Letters

Deadly Dumping

To the Editors: After reading "The Poisoning of America '85" [ENVIRONMENT, Oct. 14], I have concluded that it will not be the Soviets who do us in. It will be toxic wastes and our own stupidity. Edgar Dorton Bowers Salisbury, N.C.

Your article identifies industry as the culprit in hazardous-waste dumping. Companies have not always used the best judgment in dealing with their toxic garbage, but we should ask ourselves why all these unwanted chemicals exist. We, the consumers who purchase these products, are also responsible for the by-products. David A. Moskowitz Litchfield, Conn.

One gets the impression from your article that virtually nothing has been done under the Superfund to clean up hazardous-waste sites. Nothing is further from the truth. Since early 1983, EPA has pursued an aggressive cleanup program. Long-term cleanup is under way at more than 400 national sites. At 300 other locations, immediate threats to human health and the environment have been eliminated and cleanup has been completed.

Your allegation that EPA "dribbled away" most of its Superfund resources "on a mismanaged effort" is inaccurate. All $1.6 billion authorized by Congress during the program's first five years has been spent effectively and with full accountability. The Superfund is definitely not the "feckless and confused" boondoggle you attempted to present. Lee M. Thomas, Administrator Environmental Protection Administration Washington

Several Sierra Club activists traveled to Washington in September to lobby for a strong Superfund law. We were shocked to learn that some Congressmen did not understand the impact of this year's Superfund proposal, which is much weaker than the one passed by the House in 1984. Public health is not an issue that should be sacrificed for political infighting. Doris Cellarius, Chair Hazardous Materials Committee Sierra Club San Francisco

Townspeople near the hazardous-waste site in Casmalia, Calif., allege that they are suffering from runny noses, bronchitis, sore throats, headaches and eye irritation. Santa Barbara county officials have been at work clarifying the problem. They found the area was experiencing a spider migration described by the agricultural commissioner as "common." If cobwebs can result in community hysteria and "burning skin and eyes," certainly the odors common to any waste facility have little chance of being understood. Jan Lachenmaier Director of Public Relations Casmalia Resources Santa Barbara, Calif. Soviet Charmer

Mikhail Gorbachev's attempt to seduce France and the NATO countries into accepting the Soviet line [NATION, Oct. 14] has been so blatant and sophomoric that it insults the world's intelligence. James W. Hook Albuquerque

If we continue to disbelieve everything the Soviets say or do, then dialogue between the superpowers is hopeless. We can do nothing but wait for a better day and more enlightened citizens. Domenic Lombardi New Castle, Pa.

In your article on Raisa Gorbachev, you call her "a member of the Moscow intellectual elite." Yet the majority of the true Soviet intellectual elite are imprisoned, in internal exile or expelled from the country. Marxist-Leninists have been systematically exterminating the country's intellectuals for the past 68 years. It is preposterous to call a professor of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, the only philosophy permitted in the Soviet Union, a member of the intellectual elite. Anton Koslov New York City Wooing Peasants

As someone who was in Nicaragua four times this year, I felt your article "The Sandinistas Hang Tough" [WORLD, Oct. 14] was decent. But why was it necessary to say the contras are "backed by a strong following among the country's peasant population"? In three years of fighting, the contras have not captured a single town or any significant territory inside Nicaragua. Abbie Hoffman Fineview, N. Y. Missing Scientist

The article "Another Return from the Cold" [NATION, Oct. 7] refers to the unexplained disappearance last March of my colleague, Scientist Vladimir Alexandrov of Moscow, and gives high prominence to the speculation that "Alexandrov was planning to renounce the nuclear-winter concept and may have been kidnapped by the KGB." Alexandrov's disappearance remains a mystery, but there is no reason to conjecture that he was planning to renounce the nuclear-winter theory.

In the nonpolitical, authoritative report on the atmospheric and environmental effects of nuclear war presented by the International Council of Scientific Unions, the steering committee stated that "a nuclear war could lead to large-scale climatic perturbations involving reductions in light levels and temperatures over large regions within days ..." The authors of this study included Western scientists from Canada, Australia, West Germany, and two members of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Paul Crutzen Max-Planck-Institut fuer Chemie Mainz, West Germany. Earnings and Products

In your story about the Philip Morris-General Foods merger [ECONOMY & BUSINESS, Oct. 7], it appears that you were only interested in supporting the thesis that the company was "cruising in the food industry's slow lane during the past five years." You wrote that General Foods' first-quarter earnings this year slipped sharply. Our fiscal 1984 first-quarter earnings in fact had been inflated by a one-time gain that year from the sale of our pet-foods business. Eliminating that extraordinary item, fiscal 1985 first-quarter earnings from operations were $1.65 a share, vs. $1.41 last year, or up by 17%.

Also, rather than having an uneven new product performance, we are generally recognized as a leader in new product introduction with such recent examples as Jell-O Pudding Pops, Jell-O Gelatin Pops and Crystal Light soft drink mix. Andrew J. Schroder III Senior Vice President, Administration General Foods Corp. White Plains, N. Y. DeLorean's Dilemmas

I am compelled to write and commend you for the accurate and considerate report "Another Roadblock for a Dreamer" [ECONOMY & BUSINESS, Sept. 30] on my recurring problems with a group of ambitious but frustrated U.S. prosecutors. Because I feel the timing of rehashed indictments was arranged to coincide with the publication of my book, it is reassuring to learn that some of the U.S. press corps still believe that Americans remain innocent until proved otherwise. The defamatory attacks against me by the Thatcher government in London and the irresponsible members of the Fourth Estate in the U.S. are held somewhat in check by the tenacious insistence on fairness that I find in your magazine. John Z. DeLorean New Yorko0 City

You state that I am included in a group of investors who hope to start a car-manufacturing facility with John DeLorean. I am not an investor in any car-manufacturing operation and am involved with the DeLorean automobile only as an auto-parts distributor. I have a complete inventory of DeLorean spare parts. Marvin A. Katz Columbus

TIME regrets the error. Terms of Trade

Your story "The Battle over Barriers" [NATION, Oct. 7] is a good review of the complex trade-policy issues. However, I would like to amplify one key point regarding my legislation dealing with subsidized natural resources pricing policies. Simply put, subsidized trade is not free trade. Subsidy practices by some of our trading partners have distorted the international trading system and hurt the ability of U.S. business to compete in the world market.

The legislation I am sponsoring would amend the definition of subsidy in U.S. trade law. When an exporting country provides its manufacturers with natural resources at below fair-market value, that government assistance would be a subsidy upon which a countervailing duty could be levied. However, this levy would apply only if the subsidies were determined to be injurious to U.S. industries. Sam M. Gibbons Chairman, Ways and Means Committee House of Representatives Washington

At a U.S. trade show, I once told an American manufacturer that his product had a market in Europe. "Why should I go overseas?" he asked. "We haven't even started to sell it in Kansas." Small-and medium-size U.S. manufacturers are apparently unwilling to make the effort to sell their products abroad or are ignorant about doing so. With only 250 companies accounting for 85% of all U.S. exports, American industrialists should concentrate not on creating protective measures against other countries but on stimulating and promoting U.S. exports. Bjorn Bieneck Stockholm