Capitalism

To the Editors:

Capitalism in the U.S. is alive and working [April 21], but it is not well. And you can thank the Federal Government for that. It is excessive governmental controls that have killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

William B. Mullan Jr.

Chester Springs, Pa.

In response to the question on your cover: yes, that is exactly what capitalism is--working.

James Silver

Ann Arbor, Mich.

You glibly gloss over serious charges against capitalism, among them the perpetuation of gross inequalities of wealth and consequently opportunity, ecological disaster resulting from a system that favors corporate profits over a clean environment and human welfare, stress on the individual. Capitalism offers economic freedom only to those who already have the capital to play around with.

Karen Erdos

Waterville, Me.

To cure the Depression, capitalism was forced to save itself by creating the economic mechanisms that produced inflation and the consumer mentality. Capitalism had to destroy the Protestant ethic of thrift and create, through advertising and other mechanisms, a hedonistic culture of free spenders. Now this solution threatens capitalism, so we are told to stop spending, stop consuming.

Mark Colvin

Santa Fe, N. Mex.

Our American manufacturing economy is at a crossroads in this decade. We are either going to learn to make the most of the system as the Japanese do or become a second-rate industrial nation like the United Kingdom. Nobody has said it better than George Taber: it is time for management, labor, government and our educational institutions to quit kicking the system and each other and concentrate our efforts together on making it work.

Oliver W. Wight

Newbury, N.H.

Palestinian Identity

The Israeli policy is that there are no Palestinians [April 14], just "residents." Unfortunately, Israel seems to believe that ignoring the Palestinians will, in time, make them disappear. As evidenced by their pride and obsessive desire to return to their lands, the Palestinians are hardly willing to conform to this wish. Since we support the Israelis unswervingly, I think it is our ob ligation to awaken them before their dream world collapses into a bloodbath.

Raymond Porfiri

Coral Gables, Fla.

Thirty years is too short a period to forge a national identity. The word Palestinian is used as a club with which to beat Israel. Were Israel to be destroyed, its territory would be seized by Jordan or Syria, and the Palestinians would resume their former status as Jordanians or Syrians. Paradoxically, it is Israel that gives life to the Palestinian dream. They could not survive as a separate people.

Baruch Goshen

Johannesburg

One aspect of supreme importance that may decide the entire Israeli-Palestinian issue regardless of politics, history and hatred was neglected -- that of demography. The population growth of the Palestinians inside Israel is greater than that of Jewish Israelis. Should this unbalanced population growth continue, the Israelis will find that by the end of this century, almost half of the inhabitants will be Palestinian, and by 2100 the Jewish Israelis will be a minority in the land they wrested from the Palestinians.

Martin Watterson

London

The Liddy Life

Watergate's G. Gordon Liddy [April 21] resembles a robot programmed for death, destruction and mayhem when the proper buttons are pushed. We are fortunate that as bad as they were, Nixon, Mitchell, Haldeman, Dean & Co. never pushed the ultimate button.

Mrs. Frank I. Ford

Cleveland

The interesting question is not how lunatics become lunatics, but how they attain positions of authority.

Pat Kelly

Cambridge, Mass.

G. Gordon Liddy was misborn. Had he entered the world in Germany around 1915, he would have been in the right place at the right time to participate fully in Hitler's mad melodramatics and violent follies.

Jack Risdell

New York City

Thanks for offering such a generous sample of Liddy's self-revelations. They have a horrid fascination. The sad thing is that Liddy is so obviously unhinged. That he is running around loose again frightens me even more.

G. Aubrey Young

Fort Collins, Colo.

To G. Gordon Liddy's self-imposed requirement to eat a roasted rat and his activities as an adult, I can only remark, "You are what you eat."

Kaleen Ann Knee

Studio City, Calif.

Liddy's saga of political pornography belongs in a case history of schizophrenia.

Jim Polk

St. Augustine, Fla.

Cuba and the Undesirables

It is amazing that Fidel Castro would label those Cubans who sought asylum at the Peruvian embassy in Havana bums, delinquents, drug addicts and prostitutes [April 28]. Since most were people who grew up under Communism, it seems inconceivable that there should be any such elements left. As a former Cuban refugee, I tend to believe that the real un desirables are the ones in power now.

Miguel Milanes

Oklahoma City

Was not Odysseus' horse a "present" for Troy? Might there be any similarity to Castro's "refugees"?

Josephine Spemann

Winchester, Mass.

Good Man, Uncertain Leader

Hugh Sidey's "Too Good a Samaritan" [April 21] offers an excellent explanation of why many of us admire President Carter as a person while questioning his ability to lead our country. I hope Mr. Carter keeps in mind that when America turns the other cheek, the cause of freedom is left practically unprotected.

Franklin Rosell

Miami

It is ironic that the very qualities described by Sidey--compassion, concern for the individual and restraint in confronting one's enemies--that led the people to choose Carter as their leader may be the reasons for his ultimate downfall.

Helen W. Joffe

Hamilton, Ohio

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