Pick of the paperbacks; The Nazi/Shokie Conflict: A Civil Liberties Battle, by David Hamlin. Boston: Beacon Press. 184 pp. $6.25.

Seldom has the American Civil Liberties Union's decision to defend an individual's right to express a viewpoint fostered such animosity as its decision on April 27, 1977. The ACLU chose to defend the right of self-proclaimed Nazi Frank Collin to stage a rally in Skokie, Ill. -- a community where some 7,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust live. The case was the subject of a widely publicized TV program last season. Author David Hamlin, then executive director of the ACLU, gives an impassioned view of the events and the attempt to uphold the First Amendment.