Soviets in Cuba

To the Editors:

So President Carter is deeply concerned about the Soviet combat brigade in Cuba [Sept. 17]. I suppose he will demonstrate his toughness by insisting that they change to civilian clothing.

George F. Platts

Ormond Beach, Fla.

The Soviets have us coming and going. They put troops in Cuba, we panic, and they agree to remove their troops if we sign the SALT II agreement. That's what I call strategy!

Dorothy Diehm

Paramus, N.J.

We feel we have the God-given right to station thousands of troops and sophisticated armaments in countries surrounding the Soviet Union and to maintain a naval base in Cuba, but we now feel threatened by a few Soviet troops in Cuba. What arrogance! What hypocrisy!

Jose Ramon

Costa Mesa, Calif.

The Panama Canal was given away for fear the U.S. Army couldn't defend it against rebels, but these same old goats are going to stop the Soviet army in Cuba.

Mo J. Green

Redfield, S. Dak.

Lyndon Johnson said that American troops were fighting the Communists in Viet Nam so that later generations would not have to fight them on American shores. Now, 90 miles from the sand of Florida, 3,000 Soviet combat troops are deployed. Will the generation born in the 1960s have to do just what Johnson wanted to avert?

Nguy True

Arlington, Va.

This information is just what the SALT II critics have been waiting for in order to kill the treaty. The SALT II treaty is the product of hard work by devoted individuals and many concessions by both sides. It would be a pity for it all to be discarded merely because of the timing of an announcement concerning a virtually harmless Soviet brigade in Cuba.

Leigh Anderson

Seattle

You refer to Majority Leader Robert Byrd of Virginia. He is not. This Senator Byrd is from West Virginia.

Rabbi Israel B. Koller

Charleston, W. Va.

The Name Is Kennedy

How foolish, all this talk of Ted Kennedy for President [Sept. 17]. The only thing Kennedy has going for him is the name. Why don't we put this legend behind us and stop thinking of the Kennedys as our saviors? We have a decent, hard-working President in Jimmy Carter, and we should be thankful.

John H. Bullard

Ogden, Utah

By virtue of his consistency, intelligence and charisma, Ted Kennedy inspires the spirit that Jimmy Carter has always tried to capture. He is the vigilant knight who knows how to lead a stagnant country into a new era.

Frederick Cleveland

Milford, Mich.

It's coming, it's coming! It'll be here in January 1981. Camelot II.

David M. Snapp

Atlanta

In a sink-or-swim situation, do you really think we can trust Ted?

Elmer W. Flaccus

Tucson, Ariz.

Python's Venom The last paragraph of Richard Schickel's review of Monty Python's Life of Brian [Sept. 17] refers to "adults who have not had their basic premises offended, and therefore have not examined them, in too long." I don't know any adults --myself included--who don't have their basic premises offended nearly every day, and aren't constantly being called to reexamine, defend or reject them. Where in the world are these sheltered adults about whom Schickel speaks? Monty Python is so funny I will probably see the movie anyway.

Celinda C. Scott

Russell, Ky.

Schickel's use of the word "daring" to describe this movie is inappropriate.

In attacking the Christian religion, committed--at least officially--to nonviolence and forgiving insults, the Monty Pythons know full well they are shooting at a sitting duck, capable of only a few gentle protests. If they profess to be daring, I challenge them to bring out a Life of Mohammed. If they do. some zealous Muslims will no doubt use the film credits as a hit list, and the Monty Python problem will be swiftly and satisfactorily resolved.

Joseph Ferenc

Pasadena, Calif.

The Black Box

I knew that the reality of George Orwell's 1984 was creeping up on us slowly, but now it has arrived. Your story about the black boxes that give off subliminal mind-controlling messages [Sept. 10] was shocking. Inventor Hal C. Becker is playing God, deciding which mind-controlling messages are O.K. for the masses and which ones are not.

Chris Macaulay

Monrovia, Calif.

Becker says he has turned down politicians' requests to use his black box behavior modification. But if he can invent one, so can others. Then there could be messages like "I will vote Democratic/ Republican/Fascist." The black box should be outlawed.

William D. Dernis

Madison, Wis.

I object to my subconscious being tampered with, whatever the purpose!

Danielle Rose

West Los Angeles

Fear of Taxes

Contrary to Congressman Benjamin Rosenthal's feeling [Sept. 17] that fear alone, through tougher auditing of tax returns, will force people to declare their full income, I feel the carrot-and-stick approach will be more effective. That is, decrease taxes for everybody, perhaps to just 10% of income, but increase the penalties for tax dodging. Herein everyone will win.

Michael F. Heiman, M.D.

Cerritos, Calif.

It is remarkable that when the rich do it they are engaging in loopholes, tax shelters, reasonable profit, investment incentives, boosting the economy, private enterprise, employing the unemployable and tax advantage.

When the poor and middle class do it they are chiseling and cheating.

Darleen Lestrud

Greeneville, Tenn.

Americans in Paris

The letter from Hal and Cindy Cotter complaining about Paris [Sept. 10] reflects an attitude all too prevalent in many American tourists. I'm certain that if "no one cared" that the Cotters were lost, it was because of this attitude rather than the fact that they spoke no French. Any tourist who can dismiss the magnificent French capital as nothing mere than "a dirty city" should never be granted another passport. Such insensitivity and cultural blindness should not be exported.

Nancy Arias

Canton, Pa.

In 1972 I was in New York City. I did not speak English. I was lost. No one cared, not even the fat, unattractive American women. All I wanted was to get out of a dirty city.

Well now I speak English, and I have changed my mind.

Jean-Paul Deneuville

Bethesda, Md.

Trouble in the Amazon

Hats off to Daniel K. Ludwig! His Jari project to develop the Amazon jungle [Sept. 10] proves that a great deal can be accomplished while still giving high priority to the interests of the people. Thumbs down to the Brazilian government for its resentment of such a tremendous investment that will only upgrade Brazil's economy and benefit its people.

Mary Louise Mathieson

Houston

The Amazon basin holds one of the world's largest tropical rain forests. By conservative estimate, 1 million species of plants and animals inhabit the basin, species that could be useful in agriculture and medicine. In 1976 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. put the minimum destruction rate of the earth's tropical rain forests at 27 million acres per year, or 50 acres per minute. This rate may push the world's rain forests to extinction in a single human generation.

Would it be "tragic" if Brazilian environmentalists were able to block Ludwig's development? No, it would mean the preservation of an area of the world that provides refuge to North American migratory species and Stone Age Indian cultures, a rain forest system that may have global significance in terms of atmospheric purification.

Don Moore III

Syracuse

The abortion of Ludwig's plan would not be tragic for Brazil; quite the opposite, it would mean saving nature in one of the world's last few regions yet unspoiled by man's greedy hands. Who are you to say that what is good for the U.S. is good for Brazil, and that we have failed to rally the dedication that made possible the U.S.'s winning of its own West?

Daniel M. da Costa

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Lebanon Lament

As a Lebanese Christian whose village is occupied by the P.L.O., I wish to point out that Lebanese citizens of all faiths in southern Lebanon have been cut off from the rest of their country--as your map [Sept. 10] shows--by the Soviet-armed, Arab-financed P.L.O. armies. For the past ten years, they have stepped on our sovereignty, shattered our peaceful tradition and turned our country into a battleground, in their so-called pursuit of self-determination. Your story does not explain the Christian position adequately.

We have not taken up arms for some obscure reason, but to defend our freedom and existence in our country, at a time when the Western powers do not object to our destruction if it will keep the Arabs happy and the oil flowing.

Adonis El-Arz

Hamilton, Ont.

Black-and-White Issue

How curious that my friend Henri Cartier-Bresson should assail my friend Ansel Adams [Sept. 3] for "doing pictures of rocks" instead of being socially committed while "the world is falling to pieces." Except for a couple of chilling end-of-the-war shots of Nazi collaborators being interrogated in his homeland, and poignant images of quilted Chinese peasants playing mah-jongg during the fall/liberation of Nationalist Peking, not a single Cartier-Bresson photograph comes to mind about any of the world's miseries covered by other, often less gifted but more involved photographers.

David Douglas Duncan

Mouans-Sartoux, France

Victoria's Legacy

Lord Mountbatten was not Victoria's last surviving great-grandson as you said in the story on his funeral [Sept. 17]. Another one is still very much alive, and he even wears a crown. I know, because he happens to be my King, Olav V of Norway, son of Maud, daughter of King Edward VII, who was Victoria's son.

Susan Norbom

Commugny, Switzerland

Lord Mountbatten may be gone, but the sun hasn't set on great-grandsons of Queen Victoria: surviving in Portugal is Don Juan de Borbon, father of King Juan Carlos of Spain.

Jean Mason Albuquerque

The Year of the What?

Because of the way all those young women are thrusting their jeans-clad bottoms [Sept. 10] at us in print and on television, will this go down in history as the Year of the Ass?

Joe Cross

Greenwich, Conn.

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