Reagan-Gorbachev Meeting in Iceland

In response to your editorial, please do not underestimate the Soviets. Comrade General Secretary is not out to save money for American consumers by stopping the SDI. The Soviet Union is years ahead of the United States in space weapons research; only theirs is not designed for defense aims.

Having been blessed with a typical Russian curiousity, I have researched the subject thoroughly. Soviet leaders are pragmatic people who realize that there is no way their scientists can match the free will and initiative of Western scientific minds. And since under President Reagan our counterintelligence agencies, thank God, have improved and strengthened, it is no longer easy for the Soviets to steal our technology.

The SDI is a good insurance policy the free world has against the totalitarian regimes; hence the Soviet eagerness to ruin this space defense program. Perhaps, being of a Russian background, I am able to see it in sharper details, having an opportunity to compare life under Soviet regime and under laws of American democracy.

That is why, unlike yourselves, who “would jump” at the opportunity to trust the Soviets and cancel the SDI, I fully support our President and his plan for the creation of a space shield against nuclear blackmail. Treaties? It is time the West learns they mean nothing to the Soviets. Thank God that President Reagan kept our insurance policy intact.

PAUL STONEHILL

Los Angeles