Nation: THE MOON AND MIDDLE AMERICA

ERIC HOFFER, that relentlessly middlebrow longshoreman turned philosopher, applauds the Apollo program as "a triumph of the squares." The historic journey to the moon is infinitely more than that, of course, and Hoffer's phrase is mildly offensive. But he does have a point. The laconic Apollo 11 astronauts who returned to earth last week, and many of the people in science and industry who made the trip possible, epitomize the solid, perhaps old-fashioned American virtues. So do the thousands who came to see them off at the Cape and those who celebrated their...