Cost of Arms

To the Editors: After reading the cover story "How to Spend a Trillion" [July 27], one can hardly avoid a feeling of disquiet considering the accounts of manpower shortages, equipment failures, indecision about future weapons and industry's inability to fulfill military needs. At least we now have an Administration ready to address the problem realistically.

Warren E. Upton

Munhall, Pa.

Sophisticated weaponry aside, the most potent weapon in our nation's arsenal could well be the one designed to see that we get the most for our trillion: "Cap the Knife."

Jack Pope

San Francisco

Congratulations on an excellent cover story on defense. It focused on the real issues and portrayed the decisions as the complicated matters of policy that they are, rather than simply budgetary questions.

Gary Hart

U.S. Senator, Colorado

Washington, D.C.

I strongly support military expenditures for conventional weapons as well as for upgrading our officer and enlisted cadres. But I am against our generals' spending astronomical funds on hardware, such as the MX missile, which our troops can't even use properly.

William D. Cramer

Burns, Ore.

Even the firmest believer in the balance of power theory would wonder if peace could perhaps be more easily attained by channeling the energy required to formulate a complex plan to spend $1.5 trillion toward arms control rather than arms proliferation.

John M. Sherman

Floyd, Va.

Since your story raises once again the specter of peacetime conscription, it is important to understand that when men are drafted in peacetime, it is to train them to be prepared to defend their homes in the event of a war; nothing more. I believe that most Americans do not object to this concept. Subsequently, any future draft law should have a proviso specifically stating that draftees will not be assigned to duty outside the continental U.S. unless the Congress declares that a state of war exists.

What Americans fear more than anything else is a repeat of Viet Nam. This proposal would effectively eliminate such a possibility, while ensuring that our nation is adequately prepared for a genuine defense emergency. Our volunteer forces would then be available to man the outposts.

William J. Abbott

Oyster Bay, N. Y.

The MX is an environmental issue and not a question of defense. The desert environment of Utah is too fragile to absorb the kind of abuse it gets from being the Government's nuclear-waste dump. How can the nation permit a state with five national parks to become the country's outhouse?

Thomas E. Clyde

Salt Lake City

I commend you for your article "An Army of Self-Helpers on NATO's Front Line" [July 27]. I have visited the facilities in Germany and am appalled by the poor conditions our soldiers must endure. As a result of hearings on the quality of military life, the Appropriations Military Construction Subcommittee has recommended a billion-dollar NATO construction program for next year.

The deteriorated condition of our facilities in Europe is inconsistent with our commitments there. It is time to accept our responsibilities to American servicemen and servicewomen overseas by providing decent, even attractive, working and living conditions.

Ralph Regula

Representative, 16th District, Ohio

Washington, D.C.

McCloskey's Stand

At last a courageous Congressman, Paul McCloskey, has openly drawn attention to the overbearing pro-Israel lobby in this country ["Questioning the Israeli Lobby," July 27]. The merest protest always draws unfair cries of antiSemitism. Let us restructure our priorities so that we put the interests of America ahead of the concerns of this or that pressure group.

Sarah Montoya

Monterey Park, Calif.

Let's be done with this nonsense about "the Jewish community in America." There isn't any. American Jews are as divided--probably more so--about everything, including politics and religion, as any other alleged group. Congressman McCloskey might be instructed to learn that there are Jews in this country who are anti-Israel.

Donald I. Fine

New York City

Congressman McCloskey is unfair in his assertions about the influence of the Israeli lobby. Is the Israeli lobby any more powerful than the N.R.A. on gun control or the A.M.A. on national health insurance? It is disconcerting that McCloskey questions the influence of Jewish citizens rather than the validity of their cause.

David B. Miller

Alexandria, Va.

Superduper Condos

Your article "For $11 Mil, Xanadu with a Rolls" [July 21] may stir the envy of some of your readers. But it will also stimulate many more of them to ask: Is this kind of luxury desirable in a nation that cannot afford to provide Social Security, food stamps, decent housing and education for millions of its people who are in need?

Alfred E. Davidson

Paris

Death of a Twin

All of the letters [July 20] regarding "Death of a Twin" opposed that marvelous operation. Not one expressed sympathy for the mother who chose to abort the twin with Down's syndrome. It is easy to be pious, idealistic or shocked at the solution to someone else's problem. But what is so wonderful about knowingly bringing a retarded child into the world? It is a blessing to the infant not to do so.

R.G. Clark

Burlingarne, Calif.

As a registered nurse, I have seen too many Down's syndrome children undergo painful and traumatic surgery for serious congenital heart defects. The incidence of chronic leukemia in these youngsters is far greater than that of normal children, and they are also always mentally retarded, often severely. In addition, the guilt and financial burden often decimates the family. I applaud the courage of the mother who chose to let her healthy son walk alone.

Barbara S. Ventura

Tuckahoe, N. Y.

Women have a responsibility to do everything in their power to produce healthy children. We should not be condemned for trying to live up to that responsibility. Had the results of my own amniocentesis indicated Down's syndrome, I would have made the same decision.

Sharon Freeman

Howell, Mich.

Treating the Curse

Thank you for your article "Coping with Eve's Curse" [July 27]. I've suffered for ten years with menstrual pain, and let me assure you, it's not just a figment of my imagination. Ironically, some of the most unsympathetic responses I've heard have been from other women; from the high school nurse who offered me a peppermint, to the nurse at the hospital emergency room who told me that I'd just have to wait until I had my first baby. She advised that then maybe the pain would subside. Simple acceptance of our complaints does help the mind, but it doesn't ease the pain.

Jane C. Wright

Charleston, S.C.

Flies in the Fruit

Governor Brown did not have to agree to aerial spraying in trying to thwart the Mediterranean fruit fly [July 27]. As the 1981 edition of the Farmers' Almanac specifically points out, "Scientists have discovered that the mating call of the Mediterranean fruit fly has exactly the same frequency as lower F-sharp on the harmonica." All the good Governor needs is a harmonica and an amplifier.

Ray A. Geiger, Editor

Farmers' Almanac

Lewiston, Me.

If Jerry Brown had not treated the Medfly as an endangered species, we wouldn't have it today.

Averill Q. Mix

Los Gatos, Calif.

Ode to Henry's Wives

In your article about the Church of England's new divorce policy [July 20], you mentioned the marital career of Henry VIII and footnoted the fates of his six wives. To keep their stories straight, we Americans might try remembering a simple rhyme taught to British schoolchildren:

Divorced, beheaded, died;

Divorced, beheaded, survived.

You are left on your own, however, when it comes to reciting their names. Perhaps "Kate, Anne, Jane; Anne, two Kates again"?

Mark R. Horowitz

Chicago

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