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Jeane Kirkpatrick's infamous distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes was wrong in labeling most of the Central American states authoritarian, according to New York Times reporter Buckley: it would be more accurate to compare the controlling powers to the Mafia, he says--and his account of recent political developments, supplemented by brief historical sketches, bears him out. ""Oligarchy"" is the polite word for the corrupt ruling class in Central America, and Buckley scarcely hides his contempt for it. Reporting on E1 Salvador's 1982 elections, Buckley interviewed a wealthy family that was about to vote for ARENA, the far-right party of Robert D'Aubuisson (the man most often linked to the notorious death squads). With the younger children dressed in Top-Siders and the eldest at a New England prep school, the parents wanted to discuss Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Virginia; Buckley bitterly notes that he did not ask them if their son had an obligation to stay and defend the family property along with the conscripted peasant boys. The descriptions of decaying bodies, the remains of death-squad victims, shows why Buckley was careful not to antagonize the ARENA leader (""The Salvadoran police,"" Buckley says, ""are busier committing homicides than solving them""). Jose Napoleon Duarte, the former government leader, and Guillermo Ungo, head of the guerrillas' political front, also talked with Buckley; they come across as sensible men, and he is convinced that an American commitment to nonmilitary solutions could prevent most of the region from going communist. In an extended treatment of Nicaragua, Buckley shows how moderate Sandinista elements have lost ground to harder-line factions as a result of American pressure on a shattered economy. Washington has consistently supported the criminals, and this has given free rein to the darker sides of the Latin temperament. Some of this is already dated--such as the sections on Guatemala, which end with the assumption of power by Rios Montt, since deposed. But for right now, a free-and-easy reportorial complement to Walter LaFeber's Inevitable Revolutions (1983). Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.