Lieut. Calley (Contd.)

Sir: The trial was fair; the verdict was just. Nixon's response [April 12] was an outrage. When else in the history of American jurisprudence has a man convicted of premeditated murder been set free pending appeal?

PAUL J. GILLETTE

Carbondale, Pa.

Sir: It does not matter whether Lieut. Calley was guilty or not. When we send our boys to fight and die for us, we should stand behind them come hell or high water. If someone must be tried for a My Lai, then it should be the entire American public and our Government, not the poor devils who thought enough of their country to fight for it and us.

GEORGE F. DARNELL III

Burlington, N.C.

Sir: If Lieut. Calley is freed by a presidential pardon, it will be the first sign of compassion that Richard Nixon has shown in his 26 months as President. Predictably, it will be for a convicted murderer.

GREG FELDMETH Los Angeles

Sir: When the initial reaction to the Calley verdict burst out, I thought for a moment that I was one of a few sane individuals in a vast mental hospital. Surely this man was responsible for his actions toward the enemy, no matter how vile the system that spawned him.

CHRISTIAN Y. WYSER-PRATTE

Palo Alto, Calif.

Sir: I wrote Lieut. Calley a letter telling him that I am praying that he will soon be free. He fought for me and for all of us in beautiful America. He did what he thought best on the battlefield. He did not burn his draft card or say he was a conscientious objector.

(MRS.) ANNICE I. MASON

Corpus Christi, Texas

Sir: Your cover titled "Who Shares the Guilt" is the latest of a series of insinuations that really bugs me. I am not about to accept any blame for any of this fiasco. I was against the war to begin with, had no opportunity within the System to halt it, was taxed without a vote to support it and am about to be forced to send two sons to murder and be murdered in it. Let Calley share the guilt with the people who sent him!

LOUISE TEMPLE Ann Arbor, Mich.

Sir: You state that there is a "moral trap" in the position that Calley's guilt applies to all. For, as you reason, "if everyone is guilty, no one is guilty or responsible, and the very meaning of morality disintegrates." Christianity teaches that Christ came to forgive our sins. Would you argue that he need not have come, since at that time the whole world was in sin? Since God, not man, secures the meaning of morality, it is possible that we are all morally in the wrong.

WILLIAM CURLEY Northfield, Vt.

Sir: We Canadians sometimes find you Americans hard to understand, although we regard you as our best friends.

You write hundreds of letters protesting a seal hunt, but when your Lieut. Calley goes about shooting women and children, the same Americans try to make a national hero of him.

G.M. MACLACHLAN

Toronto

Sir: The Calley trial and its aftermath of recriminations, soul searching, protests, etc., must be a good joke to Hanoi leaders, who, without any qualms, have pursued the policy of annihilation of anybody who does not agree with them.

GEORGE MIHAILOFF

San Francisco

A Long Tradition

Sir: Your account of the Laos Operation Lam Son 719 [April 5] was less emotional and biased than most, until you button up your "report" with the unfair quip citing, as an old Army tradition, "There always is a scapegoat." How would you handle such a failure in leadership? The Army that you tear away at protects your right to do so--and has done so faithfully for almost 200 years.

A.P. CLARK

Lieutenant General

Superintendent, U.S.A.F. Academy

Colorado Springs, Colo.

Shaken

Sir: Your report on "Blacks" [April 5] shook me off my feet when it said that the demand that the U.S. take the lead in politically and economically isolating South Africa was "unrealistic." Does economic necessity really endear the South African to Americans? Paradoxically, is it not American financiers who helped revitalize South Africa's post-Sharpeville economy? Or is it that Mr. Nixon's Silent Majority might be alienated? South Africa also has a Silent Majority, which unfortunately happens to be black.

JASPER M. MSETEKA Lusaka, Zambia

Home to Roost

Sir: In your fine article about CBS's new series The American Revolution [April 5], you neglected to mention the greatest irony concerning the anticolonial Lord North. Namely, that his ancestral home, Wroxton Abbey, is now a branch of an American university.

SCOTT M. HUME

Wroxton College

Fairleigh Dickinson University

Wroxton, England

No Fancy Words

Sir: If the killing of unarmed thousands in Dacca [April 5] by the ruthless military machine of West Pakistan is not genocide, then what is? Don't hide behind fancy words implying that it is an internal affair of Pakistan.

AHSAN RAHMAN

Tunis, Tunisia

Sir: The Pakistanis are bent on exterminating the last living Bengali. The history of the 23 years of Pakistani subjugation of Bangla Desh is clearly indicative of Pakistani attitudes toward Bengalis. The events of the past two months leave no doubts in our minds or the world's mind that Yahya Khan and his Pakistanis are willing to use every method of mass extermination in an effort to keep the Bengalis enslaved.

SHAHRYAR AHMAD

JAMAL RAHMAN

SHAWKAT HASSAN

Eugene, Ore.

Sand in the Giant's Eyes

Sir: Your survey of Israeli opinion [April 12] points up that a large obstacle to peace in the Middle East is Israeli disrespect for the people who contributed to civilization nearly every technical and scientific innovation between 700 and 1500 A.D. Then the Arabs took a four-century nap. May God help his "chosen people" if the Israelis fail to see the awakening giant who is rubbing the last of the sand from his eyes.

JOHN W. FOSTER

Manhattan

Sir: The survivors of the "master-race" syndrome seem to be coming down with a touch of the same disease.

(MRS.) ANN WEINBERG

Brookline, Mass.

Sir: The questions on war and peace cannot be solved on the basis of bravery, laziness, superiority, inferiority or intelligence. Humanism, understanding, lawful rights, integrity and justice are more sound bases for peace.

B. KHOURY

Cincinnati

Saint Who?

Sir: With your article on the discovery of a painting by Rogier van der Weyden [April 5] you have a reproduction of a portrait with the title "St. Ivo of Chartres." There seems to be some confusion here. France's Ivo (Yves de Chartres) wrote collections of canon law, but it was St. Yves of Brittany who was the patron saint of lawyers and is renowned for his defense of the poor and for free legal aid to the peasants. He was Yves (sometimes Ives or, in Latin, Ivo) Helory, who was born in 1253 on his father's manor, Ker-martin. He was canonized in 1347.

The landscape seen through the window in the portrait might well be the valley of the Guindy River running northeast to its junction with the Jaudy, with Tre-guier on the right bank of the Guindy and Plouguiel on the left.

WILLIAM HADLEY RICHARDSON

Lieut. Colonel, U.S.A. (ret.)

San Diego

> The identity of the man in the portrait is still a mystery, but Reader Richardson is correct that St. Ivo Helory of Kermartin was known for his defense of the poor. The National Gallery titles the painting "St. Ivo(?)"

Future Mountains

Sir: The proposal to dump wastes into the oceanic trenches [April 5] merits serious consideration. However, by current hypotheses, sediments overlying these trenches are as apt to be squeezed into mountain ranges as to be buried in the earth's interior. Thus, eons hence, mountaineering expeditions could find themselves planting their flags on the garbage of the 20th century.

ANDREW EATON JUDITH REHMER Cambridge, Mass.

Sir: We question the efficiency of the geologic process of crustal assimilation to remove large volumes of waste material. The trenches may fill faster than the garbage can be ingested. New islands and reefs of curiously familiar material could be the result. Volcanoes could become smokestacks belching atmospheric pollutants on a scale never before imagined. On the brighter side, organic carbon under such conditions may be converted into huge quantities of diamond.

ERIC CHRISTOFFERSON

GARY RICHMAN

Kingston, R.F.

Sir: How humbling for the human race to be able to conceptualize its world as simply a big ball of recycled garbage.

JOSEPH LOMBARDI Bowling Green, Ohio

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.