◆ SpookStack

~2e- T foreign policy.” His struggle for political power is further complicated by his love affair with the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Meredith Lord, and by his high-level adviser's affair with an Iranian secret agent, as well as the machinations of the Persian Protective League and the activities of Yorman Halevy, head of a militant Zionist group which operates from above a delicatessen in Williamsburg. In the end, however, it is Canfield's arrogance and pride that moral blind spots which bring about his downfall, the result, in part, of his dealings with pro-Israeli zealots. The evil pretagonist of the story, though, turns out to be a South Yemen agent for the Communist Chinese. Newsweek magazine of May 24, 1976 characterized Agnew's novel as “a pulpy thriller offering an intriguing view of the Washington power game, some locker-room sex, graphic violence -- and what will seem to some read- ers a whiff of anti-Semitism.” Time magazine described the pook's plct as “complicated, although not intricate." And a review of the book in the Newark Star-Ledger of May 16, 1976 charged that "what mars ‘The Canfield Decision are the author's attitudes, The book is anti-press, anti-~ Semitic, anti-woman and anti-black." The anti-Semitic aspect of Agnew's novel was seized upon by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt in his "Books of The Times" column in the New York Times of May 25, 1976. Lebmann-Haupt stated that Agnew's "potboiler” was * Ce ed — " . . « based on the inflammatory premise that ‘American Jews exert an influence on American opinion that is far heavier than their numbers would indicate. They are the strongest single influence in the big media -- the media with worldwide impact. They control mich of the financial commmity. Therefore, they heavily affect, through propaganda, the majority of the Congress, Oh, they scream anti-Semitism whenever anyone mentions this power, but it's true.'" Lehmann-Haupt noted that it is an Iranian terrorist who utters these