To the Editors:

The Central Intelligence Agency is not a threat to our liberties and never has been. It is composed of dedicated officers who have high standards of integrity and patriotism. Should anyone attempt to subvert the agency to purposes that would threaten our society, CIA members would be the first to sound the alarm.

But the CIA is still a problem. Intelligence agencies rely on secrecy and deception. Yet secrecy corrodes public confidence in the Government and trust between the U.S. and other countries.

The problem is magnified when intelligence agencies engage in covert action, attempting to influence events, as we did in Chile. Covert action is questionable on moral grounds. It is expensive in dollars and in political repercussions. But the real irony is that these operations are rarely effective. The CIA is given credit for everything mysterious that happens in the world, but the truth is that the agency is not that good.

The main point to be pondered, however, is the way our policymakers use the CIA. In a world of sovereign states we need an intelligence agency, and as intelligence agencies go, the CIA is fairly good. The problem occurs when Presidents and Secretaries of State begin to think that James Bond has any relevancy to the real world. It is not William Colby who should be brought to judgment about the U.S. role in Chile, but Henry Kissinger.

Roger Hilsman

New York City

The writer was an OSS combat officer during World War II, and in the 1960s served as the State Department's director of intelligence and research and as Assistant Secretary for Far Eastern Affairs. He is now a professor of politics at Columbia University.

qed

President Ford's glib defense of the CIA's covert involvement in the internal political affairs of Chile represents a remarkable rejection of our professed foreign policy goals. One wonders how he squares such tactics with the often-cited rationale for our involvement in Viet Nam: to allow national self-determination.

Richard G. Williams, M.D.

San Francisco

qed

The salutary cleansing of America, symbolized by the Administration of Gerald Ford, cannot be completed without inquiry into the operations of the CIA. If the superannuated sleuths of Watergate had their counterparts in the tragedy of Cyprus, it is time to call a halt. If investigation reveals CIA activity in relation to Cyprus, President Ford or Congress should terminate this virtually independent organization that has so often worked against the best interests of America and the world.

William L. Reese Athens

Oil, Food & Greed

It was interesting to hear President Ford's complaints at the United Nations concerning the efforts of the Arab countries to curb oil production in order to hold up the price. Remember a few years ago when a certain wealthy country urged its farmers to put land in the soil bank to curb food production?

The effect was to keep prices up.

The Arabs may have taken some of their lessons in greed from the Americans, who limited food production while much of the world went to bed hungry. Now that the price is right, we are willing to sell food to hungry people. The Arabs are learning fast.

Paul Kleinheksel

Holland, Mich.

qed

While large parts of the world starve, Americans overeat as they overfertilize their green lawns. We deserve the hog as a national symbol.

Nancy I. Jordan

Satellite Beach, Fla.

Challenge to Jaworski

In future years the courts may well find that President Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon was invalid. What a mockery of justice it will have been if Special Prosecutor Jaworski's failure to investigate and prosecute Richard M. Nixon followed from a failure to test the legality of the pardon now.

It was reported earlier that Mr. Jaworski advised the grand jury that it could not indict Mr. Nixon while he was President. In that instance, Mr. Jaworski should have had the court issue instructions to the jury rather than make his own bold assertion on a matter of questionable legal basis. Did Mr. Jaworski fear a court ruling?

With regard to a valid exercise of the pardon power, experts concur that the pardoning authority must know fully what it is that he is pardoning. Since President Ford never conferred with the Attorney General or the Special Prosecutor or Judge Sirica, he never knew the specifics for which he was pardoning Mr. Nixon. Should not Mr. Jaworski be raising this issue in court?

The opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court in the recent case of the U.S. v. Nixon upheld the independence of the special prosecutor's office. It stated that the President had waived his constitutional powers that would interfere with the jurisdiction, investigations and possible prosecutions by the office of the special prosecutor. Yet Mr. Jaworski is not making the slightest attempt to uphold his own solemn oath of office and the independence of that office by obtaining a court test of the pardon. There is also the question of whether Nixon's waiver of constitutional authority extends to his successor's pardoning power. No one can doubt that the pardon has interfered with the investigations, jurisdiction and possible prosecutions arising out of Watergate.

It is time for Mr. Jaworski to show the same forthrightness that his predecessor Mr. Cox did and fight for the independence of his Watergate investigations and prosecutions so they can get to the man at the top.

Richard Sprague

Philadelphia

The writer is first assistant district attorney of Philadelphia County. He won the convictions of former United Mine Workers President Tony Boyle and others for the murders of Jock Yablonski, his wife and daughter.

Many Hooded Hominids

Despite the myth long cultivated by Northerners--that everyone above the Mason-Dixon line is a Ralph Waldo Emerson and everyone below a hominid in a hood--it has always been clear that racial pain is not limited to any one section of this nation. Boston is no exception, just as Pontiac was no exception. Just as Selma was no exception. Hostility to integration has been democratically distributed throughout the country, and institutional racism is as American as apple pie.

The people of Boston are now paying interest on debts incurred by their leaders many years ago. In 1849, for instance, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered a young black girl named Susan Roberts to attend a segregated school in Boston rather than a school near her home. Now, 125 years later, Boston is living with the consequences of this dark part of its legacy.

Boston will survive. The city is fortunate in having courageous leaders like Mayor White and Senator Kennedy. It is their difficult task to defuse time bombs that were ticking in this country more than a century ago.

Richard Hatcher

Mayor

Gary, Ind. m

qed

There are three important lessons in the agony of Northern integration.

The first is that postponing difficult political decisions can have disastrous consequences. Twenty years ago, black people pressed for the desegregation of Northern schools. Had the necessary action been taken then, integration could have proceeded peacefully, and probably without widespread busing.

Second, racial progress cannot be gained at the expense of white working people. Far too many integration formulas require sacrifices of the working classes while asking nothing of the middle and upper classes. This is morally wrong and dangerous; it makes political coalition more difficult.

Finally, racial advancement requires a Federal Government committed to full integration. We have certainly learned in the past five years the consequences of having a President who is actively hostile toward the plight of blacks. When the nation's top leadership encourages non-compliance with court orders, it is no wonder that the resistance of ordinary citizens stiffens.

Bayard Rustin

New York City

The writer, who is executive director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, is a longtime civil rights leader.

Keeping Pan Am Aloft

It gives me a bad case of jet lag to think that the Government may have to provide a "temporary" subsidy to keep Pan Am aloft. The list of private companies kept alive with public funds must not be allowed to grow.

I have long felt that restrictions and regulations played a large part in killing the railroads. Now these same actions are doing it to the airlines. I hope that one day, before it is too late, Government will remove some of the shackles that it continues to place on our once-successful free-enterprise system. If Government would keep its nose out of business, and business would do the same with Government, all of us would be a lot better off.

Art Flatt

LaGrange Park, Ill.

qed

The U.S. Government, and chiefly the CAB, has discriminated against Pan Am so thoroughly and consistently that at this point, a once strong and healthy carrier has been set up for the knockout punch. The CAB has the choice of partially righting its past wrongs, and justice is obviously long overdue!

Joseph W. Dalton

Pan Am Co-Pilot

Harwinton, Conn.

qed

Let Pan Am die. We have a number of U.S. carriers that are fit and able to take over those certificates of public convenience and necessity.

Robert Ryan

Houston

Inevitable Sexism

To my amazement, I found myself agreeing with Mike Collins and Arthur C. Clarke [Sept. 23]. Male astronauts certainly would be distracted by the sight of female astronauts' breasts bobbing weightlessly. The spacemen would not be able to perform their duties. It is not a case of cruel discrimination; it is simply a biological fact.

As a woman, I have had to come to a very painful but inevitable decision. After all, the effectiveness of the space program must come first. We must exclude men from the astronaut program. We'll miss them.

Sharon Smith

Hartland, Maine

Aegean Oil

As legal counsel for Oceanic Exploration Co. of Greece, Hellenic Oil Corp., Wintershall A.G. and White Shield Greece Oil Corp., we wish to state that your story "Big Troubles over a Small Island" [July 29] was incorrect in reporting that a major discovery of offshore oil in the Aegean Sea near Thassos "is situated in an area where the continental shelves of [Greece and Turkey] overlap, causing arguments about ownership." Our clients discovered the oil referred to and are the owners thereof.

The offshore area of this discovery is situated within the territorial waters of the mainland of Greece (Thrace) and not, as erroneously reported, in its continental shelf. Further, there is no overlapping of the continental shelves of Greece and Turkey in the area of the discovery. The overlapping of continental shelves of the two countries, as claimed by Turkey, exists in other areas of the Aegean Sea. Hence there has never been a dispute between Greece and Turkey over the ownership of the area where the major oil discovery made by our principals is located.

K.S. Kyriakides

K.S. & C.K. Kyriakides Law Firm

Athens

Tomorrow's Candidates

We are aptly described as the self-centered generation [Sept. 23], but I do not believe that we are so different from our older brothers and sisters. Granted that today's students are more blatant about their aspirations. We do not have to worry about being sent to Viet Nam. Our predecessors did not have to reckon with serious inflation.

Many of us are intensely interested in reform and intend to achieve it from within the system. The demonstrations of the late 1960s were very useful in drawing attention to areas that demanded action. Now the process of carrying out change and discovering new areas for change must be of concern. People are needed within the system in order to help in that process.

Finally, I was surprised by the comment that students today show almost no interest in politics. Here at Oberlin I know of at least two future U.S. Presidents besides myself.

Marc E. Chafetz

Oberlin, Ohio

qed

So I'm a member of the self-centered generation because I go to college. Since when is getting a good education necessarily a selfish move? Only by first bettering ourselves can we ultimately better the world.

Patricia Netherwood

Montreal

qed

Hooray for the Self-Centered Generation. Let's hope they will continue to be so busy pursuing their affairs that they won't have time to meddle in mine.

Kenneth Amrhein

Bay City, Mich.

Compliant Motorcycles

In regard to TIME'S article on Evel Knievel's recent stunt, I wish clarification of the term motorcycle culture. Many anthropologists believe that only man has developed a culture. Now you tell us that motorcycles have one, and that it is expressed through bizarre manipulations of social outcasts in crowded conditions.

But how can you explain the fact that around the world there are millions of motorcycles that reside peacefully with their human masters, willing to obey any of their masters' whims? More important, why are these law-abiding motorcycles never forced to do freakish things? Motorcycles have no culture. The characters of motorcyclists vary widely, but the actions of a few bring the press down on us all.

Stuart Bradow

High Springs, Fla.

qed

The spectacle at Snake River Canyon was not "a blue-collar Woodstock." It was more of a redneck Altamont. It's great to know that the good ole heartland is just as frivolous and decadent as the East and West Coasts.

Joseph R. Lynn

Chicago

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