KILL AND OVERKILL

Ralph Lapp's Kill and Overkill is an exhortation and an enlightenment, a chiller-diller for public apathy; not too many will sleep or should sleep after reading this straight-from-the shoulder study of the arms race- how it got that way, why, and where it's heading. A sharp, stark hair-on-end appraisal made all the more real by the author's well-documented look into the world of scientists, diplomats and military men. He attacks the massive retaliation policy and its inherent contradictions, Kissinger's armchair exercise on limited warfare, the Teller idea of an absolutely clean bomb, the problematical surety of anti-missile missiles, the so-called 90 percent safety of shelters. He notes atomic stockpiling proceeding at a faster rate than the population explosion, the push-button doomsday awaiting us through accident, miscalculation or madness, the nuclear club whereby each new member threatens the power balance. He offers suggestions:- rely more on Polaris- keep our missiles underwater, not our population underground; demilitarize the realm of space; syncretize an international check system; above all, let people in on our contemporary chamber of horrors. And on that last bit, the book's a real must.