81 CHRONICLESnconference of the young Christian-nDemocrat and Christian-Socialist militantsnfrom all of South and CentralnAmerica. I never believed in Christianwhatevernpolitical parties, as in timenthe first adjective wears off and thensecond turns aggressive: socialist, democrat,nliberal, Marxist, national, whatnhave you. But there we were, guestsnin one of the headquarters of thenChristian-Democratic party of Venezuela’snPresident Caldera. The delegates,nabout 25 of them, were brilliantnand politically cultured, with theirnhearts in militancy and Christ’s kingdom.nThe time is also interesting to specify:nearly July 1973, just two monthsnaway from the fall of AUende, the idolnof most participants, especially of thencharming Marxist Catholic fromnChile, the youngest of the group andnthe most fervent to convert me to hisnpolitical creed. Don’t even try, I said. Inhad been to Chile in 1966, the Jesuitsnwere redder than Lenin, and PresidentnEduardo Frei counted himself, withnMaritain and Saul Alinsky (!), as thenlast revolutionary. From the start, thenBOOKS IN BRIEFnCaracas gathering struck a decidedlynleftist note: Marxism was the paradigmnand Christianity the veneer. Althoughnwe discussed “models of society” (mynbook on Utopia/Heresy had just beennpublished in Spanish, hence the invitation),nit was obvious that a certainnmodel was the main dish, identifiablyncloser to the Cuban reality than to thenColombian or the Venezuelan. Thengeneral attitude of the gathering favorednsocialism, the kind that the Sandinistasnwere to propagandize beforenand after they reached power. In short,nit was a socialism of the glasnost type.nIt was obvious that my young friendsnregarded their own parties as the antechambernof tougher things to come;nthe permanent dream of Christian leftistsnwas about cooperation with thenMarxists. (A formula also known asnliberation theology.)nManigat and I got along famously—nhe is a charming, intelligent mannwith a notable political intelligence,nand with the kind of outlook LatinnAmerican academics cultivate (whichnis no guarantee that, eventually innpower, they would practice what theynReagan and the Economy: The Successes, Failures and Unfinished Agenda bynMichael J. Boskin, San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies Press,ndistributed by Kampmann and Co., New York; $22.95. A sympathetic study ofnReaganomics, which have created opportunities but which have not been institutionalized.nThe PoHtical Morality of the International Monetary Fund (Ethics and ForeignnPohcy Series, Volume 3) edited by Robert J. Myers, New Brunswick, NJ: CarnegienCouncil on Ethics and International Affairs. Various economists assay the performancenof the IMF, more often than not finding it deficient.nMorality of the Market: Religious and Economic Perspectives edited by WalternBlock, Geoffrey Brennan, and Kenneth Elzinga, Vancouver, British Columbia: ThenFraser Institute. Mihon Friedman, Michael Novak, and two dozen others debate thenrelationship between capitalism and religion.nCongressional Voting Guide: A Ten Year Compilation of the 99th Congress bynVictor W. Bosnich, Washington, DC: Bosnich. Records in sufficient detail to producenindictments of several hundred legislative malefactors.nMr. Justice Rehnquist, Judicial Activist: The Early Years by Donald E. Boles, Ames,nlA: Iowa State University Press. The author, a former chairman of an Iowa Governor’snCommission on Human Rights, lives down to his credentials by attempting Borkicide onnthe Chief Jushce.nOn Trial: Law, Lawyers, and the Legal System by Benjamin M. Becker and David L.nGibberman, New York: Philosopbical Library; $22.95. A readable (if sometimesnsimplistic) layman’s guide to the tangled court system.nThe Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship With the United States bynCarlos Rangel, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. This splendid work debunksn”the conventional wisdom that the poor are poor because the rich are rich,” then”all-pervasive myths” of the noble savage and of the good revolutionary, and other tenetsnof Third Worldism.nnnhad preached). Manigat had alsontaught since he had been a professor atnNanterre, the post-1968 enfant terriblenof French universities, more radicalnthan a party school. He was self-exilednfrom Haiti, although he avoided mentioningnanything of his associationnor nonassociation with the Duvaliernfamily.nAt the time, my nutshell impressionnof Leslie Manigat was the following: ansmart operator with a powerful ambitionnto play a political role, a born partynleader or at least high official, the kindnof which cabinet ministers are made innthe Caribbean. These features, then,ndid not make Manigat very differentnfrom many regional intellectuals in annera of political upheavals and changesnof fortune. The surroundings underlinednthese impressions. “Christian-nSocialism” was trumpeted everywherenin our discussions, in the news of thenday, in the comments of these livelynyoung men, even on the walls wherenleftist/Catholic posters formed the,ndecor. Jacques Maritain, a great Thomistnbut a political chameleon, predominatednas a cult-figure — with Fr.nTeilhard de Chardin a close secondn(also well able to serve many politicalnvisions, all of them unreal and Utopian).nStrange, there were no posters ofnthe pope, who at the time was Paul VI,nauthor of the left-leaning encyclicalnPopulorum Progressio and a Maritainnadmirer.nSo much for the emblematic figuresnunder which the congress was held.nThe enemies were also represented:nthe Yankees, capitalism, military juntasn(what a blow the takeover by Pinochetnwas to be!), and social democracy. Thenonly good foreigners were the WestnGerman CDU (Christian DemocraticnUnion), which evidently footed the billnfor various activities and campaigns.n(The Germans fell into the same errornas John F. Kennedy a decade earliernwhen he had counted on the continent’snChristian-Democratic/Socialistnparties to consolidate the local economicnand political situation. It was anGerman suggestion to invite the Jesuitnscholar Gustav Wetter, author of anthorough study of dialectical materialismn[“diamat”] to come to Caracasnfor a lecture. He, however, could notnshow up.)nThe debates focused on models ofnsociety, and my opposition to Utopiann