Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 73

COURIER-POST, Sunday, May 18, 1980 7F OMamMaMaBSa in a. mr i i i if ii ki rra rm Chronicling the German ph oenix The Fourth and Richest Reich. By Herman Hartrich. Macmillan, 302 pages, $12.95 By EDWARD LAWSON i Special to the Courier-Post -t. The book is subtitled the Germans Conquered the Postwar, It tells how devastated in defeat by the Allies and Russia, made a brilliant eco-" nomic comeback from reckless rule.

1 It's too bad that the book is written DEOT CEZLLEnS FICTION 1. The Bourne Identity. Robert Ludlum. Richard MarekPutnam, $12.95 2. The Devira Alternative.

Frederick Forsyth. Viking, 12.95 i 3. Princess Daisy. Judith Crown, $12.95 4. No Love LoeL Helen Van Slyke.

Lippincott Crowell, $10,95. A -posthumous book. 5. Who's on First. William F.

Buckley Jr. Doubleday. $9.95 6. The Bleeding Heart Marilyn French. Summit Books, $12.95 I 7.

Portraits. Cynthia Arbor House, $11.95 I. Kane A Abel. Jeffrey Archer Simon Schuster. $13.95.

9. Smiley's People. John Le Carre. Knopf, $10.95 10. The Dead Zone.

Stephen -King. Viking, $1 1.95 II. Creek Mary's Blood. Dee Brown. Holt, Rinehart $12.95 12.

Ninja. Eric Van Lustbader. -M. EvansE.P. Dutton, 12.95 13.

Random Winds. Belva Plain. Delacorte, $11.95 14. Man, Woman and Child. Erich his 12-year Third Reich that was to last a thousand years.

The irony was that Hitler's legacy of erasing class distinctions played a significant role in the success of the "Reich" that succeeded him. Great eventsforce great men to make great decisions. So it was that one of Hartrich's heroes, Gen. Lucius Clay, U.S. military governor of the American zone of occupation, was persuaded by another hero, German economist Ludwig Erhard, to allow the abolition of the rationing of food and other essentials and the elimination of all wage and price controls.

This was in July, 1948, dur- mg the Cold War when Lucius Gay boldly organized the Berlin air and Germany wasn't a country yet; it was four occupation zones. Soon Konrad Adenauer (another hero) would assume political control of West Germany and start the country's amazing renaissance. Soon the black market would disintegrate; gone were American ciga-; rettes as a medium of exchange. How' did this Fourth Reich' become the richest? First, through currency reform, the aforementioned end to rationing and price controls bringing about a free-market system. The industrial-, ists repaired the blast furnaces.

The investors provided funds for reconstruction. The laborer worked harder. The Marshall Plan gave monetary impetus. The shipyards sprang to life, building tankers for Greek shipping tycoons. By the time the Korean War erupted, Germany had, according to Hartrich, the largest pool of skilled industrial labor in postwar Europe.

The rapprochement of labor and capital was accomplished through the creation of one master union that shared with the owners and their executives in the day-to-day management of German industry. The scheme evolved from a Nazi concept, but in the Fourth Reich, it remained politcally neutral. This lessened time lost to strikes. In 1959, for example, in West German industry had 62,000 strike days. Great Britain, in that same year, lost 85 times that amount German labor was acutely attuned to the present through its co-existence with management HOW IRONIC 'that West Germany was now able to produce what other European countries needed: the tools and machinery for ing their own industrial plants and replenishing inventories of capital goods.

Economic muscle is the ultimate arbiter, writes Hartrich. While inflation is rampaging in the United States and in Britain, Germany has had a very modest rise. Furthermore she has a better accomodation with OPEC. Instead of petro-dollars in the Middle East, it seems to be petro-marks. Wunderbar.

The reviewer, a Philadelphia freelance, Is an occasional contributor to these pages. iv industrial consultant (read public relations man) tp the Krupp empire in Essen. He says somewhat modestly, "I have enjoyed a small degree of participation in the creation of this hew postwar Ger- It's to Hartrich's credit that he. writes like a newspaperman rather than historian. Where a historian w.ould analyze, Hartrich makes a point and keeps his narrative moving.

It is a fascinating narrative. The story of West Germany is the latest in the phoenix galaxy, liter-' ally rising from the ashes to the power it so desperately sought This was via peaceful ecopolitics rather than the sword-rattling geopolitics that Hitler so fervently espoused in in sucn a peaesinan manner, ior -author Hartrich has marvelous credentials. During World War II he covered; both the European and -Asian theaters for news publica- tions and radio. He wrote for the now defunct New York Herald-Tnb- une and was chief correspondent in Germany for the Wall Street Jour" nal in the SOs. IN THAT DECADE he became an Segal.

Harper Row. $9.95 15. Neighbors. Thomas Berger. DelacorteSeymour Lawrence, Assessing the economics of a modern slave trade $9.95 NOKFICTIOIl 1.

Free to Choose: A Personal fi: A I DAVID EHRENFELD CAROL K. MACK monkeying around with DNA constant thriller Statement. Milton and Rose Friedman. Harcourt Brace Jovan-ovich, $9.95 2. The Third Wave.

Alvin Tofftef Morrow, $14.95 3. Donahue: My Own Story. Phil Donahue Co. Simon Schuster, $11.95 4. Will: The Autobiography of G.

Gordon Liddy. G.G. Liddy. St. Martin's, $13.95.

A new entry. 5. Men in Love. Nancy Friday. Delacorte, $12.95 6.

All You Need to Known about the IRS: A Taxpayers Guide. Paul N. Strassels with Robert Wool. Random House, $10.95 7. How to Become Financially Independent by Investing in Real Estate.

Albert J. Lowry. Simon Schuster, $9.95 8. The Neighbor's Wife. Gay Talese.

Doubleday, $14.95 Published May new to the list. 9. The Brethren. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong. Simon Schuster, $13.95 10.

Jim Fixx's Second Book of Running. James F. Fixx. Random House, $10 i 11. Anatomy of an Illness as nonwhites were welcome in the United States as cheap labor but not as citizens." THE ROOT of the problem, Lewis states, rests in greedy employers who "hunger for cheap labor, labor that is docile, labor that will remain unruffled when the hours are long and the paychecks short" Once they are here employers may hold the threat of deportation over the worker's heads if they complain about conditions or pay.

That is if the foreign national has managed to survive the treacherous schemes of the smuggler. Personal interviews and newspaper articles are used to support Lewis' angry narrative that immerses the reader into the sordid world of the alien smuggler and the myriad of similar racketeers who exact a high price from the undocumented worker for a trip across the border. While Lewis provides a wealth of information about the problem and how it began, his concluding chapter "Toward a Sane Approach" offers little in the way of alternatives to remedy the situation. y- Legislation has proved impotent he says, adding, "certainly no law at all is better than one built on hys- teria and fear and polarized political influence groups growing increasingly apart from one another." Well, what then? "Tiny adjustments," he answers that will at least help to alleviate the climate of fear and pain under which undocumented workers are forced to live. One of these adjustments is to make medical care available to the foreign nationals who have, after all, helped pay for health care through taxes.

Lewis also suggests that employers file their job openings with state employment departments, an admittedly costly and difficult policy to enforce. Because of his arbitrary and limited scope in the way of solutions Lewis joins the ranks of countless economists and sociologists who have tried unsuc- cessfully over the years to come to grips with the extremely complex problem. But this book accomplishes its goal by presenting the reader with often disturbing information in hopes that an a ware public will support and encourage equitable, humane laws. Slave Trade Today: American Exploitation of Illegal Aliens. By Sasha G.

Lewis. Beacon Press, $10.95 By LOUIS SAHAGUN Gannett News Service This impassioned and persuasive book seeks to inform readers about the plight of the six million undocumented workers in this country who slave at low paying jobs without protection of la ws or benefit of social services but remain silent for fear of being returned to even more desperate conditions in their home countries. A one-sided approach is forgivable since the book intends to balance the scales the author believes weigh heavily in favor of powerful, vested interests in this and other countries who stand to make millions of dollars from desperate nationals seeking work TELLING INTERVIEWS with undocumented workers as well as with unscrupulous smugglers who deal in human cargo are combined with newspaper articles, case studies and statistical evidence to show how undocumented workers in this country can be exploited from both sides of the law. In so doing, Lewis finds that exploitation of undocumented workers, historically tolerated and encouraged in times of economic hardship or expan-sion here, has become institutionalized and has molded public sentiment. At the outset Lewis discards the term "illegal alien," calling the term "semantic treachery forced upon the author and reader alike by other media." The point is well taken and has been the subject of much debate among newspaper editors who have sought an accurate yet brief enough term to fit the confines of headline space.

The word alien, Lewis says, conjures images of alien hordes or creatures from another world, and the word illegal refers to someone found guilty of a crime. However, even Lewis admits more accurate definitions like "suspected foreign nationals working without proper certification" might be confusing to some readers. Lewis also traces the history of U.S. immigration laws from the late 1700s through the troubled Bra-cero program, which he says "provided evidence that The Chameleon Variant. By Carol K.

Mack and David Ehrenf eld. Dial Press, $9.95. By PEGGY MORGAN Of the Courier-Post The closer danger creeps to home; the scarier it runs. A thriller that turns the possible "what if" around a nightmare gyre circling the latest scientific spookery is "The Chameleon Variant" by a playwright, Carol K. Mack, and a Rutgers University, bfolog, gist, David Ehrenfeld, M.D., Ph.D.

A fast Frankenstein read, the book monkeys with recombinant DNA research. What if teenage vandals loose a contemporary plague of poi- soned patchwork genes, eerie as TMI radiation, from a laboratory run by who knows what agency, country or multinational corporation in a small, sweet, town somewhat like Haddon-field if Haddonfield were resort on the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound? I CAN SEE the movie now the son of the lab director doing his swan dive off a beach house, the madwoman -widow a murdered biogeneticist wailing around het overgrown tennis court like Ophelia, an infected doctor mirror-gazing at his fissured face, dendrites swinging free in skull space like fractured Dustin Hoffman would play the city doctor new to country practice who The reviewer exercises her per-fervid imagination as a columnist in this section. i- tracks the untrackable "crazy sickness" symptoms various as individuals exploding into exaggerated neuroses and psychoses. The pediatrician is only a science-fiction jump away from Hoffman's Kramer vs. Kramer role: Daniel Lie-berman is also a single father reeling undej the responsibility of his 10'year-old daughter.

Hoffman would make the transplanted doctor more credible than the book does. But hell, with an idea so brilliant, real characters would get in the way of page-turning. The character of the DNA molecule is what counts: That genetic spiral staircase able to greet and replicate malign intruders like coterie of genes from a hallucinatory Peruvian vine as well as the valiant buddies that fight cancer and gallop across the science pages of the New York Times. What if the Legionnaire's Disease was actually a failed genetic experiment jS breached I feel a little sick My keyboard's growing claws There's a monster on my computer screen yee-ee-owww-ww-w! Perceived by the Patient Norman Cousins. Norton.

$9.95 12. Nothing Down. Robert Allen. Simon Schuster, $10.95 13. The Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise.

Nathan Pritikin and Patrick McGrady Jr. Grosset Dunlap, $12.95 14. Ordeal. Linda Lovelace with Mike McGrady. Citadel Press.

$10 15. Book ol Lists 2. Irving Wak lace, David Wallechinsky et al. Morrow, $12.95 Reprinted from ttie May tout of Publiitwrt WMkly, published by K.R.. Booker Co.

Xro company, (c) 19M. A feminist thinks long and hard about being a woman thrnnoh imaees of eatine. She "used already to her credit three novels, a study of Canadian literature and seven books of poetry. Margaret Atwood is the kind of author who has thought long and hard about being a woman. The result in "Life Before Man" is a heroine who rises above the usual Life Before Man.

By Margaret Atwood. Simon Schuster, $11.95.. By KATHARINE GUCKENBERGER Special to Gannett News Service "Life Before Man" is a good feminist novel It comes from Margaret Atwood, a Canadian who has In a world where rational thought belies all mystery, Elizabeth creates her own rituals: the burial scenes which release her from guilt; the recurring dream of lost children who are sublimations of her dead sister and mother, even her choice of Chris as lover "that mythical, hybrid" who sets the forces of sensu-ality loose in her, amid talismans of his taxidermist trade, scraps of fur, shavings of wood. In the beginning we witness an Elizabeth completely alienated from her own femininity. Atwood explores her self abnegation foundering in the literary throes of sickness unto death at being someone else's daughter, wife or mother.

ATWOODS ELIZABETH has never allowed her staunch self to get anywhere near such a trap. Her crisis comes later in the female exodus from male domination. Call it facing up to freedom. Or, as Elizabeth prematurely sums up on a sign in her kitchen: "Clean up your own mess." We first meet Elizabeth in "Life Before Man" at an all-time low. Her lover, Chris, has just shot his head off in response to her termination of their.affair.

But Elizabeth's predicament goes deeper than the loss of Chris. His irrational act has blown open her careful control of the affair, and Elizabeth does not like to be out of control (What she does like is being precariously close to out of control without the responsibility of the consequences.) Little by little, Elizabeth gains in this novel. She comes back into life, into the fray of doing battle against the absurdity of existence. to be" a good cook, but now finds good grotesque, lets spinach decompose in the refrigerator, bloats herself for fear she may not eat at all. Ancillary characters are equally affected by the food imagery.

Besides the danger of starvation, accepting responsibility for living in Atwood's novels involve risk, pain, choice and, naturally, the eventuality of death. What is suprising and good about Elizabeth's odyssey is that her strength comes not despite ber femininity but because of it AtlSVERS Here's the solution to SUPER CRYPTOGRAM: rt A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson "Flight Plan," last week's version of THE PUZZLE, brought out 13 would-be aces. What, tripped up most of the wash-outswas the "Lazy 8" in the center. The -v tt.

A historical soaper for vacation reading Bj EIS TPCQ HTtl Mi BTsjN a cThJe AjwA Ma TjL AMP I GtOrTsjT nTe" tTo'R tihIe Bstr fMTiR uUIn I ear 7 oFinE rgW" Hse i ar a'nH rig tWsIe rie an gklou earH iItIlIe sf" sbHoN yMPlR aVMl eIrInMHAIT TfHGILIO SniftjElRlElP OiSl IfclAlU'telTPwlRlAlPBlOlElPIOlNlEmiT RIAIK JE JJC FA LA WE M1NIA ajoJe 5J 5 sji kb ty15 sIaim 3 uti sainlo SlElV SIe gBr 1 5 ER 1M i a mT girls are depicted against a serene and picturesque countryside backdrop. A short while later they are decribed consorting with their well-to-do cousins in the opera halls and coffee-and-pastry shops of Vienna. But these sublime scenes are quickly shattered with the arrival of World War I. The remainder of the novel chronicles the oppressive realities of war and how each responds to her private anguish of sudden sep-arations, poverty and sickness, and premature death. With its leisurely, rambling pace, attention to minutiae and emotional focus on the trials and tribulations of family life, "Flowers" is reminiscent of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" with Dulcie and Thea evoking the ghosts of Amy and Jo.

Harrison demonstrates both a The Flowers of the Field. By Sarah Harrison. Coward, McCann 4 Geoghegan, 490 pages, $11.95 By CATHY DISANTO Special to the Courier-Post "Flowers of the Field is well-timed for soap-opera buffs looking for escapist, idyllic fiction to fill summer hours lolling at the beach. This romantic-historic novel, a first attempt by an English magazine free lance, narrates the lives of two turn-of-the-century sisters Thea and Dulcie who symbolize the generation of women after the Great War. THE SAGA OPENS at Chilverton House at Kent, England, where the passion for detail and a special talent for evoking poignant emotion.

Unfortunately, her characters are impossibly predictable stereotyped to the point of caricature. THE TWO SISTERS are (to use a well-turned phrase) "as different as night and day." Thea is natural, strong-willed, intelligent, intensely moralistic, a loyal daughter. However, Dulcie is affected, cloying, vapid, promiscuous and spoiled. Much tender loving care is lavished on exacting descriptions of the girls' opposition and mutual jealousy right down to their predictable physical differences (Thea is dark and "coltish," whereas Dulcie is fair with "porcelain-like After many chapters devoted to the sisters' childhood rivalry, pre- pubescent spats and adolescent differences, we are informed that the girls respond to the war in dissimilar ways (surprise!) Thea becomes a marcher in the Women's Suffrage movement and an ambulance driver on the Western Front. And black-sheep Dulcie will settle for nothing less (more) than to become a high-class call girl.

But good triumphs over evil: Thea delivers the coup-de-grace to Dulcie when she wins the heart and soul of her sister's first, sexual conquest. And so perfect symmetry is achieved, order is restored, tension is resolved the final chord is struck. "Flowers" will reward readers with a more than passing interest In an elaborate study of sibling rivalry the history is mere i 1 Today's QUOTE-ACROSTIC GOODMAN ACE: Annual Checkup "At this stage of life. I grope and I cope. I buy only small tubes of tooth-, paste, subscribe to magazines for only thirteen weeks, and I never but long-playing records; By some strange mystique, I am content." U.klbitier-V.

useless pigeon. Q. cassette R. halfway S. espresso T.

counts M. hetgnbor N. umpteen O. abatei P. lottery (.

cygnet J. eviction K. a priori L. nostrum E. maylwm f.

afield G. nibble H. attorney A. gymnast S. ongoing C.

obloquy D. daffodil.