In the early 1970s the international relationships that had been frozen since soon after World War II showed signs of decongealing. Sensing the historical moment, the Nixon administration aspired to be both the catalyst and the beneficiary of this time of rare opportunity. As national security assistant and then secretary of stale, Henry Kissinger was uniquely situated to participate in, shape, and observe these efforts. The first volume of his memoirs, White House Years, detailed his part in the early Nixon period, January. 1969, to January, 1973. Now he continues the story in a weighty second volume. Years of Upheaval (Little. Brown; 1,283 pp.; $24.95) takes us from 1973 to the Nixon resignation in August, 1974.

In accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in July of last year, candidate Jimmy Carter said that when the United States was founded its commitment to certain moral and philosophical principles "created a basis for a unique role for America: that of a pioneer in shaping more decent and just relations among peoples and among societies." He sketched the task facing us: "Nothing less than a sustained architectural effort to shape an international framework of peace, within which our own ideals gradually tend to become a global reality" (emphasis added). In his inaugural address of January 20 President Carterelaborated upon the concept: "We will not behave in foreign places so as to violate our rules and standards here at home, for we know that this trust which our nation earns is essential to our strength." He remarked that a new spirit now dominated the world: "People more numerous and more politically aware are craving and now demanding their place in the sun—not just for the benefit of their physical condition, but for basic human rights."

To say that this is now Dr. Kissinger's world is more or less indisputable. But to say that his world includes the whole of the globe is inaccurate, In all Africa below the Mediterranean fringe there is not one leader who can refer to “our friend Henry.” As Dr. Kissinger admitted in his confirmation hearings as Secretary of State, he had, after a quarter century as one of our leading academic authorities on foreign policy, not yet formulated any “philosophy” of African-American relations. He spoke vaguely of calling some of our ambassadors to Africa back to Washington “to give me their judgment on what the best U.S. philosophy should be in that area.”

Brazil has always been an inward-looking country. The national consciousness is transfixed on the mystery of Amazonia, the nation's own dark heart. And it has been the abiding dream of generations to conquer the country, to open that heart. In the past the lust for adventure and sudden wealth, the lure of the wilderness, drew some over the water highways to the outposts of the gem seekers. But no great number of Brazilians ever penetrated the Amazon region. It was always too difficult, the forest too resistant.

The sun comes suddenly each day over the Amazon: It warms the gliding brown rivers, the veins of the living forest that feed the giant trees. It gives the jungle back its voice, muted by the night.

Modern theologians no longer explain strange Revelations about the ordinary world but tend to seek strange realms in which those Revelations will be ordinary truths.” Thus Ernest Gellner in a parenthetical aside from his controversial attack on recent “linguistic philosophy” in Worth and Things. While his judgment mav apply to much that goes on in- Protestant theology today, there are other contemporary Christians, those who think of themselves as “evangelicals” or traditional “confessionalists.” Insisting—to toy with William of Occam's well-known dictum—that worlds are not to be created beyond necessity, evangelicals refuse to accept the “strange realms” proposed by many contemporary theologians.

The military utility of the limited Cambodian campaign should be clear to those capable of assessing the facts. It will help protect the withdrawal of American troops, and reduce the Communist capability to launch attacks in the southern half of South Vietnam. It will, in short, help the process of Vietnamization. On the other hand, the fate of the I.on Nol regime in Pnompenh remains in doubt. Should South Vietnam, and perhaps other countries in Southeast Asia, help the new Cambodian government after American withdrawal, it could withstand the efforts of Sihanouk. Hanoi et. al. The venture gained time at least to shore up the Lon Nol regime, while not assuring its survival. Nixon's expressed hope that the venture might prod Hanoi into serious negotiations can be dismissed in the light of North Vietnamese patience and determination.

When NATO came into being in 1949, not a few believed that before long it would succumb to threats from without. They thought the fledgling organization would prove unequal to the task of keeping Soviet power from spilling over the boundaries of the Alliance. But they were wrong.

Still others believed that NATO would succumb to problems from within. They doubted that Alliance members would be willing to subordinate their own narrowed interests to the interests of the community as a whole. But they too were wrong.

Only a handful of the collective security organizations in history have matched NATO's record of longevity. At the age of thirty-four the Alliance is not just alive—it is flourishing.

I first heard of V. S. Naipaul in 1977. Preparing for a Fulbright lectureship in Trinidad, I asked State Department experts what to read. Their answer: V. S. Naipaul. Today, if a student were to ask me what author to read to learn about the Third World, my answer would be the same: Naipaul.

What is the Third World? Political sociologists and economists proffer definitions and statistics. Naipaul gives us vivid images and stories about people who live there. His purposes have been literary and reportorial. They have also been deeply personal, for Naipaul has sought to escape and transcend the Hindu-Trinidad milieu in which he was raised.