The lead article in the current Advocate, "War Trial: Malmedy," seems strangely out of place in what is by rights a literary magazine. It is of topical interest, fitting in with what seems to be the Advocate trend started with "The Jew at Harvard" and continued last month by "The Club System: Pro and Con," but one wonders where this going afield on the part of the Advocate editors will lead.

In all fairness, the writing in Ted Lewis' article on the Malmedy trials is far more successful than previous attempts at the topical article have been. It deals with the efforts of military prosecutors to convict the officers and men of a German regiment for the murder of American prisoners of war during the Battle of the Bulge, and is a straightforward account of brutal tactics used by the prosecution, based on facts which the editors say were uncovered but not printed by a large metropolitan daily. As a piece of reporting, the Malmedy article is a fine job.

But despite the earnest statement of the editors that it is "one which, we are confident, is of much importance and will be of interest to most students," it is precisely because the article is a piece of reporting that it doesn't belong. There are no conclusions drawn, only statements of alleged fact--not at all what one is looking for or what one expects to find in such a magazine as the Advocate.

One the other hand, Pierre Schneider's sensitive piece of criticism, "Celine, A Lasting Scream," shows what can be done in a critical vein. Schneider, in his analysis of this novelist's technique, does an excellent job of evaluating the contemporary novel in general, the novel whose author "plucks only the lowest and smoothest cord." He catches and understands the power that Celine's works carry, and acutely dissects the reason's effect of that power on the reader.

Peter Clayton's debut to the Advocate's pages with his story, "Miss Hadley's Lover," falls flat. His account of the struggle of a middle-aged mission teacher with herself reaches the heights of feeling only in awkward spasms. In his attempts to create emotion through language Clayton loses himself in involved prose. His characters lose reality in the process.

The best part of the issue is the poetry. The Garrison Prize poems, "England, 1935," by L. E. Sissman, and William Morgan's "Two Hymn Tunes," are sonorous works. Sissman's piece shows the author's ear for sound ("Battersea's four gaunt towers in their dreams fumed") and atmosphere, but Morgan's poem, especially his second "Tune" shows the greater sensitivity. John C. Fiske makes the standard reply to William Carlos Williams in his "Lines" to that poet ("Let us not call traditional forms a crime/Lest innovation be the thief of rime") but his poetic rebuttal is too contrived to be successful.

The book reviews continue on their consistent good level again this month. Leonard Friedman's criticism of Cybernetics makes a well-put case for work in the social sciences against the mechanical brain. Checking the balance sheet, the current issut is a better than average Advocate.