D. M. Thomas s seventh novel is a brief

and brutally funny comedy in which an

American president and a Soviet premier

cross swords (and signals) at a surprise

summit meeting. At stake is world peace, at

issue is a state-of-the-art American defensive

missile system--and if the premise sounds

familiar, it s because fife is imitating art.

Summit, of course, is fiction.

As the novel opens, a red-haired, eternally

youthful American chief executive--a

former movie star, who suffers from an

inattention to detail (as well as from a per-

ceptual difficulty called "logotarditis," which

causes the sufferer to answer the question

preceding the one just asked)Iis being

threatened with impeachment as the rcsuh

of a bumbling interview. To distract national

attention from his lapses, President O Reilly

and his aides formulate a new global nuclear