The 480

This is the story of an extraordinary Presidential campaign, of unwanted fame and public responsibility thrust upon a very private citizen, of love tested and courage found, and a new breed of political expert who believes that voters can be sold a candidate as readily as a housewife is sold a name-brand toothpaste.   The “new underground” in American politics has divided the electorate into 480 groups for purposes of identification, classification—and perhaps manipulation. So says Eugene Burdick, world-famous novelist and political scientist.   Squeezed into one or another of 480 categories, a voter's social attitudes, background, education, and environment are recorded by pollsters, scrutinized by psychologists, and stored in a computer. Thus modern technology has given the manipulators infinitely dangerous new weapons.   On this theme, Mr. Burdick has written a novel so powerful in impact, so immediate in its application, and so disturbing in its implications about the American political system, that no reader will be able to put it aside.   Mr. Burdick's candidate for the Presidency is John Thatch, an unknown American engineer building a bridge between India and Pakistan which suddenly takes on international importance.