with film is not simply its easy effects,nand its conceptual poverty.nThat may in time be overcome. Filmnmay be able to carry universals in anuseful way. But you can’t show filmsnto yourself. There is no way of communicatingninside your head butnspeech. And if you can’t talk well tonyourself, who can you talk to? Younsimply aren’t anybody. I frequentlynimagine people who get bored withntheir own talk, who don’t talk tonthemselves very much. Talk is essentialnto the human spirit. It is thenhuman spirit. Speech. Not silence.nIf all teachers, especially teachers ofnRadical SchmaltznTad Szulc: Diplomatic Immunity; Simonn& Schuster; New York.nby Valentino E. Martineznlad Szulc is a reporter of varied experiencenand certain repute. His first novel,nwhich treats war and revolution in CentralnAmerica, has been described as anwork of “unforgettable power and conviction.n” It is nothing of the kind. As annovel, it is mediocre and predictable; as anpolitical ukase, it is naive and foolish.nThe plot is straightforward: aNationalnSecurity Council assistant is sent to thenCentral American country of Malagua asnan ambassador. She is liberal and liberated,nbut not obnoxiously so. Malagua isnnaturally torn by civil strife and disordernbecause a corrupt and venal dictator rulesna hungry and unhappy populace. One ofnthe revolutionary leaders is a handsomenJesuit who is torn by doubt, hot for rebel-nEon, and soon summoned by the attractivenambassador, who believes that thenUnited States should open up communicationsnwith the opposition. The localnCIA station chief is a close friend of thenMr. Martinez is a foreign service officer atnthe American Embassy in Guatemala.nThis review reflects his personal opinions,nnot those of the U. S. government.n34inChronicles of Cttlturenliterature, were to stop being dispensersnof information and “correct” interpretations,nand instead begin to model forntheir students how texts are to ben”played,” were they to begin tonlegitimate and encourage in theirnstudents the active dynamics of response,nthus fostering confidence in thesenresponses, the great gulf between the formulaicnbest seller and the true classicnmight at last be bridged. Then criticalnreading which truly informs our sympathiesnwould be within everyone’sngrasp, and response might once againnbecome inner, not other, directed. Dndictator and opposes such a move. Innkeeping with the tenor of the times, thenCIA man is portrayed as a murderer,nblackmailer, drug trafficker, alcoholicnand generally disloyal, dishonest and disingenuous.nPredictably, the dictator andnthe station chief lose out in the end to thenambassador and the Jesuit, but only aftern400-odd pages of revolutionary violence,ngoverrunent repression, stilted dialoguenand political punditry that would makeneven an operative of the Socialist Internationalnblush.nThere is little doubt that Mr. Szulc intendsnthis novel to be prescriptive. Thenopposition leaders constandy berate thenambassador for America’s preoccupationnwith communism and Cuba and explainnhow the United States must be neutral innCentral America, that is, allow the revolutionariesnto win and they might trustnyou in the fiature. Mr. Szulc apparentlynbelieves that American neutrality and / orneconomic assistance will serve to curb thenirresistible revolutionary impulse tonscotch the bourgeoisie. He is little botherednby the fact that Castro’s politicalnprisoners—including many who alsonfought Batista—languish in prison whilenthe Maximum Leader exchanges epigramsnwith Barbara Walters. The Sandinistas,nthe Vietcong and many lessernpaladins of “national liberation” arennnseen as romantic heroes fighting the relendessnAmerican imperialism. In reality,nthe sum total of the social revolution,nLatin American style, is this: the secretnpolice replace the National Guard, thenParty replaces the dictator and yetnanother nation sends its revolutionarynplenipotentiary to the United Nations tonbe warmly greeted by the Americannliberal press.nObviously, Mr. Szulc’s novel representsnthe garden-variety American liberalismnthat has absorbed the doctrine thatnthe future inevitably belongs to the left.nIt is this attitude that decries the use ofnpower and prestige by the United Statesnand mobilizes tens of thousands to protestn50 American advisors in El Salvador.nThese advisors, of course, terrorize whilenthe 18,000 Cubans in Angola merelynstabilize. This warped logic is deeplynetched in the minds of many of America’snopinion-makers. That it is sanctimoniousncant hardly matters; that it at timesnparalyzes national will is cause for concern.nThis is much more than the “VietnamnSyndrome.” It is no longer a matternof avoiding overseas military involvements.nWhat we are now wimessing is annincreasing inability even to criticizendespots who min their countries throughnrevolutionary socialism and one-partynmle. It is, in a word, the Ramsey ClarknSyndrome. Vimlent anti-Americanism isnto be understood and tolerated for wenhave sinned against history by opposingnthe left’s vision of mankind, and only thenleft has the right to condemn us and tonannounce our demise.nKarl Marx, in one of his more accuratenfits of vituperation, described thencharacter of Adolfe Thiers, French politiciannand historian. Marx wrote thatnThiers was a French Sulla, “a master ofnpetty-state roguery, a virtuoso in perjurynand treason . . . never scrupling, whennout of office, to fan a revolution, and tonstifle it in blood when at the helm ofnstate; with class prejudices standing himnin the place of ideas, and vanity in thenplace of a heart.” Thiers was, indeed,nprobably the most disagreeable apostlenof petrified order in the 19th century;n