Letters, May 8, 1972

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Escalating in Viet Nam

Sir / President Nixon's resumption of large-scale bombing of North Viet Nam is the appropriate answer to that country's enhanced aggression against South Viet Nam [April 17]. That an aggressor army, equipped lavishly with the most deadly implements of war, should be allowed to ravage its neighbors while its own homeland remains exempt is ridiculous.

And let the Soviet Union refrain from fueling strife throughout the world if it is genuinely desirous of reaching a state of accord with the U.S.

EUGENE S. COOPER

Los Angeles

Sir / Escalating the war at this time is only one more arrogant act on the part of a corrupt Administration.

Thank God the time is near at hand when we can show our bullet-happy President the power of a ballot.

(MRS.) LOURENE CRIDDLE

Bellevue, Wash.

Sir / Three cheers for President Nixon for having the political courage to do what he feels is right in Viet Nam! I hope the American people realize the North Vietnamese are pulling a cheap political trick. They hope that we are gullible enough to elect a candidate who pledges total withdrawal, thereby leaving South Viet Nam open for immediate Communist takeover.

VIRGINIA MELHORN WELESKI

Newark, Del.

Sir / As an Italian, as a longtime war correspondent in Viet Nam, as the author of a book on the Viet Nam War, I have to answer the sort of judgment made by the unnamed Rand Corp. analyst who said that the South could hold out against the North Vietnamese "... unless the North Vietnamese are all Prussians and the South Vietnamese are all Italians."

I assume that he refers to the fact that the Italian soldiers fought with total lack of enthusiasm during the second World War and particularly in its last phase. Yes, indeed they did. They showed the same lack of enthusiasm that the American soldiers have shown in Viet Nam. Many times, while following your G.I.s in combat, I have had the impression that I was seeing Italians and not Americans. Do you know why? Because both those Italians and those Americans were fighting a war they did not believe in, a war they were ashamed of.

ORIANA FALLACI

Europeo Magazine

Milan, Italy

Sir / So, American fighter-bomber crews felt that they were doing something really significant in the Viet Nam War when the massive Communist offensive provided them with an actual view of the men they were destroying. The real significance lies in the fact that the U.S. has yet to come out of its own cloud cover and realize clearly the human toll we are exacting in Viet Nam.

DANIEL E. BIRNEL

Seattle

What It Means To Be Jewish

Sir / It was very flattering to be included in your story on the Jews [April 10] with a direct quote, but when I wrote that it is not membership in a synagogue that ties a Jew to Judaism, I was not underrating the Jewish religion.

I was making the point that in Jewish religion, it is not membership in a synagogue that defines the religious affiliation or originates it or exhausts it. Jewish religion and Jewish peoplehood are inseparable. The synagogue is merely one of the agencies of the Jewish community. Jewish identity is gained at birth.