‘Hope Lingers On’
Your June 19 editorial (“Hope Lingers On”) is a concise description of the arms control choices facing the President. It is nice to imagine that Reagan’s belligerence and militarism are part of a grand strategy to obtain a truly security-promoting treaty with the U.S.S.R.
Unfortunately, Reagan’s unblemished record of support for treaty-sabotaging, destabilizing programs makes the “Great Peacemaker” theory increasingly tough to swallow. Please remember that the original “SDI zealot” is Reagan himself.
You wrote: “The President still has time to turn things around by whipping into line his hard-lining advisers who plainly and simply oppose arms control.” Who’s the boss around here? Is it necessary for the President to persuade his advisers to talk him into making a rational decision? We should not be so willing to let him off the hook. To the extent that Reagan is ignorant of the crucial issues of his era, he should be held accountable.
As citizens, it is our responsibility to support Congress in denying funding increases to SDI.
PETER F. GRAY
Pasadena
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