Voices From the Underground, 2 vols.

• Position: Brief Article

Volume I: Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press Volume II: A Directory of Resources and Sources on the Vietnam Era Underground Press edited by Ken Wachsberger Mica Press (P.O. Box 25544, Tempe, AZ 85285). 608 pp., 128 pp. $74.50, paper (Volume I, $29.50; Volume 11, $45.00).

As the people responsible for the underground press of the 1960s and early 1970s get older--good God! they're all over thirty, and some of them are over fifty--their exploits have passed into legend. But like all good legends, theirs is both less and more than the reality that inspired it. Books and theses have been and will be written, but Voices from the Underground is no academic treatment but rather what the academics call a primary source. It's big (magazine-size pages; two inches thick) and it rambles; some of it's fascinating and some of it's boring. It's uneven--just like the underground press. If you're interested in exploring the reality behind the legend, head straight for Volume II, where you'll find an annotated bibliography and listings of which libraries have copies of what. But Volume I is the one to read, and it's fun. It includes first-person accounts by the...