BOOKS

THE BIG SMEAR by William R. Reardon, Avon Book Division, Hearst Corporation, 1960, 255 p. paperback.

I can give no better reason for reading this novel than the reason quoted by the author in justifying the book. "The author wishes he could say that nothing described in the following pages could happen here; unfortunately, campaigns differing in specific detail but similar in substance have happened here." The author then tells a fascinating story about a man who is used to destroy the political future of a senator who might have become president.

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Karl, the "hero" of the story is tired of working as a newspaper reporter and jumps eagerly at, without looking for reasons behind, the offer of a public relations firm to hire him at a large increase in salary. It develops that the oil industry has hired a large public relations firm, the one hiring Karl, to wreck the future of a senator who has opposed legislation favorable to the oil industry. The boss of the firm hires Karl for the contacts he has in the newspaper and television field. These contacts will be "used" to plant stories unfavorable to the senator, once the stories can be made up. Since no facts harmful to the senator can be found in his case history, the boss takes unrelated facts and produces charges of homosexuality and communistic leanings. In this plot the author has written some of the most refreshing, informative, devastating scenes and characterizations I have ever readbetter than Advise and Consent. A public relations man uses his skill to thwart his minister's transfer to a better church. A man uses his mistress as

a guinea pig to test her (and thus the public's) reaction to a charge of homosexuality against a senator that is well known, well liked, has been married, and shows no tendencies. He records her reactions and bases a psychological campaign against the senator on these reactions. The scene in which a member of the public relations firm disguises himself as a FBI agent and interrogates a friend of the senator in order to obtain damaging evidence, in which each man says things to himself and to the other man, in which human dignity is cut to shreds, has impressed me so much that never again will I answer the most routine questions without thinking of the possible consequences as pointed out in THE BIG SMEAR. But the most rewarding reading in the book is found in the description, intermingled with expert planning and care by the author, of the self examination the senator and Karl give themselves once the charges have been made. One man, innocent, sees himself as he goes from possible president, confident and well liked, to a man called gay. He thinks about the Presidency, about human values, about human depravity. He realizes how easily a false charge can ruin a man's life. And at the same time the senator is having his self examination, Karl is realizing just what part he has been playing in this change in a man's whole personality, opinion of himself and the public's opinion of him. Then Karl learns just what his employer and other people think of him, and his past comes to light. Just as the author has so intelligently and movingly portrayed the senator's self examination and facing of facts, he now portrays

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