Changes in Soviet Union
The cold war column of Zakheim, who seeks to continue this hostile policy full speed ahead, expresses the views of a powerful group of beneficiaries of the cold war policy. They have a big investment in the continued military and economic pressure on the Soviet Union leading to its collapse as a great world power. Zakheim’s article is a tragic contrast to the column by Michael Mandelbaum (June 26). Mandelbaum’s views are rational and sensible and without the destructive antagonism that must lead to world conflict.
Gorbachev and the other Soviet leaders are speaking for a different Soviet Union which seeks a world of peaceful competition and the elimination of the enormous waste in greatly bloated military establishments on both sides with all the waste and corruption.
The American people need to understand that only their united demand for constructive relationships and patient negotiations of differences with other nations can ensure a peaceful, productive world where resources are growing scarce and are desperately needed to create a humane world community where all people can live in reasonable security.
ARTHUR W. ERICKSON SR.
Solvang
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