Pentagon.

• Author: Henderson, Diane D.

Pentagon.

Allen Drury. Doubleday,$18.95.

Drury's new novel is a big,sprawling work, somewhat like the building it describes. But with its multiple stories only loosely connected by The Building, it never quite achieves coherence or focus. In fact, Pentagon is less a novel than a polemic disguised as fiction for people who don't read nonfiction like the recent crop of defense reform books.

In Drury's story, the Sovietsclandestinely take over a small South Pacific island and kill its inhabitants with a neutron bomb. The Navy airman who discovers this is shot down by a lurking Soviet sub, though not before he notifies the U.S. Pacific fleet. The rest of the tale is devoted to the months of bumbling, subversion, and bureaucratic infighting that follow as the Department of Defense, the joint chiefs, the president, Congress, and the press debate what to do.

Drury draws all the right conclusionsabout what's wrong with the DOD. There is very little forward thinking...