MY FRIEND THE DICTATOR

The ""dictator"" in question: Sukarno, now feckless, never a true despot; the author: TV figure Mrs. Joey Adams, collaborator on an autobiography of the Bung which received wide attention. This book, as brash and frilly as the author, chronicles the five years she spent coddling and provoking Sukarno. His character, surroundings, and declining months make for Sunday-supplement reading, spiced with jokes, intimate details, and Mrs. Adams' unusually candid reactions to the ""ratty"" jungle and the antipathetic Afro-Asians. About politics she is equally forthright and biased, waxing ""agonized"" about an American hostage, sparing never a wince for the 800,000 massacred. There is some value in her portrait of Sukarno's daily life--at the height of jeopardy he was still watching movies and worrying about his jealous wives--but on the whole this effort to milk a contact has produced canned corn.