PRESIDENTIAL POKER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200740017-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: January 21, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

J
0
TEE NEW YOITC TI10S DOOIC REVIEW
21 January 3$68
Approved For Release' 2005/08/22 : CIA-RDP88.01350R000200740017-5
and entertaining, although fie. sure everyone who fears for the .
tional accounts are not always; future of man. Interestingly
as entertaining as the' real ar-, enough, this too Is achieved
both potentially conspiratoria]I ' of good news that should reas-
to expose the processes of dem as a full blown "millennialist."
ocratic government as being "Vanished" is a trumpet blast
attitude toward politicians, and Now, however, Knebel emerges,
although his latest novel ways operates within the limits
("Washington, D. C.") is about of the possible. .
Senators; whereas Allen Drury, In "Seven Days in May"
who' cut his fictional teeth on (written with Charles B. Bailey),
Congress, now heads up the a fascist-like conspiracy within
novelists' bureau at the United the Army almost topples the
Nations. Each of these men, Government. "Night at Camp
in is own way, can be counted David"_ explores the problem of.
on :o give readers of popular a: President's breakdown and
fiction an apocalyptic glimpse the vulnerability of our dem
into the political future, to con? ocratic institutions in the tub.
firm the public's largely cynical sequent struggle for power.
as we know, is indisputably counterplotting, his prophetic
the playwright of Presidents, ; dabbling with the future, al-
bled with Imaginary characters
to achieve the detentes that
Chide our statesman. Sinclair
belonged to the "millennial"
By DAVID DEMPSEY school of politics. Knebel, who
FOR:.,-'R Washington, D. C, has used the genre as a warn-
ne.v:?, . per correspondent ' ing siren, is known as a "con-
with the Cowles Publications, spiratorial" novelist-and nov-
h etcher rtnebol has nude it oust is not too complimentary
name for himself as a novel:-.. _ a term for someone who, for
1st of Presidents. Gore Vidal all his far-fetched plotting and
VANISHED. By Fletcher Kncbcl.
407 pp. New York: Doubleday.
$5.95.
ample, could invent Senator ? "Vanished" is by all odds. the
Dirksen?) best thing that Knebel ' has
In its modern form, the novel written-the blurb adjectives
of political intrigue dates to : apply here quite easily. The
Upton Sinclair's "Lanny Budd style is clean and literate;. the plausible enough to be con
series. in which actual crises characters . solidly conceived
and living persons are scram-. and convincingly drawn. Basi- This is one of the dubious'
sally a suspense novel, it over- benefits of the age of espio-
MR. DEMPSEY, a freelance essayist comes a rather shaky premise naive and distrust- t h' I.
o
h
w is t
e IF ,
-the bizarre disappearance
and critic, is the author of the of author addresses himself. The Why they vanished;'. where
TAT novel "All That Was. Mortal." three men who play important market for his kind of novel they turn up, and hew the
roles in science and .govern- of intrigue Is expanding, not mystery, is related to President
ment-to ut the reader oh a because it n d
vl
p
'
political know-how Is - lively
and wide-ranging; and his story
-in the light of what. we have
of IN
learned from the 'An-6'
s
spiracy.of the good;' there will
be no millennium
.
to' the ` fiasco !at` the C.t.A.
Approved Fo"d +~n1;~9 Just 1 RDPi38-,01350R000200740017-5 -.t
p
es escape, Paul Roudebush
s political sur-
manhunt, and in the thick of a but because, on the contrary, vival, as well as the ultimate
mystery, that is heightened it conveys some threats to our . survival of mankind,, 'is` the
fight, up'to the moment of dis- national life that are all. too. game the author plays with his
covery.. real. To. describe the plot is readers. No one is going to
There is no violence, no .sex unfair, but it can be revealed, name the game literature, but
to speak of, the words of the publisher, it is craftsmanship of the high-
, no pornography, that "three prominent men est order. In the end, Project
no gods from the machine, no along the eastern seaboard, , a Alpha-the code name- of the
hare-brained adventures-in lawyer, a physicist, a ' mathe mystery-succeeds, a milllennial
short, no 007's to jerk us into maticlan, all acquaintances 'enterprise ' , on the President's
disbelier": Knebel operates,, as who' had conferred frequently, part which. is pure, idealism,
I have suggested, strictly with- disappear from their homes coi:spiratorially arrived at;.oth-
In the ground rules of the pos- within ten days. All fly: by erwise, one.',. realizes, there
Bible; his expertise in govern- staggered routes to South ? At- would be no novel. But one also
]antic
ea
rts:'
ili
t
i
lli
s
po
men
, m
tary
nte
gence and
't..i suspects at without "con-