I now understand enough about reviewing spy novels not to reveal the plot of this elegant and witty book set on the eve of the Sputnik launch. But it is safe to say that Who's on First skillfully combines a drama of high politics with one of high technology. We learn something about ozone fuels and transistors. We visit the Gulag and the chambers of the Washington elite. We meet a semi-alcoholic Navy captain who reads Forever Amber, and a boisterous and obscene rocket scientist straight from the Texas earth. We are privy to hilarious moments at Eisenhower Cabinet sessions, and contemplative moments with Dean Acheson and Allen Dulles. The Acheson-Dulles talks are rich and artful, and at the center of Mr. Buckley's imaginative and philosophical strategies. At the end, Sputnik is aloft, as we knew it would be, knew it had to be. Doomed to motion. Joined...