This conversation among a card-carrying liberal, a card-carrying conservative, and a Republican moderate winds up centering on the revolt at Attica Prison three years earlier--the subject of Mr. Wicker's book A Time to Die. Serious penology alternates with (pointed) flights of fancy. WS: "What if [Governor Nelson] Rockefeller had gone to Attica? There he is outside the gates. The prisoners say, 'Let's see Rockefeller. We'll talk to him direct.' At that point he can't show that he's a coward; he has to go in and talk to them. And at that point, the possibility of taking him hostage arises. Then what do you do?" WFB: "That presents the opportune time to remold the Republican Party." ... TW: "In the prisons of the State of New York, just a year or so before the Attica revolt, everything was changed over semantically. Guards became 'corrections officers.' Prisons became 'correctional facilities.' Wardens became 'superintendents.' You had to rewrite all those old James Cagney movies. But they didn't change anything else. They just changed the terminology."