Letters: Mar. 7, 1983

KGB Net

To the Editors:

We have good reason to fear the KGB [Feb. 14]. As your story points out, the KGB manages to sustain the illusion of being all-powerful "largely because Soviet citizens police one another." A society that reveres a child who turned in his father to the authorities is right out of George Orwell's 1984.

Susan J. Uttendorfsky

New York City

Although an open society is part of the American tradition, we should close our doors a little more for our own safety.

Gerald S. Kupkowski

Cheektowaga, N. Y.

Having Yuri Andropov in control of the Soviet Union is comparable to having had J. Edgar Hoover as President of the U.S. and director of both the CIA and FBI.

Robert C. Seward

Endicott, N. Y.

After reading of the KGB's brutal methods for repressing other countries, I realize how foolish and naive those liberals are who believe the Soviet Union wants peace. The U.S. is hardly responsible for the arms race or the instability in the world.

Howard Robinson

Springfield, Mo.

It is disgusting that American citizens would sell national-security information for a few thousand dollars. The only way to prevent this is to prosecute the KGB's U.S. agents for treason and sentence them to death.

Charles F. Weiss

Princeton, N.J.

Holding the Line

Captain Charles B. Johnson's remark "a lot of fuss over not that much of a deal" [Feb. 14] is accurate only in that he was doing his job by stopping Israeli tanks from crossing his position. Encounters like this are an extreme detriment to U.S-Israeli relations.

George M. Searles

Huntington, N. Y.

Armed with a small gun and a big principle, Captain Johnson stopped a tank from crossing into territory assigned to his care. A man who puts principle above the possibility of losing his job, his life or his popularity is rare.

Patricia Highsmith

Aurigeno, Switzerland

I would like to see Captain Johnson take a stand against one member of the P.L.O. instead of "against" three friendly tanks. Would he have the same courage?

Emanuel Israeli

Tel Aviv

Two Sides to Samoa

I am pleased that Anthropologist Derek Freeman has challenged Margaret Mead's work on Samoa [Feb. 14]. When I lived there in the early 1970s, I asked an elderly Samoan what he thought of Mead's book Coming of Age in Samoa. He replied that the only one who came of age in Samoa was Margaret Mead.

Jean Mehaffey

Harvey, N. Dak.

I take exception to Derek Freeman's attack on Margaret Mead. American Samoa, where Mead visited, and Western Samoa, where Freeman taught, are two different groups of islands. American Samoa is smaller and has all the advantages of being politically linked with the U.S. Western Samoa is an independent Third World country that was once under the control of New Zealand. Perhaps Freeman's work could stand by itself as an updated report on Mead's Samoa. After all, he is publishing his study almost 60 years after Mead did her research. Changes do occur in that many years.

Arly Smith Weider

Spring Hill, Fla.