"It is agreed," Mr. Buckley begins, "that inflation is the acutest problem and that,

unlike the other problem that obsessed us for so long, this one cannot be done away with by impeaching it.... There is, of course, vague talk about who is to blame for exactly what. Mr. Pierre Rinfret, an economist, isn't vague about anything." Mr. Rinfret bears out this introduction in a slash-and-burn session that leaves neither politicians nor economists nor businessmen intact. "You didn't mention it... but I worked very extensively for Lyndon Johnson, and he threw me out of the Oval Room in January 1966 with the admonition I was never to come back." WFB: "What had you done to precipitate that?" PR: "Well, I had told him that he was lying to the American people about the war,... and that he was going to devastate the American economy by an increase in federal spending while he tried to run a Great Society, and there just wasn't enough room in the American economy to do both.... Now, you say, Why didn't business see it? Business did, but you've got to remember one thing about American industry. They're not going to stand and fight. They never do and they never will."