Books: Pay Dirt

GOOD AS GOLD (281 pp.)—Alfred Toombs—Crowell ($3.50).

Dum spiro, spero—while I breathe, I hope—is young John Henry Johnson's motto. What he hopes for, he tells his astonished Congressman Jack Fairweather, is some of the gold in Fort Knox. Impossible, cluck-clucks Fairweather. and just what would he do with it if he got it. The answer convinces the congressman that he has been catering to the screwball vote: "I've developed a process for changing gold into dirt."

Gangling John Henry is a goodhearted scientist who has discovered a mildly radioactive substance called Taurum while...