Books: Problem for Carlos

REVOLT IN SAN MARCOS (433 pp.)—Robert Carver North—Houghton M/'f-flin ($3.50).

San Marcos wasn't much of a capital city, and the country itself was immemorially backward, wretchedly poor. Two percent of its people owned 80% of the land; tenant farmers got 2¢ a day, skilled workers 7¢ an hour. On the highlands, hungry Indians scratched the barren slopes for corn, still trying to live by what they remembered of the dignified old tribal customs. And ruling the country was Dictator Ronca, a strutting, streamlined Latin American demagogue who had won the peasants'...