homosexuals are there in this country? Who is best qualified to give us the "authoritative answer"? The answer to the former question is: anywhere from 4 million to 15 million, perhaps more, depending on how one defines the term homosexual. Masters contributes nothings to our understanding of this question. Instead, he paraphrases others, with credit or entirely without it. In discussing the incidence of homosexuality, the numbers game is used to stir is used to stir up fear of a pressure group that doesn't exist. This helps set the stage for a mythical revolt. As a wild guess, Masters finds a world population of 50 to 100 million inverts who are presumably going to overthrow Western civilization in order to start their own fairyland.

The book continues by providing some superficial historical information about homosexuality and homosexual organizations of the past, and it introduces us to a character called Ronnie, whom the author cites as a typical exemplar of the homosexual revolutionary. Ronnie is articulate, lean, awkward, intelligent, and is one of the author's main sources of information about the homophile movement. We have our doubts as to whether Ronnie really exists or is an amalgam of several people. Masters displays throughout the book a prediliction for fictional creativity. In any case, Ronnie is a subscriber to several publications of the homophile organizations and an ardent sympathizer, but his actual participation in the work of these organizations is nil. Thus, Masters lets us know that he is gathering information from secondhand sources, from hearsay, from an unidentified individual whose competence is questionable and whose existence is doubtful. We are reminded all through the book, as will become apparent, of the late Senator McCarthy's nefarious techniques for "protecting the country.'

Following is a very brief survey of

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a few historical cults whose members may have been homosexual. The Knights Templar, who were supposed to have protected the pilgrims in the Holy Land during the Middle Ages, were charged with having been homosexual, but Masters hastens to add that such a charge and the prosecution of it was so complicated that there isn't space to go into it, but surmises that it must have been valid. Other organizations and cults are mentioned, but again, we are never told for certain very much about them because the author admits that he doesn't know, or tells us how difficult it is to determine anything important about them regarding the incidence of homosexuality involved. As an historian, Masters is both sketchy and unable to place any of these movements in their historical context.

The bankruptcy of concrete material is disclosed when he gets to the contemporary scene. He has ostensibly read a few European homosexual periodicals, but has virtually nothing to say about the organizations themselves, except for the I.C.S.E. (International Committee for Sexual Equality), of which he writes that "getting definite information about the I.C.S.E. is like attempting to steal plans for the H-bomb."

As many followers of the homophile movement know, the I.C.S.E. has never been anything more than a very weak liaison group set up to coordinate the various activities of the organizations from different countries. There were a few conferences, a small but unimportant newsletter, and some friendly correspondence in the spirit of those with similar problems and interests who wished to maintain contact with each other. It has never been of any real importance in this country and if it still exists, only a sick and paranoid mind or one trying to foment non-existent dangers could contend that this innocuous organization is "regarded as a myster-

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