Vital Interests

To the Editors:

Harsh facts and hard choices for Central America [May 9]. More dollars, military advisers, covert activities. It is all so familiar. Is this what President Reagan calls our moral duty? Our only obligation to that region is to send food and other essentials for economic growth.

Luella Pepin

Swanville, Minn.

President Reagan delivered a stirring address on the menace in Central America. Unfortunately, the message did not penetrate congressional partisanship. In his rebuttal, Senator Christopher Dodd alluded to Reagan's not "going with the tide of history." The Senator prefers to forget Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the East bloc countries and the surrogate Communist nations in our own hemisphere.

Nicholas J. Romano

Colonel U.S.A.R. (ret.)

Sagaponack, N. Y.

Senator Dodd was on target when he said that "if Central America were not racked with poverty, hunger and injustice, there would be no revolution." The long-term solution to the problems of those nations is agrarian reform, redistribution of wealth, and economic assistance. If Central America were economically stable, the Soviets would have nothing to exploit.

Victor L. Negron

Rio Piedras, P.R.

U.S. intervention in support of military regimes and ruling oligarchies is the problem, not the solution.

Sherman Hasbrouck

Orono, Me.

When are the people of this country going to realize that we must stop the Communist threat in Latin America? Are we going to wait until the guerrillas cross the Rio Grande before we do anything?

Sharon Stephens

Sterling Heights, Mich.

Reluctant Allies

The participants in TIME's Atlantic Alliance conference [May 9] talked about everything but the essential point. European and American interests in commerce, defense and high technology have become so deeply divided that nothing can bring them together again. Good relations will come only when the U.S. gets its troops out of Europe. America's future lies in the Pacific basin, as is clear to anyone who travels there.

Charles-James N. Bailey

Berlin

Mediocre Education

Sad to say, the mediocrity found in our educational system [May 9] reflects our culture. Instead, education should set the standards for a society. The reforms recommended by the National Commission on Excellence in Education can help youngsters who have the potential to be educated. However, the proposals cannot compensate for role models that are lacking in the home. Education should follow its traditional function and resist social experimentation.

Murray Howden

Allentown, Pa.

This nation's public schools have been given too much responsibility. We have asked them to teach the three Rs as well as counsel maladjusted teens, train the handicapped, advise unwed mothers, prevent drug abuse--and give instruction in computer programming. Greater efficiency, not longer hours, is the only way our schools can meet our increasing demands.

Bennett A. Rafoth

Athens, Ga.

Your article on mediocrity in education is shocking. Yet have any of the educational decision makers bothered to ask students what we want? A majority of us are starving for an intellectual challenge. Invest the money. You will discover that we will pay it back a hundredfold in the long run.

Michael Fiorella Jr.

Ithaca, N. Y.

As the product of an educational system that did require four years of English, two years of a foreign language and three years of science and mathematics, I can now see that many of the studies were superfluous. They neither prepared me for college nor trained me for adulthood. My children will not be deprived of their adolescence, as I was, by the anxieties of excessive academic demands.

Todd H.Rich

Solon, Ohio

Westmoreland vs. CBS

TIME may be right in saying that the Westmoreland case [May 9] "could lead to an undesirable sapping of journalistic enterprise." But you neglect to add that it could result in limiting the self-corrupting privileges of the press. The extraordinary amount of libel litigation now in the courts, as well as the CBS treatment of Westmoreland, is evidence that some restraint is needed.

Lawrence Cranberg

Austin

Panning the Press

Let my son collect rubbish or sell used cars, but please do not let him be a journalist. The First Amendment is used as an excuse for lack of self-censorship, editorializing, incorrect grammar and false information. The constitutional justification for the press's behavior is a tired cliche that the public will no longer buy.

Paul Vaughn

Van Nuys, Calif.

Metric Measures

America's failure to measure up to metrics [May 9] is typical of this country's Government and its people. Americans are too ignorant and too lazy to learn metrics, and our representatives in Washington are too gutless to force us to change. Our inability to adopt metrics will ultimately make us illiterate, in contrast to the rest of the world.

Jerry Paduano

Santa Clara, Calif.

Using the present measurement system is as inefficient and archaic as using Roman numerals. If more Americans realized how easy it is to convert milliliters to liters as opposed to converting tablespoons to quarts, the metric system would be adopted immediately.

Alvin Jong

Palo Alto, Calif.

In the 1950s we Japanese established metrics as our legal system of measurement. Nevertheless, when I am in the U.S., I still say "six feet tall" instead of "180 centimeters tall." It is simply a more convenient and natural way of expressing myself. My advice to Americans is: Do not abandon your current measurement system even if you adopt metrics. After all, man is not a completely rational being. He needs to exercise a bit of irrationality now and then for a happy life.

Koji Akizawa

Glenview, Ill.

Congress may be able to "metricize" scientists, electricians and even winemakers, but we will never hear, "It's third down and .9144 of a meter to go."

Mark Martinelli

New York City This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.