To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans...

To Heal a Nation: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Jan C. Scruggs and Joel L. Swerdlow (Harper & Row: $9.95). Two polished granite walls bearing the names of America’s 58,000 casualties, the memorial rests unobtrusively against a small hill on the Capitol Mall. In stark contrast to the towering Washington Monument and the imposing Lincoln Memorial, the design neatly solves the dilemma of constructing a monument to something most of us would rather not remember. There are none of the usual plaques suggesting moral or political justifications for the deaths, but the carving of names in stone at least links soldiers to some larger meaning. “To Heal a Nation” follows the story of Jan Scruggs, a former U.S. Army rifleman in Vietnam and the memorial’s founder. After seeing “The Deer Hunter” in 1979, Scruggs sat alone in his kitchen with a bottle of whiskey, hearing mortar rounds hit soldiers who were unloading ammunition trucks. “No one remembers their names,” he thought. Scruggs’ campaign began by appealing to veterans, most of whom thought funds should be used only for veterans’ food and housing. Political hurdles were less formidable, for Scruggs presented the monument as a nonpartisan honor to “service and sacrifice.” Lack of political conviction makes this book slow going at times, but it offers a sense of post-Vietnam hope that is both valuable and rare. Also recently reissued is “Vietnam Veterans: The Road to Recovery” (New American Library: $3.95), a resource guide by Joel Osler Brende and Erwin Randolph Parson.

On the Good Ship Enterprise, Bjo Trimble (The Donning Co., 5659 Virginia Beach Blvd., Norfolk, Va. 23502: $7.95). “Star Trek” redefined the TV space opera when it was first beamed down to viewers in 1966. Where other shows spotlighted technology, featuring plots with vacuum cleaners thinly disguised as robots, “Star Trek” respected and solicited viewers’ intelligence, using space travel as a way of exploring humanistic themes. Mutual respect also extended between cast and crew, writes Bjo Trimble, in this whimsical book from 1983. Gush and naivete are exceptions rather than the rule in Trimble’s book, however, for her style is self-effacing and reflective. As such, it should be of interest even to those wary of TV tributes. Trimble does recount the show’s history, but she also writes about the nature of fandom: why people think fans are “crazy,” why “Star Trek” fans were more eager than others to extend a helping hand to her disabled daughter, and how the line between reality and TV can become blurred.

Socialism and America, Irving Howe (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: $5.95). Aware of the dangers in viewing socialism as an end in itself rather than a means toward an end (better quality of life), the author has created an ideal introduction to socialism for skeptics. Throughout this 1977 work, Howe’s Devil’s Advocate asks pointed questions: “Isn’t Socialism dead in America?” (shaken by failures, yes, but socialists are struggling for modest and major reforms, even though their new, relatively docile approach is unlikely to spark a revolution); “Can Socialist economies provide incentives for individuals?” (Yes; we’ve only come to think otherwise because Socialism’s “language and symbols have been appropriated by parodic totalitarianism”); and the most pressing question, “Why has Socialism failed in America?” (The “open frontier” has served as a safety valve for discontent, class distinctions at the nation’s founding were less marked than in Europe, and our political heritage has not always seen moral protest and government reform as the same cause).

Designer Drugs, M. M. Kirsch (CompCare Publications, 2415 Annapolis Lane, Minneapolis, Minn. 55441: $7.95). Synthetic drugs can be up to 1,000 times stronger than classic “street drugs” such as cocaine. The synthetics are relatively minute in size, and so dealers wishing to cut costs have been having a field day lacing classic drugs with synthetic additives. Users take doses they’ve come to see as standard, with fatal effects. Public education is, of course, the answer, but the author, a Los Angeles writer, points out that health officials have lost some of their clout by crying “wolf!” in previous anti-drug campaigns: While ignoring alcohol and cigarettes, government agencies went so far as to contend that marijuana leads to rape, murder and madness, and that LSD leads to birth defects. M. M. Kirsch convincingly demonstrates that this time, the danger is quite real, but his book is not always clear about the extent of the danger: We read, for instance, that between 1982 and 1985, 100 deaths in California have been linked to synthetic heroin but that the number of people using the supposedly deadly substance is much higher, more than 20,000. In addition, a chapter on a “Yuppie drug” named “Ecstasy” paints the drug in a rather positive light, featuring favorable testimonials, but then reports, without elaboration or citation, that a similar drug “has been shown to destroy the serotonin-producing neurons in the brain.” These apparent contradictions, however, have more to do with insufficient data than with deliberate omissions on the part of the author.

NOTEWORTHY: . . . The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age, Walter A. McDougall (Basic: $11.95). Focusing on individual problem-solvers and international political systems, the author looks back at U.S. and Soviet space efforts, looking at why polities decide to implement new technologies at given moments. Technology provides change, the author argues, while culture provides continuity. How to Write a Children’s Book and Get It Published, Barbara Seuling (Scribner’s: $11.95). Survey the market, read critically, make every word count and write for love, not money, says the author, in this popular, acclaimed book from 1984.