Letters: Dec. 6, 1968

Historical Precedent

Sir: Your article, "NATO: In the Wake of Illusion" [Nov. 22], was interesting. Americans are aghast when the Soviet Union issues the Brezhnev Doctrine. Why? The U.S., in 1823, announced to the world the Monroe Doctrine to support our own intervention, imperialism, and hands-off policy in this hemisphere. The Russians are simply learning from their equally ambitious counterpart how to deal with troublesome neighbors. Tit for tat, no?

RICHARD E. LANNING Berea, Ohio

Sir: The alarming buildup of U.S.S.R. military force in the Mideast reflects U.S. ineptitude as much as Russian strength. Given our NATO treaty arrangements with Turkey and that nation's stranglehold on Soviet entry to the Mediterranean, it is hard to believe that imaginative U.S. policymakers could not take counteractions (e.g., an American "presence" in the Black Sea) that would give the Russian Bear a severe case of twisted tail.

DALE TAPP Seguin, Texas

Now Hear This

Sir: You mistakenly gave Il Bandito of MAIRAIRMED [Nov. 22] the name of Richard instead of Edward, which may disturb all the junior officers who have called him "Eddy Shoutlaw" for years behind his back.

Admiral and Mrs. Outlaw very kindly invited me to be their house guest on my way from Athens to Malta to join my husband, Captain Baldwin, skipper of U.S.S. Forrestal. Our reunions in both port cities were slightly marred during the wee hours of the morning as the captain awoke, shouting and pounding me under the assumption Russian Badgers were engaging in an overflight.

In the event no one has yet answered your question as to what the Russians are doing in the Mediterranean, they are making it hard for Navy captains and their wives to enjoy an occasional quiet week ashore.

JUNE WILSON BALDWIN Virginia Beach, Va.

Doing What's Done Best

Sir: Helping backward nations grow food [Nov. 22] is not necessarily the wisest course for them or for us.

An area that is not isolated and can trade with other areas need not raise its own food, and in some cases should not. For example, it would be worse for us and for the Arabs for them to devote all their resources to growing pitifully little food rather than to producing a great deal of oil, trading a little of it for an abundance of food and the rest for whatever else they choose.

Similarly, it is in our own interest to assist backward areas to do what they can do best (however badly that may be) in terms of what we need most—even if that involves our going back into food production on a grander scale.

A. ROYALL WHITAKER Associate Professor of Economics U.S. Naval Academy Annapolis, Md.

Sir: I think TIME somewhat mistook the emphasis of C. P. Snow's Westminster College speech. Snow's prediction of disaster was not premised upon a future failure of resources, nor upon blunders yet unmade —but on the continuation of present trends that show no sign of changing.

It's not for lack of food, for instance, that we now permit starvation in Biafra. Nor is it for lack of available technology, in the main, that India fails to curb its birth rate. The problem in each case is that people who could do something don't —and won't—and can't realistically be expected to.