Detente's Demise

To the Editors:

Has the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan [Jan. 14] been enough to awaken the sleeping giant? Get up! The country, or group of countries, that can best organize men and materials to its purposes is the one that gets to set the values. We've got the strength, but where's the will and purpose?

Ted Johnson

Williamstown, Mass.

As a Turkish student in this country, I am amazed to watch Americans trying to come up with all kinds of complex and sophisticated economic, political and psychological explanations for the Soviet motives in invading Afghanistan.

The Soviets operate with a rigid ideology that defines time as an ally, sets long-term objectives and a schedule to achieve them. They simply believe the state of things in today's world is temporary and intend, within the framework of a grand design, to change the world as conditions become favorable. Forcing them to do with less grain or fish will not be enough to change their minds.

Hakan M. Sozeri

Lexington, Ky.

Must they set up missile launchers on the White House lawn before they finally get our attention? Detente is not dead; it was never alive.

Leslie B. Cunningham

Jackson, Miss.

The U.S.S.R.'s big mistake is not that it has offended us. It has offended a nation with a large Muslim population; it has offended Islam. Let the Muslim people take the lead in dealing with the Soviet affront.

Robert Ward

Alexandria, Ky.

How can Carter hope to befriend Pakistanis when he supports the regime of their Public Enemy No. 1, General Zia ul-Haq? It will be yet another folly on the part of Americans to seek a partnership with a military junta.

M. Yahya Qureshi

Scarborough, Ont.

If President Carter should threaten to send our all-volunteer, drug-riddled armed forces into Afghanistan and Iran, the Soviets and Iranian militants would probably die laughing.

Dan Driscoll

San Francisco

Boycotting Olympics

I think expelling the Soviet Union from the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid as well as boycotting the Summer Games in Moscow [Jan. 21] would be a good idea.

Jeff Nelson

Walnut Creek, Calif.

In 1976, when most of the African countries boycotted the Montreal Olympic Games, the Western nations said: "Sports and politics should not be mixed." Surprisingly, they are now considering a boycott themselves.

Ashok Sharma

Las Vegas

I cannot judge whether the U.S. should boycott the Olympic Games, but I do wonder about the comparative costs of the movement of Soviet troops into Afghanistan and of the TV networks' right to televise the Games. Is it possible that the invasion was funded by NBC?

Allen Dale Olson

Karlsruhe, West Germany

A Crock of Ins and Outs

As for Washington Post Fashion Editor Nina Hyde's list of what's In and what's Out [Jan. 14]: Damn, I was just about to buy a Crock-Pot.

John G. Trumpower

Ocean City, Md.

Trends move fast out in this area. I think Jessica Savitch is already Out. Jane Pauley is In again, if she was ever Out, which I doubt. I had never heard of Nina S. Hyde before.

Katherine Niemackl

Topeka, Kans.

Ignorance About Old Age

Frank Rich's review of the film Going in Style [Jan. 7] shows lamentable ignorance about old age, and my wife and I can say that as authorities.

For most of us in reasonable health, old age is mediocrity and dull boredom. I'm not aware of anyone in our age bracket whose life makes "poignant statements" even if that of a film critic does. We identified easily with the three characters, not only as people we know but as people we are. We felt no deep sorrow when the two died, because death is not so much the tragedy of old age as is living beyond one's friends.

Ralph L. Reeder

West Lafayette, Ind.

Although I am far from elderly, I have sat on enough park benches to know that life from this vantage point is rarely animated, and conversation is often mundane. Life is filled with pauses. Although most screenwriters would have us believe that life is as articulate and breezy as a Noel Coward play, it is not so.

Douglas J. Cohen

Amherst, Mass.

The analysis of Going in Style reached us 14 hours too late. We spent New Year's afternoon at the local theater being thoroughly bored and disillusioned. I just wish you had included the adjective maudlin.

Margaret A. Hedges

Hagerstown, Md.

Bye-Bye, Bertie

The firing of Bert Parks as master of ceremonies of the Miss America contest [Jan. 14] is like firing Mickey Mouse from Disneyland.

Gary Francis

Sacramento

Replacing Bert with someone younger, like John Davidson, is a little like replacing Walter Cronkite with Henry Winkler.

Peter Collinson

Mount Pleasant, Mich.

The Fate of John Wilkes Booth

In your review of The Cosgrove Report [Jan. 14], you write that John Wilkes Booth was tried and hanged for Abraham Lincoln's murder. In fact, Booth was never brought to trial. Most historians agree that he was shot or shot himself in a tobacco barn in Virginia, following his escape from Washington, D.C., and pursuit by federal soldiers. Some of the other conspirators were given a mockery of a trial and were hanged.

Wendy Cowden

Spokane, Wash.

Cracking the Sound Barrier

Stan Barrett is undoubtedly the first person to travel on land at a speed faster than sound [Dec. 31], but he is not the first person to break the sound barrier on land. I have done it, and so have millions of other people.

The crack of a whip is a sonic bang.

Patrick Finn

Rio de Janeiro

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