Mr. Snepp, the CIA's top analyst of North Vietnamese political affairs during the

Vietnam War, had been in Saigon right up to the end. The "disdainful title" of his book, as WFB reminds us, refers to "a famous observation by Henry Kissinger, then Secretary of State, that he hoped the Paris Accords would provide a decent interval of self- determination for South Vietnam before what would surely be the final chapter in their struggle with the Communists." This absorbing discussion ranges from why Mr. Snepp felt free to release CIA secrets ("Perhaps I was wrong and this is an expression of hubris, but I believe that secrets must be maintained by everybody, and not merely by the lower- ranking officials of the State Department and the CIA"), to the terms of the Paris Accords themselves (FS: "Viewed as a whole they were a sellout--of South Vietnam to the North." WFB: "So Thieu was exactly correct to oppose them?" FS: "Oh, I think so").