Training for a Fight

Sir/ "Arming to Disarm in the Age of Detente" [Feb. 11] is like telling two men having a quarrel to train for an all-out fight, hoping that each will recognize the other's strength and back down. But just like two animals with a fighting instinct, they will end up beating each other's brains out.

STEVEN K. LINKON

Los Angeles

Sir / It is the height of folly to cut back on the defense budget in the name of economy. Our first priority should always be the defense of the nation. What use is it to have spent billions of dollars on the cities and then, because of an inadequate defense, see these same cities vanish under a mushroom cloud?

ANDREY FILIPOWICZ

South Holland, Ill.

Sir / I don't think I've ever been so damned mad in my life! After spending the day trying to cope with the truckers' strike, waiting in vain at the gas station, I come home and read your article about an $86 billion expenditure for defense. When will we understand that the willingness to defend our country is in direct proportion to the quality of life at home? We must attend--and fast--to rectifying our problems here, and to hell with defense.

HARRY H. BEECHER

Stamford, Conn.

Sir / It is about time the American people woke up to a few facts about our so-called "detente" with Russia. Detente is just a word to disguise the real purpose of Russia's final goal, which is to rule the world. We cannot afford to be lulled into a false sense of security; it could mean total disaster.

RUTH M. GILBERT

Tucson, Ariz.

Sir / What if we should unilaterally disarm, destroy all our nuclear weapons, and maintain only a small army within our borders? What would happen? Frankly, I do not think much would happen. I cannot see Russia destroying us just for the fun of it.

BETTY JANE COCHRAN

Aurora, Ill.

Endangered Species

Sir / As a third-generation cattle and sheep man, I suppose I should be sheepish about admitting that I have never killed a coyote [Feb. 11]. We do not hate the coyote; we admire and respect him. However, our family operation has just about reached the end of its financial rope in our ability to sustain the ecological balance with the contribution we have made in ewes and lambs to the coyote. We plan to abandon raising sheep and join those who would have them become an endangered species in America.

But you will miss us. As the sheep men leave the scene and no longer finance predator-control programs, the adaptable coyote will soon develop an increasing taste for antelope, deer and elk. These will be the next to feel the impact of being the sacrifice species.

DAVID A. FLITNER

President

Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation

Greybull, Wyo.

Sir / Most coyotes do not eat sheep; some undoubtedly do. However, it is ridiculous to conduct a wasteful war on public lands and natural forests with poison, booby traps and aerial gunnery against the entire coyote population just to eliminate a few sheep killers.

We have developed a rational alternative. We fed some coyotes a lamb pattie treated with a toxic salt. This made them sick, but they soon recovered. After one or at most two treatments, these sheep killers refused to attack lambs.

The main advantage of this method is that it is directed specifically at sheep killers. Our data show that these resourceful and handsome feral dogs will not kill what they would not eat.

JOHN GARCIA

Professor of Psychology and

Psychiatry

University of California

Los Angeles

CARL GUSTAVSON

Graduate Research Associate

University of

Utah Salt Lake City

Statesmen of the Road

Sir / America's truckers [Feb. 18] are the first statesmen to appear on the scene since Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. They are trying to help all of us fight inflation by asking for a price rollback instead of following the politicians' advice to pass the huge price increases on to us. What a miscarriage of justice that the present Congress is siding with oil companies and not with these heroic drivers.

NANCY W. SUNDERLAND

Peru, N.Y.

Sir / How about those truckers! Aren't they the guys of "America, Love It or Leave It!" fame of a few years back?

RICHARD F. BURNS

Wilbraham. Mass.

Only Hope for Europe

Sir / Your article "By Disunity Possessed" [Feb. 11] is typical of the fundamental misunderstandings most Americans have of European political integration, as though such integration is implicitly desirable.

France is the only nation in the area with a truly effective foreign policy, independent of bipolar influences. But the double standard is such that when De Gaulle recognized China and moved toward detente with Russia, he was widely criticized; when Nixon did the same thing, he was hailed as a peacemaker.

If there is any hope for Europe's speaking with a strong and effective voice in the world, it can only be in the political form advocated by France: a compact between the states, not some faceless amalgam of regions governed by a parliamentary regime of bankrupt political parties, speaking Esperanto and cast adrift from their rich cultural and intellectual heritages.

KEVIN M. CAPE

Eugene, Ore.

Let Them Freeze

Sir/ I find it difficult to sympathize with the people in the Northeast over the oil shortage [Feb. 11]. There are vast reserves off the Atlantic coast which the Federal Government should lease now. not next year. If the Northeastern states try to block such efforts, then I say let them freeze in the dark. I see no reason why Texas, Louisiana or any other state should be forced to suffer shortages by sharing with those who have plenty but refuse to let it be developed.

JACK W. HAYDEN

Houston

The Devil Was Laughing

Sir/ When watching The Exorcist, I was sure that God, too, felt bemused, and the Devil was laughing his head off. The audience I saw giggled and laughed when it was supposed to faint and vomit [Feb. 11].

FREDERICK O. TRUMP

South Hadley, Mass.

Sir / The preoccupation with the occult that is currently sweeping all segments of society may well presage a new age--a dark one.

J.V. MCSHIRLEY

New Castle, Ind.

Sir / It is curious that TIME chose to exhibit only photographs of women "enjoying" The Exorcist. Are we to infer that the male reactions were too ghastly to publish?

MARGARET F. MARAMARCO

Chicago

An Alternative

Sir / Your "Daylight Disaster Time?" [Feb. 11] sets up the same false dichotomy spewed by some politicians: return to Standard Time or kill children. There is at least one other alternative: change the school hours.

JOHN MONACO JR.

Sarasota, Fla.

A Pause for Valor

Sir / Again I am amazed and moved by the courage of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His refusal to conceal or distort the truth, even at the risk of losing his life, his family and his country, is the ultimate in heroism. In this deeply disturbed period of our history, perhaps we should all pause to note the valor of a single man who cannot be intimidated into sacrificing his principles.

LINDA CARMITCHEL

Albion, Mich.

Useful Spending

Sir / Juxtaposing the summary of the $8 million cost of investigating Watergate with the review of the $86 billion defense budget [Feb. 11] is instructive. The former is a one-time expense for investigating a perversion of some of the ideals which the Department of Defense is supposed to be protecting. The Watergate investigation cost therefore represents some of the most useful spending of taxpayers' money ever done and is worth the cost many times over.

PIERRE E. BISCAYE

Westwood, N.J.

Sir / The impeachable crime that the Congress, the experts and the news media have such difficulty defining is readily identified by the American middle-class taxpayers. It is spending $8 million of our money (and the end is not in sight) on a mammoth, well-planned fishing expedition.

ELIZABETH CURRIER

Delaware. Ohio

Not Enough Time

Sir / I was pleased to see some sort of tribute written to Jim Croce [Feb. 11], but the writer failed to mention the irony of listening to a man singing about life when you know that he is dead. Croce's lyrics seem to convey more meaning now that he is dead. Especially this truth from Time in a Bottle: "But there never seems to be enough time/ To do the things you want to do/ Once you find them."

KAREN JOYCE

New Haven, Conn.

Gone Democratic

Sir / The description of Tip O'Neill's children running for the pool and yelling "Last one in is a Republican!" [Feb. 4] rang a bell for me.

When I grew up in Westchester County, N.Y., anything that was broken or had spoiled in our home was referred to as having "gone Democratic"!

MRS. EDWARD W. SILK

Braintree, Mass.

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