The Restoration of Trust

Sir / Your Aug. 20 cover asks "Can Trust Be Restored?" Yes, but we will have to wait until Inauguration Day 1977.

DEAN P. BLANCHETTE

Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Sir / Until Nixon's Aug. 15 speech, it was possible that trust could be restored, and I hoped for it. After the speech, hope had vanished. Mr. Nixon wasted his last chance.

So long as he denies trust in the people's response to truth openly told, he cannot be trusted.

EDWARD J. FENCL

Homestead, Fla.

Sir / If trust is restored, just wait. It too will become inoperative.

KEVIN LEACH

Quincy, Mass.

Sir / I believe that since the press and the media took that trust away, it is time they restored it.

SALLY R. CLAYTON

Sioux Falls, S.D.

The Long Awaited Speech

Sir / In what was considered his greatest opportunity to recover the mantle of decency for his office, President Nixon again failed us as a nation. Indeed, in his Aug. 15 speech, Mr. Nixon exhibited his most common and dangerous mistake to date --underestimating and, hence, insulting the intelligence and perception of the American people. How are we to depart from our "obsession with the past" when the President's obvious lack of courage and candor makes the events of Watergate a recurrent shadow upon our present--and future?

SHARON DORSEY

Randallstown, Md.

Sir / In the wake of the President's Watergate speech, I reject even the thought of his impeachment! Let him hang there "twisting slowly, slowly in the wind" for three more years.

ERVIN MEREY-KADAR

Sylvester, Ga.

Sir / I was deeply disappointed and disturbed at Mr. Nixon's attempt to equate the abuses associated with Watergate with the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The actions of the 1960s were public breaking of laws by marchers and demonstrators willing to go to jail for their actions. The purpose was not to subvert the law but to openly demonstrate its injustice. The burglary, perjury, obstruction of justice and illegal wiretapping connected with Watergate were done in secret with the purpose of subverting the democratic process. When the President of the U.S. is so ethically blind as to be unable to distinguish between the two, I fear for America.

(THE REV.) WILLIAM L. WELLS

Pittsburgh

Sappers in the Shadows

Sir / Now might be a good time to look at the other side of the Watergate coin. To get specific, I am suspicious of the current attack on Vice President Spiro Agnew [Aug. 20]. The attack seems too well planned and all too well timed. I suspect that this is a calculated political effort by the media to lynch Agnew, even before a grand jury convenes.

Is it just possible that a Democratic team of sappers is already fighting the 1976 campaign in the shadows?

THOMAS B. GIVENS

Renton, Wash.

Sir / Et tu, Agnew?

FRED FEINGOLD

Hollis Hills, N.Y.

Sir / Is Nixon 1,000% behind Agnew?

SAM SERLIN

Chicago

Sir / Until recently Vice President Agnew criticized the press for its probing attitudes, not only during the current mess but in regard to other problems faced by the Nixon Administration. He was literally trying to abolish the idea of a free press, as provided for by the Constitution.

It is really ironic how, after all the criticizing, Agnew runs straight back to the press to use it to prevent his own downfall.

MIKE FANNING

San Antonio

Impeachable Offense

Sir / I was pleased to find that you had consulted my book, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems, for light on the question "Can Nixon and Agnew Be Tried?" [Aug. 20]. But I regret that you attributed to me the view that the "double jeopardy clause might preclude prosecution for the same acts that caused a President to be removed from office." This suggests that I regard an impeachable offense as criminal in nature, from which it follows that a subsequent prosecution by indictment would be barred.

I sought to demonstrate the contrary: impeachment is prophylactic, confined to removal, and does not require a criminal offense. If, I argued, the constitutional provisions were read to require a criminal offense for removal, then a second prosecution would be barred by double jeopardy.

RAOUL BERGER

Concord, Mass.

Home to Minnesota

Sir / I enjoyed your article on Minnesota [Aug. 13]. I suppose it is true that we can never go home again, but I do thank you for taking me there for a few minutes.

CARL D. KNUTSON

Bakersfield, Calif.

Sir / Minnesota may be the girl you marry, but Florida is the girl with whom you retire.

MRS. MICHAEL P. CONNOLLY

Miami

Sir / Minnesota may be the northern part of heaven, but I believe that North Carolina is the southern part.

MARTIN LEDER

Clinton, N.C.

Sir / You might have been describing Atlanta, my state, and my neighbors.

PAUL D. GEIGER

Atlanta

OK for T.A.

Sir / I was shocked at your depiction of transactional analysis in such a way as to suggest that it is superficial and belongs to the pop-psychology category of psychotherapy [Aug. 20].

Transactional analysis is being practiced by some of the most distinguished members of the psychiatric profession, who are getting important results.

WARREN D. CHENEY

Berkeley, Calif.

Sir / During the period that I was the director of a naval industrial-relations department, I knew of and shared in the T.A. programs. I found them to be of great value in assisting us in the improvement of human relationships. The direct language of T.A., uncluttered with technical jargon, was one of Berne's great contributions to psychiatry; people quickly appreciated his meaning and soon made use of his ideas.

KENNETH G. LAVIOLETTE

Berkeley, Calif.

Sir / Using T.A., a recent pastoral counseling situation took me five hours in two sessions. Former methods, relying on my college-major studies in psychology and my advanced training, would probably have taken six months.

T.A. has just one thing going for it: it works!

Of course, some psychiatrists are yelling. If you were losing business at $50 an hour, wouldn't you?

(THE REV.) WILLIAM HUNTER

The United Methodist Church

Coxsackie, N.Y.

The Sierra Club and Secession

Sir / Your article on Alaska [Aug. 20] treated the Sierra Club rather unfairly, focusing upon the exaggerations and extreme statements made by conservationists, and airing the industrialists' side of the controversy.

The Sierra Club does not oppose "progress and growth," in Alaska or anywhere else. We do oppose the construction of the Alaska pipeline on the grounds that alternative routes were not adequately studied, nor were sufficient studies done relating to possible hazards resulting from the trans-Alaska pipeline's construction.

SUSAN MARSH

Seattle

Sir / Speaking of the current secessionist movement in Alaska, can you imagine the consequences had Washington tried to tell Texans in the '30s that they could not lay oil lines across their state for fear of the effects upon the mating habits of the jack rabbit?

GEORGE H. RENEAU

Lafayette, La.

Sir / Alaskans, before you totally dismiss the conservationists, look at the Great Lakes, the Miami River, the air in Los Angeles, and at Newark and Philadelphia refineries. We "lower 48" have fouled our nest. Please learn from us.

KEN PETERS

Jupiter, Fla.

Segovia on Tour

Sir / Your report that Andres Segovia has retired and stopped giving concerts is incorrect [Aug. 20].

Mr. Segovia is definitely not retiring; he is contracted to tour North America for a minimum of eight weeks from Jan. 11, 1974, with recitals in major cities throughout the country.

WALTER PRUDE

Vice President

Hurok Concerts Inc.

New York City

It Inouye Stans to Reason

Sir / It is un-Dean-iable and Stans to reason that the unconscionable events outlined in your Watergate I summary have most Americans doing a slow Byrne. One need not Hunt for evidence that power tends to corrupt; it is Strachan throughout your account--the apparent motive being the desire for Moore power.

How deplorable that no one said Nixon the whole shoddy scheme. May the culprits, those now eating Krogh and especially the machinators, learn to (La)Rue their acquiescence.

The immediate future may look Gray, but when the Haldem(an) thing is settled, with better men at the Helms, the country will Kalmbach to more serene times.

SARAH MONTOYA

Monterey Park, Calif.

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