Ferraro Flap

To the Editors:

They wanted to make her cry in front of the nation. But Geraldine Ferraro did not give them the satisfaction [NATION, Sept. 31. Instead, she presented a sterling performance.

Kaimay Y. Terry

Minneapolis

Americans have been given the opportunity to watch a previously obscure candidate being tested under extreme pressure and scrutiny. Ferraro has proved herself with courage and aplomb.

James Glickson

New York City

It is sacrificial slaughter when society crucifies its best leaders on a cross of impossibly high standards. Could the most honest among us withstand this kind of scrutiny? Let's stop this puritanical and hypocritical bloodletting.

Patricia Dan ley Beiting

Starkville, Miss.

Ferraro has taught us how to minimize the effect of breaking rules: a) claim ignorance, b) blame advisers, c) show spunk. None of these actions, however, changes the facts.

Raymond C. Freeman

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Democrats like Ferraro portray Republicans as members of the country-club set. Yet she credits her family's life-style to hard work. How does she think the Republicans got to the country club?

Paul Brown

Arlington, Texas

Geraldine Ferraro and John Zaccaro are the victims of probably the largest invasion of privacy in history.

Tony Picciano

Bloomington, Minn.

I am incensed over the treatment of Ferraro and her husband. What John Zaccaro owns and how much money he makes are nobody's business. He is not running for public office.

Patricia DiSantis

Wallingford, Conn.

The most outrageous aspect of Ferraro's tax problems is that any citizen of this country should have to surrender more than 40% of her income to the Government. The only consolation in this case is that Ferraro is the sort of politician who has been increasing taxes and Government spending for years.

Thomas R. Wagner

Dallas

Ferraro passed the test, all right. But who benefits from the inquisition? Politicians should be judged by their policies and achievements rather than their private conduct. Robespierre, who sent hundreds to the guillotine, was called "the Incorruptible." Hitler, the nonsmoking, nondrinking vegetarian, always paid his taxes. These admirable characteristics hardly made either man a "good guy."

Kurt F. Karrasch

Freiburg, West Germany

G.O.P. in Dallas

The 1984 election will turn out to be historic [NATION, Sept. 3]. President Reagan has regained respect for this country by not allowing the Soviets to intimidate him. At the same time, his economic policies have not raised taxes and have allowed American business to expand.

Michael Jan Bernot

Bowling Green, Ky.

Reagan has raised the consciousness of the entire nation with his positive attitude and sincere patriotism. Yes, our country is much better off now than it was four years ago.

Margaret A. Tedrow

San Jose, Calif.

Those of us who were around in 1928 will remember that in that election year the Republicans also claimed to have conquered poverty, doubt and sin. They won, and it was not long before we were mired in the Great Depression. Now, half a century later, the party has the gall to offer up that kind of mindless camp-meeting rhetoric again. I hope enough voters have the sense not to swallow it this time.

Frederick E. Romberg

Dale, Texas

Perhaps Reagan deserves to be reelected. He should be forced to face up to the problems he has intensified.

Don Rohrer

St. Paul

Rivers' Mouth

Joan Rivers outdid herself with her uncouth remarks to Republican women at the convention in Dallas [NATION, Sept. 3]. I am glad it is the Republicans who have her. Perhaps a little housework would do her good.

Marian Mueller

Lake Mills, Wis.

Deathly Humor

Many Europeans do not consider President Reagan's remarks about bombing the Soviet Union very funny [NATION, Aug. 27]. There is a tremendous difference between performing on the world's political stage and acting on the set of a western movie.

Albert Weidmann

Glattbrugg, Switzerland

The world chooses to worry more about a trivial joke, merely because it is made by the President of the U.S., than about the reality of the Soviet presence in the East-bloc countries and Afghanistan.

Boris Bochnick

Hannover, West Germany

Through the Painter's Eye The exhibition at the National Gallery of paintings by the Orientalists [ART, Sept. 3] may satisfy an art critic but not a historian. As a student of Arab studies, I can tell you that painters such as Delacroix and Matisse were among many early propagandists who depicted a sullied and grotesque picture of the Near East, one that would remain in the eyes of most Westerners until this decade. These artists were working for patrons and governments that maintained that the West was the sole inheritor of civilization and believed in a romantic idea of the Arab world as a region where people lolled all day in harems, engaging in debauchery. The Arab world has a great place in the history of civilization--something the Orientalists left out.

John Thomas D. Mahshie

Washington, D.C.

Unforgettable Character

Margaret Mead was without doubt a most notable American and a great anthropologist. Yet to your reviewer Melvin Maddocks' preposterous notion [BOOKS, Aug. 27] that the possession of character can be a license to ignore factual reality and perpetrate error, I can only respond with a resounding "Fiddlesticks!" as, I am sure, the redoubtable Mead herself would have done.

Derek Freeman

University of Samoa

Western Samoa