Outrage

A retired Marine captain who served in Vietnam and Lebanon, Dye has written a fictionalized account of the events that led to the deaths of 241 American Marines and other servicemen at the hands of a Moslem fanatic at Beirut Airport in 1983. The book's title refers to the mixture of political concerns and vaguely stated military mission of the American forces that prevented them from being able to defend themselveslet alone anyone else in Lebanon. Dye's military dialogue will sound authentic to most veteran ears, and the combat action is mostly plausible as well. This is not The Naked and the Dead of the 1980s, however, because the plot is insufficiently fictionalized. In the Mailer combat classic, the harrowing long patrol was generically realistic but fundamentally an artifact of imagination. Outrage too closely follows events that we know about from media coverage, reading more like an extreme piece of ""new journalism'' than a novel. That may not be a valid complaint, however, since Dye clearly indicates in a preface that he intends to stir up indignation at the fact that our government ``brutally abused'' the commitment, sacrifice and discipline of the Marines in Lebanon. This he effectively accomplishes. A movie based on the novel is in the works. (May)