Observing Nixon Years

In this collection of more than 100 pieces, New Yorker writer Schell analyzes and interrelates the conduct of the war in Vietnam, the Nixon administration's Southeast Asian policy and Watergate. Remarkable in penetration and with prophetic insight, the articles, culled from the ``Notes and Comment'' section of the magazine, reflect broodingly upon the major issues of that era, including the administration's attempts to intimidate the press and the threat to the Constitution on the part of President Nixon, Vice-President Spiro Agnew and Attorney-General John Mitchell. In well-crafted prose, the essays convey with stirring eloquence a growing alarm over ``the inverted moral order'' that prevailed in the Nixon White House. Shawn, New Yorker former editor, rightly notes in the preface that the pieces constitute ``not only an incomparable political document but also a literary work that will endure.'' (Apr.)