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The book makes accessible a selection of speeches and television appearances by Fidel Castro during the first two years of the Cuban Revolution, allowing for a fresh analysis of his ideological evolution towards socialism.

On March 17, 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved ''A Program of Covert Action Against the Castro Regime'' because [Fidel Castro] was moving toward Communism and a stronger relationship with the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, his Administration had begun to develop a paramilitary force outside of Cuba for ''future guerrilla action.'' On Feb. 3, 1961, the Joint Chiefs of Staff approved a ''Military Evaluation of the C.I.A. Paramilitary Plan - Cuba,'' but with the warning that ''it is obvious that ultimate success will depend upon political factors, i.e., a sizable popular uprising or substantial follow-on forces.'' The C.I.A. misled President John F. Kennedy about the likeli-hood of an uprising after the landing of the Cuban exiles' brigade. Secretary of State Dean Rusk later told a Presidential board of inquiry ''that the uprising was utterly essential to success.''

LEAD: A new set of events, not least the visit by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, suggests the possibility of a thaw in Cuba's sullen relationship with the United States. American domestic politics may, of course, preclude such a thaw. This would be unfortunate. Cuba's influence in Latin America is growing while ours is diminishing. Despite these signs, Washington has shown little eagerness for wider talks. President Reagan will sign a nuclear treaty today with the Soviet Union, which he has described as the ''evil empire,'' but negotiations with Cuba might be too much for Reaganite conservatives to swallow. This was a hard slap at the Administration by the so-called Group of Eight, which includes such staunch American friends as President Jose Sarney of Brazil and President Raul Alfonsin of Argentina. It was Mr. Sarney who proclaimed that ''we ought to struggle for the total integration of Cuba into the inter-American system.''

What we are given is a great man's doodles. And do great men doodle more than the rest of us? Perhaps it only appears that way, because their every doodle gets archivized, but more likely their greatness lies to some extent in a respect for the knowledge revealed through doodling. The saving grace of [Julio Cortazar]'s self-indulgent attempt to save every tidbit is that ''Around the Day in Eighty Worlds'' forms the record of someone seizing each opening offered, any corridor at hand, by which to enter that realm beyond words that we hem in with words like ''extrasensory,'' ''nonlinear,'' ''irrational.'' Despite his dogged refusal to yield up a moment's artistic revelation for the sake of ''Seriousness, that Lady too often heeded,'' Cortazar cannot help exposing his more sober intent. If he comes on like a frisky puppy dog, then he's one who's slobbering up against the collective unconscious. LIKE most members of the Surrealist tradition with which he identifies, Cortazar delights in hidden synchronicities and obscure controversies. And as with other Surrealists, nothing seems to intrigue him as much as the theoretical underpinnings of his quest. Despite his best efforts to find cosmic significance in the most far-flung subjects, he returns often and eloquently to the topics closest at hand. Foremost is the lifelong sense of dislocation that artists forge into their private vision. A statement entitled ''On Feeling Not All There'' is a beautiful evocation of the perpetual child housed in the poet and his consequent estrangement from the concerns that constitute adult reality. Then there are the tactics and impetus of his prior writing - though here too the author disdains tips on craft in favor of paeans to creation's requisite trance state. Instead of elucidating the themes in his body of work, Cortazar sees his task as ''multiplying its uncertainties.''

''What if?'' From stories of Presidential assassinations to tales of nuclear annihilation, some of the best political thrillers have begun by applying the hypothetical to the historical. With ''The Circus Master's Mission,'' [Joel Brinkley] has asked - and attempted to answer - the doubly intriguing question of how and why the circumstances might be created for a full-scale United States invasion of Nicaragua. Though recent efforts at demobilizing contra forces have undermined some of the urgency behind his inquiry, it seems natural that Mr. Brinkley, who covered many of the unreal twists in the Iran-contra scandal for The New York Times, should take a stab at reporting an event almost too palpable not to have happened. Mr. Brinkley's expertise shines through in two areas: military hardware and the working habits of the Washington press corps. The latter is considerably more vivid and humorous than the former, with its litany of ''Soviet T-55 and PT-76 tanks, plus BM-21 multiple rocket launchers.'' We learn, for instance, which press plane accompanying the President has the best food and that journalists formed dining societies called ''Tongs,'' after Chinese gangs. In ''The Circus Master's Mission,'' there's little awareness that characters, like Central American countries, must eventually go their own way. There's not enough evidence that ''what if?'' is a question for the human heart, too.