Deficit Feud

To the Editors:

President Reagan and Congress should stop accusing each other and start cooperating to reduce the deficit [ECONOMY & BUSINESS, March 5]. Their refusal to tackle the problem could lead the country into another recession. Martin Feldstein is the kind of economist the nation needs. Eventually he may be able to make the Administration and Congress see that America is drowning in deficits.

Robert Wood

Springfield, Ohio

Posterity is doomed by Ronald Reagan's cruel legacy: a pile of bills with interest due indefinitely.

Frank A. Zimanski

Coronado, Calif.

As a conservative Republican, I am appalled that the Republicans have created a deficit greater than that of any Democratic Administration. President Reagan acted irresponsibly when he reduced taxes before cutting Government expenditures. The only way out of this mess is to keep spending at current levels and restore at least part of the taxes that were so rashly cut in 1981.

Alan W. Raymond

Pleasantville, N. Y.

Increasing taxes to reduce the deficit would produce only a marginal rise in federal revenues and would have the adverse effect of providing a greater incentive for people to invest in nonproductive tax shelters. Any attempt to reduce the deficit must first focus on the spending side of the equation.

William Mark Howell

San Antonio

Ronald Reagan will always be remembered as the Republican President who made both the Democrats and the press scream about the deficit. It will be a long time before another politician can with impunity spend more money than he takes in. If only Congress would understand the seriousness of the message and begin to cut spending.

David O. Berger

Wauwatosa, Wis.

The quick solution to the budget deficit is to double the tax on tobacco and liquor. Americans will never give up smoking and drinking.

Richard M. Spaulding

Vassalboro, Me.

A law that limits all federal officials to a single term would be the most effective way to decrease the deficit. Without the worry of reelection, politicians would act in a more responsible manner.

Christopher J. Doozan

Detroit

The Feldstein episode is revealing. When a man of integrity, intelligence and selflessness seeks to tell the truth, he stands out in Washington as an oddity.

Jerry Monson

St. Paul

Americans respect Feldstein for his independent thinking as well as his knowledge of economics.

Claude M. Hill

North Augusta, S.C.

Hooray for Feldstein! He would make a good President.

Evelyn Apicelli

Chicago

Kissinger's NATO

Henry Kissinger's "A Plan to Reshape NATO" [SPECIAL SECTION, March 5] is a brilliant expose of the strains within the Atlantic Alliance. "Drift will lead to unraveling" if the changes Kissinger proposes are not implemented soon. It is astonishing that the West fails to grasp not only the continuing reality of the Soviet threat but also the potentially disastrous situation that may result from continual stalling.

Paul B. Hofmann

Rochester

Thank you, Henry Kissinger, for your intelligent appraisal of our disintegrating relations with our European allies. Some sort of decisive and bipartisan action is crucial. Kissinger's proposals are a counterbalance to the isolationist attitude that is sweeping the U.S.

Susan E. Horst

Norfolk

Kissinger is the only "statesman" who has the gall to add to his countless failures by further pontificating about the state of a world that he once mismanaged!

Douglas J. Stewart

Newton Centre, Mass.

Nowhere does Kissinger suggest any measures to counteract the response of the Soviet Union, which will no doubt further escalate the arms race as the threat from NATO increases. The underlying Kissinger psychology remains paranoid, not only about the Communists but also about "neutralists, pacifists and neoisolationists," whom a wiser man would see as colleagues in building a better world. Kissinger writes, "An alliance cannot live by arms alone." Yet he lacks imagination regarding nonaggressive policies that could help stop wars and decrease international violence.

Thomas F. McGinty

Hilton Head Island, S.C.

The former Secretary of State is obviously annoyed by those "neutralists, pacifists and neoisolationists who systematically seek to undermine all joint efforts." I know who Kissinger is referring to. These are the people Dwight Eisenhower once predicted would "want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it."

Janice De Bois Fitch

State Center, Iowa

Police Peace Corps

In your article on the Police Corps [NATION, Feb. 27], you cited my proposal for a program in "the state," similar to that of a Police Corps. That is how we think of ourselves here, but some of your readers might like to know that the state you failed to identify is Massachusetts.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

Boston

Guatemala's Abuses

In discussing the Americas Watch report on human rights violations in Guatemala [WORLD, Feb. 27], you say we are a "controversial group that is often accused of being too sympathetic to the left." The Americas Watch takes pride in its evenhanded criticism of abuses of human rights by governments of varying ideologies. We resent the innuendo.

Aryeh Neier, Vice Chairman

Americas Watch

New York City

Pei's Pyramid

I am surprised that I.M. Pei's plan for a high glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre [DESIGN, Feb. 27] is causing consternation. Pei should be congratulated for proposing a bold new design rather than a model that harks back to a historical style.

Navroz N. Dabu

Cambridge, Mass.

I thought I had only one deadline to meet. But no. Now I must be sure to get to Europe before they drop the Bomb and before the French erect a pyramid outside the Louvre.

Julia Olsen

Whitehorse, Yukon Territory

Parisians raised the same rumpus over the Eiffel Tower in 1889 as they are now doing over Pei's addition to the Louvre. In contrast, many Frenchmen approve of the Georges Pompidou Center. Anyone who can brag about the glass guts of the Pompidou should be able to stomach almost anything. Forge ahead, President Mitterrand, with the splendid pyramids by Pei.

Lucile Bogue

El Cerrito, Calif.

Number Power

It should be pointed out that the new method for factoring hard numbers, so successfully implemented at Sandia National Laboratories [SCIENCE, Feb. 13], has its roots in the work of many people, going as far back as the 1920s. This algorithm, called the "quadratic sieve," was invented by me in 1981 and has since been improved by James Davis at Sandia and Peter Montgomery at System Development Corp.

Carl Pomerance

Professor of Mathematics

University of Georgia

Athens, Ga.

Painting's Provenance

In your review of the exhibition "Masterpieces of American Painting" [ART, Jan. 23], you say that the Fogg Art Museum "decided to rid its basement of a dusty landscape" by Frederic Church, Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860. This statement implies that the Fogg owned the painting. Actually the picture was owned by a dealer and was in our photography studio for a brief period. Sherman Lee, director of the Cleveland Museum, saw the canvas and arranged to buy it for his museum.

John M. Rosenfield, Acting Director

Harvard University Art Museums

Cambridge, Mass.

Uncluttered Closets

I read with amazement your article on superclosets for the rich [LIVING, March 5]. These women have so many clothes and take such pains to organize their wardrobe, yet look so tacky.

Gloria Rinaldi Goodsman

Ypsilanti, Mich.

Perhaps these ladies should include a statue of Narcissus in their closets to gaze upon while making their selections.

Susan Winstead

Burke Centre, Va.

Now I know where I should invest my money: mothballs.

Kathryn Schneidawind

Dumont, N.J.