Fasting Protest at U.S. Capitol

I share Lawrence Wechsler’s concern (Editorial Pages, Oct. 10) that too little attention has been paid to the four heroic veterans trying in their fast at the Capitol to awaken the press and the public to the impending total Vietnam-type U.S. involvement in Nicaragua.

Medal of Honor winner Charles Liteky and those who shared his desperate vigil at the Capitol are pleading, as Wechsler wrote, for “an active, organized and mobilizing opposition to this war.” They are hostages to our inaction.

Perhaps the scandalous involvement of the CIA with the downed military supply plane in Nicaragua will awaken us, Perhaps Congress, shocked by crass revelations of Administration “disinformation” against Libya’s Moammar Kadafi--which certainly is fully matched by its anti-Nicaragua claims--will refuse to authorize the funds voted earlier to provide open CIA aid to the contras .

Perhaps. What more can each of us do.? The Nov. 1 demonstration against U.S. Central American policy deserves wide support. We can call and write our representatives. We can fund ads and seek to spread the alarm. Some will have the courage to join the persecuted people of Nicaragua in their efforts to rebuild the clinics, rural coops, schools and dwellings which have been the contras’ special targets. How I wish I could be more effective! The veterans’ efforts should evoke our utmost efforts.

HELEN TRAVIS

San Pedro