April 1988

In This Issue
Explore the April 1988 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
The Rush to Deploy SDI
How the Administration is defying scientific opinion, bypassing internal Pentagon review procedures, stalling Congress, and pressuring the military in its effort to field a "first generation" space-based missile defense within a decade.
The April Almanac
Notes: War Is Heck
Was I scared floating around in a little yellow raft off the coast of an enemy-held island, setting a world record for paddling? Of courseIwas. What sustains you in times like that? Well,you go back to fundamental values. I thought about Mother and Dad and the strength I got from them—and God and faith and the separation of Church and State.
—George Bush,
on the campaign trail last winterThe Far East: The Other Japan
Education: Home Schooling
Parents who educate their children at home face little official opposition —but a very demanding responsibility
Notices Found in Various Journals Regarding the Life, Maps, & the Old West of Bill Rivers
Did the Universe Just Happen?
Edward Fredkin’s theory is one not just of physics but of metaphysics: it leads to speculation about supreme beings and the purpose of life
Contributors
Gethsemane
Beam
What Men Love For
The Blind Seer of Ambon
Georg Everard Rumpf (1628?-1702), great Dutch naturalist, who lived most of his life in the East Indies, and there wrote all his works and lost the sight of his eyes
The Evidence Store
Stephen Appelbaurn likes asking passers-by to peruse his stock, which includes Mr. Gross Mouth and a skeleton named Fred, and then having them guess what he does for a living
Vacations in Canada
The United States
The Caribbean
Vacations in the Caribbean, the Bahamas & Bermuda, and Latin America
The Bahamas & Bermuda
Latin America
Untitled
Europe
Vacations in Europe
Asia, Oceania, & Africa
Vacations in Asia, Oceania, & Africa
Canada
Housing an Aging Nation
“Life-care” centers offer services for the elderly, often at a very high price
Born Out of Time
Wynton Marsalis and his contemporaries recapitulate modern jazz BY FRANCIS DAVIS
High School Confidential
Reconstruction Reconsidered
Soviet Agriculture
S
The Blizzard of '88
Uncovering Soviet Disasters
Letters From America
Anthills of the Savannah
Acrostic No. 33
The Puzzler
Word Watch
Here are a few of the words being tracked by the editors of The American Heritage Dictionary, published by Houghton Mifflin. A new word that exhibits sustained use may eventually make its way into the dictionary. The information below represents the first stage of research, not the final product.
