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MARCO POLO, IF YOU CAN by William F. Buckley Jr.

MARCO POLO, IF YOU CAN

by William F. Buckley Jr.

Pub Date: Jan. 8th, 1981
ISBN: 1888952113
Publisher: Doubleday

In Who's On First, Buckley inserted CIA-agent hero Blackford Oakes into real history (the US/Soviet space race) with the cleverest sort of almost-plausibility. Here, however, the tinkering with the facts slips over the edge into oddly grating fantasy: Buckley's plot leads up to (and re-explains) the 1960 U-2 incident. . . but blithely substitutes Blacky Oakes for the never-mentioned Francis Gary Powers. How much will this annoy Oakes' wide following? Probably not too much—since overall readability is at the usual high level, with a fast-paced merry-go-round of interlocking subplots. In 1957 Blacky is dumped by the Agency for his noble yet treasonous doings in Who's On First. Meanwhile, however, the US learns that there's a "mole" in Washington, leaking minutes of National Security Council meetings to Moscow—so Blacky is re-recruited to help super-spy Rufus trace the espionage trail from D.C. to Berlin. And, also meanwhile, it's hinted that Blacky's pal/colleague Mike has, without his knowledge, a connection to the case: his Italian-immigrant father—a half-Jewish Mussolini victim and ex-Communist—is part of the spy ring. (When Mike learns the truth, he'll die to save Blacky's life—and, worse yet, someone near and dear to Blacky will turn out to be the mole herself.) Still, tracking down the spies is only the first half of the CIA/FBI/Eisenhower plan here. The second half is to use the unsuspecting spies to feed Moscow false data suggesting a Washington/Peking alliance—a decoy scheme ("Marco Polo") which must be clinched by. . . guess what? The seemingly accidental landing of a U-2 plane in Russia—a plane involved in US/China espionage and piloted by Blackford Oakes, who's nearly executed by the Soviets before they decide to trade him for the now—captured leader of their US spy-ring. True, Buckley's 1950s-minded ideological snipings (often gratuitous) are a bit uglier than usual this time around. And Blacky, so sympathetic in Who's On First, is mostly just smug, smirky (preppy-macho about sex), brave, and bland—especially when surrounded by padding concerning the U-2 technology. But even if this is perhaps the weakest (and most objectionable) of the series, it's still fast, sly, and literate: a rare, distinctive species within the lookalike thriller herd.