RETIRE THE SYSTEM?

"Social Security is a pyramid scam. If anyone other than the Federal Government were running it, it would be called illegal."

William E. Hensley Jr. Sugar Land, Texas

CONGRATULATIONS ON A CLEAR AND CONCISE article on Social Security [Cover Story, March 20]. It is obvious that if we do nothing to deal with the system's finances, it will die. This crucial issue cries out for a leader with the courage to acknowledge the problem and deal with it before we run out of time. A pledge not to touch Social Security benefits is the most shortsighted and irresponsible of campaign promises.

Jim Batman El Cajon, California

A DISCUSSION OF THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL Security should not be cluttered with one-sided, inflammatory rhetoric. Although we all expect to live a full and healthy life, the sad fact is that 1 out of every 5 young people working today is going to die before reaching retirement age. And today's young workers have a 3-in-10 chance of becoming disabled before turning 65. Not one of the alternatives proposed in your story suggested how to replace the $52 billion per year that Social Security currently pays to more than 7 million family members of deceased workers and the $35 billion per year it pays to 5.5 million disabled people and their families.

Social Security's trust funds are not "an empty cookie jar," and Congress has not "raided it for hundreds of billions." Are you suggesting we should have been stashing Social Security funds in cookie jars and burying them behind our Baltimore, Maryland, headquarters? Your report did little to clear up the misunderstandings people have always had about the investment procedures of the trust funds, which by law must be invested in U.S. Treasury bonds. Congress, in turn, uses the money it borrows from Social Security for other purposes. The Treasury bonds are good, and the trust funds earned an impressive $29 billion in interest in 1994.

Shirley S. Chater, Commissioner Social Security Administration Baltimore, Maryland

O.K., KILL SOCIAL SECURITY, BUT KILL those unfunded, bloated government and military pensions first.

Lawrence T. Barnett Jr. Glencoe, Illinois

SOCIAL SECURITY IS A GOOD DEAL FOR ALL Americans. It keeps 12 million people out of poverty and allows beneficiaries to live with independence and dignity and to contribute to society. Workers' payroll contributions not only provide retirement benefits but also guarantee a disability benefit and life-insurance protection. Privatizing Social Security is a bad deal for today's workers.

Horace B. Deets, Executive Director American Association of Retired Persons Washington

AS A 24-YEAR-OLD WORKING MALE already overwhelmed trying to survive financially, why am I paying thousands of dollars a year to support Social Security recipients, many of whom don't need it, when I know I cannot hope to receive the same benefits when I get older? It is unfair, and I resent it. What makes it worse is that the government raids our Social Security funds, turning them into bonds that it will later have to tax us to pay off. Kill Social Security? By all means. Let's put it out of our misery.

Andrew Marshall Hermosa Beach, California

HOW LOW CAN IT GO?

IT IS PREMATURE TO STATE THAT THE dollar's role as the world's leading currency has been diminished [Business, March 20]. Which currency could replace the U.S. dollar at present? None can, but perhaps the European Union will introduce an alternative.

Jan A. Unger Rotterdam

THE DOLLAR IS A PAPER PROMISE THE world is fast losing confidence in for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that Americans are spending a hell of a lot more than they have or can ever repay. When the dollar meant something, gold sold for $35 an ounce. Now it goes for damn near $400.

George Haughey III Mays Landing, New Jersey

A WHILE BACK I NOTED THAT PEOPLE LIKE Thomas Edison had passed from the American scene. I said that Edison was alive and well but living in Japan. Now we can see the results of his move: a dollar made of lead, and a yen made of gold.

Geoffrey Gordon Edwardsville, Illinois

OLIVER STONE RESPONDS

YOUR ITEM "A SNEAK PEEK AT OLIVER Stone's Nixon" [Chronicles, March 20] totally misrepresents the film we are trying to make. I can only imagine the outrage Time's editors would express if someone obtained a very early draft of a cover story you were working on, circulated it publicly and then picked it apart selectively. I don't question your journalistic right to do this to me, but I do question the fairness of taking an early draft of a script that won't even begin shooting for another month and putting your own very twisted spin on it.

Oliver Stone Santa Monica, California

INSURGENTS WAY OUT WEST

HURRAH FOR THE "FREEMEN" AND MILITIAS of Montana that are contesting federal rights over public lands [Insurgencies, March 20]! The Constitution does not give the Federal Government the awesome power that it has assumed. It does guarantee rights to individuals, one of which is the right to property. The Montanans who are opposed to federal bureaucracy sound like true patriots to me. You display bias in portraying activists who believe in individual rights as ignorant, gun-toting people. They simply want the natural right to choose the course of their lives, to accept responsibility for themselves, and for the government to get out of the way!

Anita Miceli Sewell, New Jersey

RIDICULOUS! WHERE DO THESE WESTERN Yahoos get off calling themselves "freemen"? Don't they know we're all bound to pay taxes and obligated to get permits and licenses to do everything but breathe? As for their filing "homespun legal papers," how presumptuous for them to think they can enter the courts without the assistance of one of the Law Enforcement Growth Industry members--"licensed" attorneys. They must be paranoid about this one-world-government thing. They don't need to form militias. Don't they know the crime bill calls for bringing in Hong Kong police to protect us? Asserting their rights and protecting their freedom, indeed. What do they think this is--America?

J. Drew Foster Ringoes, New Jersey

TROUBLE IN THE BIG EASY

IN YOUR STORY ON CORRUPTION IN THE New Orleans police force [Crime, March 20], you imply that the reason police officer Antoinette Frank killed three people was that she was overworked and underpaid. But that cannot be the reason for triple murder. Here is another example of deviant behavior being "defined down'' to manageable proportions, affording Frank "victim'' status, rationalizing her heinous crime and making it more acceptable. She made a conscious choice to commit murder. She is responsible for that choice, and not the police, however corrupt.

Stephen A. Krohn Tulsa, Oklahoma

UNREST AROUND THE GLOBE

YOUR ARTICLES ABOUT TURMOIL IN ALGERIA and Pakistan most appropriately belonged in the same issue [Algeria, Pakistan, March 20]. Both stories reveal the hypocrisy and ambivalence of the West. Many Westerners are indifferent to the brutalities of the Algerian government because they justifiably fear that a takeover by the Islamists will mean savage beheadings, amputations and unfair treatment of women and minorities. The irony is that similar laws were instituted by General Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan, whose government had the full blessings of the West. The only way to defuse the situation in Algeria is to hold a free general election and require the Islamic Salvation Front to renounce extremism.

Mahboobul Alem San Jose, California

WOULD THE WEST ALLOW THIS CARNAGE to go on if Algeria were not a Muslim country? Algerians wonder why there was not a word of protest at the rape of democratic process in that country. In fact the West seems scared by the rise of Islamic nationalism, and could not accept the victory of the Islamic Salvation Front in the Algerian elections. If the international community wants cordial relations with the inhabitants of the region stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans, then it has to respect the aspirations of the Muslim masses.

Sana A. Choudhary Upper Darby, Pennsylvania

UNENDING BALKAN WAR

WHAT CROATIA'S PRESIDENT FRANJO TUDJMAN is trying to do is to free the Krajina region totally from the Serbian army of occupation [Croatia, March 20]. Let's not forget the U.S.'s own history, when colonists were compelled to deal with the British in exactly the same manner. To tag Tudjman a warlord is to imply that the "Father of Our Country," George Washington, was not a Founding Father but just another vain warlord.

Stephen Brailo Fallbrook, California

YOUR STORY QUOTES THE CROAT OBJECTION that the presence of U.N. peacekeepers in Croatia "legitimizes a Serbian occupation of Krajina, stealing away 27% of Croatian soil." In fact, those Serbs live there and have done so for more years than "Croatia'' has existed. Indeed, they do "occupy'' that soil, just as you or I occupy our apartments or homes. These Serbs own the land where their homes and farms are located, so one cannot honestly speak of their "stealing'' it. Until the Croatian government unilaterally left Yugoslavia, the "soil'' in question was Yugoslav soil.

Larry B. Coffey Charlotte, North Carolina

HANGIN' OUT AT A SITCOM

I GIVE A THUMBS-DOWN TO RICHARD Zoglin for his article "Friends and Layabouts'' [Television, March 20] about the new sitcoms that feature people just hanging out. His criticism of Friends is unwarranted. I am twentysomething and have to deal with the pressures of juggling college, a job and a social life. It is refreshing to watch a show with quality talent that allows its actors to keep a sense of humor while dealing with the unpredictable troubles that arise in their lives. If I want to see the harsh reality about job and relationship problems, I will just go and visit one of my twentysomething friends.

Deborah Sandorfy New York City

IN FRIENDS, ALL THE CHARACTERS HAVE jobs. It's just that their whole lives don't revolve around them. The reality is that a lot of twenty- and thirty- and forty- somethings spend most of their waking hours worried about how to get ahead at work or even just how to hang onto their jobs. We'd all be better off if more of us could just lie back and shoot the breeze with some Friends. Lighten up!

Milt Thomas Fredericton, New Brunswick