Fiasco, By Jack Anderson With James Boyd. Times Books, Three Park Ave., New York, Ny 10016; 386 Pp., $17.50.

Some Americans suspected that there was a Nixon in the woodpile in regard to the oil crises and price run-ups of the early 1970s, what with the former President's chumminess with Big Oil and a deep commitment to the depletion allowance. And sure enough, the country's most widely read news columnist has spectacularly documented the disdain of public trust leading up to the slippery mess that Anderson tabs "Oilgate." Not without his own smugness, he traces an avoidable sequence of conspiracy and ignorance through Egypt and Libya, across the botched Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and into gas station waiting lines. Even if only half the allegations are true, the ex-President and his henchman, Henry Kissinger, come off at their most unctuous and the State Department at its most inept. So what else is new, Jack?

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