‘Let’s Deal on Nicaragua’

I am writing this letter as one of the Americans “confused about exactly what we are trying to achieve through aiding the contras.” Other citizens feel the same way, according to Sen. Murkowski.

U.S. foreign policy “. . . should focus squarely not on overthrowing the Sandinistas but on removing the threat to our neighbors’ security, and eventually our own, posed by the Soviet military presence in Nicaragua.” The fact is that our foreign policy is apparently just the opposite: Overthrow the Sandinistas (if indirectly through our military support of the contras) thus increasing the security threat in Latin America and in the United States.

Murkowski, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, has proposed a resolution that would end U.S. military aid to the contras in return for complete and verified removal from Nicaragua of Soviet, Cuban and Eastern Bloc military personnel and their destabilizing weaponry. The Senate resolution “would carry a message to Latin Americans and to the world that we will stay out of local Third World conflicts--provided the Soviets keep their military out.”

The senator from Alaska is to be commended for his clear thinking on a course of action that offers an opportunity to resolve the critical issue of our policy toward Nicaragua.

GEORGE R. LARKE

Los Angeles