It Was a Friendly, Smiling Face We Saw, but It <i> Was </i> the Face of Racism

Indeed, it is only a man’s actions, his life’s work, that determine his worth to society. Not his thoughts or his words. Benjamin Franklin stated that if any man be judged on his thoughts alone, there’s none of us who would not be hung a hundred times in a single day. But who is Benjamin Franklin next to the likes of those who demanded Campanis’ head and Peter O’Malley who furnished the ax?

BRYAN ALEKSICH

Los Angeles

Editor’s note: Viewpoint received slightly more than 175 letters in the wake of the Campanis affair , considerably more than on any other issue in recent years. The views expressed broke down roughly as follows: 54% deplored his remarks and applauded his forced resignation; 26% defended Campanis, the man, but not his remarks; 9% deplored his remarks but disagreed with his resignation; 6% defended his remarks (and in most of these cases went far beyond them); 3% blamed Ted Koppel for the whole incident; 1.7% saw it as a “free speech” issue. One writer called it a Communist plot.