Letters: Jul. 20, 1981

Mitterrand Wins

To the Editors:

I felt reassured to see that TIME did not indulge in stupidly characterizing the results of the French elections [June 29] as an irremediable turn to the left.

Marc Chanliau

Belfort, France

I hope the French can make real progress with their new Socialist government. It’s about time a country outside the Third World cuts the puppet strings of the U.S.

Gary Marquez

Fayetteville, N.C.

After reading your article on President Mitterrand, I see that we have no need to meddle in a situation that is not our own. The French will destroy France without our help, and I believe we owe them the opportunity to try.

John A. Heldt

Pendleton, Ore.

The French voters may soon realize that the rose is full of thorns.

Janette Thomas

Aulnay-sous-Bois, France

Baseball Blues

I am a 29-year-old woman who loves baseball. I do not care what the strike issues are or who’s right and who’s wrong [June 29]. I just want to be able to watch baseball again.

Debra Levy

Philadelphia

I discovered there was life after 30. Next year I hope to realize there is life after 40. But is there life after baseball? Perhaps, but I have yet to find it.

Jo A. Hall

Dayton

Yes, there is life after baseball—and its name is soccer.

Robert Morgan

Chattanooga, Tenn.

I just bought $30 worth of fishing gear and plan to spend pleasant Saturdays on Potato Lake rather than listening to the nitpicky diamond dialogue between Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola. The next strike will involve only me and a fish.

Dick Domann

Eau Claire, Wis.

Presidential Priorities Your article suggesting that President Reagan is incompetent in foreign policy matters [June 29] makes me want to bite nails. The fact that the President doesn’t have pat answers to all foreign policy questions does not mean he is ignorant of the issues. Let the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State do their jobs, while the President concentrates on a much more pressing issue—the survival of our economic system.

Mark Galaway

Yukon, Okla.

How successfully or unsuccessfully our country works internally helps to determine our image abroad. Given a chance and some cooperation, our President just might solve a few economic woes at home. It’s hard to be concerned with world bombings when high home-mortgage rates, unemployment and inflation are knocking at our doors every day.

Linda Crumb

Lone Grove, Okla.

Battle over the Butte

In your story on the fight to save Crested Butte [June 29], readers may have missed the point that the “backyard” we are trying to spare and the molybdenum under the ground both belong to all Americans. Multinationals like Amax, under the existing laws, would take that resource and in return would leave the people of the U.S. with one more ecological time bomb to cope with.

The thousands of people who visit the public lands around Crested Butte each year continue to benefit from our stewardship. In the future we hope to have more than just photographs to show our children what used to be here—unspeakable beauty.

W Mitchell, Mayor

Crested Butte, Colo.

After the mountains around Crested Butte are mined, will the plastic and paint made from the molybdenum make up for the loss of one of the few lovely places left to us?

Roxann Dement

Dallas

The well-being of all Americans is intimately tied to preventing a rape-and-run mining venture from destroying the Colorado area of Crested Butte. Amax spends large amounts of money trying to find new uses for molybdenum (adequate supplies of which are available elsewhere). Part of what is produced in the U.S. goes to the Soviet Union. Should a beautiful part of America be torn up to guarantee that the steel in Soviet ICBM warheads is adequately hardened?

Paul R. Ehrlich Crested Butte, Colo.

Death of a Twin

I was outraged to read of a 40-year-old mother taking the life of one of her unborn twins because it showed signs of Down’s syndrome [June 29]. God planned to give this unborn boy a perfectly healthy brother to be by his side. He knew what he was doing, but I guess he chose the wrong parents.

Elaine Dietz

South Plainfield, N.J.

It’s one thing to try to prevent genetic abnormalities, but to kill an innocent baby because it is “less than perfect” is more than I can comprehend.

Deborah K. Behounek

Ontario, Calif.

Piercing the beating heart of a fetus and withdrawing half its blood so it will wither and die is murder. This procedure should not be deemed a medical breakthrough. It’s a crime.

Kathleen M. Lucid

Richmond, Ind.

What is next? Killing unborn children because they have only one arm? Or perhaps because they don’t promise to have blue eyes and blond hair?

Greg Rodych

Calgary, Alta.

As the mother of a Down’s syndrome young man, I would never wish that my son had not been born. He has added to the building of character in my six other children.

Mrs. Mike McElroy

Torrance, Calif.

Protecting the Press

The attempt by the Western broadcast and news media to maintain international press freedom [June 1] has my support. Communism and other dictatorial regimes should not be able to hide their daily atrocities. UNESCO must not engineer suppression of the truth.

Micheal W. Pensaud

Uitvlugt, Guyana

Reactor Raid

Menachem Begin shakes hands with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and then makes a mockery and farce out of the hope for peace in the Middle East by attacking Iraq’s nuclear reactor [June 22]. When will he and his government learn that you can’t shake one Arab’s hand and hold a gun to another Arab’s head and call it making peace? Put down your guns, shake your enemy’s hand and see how fast you’ll have fewer enemies. The majority of the population of the Middle East are Arab, so wouldn’t it be easier to learn to live with them instead of trying to live in spite of them?

Dahlia Khalifa

Cairo

Cleaning Up TV

For Procter & Gamble to knuckle under to a campaign of demagoguery, innuendo and selective threat by the Rev. Donald Wildmon’s Coalition for Better Television [June 29] is an act of cowardice. As long as they withhold their sponsorship from shows that I prefer, I shall clean myself and my household with homemade soap.

John C. Adams

Harrisburg, Pa.

The righteous people in early America who accused helpless women of being witches have something in common with the modern Moral Majority—the incredible arrogance that makes them assume they have the right to impose their notions of morality and immorality upon the lives of others.

Denis Waterbury

Portland, Ore.

Donald Wildmon has provided a voice and an organization for millions of Americans who have been watching helplessly as commercial exploitation devastated the minds and values of the youth of this nation.

Evelyn Delbridge Edwardsville, Ill.

Baptist Hubbub

As a Southern Baptist and soon-to-be student at a seminary, I have been following my denomination’s deliberations with keen interest [June 22]. The real issue is the struggle for power and not biblical inerrancy. If the introduction of biblical hard-liners to seminary boards will lead to the exclusion of moderate forces in Baptist academic life, then it will be a sad day for the freedom of academic pursuit.

Lloyd Rodgers

Chester, Va.

The Rev. Bailey Smith himself lends partial credence to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy that he so vigorously champions. The poisonous remarks emanating from his pulpit are almost enough to persuade a skeptical reader of Genesis that talking snakes do exist.

Paul R. Frommer

Los Angeles