Oliver North Research Articles

Media Marathon: A Twentieth-Century Memoir

How is history produced? How do individuals write-or rewrite-their parts while engaged in the production of history? Michael Lynch and David Bogen take the example of the Iran-contra hearings to explore these questions. These hearings, held in 1987 by the Joint House-Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaragua Opposition, provided the nation with a media spectacle and a rare chance to see a struggle over the writing of history. There was Oliver North, prime suspect and designated scapegoat, turning into a hero of the American Right before the very eyes of the nation. How this transformation occurred, with the complicity of the press and the public, becomes disturbingly clear in The Spectacle of History. Lynch and Bogen detail the practices through which the historical agents at the center of the hearings composed, confirmed, used, erased, and denied the historical record. They show how partisan skirmishes over the disclosure of records and testimony led to a divided and irresolute outcome, an outcome further facilitated by the applied deconstruction deployed by North and his allies. The Spectacle of History immerses the reader in a crowded field of texts, utterances, visual displays, and media commentaries, but, more than a case study, it develops unique insight into problems at the heart of society and social theory-lying and credibility, the production of civic spectacle, the relationship between testimony and history, the uses of memory, and the interplay between speech and writing. Drawing on themes from sociology, literary theory, and ethnomethodology and challenging prevailing concepts held by contemporary communication and cultural studies, Lynch and Bogen extract valuable theoretical lessons from this specific and troubling historical episode.

The Christian Right and the 1994 Elections: A View from the States

In 1994 the news media rediscovered the Christian Right and came away perplexed. The movement seemed to contradict conventional wisdom at every turn. First, many observers were surprised that it was still strong and active, given the responsibility assigned to it for the Republican defeat in 1992. Second, its activities were neither all successes nor failures, making the story-line difficult to follow. How could a movement with such a controversial agenda contribute to unexpected Republican gains in places like Minnesota, while at the same time, candidates prominently identified with it, such as Oliver North, were defeated? Why was the Christian Right at once so strong and so weak?No doubt much of this confusion results from well-known proclivities of journalists, including a penchant for “horse race” coverage, a focus on controversy, and a poor sense of history. There is, however, also a deeper misunderstanding at work. It is widely assumed that religion is on the wane in modern societies. Thus, its repeated expressions in public affairs, such as the Christian Right, come as a great surprise. In response, many observers are ready to interpret such expressions as temporary aberrations that will quickly fade away. In fact, the Christian Right has been discovered and dismissed in the press at least four times since it emerged on the national scene with the Moral Majority in 1979. This pattern was difficult to replicate in 1994.

The Christian Right in the Old Dominion: Resurgent Republicans or Holy War?

In early 1994, Virginia Senator Chuck Robb appeared extremely vulnerable. Once touted as a potential Democratic presidential candidate, Robb spent much of his first term defending himself against charges that he had attended parties where drugs were used, had engaged in extramarital affairs, and had known that his aides had possessed illegally taped cellular telephone conversations of long-time rival Governor Douglas Wilder.Robb's difficulties began soon before he launched his campaign in March 1994. He issued a letter to Virginia Democratic leaders and activists in which he admitted to having extramarital sex, although he consistently denied that this contact had ever included inter-course. This fine distinction made him no friends among moral conservatives, who disapproved of any extramarital activity, or among liberals, who found his behavior sexist and his account implausible.Yet on election night, Robb survived a Republican tidal wave to win a surprisingly easy victory over Republican candidate Oliver North, of Iran-Contra notoriety. North spent approximately $20 million, more than four times Robb's total, and deployed a huge volunteer army that covered the state with placards. He had the strong endorsements of Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and could count on the organizational efforts of the Christian Coalition, the Family Foundation, and the National Rifle Association. In the home state of the former Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition, however, North failed to carry Lynchburg (a stronghold of Falwell and the former Moral Majority), or Chesapeake, and only narrowly carried Virginia Beach (home of both Robertson and the Christian Coalition).

Self-presentation practices in government discourse: The case of US Lt. Col. Oliver North

L'A. examine quelques pratiques discursives utilisees pour la construction d'une identite sociale positive. Plus specifiquement, il identifie les pratiques verbales de presentation de soi utilisees par le Lieutenant colonel americain Oliver North, temoin-cle dans la question de la vente d'armes aux Contras (Nicaragua)

The Ethical Odyssey of Oliver North

The Ethical Odyssey of Oliver North

I volunteer to kidnap Oliver North

“I Volunteer to Kidnap Ollie North”, is an exercise in following our government's sometimes criminal, often bizarre and always hypocritical actions in the war on drugs during the Reagan-Bush years to their logical conclusion. The Supreme Court has indicated in its June, 1992 decision in U.S. v Machain, that American law enforcement officers can now enter the sovereign territories of other nations to legally abduct violators of U.S. drug laws. Iran immediately proclaimed that they had the same right for violations of Islamic law. What might happen if kidnapping becomes a recognized “tool” of international law enforcement? What prominent Americans might wake up in South American jails with bags over their heads?

A devil in panama

In 1978, the United States and Panama signed a treaty to give the latter sovereignty over the Panama Canal by 1999. The canal had diminished in importance because of technical advances in transportation. But the United States remained concerned about its fourteen military bases in Panama and its Southern Command headquarters, which was the site for U.S. military and covert operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington was also uneasy about the Panamanian government under General Omar Torrijos, who, unlike most Latin American military leaders, was a populist‐reformist. He maintained friendly relations with Cuba's communist government and extracted monies from banks and businesses to fund social programs, some of which really benefited the people. In 1981, Torrijos died when his plane mysteriously blew up in midair. His place was taken by the head of Panamanian military intelligence, Colonel Manuel Noriega. Either Noriega or the CIA likely engineered the crash that killed Torrijos. Noriega blunted the progress made by the Torrijos administration. He also collaborated with Oliver North to create corporate fronts to finance the Nicarag‐uan contras and establish a Costa Rican airfield to supply them. Noriega received $200,000 a year as a CIA agent—even when George Bush was the agency's director. But there were limits to Noriega's willingness to serve Washington. He reasserted Panama's independence over the control of the Canal Zone and the leases for U.S. military bases. He reportedly refused to join an invasion against Nicaragua and maintained friendly relations with both Managua and Havana. Before long, hostile reports about him began appearing in the U.S. media. In 1987, the Justice Department indicted Noriega for drug‐smuggling. A crippling economic embargo was imposed on Panama, a country of two million people, causing a doubling of unemployment and a drastic cutback in social benefits. Despite tough U.S. sanctions and troop buildups in the Canal Zone, Noriega refused to step down from power as Washington demanded. In the U.S. press, our erstwhile friend and ally, Manuel Noriega, was swiftly transformed from “military leader” to “strongman dictator.” A media blitz demonized the Panamanian leader as a drug dealer, thus preparing the U.S. public for the ensuing invasion. During the aborted 1989 Panamanian elections, the U.S. press widely publicized the beating of an opposition candidate by Noriega supporters. It repeatedly referred to Noriega's “goons” and “thugs.” Never did it refer to “Botha's goons” in South Africa or “Duarte's goons” in El Salvador or to the other thugs who practiced torture and murder in a host of U.S.‐supported client states. In mid‐December 1989, just days before Bush's invasion of Panama, ABC's Ted Koppel reported that Noriega had declared war on the United States. Others in the media made the same unsupported assertion. Instead, Noriega—who was just then making peace offers to opposition leaders—was quoted by Reuters as saying that the United States, “through constant psychological and military harassment, has created a state of war in Panama.”

Moral ethics v. tax ethics: The case of transfer pricing among multinational corporations

In recent years there has been an increased awareness with regards to ethics in business. More specifically, the abundance of well-publicized examples of cheating, greed, and hypocrisy has created some alarm about the general state of personal ethics (Josephson, 1988). Recent examples include the Oliver North, Ivan Boesky, and Jimmy Swaggart cases. The tax practitioner probably has little direct concern for matters of misconduct and ethical improprieties as mentioned above. Adherence to a code of conduct appears to circumvent the ethical conflict typically found in the business environment. The tax practitioner's ultimate goal is tax minimization for clients. This goal has the blessings of the courts and the writers of tax law.

The New Adventures of Larry, Moe, and Curly: Oliver North's Private Enterprise

The New Adventures of Larry, Moe, and Curly: Oliver North's Private Enterprise

Under Fire: An American Story

In this candid book, Oliver North, the man who has been at the centre of the Iran-Contra controversy tells the story of his life. He reveals the inside story behind the headlines and stresses the importance of his family and his enduring faith, which have seen him through the toughest times.

The Audience by Herbert Blau (review)

252Rocky Mountain Review do American writers find inspired innovators in France; rather "the most fertile lessons in U.S. writing today are being learned from Latin Americans such as Borges, Cortázar, and particularly García Márquez" (208). Gene Bell-Villada is one of a handful of scholars in the field of Hispanic letters who write with authority, precision, and flair. However, even he is not immune to the dangling-modifier syndrome. For example, of the Patriarch he states, "Starting out as a homespun populist who made direct contact with the people, curing their stud bulls ofworms and fixing their sewing machines, his hunger for power led him to systematically eliminate all rival generals . . ." (156). But this outstanding scholar merits an accolade for a careful reading of García Márquez's oeuvre and an awesome knowledge of foreign literatures. GEORGE R. MCMURRAY Colorado State University HERBERT BLAU. The Audience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. 383 p. Herbert Blau's aim in The Audience is to explore what might at first appear a simple question: What is an audience? From the opening pages of his book, Blau follows recent critical theory and abandons traditional assumptions about audience—its nature, its power, its role in creating or interpreting meaning in the theatre. For Blau, the concept of audience as a group ofindividuals with a shared body ofvalues and common expectations for drama (or other art form) is no longer tenable. From such a view, an audience "seems like the merest facsimile of remembered community paying its respects not so much to the still-echoing signals of a common set of values but to the better-forgotten remains of the most exhausted illusions" (1). Even the integrity and stability ofthe individual spectator's response to a work, Blau asserts, are problematized by the ambiguities involved in the very act of representation. Throughout The Audience, Blau views audience as a convention—or, more properly, as a figure of speech. Blau then explores various metaphors for audience—an appealing strategy since the theatre is persistently used as a metaphor for making sense of the world. The members of an audience are at once consumers, voyeurs, eavesdroppers, participants, witnesses. Ultimately, Blau writes that the audience is not so much a gathering of human beings, but "a body of thought and desire. It does not exist before the play but is initiated orprecipitated by it; it is not an entity to begin with but a consciousness constructed. The audience is what happens when, performing the signs and passwords ofa play, something postulates itself and unfolds in response" (25). The book is indeed a meditation on this "happening" and its relations to representation, alienation, repression, and power. Blau's prose style is simultaneously exhilarating and maddening. The book deliberately becomes a self-conscious performance, an intimidating yet often playful mixture of allusion, extensive quotation, and dense jargon from poststructuralism and psychoanalysis. Although the primary focus ofthe book is drama, Blau continually engages in a wide-ranging cultural critique that Book Reviews253 sends the reader spinning from Aristotle to Oliver North, Restoration drama to film, body art to Shakespeare, and more. In placing his study in the context of late twentieth-century literary theory and cultural criticism, Blau relies heavily on the work ofsuch figures as Barthes, Benjamin, Foucault, and Lacan (to cite only the most frequently quoted writers); this tendency alone contributes significantly to the book's complexity. The end result is a sometimes brilliant, sometimes mystifying text that some readers may simply find unreadable. Yet Blau's text forces his readers—the book's audience—to test out the very roles for an audience that he attempts to describe. The nature of the book and its theoretical framework make it impossible for Blau to offer definitive conclusions from these meditations. But the book does offer a compelling new analysis of some venerable critical problems. Although Blau often focuses upon traditional dramatic texts from ancient Greece and Renaissance England, his work is especially good in exploring the role of the audience in modern and contemporary drama and in performance art and experimental theatre. Blau's treatment of Bertolt Brecht and Antonin Artaud as precursors ofpoststructuralism...

Iran/contra and the defeat of accountability

Is Accountability a standard that transcends time and culture? Does it retain any meaning for an electronically mediated society? Older norms of fairness, reciprocity and of individual responsibility appeared to be inadequate ethical guides during the Iran/Contra Hearings. This article highlights the testimony of Oliver North in order to challenge the universality of Accountability as a criterion of legitimate conduct.

Fifteen minutes of glory: A Burkean analysis of press coverage of Oliver north's testimony

Abstract Public esteem for Lt. Col. Oliver North prior to his testimony before the Iran‐contra Committee was low. As he testified, his popularity and support soared, and then tailed off after he left the witness stand. This analysis suggests that these dramatic shifts in audience response to the drama of Oliver North are attributable to the evocation of different audience values before, during, and after his testimony by press coverage of his story which placed differential emphasis on the elements of Kenneth Burke's dramatistical pentad. The differential impacts of print and electronic media to these audience effects are assessed through content analysis. Implications for political processes in general in our media society are discussed.

The Iranian Triangle: The Untold Story of Israel's Role in the Iran-Contra Affair (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 273 academic who is concerned with relationships among nations, the book is oversimplified : the concepts are self-evident yet lack insight, the language is catchy yet lacks sophistication, the goal —constructing a relationship that can deal with differences— is desirable but ultimately begs the question of plausibility. In sum, the recipe is appealing and the ingredients seem acceptable enough, but while the potential for error is avoided by the authors, it is, in practice, simply unavoidable. No matter how well the recipe is followed, the ingredients chosen, carefully measured and combined, sunken souffle and burnt brownies may well result. Likewise, no matter how closely a reader follows Fisher and Brown's prescriptions for an "unconditionally constructive" relationship, the result may still be an unavoidably destructive relationship. It is this aspect of effective relationship-building that most deserves attention in international politics , but which is least of all addressed in Getting Together. The questions— What do we do when the relationship will not "work"? What happens when we simply cannot "get together"?—go unanswered. The Iranian Triangle: The Untold Story ofIsrael's Role in the Iran-Contra Affair. By Samuel Segev. New York: The Free Press, 1988. 340 pp. $22.50/cloth. Reviewed by Malcolm Byrne, SAIS M.?., 1986. One of the great unknowns in the Iran-Contra affair is the exact nature of the role played by Israel. The simple reason is that none of the official investigations into the scandal chose to examine the issue in depth. In fact, the congressional Iran-Contra committee went so far as to cut a deal with Israel not to subpoena Israeli officials, agents, or documentation in exchange for the provision by Jerusalem of two chronologies of events, the value of which was questioned by some committee staff. As a result, the congressional inquiry had to rely primarily on American accounts of the motivations and performance of Israeli agents. Predictably, the Israeli government has preferred to close the book on the issue, pronouncing itself satisfied with the congressional probe. Ironically, not everyone on the Israeli side is entirely satisfied. The principal malcontents are among the key group of Israelis who participated in the first phase of the Iran arms deals and who were not flattered by American descriptions of their conduct. The so-called "troika," which was active throughout much of 1985, consisted of Yaacov Nimrodi, a long-time Israeli military attaché to Iran under the Shah; Adolph (Al) Schwimmer, retired head of Israel Aircraft Industries; and David Kimche, a former high-ranking official of Mossad and, during the arms initiative, the director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry . The troika helped manage the first three arms transfers to Iran in 1985, but after a disastrous attempt to ship 80 HAWK missiles in November of that year, they were unceremoniously removed from the initiative so that the United States could exert more direct control. It is clear from Segev's opinions about this and other aspects of the operation, and from the first-hand sources he is able to draw upon, that members of the troika have found a voice in The Iranian Triangle. 274 SAIS REVIEW Segev's basic premise is that the Iran initiative was a worthwhile undertaking for all three sides of the triangle (Iran, Israel, and the United States) but that a series ofmajor errors, above all the inclusion of Oliver North, Richard Secord, and Israeli official Amiram Nir in the deals, invited disaster. Segev acknowledges that the interests of the United States and Israel were not entirely the same, but he quotes Kimche approvingly to the effect that there were enough points in common upon which to base a policy. Creating a strategic opening to Iran and gaining the release of hostages (American and Israeli) in Lebanon were the main shared interests, while the course of the Iran-Iraq war was the primary difference . Israel wanted the war to continue in order to drain both sides of resources they might otherwise direct against Israel. The United States' goal was to bring about an end to the conflict without either side winning a decisive victory. Segev is unabashed in his view that the troika was probably the...

Taking Account of the Hostile Native: Plausible Deniability and the Production of Conventional History in the Iran-Contra Hearings

This paper examines the video record of a segment of Oliver North s testimony before joint Congressional committees investigating the Iran-Contra Affair during the summer of 1987 and analyzes the constitutive relationship between the testimony and an emergent “master narrative” being assembled by committee investigators from a mass of documents and prior testimonies. The details of North's testimony display the witness's biographical relations to events in the past as well as his moral entitlements to speak about those events in the present circumstance. In contrast, the committees' conventional historical account is written in an anonymous voice as a chronology of objective events, validated testimony, and certified documents. The paper argues that analytic differences between conversational stories and conventional histories are used systematically in the generation of testimony. The paper first describes some of the discursive methods the interrogator uses to assimilate the witness's stories to a conventional historical account and then goes on to discuss how the witness is able to resist the movement from biography to history by embedding his stories within a set of local entitlements that resist translation into a generalized narrative.

Banquet Address: SMT, Rochester, 1987

To President Lewin, to President-Elect Wittlich, Vice President Lewis Rowell, Treasurer Mary Wennerstrom, Secretary Richmond Browne, Members-at-large of the Executive Board, and, last-but not least-to the some 700 members of the Society for Music Theory I offer congratulations on this very pleasant and auspicious occasion, which celebrates the first decade of our society's existence. On behalf of the Society, I thank the Program Committee and its chairman, Robert Morris, for the very fine way in which it designed the program. I should say that Professor Morris has asked me to tell you that, due to circumstances beyond his control, the Committee is unable to fulfill its plan to offer a door prize, which was to have been a 500-word abstract of Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations. The person in charge of local arrangements also deserves our commendation and sympathy. His name is David Beach, and if you have complaints about the food served tonight, Dr. Beach will be happy to make adjustments. Finally, an expression of sincere appreciation to the Eastman School of Music and to its Director, Robert Freeman, who, in another life, would have been a music theorist, I feel sure. When Robert Morris invited me to speak at the annual banquet of the Society for Music Theory I realized that this was an offer I could not refuse, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for exposure of the kind usually available only to someone like Marine Colonel Oliver North. Therefore, I thought it would be appropriate to begin with a short autobiographical sketch of about forty-five minutes in length. Fortunately for all of us, my wife was able to suppress my enthusiasm for that undertaking. However, I would like to share an autobiographical anecdote with you, one that may have some significance for the future of our field. Not long ago I received a telephone call from Yale University Press saying that someone was trying to get in touch with me to offer me a research grant. Naturally, this attracted my attention, since there are so few opportunities for funded projects outside academia. I was to get in touch with one at a New York City number, which I duly rang. Someone at the other end answered Research, so I knew I was on the right track. When Tony came on the phone I was further encouraged because he pronounced my last name correctly. Tony proceeded to tell me that he knew of me as an authority on a certain type of musical analysis, Schenker analysis, and asked me if I would like to carry out a research project for his advertising company, the Marschak Corporation. This would entail applying techniques of Schenker analysis to beer commercials, to determine what Tony called commonalities. The results of this research would then be transmitted to prospective clients with a view to obtaining their advertising business. I then did something which I have regretted ever since: I politely declined, mumbling something about lack of time, other commitments, and so on. Had I but been less hasty I could even

Making Sense of Europe (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 239 and how the advice of experts advocating political means to hold the Sandinistas accountable was discarded. Although the stated goal of the administration's policy was to get the Sandinistas to the negotiating table, Gutman demonstrates that when an agreement was within reach, hard-liners, such as UN AmbassadorJeane Kirkpatrick and Constantine Menges, torpedoed any chance of attaining the government's stated goal. Menges did this on at least three occasions, heading off Secretary ofState George Shultz's attempts to open a dialogue with the Sandinista government by calling in both CIA Director William Casey and Ambassador Kirkpatrick to meet with President Reagan, who then told Shultz not to pursue his plans. Furthermore, when a viable peace plan was put on the table inJune 1984, it also fell apart. Because the United States was unwilling to send an observer to, or establish any links with the Contadora meetings, it had no knowledge of the Contadora and its proposals. The policy of negotiation was concomitant with the policy of confrontation. The contradictions inherent in this approach doomed the peace process from the start. The book's greatest asset is its examination of how foreign policy was made and conducted during the Reagan administration. According to Gutman, often contradictory policies and ignorance on the part of high-level administration officials, especially Secretary of State George Shultz, undermined foreign policy efforts and exacerbated problems. The author further states that at one point in 1 984 National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane deceived Shultz by not telling him that the Saudis were contributing a million dollars a month to the Contras. At the same time McFarlane was being deceived by his aide Oliver North, who was not telling McFarlane of his plan to create a private network to supply the Contras, according to Gutman, on the advice of William Casey and with the help of Richard Secord. Eighteen months after he resigned, McFarlane summed up the administration policymaking thus: "The organization of the administration for the conduct of foreign policy is, I believe, intrinsically unworkable. . . . There must be one person who is advocate, conceptual creator, and implementor of foreign policy. That is the Secretary of State." Roy Gutman gives a good account of the events surrounding the making of U.S. policy toward Nicaragua, showing its lack of direction and inconsistencies . In the process, he demonstrates that when ideologues took over policymaking toward Nicaragua, policy suffered as a result. Making Sense of Europe. By Christopher Tugendhat. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. 230 pp. $25.00/hardcover. Reviewed byfohn T. Shaw, M.A. candidate, SAIS. Making Sense ofEurope is a valuable addition to the literature on the European Community (EC). Christopher Tugendhat, a former journalist, member of 240 SAIS REVIEW the British House of Commons, and member of the European Commission, has written a book that is successful on several levels: it outlines the history of the European Community; explains the key institutions; describes how the various member states work within the community; considers the major problems facing Europe; and sketches an agenda for the future. Tugendhat argues that the evolution of the EC has been shaped by the competition between the ideas of federalism and intergovernmentalism. The federalist view, championed by Jean Monnet and Walter Hallstein, envisioned a "United States of Europe" administered by a powerful supranational institution , the European Commission. The intergovernmentalist view, advocated most vigorously by Charles de Gaulle, envisioned an association of European nations in which the nations would work together on certain matters while retaining complete sovereignty. Intergovemmentalists fought to ensure that decisionmaking authority for the European Community was vested in the Council of Ministers, where representatives of member states bargained and protected their nations' interests. Tugendhat believes that the battle between these competing views was resolved in favor of the intergovemmentalists by the Luxembourg Compromise in 1966, following a crisis engineered by de Gaulle. This ensured that, among other things, member states could invoke "vital interests" to halt EC action if they found it unacceptable. Tugendhat writes, "This row marked the moment at which the supremacy of the inter-governmental over the federal approach was established .... It gradually became clear that the Community would evolve as...

Foreign Policy Powers of the President and Congress

The congressional hearings in 1987 concerning the Irancontra affair provided a unique and unusual education for the general public. Month after month, American citizens became privy to how arms were shipped to Iran and funds diverted to the contras in Nicaragua. They learned about the Boland amendment, the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980, and executive orders that provide the overall framework for covert operations. Witnesses included major cabinet officials, the former White House chief of staff, the flamboyant Colonel Oliver North, two national security advisers, and a host of generals, agency officials, and private citizens. Throughout the hearings, there was learned discussion of constitutional issues, including major Supreme Court cases and the specific powers and responsibilities of Congress and the president. This article focuses on two issues: how foreign policy is shared by the two branches, and how Congress tries to use its power of the purse to control executive activities.

Government Vigilantes at Large: The Danger to Human Rights from Kidnapping of Suspected Terrorists

As states adopt increasingly forceful measures against suspected terrorism, possibilities for violations of human rights increase. One such threat to human rights is forcible abduction of terrorists for trial in another country. President Ronald Reagan reportedly approved a directive in 1986 to authorize forcible abduction of suspected terrorists from abroad, for trial in the United States.' Secretary of State George Shultz also advocated this policy.2 The contemplated operations were to be undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency and supervised by an interagency group directed by Lt. Col. Oliver North. The directive called for abduction along with sabotage of terrorists' supplies, finances, travel, recruiting, and operations.3

KEEPING THE FAITH IN SAMUEL CLEMENS'S WORLDS

Forrest G. Robinson. In Bad Faith: The Dynamics of Deception in Mark Twain's America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986. viii + 255 pp. John Madson. Up On The River: An Upper Mississippi Chronicle. New York: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1986. 276 pp. IIIus. Beverly R. David. Mark Twain and His Illustrators: Volume I (1869-1875). Troy: The Whitston Publishing Company, 1986. xi + 268 pp. IIIus. Forrest G. Robinson's complex notion of bad faith can be applied not only to the novels of Mark Twain but also to the culture and politics of the American nation. Take, for instance, the Irangate affair. A recent analysis in The New Yorker magazine proposes a startling analogy whereby Ronald Reagan becomes free- wheeling Oliver North and the American electorate becomes President Reagan. The article concludes that "the American body politic, with a sort of wink and a nod, endeavored to shield itself from the recognition of what its subordinate . . . was up to and what the consequences of his activities might be."1