Letter from Saigon by Neil Davis. The most common topic of discussion in Saigon is the future of the P.R.G., the Southern-based political structure and of the N.L.F.. No one is sure about when, or if, the P.R.G. will really take charge. Saigon is run by Military Management Committee. There are already P.R.G. ministries and...

Profiles DOWN IN THE MINORS by Hendrik Hertzberg. PROFILE of Robert Freitas, 57, who, since 1961, has been one of two field representatives (the Western one) for the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, the umbrella organization of the minor leagues. His salary is $11,000 a year-not much for a man with more than 3 decades of...

Fiction Timber! by Gordon Cotler. Parody about the growing no. of Presidential-election...

Books Alone But Not Aloof by John Updike.

The Talk of the Town Improvs by Mark Singer. Talk story about a Saturday-morning casting call for the Meri Mini Players, a repertory company, made up of spirited six-to-thirteen-year-olds, that has been in the business of producing plays for peer-group members in town for the past six years. Anyone who wants to become...

Fiction Wanda's by Ann Beattie. When May's mother went to find her father in Denver, Colorado, twelve-year-old May was left with a friend of her mother, whose name is Wanda. Wanda's second husband drowned. She is fat, drinks tequilla all day long, and talks at May. Like her father, May doesn't particularly like...

The Current Cinema The Visceral Poetry of Pulp by Pauline Kael. Review of "Smile", directed by Michael Ritchie...

Comment by Jonathan Schell. In the press & on the TV news programs the last couple of months have turned out to be a season of spectacular crime. The first episode was the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. The next was the kidnapping of Samuel Bronfman II. Then came the first apparent attempt on the...

The Talk of the Town Go Far East, Young Man by Anthony Hiss. Talk. E.M. Frimbo, world's greatest railroad buff, has just returned from 2000 miles of railroading in the Farthest East, & in the library of the Lexicographers Club tells about his travels. A group of 20 that meets once or twice a year were on the trip. Tells about Sumatra, where...

The Race Track Forego's Turn by G. F. T. Ryall. The "Daily Racing Form" published statistics covering the season from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31. Jockey Sandy Hawley rocketed to the top of the money-winners, his mounts having picked up $2,696,172, to pass Shoemaker's $2,693,704...

The Talk of the Town Vestmaker by Susan Sheehan. Talk story about one of New York City's full-time vestmakers, Carmine Di Fabio, 74, who works for the city's biggest custom tailor, William Fioravanti. Quotes Chauncey Hunter, executive secretary of the Custom Tailors and Designers Association of America, who tells where some of the dozen remaining vestmakers in New...

Letter from Oslo by Lillian Ross. In Norway the subject of emigration remains a preoccupation. They hold on loyally to every tie with friends and relatives who took off at any time from 1825 on, not only for American, which was where most of them went, for for other places too, and keep track of all...

Poetry Vision by W. S. Merwin. What is unseen...

Poetry Stanzas for the Graves by Ted Walker. Rain had eased, an end-of-summer rain...