sudden terror that I might be forced tonqueue up for six hours only to be toldnthat bread was unavailable, I tried toncatch the eye of one of the women innorder to make a quick inquiry aboutnNew Times. I should have known better.nAfter ten minutes of waiting nearnthe cash register, I was told that theynwere, of course, out of New Times.nThe situation seemed more than anlittle absurd. Here I was in San Francisco,none of the most left-leaning citiesnon the continent, and I was totallynunable to lay hands on a magazine thatnthe Soviets were presumably eager tonhave me read. The local CommunistnParty couldn’t be sure that their copiesnwere going to arrive at all, whilenZhanie apparently consistently sellsnout of them without bothering to increasentheir order. Was this any way tonrun a propaganda war? What wasngoing on?nI next tried to track down a NewnTimes while I was in Los Angeles. LosnAngeles is, after all, the second-largestncity in the country, and second only tonNew York in cultural influence. Thenback pages of the current incarnationnof the old Daily Worker, the People’snDaily World, showed a promising look­ning ad for the Progressive Bookshop onnSouth St. Andrews Place. I checkednthe hours — the ad said the store wasnopen from one to five in the afternoon,nTuesday through Friday — and set offnacross town. South St. Andrews Placenturned out to be a dilapidated residentialnstreet in Koreatown, a neighborhoodnnow primarily occupied by recentnKorean immigrants. The ProgressivenBookshop was a dusty oldntwo-story house with a large frontnporch and a locked and bolted frontndoor. A peeling sign on the front of thenbuilding identified it as the Hungarian-nAmerican Cultural Association. Ansmall notice indicated the bookstorenwas on the second floor, in a convertednbedroom no doubt, but none of thenoccupants — Hungarian-American ornotherwise — were anywhere to benfound. My propaganda pilgrimage wasna bust.nWere any copies of New Times to benhad on the West Coast at all? If so,nwhere? How about the progressivengroves of academia? I was finally ablento locate New Times at the U.C.nBerkeley library, where they have apparentlynhad a running subscriptionnsince sometime in the 1930’s. OncenTHE CLARIDGE PRESSnTHINKERS OF OUR TIMEnOAKESHOTTnby Robert GrantnKARL SCHMITTnby Paul GottfriednforthcomingnCHESTERTONnby Ian CrowthernPrice £5.95, $7 (paperback) £9.95 $21, (hardback)nObtainable through your ocal bookseller, or direct from:nThe Claridge Press, 6, Linden Gardens, London W2nthere I hunkered down with a selectionnof copies, both old and new, andnpondered the current state of the psywar.nYes, indeed, as the authors oiDezinformatsianhad contended, the issues ofnNew Times until well into thenGorbachev era did read like classicnCommunist propaganda. America wasnan imperialist warmonger, SDI wasnthreatening world peace, cruise missilesnshould not be installed in Europe,nsocialist comrades from around thenworld were underscoring their solidaritynwith each other, the CIA was up tonits dirty tricks — iu short, the old NewnTimes read like a slightly cruder versionnof the Nation minus the Edward Sorelncartoons.nAnd then in 1988 a confoundingntransformation took place. Criticism ofnAmerica faded out, while soul-searchingnself-criticism about the failure ofnsocialism in the Eastern Bloc monopolizednthe pages. Wistful articles aboutnthe virtues of the free market crept innalong with zingy personality pieces onnsuch famous Westerners as Janet Jacksonnand U.K. press baron Robert Maxwell.nWhat in the devil were the SovietsnBLASTS!nEDUCATION AND DEMOCRACYnAgainst the Educational Establishmentnby Anthony O’HearnLEFT HIGH AND DRYnby Peter FullernRESISTING LEVIATHANnThe case against a European Statenby Philip Vander ElstnPrice: £3.95, $11 (paperback) + 50p p&pnnnJUNE 1991/41n