Salaam/Shalom

To the Editors:

There may be very valid reasons why we should not send Jimmy Carter back to the White House in 1980. But for the moment, let us all stand up and applaud what this man has done in the Middle East [March 26].

Jeffrey Scott Morosoff

Massapequa Park, N. Y.

What bothers me more than giving away $5 billion plus in these times of our own economic necessities is knowing that the lion's share is going toward more and more weapons and military might--all in the name of peace.

James H. Bott

Alton, III.

Measured in terms of its cost on a daily basis, the $5 billion price tag attached to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty comes to about 1 1/2-c- a day for each of us. That is low-cost insurance.

Rick Berkoff

Grand Beach, Mich.

Beautiful! President Carter has guaranteed oil to Israel for the next 15 years. We should be so lucky.

Shirley S. Hill

Hamilton, Ohio

This Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty can only cause more bitterness: Arab against Arab, as well as Arab against Israeli. President Sadat, despite good intentions, does not represent all Arabs.

Jane Meyer

Lebanon, Ohio

Detroit's Better Way

Your article on Detroit's "Total Revolution" [March 19] should have been titled "Detroit Tries to Catch Up." The only really new automotive engineering has been done overseas. I've been driving a German car with the new front-wheel drive for four years, and the stratified charge engine has been available from Japan for some time.

Vincent Grieseiner

Fort Collins, Colo.

Innovations like reducing the weight of vehicles are being made in the name of gas conservation, while the safety factor is being ignored. The American public is gradually succumbing to cars resembling no more than cardboard boxes; one accident and it's all over.

Lucy P. Horn

Wayne, Pa.

Just as streamlining will not improve the performance of a rocking chair, it will not improve the efficiency of an automobile. Performance of a vehicle will not be affected until it reaches at least 50 m.p.h. With a national highway speed limit set at 55 m.p.h., aerodynamically "slippery" cars designed to achieve better fuel economy are meaningless.

Stanley Placek

Chicago

Diesel may not be the way to go. Given the high aromatic content of diesel fuel and its propensity for creating particulates, chemical intuition suggests that it would be surprising if diesel exhaust did not contain appreciable amounts of first-rate carcinogens. As a professor of physical chemistry, I for one would like to see the medical studies precede deployment this time.

Ferren Maclntyre

Saunderstown, R.I.

Paradise Lost?

Yes, it's mostly true what you say about Maui [March 26], but there are some flaws in Paradise: the tourists are so thick on West Maui that they get into each other's snapshots. Fortunately, the island is critically dependent upon the jets flying. If oil slows, the happy squeaks will be from the residents able finally to rust in peace.

Paul Joel Freeman

Lahaina, Hawaii

Paradise is relative. To smogbound nest foulers from the mainland, it's Maui. To the people who live here, Paradise would be getting back our island and our way of life.

Beverly Johnsen

Lahaina, Hawaii

Foreign Aid Lives It's a joy to see the scarred banner of foreign aid raised again [March 26]. Bat tered from the right in the '50s, from the left in the '60s, and forgotten by the Me Generation, it has somehow survived.

Reorganization of its administration sounds right, but not by the late Hubert Humphrey's plan of adding another specialized agency that deals with foreign affairs and finance, yet is not accountable to either the State or Treasury departments. That's streamlining? Help!

Joy C. Thornton

Los Angeles

Your Essay on foreign aid overlooks the damage to U.S. industry and labor. Thousands of Americans are out of jobs because many of the countries that received aid in the past and many that are still receiving it are underselling our suppliers in such items as electronics, textiles, clothing, steel, copper, shoes and automobiles. Foreign aid is an indirect subsidy to our competitors.

Morton E. Milliken

Huachuca City, Ariz.

Politics and Oil Prices The oil-exporting countries could put President Carter out of office if they want ed to [March 19]. All they would have to do is raise the price of oil to the point where our economy goes berserk, and he, or any President they did not like, would be voted out of office.

Kenneth Amesbury

Tyndall A.F.B., Fla.

In the past, America has aided almost any nation in need, including the OPEC countries. But now, when we are suffering an oil shortage, our friends backstab us by boosting prices and cutting supplies. I look forward to the day when alternative energy sources replace fossil fuels and Americans can tell the OPEC and other oil-producing countries just where they can put their petroleum.

Stephen Kubala

Austin, Texas

Camus's Last Judgment In your review of the biography of Al bert Camus [March 19] you stated that one sentence in The Fall, Camus's last published novel, sums up a life and a work:

"Don't wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day." I wonder if Camus read Kafka, who expressed a strikingly similar existential thought when he wrote: "Only our concept of time makes it possible for us to speak of the Day of Judgment by that name; in reality it is a summary court in perpetual session."

B.D. Bounds

Bartlesville, Okla.

Hot Words Over Dumping Re your article "Hot Duel Over Dumping" [March 26]: dumping by Japanese exporters has been going on for years. Part of the trouble is the attitude of our State and Justice Departments, which penalize violators with $1,000 or $2,000 fines, even while they rip off mil lions in profit and hurt our economy tremendously. Congress, manufacturers associations and various chambers of commerce with their country club atmosphere are to blame as well.

Arthur Spitzer

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Foreign traders acquainted with Japan knew all too well about dumping, kickbacks and the activity of industrial consortiums with tax moratoriums and government subsidies. We need a friendly Japan, to be sure, but devastating American industries one at a time isn't the way to be friendly.

John T. Burnite Jr.

Orlando, Fla.

Ironies of ERA I was sorry that in your story on the states that have equal rights provisions in their constitutions [March 26] there was no reference to the irony of how well ERA (Article 1, Section 18 of the Illinois constitution) is working in a state that refused to ratify the federal amendment.

Elizabeth F. Canfield

Rockford, III.

For months we have been bombarded with articles about states rejecting the Equal Rights Amendment or attempting to rescind their previous approval.

I am a resident of one of the 14 states that have equal rights in their constitutions, and I know that the reality is not that terrible; in fact, it is very, very good. It works.

Ann Isenberg

State College, Pa.

Ice Break for the Taxpayer As a lifelong resident of the Great Lakes area, I was particularly interested in your American Scene article on the Coast Guard icebreaker Mackinaw's ef forts for U.S. Steel [March 19]. Local newspapers frequently carry stories about how this or that Great Lakes freighter got trapped in the ice trying to make "one last run" before the winter freeze set in. Of course, a Coast Guard cutter always rushes to the rescue, fueled by taxpayers' dollars.

If a pleasure craft needed such a rescue from certain winter disaster, the owner would probably be fined.

(The Rev.) Patrick H. O'Leary, S.J.

Cleveland

The toll-free Government locks at Sault Ste. Marie are another disguised subsidy to the steel industry. There should be a toll at the Soo Locks similar to that imposed upon cargo passing through the Panama Canal.

William D. Lewis

Westerville, Ohio

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