostering German unification. Are these the actions of "rogue leaders" as Christopher Hitchens describes them.

in-Chief, the legal remedy is to ask the Cabinet to declare him incapacitated.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcoft

10/13/00 FRI 09:31 FAX 202 887 5222

OCT-13-2000 09:08

NIXON CENTER

01/01/04

001

CYJ

For: Rebecca

Rodman
comments

October 12, 2000

We would like to raise some questions of fact about Christopher Hitchens' tendentious account of Anthony Summers' Arrogance of Power.

1. Neither of us was associated with Nixon during the election campaign of 1968, But the record shows that the consequences of Nixon's ~~Alleged approach to the government of Saigon in 1968~~ were - even if the account were true - nothing like what Mr. Summers alleges. The agreement between the Johnson Administration and the North Vietnamese was concluded on November 1, 1968, or one week before the elections. The negotiations, in fact, started November 1, the delay was in consequential - and so at most, Nixon brought about Nixon as president-elect urged Presiding Thienv to cooperate. (There is also mounting evidence (including from Soviet archives) that the Johnson Administration rushed the negotiations for its end of bombing for the opening of talks. They immediately deadlocked, an end of two weeks.) That the Johnson Administration tradedElectoral purposes. These negotiations were about procedure, not substance; they traded on the basis of the Parisnegotiations during the 1968-69 transition. This may not fly, Allegation is that Thienv dragged his feet beginning in mid-October, that Chennault channel began in July, and that the attempt was reprehensible even if it had little effect. (W. Bundy, *Tangled Web*, pp. 36-48)

10/13/00 FRI 09:32 FAX 202 887 5222

OCT-13-2000 09:08

NIXON CENTER

002

P.02/04

not on substance but on whether the South Vietnamese guerrillas should have
the same status as the Saigon government. No substantive position of any
kind was put on the table by the Johnson Administration at any point. It is
therefore nonsense to say that Nixon achieved no better terms than what
Johnson offered in 1968. [N.B. Bundy says your Foreign Affairs proposals matched what LBJ negotiators "would have suggested" (p. 51)]

3. The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with Vietnam casualties, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 casualties. Of the 20,000 casualties in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months - clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US casualties had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year. At the end of his first term, they had been reduced to fifty per month. When Nixon entered office, American troops in Vietnam stood at 525,000 and were still increasing according to plans made in the Johnson Administration. In 1972, they had been reduced to 25,000.

4. The Nixon Administration concluded the first strategic arms control agreement; the first agreement banning biological weapons; opened relations with China; negotiated a new status for Berlin; conducted two successful

DCT-13-2000 09:09

NIXON CENTER

003

P.03/04

launched the Arab-Israeli peace process; and disengagement negotiations in the Middle East, and laid the groundwork for a third, initiated the Helsinki negotiations generally accepted as weakening Soviet control of its satellite empire and fostering German unification. Are these the actions of a rogue leader as Christopher Hitchens describes him?

5. Nixon was a strategist. As a strategic play, he did want the notion to get around that, if provoked by a foreign aggressor, he might respond disproportionately. But it is important here to separate the Nixon who sometimes mouthed extreme measures to his confidants for dramatic or rhetorical effect, and the Nixon who never made a really serious international move without the most careful and cautious analysis. It is laughable to imagine Richard Nixon ordering a domestic coup. James Schlesinger did apparently in Nixon's last days direct the JCS to ignore orders from their Commander-in-Chief - in itself an extralegal act. If Schlesinger thought the President unfit to carry out his duty as Commander-in-Chief, the legal remedy is to ask the Cabinet to declare him incapacitated. But whatever his motives, Schlesinger never came to either of us (or anyone else, so far as we know) with his concerns and what to do about them.

6. As for the Joe Laitin (a close associate of Schlesinger) story that a frenetic Nixon came tearing down the stairs two at a time, pursued by six Secret Service agents, and literally knocked Laitin over - no way. Nixon

October 12, 2000

We would like to raise some questions of fact about Christopher Hitchens tendentious account of Anthony Summers' *Arrogance of Power*.

1. Neither of us were associated with Nixon during the election campaign of 1968. But the record shows that the consequences of Nixon's alleged approach to the government of Saigon in 1968 were – even if the account is true – nothing like what Mr. Summers alleges. The agreement between the Johnson Administration and the North Vietnamese was concluded on October 11, 1968, or one week before the elections. The negotiations, in fact, started November 1. So at most, Nixon brought about a delay of two weeks.

2. These negotiations were about procedure, not substance; they traded an end of bombing for the opening of talks. They immediately deadlocked,

not on substance but on whether the South Vietnamese guerillas should have
the same status as the Saigon government. No substantive position of any
kind was put on the table by the Johnson Administration at any point. It is
therefore nonsense to say that Nixon achieved no better terms than what
Johnson offered in 1968.

3. The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with Vietnam casualties, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 casualties. Of the 20,000 casualties in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months – clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US casualties had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year. At the end of his first term, they had been reduced to fifty per month. When Nixon entered office, American troops in Vietnam stood at 525,000 and were still increasing according to plans made in the Johnson Administration. In 1972, they had been reduced to 25,000.

(4)

disengagement negotiations in the Middle East, and laid the groundwork for a third; initiated the Helsinki negotiations generally accepted as weakening Soviet control of its satellite empire and fostering German unification. Are these the actions of a rogue leaders as Christopher Hitchens d______.

5. Nixon was a strategist. As a strategic play, he did want the notion to get around that, if provoked by a foreign leader, he might respond disproportionately. But it is important her to separate the Nixon who sometimes mouthed extreme measures to his confidants for dramatic or rhetorical effect, and the Nixon who never made a really serious international move without the most careful and cautious analysis. It is laughable to imagine Richard Nixon ordering a domestic coup. James Schlesinger did apparently in Nixon's last days direct the JCS to ignore orders from their Commander-in-Chief - in itself an extralegal act. If Schlesinger thought the President unfit to carry out his duty as Commander-in-Chief, the legal remedy is to ask the Cabinet to declare him incapacitated. But whatever his motives, Schlesinger never came to either of us (or anyone else so far as we know) with his concerns and what to do about them.

6. As for the Joe Laitin (a close associate of Schlesinger) story that a frenetic Nixon came tearing down the stairs two at a time, pursued by six secret service agents, and literally knocked Laitin over - no way. Nixon

Sincerely,

Henry A. Kissinger

Brent Scowcoft

Mr. Joseph Lelyveld
Executive Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

October 12, 2000

1. Neither of us were associated with Nixon during the election campaign of 1968. But the record shows that the consequences of Nixon's alleged approach to the government of Saigon in 1968 were – even if the account is true – nothing like what Mr. Summers alleges. The agreement between the Johnson Administration and the North Vietnamese was concluded on October 3, 1968, or one week before the elections. The negotiations, in fact, started November 7, afterwards. So at most, Nixon brought about a delay of two weeks.

not on substance but on whether the South Vietnamese guerillas should have
the same status as the Saigon government. No substantive position of any
kind was put on the table by the Johnson Administration at any point. It is
therefore nonsense to say that Nixon achieved no better terms than [Johnson]
offered in 1968.

3. Nixon was a strategist. As a strategic play, he did want the notion to get around that, if provoked by a foreign leader, he might respond disproportionately. But it is important her to separate the Nixon who sometimes mouthed extreme measures to his confidants for dramatic or rhetorical effect, and the Nixon who never made a really serious international move without the most careful and cautious analysis. It is laughable to imagine Richard Nixon ordering a domestic coup. James Schlesinger did apparently in Nixon's last days direct the JCS to ignore orders from the White House - in itself an extralegal act. But whatever his motives, Schlesinger never came to either of us (or anyone else so far as we know) with his concerns and what to do about them. As for the Joe Laitin (a close associate of Schlesinger) story that a frenetic Nixon came tearing down the stairs two at a time, pursued by six secret service agents, and literally knocked Laitin over - no way. Nixon could not have gone down a set of stairs two at a time if his life depended on it.

4. The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with Vietnam casualties, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 casualties. Of the 20,000 casualties in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months – clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US casualties had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year. At the end of his first term, they had been reduced to fifty per month. When Nixon entered office, American troops in Vietnam stood at 525,000 and were still increasing according to plans made in the Johnson Administration. In 1972, they had been reduced to 25,000. Is this the action of a “rogue leader”?

5. The Nixon Administration concluded the first strategic arms control agreement; the first agreement banning biological weapons; opened China; settled the Berlin issue; conducted two successful disengagement negotiations in the Middle East, and laid the groundwork for a third; initiated the Helsinki negotiations generally accepted as weakening Soviet control of its satellite empire and fostering German unification. Are these the actions of a rogue leader?

KISSINGER ASSOCIATES, INC.

TELEPHONE: 212-759-7919/

FACSIMILE: 212-759-0042

FACSIMILE TRANSMITTAL SHEET

TO:
Peter Rodman

FROM:
Rebecca Jordan

COMPANY:

DATE:
Oct. 13

FAX NUMBER:

202-364-3486

PHONE NUMBER:
202-363-7159

RE:
**Kissinger Letter to NYT**

Mr. Rodman –

Dr. Kissinger asks if you could look over the attached letter which he has drafted. It also includes words of General Scowcroft. General Scowcroft is also reviewing.

Dr. Kissinger is presently in Argentina. We can reach him with faxed comments until 1:45 p.m. tomorrow (Fri., Oct. 13).

Thank you.

Rebecca

FROM : PARK TOWER BS AS
10/12/93 8:57

PHONE NO. : 318 9150

Oct. 12 2000 06:36PM P6

NO. 137 003

if his life depended on it.

With respect to sabotaging the Vietnam peace negotiations in the fall of 1968, neither of us was associated with Nixon during that period. We would point out, however, that there were no serious negotiations taking place at that time—the two sides were still arguing about the shape of the table. This is a convenient charge—the same was made against Reagan during the Carter negotiations for the release of US Embassy hostages held by the Iranians.

Anthony Summers is certainly within his prerogatives to write his views about Nixon, and Christopher Hitchens to review them and add his own. But we feel that the New York Times has been derelict in its literary duty by having a hatchet job reviewed by a hatchet henchman.

FROM : PARK TOWER BS AS

PHONE NO. : 318 9150

Oct. 13 2000 08:35AM P2

October 12, 2000

1. Neither of us were associated with Nixon during the election campaign of 1968. But the record shows that the consequences of Nixon's alleged approach to the government of Saigon in 1968 were - even if the account is true - nothing like what Mr. Summers alleges. The agreement between the Johnson Administration and the North Vietnamese was concluded on October 1968, or one week before the elections. The negotiations, in fact, started November, ~~afterwards~~ So at most, Nixon brought about a delay of two weeks.

FROM : PARK TOWER BS AS

PHONE NO. : 318 9150

Oct. 13 2000 08:36AM P4
P.04-05

The reviewer plays the usual numbers game with Vietnam casualties, claiming that nearly half occurred on Nixon's watch. One third would be more nearly accurate. But that is not the essence of the misrepresentation. When Nixon came into office, America had already suffered 36,000 casualties. Of the 20,000 casualties in the Nixon period, 12,000 occurred in the first year before any new policy could take effect, 9,000 in the first six months - clear legacies of the previous administration. When Nixon came in, US casualties had run at an average rate of 1,500 per month for a year. At the end of his first term, they had been reduced to fifty per month. When Nixon entered office, American troops in Vietnam stood at 525,000 and were still increasing according to plans made in the Johnson Administration. In 1972, they had been reduced to 25,000. ~~Is this the action of a rogue leader?~~

The Nixon Administration concluded the first strategic arms control agreement; the first agreement banning biological weapons; opened China; ~~negotiated a new strategy for~~ settled the Berlin issue; conducted two successful disengagement negotiations in the Middle East, and laid the groundwork for a third; initiated the Helsinki negotiations generally accepted as weakening Soviet control of its satellite empire and fostering German unification. Are these the actions of a rogue leader ~~Christopher Hotelens demure~~ 5 from previous page

October 12, 2000

We would like to raise some questions of fact about Christopher
Hitchens tendentious account of Anthony Summers' <u>Arrogance of Power</u>.

1. Neither of us were associated with Nixon during the election campaign of 1968. But the record shows that the consequences of Nixon's alleged approach to the government of Saigon in 1968 were – even if the account is true – nothing like what Mr. Summers alleges. The agreement between the Johnson Administration and the North Vietnamese was concluded on October __ 1968, or one week before the elections. The negotiations, in fact, started November__, afterwards. So at most, Nixon brought about a delay of two weeks.

(T)

(4)

# Why Boys Will Be Boys

## Scientists explore the links between hormones and conduct.

### HEROES, ROGUES, AND LOVERS

Testosterone and Behavior.
By James McBride Dabbs
with Mary Godwin Dabbs.
284 pp. New York:
McGraw-Hill. $24.95.

By Derek Bickerton

WHAT do construction workers, trial lawyers, front-line soldiers, con men and Sam Spade have in common? And what sets them apart from farmers, ministers, nontrial lawyers, exemplary prisoners and the unsociable? Members of the first list, according to James McBride Dabbs, all produce higher levels of the male hormone testosterone than members of the second.

Testosterone has had a bad rap lately. To many it seems an unmitigated curse. Without it, they suggest, we could rid ourselves of war, violent crime, rape and many other evils. But in "Heroes, Rogues, and Lovers," (written with his wife, Mary Godwin Dabbs), Dabbs, a social psychologist at Georgia State University who has studied the infamous chemical for many years, tells a more complex story.

Without testosterone we would all be female. A trigger gene on the Y chromosome produces the hormone, causing gonads that would otherwise become ovaries to turn into testes. But there are other sources, and both sexes share the chemical, albeit to differing degrees. Many of Dabbs's most interesting findings come from comparing testosterone levels within rather than between sexes.

Research was long delayed because levels could be tested only from blood samples, which most people are unwilling to provide. Dabbs learned that saliva gave equally accurate measures, and could thus test thousands of subjects. He found that testosterone levels do not remain constant: they decline by a good 50 percent over a person's life span, are higher in the morning and can be affected by the seasons and by a variety of life experiences. Indeed, Dabbs's research hammers another nail into the coffin of dualism: "mental" events can dramatically affect the "material" sphere of body chemistry. In an ingenuous experiment, Dabbs's students tested 12 Brazilian and 9 Italian sports fans both before and after a World Cup soccer match in which Brazil beat Italy. The Italians produced lower levels after the match (in two cases, 50 percent or more lower); 11 Brazilians produced higher (in one case, 100 percent more). In general, positive feelings increase testosterone levels, negative feelings reduce them.

But testosterone is after all a sex hormone, and many readers may want to know its effect on their sexual performance. In my youth, popular culture held two conflicting theories: "the more you use, the more you get" versus "you have only so many shots in your locker." Dabbs unhesitatingly endorses the first: "Testosterone increases sex, and sex increases testosterone." Yet people with average or even low-normal levels can have satisfactory sex lives; only severe depletion seems to remove both desire and activity.

Indeed, testosterone may have more influence on aggression and the drive for dominance.

Derek Bickerton's most recent books are "Language and Human Behavior" and "Lingua ex Machina" (with William Calvin).

Dabbs places the issues in an evolutionary context. The dominant male can protect his mate and offspring and provide more resources, but his reckless lifestyle leads at worst to early death, at best to philandering and neglect of familial duties. The lower-testosterone male may confer less status and excitement yet provide safer and more lasting support. Since widely varying levels of testosterone still exist in humans, both strategies for perpetuating genes must work. But the social downside of the first increases as civilization grows ever more complex and constricting.

For higher testosterone levels are statistically linked to what Dabbs terms "rambunctious" behavior: any activity, from careless smoking to mayhem or murder, that defies social norms. The mix of self-absorption and flamboyance typical of high-testosterone men and women can have charismatic effects: successful actors and trial lawyers often show above-average levels. But high levels yield no guarantee of material success; in general, "higher testosterone correlates with lower status," perhaps, he suggests, because such people are too restless and too easily bored to endure higher education.

Yet even civilized society may sometimes be glad to have a few high-testosterone characters around. Invaluable in war, they can also confront peacetime emergencies with the certainty of winning and the indifference to personal safety that the hormone bestows. A fireman who hung from a helicopter to effect a daring rescue, a petty criminal who pulled four people from a burning building and a female student who dragged an injured driver from his truck despite fears that it might explode, all turned out to have above-average levels. Fearlessness spells freedom to act, and freedom can go either way, to selfish violence or to pure altruism.

For while Dabbs subscribes to the main tenets of evolutionary psychology, he does not believe that biology is destiny. "Circumstance, motivation and values" will determine how a person responds in any given situation; the ill effects of excessive testosterone can be reduced by "loving families, good schools and stable communities." And in an epilogue he admits that the results of scientific inquiry are far from infallible.

This makes all the more puzzling a kind of overkill that permeates the book. Everyone likes good stories, and the heroes, rogues and lovers whose capsule histories enrich the text certainly provide entertaining reading. However, nothing indicates that the World War II hero Audie Murphy or the famed trial lawyer Gerry Spence ever offered Dabbs their saliva. It is surer still that Crazy Horse, who is dead, or Sam Spade, who is fictional, never spat for science. Yet all are invoked as exemplars of testosterone-fueled behavior; we are even told of the redoubtable Sam that "testosterone oozed from his every pore."

Dabbs's rationale seems to be that if anyone exhibits those masculine characteristics associated with testosterone, they must be directly attributed to testosterone. But a correlation does not always qualify as a cause. He himself notes puzzling counterexamples: for instance, the Ache, a tribe of Native Americans in Paraguay, show violent behavior despite low testosterone. Perhaps his catholic choice of illustration stems from the need, in any scientific work aimed at a wide audience, to flesh out abstractions with concrete and familiar cases. If, in balancing between sober fact and entertainment, Dabbs sometimes tilts too far toward the latter, the general reader will readily forgive him, thanks to the wealth of fascinating information he provides. ☐

+

08

## Where can you find a dead Russian, Jesus, and musical genius?

**ONLY THE DEAD SPEAK RUSSIAN**
Adventure from the most exciting period of Russian history by best-selling author, Irving Greenfield

**THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF JESUS**
Renew your faith or find it. By Charles Foster Kent
Edited by Bruce Hodges and Sarah Hodges

**EXPLORING CLASSICAL MUSIC**
"... a true experience." By veteran critic, Robert Finn

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27

# Up From Heathendom

A historically unorthodox account of the success of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

## A WORLD FULL OF GODS

*The Strange Triumph of Christianity.*
By Keith Hopkins.

Illustrated. 402 pp. New York:
The Free Press. $26.

By Robert A. Oden Jr.

WHEN I began teaching ancient Near Eastern religions 25 years ago, a colleague had a large cartoon on his door showing a huge monolith (those were the days of Stanley Kubrick's "2001") with "NOTHING" engraved on it. Before it a group of people bowed and prayed. The cartoon's caption was the remark of a passing anthropologist: "Is Nothing sacred?"

In "A World Full of Gods," by Keith Hopkins, very few conventions of formal history, and especially of traditional religious history, are sacred. A pair of time travelers, commissioned by Hopkins (the volume, filled with fictions bearing paraphrasia of fact, reproduces his employment contract with them, complete with his King's College, Cambridge, address) and supplied with Latin and Greek brain implants, realize the dream of all who study antiquity: if only I could be there. "There," for these time travelers, includes Pompeii in A.D. 77, where the promise of the book's title first is fulfilled: "My initial impression of Pompeii," says one traveler, "was that there were temples and Gods, and humans praying to them, all over the place." The team next travels to the late second century, to Tebtunis in Egypt and to Mabbug/Hierapolis near the Euphrates, and finally, backward in time again, to Ephesus a bit earlier in the same century. For all the fancifulness, humor and good (and bad) sex in these time travels, the portraits we receive are based on careful and wide-ranging research, and they are as helpful an introduction into the eras portrayed as we have. Moreover, we get a defense of the kind of history Hopkins is writing: his time travelers are first irritated by, then converted to, a variety of conflicting accounts and voices. "Like getting different bus times in modern Egypt," one traveler confesses, "I realized that having a variety of accounts, instead of a single 'true' account, made some sense... Mixing autopsy with narrative is not conventional, but I personally think it's fair."

Nor does time travel begin to exhaust what is unconventional in this volume. Thus, about a century after the death of Jesus a bickering television crew films a debate among pagans, a Christian and a Jew: "The mythical camera (like sources, according to the historians' charter myth) never lies." The Christian, Justin, is at once the unctuous chaplain of an Oxbridge college who so often shows up on such productions and yet also Justin Martyr, a second-century Christian worthy. Given the identities (the footnotes help) of those in the tele-

Robert A. Oden Jr., the author of several studies of the Syrian Goddess, and, most recently, of "The Bible Without Theology," is the president of Kenyon College.

vised debate and the dates of their births and deaths, the group cannot possibly have dined and debated together. The scene's creator knows this chronological impossibility, and thus supplies several carping notices from achingly pedantic scholars — these notices hurt, because in fact we all can, and often do, write just like this.

However we choose to label its genre — "soft," "novelistic," "atmospheric," "semichaotic" history are all suggested by Hopkins — "A World Full of Gods" has yet more imaginative delights for the reader: footnotes congratulate those who persevere to read the things; there are lots of dirty pictures and tales; humor abounds ("it all goes to show, doesn't it, that sexuality, hypocrisy and being a slave don't pay"); and, when Hopkins poses admirably acute questions about ancient religions, admonishing letters from scholarly pals appear. These and other departures from formal history do, indeed, belie "the fiction that fictional accounts lack historical value."

If unconventionally portrayed — or, perhaps, precisely because so portrayed — the world of antiquity comes remarkably alive here. We learn a lot, too, about Gnosticism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, early church councils and disputes over creeds, what we can know about the historical Jesus (not much), Syrian pole-sitters, the Septuagint and other Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible, euhemerism, Nag Hammadi, Manichaeism, Docetism and more. If any of those terms initially seems as difficult to grasp as to pronounce, obstacles fade quickly in the author's gripping narrative.

And yet the book is quite filled with the sacred, as was the Roman Empire of the centuries on either side of the birth of Christianity; it was, as has been said by many scholars, "the religious marketplace of antiquity." If you went to the main square in any good-size town in Egypt, Syria-Palestine, Asia Minor (Turkey) or Greece — or in Rome itself — about A.D. 50 you would see on every corner not banks but the hawkers of different religions. "Worship the Syrian Goddess," one would shout, "she can give sight to the blind." Another would respond with a still more demanding miracle: "Come to Isis, who has granted sight to those born blind." "The Great Mother," she of Asia Minor, a visionary proclaims, "grants immortality to those who believe," and this, then, is topped again by the Isis evangelist, who preaches that Isis not only gives the gift of immortality at death but also that of a transformed life, of salvation, in the present. When the armies of Alexander the Great reached Egypt and then further east in the fourth century B.C., the resulting mix of things Greek and Near Eastern was a recipe for spicy new entrees of philosophy and religion — a religious globalism every bit as revolutionary, and as baffling in its appeals both to yesterday and to tomorrow, as the 20th-century economic globalism of Thomas Friedman's book "The Lexus and the Olive Tree."

So, how, in this religious equivalent of free-market capitalism, did Christianity triumph? How, especially given Christianity's inauspicious start (in Galilee, of all places, which is sort of like Fargo) and the

astonishingly few Christians in, say, A.D. 100? The numbers — and this is an area where Hopkins himself has done some fundamental recent research — are astonishing: "Best estimates suggest that there were considerably fewer than 10,000 Christians" then, he writes, "and only about 200,000" a century later, that figure representing "only 0.3 percent of the total population of the Roman Empire."

Hopkins's answers to the question of Christianity's puzzling and unpredictable triumph are surprisingly conventional. Christianity triumphed, in the first place, because of the strength of the three pillars upon which it rested: the church was supported by "the emerging tradition of apostolic succession legitimating episcopal power, of the rule of faith, and of the canonical scriptures." Secondly, this religion flourished while its early competitors died because of the support of the Roman state following the conversion of the emperor Constantine. Surely these are plausible responses; but both the quite brilliant way in which Hopkins poses the question of Christianity's improbable triumph by accenting the many appeals of its competitors, and also the novel genre of history represented in this volume, lead us to expect something different, something more: state support and three powerful pillars; that's it, after Hopkins's promisingly trenchant critical account of Christianity?

AND speaking of something more: it is disturbing that amid all this fetching playfulness, from which we do learn plenty, we learn so little of where Hopkins stands. Even to ask the question, of course, is to fall into a trap that historians like to set. "Don't confuse facts," new historians might argue, "with the truth, and don't object to a variety of authorial voices: the world is complex, is deceiving, and is opaque to the literal-minded." Sorry I asked, we may be tempted to respond, but in fact I'm not sorry, and the question is fairly posed. Both facts and the truth often emerge, I guess, in the footnotes, which are admirable testimony to massive learning and careful research, but a little literal confession and wider use of the insights of those whose expertise is the history of religions might aid more people than simply the feeble-minded.

But Hopkins's chief purpose here is not that of his subtitle. It is rather to direct a compelling production of religious antiquity, a drama as varied and contradictory and upsetting of conventions as was the world it portrays. In this purpose he succeeds as few others have. Those of us who study antiquity are often asked: What should I read to understand the world in which Christianity was born? I used to answer: Read "The Golden Ass" of Apuleius. Now I'll add: And "A World Full of Gods." Still, the wish remains — to join Hopkins's time travelers and television crew, to live for a moment in the Syrian city of Hierapolis in the first century and to stand before the twin towers on which folks perched precariously and for weeks to witness their piety rather than to stop the chain saws. ☐

08

FROM PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR

ALICE WALKER

NEW FICTION BASED ON HER OWN LIFE

“Strong, moving...

*The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart* reflects on the nature of passion and friendship, pondering the emotional trajectories of lives and loves.

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PRAISE FOR ALICE WALKER

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A Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club