Fear of Soviets Based on Reality
Gregory A. Marshall’s letter (Oct. 28), praising the Soviet peace movement, underscores the mania that has seized Soviet apologists in this country.
Marshall admits that internal critics of the Soviet government face imprisonment, exile, censorship, and official defamation. He should well have added to this list reprisals against relatives, brain damage under forced psychiatric imprisonment, and death at hard labor. Marshall apparently raises no objections whatsoever to these practices, instead accusing those of us (including myself, Amnesty International, the World Psychiatric Assn., and many, many others) who “vilify” the Soviets for these actions of “bigotry”! I am not a bigot because I oppose injustice.
“Fears of the Soviets based solely on myths” (as Marshall puts it) are not at the root of anyone’s support for the means to defend our country. Fears of invasion (a partial list might include Poland, 1939; Hungary, 1956; Czechoslovakia, 1968; Afghanistan, 1979) and fears of Soviet-sponsored or -conducted genocide (including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and 5.3 millions of their own subject peoples)--such fears and the opposition--not bigotry--that they give rise to should be shared by anyone who claims the moral shield of “international cooperation.”
Neither Auschwitz nor Afghanistan is a myth, Mr. Marshall, and we should all fear, vilify, and oppose those who killed--and kill.
JOHN P. FLOYD
Redwood City
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