The People and the Power
by ROBERT G. KAISER 499 pages. Atheneum. $12.95.
THE RUSSIANS
by HEDRICK SMITH 527 pages. Quadrangle. $1 2.50.
The American view of Russia has been refracted over the last half-century through layers of repugnance, infatuation, loathing, horror, suspicion, complacencyand now, in doubts about détente, by suspicion again. It has run a course from Lincoln Steffens' fatuous "I have been over into the future, and it works" to the nightmares of John Foster Dulles. In imagining Russia, Americans have always had a tendency to project their own illusions upon a...