THE CONSCIENCE OF A YOUNG CONSERVATIVE

Much of this critique of liberal Fiscal and social welfare policies is a rerun of Lambro's last book The Federal Rathole (1975). Much of it is also unimpeachable. Who could defend such federal budget items as facelifts for military wives, annual outlays of $14 million for the maintenance of 300 military golf courses, $342,000 spent by the National Institute of Health to inquire into the sex habits of coeds, or a $57,000 FAA study entitled ""Anthropometry of Airline Stewardesses."" Lambro moreover exhibits none of that shrill rancor toward the poor that too often besets the Right. To be sure, catch phrases like ""personal incentive"" abound. And as for criminals, ""Lock Them Up!""--though to do him justice Lambro isn't for more Dick Tracy-style police hardware. By far the most disappointing chapters are on defense: hackneyed reiterations of the need to be strong, to stave off the wily, duplicitous Commies. Routine overruns on defense contracts, B-1 supersonic bombers, Trident submarines go unchallenged. There is the ""free world"" and there are the ""totalitarian regimes"" and no ambiguity about which is which. A pity, really. Lambro isn't unintelligent--and popular mistrust of the government in Washington has swelled to such proportions that he might well have reached an audience beyond the National Review coterie.