‘Japan: the Good in the Bad Past’

I enjoyed reading your editorial (Sept. 18), “Japan: the Good in the Bad Past,” on the uses of history and, of course, on revised history. I say “of course” because the past seems never to stand still.

Perhaps readers of The Times would be interested in two quotations on the subject that for some reason or other have stuck to me since school days: “History becomes a kind of myth, devised today, revised tomorrow, to suit today’s and tomorrow’s purposes”--from Claude Cockburn, “Discord of Trumpets.”

The other one, source forgotten, was prompted by Soviet/Marxian manipulation of historical images: “It is always difficult to predict the Russian past.”

Although especially suited to the Soviets’ way of treating history, this warning can in fact be applied to any group or nation, including our own.

Once I have said this it is necessary to add that while in the Soviet Union its government monopolizes the creation of historical images, in the United States its governments manipulate history least.

Here, without overall plan, the images come mostly from screen writers, novelists, columnists, editors, actors, lecturers, textbook authors, cartoonists, etc.

But, after all, the champion revisionists of history are the many people who know little about it.

R. CARNEY

Los Angeles