MAILBAG: POINT AND <i> CONTRA</i> -POINT

We get letters . . .

Most of the mail concerns columns on coverage of the Iran arms/ contras /political fallout story.

We begin with response to my contention that media-blitzing White House Communications Director Patrick Buchanan raised a valid point in asserting that fired National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Oliver North could be an idealist in breaking a law he felt was unjust. Carrying the argument further, I wondered if North were less an idealist than law-breaking Vietnam War protesters or activists who broke segregation laws to advance civil rights.

Other letters refer to a column on ABC’s “Viewpoint” program examining media coverage of the Iran arms/ contras story and another column noting that the sheer mass of network coverage can convey a Watergate comparison.

Columns on the syndicated miniseries “Shaka Zulu,” ABC’s coming “Amerika” miniseries and other matters also are mentioned here.

Starting with my questions about law-breaking idealists, though . . .

A “valid answer” would be that the anti-Vietnam War protesters and civil rights activists who broke the law were willing to pay the penalty and go to jail for breaking those laws, and not take the Fifth Amendment to avoid punishment.

Please don’t insult the memory of the Vietnam War and civil rights protesters by comparing them to North and Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter. There’s one hell of a difference here, and Buchanan is trying to compare apples and elephants.

GENE FARMER, Northridge

Buchanan’s comparison is as tricky a put-on as the rest of his presentation, and I’m baffled as to your characterization of it as valid. The aforementioned protesters publicly demonstrated their beliefs and publicly let their arrests, detentions, even physical abuse speak for their moral convictions with no power other than the power of their numbers--in other words, the power of a popular cause.

Ollie North, on the other hand, acted secretly, with all the means of the executive branch at his disposal, under the guise of official sanction, and is still refusing to discuss his actions with any fact-finding government body.

BETH LOCKER,

Pacific Palisades

There is something else to consider. Because they run the government of, by and for us people, elected officials and those appointed by them are sworn to uphold the law--the alternative to dictatorship.

DOUGLAS EVAN DRENKOW,

Arcadia

You missed a salient point concerning “Viewpoint.” Ted Koppel recognized conservatives from the audience probably more from guilt than courtesy because he had a loaded panel. Not a single conservative journalist was included.

MIMI JAFFE, Montebello

The right has more access to the media? Are you out of your ever-loving mind? Don’t you read the “rag” that you work for? Wake up, airhead!

M. G. COMUNTZIS, Pasadena

“The medium is the message” apparently means: “The media-people create the message.” All those politicians making their “points” (during the televised House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings) was a pretty revolting sight, and if it weren’t for all the TV cameras they wouldn’t have had an audience to sing and dance for. The self-serving, pompous, holy pronouncements were enough to sour one on democracy. There’s something wrong with the procedure when supposedly impartial questioners can use the questions to feather their own political nests.

JOHN DEGATINA, Los Angeles

I find Howard Rosenberg’s criticism of the TV series “Shaka Zulu” extremely disquieting. That a man of Mr. Rosenberg’s presumable education should accuse the South African government of reinforcing a wild tribal image of blacks by the making of the film indicated just how unbalanced and hysterical is the current American view of this country.

Perhaps Mr. Rosenberg should be reminded that Shaka lived during the late-18th and early 19th centuries, hardly a time of sweetness and light in any part of the world. Zulu tribal life as depicted is authentic.

I don’t recall any such sanctimonious moralizing after the screening of “A Man Called Horse.” This movie, made in 1970, and its 1976 sequel, “The Return of a Man Called Horse,” gives a horrifying portrayal of tribal life among the Sioux Indians in about 1825. These people are shown as savage, barbaric and cruel--in vast contrast to their white captives.

C.M. GREAVES,

Natal, Republic of South Africa

Your review of “Shaka Zulu” was really not a review at all, but a political statement. Official liberal opinion dictated that the series must be condemned. The truth is that “Shaka” was a wonderfully absorbing, powerful production, the best miniseries since “Shogun.”

Perhaps one day you will explain to your readers why knocking a program about black history and legend, and showing a distaste for native dress, is not racist (as some might think) but positively in line with official liberal opinion; and why TV presentations of black history and black subjects have to have one vital ingredient in order to be approved, namely a strong anti-white bias.

JILL RENTON, Santa Monica

Re: “Amerika.” So, Noam Chomsky thinks that it is more realistic that the United States will occupy the U.S.S.R. Perhaps someone should inform the ignorant professor about Afghanistan. Poland. Gulag Archipelago. Or the fact that Russia itself has been occupied by a communist military regime since 1917. I doubt, though, knowing the scholar’s views, that he will want to learn of Soviet bestiality. People like him have a tendency to blame Israel, the United States and South Africa for whatever bad happens in this world.

PAUL STONEHILL,

Los Angeles

“Amerika” sounds like drivel, but then again, most TV, especially the gruel ABC dishes out in the guise of “programming,” is a bit on the drivelly side. If the Soviets are truly offended, why don’t they take up Noam Chomsky’s suggestion and retaliate with some counter-programming:

“Smolensk, USA,” in which an evil consortium of American capitalists conspires to beat the U.S.S.R. into economic submission. See! Mini-malls invade the steppes. See! Innocent comrades struck down by the Cola Wars. See! Poor dissidents forced to watch “Eye on L.A.” Pretty scary.

PAMELA K. GREEN,

Santa Monica

While many programs on TV take place in Los Angeles or other cities with large Latino populations, there is little in the way of writing or actors presenting that racial aspect. In movies, there is a distinct lack of sentiment for showing Chicanos in realistic day-to-day situations. Instead you have the “red-hot maid” in “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.”

What must be done to awaken those writers, producers and film corporations that Chicanos exist not in a monolithic mass as gang members, gardeners or maids, but as people who have a rich and glorious past which is film and TV material?

EUGENE HERNANDEZ,

North Hollywood

When are you going to deal with the overriding issue of current TV? I refer to the brain damage resulting from viewing that Lee Press-On Nails ad every five minutes.

ED SLABOTSKY, Los Angeles