Letters: Jul. 7, 1997

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SHOULD HE DIE?

"It is essential to our own peace of mind that we be able to forgive Timothy McVeigh. And he can most easily be forgiven if he is dead." KANE MCADAMS Scituate, Mass.

You said that it might be best if Timothy McVeigh were not executed [CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, June 16], "to deny him his bid for martyrdom, to keep him earthbound and watch him slowly wither...just another old jailbird shuffling around his cell." But McVeigh will never be a martyr in the truest sense of the word, which comes from the Greek word for witness. It connotes one who testifies for his beliefs with the ultimate passionate guarantee of sincerity and a willingness to die for them. McVeigh stood on his right to silence and did not admit to the bombing or seek to justify it. No one will be converted by his death to an ideology that he did not publicly embrace. No armies will march to the strains of Tim McVeigh's Body. GEORGE R. NOCK Tacoma, Wash.

It is wrong for us to allow the Timothy McVeighs of this world to define the American culture and, by use of the death penalty, turn people in our society into murderers. Let us take that power away from the McVeighs and expend our efforts in defining ourselves. I don't believe we are a nation of killers. Our compassion, our creativity, our potential to heal and be gracious and forgiving should prevail at times of pain and loss. We are better people than our eagerness to be executioners would indicate. ROBERT H. ILES San Jose, Calif.

I am no fan of the death penalty, but if not McVeigh, then who? Perhaps some people will understand his hatred of the Federal Government and his desire to blow up the building in Oklahoma City. Perhaps some will even be persuaded by his delusions that Federal Government workers were his enemies and that he was driven to attack them. But to deliberately choose a time that would kill the most people defies imagination. The retiree checking on his Social Security payment was McVeigh's enemy? The veteran applying for a Veterans Administration loan was his enemy? Parking a van loaded with explosives in front of a day-care center and blowing up 19 babies? No amount of psychobabble and stories about McVeigh's childhood can explain an act so heinous. ERICA PASCAL Chicago

The effectiveness of the death penalty as a general deterrent will always be debated, but there can be no doubt that it is the ultimate specific deterrent: dead people do not commit crimes. LEN B. LOVEDAY Lewiston, Australia

Death by injection is too painless. Life in prison is comparable to a stay at camp. Let's reinstate hard labor and send animals like McVeigh to Devil's Island, the way the French used to. FRANCOISE M. RICH Universal City, Texas

While the families and friends of the Oklahoma City bombing victims have my deepest sympathy, I cannot help shuddering at the inhumanity displayed by the people who cheered when McVeigh was sentenced to death. This showed they are capable of the same anger and desire to take a life. Are we no better than he is? JEFF GEBAUER Dubuque, Iowa