"The study by Paul Hollander," Mr. Buckley begins, "is terribly overdue. It has

been the most conspicuous scandal of two generations that a substantial number of Western intellectuals have been seduced by monstrous social regimes." The "pilgrims" in the title of his book, alas, refers not to people who have made the pilgrimage away from totalitarianism, but simply, as Mr. Hollander's subtitle puts it, to Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, 1928-1978. He passes along the raptures of dozens of these people, ranging from Anna Louise Strong to Staughton Lynd, from Edmund Wilson to Susan Sontag, from Tom Hayden to Harrison Salisbury. WFB: "Is it safe to say that once you've learned political truths you are not again easily deceived?" PH: "No, I'm afraid that's not quite true, because many people who learned something from the case of the Soviet Union fell again on China and on Cuba, and are now falling for Nicaragua right after Cuba; so I think this quest for a good society outside your own is endless."