Nicaragua and El Salvador

Your Nicaragua articles of Oct. 16 and 17 were fortuitously timed to reinforce my conclusions about Nicaragua.

As a part of a group of 10 Christians from Northridge-Granada Hills, I spent two weeks in Nicaragua and Guatemala, returning Oct. 13. Five days were spent working on a housing project for Habitat for Humanity, in a little village named La Aduana about 45 kilometers south of Managua.

We did not meet with any of the comandantes ; however, we did meet with an official, a woman in the equivalent of the Department of Health and Human Services, in Nicaragua, who talked with great animation about the improvements in health care, immunization of the population against smallpox, diphtheria and other diseases and the problems associated with caring for 250,000 displaced persons because of the war with the Contras, and 16,000 war orphans.

We found the people to be friendly, not afraid to talk to Americans, and, particularly the campesinos at La Aduana, glad to have us among them. The children of the school at La Aduana wrote letters of thanks that very same day we gave them little gifts of pencils, pens, notebook paper and other school supplies.

Although U.S. policy finds the Sandinistas not to our liking, I am convinced that we will not soon overthrow them and replace them with anything that the populace would accept. As a middle-of-the-road American who has never voted for a Democrat for President in my 55 years, if George Bush does not clarify his position on Nicaragua and declare his intention to end the boycott and support of the Contras, he will not get my vote.

NORMAN L. McCRACKEN

Northridge