Stalin. . . . Mr. Tebbit’s toughnaction was signalled by hisnreaction to the Stockton attacknin August. He interrupted hisnholiday to issue an apology tonthe former Conservative PrimenMinister and to denounce thenarticle as “disgracefijl.”nBut no sooner had Mr. Tebbit resumednhis holiday . . . Early in 1987nr/ie Times reported:nThe spectre of the Cossacksnwho were murdered after beingnsent back to the Soviet Unionnby the British at the end of thensecond world war has returnednto haunt a senior Torynfigure. . . . Lord Aldington, warnhero, Conservative politician andnnow warden of WinchesternCollege, has been compelled bynthe activities of Nigel Watts, an48-year-old property developernfrom Tunbridge Wells, tonlaunch a libel action that willnbring about the first court airingnof the Cossacks controversy.nThe dispute follows the row lastnyear over allegations againstnLord Stockton, formerly HaroldnMacmillan, published in thenFederation of ConservativenStudents’ magazine. NewnAgenda. This time, however,nthe row seems unlikely to fadenaway, as it did after Stockton’sndeath last December haltednpublic debate over his allegednresponsibility for thenrepatriation. . . . Aldington, 72,nfiled a writ of libel . . . afternWatts had begun to circulaten10,000 copies of a four-pagenpamphlet among the parents,nstaff and old boys ofnWinchester College, MP’s,npeers, and journalists. Thenpamphlet makes a number ofnallegations about Aldington’sninvolvement with Macmillannand his role in the forcednrepatriation of the Cossacks. Atnthe time. Aldington, thennBrigadier Toby Low, was chiefnof staff to General Keightley’snFifth Corps in Austria. Thenallegations in the pamphlet arendrawn from The Minister andnthe Massacres, the book bynNikolai Tolstoy that was thensource of the New Agendanaccusations last August.nThe headmaster of Winchester, whosenplaying fields, like those of Eton andnHarrow, bear witness to history, wasnunmoved. Not only did James Sabben-nClare refuse to look into the allegationsnagainst the warden, but he also hit thenenemies of Tory order where it reallynhurt, banning a review of The Ministernand the Massacres from appearing innthe school magazine.nIn fact, Count Tolstoy explains innhis appeal, the text of Nigel Watts’snpamphlet “War Crimes and the Wardenshipnof Winchester College” wasn”written by myself,” and, when Aldingtonnsued Watts, Tolstoy’s lawyersnwrote to Aldington’s lawyers “requestingnthat he consent to my being madena defendant to these proceedings.nSuch consent not being immediatelynforthcoming,” a summons was issued.n”As a result,” Tolstoy concludes triumphantly,n”I am, with Nigel Watts, nownbeing sued by Lord Aldington.” It isnindeed a triumph. “For the first time,nthis major tragedy and betrayal will bensubjected to public examination in ancourt hearing.” (Anyone with thenmeans and the vision to help CountnTolstoy in this cause is urged to make ancontribution to The Forced RepatriationnDefense Fund, The Old Courtyard,nChurch Road, Tunbridge Wells,nKent TNI IJT, England.)nWhile Count Tolstoy was fightingnfor the memory of the martyrs — as hisngreat uncle, of War and Peace fame,nonce fought for the Old Believers —nanother installment of the same tragedynwas unfolding on both sides of thenAtlantic. On August 24, 1987, Reutersnreported that “in the Lithuanian capital,nVilnius, a crowd of 500 defiednwarnings from the authorities andngathered in front of St. Anne’s ChurchnBOOKS IN BRIEF—ANCIENT HISTORYnGentlemen and Officers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power innByzantine Italy, A.D. ?54-800hy T.S. Brown, London: British School at Rome; 288npp. Byzantine possessions in Italy were caught in an unpleasant bind, between the growingnpower of the papacy, the rise of barbarian kingdoms — Franks and Lombards — and thenclaims of the Empire itself. By concentrating on the political careers of important officersnand officials, Brown does a good job of portraying the conflict of loyalties and the steadyndevelopment of local attachments.nSpartan Law by D.M. MacDowell, Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. Spartanncustoms were puzzling even to their neighbors, but the Spartan “constitution” was asnattractive to the American Founding Fathers as it was to Plato and Xenophon. MacDowell’snlitfle book is a lucid and intelligent introduction to the Spartan legal system. Withoutnreally settling the major scholarly controversies, MacDowell does survey the primarynevidence and offers a persuasive account of an originally cohesive and consensual systemnthat came gradually to be abandoned.nThe Scurra by P.B. Corbett, Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press. The “scurra” is anfigure that crops up repeatedly in Roman comic literature, and Corbett traces his evolutionnfrom busybody to entertainer. To their credit, the ancients only laughed at RodneynDangerfield — they didn’t respect him.nThe Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship by Murray Bookchin, SannFrancisco: Sierra Club Books. Bookchin, the darling of the nuts-and-berries left, is nonscholar, but his imaginative discussion of citizenship and civil responsibility is an importantncontribution to the current debate on democracy. Like Benjamin Barber, whose work henadmires, Bookchin calls for strong, participatory democracy such as that once enjoyed bynthe citizens of Greek and Italian city-states, and it is at this point of communitariannfreedom that honest leftists, libertarians, and Jeffersonian conservatives meet. Bookchin’snanalysis of our present situation is infinitely richer and more serious than most of what isncurrenfiy passing for conservative wisdom.nThe Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient GreeknWarship by J.S. Morrison and J.F. Coates, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;n266 pp. Not long ago in Chronicles Frederick Turner suggested that historical recreationsnmight be a more powerful way of understanding the past than much of traditionalnscholarship. By far the most exciting such attempt in recent years has been the constructionnof an Athenian trireme. No one interested in ancient history or sailing will want to pass upnthis lucid and informative account.nnnMAY 19881 SIn