Aid to the Nicaraguan Contras and Covert U.S. Activities

Columnist Raymond Price contends (Editorial Pages, July 16) that “One strange new doctrine, trotted out daily, holds that democracy and secrecy are somehow incompatible.”

The doctrine may be strange to Price, but it is not new. It was first trotted out about 2,500 years ago by the Greeks who invented democracy.

Pericles, the Athenian statesman who ruled from 461 to 429 B.C., had this to say about his government: “Our constitution is named a democracy because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. . . . We decide and debate all matters of policy, holding, not that words and deeds go ill together, but that acts are foredoomed to failure when undertaken undiscussed.”

If Richard Nixon had subscribed to the democratic ideals of the ancient Greeks, Watergate would not have happened.

If President Reagan had held the same ideals of direct democracy, however, the Iran-contra fiasco would still have taken place. The President, as well as the citizens of our American democracy, were being kept in ignorance of the game plan.

That’s a strange new development for sure.

DON BLUMENSHEIN

Leona Valley

(The Times has received 789 letters against North’s actions, 265 in support of him and 310 commenting on additional issues at the hearings.)