Page 8-Thursday, May 17, 1979-The Michigan Daily Book predicts abortive THE THIRD WORLD WAR: Europe, even though both the Warsaw a target, because of its sentimen AUGUST, 1985, by General Sir John Pact countries and NATO have nuclear value to U.S. citizens). However, So Hackett and other top-ranking NATO and thermonuclear weapons deployed planners seem to be the only group t generals and advisors. McMillan and ready to fire. A European war is believes USA-Great Britain will ba Publishing Company, New York. 368 much more foolhardy than a Middle down from mega-death and agree pp. $12.95. East, African, or Southeast Asian war. negotiate to meet Soviet demands. * * * * In addition, a war in the northern stead, two submerged nuclear s By JOCK HENDERSON hemisphere would threaten the in- marines, firing two missiles each, Sir John Hackett's World War III dustrial power base of the Soviet bloc nihilate Minsk in the USSR, "if only lasts from Aug. 4 to Aug. 22, 1985. The and the Western allies, which avoid a catastrophic decline in milita book's prologue is dated Easter, 1987, dominates the world's ecomony (in- and civilian morale." so it reads as if its author is describing cluding its arms dealers). Yet Sir John Inside the Kremlin, the nuclear co events by hindsight. The war begins in portrays the Soviet invasion as having terattack triggers an overthrow oft West Germany, with a Soviet invasion the political aim of subjugating West thermonuclear suicide faction, w by conventional forces. It ends after an Germany, the security aim of removing favors all out reprisal against the wo exchange of five thermonuclear NATO's military threat to the USSR, for not acceding to Soviet deman missiles. and the propaganda aim of humiliating Finally, the entire USSR disintegra In the first breach of the nuclear the USA. into its component republics, andt threshold, the Soviets unleash a single An examination of counterstrategies Warsaw Pact countries are liberat land-based SS-17 ICBM that destroys available to the United States would from the "bad dream" of Marxi Birmingham, England. Almost im- reveal Soviet vulnerability in many Leninism, "the myth born in I mediately afterward, the USA-Great areas; e.g., the USA could sell advan- Bolshevik Revoltion of 1917 ... . Britain team retaliates with four sub- ced weapons to the 800,000,000 Chinese myth of the emergence of tr marine-launched missiles, destroying immediately. It could eliminate the democracy from a proletariane Minsk in the USSR. At that point, on the Soviet security and communications brink of total termonuclear holocaust, monitoring base in Cuba almost over- the war ends with a virtual deus ex night. It could convert to a full military machina. Miracle of miracles, there is a production economy and urge Japan to coup d'etat in the Kremlin, and the militarize. Above all, the crisis created USSR collapses. by a European war would signal to the\ tal viet hat ack to In- ub- an- 'to ary un- the hic rld ds. tes the ted ist- the the rue ex- ASIDE FROM the book's wlwgance, its expertise, and its excellent concep- tual network-and I do recommend it for these reasons alone-its great illogic resides in he incredibility im- probable behavior of the USSR, first in starting the war, and second, in losing it. First, Hackett's reader must accept Soviet willingness to invade Western Reduced Rates For Billiards Every day to 6 p.m. at the UNION world that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union were capable of preventing the death of the human species by thermonuclear war. IT IS NOT only Soviet aggression which may strike the reader as im- plausible. After Hackett's war in Ger- many has begun, the combat scenario develops with a successful transatlan- tic reinforcement convoy from the United States to the British Isles. Rejecting nuclear options, the U.S. Air Cavalry (the good guys!) and other NATO forces succeed in preventing the fall of West Germany with conventional weapons. Once thwarted in their macho designs, Hackett's Soviets become inane and/or insane once again. In Moscow, behind a turmoil of secrecy, the aggressive nuclear faction arrests the decision-making process at gun- point, in order to force the launch of a single SS-17 upon Birmingham, England. Its members reject London as COME TO For our new HAPPY HOURS TumWday throwgh Setwrdey * hf-price on every drink * from i.lo pan Twdy nd Tibwrsdsy * half-pric, on pitchers * 61 night. 995-4955 plosion, when what had really taken place was the murderous overthrow of a democratically elected government by a fanatical authoritarian minority." All irony aside, no serious military strategist-General Sir John Hackett and his colleagues included-would believe for one moment that the power of the USSR or any other nation derives from Marxist-Leninism, or that its judgement in the use of that power would stem from its ideology. What, then, does General Sir John Hackett expect us to understand by his por- trayal of the USSR? IN ORDER to develop a possible answer, let's posit the existence of in- terpenetrating wargame computers based in the USA and the USSR, which play out simulated battlefield scenarios in parallel exercises in every sector of the globe. All armed forces on both sides act upon orders from two gigantic aerospace command systems which operate from second to second, around the clock, one centrally based inside the Soviet Union, the other inside the United States. Let's designate this system "the worldwide military chain of command." All armed forces of the advanced industrial world are hooked into it. This aerospace surveillance and communications monitoring system reduces the probability of any European war breaking out to virtually nil. AA Theater The marquee in front of the Fifth Forum on Fifth Ave. is dark now, but soon the theater will reopen under new management and a new name. The Goodrich Theater Co. of Grand Rapids is buying the Forum and changing its name to The Ann Arbor Theater. The theater will open June 8 with the Ingmar Bergman film Autumn Sonata, which won actress Ingrid Bergman an Oscar nomination. Prior to the June opening, Goodrich plans renovation of the heating and air conditioning, the seats, and the projec- tion equipment. In a year or so, the new managment will convert the theater into two:.' ..'. , *. * - $'' WWIII Certainly, Hackett knows that the science of pacification is virtually com- plete. His book-and his portrayal of the Soviet Union-can be conceived asa product of this worldwide military chain of command, perhaps as a simulated scenario tailored to an actual Warsaw Pact-NATIO contingency plan. Hackett's prediction of the USSR's ac- tions is much more a hypothetical "worst case" devised by NATO than an offensive option likely to be pursued by the Soviet Union. By adopting a hair- raising vision of the Soviet military beast, Sir John convinces the reader that NATO should not be permitted to drift and sink into obsolescence. In a future ending, Hackett suggests thit wartime events have created a new role for mankind in a world "more and more dominated by electronic technology . . . we cannot begin to guess how our lives, and ever more our children'd lives, will be influenced by the possibilities which these swiftly developing techniques are now opening up. An unfamiliar, perhaps uncomfor- table world awaits us, very stange and new. We can only be thankful to have survived, and wait and see." Though one would never know it from Hackett's book, the essential characteristics of this world are already with us. May the worldwide military chain of command prove capable of meeting its civil responsibility to the population of the entire planet. Apology In yesterday's review of Richard Pryor in Concert, film critic Owen Gleiberman used a racial term which some readers may have found offen- sive. The word certainly should have appeared in quotes, if at all, and the Daily apologizes to any reader the word might have vexed. Arts Editor Assistant dean appointed Allan Stillwagon, who has been assistant to the director of the Honors Program at the University's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts since 1972, has been appointed assistant dean and admissions officer at the Univer- sity Law School. The appointment was approved by the Regents at their April 19-20 meeting. "At the Law School, Mr. Stillwagon will be responsible for all aspects of the admissions operation," said University law Dean Terrance Sanadalow. "With the guidance of a faculty committee he will select the incoming classes; he will supervise research into our admissions practices and will generally supervise the operations of the admissions office. In addition, he will have contact with admissions counsellors on other campuses and visit those campuses in order to represent the Law School." Stillwagon graduated with honors from the University in 1959. After receiving an M.A. with honors from Columbia University in 1961, he atten- ded Michigan Law School in 1963-65 and has been a Ph.D. candidate in the U-M's Rackham Graduate School. Stillwagon succeeds Roger Martin- dale who served as assistant dean and admissions officer since 1975. Martin- dale, a lawyer, recently accepted the past of assistant counsel at a life in- surance company in Denver, Colo.