Two brothers -- one a presidential press secretary, the other a maverick captain on a Navy destroyer -- scramble to prevent a Libyan plot to use chemical weapons against Israel and the United States. Jim Schmidt is a master of spin. As White House press secretary, his job is to cajole, sweet-talk, and otherwise persuade the nation's most powerful journalists to play a story the way the White House wants it played. Jim's younger brother, Bill, is equally skillful, but in a different realm. He's the charismatic captain of the USS Winston Churchill, and he leads an able but rambunctious crew with a penchant for causing well-publicized "liberty incidents" around the Mediterranean. Both men instinctively understand their jobs, but more important, they understand power and how it works: He who controls the facts controls the response. So when the United States learns of a Libyan plot to drop a planeload of chemical weapons on the Israeli Knesset, the brothers -- thousands of miles apart -- unexpectedly find themselves working together to defuse the plan. Their first step is to set "Circle William," a Navy phrase meaning to prepare for chemical, germ, or nuclear attack. As Jim huddles with the country's top defense and intelligence officials to plot a viable strategy to prevent the strike, Bill, on the front lines of the crisis, prepares to implement the plan. Complicating their mission is the inconvenient presence of Sue O'Dell, a smart Washington Post Style reporter who wants to write a feature on the commander and his notorious ship. How the brothers counter the Libyan threat and how they spin the story make Circle William as much a story of international terrorism as a contemporary political thriller. Drawing from more than two decades of service in the U.S. Navy, his work inside the Pentagon, and from his tenure as an assistant White House press secretary, Bill Harlow combines the insider's detail of Primary Colors with the technical expertise of The Hunt for Red October. Circle William, as authentic and chilling as any news event, is an impressive debut by a writer with an intimate knowledge of the workings of Washington, the military, and international terrorism. A retired navy captain and former White House press secretary (and now the CIA's director of public affairs) crafts a thriller featuring two brothersAa naval commander and a White House press secretaryAcalled upon to run a tricky operation. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Libya plots a chemical weapons attack in this novice entry in the Tom Clancy Stakes. Target: the US. And possibly Qaddafi has Israel's Knesset in mind as a secondary target. So where has he hidden his bombs? And when does he plan to explode them? No one knows. Clearly, the Colonel thinks he's ahead of the game, but he hasn't reckoned on the Schmidt brothers, who turn out to be very bad medicine for him indeed. Bill Schmidt is captain of an American destroyer, Jim Schmidt press secretary to the President. There are those who look askance at the two, regarding them as loose cannons, and it's true they've been known to stray from standard operating procedure. Bill, for instance, is much more relaxed with his crew than strict, by-the-book Navy formalists find reassuring. Jim, meanwhile, is too quick with a quip, or so some think. And people remember that once in public he referred to a Cabinet member as a windbag and wasn't as dismayed by the gaffe as he should have been. But they do get things done, those Schmidts. When high-command counterplotting requires that a Libyan plane be shot down accidentally, Jim suggests Bill for the job. Bulls-eye! One Libyan aircraft dead in the water. When Bill, brilliantly, deduces the whereabouts of the deployed weaponry, it's Jim he calls. Result: the President is spirited out of harm's way and the stash brought to light in the nick of time. Thwarted by Schmidt grit and resourcefulness, Libya pays a heavy price for vaulting ambition, while Bill gets the girl. Newcomer Harlow is a retired Navy captain, a former Assistant White House Press Secretary to George Bush, and currently the Director of Public Affairs for the CIA. But he isn't (yet) much of a novelist. Though some of his characters are engaging and the Beltway stuff interesting, what should be gripping never is. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Marlin Fitzwater former White House press secretary Bill Harlow has captured the essence of almost every personality type the White House and Navy have to offer, with the uncanny authenticity of a man who knows both institutions intimately. True Washington insiders will recognize every character in Circle William. And he put them to great use, in a first-rate tale of high seas adventure and high White House intrigue. -- Review Captain Bill Harlow retired from the U.S. Navy in 1997, after twenty-five years of service, to become the chief of public affairs for the Central Intelligence Agency. He has serve